Chapter Text
It’s raining.
Not. Like. Pouring or anything. Just that sort of pitter-patter that isn’t light enough to be a sprinkle and isn’t heavy enough to be compared to one’s pets. A cliche, almost. Movie-style rain. The steady, quick kind that makes races on car windows, the kind you could fall asleep to.
Which is exactly what Harry had been doing -–sleeping, not watching raindrops against glass-– before he heard The Knock. (Capitalised not because of the urgency or importance of said knock, but because of what —or who— made it. The knock itself was sort of pathetic, actually.) If he hadn’t been hunted down for a sizable amount of his life his instincts would have probably let him sleep right through it.
But he had been, and so he did.
At first he thinks it’s a part of his dream —something he can’t quite remember about an old professor he had— but as the noise persists he finally swings himself out of bed with a grumble. A few more moments of listening to confirm that this noise is, indeed, coming from his door. A sigh as he fumbles around for his lenses. After shoving his glasses onto his face somewhat haphazardly, he checks the clock.
One in the fucking morning.
This had better be important.
Maybe if Harry didn’t have such a fucking savior complex or whatever it is Ron calls it, maybe if he wasn’t paranoid that something was still out to get him, maybe if he was a deep sleeper he wouldn’t be bothered to open the door.
But he is, and so he does.
And, of course, it’s raining. Something Harry hadn’t bothered to catalog before (mostly because he was sleeping ), but now as he’s opening the door the cold and the wet splatters of the rain on the sidewalk are hitting him like a truck. But what’s even more surprising, arguably, is the person Harry had opened the door for.
This must be a dream.
Harry’s first instinct is to laugh, because there is a forlorn figure knocking on his door late at night (morning?), and it’s raining , and the entire thing is straight out of the muggle dramas Aunt Petunia loved so very much and is this a dream? He bites back a half-smile (and fails), because his brain is too sleepy to do much else. As soon as he manages to get his grin down to an acceptable size for this situation, he realizes that he should probably start wondering if this person is a threat.
And when he says ‘person’.
Well.
Draco fucking Malfoy.
Draco fucking Malfoy, who is shivering and wet and overall thoroughly miserable-looking. His hair, normally styled with such precision, is soaked and is sticking to his face like a blond helmet. It looks easily fixable but based on the way he’s swaying he might be a bit too out of it to worry about hair right now. Too out of it to worry about anything , really. His grey eyes are glassy, dazed.
What happened?
A long stretch of time has passed before it occurs to Harry that he should probably say something, anything . Ask why Draco’s here, what Harry can do to help, or maybe just a hello. He clears his throat, lest he sound like a retired dementor attempting to speak, and says, “Malfoy?”
Draco doesn't immediately respond, making Harry think he’s seen the wrong person in his sleep-addled mind or at least gotten the wrong name, but before he can continue guessing the blond looks up at him. There’s a look of surprise on his face, like he wasn’t expecting Harry to answer the door.
“Potter?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” Harry squints, because maybe there’s a big clue here that will help him figure out what the fuck is going on. “Why are you here?” at my home in the middle of the night, shivering and getting soaked to the bone with rain and possibly misery?
He waits ten seconds with no response, and he’s about to shut the door because, well, who wouldn’t? But then Draco’s mouth opens, and closes, and opens again, before he says six simple words. His voice is shaky and confused, like he isn’t the one who started all this in the first place.
“I’m not— I’m not supposed to be here.”
No shit.
“Okay. Well.” Harry waves his hand in a gesture he’s hoping translates to explain, please. “ Why're you here, then?”
He's trying, he really is, to be polite. But when it is one in the morning and your old rival from school comes knocking at your door acting all vague and whatnot, it is hard to be anything more than irritable. Especially when it’s raining and cold and just altogether dreary.
“ I don’t know .” Draco inhales stiffly as he looks away, and are those tears in his eyes?
Is this motherfucker actually crying ?
He is. He’s shaking, his arms are wrapped around himself tightly, and at this point Harry notices that there are parts of his cloak that are torn– along with something that looks suspiciously like blood on his neck. And parts of his face. Harry’s sure that if Draco’s sleeves were rolled back there’d be blood there, too.
Concern creeps its way up and into his stomach like a virus.
What the fuck.
“Are you bleeding?” Harry steps forward and puts a hand on Draco’s shoulder, mostly out of instinct. He doesn’t miss the way Draco flinches, just slightly, and this whole situation is reminding him of the war. A little too much, actually. Previous encounters similar to this one flash through his mind, and he takes one thing away from it all, one lesson learned:
This guy needs help.
Harry has a sneaking suspicion that he’s not going to be getting any more sleep tonight.
With a rather unfortunate-sounding sigh he steps to the side, revealing the doorway to his flat. If he’s going to get his night interrupted, might as well have a distraction while not-sleeping. And entertaining people doesn’t seem too bad of a pastime. He waves his hand towards the dimly-lit space behind the door.
“Did you. Er. Want to come inside?”
“ No .”
A long pause. Then, “Yes. Fuck. I don’t know.” Draco’s voice catches and he clears his throat quickly, trying to regain whatever illusion of composure he had. “I–I’m not supposed to be here.”
“So you’ve said.” Harry’s arms cross without his brain telling them to, and his eyebrow raises. “How did you get here, then?” Draco’s already stated that he somehow doesn’t know why he’s here. But maybe Harry can gauge some information of the situation if he knows how.
“I apparated, Potter, obviously.” The response is quick, simple, and terse. It seems that even though Draco has been shaken to hell and back, it won’t stop him from getting defensive. Even if his nails are digging into his arms hard enough to leave marks. Geez. Out of this entire interaction, that at the very least needs to stop.
Harry reaches out and grabs one of his wrists, and.
Well.
He’s not sure if words can properly describe what happens next.
In the span of a minute, Draco falls onto him, not unlike the dead, and then quite literally jumps backward with the force of a speeding truck. Once Harry’s hands are free he notices —with more dread than before-– that they are, in fact, decorated with blood from Draco’s cloak.
Whether it’s Draco’s blood or someone else’s is the big question here.
“It. Um.” Draco rubs at his throat with a trembling hand, as if he’s got a frog in there and that will soothe it, somehow. His eyes are wide, like he’s expecting an attack or something just for collapsing. “Sorry. It seems I’m a bit more– a bit more tired than I thought.” His feet are moving of their own accord, alternating in a strange dance of forward and backward like he isn’t sure if he wants to leave or not. “I honestly didn’t mean to apparate here, I just…”
He seems a lot more earnest than before, and Harry would wonder why that small moment caused such a big change if he didn’t have more pressing matters to attend to. Such as:
“Malfoy.”
“Hm?”
“Whose blood is this?”
Draco’s eyes snap to Harry’s hands as he holds them up. It’s clear that he has no idea he was even injured based on the way he immediately looks to where Harry had been holding him steady, placing cautious fingers along his shoulder and neck. Sure enough, his eyes widen ever so slightly when his own hands come away bloody.
“Oh. Mine.”
His tone has a vague air of surprise.
Nobody says or does anything for what’s probably only a minute but feels more like an hour to Harry. Then he has the courtesy to remember that when someone’s injured, getting them help would probably be a good idea. He’s really bad at this kind of thing, isn’t he.
“Come in, then.”
This time Draco follows Harry inside without complaint, and Harry clicks the door shut behind them both. After grabbing his wand from the table —sort of stupid to not have grabbed it when he answered the door, but whatever— he looks back at Draco, who has not moved from his spot in front of the door, and gestures to the few pieces of furniture in the living area. “Sit.”
The look Draco shoots him is a mix of disgust, horror, and a little bit of contempt, like Harry had just killed his pet cat. “I am wet and bloody and your couch is made of linen . I am not about to ruin it like a dog who just rolled around in the mud.”
And yes, that's probably the reason he hasn’t strayed from the admittedly small doormat. He looks as if he’s about to continue when he gets smacked in the face by a towel. His hand scrabbles for it before it falls and Harry stands from where he’s been crouching by the cabinet.
“Sorry, I mean for you to catch that.” He lays another towel on the couch, then sits across from it in the most comfortable position he can. It takes a few seconds, but eventually Draco picks his way over to the seat, and Harry notices he’s taken his shoes off. Another moment until he looks comfortable, and then:
“So. What happened?”
“What?”
Harry sighs through his nose, harshly. “Look, Malfoy, you— you show up on my doorstep, wet, bleeding, and the only thing you’ve said is ‘I’m not supposed to be here.’” he leans forward, elbows on his thighs and hands on his knees. “What. Happened?”
Draco runs a hand —which isn’t as shaky now— through his hair. “I don’t… nothing. Nothing happened. I’m just…” he snakes a hand under his cloak to his shoulder again, and from the way he flinches Harry guesses that he’s found the wound.
He definitely has, if the way he’s staring at the fresh red on his hand somewhat blankly says anything. He’s stopped trembling, even, as he gingerly wipes it on the towel.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he says, voice steady and polite— for once. “I think I might pass out now.”
And with that he crumples to the ground.