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“You will be the death of me, Potter,” Draco mutters under his breath, locks the door of his office and shoves Harry onto the sofa where Draco sleeps half the time, especially the first weeks after a new rescue comes in that needs around the clock care. He tries not to think about Harry in his de facto bed and takes a deep breath before fixing the idiot with a glare.

“What are you even doing here?”

“Jesus, Malfoy, do you manhandle all your customers like this?” Harry asks back with obvious annoyance. “All I wanted was a magical pet for my godson, and you immediately… fine, just unlock that door and I’m out of here.”

For a moment Draco is speechless with incredulity. “Are you really that…?” He shakes his head and takes a step closer, his anger rising at having to spell things out for this clueless, infuriating man.

“Firstly, this is a Magical Animal Rescue, not a pet store, Potter. Yes, I do encourage adoptions for those rescues that need extensive human contact, but all potential candidates must prove they can responsibly take care of them. Secondly, what on earth possessed you to just waltz into the back where countless unstable magical beings are kept?”

“There was no one at the counter so-“

“And I presume waiting in the shop for 5 damn minutes while I calm down an anxious animal is below Saint Potter?”

“No, I-“

“And thirdly,” Draco interrupts Harry firmly, crossing his arms across his chest. “I hope you are prepared to tell everyone that you’re accountable for what happened.”

Harry frowns in confusion. “For what happened?”

That takes the steam out of Draco’s sails and he just stares at Harry in utter bafflement. “You… you really don’t know? Of course you don’t. Just my fucking luck.”

“What?!”

Draco shakes his head and sighs: “That was a shadowcat you startled.”

“Okay, and?”

“Seriously, sometimes I despair of you… they are extremely sensitive creatures, with the highest need for security and affection I have ever encountered, paired with rather unorthodox magical abilities.”

“Right,” Harry says slowly. “So… the cat… did something?”

Draco rubs his brows in exasperation. “Yes, Potter, the shadowcat did something.”

Draco has been a pillar of patience, going on about his job, tending to wounds and soothing the more skittish newer rescues, like the Jackalope with the wrecked paw, letting Harry make frantic calls through the fireplace in the front of the shop. He started with Granger, by the sound of it, then called Hagrid and even talked to McGonnagall, who was at the time over at Hagrid’s for tea and a discussion of school business. Then Harry called Charlie Weasley and peppered in between genuinely decent advice, Draco could hear a lot of laughter and amusement from the man at Harry’s expense. Finally, Granger called back and reported the findings of her extensive research, which was pretty much exactly the same as what Draco had told Harry in the first place, which, judging by the raised voices, does not go down well with Harry.

He remains in the front of the shop for a long time after he stops talking to her and the shadowcat clearly doesn’t like his extended absence from the room, nor the obvious resistance emanating from him. She’s circling around Draco’s legs, rubbing her face against him, curling her seven tails around him as if physically trying to hold him close.

“He’ll be fine,” Draco says quietly, reaching down and letting her rub against his hand. “He’s just stubborn.”

The shadowcat lets out a low, mournful meow and Draco can feel the persistent tug in his chest that Harry must be feeling too. A few moments later the door between the shop and the back opens and Harry walks in, dejected and a little morose.

“Tell her not to do that, it hurts.”

“She just wants you close,” Draco shrugs and offers Harry a mug of tea he kept warm for him with a charm.

Harry sighs and accepts it. He takes in his surrounding while sipping it, the magically extended living room space now holding about a dozen enclosures specifically designed to accommodate each species currently residing in it. It’s not much, Draco wishes it was so much more, bigger, better equipped, more spacious, but it’s the best he can do with his limited resources and with no help.

“I take it they all said the same thing?” he asks, getting uncomfortable with Harry’s scrutiny of his life’s work.

Harry shrugs and turns to face him. His expression is miserable and it reignites an ache within Draco he knows too well from their childhood – this absolute certainty that there is nothing he can do to make Harry want to spend time with him.

“Chin up, Potter. There are worse things than being bound to your mortal enemy by circumstance.”

Harry huffs out a humourless laugh. “Can’t think of any just now.”

Try being bound to the person you’re in love with, Draco thinks but says nothing.

“It’s been two days, Malfoy,” Harry sighs but doesn’t stop stroking the happily purring shadowcat, who has been curled up in his lap all evening. “When will Shadowclaw allow me to leave?”

“You had to name her, didn’t you?” Draco shakes his head in exasperation.

Harry blushes and shrugs. “Couldn’t help myself.”

“I know, self-control is not your strong suit,” Draco smirks but without malice. “All I’m saying is, that was counter-productive. It just made her need you even more.”

“Oh,” Harry says but doesn’t look as unhappy about it as Draco would have thought. “So… what do we do?”

Draco sighs and closes the book he’s been trying to read to distract himself from Harry’s constant, horribly consuming presence.

“There is nothing to do,” he says. “Shadowcats are extremely anxious creatures, who need love and attention to an extent that it can be considered a physical necessity. They can survive on their own if they have to, but withdraw from them the love they already hold dear and they wither within days.”

“So everyone keeps telling me,” Harry sighs. “But how could I have known I shouldn’t pet her. She just looked so forlorn.”

Draco groans with annoyance. “Let’s not open that discussion again, Potter. You should have known not to just touch a creature you know nothing about. I know we didn’t have the most consistent education in Care of Magical Creatures but that’s just common sense.”

“Since when are you an expert, anyway?” Harry rolls his eyes. “You used to show very little common sense as far as I can recall.”

“Since I got a degree and hands on experience, you twat,” Draco hisses, slamming his book down on the coffee table and getting up from his armchair furiously, but as soon as he stands he has to clutch at his chest and sit back down. When he looks up, Harry is doing the same with a look of intense discomfort but the presence of mind to gently pet the shadowcat, whispering soothingly:

“It’s okay, Shadowclaw. I’m sorry we lost our tempers. We love you very much.”

Eventually the pain begins to fade and the shadowcat settles back into an attentive but slightly calmed silence.

“What was that?” Harry asks.

“They also need harmony and peace around them, primary from the people they are bonded to. Which, if you hadn’t noticed is not our forte. She got upset.”

“So?”

Draco rubs his temples tiredly. “So we need to make sure she feels safe around us. Make sure she knows that our disagreements won’t lead to either of us abandoning her. That’s the only way she will lift the bond.”

“How do we do that?”

“I guess you need to stop being dumb and figure out a way to not hate me,” Draco says bitterly. “So basically, we’re fucked.”

Harry says nothing for a long time, so Draco adds with a sigh: “I already wrote to Granger. She will pick up some of your belongings from your house in the morning.”

It could be worse, Draco reminds himself. For example, Shadowclaw’s magical aura could force them into constant physical contact, or to share a bed, or to be emotionally and physically affected to the point where their minds are not their own. As it is, there is no need for more than staying under the same roof and not show animosity to each other. They got lucky.

Not that it feels like it every time Draco bumps into Harry in a doorway, unaccustomed to anyone being in his home. Or whenever Harry forgets to wear a shirt after showering, equally unaccustomed to sharing a space with another person. It distinctly feels like a curse when Harry keeps hogging the fireplace in the shop to make daily calls to people he actually likes and the sound of his laughter wafts through the house, so Draco makes a point of reminding him he is a guest here and who knows how many people tried in vain to contact Draco while Harry was socialising – not that he really thinks anyone would have, but Harry doesn’t need to know that.

They also bicker over Harry’s outlandish eating habits (at any odd hour, whatever he feels like eating), Draco’s habit of leaving research books lying around everywhere (he can’t help it if Harry pays no attention to where he sits and gets bitten or burned or tickled by enchanted special addition volumes), and about a hundred other things. Their disagreements never turn into full-blown fights anymore, though. Draco doesn’t know if they’ve just grown out of that or if it’s for Shadowclaw’s benefit, but either way, she seems to not mind the bickering as much. In fact, she sometimes purrs happily even as their word fights are going on, almost as if giving voice to Draco’s own secret enjoyment of such verbal sparring with Harry.

He’s missed this, which he would never admit, least of all to Harry.

Interestingly, the only thing they don’t disagree about is Draco’s job. In fact, Harry has come to spending his days not in Draco’s apartment but downstairs with him, chatting with people bringing in injured creatures they chanced upon or listening with unexpected interest as Draco explains the effects of his custom-made potions or care products to customers. Sometimes he just watches Draco tend to the creatures currently in his care, occasionally helping him with small tasks. But a lot of the time all he does is sit and read about Quidditch while Draco is ordering supplies, reading up on treatments, or testing out theories on how to make skittish animals trust him enough to let him help. Shadowclaw is constantly loitering around them, either rubbing against their legs or curling up in their laps as soon as they sit down. Draco is used to her liberally distributed affection by now, but Harry looks completely besotted.

“How lucky for us you got suspended from the Auror Department,” Draco remarks one day when Harry’s intent gaze becomes too much to bear, though he says it with considerably less snark than intended.

“Officially I’m on paid leave,” Harry says with the smallest shrug so as not to disturb Shadowclaw sleeping in his arms. “But it amounts to the same thing, really.”

“Is it true?” Draco asks. “What they wrote.”

Harry is quiet for a while and Draco is about to apologize for even asking when Harry finally says: “It never is in my experience. I had opinions on how things are run at the ministry. Wasn’t too popular with the higher-ups.”

Draco snorts. “You have to admit, that’s less sensational than Saviour of the Wizarding World Blows up Minister of Magic’s Parrot.”

Harry chuckles incredulously. “They wrote that?”

“Apparently all that was left were loose feathers,” Draco smirks. “Though my favourite was Skeeter’s article about some salacious affair you supposedly had with a married man.”

Draco expects Harry to laugh at that but he just goes quiet, then says:

“He wasn’t married. And it wasn’t an affair.”

Draco knows he ought to make a glib remark, something to shift them back into easy bickering, but his chest feels tight at the thought of Harry waking up with a smile next to another man.

“Oh,” is all he manages. Then, because he has no self-preservation, he can’t help but ask: “Is that still going on?”

“What? Oh, Terry? No, we just had sex a couple of times on pub nights.”

Draco nods, tries to pretend he is engrossed in his notes and barely paying attention to the conversation, but the slight grin on Harry’s face tells him he couldn’t pull it off.

“I’m guessing you’re single,” he says in an amused voice that rubs Draco the wrong way.

“Because who could possibly want to be with an ex-Death Eater, you mean?” Draco asks in a low, cold voice and sees in satisfaction that the smile melts off Harry’s face in an instant.

“No, I didn’t mean… just… because of the rescue? You obviously have your hands full with all you do here, I can’t imagine when you’d have time to date.”

“Oh,” Draco says, feeling embarrassed about his outburst. “Yeah. You’re not wrong.”

Harry doesn’t say anything to that, but when Draco glances up, he is smiling again and the warmth of it is entirely too difficult to escape.

The day comes when the Jackalope with the mauled front paw is finally healed enough to be released into the wild again, not a moment too soon as he had been causing havoc, agitating with his sweet, playful nature some of the other inhabitants. Unsurprisingly, Harry adored him, in the past weeks spent a lot of time playing with him and listened very intently when Draco was explaining the magic used to reconstruct the paw. The affection seemed mutual, so Draco agreed to let Harry accompany him to release the Jackalope together.

The field they apparate to is peaceful and full of birdsong and Shadowclaw, who they couldn’t leave behind, is immediately excited at the thought of the hunt. Draco lets her out, knowing she won’t roam too far away from them, it’s not in her nature to. But it does fill him with joy to see her begin to bravely stalk an unsuspecting butterfly.

“Are you sure Jack is ready?” Harry asks with concern in his voice, kneeling by the carrier cage holding the Jackalope.

“Don’t tell me you named him, too,” Draco sighs.

Harry just shrugs, a little embarrassed.

“You know, if you insist on naming the beasts in my care, you’ve got to get more creative than that,” Draco says with exaggerated disapproval. “Jack? I expected more from you than that.”

Harry gives him a lopsided grin and says: “Not everyone can have fancy Latin names, some of us are just plain Jacks.”

Draco just rolls his eyes and kneels down next to Harry to look at the Jackalope. He’s clearly excited from the smells and sounds of the field and keeps pressing his twitching nose between the bars.

“I’m gonna miss him,” Harry sighs.

Draco just smiles. It fills him with so much joy to see this little creature so full of life and excitement and eagerness to get back into the wild. He performs the routine spell to rid him of the human scents clinging to him that might put his own kind off, and opens the cage.

The Jackalope hops out immediately, then stops to look around, nose high in the air, sniffing interestedly. But a few moments later he is on his way, confidently braving the wide world, not even glancing back at them.

Harry sighs next to him, but Draco just keeps smiling to himself.

“Have a good life, buddy.”

“Can I ask you something?” Harry speaks during dinner one night.

Draco glances up from the creamy garlic-y pasta Harry made and which Draco had been determined to criticise but couldn’t help but love.

“Why do you work alone?”

Draco grimaces and puts down his fork. “This may surprise you, Potter, but I’m not the most popular person in the Wizarding World. There aren’t exactly people lining up to be employed by me.”

“Yeah but you’re doing good. Shouldn’t that count for more?”

Draco shakes his head and can’t help a fond smile. “You know, you’re everything you used to be, just… more, somehow.”

“Is that a good thing?” Harry frowns.

“It’s an infuriating thing,” Draco says. “And an admirable thing, too.”

Next day Harry starts asking questions and taking notes and spends all day watching Draco work. He has an obvious affinity with animals, which doesn’t surprise Draco, but he lacks the kind of caution at times very much needed when handling distrustful, wounded creatures.

“How you’re still alive astounds me,” Draco mutters while putting a healing salve on the burn on Harry’s left shoulder, collarbone and the side of his neck. A Firedrake got startled by him and a spark from its tail made Harry’s shirt catch fire.

“Join the club,” Harry laughs, though there is a note of the macabre in his voice. “I’m sorry I fucked up.”

Draco freezes, shocked by the admission and the earnest determination in Harry’s eyes.

“I can do better. I can learn.”

“Why do you want to?”

Harry shrugs. “I don’t want to go back to the Auror Department. I thought I wanted it, and for a while it felt right… but I’m tired. I just want more things in my life that aren’t… horrible.”

“And you want this?” Draco asks, it’s an effort to keep the hope and gut deep need out of his voice.

“Maybe? I don’t know what I want. But I’d like to have… options. I never really used to have those.”

Draco nods. He understands the sentiment more than he cares to admit. He says nothing just goes back to applying the salve, doing his best to ignore the gasps Harry can’t hold back as Draco’s fingers move across his burnt skin.

“So I was thinking,” Draco says one evening as they’re sitting on the sofa, as they do most evenings these days – with him reading, Harry playing a game or watching films on his muggle phone, and Shadowclaw snuggled up between them, sleeping peacefully or demanding cuddles.

“Dangerous,” Harry grins as he glances up from his phone.

Draco ignores the comment and sets his book aside so they can talk. “When you first came to me-“

“And made a complete mess of things,” Harry adds.

“And made a complete mess of things,” Draco agrees wholeheartedly but not without a small smile. “You said you wanted to get your godson a pet. What if you invited him to help at the rescue one weekend? He could get to know all the creatures and learn about taking care of them, learn what kind of responsibility it is. Then, if ever a rescue brought here needs a loving, responsible carer, I’ll know I can trust him.”

“You’d really do that?” Harry asks, eyes wide and excited.

Draco shrugs. “If he’s serious about animals, why not?”

The smile on Harry’s face is bright and it takes Draco’s breath away that he managed to make him look like that. It’s a heady, unfamiliar feeling, to be the cause of joy in Harry and he tries not to get accustomed the feeling too much, knowing it cannot last.

But then Harry softly says: “Thanks. That will mean a lot to him.” And he reaches out to squeeze Draco’s hand and Draco’s heart stutters in his chest.

“You were actually really good at explaining things to him,” Harry says as they are locking up the shop after Teddy’s visit.

“Don’t sound so surprised, Potter,” Draco says gruffly to hide the heat the praise brought to his cheeks.

“No, I mean it. You could be a really good Professor.”

“Yeah right,” Draco says, rolling his eyes. “Who would let me teach their children?”

“I would,” Harry says like it’s that easy.

Draco sighs. “Yes, well, you’re not always the soundest judge of safety, as we have established.”

To his surprise, Harry laughs with genuine joy and shrugs. “You might have a point there.”

It’s been three months and they decide it’s worth testing the boundaries of the bond once again. Shadowclaw is asleep in her favourite spot on Draco’s bookshelf, nestled between two large tomes, so they deem it safe to test for changes without agitating her unnecessarily.

Harry gets to the end of the garden gate before they start feeling the slightest tug in their chest, and he manages to walk all the way to the town centre half an hour away before the tug turns into actual pain.

Which is much better than it was a few weeks ago, but he’s still frustrated when he comes back and they conclude that the bond cast by Shadowclaw still holds.

And Draco makes absolutely sure he looks appropriately disappointed, even though it’s the last thing he feels – he’s gotten too used to Harry’s presence for his own good, just like he feared he would.

“I want to try something,” Harry announces a few days later.

“Okay,” Draco blinks sleepily, still sipping his morning coffee in the kitchen, not awake enough yet for a conversation. He was up most of the night with a teething Viper Toad.

“Come to Grimmauld Place with me with Shadowclaw. Maybe if she sees where I live, if she gets comfortable there, she won’t feel the need to keep us so close together.”

Draco nods and ignores the pang of regret in his chest at the thought of that. “Not a bad idea, but I can’t just leave for a day. There are others here that need me, and as you so astutely remarked once, I have no employees to fill in for me.”

Harry shifts from one foot to the other uncertainly.

“You’re not going to like this but… what if Charlie came over to look after them?”

“Charlie Weasley?” Draco raises an eyebrow. “Does he know anything about beasts that aren’t dragons?”

Harry gives him a pointed look.

“Fine,” Draco rolls his eyes. “But what makes you think he’d even agree to help me?”

“Because I ask him,” Harry shrugs and Draco wonders what it’s like to feel so confident in other people’s love and support. “Also, he’s been recuperating at the Burrow from an injury for two weeks and he’s climbing up the walls from their constant overbearing love. He’ll be grateful for a day surrounded by only creatures he can tend to.”

The house is large and meticulously clean and everything an old wizarding home needs to be, and Draco is struggling to picture Harry in any of the rooms. He watches Shadowclaw explore, obviously feeling safe in this place infused with magic, but it’s not until they go upstairs and into the softly lit living room that she feels properly at home. It’s different here, small and homely and a little less neat, a little more Harry. To the right, the door to his bedroom is ajar and Draco tries and fails not to glance that way periodically, longing filling him too see where Harry usually sleeps. He makes sure to look somewhere else when he hears Harry’s steps on the creaking staircase.

“Where were you?” Draco asks.

“Oh just… had to take care of something…” Harry deflects. “So? What’s the verdict.”

“Well-“

“I know it’s a bit… well, it’s not much,” Harry shrugs but then waits, nervously, as if actually caring about Draco’s opinion.

“It’s…” Draco tastes the word fine in his mouth and hates it. “It’s a mausoleum, Potter. Except the three rooms so actually live in. What a waste.”

“You can tell which rooms I use?”

Draco looks at him like he’s being silly. “Of course. They feel… well, like you. Lived in and loved and the rest is just… kept clean for show. Or out of a misplaced sense of duty. Which is never a good reason for anything, trust me, I’d know. And see, even Shadowclaw can tell.”

They watch her curl up on a sofa by the fireplace, burying her nose in a soft blanket that probably still holds Harry’s scent and fall asleep.

“She likes it here,” Draco says with a note of envy over how freely Shadowclaw can show her need for affection.

“Do you?” Harry asks unexpectedly.

Draco glances at him and is startled to see that Harry looks almost apprehensive, as if his answer mattered somehow.

“Do you want me to?”

“Yeah,” Harry says, a small, almost embarrassed smile playing in the corner of his mouth. “I really do.”

Draco swallows and gathering all his courage asks:

“Why?”

Harry doesn’t answer, but in true Gryffindor fashion, just leans in and kisses Draco.

Draco wakes next morning in Harry’s bed, surrounded by his scent and a sense of belonging he hasn’t felt in more years than he can count. Shadowclaw is sleeping peacefully on the bed next to him where Harry’s warmth is slowly fading from the bedding.

“Hey,” Harry says quietly from the doorway. He is already dressed and holding a cup of coffee that he hands to Draco before kneeling by the bed with a smile.

“Mmm,” Draco groans in pleasure when the scent of strong coffee hits him. “I love you.”

“So you keep saying,” Harry grins and brushes a kiss against Draco’s bare shoulder.

“Shut up, Potter,” Draco grins and tries to hide it by sipping his coffee.

Harry is grinning like there is somehow a second sun in the sky and Draco thinks he could drown in this feeling if he let himself.

“The bond is lifted,” Harry says unexpectedly. “I went outside this morning and even managed to apparate to your shop to check up on Charlie.”

“Oh…” Draco says neutrally, trying not to show his trepidation over what this might mean to them. But Harry must notice because he leans in to kiss Draco’s lips reassuringly and smiles:

“Will you let me show you something?”

It’s incredibly beautiful – more than beautiful. The entire ground floor transformed into a paradise of pastures and mountains and fields, perfect for wounded creatures to convalesce and relearn their skills. It’s powerful magic, age-old magic and Draco feels himself enveloped in its balmy coolness for the first time since he sold the Manor for pittance and used the money for a downpayment on the tiny cottage he turned into his Magical Creature Rescue.

“It’s… stunning,” he gasps. “How did you… when?”

Harry shrugs but looks immensely proud. “I asked the house to arrange it yesterday when I saw Shadowclaw felt comfortable. So it’s not quite finished yet but…”

“So… this means…”

“Oh right,” Harry laughs. “I actually have to say the words, right? I’d really liked it if you moved in with me, Draco. You and Shadowclaw but also, everyone else. Your rescue is… just wonderful. And I want to help, and I want to make it bigger, bring in people so it’s not just you working yourself to the bone. But… first, yeah. I really want you to move in with me. Will you?”

Draco nods, can’t get the word out. Takes Harrys hand, overwhelmed with feeling. But just as they are about to kiss something occurs to him and he looks wide eyed at Harry.

“Wait. Did you say the HOUSE did this?”

Harry laughs, bright and a little awkward. “Well, turns out you’re not the only one with magical entities as friends.”