Chapter Text
He didn’t seek Malfoy out after that but kept to himself, scribbling on his parchment whenever he had a minute to spare. Ron started to complain he was worse than Hermione.
At the day of their next detention, he found himself alone with Miss D and it looked like Malfoy wouldn’t show up but at the last minute he slipped through the door and stiffly sat down on the edge of the seat, taking care not to look at Harry.
“So” Miss D said gently. “How did you both do this time.”
Malfoy threw an empty parchment on the table. “This is exactly everything Potter and I have in common on this front” he said.
Miss D nodded. “Do you agree Harry?”
Before he had time to compose a reply Malfoy rose and left the room.
Miss D didn’t try to stop him but remained in her chair, facing him. “I understand talking about the war is painful, it obviously is to Draco. Is it to you, Harry?”
“Eum” he said his eyes flickering between the door and her. “I guess.”
“Would you like to talk about what you wrote?”
He stared down on his list. “Actually, do you mind if I go and find him?”
She smiled. “Be my guest.”
It was easier this time, he’d had sense enough to bring the map and soon located one dot heading to the dungeons. There was no chance for him to catch up but he followed the trail to the Slytherin common room, finding something promising.
A frightened looking first year (he assumed, they younger ones were all so small) opened the door to the Slytherin common room.
“I’d like to speak to Gregory Goyle please” he said and when the kid hadn’t done more than ogle him for the next five seconds he pushed through the door with a “thanks” and walked into the room he hadn’t seen since second year. It was all familiar but instead of a twelve-year-old Malfoy slouching on the couch, there were Ron and Goyle bent over a chart, looking way too complicated for the hefty Slytherin to fathom but perhaps he was being prejudiced because Goyle kept pointing at the numbers.
“What about this one?”
Ron nodded along. “Yeah, maybe. It all comes down to them not losing with more than a hundred points to Puddlemere, but if they don’t there’s a good chance they’ll stay in the league, they might not even end up in the bottom, more like second or third from last.”
“Surely not third?”
Ron sighed. “No, probably not, but still, one must hope.”
Harry grinned, taking in the scene and then remembering what he was supposed to be doing. He cleared his throat.
“What are you doing here?” Goyle blurted out, but it wasn’t unfriendly, more surprised.
“Came to talk to Draco” he said, as if it was an everyday business of his.
“Draco?” Ron mouthed behind Goyle’s back.
“Yeah.” Harry offered an apologetic shrug. Ron was going to have a hard time with this, but one thing at a time.
“He went to our room” Goyle said. “I could go and ask him but he looked like he…”
“No need” Harry hurried to the dormitories before anyone could stop him.
He’d spent enough time staring at the map in sixth year to know which room was Malfoy’s. There’d been some change of furnishing since then, what once had been a five person dorm now only held two beds. He didn’t need to consult the map to know the one with the drawn curtains was Malfoy’s.
He stood before the drapery, wondering what the equivalent of knocking would be. “Er Draco?” he tried.
“What the f*ck are you doing here Potter?” came an angry voice. Harry decided to take that as a welcome and pushed the curtains apart.
Malfoy was lying on his bed, scowling.
“You can tell Miss D I’m not going back” he said, glaring at Harry through his fringe.
Harry shrugged. “That’s not why I’m here.”
“Why are you then?”
Harry kicked off his shoes and sat by the foot of the bed, facing Malfoy. “Wanted to talk to you, seemed we left some things hanging last time.”
Malfoy gave him a suspicious look but chose not to address what had nearly happened outside Miss D’s office before their last detention. “You’re in my bed” he said instead.
“I’d like to be” Harry said boldly.
“I’m not getting off with you Potter, find someone else to work through your gay crises with.”
He chose to let it slide. “OK. Let’s talk about the assignment then.”
“There’s absolutely nothing to talk about on that matter, as you very well know.”
“That’s funny” Harry said bringing out his parchment. “I’ve got quite a long list here.”
“I very much doubt that.”
He shrugged and began to read. “We were both in the war.”
Malfoy snorted. “Right, zooming out.”
“Mm, surprised you didn’t manage to write anything at all. Like, none of us slayed any pink unicorns during the war.” He raised an eyebrow in an attempted impression of Miss D. “Agree Malfoy?”
“No, surprisingly enough, I didn’t slay any extinct species no matter their color.”
You’re the one who though me a killer. He swallowed the words but glared at Malfoy who glared back. This wasn’t going very well.
“Didn’t think you did Malfoy” he finally said in what he thought was a disarming tone and looked down on his parchment. “We both survived.”
Obvious as the statement was with both of them sitting there breathing just fine, the words still felt somewhat loaded considering how very close Malfoy had come to not surviving. Worried he’d take it as Harry trying to extract credit for saving him from the fire, he hurried on with “we’ve both cast unforgiveables.”
That caught Malfoy’s attention, he stared at Harry intently. After being ignored for the past week it felt like balm for his soul.
“Which one did you use?”
“Same two as you did.” He went on to tell him about throwing an imperio at Bogrod in Gringotts and then crucioing Amycys Carrow.”
“And it worked?”
Harry nodded. “That time it did. I’d tried it before but it didn’t really take.”
“I don’t think mine ever did, not in the full extent at least.” Malfoy was eyeing him as if he was something rather peculiar.
“You have to really mean it. That time I was angry enough, which I guess was a good incentive. It doesn’t work when all you feel is fear or shock or…” He trailed off and closed his eyes for a brief moment, recalling fruitlessly casting the spell at Bellatrix. When the pain he still felt at Sirius dying threatened to overwhelm him he forced his focus back to Malfoy.
“I mean, it was obvious you didn’t want to do it when you were forced to torture Rowle.”
“How do you know about that?” Malfoy asked sharply.
He hadn’t meant to say it but once the words were out there was no way of denying them.
“I saw it.”
“I should hardly think so.”
Harry shrugged. To hell with it, he thought, let Malfoy think him a nutter. “I had this weird connection with Voldemort where I sometimes had visions, as if I was looking through his eyes. It happened often enough the past year. I saw him forcing you to crucio Rowle after we had escaped him and Dolohov. I saw a lot of other things too, it was never a pleasant sight.”
Malfoy stared at him with his mouth open. “f*ck Potter.”
“Yeah.”
No one said anything for a few beats and Harry cleared his throat, moving on with his list.
“We’ve both used your wand.”
Malfoy went back to scowling.
“Sorry” Harry said with a shrug and read on. “We were both masters of the elder wand.”
“That’s a myth.”
“It worked didn’t it? How else do you think I could have defeated him with an expelliarmus?”
Malfoy snorted. “That was an extraordinarily stupid thing to do.”
“One might say it was a bold move” Harry suggested with a grin.
Malfoy snorted again.
“But it worked. Thanks to you disarming Dumbledore and me winning your wand. So I guess I’m not that sorry.”
“Stealing” Malfoy corrected him. “Seems very arbitrary if all one has to do is wriggle it out of someone’s hand to become the master”.
“So you do think it’s true.”
“I said it was a myth, not that I didn’t believe in it.”
His words had Harry smile.
“What?”
“Sounds like something Dumbledore might have said.”
Malfoy looked away, staring at something in the distance which seemed to be his move whenever he got uncomfortable, going blank and waiting for the moment to pass. This time Harry didn’t allow it but skipped ahead on his list since they were on the subject.
“We were both at the astronomy tower the night Dumbledore died.”
Malfoy kept eyeing the drapery with an unfocused gaze but there was no doubt he’d heard him, his whole being had gone tense at the mention of the late headmaster and his fingers clasped at the bedspread. Harry resisted an impulse of reaching forward to gently pry his hands open but remained where he was, taking care to keep his voice calm, as if approaching a frightened animal.
“I know you didn’t want to kill him. I know you wouldn’t have done it.”
It helped little, Malfoy was still sitting stiff as a poker at the bedhead.
“I would have spoken for you if there’d been a trial.”
He hadn’t needed to, the Wizengamot had made a unilateral decision that no one who’d been underage or attended Hogwarts at the time of the war should be prosecuted and all the sanctions they came down with for those who’d been reported was a general recommendation they’d complete their education at Hogwarts. Given that the proclamation came early in the trial process, at a point when Harry spent most of his time either attending funerals or puking his brains out in loo, he hadn’t given it much thought and his words were somewhat a modified truth. Still, he was sure he would have testified in Malfoy’s favor, no matter how much a git he’d found him at the moment.
He'd said it to bridge the gap between them but it seemed to have the opposite effect.
“Bet you would have loved that Saint Potter” Malfoy spat, proving he was still a bit of a git.
“Excuse me for not wanting you to go to prison” Harry bit back.
“There’s no end to your generosity, is there? I bet you expect me to feel all grateful. I bet you’re sorry you didn’t get to save me one more time so you could really rub it in my face.”
It was a bit like being back at the start of term. He reminded himself of what Hermione had said about shame being hard to handle and that he ought to thread gently here, still it was impossible not to rise to the bait at all. Malfoy always got under his skin.
“I have not been rubbing it in your face.”
“It’s not like you need to, you just strut around the halls looking all smug while everyone worships you.” Malfoy glared at him, his cheeks flushed and eyes alive.
Harry wondered how it was possibly to want to punch someone in the face and snog them stupid at the same time. The will to do the latter was somewhat stronger and he forced his temper down.
“Not quite everyone I think” he said, raising his eyebrows at Malfoy.
“No, not everyone” he agreed.
“Refreshing as that is, it’d be kind of nice if you could just be a tiny bit less of a twat.” He meant to sound playful but wasn’t sure how he came across, Malfoy still had a sour look about him.
“Well, since your holiness asks...”
He sighed. “You don’t owe me anything Malfoy. And you of all people should know I’m no saint.”
“Oh, I definitely know. But since the rest of the wizarding world seems to be laboring under that illusion, one had better comply.”
Harry said that compliant was the last thing Malfoy was. Perhaps he took it as a compliment because he didn’t argue back. “Whatever, are we done here, Potter?”
He looked at his parchment. “Nope. I’m going to keep reading.”
“Of course you are.”
“We were both forced to perform tasks there was no way out of.” He watched Malfoy intently as he said it, thinking this was perhaps where their paths really began to intertwine.
“I never wanted it, the savior part. I was singled out because of the prophecy. Marked by him.”
“I wanted it” Malfoy said rather aggressively.
“I know.” He had heard Malfoy bragging on the train after all and maybe a part of him actually had wanted it at the time, though in hindsight it seemed more like Malfoy trying to convince himself.
“There were times I thought I wanted it too, to get revenge or simply to have him gone. But then reality kicked in, of what it all meant and the realization I couldn’t walk away from it. If I’d had the option I’d have been happy to let someone else deal with him. Like an adult.” He felt grim as he said the last words.
“I mean, Dumbledore was brilliant” he went on. “Witty, kind, a real mastermind. But he was also cruel. Did you know it was he who came up with the greater good business, not Grindelwald?”
Malfoy made a non-committal grunt. The contents of Skeeter’s biography was more or less common knowledge by now, yet he seemed reluctant to say much on the subject of Dumbledore. Harry didn’t push him but trailed on.
“He claimed he regretted that, but he really stuck to it to the end, to get Voldemort out of the way no matter what sacrifices had to be made along the way. For the greater good.”
He was feeling a little sick but ignored his intestines twitching.
“I heard him offering to help you in the tower. It was a bloody joke, there was no way he could have gotten you out of there by then. He’d known for months what Voldemort was forcing you to do. He could have helped you ages before that, but he needed you to try and fail. Just like he needed me to think I had to die.”
The last words came out frail and crooked. He wanted to look at Malfoy, to see if he was getting across, wanted to say something about how he got what Malfoy had been through. Not all of it, maybe not even most of it, but that there was a crucial part that he could relate to and that maybe Malfoy was the only one who could get what he’d felt as he’d walked into the forest, but no words came to him, only the feel of moss under his feet, the smell of pinetrees, geranium and approaching death, a glade filled with enraged voices, pleas and mad laughter that suddenly stopped as he became visible.
Something was pushed into his hands. He stared at it, recognizing it as the pewter cauldron Malfoy used in potions.
“If you’re going to throw up, I’d rather you didn’t on my bedspread.”
Realizing he was only seconds away from doing just that, he gripped the edges of it so hard his knuckles whitened and forced the images out of his mind. An optimistic part of him had thought he was done with this. Since the detention when they’d talked about the half blood prince’s book, he hadn’t felt the urge to throw up but now he was overcome by a familiar dizziness.
“Try focus on your breaths.”
He looked up at Malfoy, it was a bad move, his stomach seemed to take it as an invite to turn itself inside out and he instantly looked down, setting his eyes on a small dent at the bottom of the cauldron.
“Count your inhales and exhales.”
“What?”
“Something my mother used to say.” Malfoy sounded somewhat embarrassed. “It helps. A bit.”
“Yeah?”
It was the first time he had talked about his seizures. Mrs Weasley had been there to stroke his back a few times when he was sickening up at the Burrow, but she had her own grief to deal with. Ron and Hermione had known he got them, just like he knew about them fainting and sleepwalking. They’d never spoken about it though but simply accepted it as some newly acquired post-war quirks.
“Do you get sick too?” he asked Malfoy.
“Panic attacks.”
“Oh.”
He didn’t know what was more bizarre, Malfoy telling him or the off-handed way he said it, as if manifestations of anxiety were no less expected from Hogwarts students these days than belonging to a house or attending a set of lessons. In a way it wasn’t, he assumed.
The breathing thing helped. He soon lost count of his inhales and exhales but concentrating on filling his lungs with air made his stomach settle.
“Thanks.” He pushed the cauldron towards Malfoy.
“I assume you’re going to keep reading that godforsaken thing?”
“Might as well” he muttered, although it wasn’t exactly going as planned. He’d hoped to have Malfoy looking at him the way he had when they’d last stood outside Miss D’s door, like a predator ready to eat him whole, not eyeing him with this mix of pity and reluctance.
“Better hold on to it then.”
“Suppose.” He twirled the cauldron in his hands, moving on to the next thing on his list.
“Our actions in the war were based on saving the ones we loved.” He paused, meeting Malfoy’s eyes. “It’s what kept me going. Not good and evil.”
“Right” Malfoy snorted, but his voice was softer now, less edgy. “I’m sure you never thought of yourself as on the good side. More like two quidditch teams fighting for the cup, weren’t we?”
Harry wanted to ask if Malfoy had though of it as good and evil or what words he would have chosen to define his side, and if there had been a point when he no longer thought of it as his. He didn’t, knowing Malfoy wouldn’t be ready for that conversation in a long time and he wasn’t ready to get kicked out of bed just yet.
He simply shrugged. “Of course I thought Voldemort evil, he killed my parents. But it’s really an abstract concept. I’ve seen people I’d thought good turn bad, and the other way around. I’ve seen cowards turn brave and the brave subsiding to cowardice. In the end what mattered was ending the war before I lost any more people I cared about.”
Their faces flashed before him. Sirius – the closest thing he’d had to family-, Lupin and Tonks – swept away before their lives together were about to start, Dobby – growing cold in his arms, Fred – his last laugh etched to his face meanwhile George had not laughed since.
The expected sickness didn’t come but the world clouded before him. Was he about to pass out? That sure was a new one. He blinked a few times and watched a colorless drop hit the bottom of the cauldron, soon followed by a string of others. He stared at them in confusion before he realized he was tearing up and furiously rubbed at his eyes with his sleeve.
Crying in front of Malfoy definitely hadn’t been his on his to do list. Breathing deeply wasn’t as efficient this time but he stuck to inhaling sharply and staring into the debts of the cauldron, not ready to face Malfoy anytime soon.
Minutes passed before he felt confident he was dried up and even longer before he trusted his voice to hold.
“So I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t blame you for trying to keep your parents alive.” It’s what he’d intended to say with his statement before he’d made a fool out of himself. He risked a quick glance at Malfoy, expecting more pity but he looked rather crestfallen.
“I…I don’t…know, I…” for once he seemed unable to find the words and about as reluctant to look at Harry’s face as he’d been at the manor. Years ago, he would have mocked him for his tears but now it seemed to leave him lost.
“If I knew it’d shut you up I would have done this in front of you a long time ago.” It was a bad joke, he didn’t blame Malfoy for not responding.
“Maybe you should opt for a sectumsempra” he went on, thinking time would have made tragedy resolve into comedy.
“Potter” Malfoy groaned, sounding pained.
Harry groaned too, inwardly, cursing his habit of speaking before thinking but then Malfoy let out an “idiot” and he felt a little better.
Spent and eager to be done, he hurried through the rest of his statements without elaborating, leaving for Malfoy to interpret their meaning.
We’ve both watched people die
We lost people we cared about
We’ve done things we regret
We’ve hurt each other
We’ve saved each other’s lives
Not until he got to the last one did Malfoy speak. “If you’re talking about what happened at the manor, that’s not nearly the same.”
“Of course it’s not the same, just as breaking someone’s nose isn’t the same as nearly making someone bleed to death.”
“But…”
“It still counts, Saint Malfoy.”
“But…”
“Hey, leave off my butt.” He nudged Malfoy with his foot. For now, he added in his mind.
A flicker of a smile played over Malfoy’s lips but it soon died and they sat in silence, raw and rattled.
Harry wished he hadn’t made such a long list. Every piece on it would have called for several therapy session on its own under professional care. To plough through them all off at once with Malfoy was probably as wise as taking a quick-spell mental health course. He felt positively drained and Malfoy looked equally rattled but at least he wasn’t telling Harry to f*ck off but lazed against the headbored, carefully eyeing him.
“Can I come up to you?” he dared.
Malfoy shrugged, which he chose to take as encouragement and shuffled to the head of the bed, settling next to him. He held out the cauldron. “Do you want me to scourgify it?”
Malfoy took it from his hands and placed it on his bedside table. “Nah, imagine the kinds of magical concoctions I’ll be able to brew now that I have saviour tears.”
Harry buffed his shoulder and chose to remain with his arm pressed against Malfoy’s, warm and solid.
“Don’t get too close. Evil here, remember.”
He sighed. “If you’d listened to a word I’ve said, you’d know I don’t think you are.”
“You’ve been babbling for hours Potter, you couldn’t possibly expect me to keep up with all that.”
“Git” Harry said, rather fondly.
“You’re a git.”
“Yeah” he smiled. “It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, we’re not very different. You get me, Malfoy, you always have.”
Their eyes met for a second and something passed between them.
“That all then?” Malfoy indicated the parchment.
It was. Harry rolled it up and put it aside. “Only…there’s one more thing. We’re both attracted to each other.”
Trolls and basilisks be damned, he thought. Remaining in bed next to Malfoy instead of sinking through the floor after uttering those words was definitely the most Gryffindor thing he’d ever done.
“That doesn’t have anything to do with the war” Malfoy mumbled and Harry drew confidence from him not denying it.
“No” he agreed. “That one is very much about the present. And also, we both really like to kiss each other at the moment.”
He was probably wrong. Malfoy didn’t seem like romance was on his mind, where he was sitting with his arms tightly folded across his chest and a gloomy look to his face. His heart sank under the scrutinizing stare but then Malfoy muttered “oh, f*ck it” and hauled him in, bringing their lips together fiercely.
It was hardly the best kiss he’d had, their teeth clashed painfully as their mouths collided and although he should have seen it coming, he wasn’t ready for another tongue in his mouth and choked on his own saliva but he grabbed on to Malfoy for dear life in case the idiot was to change his mind and after a while they got the hang of it.
He slowly edged down the bed and Malfoy followed, laying half on top of him, his mouth getting eager. This, he thought, was what it was like being kissed. Not that he hadn’t made out with people before but he liked to think it had been on his initiative or that he’d at least taken as much as he’d given, but this was lying down and letting Malfoy have his way with him. He would have been happy to do it all day.
“Draco?” came Goyle’s concerned voice from a distant planet.
“Yes?” Malfoy broke away, not looking half as ruffled as Harry felt.
“Just wanted to check that you’re OK”
“I’m fine” Malfoy called back, hint of impatience to his voice. Harry couldn’t agree more and wanted nothing rather than Goyle to get out of the room and slam the door shut so that they could get back to business but he seemed to be lingering outside the draping.
“You didn’t finish Potter off, did you?”
“No” Malfoy said, “not yet”. He watched Harry with a feral grin which had him thinking that this whole gay thing was going to be rather interesting.
“Harry?” came Ron’s exasperated voice. “Are you in bed with Malfoy?”
Malfoy sighed and edged away from him, as if he expected him to barge out of there. Harry sighed too, this wasn’t really how he wanted Ron to find out but there was no turning back now. He looked up at Malfoy, holding his gaze. “Yes” he replied.
