Chapter Text
If Harry waits to ask, it's because he can't bring himself to fracture the easy rhythm they've fallen into. Exam schedules get passed out, and professors open up hours for personal sessions instead of handing out more assignments. There's just enough time, in between reviewing the theory and practising spells and going to Quidditch games and out to bustling Hogsmeade, to meet Draco in a cold dungeon room by the suit of armour with the chip on its shoulder and warm it up with their bodies. He doesn't have time, Harry thinks, to ask questions.
Besides, Draco is unpredictable. There's no way to know what the answer will be, but that is, unfortunately, part of the charm.
"What happened over the hols?"
Draco's hand stills in his hair, nails just shy of digging in the way Harry likes. He's splayed out on the settee again, Harry sat on the floor facing away, head back, looking at the cold stone above. He doesn't know how long they've been here; Draco walked past him on the way to dinner and his hand caught, just for a second, on Harry's sleeve. They never made it to the Great Hall. Harry's jaw aches from how they've lingered over each other's mouths, and he's still sweating, heart too stubborn to slow just yet. It could have been minutes, or hours.
When Draco's hand starts to move again, Harry twists his head to look at him. He's looking back.
"I already told you, didn't I?" He rolls his eyes at Harry's silence. "Word of my—stunted performance had reached home, so my parents voiced some concerns. A mild disagreement ensued. I left the Manor and spent the rest of break at my great-aunt Celeste's in Corsica. She's a dreadful bore but the weather was pleasant. The end."
"Mild disagreement, was it?"
"We weren't throwing Unforgivables at each other over breakfast, if that's what you're asking."
"It's not," says Harry, "seeing as you can't throw much of anything at the moment." Draco shrugs loosely, as if in agreement. Today, for whatever reason, his nonchalance grates. "Neville's family thought he would turn out to be a Squib. His—uncle, I think, he tossed him off the balcony to see if he couldn't shock him into doing magic."
Draco seems pleased by this revelation. "Funny. But you don't normally need an excuse to try and murder me, do you?"
"I wondered," Harry continues determinedly, "if Lucius didn't have a similar idea."
"You would like that," Draco says, "but I'll have to disappoint you." His hand slows for a second, then resumes tugging, grip tight enough to move Harry's entire head, the way he does when he's on his knees. "They were of the thought that I simply needed an extended vacation. That school might be—exacerbating the situation."
His hand falls away as Harry lifts his head and turns his entire body to face him. "They didn't want you to come back?"
Without his glasses, Draco's face is a pale blur. "No."
"But you did."
"I did," Draco says.
Harry summons his glasses, because he doesn't want to go into this conversation blind. Draco's cool eyes materialise, and Harry's stomach swoops the way it does when a broom first thumps into his hand. Maybe blind would have been better.
"Look," he says, relaxing his face into what he hopes is an earnest sort of expression, "I've been doing some reading, about dormant magic, and this—wasting. You can't destroy magic, right? I mean, that's first-year theory. But, theoretically, isn't it possible that it can go dormant again, because of, dunno, an injury, or something. There's cases of people's magic being unstable for years after they lose a limb, right?"
"You've been doing some reading," Draco says slowly. "Which missing limb of mine are you referring to, Potter?"
"It's an example," Harry says, trying to keep the annoyance at Draco's mocking tone out of his voice. "A lot of other things could cause it. You're not maimed or ill, yeah, but there's injury beyond the physical, isn't there? And—yeah, I know you've done the reading too, so that means you've seen the same stuff I did, but you haven't tried it all, have you? You haven't tried to go to a mind healer."
"Ah," Draco says, and his lip curls up so that one sharp tooth is just visible. "Greengrass."
There's no point in denying it, so Harry ignores him. "It's possible, isn't it? What if that's the reason?"
"What, Potter? That I've lost my magic because I'm sad? "
He's straightened now, and swung his legs off the settee. There's no longer any point where they touch, and Draco has the dismissive air of someone who's done with the conversation. But Harry isn't. "Things can happen when you're not right in the head," he says, and then, can't help it, "and fuck knows you've never been that. Look, if you're—I mean, magic reacts, doesn't it—"
"Not real magic," Draco says.
"Real magic," Harry repeats, watching him belt up his trousers, shoulders tense. "Pureblood magic, you mean."
Draco gives him a disinterested look and shrugs on his cloak. Harry doesn't know when he got to his feet, or how he ended up blocking his way, just that the mild annoyance that's a staple of every interaction with Draco has taken on an unpleasant edge.
"Are you saying," Harry says, "that you believe in the purity—the superiority—of your blood so much that you'd rather stay a fucking Squib than admit that you have the same magic as the rest of us?"
"Get out of my way."
"Even as a Squib you're better than the Mudbloods, is that it?"
If Draco seems surprised at the way Harry says the word, he doesn't show it. His eyes are bright. Harry can't quite believe this is the same boy with the soft mouth he kissed just moments ago, the one who laughed in the middle of it and stroked his hand through Harry's hair. He steps forward now and splays that same hand over Harry's chest. Shoves.
"You don't suck my cock well enough to be afforded the privilege of questioning me, Potter. Move."
Harry shoves him back, but he's expecting it, braces for it, and only staggers back a step. Harry steps back in, closing the nothing distance between them, and gets in his face. "I don't believe it. I don't believe you'd be so fucking stupid."
"Potter—"
"You've grown up with magic," Harry says. "I don't believe you don't care that it's gone."
"Just because your entire self worth is defined by it doesn't mean everyone's is."
Harry has to laugh. "Are you mad? You're the one who thinks Muggles are nothing!"
"I am not," Draco says coldly, "a Muggle."
His mouth is a thin, bloodless line. Harry's hands on his chest put him back one step, then another. "Why are you being stupid about this? Just tell me—I want to understand. Why would you not even want to try—"
"Of course I've tried," Draco spits. "What do you think I've been doing all fucking year? You're not my keeper, Potter. I don't have to inform you of every move I make. Whatever fantasy you've constructed about fucking—Romania and what all this means—"
"You haven't seen a mind healer," Harry says, cutting him off, doesn't want to hear the rest.
"Fuck!" Draco throws up his hands and runs them through his hair. He laughs, a short, ugly thing. "Why do you think I was in bloody Corsica? It didn't work, did it? Nothing fucking worked."
Harry's heart lurches. Everything about the mind healer had made so much sense that he almost couldn't believe the answer was that simple. Sheer pathetic luck , Draco had said to him, once. That's how Harry's lived his life, hasn't he? Getting back up, and getting lucky. What happens if you're just—not?
"Try again," he says, because he hasn't got any other answer. Draco gives him an incredulous look.
"Fuck you."
"Try again," Harry repeats, and his own voice comes back to him as if from very far away. They're shouting, he thinks. "Try again, and again, for the rest of your life if you have to, but don't just roll over and—"
"I can't!" Draco's voice cracks. "I won't. I won't keep failing over and over." His face is flushed, splotches of pink on his cheeks, eyes furious. "Go ahead, Potter. Call me a coward."
"You said it," Harry says, and Draco laughs, bitter.
"I said it. I'll say it. I'm scared. I'm scared of disappointment. I'm scared that the next time I get my hopes up and nothing fucking works, I'm going to—do something—"
He's gripping his forearm with a white-knuckled hand.
"What?" Harry says, his own face hot. "Something dark?" There is silence. Harry fights the urge to hit him. "Right. Yeah. It wasn't about Lucius at all, what you said—about finding another way. That was you, wasn't it?" His throat closes up with righteous anger, the kind he hasn't felt in so long it's almost foreign to him. "Draco Malfoy can't stand to struggle for more than a bleeding minute, crawls right back to the next Voldemort, yeah? You're just like him, then. Always the easy way out."
"I am not—" Draco starts, as though the protest was wrenched out of his throat, and then cuts himself off. His throat bobs, and his eyes are bright, and cold. "There is no way out, Potter. That's what I'm trying to tell you." His hand convulses, still clutching at the Dark Mark like it's an open wound, leaking his lifeblood. "I'm surprised you don't understand. You walked into that forest, didn't you?"
Harry meets his eyes. It's not the same. "It's not the same."
"No, of course not," Draco says, and his smile is mean. "You sacrificed yourself for the greater good. I'm just—accepting what I can't change. What would you call that, then?"
Harry's chest hurts, and it takes him a second to realise it's because he isn't breathing.
"Pathetic," he says, and leaves.
-
Harry Potter <[email protected]>
to Hermione Granger <[email protected]> March 26, 1999, 2:04AM
Dear Hermione,
If you were here, you could tell me the answer. And things wouldn't have gotten so
The computer lab is empty. Harry sits at his usual desk and stares at the cursor blinking for so long his eyes begin to hurt before he gets up. On his way out through the Muggles Studies classroom he runs a hand over the side of the roadster. It doesn't feel quite real, and neither do the stones along the winding staircase up to the tower. He reaches the landing and turns around, goes back down again. Up. Down. Mrs. Norris finds him and hisses until he goes back up, and then follows him to make sure he won't come back down. He doesn't know what time it is when he goes through the portrait, only that the Fat Lady is too deeply asleep to realise that he's given the wrong password.
He won't dream, so he doesn't sleep. There's no window in the dormitory to tell him when it's morning; he stays in the common room and sits on the windowsill. He's not as small as he once was, doesn't fit as comfortably. Things change. The sun rises somewhere else, but the sky brightens just the same. You walked into that forest. You haven't got a clue. He can't remember where he's heard that. If Draco ever said it.
Ron only has to take one look at him. "Come on," he says firmly. "Breakfast."
They go to breakfast. Harry doesn't look at the Slytherin table and it's easy to do since there's such a crowd. It's a miracle he ever saw Draco at all, in between all these people. Lunch. Dinner. He won't look. It's Friday, so in the evening he climbs the spiral staircase up to McGonagall's office for counselling, because he doesn't know what else to do. He takes a seat at her desk this time, and she looks at him over her glasses. Behind her, Dumbledore smiles.
"In spite of the frankly irresponsible way you've handled your studies this year," McGonagall says, "I believe you will score quite well, Mister Potter." Dumbledore claps softly as she steeples her hands in front of her face and studies him. "In Transfigurations, at least, you may expect to pass. With respect to your career, many doors are open to you. You could do almost anything you wanted."
"Yeah," Harry says. "Thanks, professor." And then, because he can't help it: "That's sort of the problem."
McGonagall frowns.
"No," she says. "It is not. It is the opposite of a problem. I would advise you not to go creating trouble where there is none." She gives him a stern look. "Anything you wanted. The questions only you can answer tend to be the easiest ones, in fact."
"Right," Harry says. "I—okay. Yeah."
If it's a question only he can answer, he thinks, and he doesn't know the answer, then no one does. He wants to finish that email to Hermione and ask, but maybe he does know. The map is under his pillow, and blank. He pulls it out just to stare at it, and then puts it away again. His curtains are drawn, imperturbable cast over Ron's bed, and Dean is snoring. Harry knows now how to alter the charm on his canopy to show the part of the sky that he wants, so he searches for the moon. It's full.
The map comes out. D. Malfoy isn't in the classroom. He isn't in the dormitory, either.
He isn't anywhere. Harry cycles through the entire map twice, then once more, in case it didn't understand what he wanted to see. As comprehension dawns it brings with it a sudden rush of fury that jerks him from bed and takes him back the familiar dark corridors of the castle. Coward, he thinks, stomping down to the dungeons, fucking coward, to just leave over a fight, because—what, because Harry had said he was like his father—and pathetic, to give up—nothing untrue, was it? Wasn't he just proving Harry right, running away?
He had gone home, of course. Gone to take the vacation his parents wanted, probably. Harry climbs up another staircase and fights the absurd urge to head to the owlery and send him a letter.
Dear Malfoy, you fucking prick. Come back. I want you.
No one stirs when he crawls back into bed, but the next morning, Ron looks at his red eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose.
"Harry, mate," he says, and nothing else.
They don't have any classes and it's beautiful outside, so he joins Ron and Ginny to go flying over the pitch. The sun warms him and grass has taken over the ground again. Below them, the lake ripples with the wind. Further down the bank from where they are, someone is laughing. They land in the grass and Harry lies back and looks up at the sky—the real sky—and doesn't think about anything at all.
Harry doesn't send any letters.
On Monday morning, as everyone's clearing out of the Great Hall after breakfast, Ron grabs him by the shoulder and sits him down again. His face is grim. When Harry frowns at him, he stands and tilts his head back to look up.
"Let's fix your stupid ceiling, yeah?"
He's rounded up the whole lot of them. Harry hadn't noticed, but Ginny and Dean and Neville all stayed back, along with the usual Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. Luna smiles at him in her placid way, and behind her is Greengrass, sat alone at Slytherin table. Luna's friend—the one whose name Harry still doesn't know—has brought the notes and their books. As he watches the tables clear of food with a pop, and Flitwick hops down from the staff table to stand on the one Harry's sitting at.
"I knew you would do a marvellous job, young man," he squeaks. "You've almost got it, haven't you?"
They've only worked around the edges, and, Harry thinks ruefully, what's most visible is the centre—still a big, gaping hole. But it's true that they've worked out the patterns now, and all that's left is to sort out their casting. Harry doesn't count, but there's over a dozen of them now, surely, and if Flitwick is planning to stay—and from the way he's sat himself on a stack of Luna's textbooks is any indication, he is—then maybe they have almost got it.
"Go on, then," Ron says impatiently. "Where do we start? It's going to be lunch soon."
"You just ate breakfast," Ginny says, disgusted.
"Alright," Harry says. "Uh, thanks for coming, everyone. So far, we—"
Some unnamed thing makes him turn in time to see the great oak doors open again. Draco walks in.
"We—"
The words have dried up in his throat. Draco's stopped by where Slytherin table begins.
"Yeah," Ron says. "Great, I think we all know exactly what to do now, thanks."
He hears Luna pick up the rest of the instructions behind him, and then the chatter as everyone tries to orient themselves into their groups. Draco stays where he is and lets Harry come to him, shoulders back and back straight. Still proud.
"I thought you left," Harry says.
"I did."
He doesn't have his bag with him, and his robes are left open. The crisp white of his shirt catches the rays of sunlight from the massive windows. Where the sun hits his hair, it gives him a halo. "I thought you left for good."
Draco almost smiles. "Why, because you gave me a lecture and called me pathetic? You do suffer under the impression that you have some sort of power over me, Potter."
"My mistake," Harry says. He can feel his heart in his throat, the tips of his fingers. "You don't care what I think, do you?"
Draco's voice is even. "Not one bit."
He doesn't move when Harry steps in. Their feet touch. Behind them, people are moving around in groups to their assigned directions. Ron's been put in with a crowd of sixth year Hufflepuffs who are all trying to explain to him what to do, and they're meant to work on the part of the ceiling under which Harry is stood. If they come any closer they'll see him reach out and knock his hand against Draco's. Leave it there.
Draco is looking at him like he's something strange, and new. Good, Harry thinks. It's only fair if they surprise each other.
"It was just two days, Potter."
"Where did you go?"
He's as pointy as ever, his hair just as soft. The bridge of his nose is pink and raw looking. How did he burn? There's a little scab at the corner of his mouth that looks like he won't let it heal. Harry wants to touch it with his tongue.
"Corsica," Draco says.
It's frustration that tightens Harry's throat. It has to be. He swallows past it. "Why can't you ever just say what you bloody mean?"
"Say what you want to hear, you mean," Draco says, words spilling out of his mouth quickly, like he'd only been waiting for Harry to start. "Say what will make you feel better about wasting your time on me, nevermind that I never consented to it, much less asked for it—"
"Why did you cut your hair?" Harry interrupts.
Draco's mouth snaps shut and forms a flat, stubborn line. He looks at some point over Harry's shoulder, and then at the ceiling, like Harry's not turned entirely to him, eyes fixed on his face. Like this, the long line of his neck is begging to be touched. Harry wants to pull his own hair out. He wants to strangle him.
"You're exactly right about me, Potter," Draco says softly. "I am just as you think. I haven't changed."
"Well, I have," Harry says. "I've changed. When I think about you, I—-" The words slip away under the light of Draco's eyes, the delicate purple bruising that adorns them. He hasn't slept. Harry hasn't, either. "I think about you." He forces the words out, knows they're small, knows they sound stupid in front of Draco's calculated argument, whatever he's going to throw at him next. "I want to keep thinking about you."
I want to understand, is what he means. I want to peel you apart. I want to know you.
Maybe he says it out loud.
"You won't like what you find," Draco says.
"Coward," Harry says, what he's been thinking for days, furious at him and at himself. Draco's chin lifts that much higher.
"Never claimed otherwise," he says pleasantly. "You won't find any trace of that Gryffindor foolishness in me, Potter."
"But you could," Harry says.
"Could what?"
"Claim otherwise," Harry says. "Be brave."
Their fingers catch. Harry slides his hand up until it can curl around Draco's, his thumb at the centre of his palm. He digs in once, and again. Press. Anybody could see, he thinks. He wishes they would.
"Hey, Harry," comes from behind him. Harry turns to see Ron's scowling face. He and the rest of his group have shifted along the length of the ceiling until they reached them. He gives Draco a suspicious look. Harry wants to tug their hands out in front of them so they're in full view. "Malfoy," Ron says. "What are you doing here?"
Press. Draco's eyes flutter, just for a second, before his face smooths out again.
"Weasley," he says blandly. "What does it look like? I'm helping." He's still looking at Harry. "Weren't you the one who sent the invite?"
Ron says something about how the invite was for Greengrass, not you, and, just stay out of our way, Malfoy, before going back to the group. Harry barely hears him. If he looked up, he'd see that the last round of casting has charmed more of the ceiling, and a corner of the sun has begun to shine through, crowning a sky that's robin's egg blue.
Harry isn't looking up.
"I thought of something you could do," he says, "in Romania. Squib friendly." Draco's mouth starts to curl. "Dragons tend to make a mess, you know."
Draco's smile is as bright as the sun. Blinding. Harry keeps his eyes open and stares right at it.