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Harry woke to Draco's blurry form and a wand pointed at his face.
"Piss off," he said, and batted it out of the way.
Not a good idea, to turn his back on Draco when he was in this kind of mood—or any kind of mood—or at all, ever—but Harry's head was pounding and some agent of chaos had drawn the curtains, so early morning sunlight streamed through the open French doors and dug into his eyes. An unfriendly winter breeze brought goosebumps and all the covers were bunched down around his ankles, because Draco had a tendency to hog them and then kick them all off in turn, but the spot he had just evacuated was still warm from his skin. It smelled like him. Harry was just about to roll into it when Draco spoke.
"Incarcerous."
His wrists snapped together with a force that made Harry's shoulders ache. "Are you fucking serious? Draco. "
It was hardly the first time Draco had tied him up without warning—there was never any warning—but it was the first time Harry had woken up to it. They had a routine, was the thing; they were organised, even, despite the act of their coming together being closer in form and spirit to some sort of demonic possession. Harry rarely stayed the night, but when he did, he knew to leave before Draco woke because if he didn't, they would end up fighting—over how hot coffee should be or whether Harry had ever learned to chew his food or if Lucius would be proud to know his son excelled at sucking cock—really— excelled— and then the rest of the day would be lost to fucking again, maybe, or thinking about fucking, which was somehow even worse. Harry kept to the routine because he was determined not to let Draco get his sticky little fingers into any more of Harry's life than he already had.
Draco wasn't functional before noon. Harry had time, usually, to cool the coffee to a reasonable temperature and contemplate his poor life choices before leaving. Draco being alert enough to cast a binding spell on him while Harry was still blinking sleep from his eyes was not how things were meant to go.
He couldn't remember where he had left his glasses. Or his wand. Depending on Draco's mood, this could be very good or very bad, but in either case Harry was probably going to get off, so he supposed there wasn't much room to complain.
"Let me go, I have to take a piss first," Harry said, squirming onto his back and squinting at the blurry shape of him stood by the side of the bed. The sun lit him up from behind. "Draco. I'll piss all over the bed, I'm serious. Where are my glasses? Accio!"
Neither glasses nor wand appeared. His bladder was starting to protest in earnest and Draco was still just standing there. It was a talent of his, to be able to annoy Harry while doing absolutely nothing. He opened his mouth to say as much, but the words were drowned out by a voice loud enough to rattle the walls.
"DAD! I can't find Al's gift! I'm going to be late! DAD? Wake up!"
Harry's skull felt like it had cracked right down the centre. "What the fuck—"
Another screeched, "DAD!" cut him off, and then came Draco's voice, though Harry had never heard it sound quite like—
"Scorpius, if you persist at that volume you will discover you have far bigger problems."
—his voice—but not—saying—what was he saying? Unease spread in him like an oil spill. If Harry squinted as hard as he could, he could just make out the shape of Draco's head and the wand still held aloft, pointed in Harry's direction. What had he done to his hair? It didn't look right. The magic binding Harry's wrists together was precise and unyielding, with an undercurrent so foreign that Harry didn't know why he hadn't felt before. It was Draco's magic if his magic was impassive, if it had been whittled down to a fine, flinty point, and so—not his at all.
"Who are you?"
"I think you know," not-Draco said.
Where's Draco? Harry didn't say, because that was hardly the most important thing, no matter what the fist squeezing his insides said. Accio, he thought loudly, channelling the unease into intent, but his wand didn't appear. Was he even still at the Manor? The bedroom looked familiar, but everything was a blur beyond the two feet in front of him, and in some syrupy corner of his mind Draco—his Draco, the real Draco—said, Merlin, Potter, you're blind as a fucking bat. All the Dark Lord had to do was take off your glasses.
He couldn't see, but he could move. He could get closer. Not-Draco wasn't expecting it; he stepped back as Harry swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood to meet him, but not fast enough, and he came into view like a mirage, slotting into place with every blink. Long nose. Full mouth. Grey eyes.
Harry sat back down.
"Dad," came the voice again, an exaggerated whisper this time. It sounded like Draco's voice, always just shy of a whinge, and Harry took an absurd second to wonder if he was in a dimension where everyone but him was Draco. He'd had this nightmare before. Wet dream. Whatever.
"I really can't find it," whisper-shouted the voice, "and I'm going to be late and if we miss the portkey Al's going to kill me so can you please wake up and come down here please. Thank you."
Not-Draco closed his eyes, just briefly. Harry had seen him do the same a hundred times before launching into a rant that usually ended in curses thrown. He braced for it now, but when Draco—not-Draco, other-Draco, what the fuck—spoke, he sounded almost fond.
"I will be down shortly," he said, and the voice subsided with a muttered amazing, thank you so much, that would be so great.
The same scars littered his chest. Harry had given him those. They were faded some, over—ten, Harry guessed, ten years? Fifteen? He couldn't tell. Was that grey at his temples, or just a trick of the light? He seemed taller. He held his wand the same.
"I need to take a piss," Harry said calmly.
The binding spell loosened after a beat. Harry dropped his hands to his sides, then remembered that he was naked—they both were—what did that mean? His brain couldn't scramble fast enough to catch up–-and he'd just allowed his eyes to follow the line of not-Draco's body down when a robe slipped over him and shielded him from view.
"The manor is warded against apparition," said not-Draco as he made for the door. The real Draco had added him to the wards months ago. Harry closed his eyes but the sun was just getting brighter. "You may attempt to jump off the balcony, but I would advise against it."
Harry didn't hear the door close, but the absence of him was a physical thing. He stared at the space not-Draco had stood long after he was gone—down, to help find a—something, for someone. Someone who called him dad.
"Right," Harry said, and got up.
The ensuite was behind the same door, because this was the same room. Even the ostentatious mirror over the sink was the same, wasn't it? Hadn't he looked into this mirror just last night and had it cringe from him like it was doing now? Harry put his palm to the glass. In his dreams his reflection never stayed still, squirmed at the edges and slipped away. Here, it blinked when he blinked, glazed green eyes under the same broody brows. There were pillow creases on the side of his face, and a sore spot on his chin from where Draco had kneed him two days ago. His scar was just a scar.
"Fine," Harry said. "This is fine."
"If you say so," said the mirror, eyeing his hair.
Whatever had brought Harry here hadn't brought anything else with him. His wand was probably still under the pillow, next to a Draco who was going to be dead to the world for several hours yet. He slept so deeply that Harry could have been abducted a few feet away and he wouldn't notice. This would be funny later. Harry walked back out to the not-room to find pyjamas folded at the foot of the not-bed and a pair glasses sat atop. The shirt was too long in the arms and pants tight at his hips, and the glasses weren't his, not quite the right focus and bound to give him a headache if he wore them too long, but it was better than dealing with whatever this was blind.
He had just put them on when a gust of wind sent the curtains rustling and blew in a large tawny eagle owl.
It dropped a letter onto the side table and didn't deign to look at Harry, not even when he approached. The letter was on simple cardstock, addressed only to D.M. He recognized the handwriting. Harry only got to snap open the seal before it was wrenched away.
Not-Draco closed the door behind him, letter in hand. It must have been a short note—he only glanced at it for a second before folding it back up again and fixing Harry with a look.
Thinking of him as not-Draco didn't seem right anymore now that Harry could see him clearly. His eyes. The familiar twist of his mouth. Malfoy, then. Malfoy, of an indeterminate age, with hair that fell to his shoulders, and grey—Harry could see it now, grey at the temples. Mister Malfoy, Harry thought, only a little hysterical. This was fine.
The glasses made it difficult to focus on his face, but Harry couldn't make himself look away.
"What happened to Offie?" Harry asked.
Don't call him that, Draco would snap. That's not his name.
"Old age," said Malfoy. At a click of his tongue his new owl found a perch on his arm and accepted a treat before swooping over Harry's head and out through the balcony. How long did owls live? When did people go grey? Harry had found an odd grey hair of his own, a few months after the war. Malfoy must be—thirty, maybe. "He died as he spent most of his life," he continued, watching Harry watch him. "Asleep and disinclined to be of any use."
Harry tried to focus on the words and not how they sounded. Lower. Slower.
"Sounds like you," Harry said, and Malfoy's mouth twitched. "Aren't you going to ask how I know about him?"
Harry had been there when Draco got him, a Christmas present from his mother arrived a few days early. I don't know why, Harry had said, but it seems like maybe she wants you to write her.
"I can guess," Malfoy said now.
The tension that had ridden his frame when Harry first woke up was gone.
"You know what's going on."
Malfoy nearly smiled. "I can guess."
Older and no less annoying. Harry was comforted by it. "Is it something you did?"
"No."
There was no reason to trust him, but Harry found that he did, unequivocally, in a way he could never quite bring himself to trust the Draco he had left behind. Something about the way this one looked at him, maybe. Harry didn't know him, but he looked like he knew Harry.
"Something I did?" Harry ventured.
Malfoy said nothing, and Harry's stomach swooped at another possibility. He thought—the letter—but maybe he'd only seen what he wanted to see.
"Am I alive?"
Malfoy's face underwent a complicated transformation. "Yes."
He shouldn't have told him that, probably. Out of all the cautionary tales they threw at you in Auror training, the most frequently touted were on the perils of interdimensional time-travel. Take the necessary steps to ensure the safety of your past and future selves. Step One: Remain calm. Check. Step Two: Do not seek out any information that does not pertain to your return.
Malfoy hadn't moved from his place at the door. His hands hung at his sides, wand in one, letter in another.
Harry lifted his chin at it. "That's from me, isn't it? What does it say?"
"If you've understood that much," Malfoy said, slipping the letter into the pocket of his robe, "then you know better than to ask."
There was the prat Harry knew: casually superior, halfway to dismissive at all times. It had been a fair question. It might pertain to his return. Was Harry imagining it, or was there was something smug about the line of Malfoy's shoulders? The self-satisfied turn on his heel reminded him just a little too much of Draco—the real Draco—when he knew something Harry didn't, when he pursed his mouth and refused to answer, eyes bright, relishing in Harry's mounting annoyance.
"I thought you were Lucius," Harry lied, just to see if Malfoy's back would stiffen the way Draco's did at the mention of his father's name. "You look exactly like him."
Malfoy turned to him. Harry didn't know what he was expecting to find on his face, but it wasn't this.
"You look," Malfoy said, "just as I remember."
He wasn't smiling, but something about his mouth made it seem like he was thinking about it. He waved his wand almost carelessly, like it was an extension of his arm. There was a faint pop, and Harry turned to see the breakfast nook by the window covered in food, a breakfast tray of croissants and scones with clotted cream and jam, a massive bowl of fruit. Juice. Coffee that Harry was confident was too hot.
"Eat. This won't last long. I have it on good authority—" Malfoy drawled out the word the way he did Potter, when Harry had done something especially foolish, "—that you'll be back where you belong within the hour."
Not even one of those twenty-four hour things, then. What was Harry up to, in the future? Fucking around with time travel while Malfoy—what, grew out his hair and woke up early and had a kid who called him dad—
Step Three: Isolate yourself from any external influence.
"Wait," Harry said, and "Draco," though it sounded wrong. Malfoy stopped with a hand on the doorknob. "Will you stay? If I—I won't ask any more questions."
"I don't know if I trust that." Malfoy turned back to him and raised his brows. "I remember your persistence."
"So I'm not anymore, then," Harry said, and tried not to make it sound like a question. "Persistent."
Malfoy stepped away from the door. "You've learned to choose your battles."
Whatever that meant. Harry rolled his eyes; Draco had the same tendency to talk in circles, and though the older version of him was better at it, it didn't matter. The questions Harry had weren't about himself.
He took a seat across Malfoy at the table, popped a piece of cantaloupe in his mouth and expected a comment on how fast he ate it, but Malfoy said nothing. There were wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, by his mouth. Not laugh lines, but some sober cousin. He was smooth shaven, and the line of his neck didn't look quite as long, or as thin. His chin he still held at the same angle.
He only looked like his father in the most superficial sense: in his colouring and the particular slope of his patrician nose. Everything else was—Harry didn't know. It would take him more time than he had to pick this version of Draco apart, if he even could.
"You have kids."
He didn't mean for it to sound accusing. Malfoy put two sugars in his tea. Paused, and then, like Harry knew he would, added another.
"Just the one," he said. "One is more than enough."
Scorpius. It sounded like something someone who named their owl Ophiuchus might name their child. It wasn't anything Harry would ever name his.
Harry looked at Malfoy's unadorned hand. It was familiar to him, even with the starker knuckles and pronounced veins; a strong hand, for how fine it looked.
"Didn't think you'd ever get married. Or divorced."
"Widowed."
"Oh," Harry said. He wasn't callous enough to ask, and Malfoy wouldn't answer anyway. Still, he couldn't stop himself from wondering. They didn't talk about who else they were fucking; on Harry's end because there wasn't anyone, and on Draco's his affection for secrecy and the desire to seem mysterious, even though he was the most predictable person Harry knew.
That Harry thought he knew. But he was, it seemed, someone who fucked women and married them. Parkinson? Maybe, though Harry couldn't quite picture it. Maybe he just didn't want to.
The cantaloupe was tasteless. Malfoy sipped his too-sweet too-hot tea in silence. Since when was he so fucking quiet? Harry couldn't get him to shut up on a good day. It wasn't just about getting older; a whingy prat in love with the sound of his voice was who he was. Who was this, then?
"Don't you have anything to ask me?"
Malfoy cocked his head. His hair wouldn't look that different, even if it did go all grey. "I don't find it very useful to revisit the past."
Draco had said the same lie enough times. I don't think about any of it, and, what's the point, it's all over, like Harry didn't know where his mind went, in the yawning moment between wakefulness and sleep. Like Harry couldn't hear his breath come slow and shallow under some great crushing weight on his chest.
His older self was better at selling the lie: eyes steady, hand steady.
"I don't believe you."
"No?" Malfoy raised his brows. His eyes were heavier in this face. Darker. "What is it you think I want to ask?"
"What I'm doing here, in your bedroom. In your bed." Malfoy said nothing, so Harry ate another piece of cantaloupe and continued. "I was fucking you," he said, conversational, like hearing it said aloud hadn't twisted his stomach into knots. "We do that, every now and then."
The look Malfoy gave him was bland. Harry squashed down a squirm of discomfort and forged on.
"Sound familiar?"
"That sounds like a question," Malfoy said.
"Yeah, well, I don't think it's going to destroy the future if you tell me whether we've ever—"
"We haven't," Malfoy said sharply. There was a tightness around his eyes. "No. Never."
The word sat cold and heavy in Harry's gut. "Do you mean—but there was something, wasn't there? Before—"
Harry didn't know what he meant to say. Before—what? Before it fell apart like we always knew it would? Before you went and got married and had kids—kid, one kid, named Scorpius, of all the stupid names—before you sat here in front of me, aged whatever, and said you didn't care to revisit the past?
"This timeline is not yours, Potter," Malfoy said, an edge to his voice that Harry recognized. "Time isn't linear. You've messed around with it often enough that you should—" He cut himself off, said too much. He still sucked on his teeth when he was trying to pull himself back together.
"Right," Harry said. "It's still—Potter, Malfoy. Yeah, I got it."
Harry took up a croissant. His head felt oddly heavy, and he expected Malfoy to get up and leave any minute, could feel him poised on the edge of the chair, the tension coiling between them like some physical thing. He chewed the croissant mechanically, Draco's annoying voice in his head. Swallowed. Malfoy didn't move.
When Harry glanced up, he was looking at him like—
Never, he said. Then why was he looking at him like that?
His hand was cold under Harry's fingertips. His fingers twitched, but he didn't pull away.
"Did you want to?" Stop while you're ahead, Potter, Draco would say. Harry didn't know how. "Do you want to?"
Their hands slotted together. Harry made himself look up.
"Not with a boy my son's age," Malfoy said mildly, "no."
"I'm eighteen," Harry corrected, because he was hardly a boy, and Malfoy's son wasn't as—because that would make him— "Bloody hell. You're old."
Malfoy's eyes narrowed. "We're the same age."
"Not right now, we're not," Harry said, and Malfoy tilted his head in concession, mouth wry. Harry wondered if that mouth would feel the same under his. It looked the same. "If I kissed you, would you hex me?"
"No," Malfoy said, after a beat. "But I would be very disappointed in you."
Harry laughed to cover the odd little shiver that skated down his spine. He was—disturbed, right, because Malfoy had used the voice he used on his son, and that was—something. Harry's insides didn't know what to make of it. The look on Malfoy's face said he knew.
He squeezed Harry's hand once, and then untangled them. Smug, awful bastard, Harry thought, picking at his croissant. Some things you didn't grow out of, clearly.
"Might be worth it," Harry said, once he could make his voice work again. "It'd piss him off. Draco—the other Draco. If he knew we'd fooled around."
He wouldn't believe it, probably. Keep your sick fantasies to yourself, Potter, he would say, and wrinkle his nose just so. It might take a Pensieve to convince him, and then Harry could see him turning red, the cold snap of fury in his eyes. He'd gotten that way over an offhand joke Harry had made about Blaise, turned mean in an instant— stay away from my friends, and go fuck one of your fans if you want to slag about.
"It would hurt him," Malfoy said.
Harry looked at him. "It's not like that. He doesn't, like." The words escaped him abruptly, so he shrugged. "We're just fucking."
He meant to follow it up with, it's great, you should try it, and then, cheeky, with me, but the way Malfoy's mouth twisted silenced him.
"There is no timeline where you and I are just anything."
The slow, heavy feeling was back. Malfoy was looking at him, and Harry was wading through molasses.
"What are we, then? Here."
Malfoy smiled. Harry's heart did a funny thing. "Careful."
"Boring," Harry managed. I didn't think I'd grow up to be boring, he wanted to say, but his tongue was too unwieldy. The fact that he'd gotten the chance to grow up at all, and he'd spent his life, what? Not losing his mind over Malfoy? Was that a bad thing? It felt like a bad thing. His thoughts were going in circles and his vision had begun to blur, turning Malfoy into two–four—-one again. These fucking glasses, had to be. Harry shook his head to try and clear it. "That's boring."
"Hm," Malfoy said, an indulgent sort of sound. Harry had never heard him make that sound before. "You would say you've had enough adventure for a lifetime."
That wasn't right, either. Harry kept shaking his head. "Then I'm lying." Why was it so hard to get the words out? Everything was swimming. "Wait, hang—hang on." It was becoming impossible to keep his eyes open. He could just barely make out Malfoy rising from his chair to push Harry back into his. "Did you—seriously, did you drug me so I wouldn't ask you more questions?"
"You need to be asleep for the spell to take, but I'm not complaining about that side-effect."
"No, but—wait," Harry said, "wait, I have to tell you—"
"Alright," Malfoy said, patient the way Draco never was. Harry wondered how many years it took to wear that groove in him. If Harry was going to be around to see it. He couldn't see anything anymore—everything had gone dark. "Tell me."
"I want you," Harry said. He couldn't open his eyes, and his body was listing to the side, dizzy, but Draco—Malfoy—Draco's hands were on his shoulders, holding him in place. Strong hands, Harry thought. He knew these hands. "In every time—every version of me. Even if I say I don't. I want you."
There was silence, but Harry could still feel him. He was near. He was right there.
"Okay?" he asked. "Did you hear me? Draco? Did you—"
" Yes, I heard you, the entire bloody estate heard you, now shut the fuck up. "
Something soft and heavy landed on his face, cutting off his air. The frame of his glasses dug into his skin, painful, and his open mouth caught fabric. He couldn't breathe and couldn't move, tangled up in something, what—sheets, because he was in bed again—and that was a pillow on his face. He got one hand free and smacked it as hard as he could against Draco's side.
"Prick," Harry gasped as the pillow retreated. Draco fell back and yanked the covers over his head, for all intents and purposes gone back to sleep, as though the occasion of smothering Harry hadn't roused him at all. Early morning sunlight slipped through the curtains and landed on the bed, bisecting the lump that was Draco under all the layers. "Fucking prick."
There was no response. Harry's face hurt and his vision was crooked, off just a little in a way that was going to give him a headache soon. He took off his glasses to rub at his eyes.
They weren't his glasses.
"Fuck," he said.
"Have your crisis elsewhere, Potter," came Draco's muffled voice. When Harry pulled back the covers, he swiped a hand at Harry's face. His eyes were squeezed stubbornly shut, face pink. Young.
Harry's chest had gone tight and strange. Every version, he'd said. Draco had heard him, hadn't he?
"Seriously," said the Draco of now, "fuck off, or I'm going to hex you."
"Okay," Harry said, and kissed him, because he could.