Work Text:
Draco:
Today will never end. I am numb.
I will live this day for the rest of eternity and there is nothing I can do about it. I probably deserve it.
It has been the worst day in the history of bad days and to top it all off, I don’t even have anything at home to look forward to, not today. Let me explain.
So it started off like any other day, I woke up to the smell of tea from the kitchen and smiled at the thought of a warm cup of Earl Grey and a sleep rumpled roommate. However, I was sorely disappointed when I came out of my bedroom and into the kitchen to find a cup of tea on the counter under stasis with a note and no sign of a certain bed-headed idiot.
Apparently, said idiot roommate was called away to the castle to stay for the night as the two-thirds of the staff that lives there got food poisoning last night from a new vendor in Hogsmeade and are unable to perform their duties.
Harry has been teaching at Hogwarts for a few years now, but because of his age and his desire for a family one day, Minerva had been convinced to let him live in Hogsmeade so as not to “hinder his romantic entanglements.” I think she just wanted his general imbecility far away from her castle at night. But it worked out rather well for me as I found someone to sublet my extra bedroom.
I’ve been working for a potions shop in Hogsmeade since the end of Eighth year and rent a two-bedroom flat in town. Harry went to Auror training and decided he would much rather teach than spend more of his life fighting and after just a year of training, he quit and took the job as DADA professor at Hogwarts. It just made sense for Harry to move in with me, that’s all.
Eighth year, we called an unspoken truce, leaving each other alone completely, but after Hermione (still weird to call her that) decided ‘unity’ was the new thing, our friend groups merged and we became tentative friends. The first few months of living together was a bit awkward, but after two years, Harry is my best friend and the thought of him not being at home for just one night makes me embarrassingly sad.
Because that’s the other thing… I’m hopelessly in love with the wanker.
Shaking my head at myself and my derailed train of thought, I sip at my tea (perfect, as always, stupid gorgeous bastard) and start to get ready for the day.
I arrive at the shop 15 minutes before we open and go to the brewing room in the back to begin my work. It’s methodical and purposeful and I really enjoy it despite being extremely isolated back here. I find the isolation is much better than the vitriol I endure when in public. My boss isn’t a smart man, but he knows better than to parade around the fact that he employs a former death eater. Or at least I thought he did. He comes back to my workspace an hour into the day and informs me that I must run the front while he attends to some urgent matter with a supplier.
I begin silently panicking and try to remind him what a bad idea it is to have me work the desk when he snaps and says, “You will do as I say or you will no longer be employed!” He knows as well as I do that I won’t be able to get another job like this, not with my background. I nod hastily and all but run to the counter.
By five o’clock, I have been called so many slurs that I cannot possibly count them all. I’m numb to the outside world. I feel like I’ve been hollowed out and my inner monologue is frighteningly similar to the one I had during those 47 days in Azkaban the summer after the war. I don’t remember walking home, but all of a sudden I’m on the floor in the kitchen with my hands over my ears and tears streaming down my face. I can’t breathe, I can’t think.
I finally slow my breathing enough to calm down slightly. I look at the clock next to the wireless and it reads 7:13. I should eat something. I should shower. I should call my mind healer. I don’t do any of that. I stand up and move to Harry’s door as if in a trance before I remember that he isn’t here and won’t be coming home tonight. I start to cry again. I need comfort. I need Harry. I slip into his room with the thought that I could grab one of his jumpers out of the wardrobe and maybe the scent would help me calm down. But I stop short.
Because there is his bed. And he’s not coming home tonight. What if I just… No. I shouldn’t do that. Harry wouldn’t want me to do that. But… he wouldn’t know… would he? I do all the laundry anyway. Tomorrow, I’ll just put both of our sheets in the wash and he’ll never even know. I feel bad even as I grab a jumper from his wardrobe and a pair of joggers off the dresser and begin to change, but not bad enough to stop. I collapse into his bed in his clothes and breathe the smell of safety from his pillows before sleep pulls me under.
- - - - - - -
Harry:
It’s late. It’s really fucking late and I’m pissed and tired and did I mention pissed?
I open the front door quietly trying my best not to wake Draco and glance at the clock by the wireless. 11:42. Fuck.
That’s when I notice Draco’s bag and coat on the floor. That’s weird. He’s the biggest neat freak I’ve ever met and his coat is just crumpled up in the floor of the kitchen? I pick it up and the bag and hang them on the hook by the door. Something’s wrong. Something’s really really wrong.
I move through the flat on autopilot, needing to see Draco is okay. I get to his room and the door is open, the bed is made and there is no sign of him. Fuck. My breathing picks up. What if he was taken? What if he was attacked? What if he- I’m panicking. I need to slow my heart rate down if I’m going to help Draco. I spend a few minutes at his door trying to calm my breathing, but it doesn’t do much.
The year I spent in Auror training and my entire fucked-up life to be honest have taught me to assume the worst. He’s probably fine, he probably just went to stay with Blaise or Pansy while I was gone. He does that sometimes, he doesn’t like to be alone any more than I do. I’ll text him and if I don’t hear back in the next 5 minutes I’ll send out a search party.
I open up my phone and his name is at the top of the threads. I pull it up and send a quick, “Hey, where are you?” before deciding to go to my room and change out of my school robes when I hear a ding. Oh shit. His phone is here but he isn’t, something’s wrong, something’s so wrong. I go back to look in his bag and there is his phone. Fuck. I need to find him. I take off toward my room to find some of my gear from Auror training. There’s a magical tracking device in there somewhere that I talked them into letting me keep. He has to be okay, he can’t be gone, he has to be okay, he has to-
I stop in the doorway. There, in my bed, in my clothes too from the looks of it, is Draco. He’s asleep.
I’ve had dreams like this. Usually I’m there too, but beggars can’t be choosers.
He looks so beautiful.
His platinum hair is mussed and he has his chin tucked into the collar of one of my Weasley jumpers. I walk over to the side of the bed as if in a trance. Now that I’m up close though, I can see that something is wrong. His eyes are swollen and his brows are furrowed slightly as if in a bad dream. It’s when he whimpers quietly though that I snap out of it. He needs me right now.
“Draco,” I say softly. He doesn’t stir but he still looks miserable so I try again. “Draco,” I brush his hair back from his forehead with my fingers as I say it and oh. It’s so soft. “Baby.” I don’t realize what I’ve said until I look down from my fingers in his hair to see his eyes, already open, widen in shock. Shit.
“Harry?” He starts to blink slowly as he wakes more fully, but he still looks rumpled and confused and god, I love him. “Am I dreaming?” His voice sounds scratchy and almost… hopeful? It’s odd but I answer him. “No, Draco, you’re not dreaming. I woke you because you looked like you were having a nightmare.” My hands are still in his hair, but he doesn’t seem to mind, so I keep petting him.
He processes that for a second before he glances around and seems to realize he’s in my room and I’m actually here and he shoots upright and scrambles from the bed. “Shit, fuck, I’m so sorry, I didn’t- I didn’t know- I thought- I’m so sorry, please don’t hate me, please don’t leave, I’ll never do it again, please, just don’t leave me-“ My eyes widen further with every word. I’ve never seen him like this. “Hey, it’s okay, I could never hate you, and I’m not going to leave, I’m not going anywhere, okay? See?” I sit down on the side of the bed and pat the spot next to me. “Come sit back down, it’s okay.”
Now that he’s standing, I can really look at him. He’s wearing my red Weasley jumper with the big gold H on it and a pair of black joggers that I also recognize as mine. His feet are bare and he looks so perfect I might die. He still looks skittish, but he slowly walks back and sits next to me on the bed. Immediately his hands cover his face and he starts sobbing.
I don’t know what to do, but I can’t just let him cry, it makes me want to cry. Before I realize what I’m doing, I’ve scooped him into my arms and practically into my lap and before I can panic about it he seems to relax into me and he buries his face in my neck. He grabs onto my shirt and pulls himself as physically close as he can and continues to sob. I make soothing noises and rub his back, whispering comfort to him the best way I know how.
After a while, he calms down and we’re just sitting together holding each other in the silence. “I’m sorry-“ he starts but I cut him off. “Don’t you dare apologize, baby.” I’ve said it already so I let it slip out again. It feels good. I see him flush and I think he likes it as much as I do. “Okay, I won’t apologize, but can I at least explain?”
“You don’t have to do that either if you don’t want to, but if you want to talk about it, I’ll listen.” He nods slightly and starts telling me about his day. My grip gets tighter on him as he talks and I want to sob too. Or punch something. Better yet, someone. One of those fucking assholes that thought it was okay to talk to him like that would do just fine.
“And when I got home, I had a panic attack in the kitchen and I thought maybe if I could smell you I might feel better or safer or something and so I came up here and it worked but you were never supposed to find out about it because you’re supposed to be at Hogwarts. And I know it’s a major invasion of privacy and I feel terrible about it now but I wasn’t thinking straight in the moment and I just-“ he’s rambling seriously now and I’m smiling because he just said my smell makes him feel safe.
“Sweetheart.” He stops talking abruptly. “Anything I have is yours, you know that don’t you? Please tell me you know that. My bed, my clothes, I’d give you my fucking toothbrush if you wanted it.” He looks up at me wide eyed and I can’t not tell him. Not anymore. He has to know. I’ve been tiptoeing around it for months, not wanting to mess up our friendship, but I can’t anymore. He deserves to know someone loves him so much it hurts. He deserves to hear it all the time. He deserves to believe it.
“Baby,” I cup his tear-streaked cheek and look at those big grey eyes I love so much. “You are the reason I breathe.”
His mouth drops a little and I hear his gasp slightly so I take that as encouragement to keep going. “I love you, Draco. I love you so much. I need you to know that. I need you to believe me. I need you to understand that those people today were wrong. You are all of the best things, you are all of my best things. And if something happened to you, I- I don’t know what I’d do. I came in tonight and saw your stuff on the floor in the kitchen and you weren’t in your room and I have never been so scared. Not during the war, not with the Dursleys, not as an Auror. Never in my life have I been more afraid than I was of losing you.”
I tug him even closer and tighten my hold more as if he’ll just slip away if I let go. I stop talking but I’m still looking into his eyes and he’s crying again. “Oh, baby, don’t cry, I’m sorry, it’s not your fault, I’m sorry, I-“ I’m cut off as he surges up and then he’s kissing me.
And oh. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt in my life. It’s our first kiss but it doesn’t feel like that at all. It feels like coming home, like safety, like movies on the couch and coffee in the mornings. It feels like we’ve been doing this for years and also like I’ve been been starving for it my entire life.
He pulls away slightly for breath but we keep our foreheads together. “I love you too, so much,” he says and I grin like I’ve never heard better words spoken because I haven’t. “I’ve loved you for so long, but I thought you could never- that you wouldn’t, surely- not with me.” And I’m sad but not surprised by that, I know his insecurities run deep and days like today only make it that much harder for him.
“I do, I want everything with you, Draco,” I reassure him. He smiles slightly and I’m calling it a win. “But right now, you need to sleep because you’re worn out and I also need to sleep because I’m worn out too. We can talk about all of this again in the morning, but for now, how about we just lay back down and try to get some rest, hm?” He nods and we part to start getting ready to go back to bed.
He slips back under the covers and I start undressing and moving about the room to join him. He’s watching me, all sleep-rumpled and mussed but all red-lipped from kissing me and a thrill runs through my spine knowing I did that.
“Why are you home anyways?” He asks as if it’s just now occurring to him that I’m not supposed to be here. I feel myself sighing loudly as I get ready to recap my day in a few words, “Fucking Slughorn. Minerva asked him last night if he had any potions on hand that would cure the staff illness and he told her unfortunately he did not and that he could brew some that would ready in two days, hence my supposed to be absence tonight.” Draco furrows his brows, “Hence? I’ve never heard you say hence.”
“I can know words!” I huff indignantly, “although that one I did get from you. I used it right, right?” He looks amused but he nods and I continue, “Well, apparently he did have some on hand, he found them around 10 pm tonight and I spent rounds helping Minerva and Poppy administer them and I’m exhausted.”
By this point, I’ve stripped down to my boxers and put on a t-shirt and I start making my way back to the bed. I slip in beside him and pull him in close to me, his head on my chest and my arms wrapped around him. He hums and snuggles closer. “Thank merlin he found them,” he says into my chest. “Goodnight, Harry.” He places a kiss on my collarbone and I melt.
“Goodnight, baby.” I place a kiss on his forehead and breathe in the scent of home. Thank merlin indeed.