FIC: Harry Potter Gives a Shit (Harry/Draco) - Part 3

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Title: Harry Potter Gives a Shit
Author: talithan
Prompt: 42
Adapted from: Queer as Folk
Pairing: Harry/Draco, Harry/Others
Word Count: ~58,000 words
Rating: NC-17
Contains (Highlight to view): * drug and alcohol abuse, bisexuality (and accordingly, references to het sex), elements of PTSD*
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: Many, many thanks to 9fn432 for the beta and reassurance (particularly in that final stretch!), to E for the feedback and encouragement, and to L for being my sounding board and assuring me I could do this. You all were invaluable and I truly could not have pulled this off without you ♥ Endless thanks to the lovely mods for their patience with me and their generous extensions as I completed this monster of a story, and for running this wonderful fest!

Also, an enormous thank you to ashiiblack for this prompt! I was immediately intrigued by it—primarily because I initially couldn’t imagine how to reconcile the Brian and Justin characters with Harry and Draco in an EWE scenario, which of course meant I had to try to figure out how to do so. The preference for EWE over AU and the request (requirement, even) that one of them be an Auror shaped this fic the most. Because of those factors, this adaptation is a bit loose, though all of does have its roots in the plot and characters of QaF. I hope you like it!

(The title?)

Summary: “Where are you headed?”

“No place special,” Draco fumbled, and flushed further.

But then:

“I can change that,” said Harry Potter.





Part II



PART 3: Coming and Staying

Draco wakes up to the sound of humming.

It isn’t a tune he recognises, but it’s upbeat, and it makes him want to sit upright and join in. He can’t. He finds he can’t move much at all, except to part his lips a bit and start to squint as he tries to open his eyes. There isn’t anything holding him down or restricting his movement—he simply can’t seem to muster up the energy for it. He tries to turn his head towards the humming, but the effort is draining, and he settles for focusing on the eye-opening thing. He’s thankful for the impediment when the light starts to hit his pupils between his eyelashes; it’s harshly bright, and all of it at once would likely be too much. As his lids slowly comply, the light comes in bit by bit.

He can’t make anything out at first, only a lot of white. Then he realises he’s looking at the ceiling, and he would have to turn his head to see anything else.

The woman—he knows it’s a woman—is still humming, and the sound is getting further away.

Draco pulls every last bit of energy he can manage, feeling as though he’s sucking all of it from his edges to his core, and groans. Without help from his mouth, he can’t form words, but he hopes the sound will be enough to keep the woman from leaving. It doesn’t hurt. He isn’t in pain, only a state of utter fatigue. But even this small groan, far quieter than how loud he felt it should have been, takes so much out of him that he can’t help closing his eyes again, needing the warm, dark comfort of sleep.

It takes a moment for them to close, and in that moment he sees the woman above him, looking down with a confusing mix of excitement and concern. For a second she looks like a warped version of his mother, with larger eyes, a narrower jaw, and all of Narcissa’s neat precision ripped away. Then she is a dark blur, and then only her voice, softly saying his name.






The second time Draco wakes up, a pair of blue eyes stare down at him. He thinks they are Astoria’s, and he thinks he is dreaming.

“Draco?”

The voice is familiar, and not only because it is the same voice he heard when he last woke. He can’t place it at first, and as the face around the eyes comes into focus, he can’t initially place it either.

“Draco,” she says again, no longer a question as she looks down into his fully open eyes. “Draco, I know you feel very tired. Don’t try to move, or speak, unless you feel you absolutely must.”

He gives her a slow blink, the only acknowledgement he can manage.

“You were hurt, Draco, but you’re safe now, and recovering well. It’s very good that you’ve woken up. It is going to take some time for your energy to return, but now that you’re awake, we can work on doing everything we can to facilitate that process.”

He blinks again, hoping she understands that he understands.

“You’ve been asleep for almost two months, Draco. Your friends have been very worried about you. How would you feel about seeing them?”

Draco blinks as affirmatively as he can.

“I’ll let them know you’re awake,” she says with a warm smile.

She turns, starting to walk away. Draco needs her to stop; he needs her to explain why he has slept so long, why he feels so tired.

“Wait,” he says. His voice is very quiet and very hoarse, but she hears him.

“Draco?”

“What happened?” he asks, even more quietly, but as she returns to his bedside, sleep is already overtaking him.






He doesn’t know how long it is before he next wakes—an hour, or days. But when he opens his eyes again, his mother and Astoria are there, sitting in a pair of chairs pulled up next to his bed. They have been talking to each other, but now their attention immediately turns to him.

“Luna,” Narcissa calls, “he’s awake!”

Luna Lovegood—the woman who was here before, both times.

He hears her approach. “Would you like to sit up, Draco?”

He blinks, and she helps him into a seated position, supporting his back with several pillows.
“We know you’re very tired,” Astoria says gently, “and we know you can’t exert yourself too much. We can go whenever you need us to.” He blinks, and she smiles a bit sadly.

“Draco, do you want to know what happened?” his mother asks.

He blinks again.

The three women exchange glances, all looking very serious. The consensus seems to be that Lovegood will start, but it takes her a moment, as if she has to find her words.

“The spell that hit you was a defensive spell designed to temporarily incapacitate an assailant,” she begins. “Sedare. It restrains magical and physical energy. I’m sure you know it from your training. I am also sure you know that its effects typically only last minutes, hours at most. What hit you was magnified in a way that no one has ever seen before, and at first we were afraid that its effects would be permanent. Your energy, as you are no doubt aware, continues to be at extremely low levels, but it has been increasing since you first woke up, and I’m optimistic that with a combination of magical and physical therapy you will be able to make a full recovery.”

They sit in silence as they let Draco process this information. His mother looks as if she might cry. She looks as if she has cried often, for a while.

After a minute, Astoria can no longer contain herself. “It was Peakes,” she says quietly. “Peakes cursed you.” She laughs humourlessly. “Except he didn’t curse you, so he’s gotten away with it.”

“The trial was two weeks ago,” Narcissa says.

“Hermione tried to convince them it was an attack, but he claimed self-defence and won,” Astoria says bitterly. “They let him graduate. He attacked you, and now he’s an Auror.”

They stay a while longer, but the mood is so solemn it’s overwhelming, and eventually Draco closes his eyes. Narcissa and Astoria each kiss him on the cheek before leaving. He doesn’t go back to sleep, though. He goes over what Lovegood and Astoria told him, over and over.

Peakes did it. He found a way to take Draco out of the picture without a single consequence to himself. Graduation has come and gone, and Draco is not an Auror. He is in hospital and, regardless of Lovegood’s optimism, may never be able to perform magic again. Or walk, or fuck, or feed himself, or even have a conversation at normal speed and volume.

He was always afraid that the world that had started to accept him would turn on him, would change its mind and decide he wasn’t actually good enough after all. He didn’t think one person could do it. He didn’t know that a single person’s hatred of him would be enough to remove him. He didn’t know the Wizarding World’s apathy toward him stretched far enough to allow this to happen. In his nightmares, everyone would band together against him in a raging mob and remove him by force.

This feels worse.

Granger and Ginny come a few hours later. It seems Lovegood has spoken to them, as neither brings up what’s happened. They only mention it indirectly, saying they’re glad to see him finally awake. Instead, they turn the conversation to what he’s missed in the past two months. He learns that the Harpies have been doing well so far in the season, that Granger and Weasley have decided on a September wedding, that George and Angelina are expecting their second child while Percy and Audrey are expecting their first.

He learns that Harry hasn’t come to see him once.

He has to ask. Neither of them mentions Harry, even as they detail the lives of everyone else they know, so eventually Draco forces out a hoarse, “Harry?”

“He’s been busy,” Ginny says generously, though she still sounds a little angry about it. Granger looks furious. Draco knows there’s something they aren’t saying, but he doesn’t have the energy to ask, and he is afraid of what they might tell him.

When they leave, Draco falls asleep, and he next opens his eyes eighteen hours later.

There is a week of this, of near-constant sleep interrupted by brief visits full of pitying looks. Visits that only serve to exhaust him, sending him back into hours of sleep. He reaches the point of being able to carry on a conversation, but movement is still difficult, and he is still unable to feed himself. Everyone that visits looks at him like a broken thing.

On the eighth day, Astoria comes for the third time. When Lovegood ushers her out after only ten minutes, telling her he needs his rest, Draco reaches his limit.

“Please,” he says, slowly and carefully, “I want to go home.”

“I can Floo your mother. She’ll have you settled at home by supper.”

“Not the Manor.”

“Your mother has requested that you be released to her care, once the hospital sees fit to release you. I don’t think you’re ready to go, but if you don’t want to be here, you can go home as long as you return for therapy.”

He knows she doesn’t say it, knows she probably didn’t even think it, but all Draco hears is that he is no longer wanted at the Burrow. Molly and Arthur didn’t mind having him around when he was on his way to becoming a productive member of society, but he’s broken now. He no longer has anything to offer. His mother is the only one who will take him.

Lovegood is giving him her intense stare, he can feel it. He doesn’t want to see it.

“Do you want me to Floo your mother?” she asks.

“Just let me leave. I don’t need help.”

“Yes, Draco, you do need help. As the Healer responsible for your return to health, I cannot allow you to make yourself ill by refusing necessary assistance. Ideally, you will remain in this hospital until you are fully recovered, but if you wish to leave, you must be with a caretaker of some sort, and you will return here every day for physical and magical therapy.”

She pauses for acknowledgement, but he is silent.

“Do you understand me?”

He nods.

“Do you want to go home?”

“No.”

He tries to focus on recovery. Most of his time is spent alone or with only Lovegood, as she works with him on exercises meant to help him start moving again. She’s referred to magical therapy many times, but for the moment everything they do targets only his physical energy. She doesn’t say anything about it, but he can’t help assuming she doesn’t think he’s ready to work on magic yet. He tries not to let it bother him.

Even outside of their exercises, he does what he can. He starts to feel noticeable shifts in his energy and tries to figure out what helps and what hurts. Now that talking is less difficult, conversation actually seems to increase his vitality, particularly with Ginny and Astoria. Eating—or rather, drinking the liquid meals that Lovegood provides, through a straw—drains him, as his body works to digest and absorb the nutrients. Movement drains him the most, but it’s also the most helpful for his physical improvement. He tries to do his exercises after visits, when his strength is up.

It’s difficult, though, to want to recover when there doesn’t appear to be anything to recover for. No one says it explicitly, but it’s clear that being an Auror is not an option anymore, not until (unless) he fully recovers. Even what Lovegood would consider to be full recovery would not be enough to be an Auror, which requires fast reaction time, strong magic, and a level of physical strength.

Privately, he motivates himself with the thought of seeing Harry. If Harry won’t come to him, well, Draco will just have to go find him.






It’s another week before he learns anything more about what happened. About his attack. Lovegood does not seem to have any intention of giving him any more information; her only involvement is helping him recover from the spell itself. Ginny seems to understand that talking to her brings his spirits up, and so she avoids any discussion of it. His mother is too sad to talk about it, and Astoria too angry.

Granger, though—Granger doesn’t want to avoid it. She comes in one day in the late afternoon, pulls a chair up beside his bed, and says, “You should know.”

“What?”

“You deserve to know how it happened. It’s so bloody stupid that everyone is trying to protect you from it. Keeping things from you doesn’t protect you from anything.”

He can tell she has been wanting to say this for a while, perhaps since her first visit. “All right, then tell me.”

“What do you remember?”

He’s been thinking about this a lot, in all the time he’s been alone and too tired to move. After two months of sleep, reality seemed further away. Memories and dreams were all mixed up in his head, and it’s only through these visits and conversations with others that he’s been able to more firmly grasp hold of what is real. He thinks his recollection of that night has been tainted by good dreams and nightmares alike, but there is still one thing he’s sure of.

“Harry,” he says.

“Do you remember anything more specific?”

“He came. He came late, but he came for me. We—we went to be alone.” He said I could make him happy.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I was going back, and he was leaving. I was going to say goodbye to Astoria and then leave too.”

Granger nods. “And they’ve told you who did it.”

“Peakes.”

A sardonic smirk crosses her features briefly. “Ron was furious. Is furious. He refused to attend the graduation ceremony.”

Weasley has visited only once, with Granger, Ginny, and George. He didn’t say much of anything and didn’t express any concern for Draco’s well-being; mostly, he sat in the corner while the other three chatted away. Draco can’t help feeling pleased to learn that he does in fact care, at least a little.

“We only had Peakes’ statement to go on, as far as what happened that night. Harry gave his statement to Ron but refused to allow it to be used in the trial. It was a private trial, at Harry’s own insistence, so what he said would have remained confidential anyway, but he didn’t want it used.” She pauses before adding, “He gave it to me, though, to help with my arguments.”

It’s an oblique way of letting him know she knows what happened between them, and he wonders if it’s part of why she is so angry with Harry for not coming to see him.

“The only thing Harry allowed me to say was that he was alone with you of his own volition and he neither felt threatened nor believed you to pose a threat to anyone else. He would not explain, outside of his statement, why he was alone with you or even why he was present that night in the first place, considering that he is normally conspicuously absent. The defence used that to their advantage.”

Another reason to be furious with Harry.

“The trial took two days of several hours each. Harry was there both days but refused to speak at all, and when the verdict was reached, he got up and left. As I said, it was a private trial, so aside from the Wizengamot, witnesses, the defence, and myself, the only people in attendance were Harry, Ginny, and your mother. Astoria spoke as a witness, but the cross-examination from the defence really shook her, and Robards spoke in Peakes’ favour, which outweighed her testimony almost entirely. I tried to include Molly as a witness, but the defence convinced the Wizengamot that her testimony was not pertinent and had it thrown out.”

Her voice is even and detached as she speaks, completely emotionally disengaged. It’s almost relaxing in rhythm, even as she tells him things that do not relax him at all. He can tell she is giving him these details as filler as she gears up toward talking about what actually happened that night, but he doesn’t rush her.

“Ginny volunteered to testify as well,” Granger adds. “They wouldn’t allow it for the same reason they didn’t allow Molly. They tried to make her leave repeatedly, during the trial, because she kept making disruptive comments, particularly during Robards’ testimony. When they read the verdict, she had to be physically restrained because she immediately launched herself at Peakes.”

Draco can picture it clearly, and he can’t help smiling. It seems to encourage Granger, who takes a deep breath and begins to reconstruct the night of the ball.

“Peakes admitted that he had his eye on you the whole night. He kept his distance, but he was sure that you had some sort of ill intent and were potentially dangerous, which meant, naturally, that it was his duty to make sure you didn’t get away with whatever you were planning to do. When Harry Potter showed up and immediately came to you, Peakes knew you were going to do something. He saw you talk with Harry and with Astoria, and he saw you leave and saw Astoria talk with Harry. He was more concerned with you than with Harry, and he followed you. Astoria testified that you used a stealth charm on yourself and she cast the same one on Harry at his request. Peakes, incidentally, used the same charm as well.

“While I couldn’t use Harry’s explanation of why he left the room and went to be alone with you in the hallway, Astoria said Harry was overwhelmed by the attention focused on him and wanted to speak with you in private. Knowing her competence with stealth and privacy charms, he asked her to conceal him so that he could get away from the others and be with you. She stated under Veritaserum that she did not know what he intended to say to you, which I know to be false—and she was only able to say it through careful stating of the truth—but it protected you and Harry.

“The defence, though, twisted it to mean that if she had no knowledge of either of your intentions, there was no way of knowing that they were indeed innocent. Peakes firmly believed you were up to no good, and believed this fear to be legitimate, and that on its own is a strong enough case for self-defence. With the addition of ambiguity as to your actual intent, his case was even stronger.

“So, believing you to running off to commit some heinous crime, he charmed himself unnoticeable and followed you out in time to see you performing the same charm on yourself, which only confirmed his suspicions. Because he was watching you as you cast it and very determined to continue watching you, the charm had no effect on him. He saw you waiting for Harry, he saw Harry join you, and he saw you lead Harry to the end of the hall.”

Draco feels his face burn with shame. They should have been more careful. They shouldn’t have done it at all; they should have waited until afterwards, in the safety of Harry’s home. They should have known there would be consequences. As Granger describes the sequence of events, the details come back to Draco, and he cringes in anticipation of what she’ll say next.

“He testified that he wasn’t sure what happened next. He couldn’t tell whether you were conversing or fighting or what, but Harry pushed you up against a wall, and shortly afterwards you disappeared from sight. He was afraid you’d Apparated and he’d failed, but because you were already using a stealth charm, he thought it likely that you were still there, but concealed. So he waited. Eventually, you did come back into view, but Harry didn’t. You were clearly returning to the ballroom and had clearly done something to Harry Potter, and he firmly believed your plan did not stop there. He had to stop you, so he performed the Sedative Spell, solely to restrain you from doing whatever evil thing you were planning to do.”

“Sedare doesn’t do this,” Draco says, interrupting for the first time. “He did something to it, something to strengthen it this much, and it wasn’t an accident.”

“Astoria said that,” Granger says, frowning. “She testified that Peakes has been giving you a hard time for three years and was looking for an excuse to attack you. She suggested that he’d already concocted a way to increase the spell’s potency and had only been waiting for the right moment to use it.” Granger takes a deep breath, and continues, “I believe she is correct. Robards, however, testified that Peakes is known for his strong magic, particularly when it comes to duelling and defensive magic, and in the cross-examination Astoria admitted the same. The defence managed to convince everyone that an accidental, panic-driven overflow of magic was just as likely, or even more likely, than intentional magnification.”

She presses her lips tightly together for a moment, as though readying herself to speak. “That’s the last thing Peakes remembers. He was knocked out, he guessed by a stunning spell from someone working with you. He suggested Astoria, actually, but there is no question that she was in the ballroom the entire time. He was awoken by Ron’s partner about twenty minutes later, while Ron attempted to talk to Harry. Harry was—he was practically catatonic. He wouldn’t respond, wouldn’t get up from where he was kneeling next to you, and he was crying.”

Harry was there.

Harry was there when it happened.

Draco had assumed he’d already Apparated home. It was the only version of things that made sense to him; he was sure that if Harry had been there, he would have been able to stop it. But Harry was there, and Harry didn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop it.

Harry saw it happen and couldn’t do anything to help him.

“It was a surge of unconscious, highly emotional magic,” Granger says. “Harry has no recollection of stunning Peakes. He doesn’t remember much of anything, only seeing you fall, and the bright light of the magnified spell.”

“He was screaming,” Draco says. “That’s the last thing I remember. Harry was screaming.”

Granger stares fixedly at a wrinkle in Draco’s bed sheets. She looks as though she might cry.

“Granger? How is he?”

She blinks hard and breathes in deeply through her nose.

“Hermione,” Draco says.

“He wouldn’t leave you. For three days, he stayed in your room here. A different one at first, with several beds, but they felt his presence disturbed the others and moved you into this private one. The Healers tried to make him leave and he wouldn’t. He didn’t go home at all, not even to change out of those funeral robes, and Ginny and Luna had to force him to eat. Luna said he threw up most of it. But he wouldn’t go home, not until they stabilised you. Not until they knew you’d live.

“The Memorial at Hogwarts was a few days later. He came in the same robes and read his speech, and then he left. He made his necessary appearances at the Ministry and acted like—well, he acted like Harry Potter. But he stopped coming to dinner at the Burrow, and we’ve barely—we’ve all barely seen him. The trial was the last time I was in the same room with him for more than a few minutes, and he hasn’t come to the Ministry since.”

“Does he know I’m awake?”

She nods.

“I have to see him.”

“He won’t come.” She purses her lips for a moment. “But you could talk to Ginny about it, next time. She and Jamie—they moved into Grimmauld Place. She was afraid of Harry being alone, and she’s been wanting to get out of the Burrow anyway, so it seemed to make sense. Maybe she can talk to him for you.”

Draco nods, and Granger nods. She has to leave and meet Weasley for dinner, and Lovegood comes in to give Draco his own liquified dinner. Granger hugs him goodbye, though he’s too weak to return it. He feels weaker than ever, and when Lovegood tries to do exercises with him after his meal, he can’t manage any of them.






It’s an accident that changes things. Draco does not want to be in a private room at St. Mungo’s, but when the only other option is living at the Manor with his mother as his caretaker, he figures it’s the lesser evil. Lovegood is rather pleasant to be around, at any rate; sometimes her constant staring and observing unnerves him, but she is a generally relaxing presence. At first, he finds it a bit odd that she is the only person who ever checks on him. As far as he knows, St. Mungo’s hospital is heavily staffed, and all sorts of Healers and Mediwitches look after the patients. A single Healer assigned to a patient, with no other assistance, seems unusual, as does the idea of a Healer with only one patient. He can’t imagine Lovegood has time for anyone else, not with his meals and his visits and his exercise and her constant observation of his energy levels. She’s even come when he suddenly needs her at night; there’s a button for him to press, and she Apparates from home immediately to see to him.

“I’ve been doing research on magical energy,” she explains when he asks. “Its depletion and renewal and all of the factors that influence it. I asked to be assigned to you both to further my research and because I do not think anyone else is at all qualified to help you.”

As with Granger’s help in his acceptance to Auror training, it feels a little strange to be Lovegood’s project, but he appreciates her help all the same.

But one day, when he’s been awake for about six weeks, someone other than Lovegood comes in to give him his lunch. It’s a boy about Astoria’s age, probably in training. He looks perfectly nice, with a small, unthreatening build, sandy hair, and a warm, patient-greeting smile.

None of this registers with Draco. The door opens and the boy steps in, and suddenly Draco can’t breathe. He feels like all of the air is yanked from his lungs, and he is gasping for it but it’s gone, and he can feel his energy draining as he tries to force his lungs to work. He can’t breathe, and he knows if he calms down it will work again but he can’t calm down because he can feel himself slipping—

He doesn’t know what happens, but Lovegood is suddenly over him, speaking to him slowly and calmly, and his breath is coming in and out with no obstacle. The door is shut, and the boy is gone.

“You’re all right, Draco, you’re all right,” she is telling him, and Draco shakes his head, trying to sit up properly. He knows he’s all right. He always knows he’s all right; it’s only while it’s happening that it scares him.

It’s been so long since that has happened, and the last few times he’s felt it start, he’s been able to stop. But now he’s damaged, and he can’t stop it anymore.

“It’s fine,” he tells Lovegood. “I’m fine. I just—sometimes my lungs don’t work.”

“This has happened before?”

He nods. “It was better. It’s been a long time. Months. Not since December.”

“Is it only your lungs?”

Draco shrugs. “I felt dizzy just now. Sometimes I feel nauseated.”

“When does it happen?”

He shrugs again. When I’m rejected. When I’m scared. When I’m not wanted.

“Draco, I think that was a panic attack. Are you usually feeling anxious when they happen?”

He nods. “I wasn’t—I mean, that boy wasn’t—”

“Anxiety isn’t always rational,” Lovegood says. “He was the first stranger you’ve seen since you woke up, and I think that’s what triggered it.”

He can tell she’s trying to comfort him; it isn’t his fault his body reacted that way. It isn’t any comfort. He can barely move, can barely eat, can’t do magic at all, and apparently couldn’t even successfully leave this room if he tried because he’d have a panic attack the second he saw a stranger.

They decide that Draco should be in the Manor after all. Lovegood cannot singlehandedly see to all of Draco’s needs, not when she has other commitments, like the meeting she had with her superiors when the boy brought Draco’s lunch. Narcissa will be there whenever he needs her, and Lovegood will come for his therapy. (The original idea of Draco coming to St. Mungo’s for therapy is abandoned with the discovery of his panic attacks and the improbability of his being able to come to the hospital without encountering strangers.)

And it helps. It helps for Draco to be in his bedroom, surrounded by his own things, rather than in a private hospital room. It helps to have his friends visiting him at home and not in hospital. It helps, though Draco would be loath to admit it, to have his mother taking care of him.

With Lovegood’s help, he begins to walk again. He starts to eat more solid foods, though heavier things are still difficult to process. They don’t do anything related to magic. She tells him it’s all interrelated, that his improved physical condition is linked to his magical energy and they’ll be able to work on that soon, but it’s hard to be patient.

It’s hard to be patient when there is still no word from Harry, even after Draco talked to Ginny. “I’ll talk to him,” she said, “but he’s been an enormous prick lately. I don’t know that it will make a difference.”

And it doesn’t. Harry doesn’t come, and he doesn’t ask Ginny to pass anything on. Ginny reluctantly tells Draco that he still goes out and still brings people home, still gets drunk and high off his mind. Ginny and James have moved into the second bedroom on the fourth floor, across from Harry’s, and Harry only fucks strangers in downstairs bedrooms now. He watches James while Ginny has her matches and practises, but once she comes home he always leaves for the night.

“I don’t think he’s sleeping enough,” she says, and Draco wants to see him so much it hurts.

Lovegood gives her approval for Draco to start going to visit people, rather than them coming to him. He can go to the Burrow, and he can go to Astoria’s. Pansy Parkinson is Astoria’s flatmate now, but she isn’t a stranger, so Draco is all right. She gives him a wide berth, regardless, seemingly unsure of how to act around him now. Draco doesn’t know if it’s because she thinks he’s some sort of traitor, or if it’s because he was attacked, or if she feels sorry for him for being so helpless. When he thinks back to when they used to date in school, he can’t help laughing.

Ginny comes to the Burrow with James most nights for dinner, so he tries to be there too. James makes him feel more energised than anyone else, he’s realised. Lovegood explains this with more reference to the link between magical and physical energy; as a growing child, James is overflowing with so much magic that it improves Draco’s physical state. Draco can’t complain. He never feels more content or more comfortable than when he’s with James and Ginny. His mother is always so concerned, and he can tell Astoria feels partially responsible for what happened. Draco doesn’t blame her, but he can’t help her blaming herself.

He doesn’t see Lucius. Narcissa says he is worried about Draco, but Draco doesn’t care either way. He doesn’t need anyone in his life who doesn’t support him.

On a day that he has done his morning therapy with Lovegood but has his afternoon free, he suddenly realises the extent of the freedom he now has. His mother sits with him as he eats his lunch; she’s going to see Andromeda this afternoon but doesn’t want Draco to feel neglected.

“You could go see Astoria,” she suggests, but Astoria, unlike Draco, is now an Auror, and she is at work for several more hours.

“Maybe,” Draco says, realising what he can do.

He can’t Apparate without his magic where it needs to be, so he Floos everywhere. To the Burrow, to Astoria’s. To Harry’s.

His mother leaves, and Draco does too.

When he comes out of the fire in the sitting room of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, he finds the room empty. But he can feel Harry. He knows Harry is home. He feels a bit silly, but he’s been starting to feel the magical energy that Lovegood is always talking about. He can feel it by the shift in how he feels, the way he gets stronger and more alert around James but feels so exhausted at the end of a day that he spends with only his mother. He can tell immediately that James is in the house, and he can tell Harry is too.

He walks down to the kitchen, and there they are, James in a high chair at the table and Harry at the counter with his back to the door.

“Harry,” he says.

James smiles and coos and reaches for Draco. A bit of food has dribbled down his chin from his mouth, and the bowl in front of him is mostly empty. Draco has never seen Harry feed James, and he’s been sceptical of Harry watching James during the day instead of Molly, but seeing them now, he’s filled with a surge of pride.

It takes a second for Harry to turn around, and when he does, his expression immediately goes blank. He’s wearing his glasses, Draco notices.

“What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you.”

Harry returns to putting away the things he used for his lunch. “Can’t take a hint, then.”

“Let me help,” is all Draco says in response. He wipes up James’s face and washes his bowl in the sink by hand. Harry watches silently. When Draco is done, he picks up James and heads back up to the sitting room. He hopes Harry will follow.

He sits on the sofa and settles James in his lap. James is endlessly fascinated with Draco’s fingers, and he immediately grabs hold of his right ring finger. Draco can already feel the warmth building, the sluggishness fading. He could run right now, he thinks.

“Ginny told me he helps,” Harry says from the doorway. He followed.

Draco nods and watches as Harry approaches and sits on the other end of the sofa. He sits with his back to the arm, facing Draco.

“Why didn’t you come see me?” Draco asks.

“What for?” Harry asks in response.

“It would have been nice to see you.”

“You had Ginny, Astoria, Hermione. Your mother. Luna. My kid.”

“I want you,” Draco says plainly.

Harry seems to crumble at that, his shoulders falling forward and his head coming to rest in his hands. “You seem like you’re doing all right,” he says, not looking at Draco.

“I’m better than I was. I’m walking, and eating, and able to stay out of bed for most of the day. I still can’t do magic. Lovegood won’t let me try yet. If I do it too early it could hurt my chances of ever regaining my full abilities.”

He watches Harry, bent with his head in his hands, and looks down at James, who beams up at him.

“Granger told me you were there,” he says. “She told me how it all happened.”

“She told you how I didn’t do a damn thing to stop it,” Harry says, straightening and running a hand through his hair. It’s longer now.

“She told me you stayed for three days.”

“It didn’t feel like three days,” Harry says. He still won’t make eye contact.

“It wasn’t your fault, Harry,” Draco says. “There wasn’t anything you could have done.”
Harry shakes his head, and Draco can’t tell whether he’s agreeing or disagreeing. His head is angled so that his glasses shield his eyes.

“Astoria thinks it’s her fault,” Draco tells him. “She blames herself. She suggested that I get you alone. The spells were her idea. She saw Peakes harassing me for the entire duration of our training but never spoke up about it because I wanted to keep my head down. After the way the trial went, she blames herself for Peakes getting away with it, too.”

Harry shrugs. “It sounds like she has a lot to feel guilty for.”

“She doesn’t have anything to feel guilty for,” Draco says, glaring at Harry. “She’s been a wonderful friend to me, and the only person responsible for what Peakes did is Peakes himself. Not Astoria, and not you.”

James grabs a fistful of Draco’s sleeve.

“I didn’t see him,” Harry says. “I heard him. I was watching you walk back in, and I could hear an extra pair of footsteps. I called you, and you stopped, but the extra ones kept going, and then you were on the ground. There was a flash and you just collapsed. It wasn’t like a Stunner, or anything I’ve ever seen. It looked like something had been ripped out of you. Like whatever was holding you up was suddenly...gone. It was like everything stopped.”

Draco sits frozen, and James tugs on the fabric of his sleeve.

“They said you wouldn’t wake up. They told me they didn’t think you were going to wake up.” Harry looks up at him then, at last. Draco thinks his eyes might be wet, behind his glasses.

Draco scoots closer to him on the couch, bringing James with him. He holds Harry, and Harry holds him, and James is warm between them.






When Draco gets back to the Manor, his mother and Lovegood are there waiting for him.

“I thought you weren’t coming back today,” he says to Lovegood.

“Your mother was worried what state you’d be in when you returned,” she says. “And she’s been telling me about your little cousin Teddy, which has been lovely.”

Narcissa is far less calm about it. “I Flooed Astoria,” she starts, “and she said you never came by. I Flooed Molly, and she said she last saw you two days ago. Where did you go, Draco? And why didn’t you tell me?”

“I went to see Harry,” he says unapologetically.

This makes his mother’s eyes go even more wide and worried. “Are you all right?”

“Do I look all right?”

Narcissa looks to Lovegood, who is staring at Draco curiously.

“You look more than all right,” Lovegood says. “What did you do?”

“Talked a bit,” Draco says. “Sat with him and James on the sofa.”

Ginny had returned at a quarter to six, sweaty and smiling, and let out an excited squeal when she came into the sitting room to find them together. “I’m going to take a quick shower, but I can take James off your hands if you’d like.”

Draco had been more than fine having James on his hands, as it were, but Harry rearranged them once Ginny had James, so they lay across the sofa with Draco’s head on Harry’s chest and Harry’s hand softly stroking his hair. It felt perfect. It felt like there was nothing wrong with him at all. Harry fell asleep and Draco just lay there, listening to Harry’s breathing and feeling his heartbeat. He woke Harry up to say goodbye before he left. They didn’t kiss at all. Draco could understand that; he was broken at the moment, or breakable, and he could see how this would make Harry hesitate. Draco wanted to kiss him, though. He wanted to come back tomorrow just to kiss him properly.

“How long were you there?” Lovegood asks him.

“I went after lunch,” Draco says, “so eight hours or so, roughly?”

Narcissa purses her lips and looks as though she intends to reprimand him, but her expression changes abruptly when Lovegood says, “You should go again tomorrow.”

“What?” Draco and Narcissa say simultaneously. “I mean, I do want to,” Draco continues, “but why?”

“You look healthier than I’ve seen you after any other visit,” she tells him. “Is it all right if we do some exercises, even though it’s late?”

Draco shrugs, and Narcissa watches as he does all of the movements Lovegood asks him to. Lovegood looks on with an expression of wide-eyed delight, and her optimism is infectious; soon Narcissa is smiling as well.

“Do you feel tired at all?” Lovegood asks, and Draco shakes his head.

“I’ve been lying down for a couple of hours, though,” he says.

“Not sleeping, though.”

“No, not sleeping.”

“And did you eat dinner?”

“Ginny fixed us pasta.”

Lovegood nods. “I’ll see how you’re doing in the morning, of course, and we can reassess, but for now I think you should go to Number Twelve again tomorrow afternoon, after lunch, and come back here at five so that I can get a better sense of how this affects you.”

Narcissa seems flabbergasted that Draco sneaking off to see Harry for eight hours actually had positive effects, and Draco can’t help feeling similarly surprised. He thought it was a selfish choice and that he’d be lectured for it, not encouraged.

In the morning, Lovegood seems just as pleased with his energy as she was the night before, and she sends him off to Harry’s with a smile after lunch. Draco doesn’t give Harry any warning today either. He again finds them downstairs in the kitchen and again helps clean up after James. Today there are toys scattered across the floor in the sitting room, and James sits there on the carpet playing with them. Draco and Harry sit on the sofa, idly touching as they talk; Draco plays with Harry’s fingers, Harry strokes along the skin of Draco’s forearm, their thighs press together as they sit close.

They talk about how much James is growing, how close the Harpies are to the finals, how much Teddy has come to love his Aunt Narcissa. Draco tells Harry how Lovegood reacted when he returned the previous night, and how it was her who insisted he come back today.

This time, he kisses Harry when he says goodbye. It’s a small, chaste kiss, but it feels like something clicks into place. Like things are where they’re supposed to be again.

When he comes back to the Manor, Lovegood has him repeat some of the things he did that morning. He gets the distinct impression she is comparing his performance to some standard, but he can never tell what’s going on in her mind. She never takes notes, but seems to rely on her intuition and understanding to put things together. It’s unnerving, not knowing precisely what she’s looking for, but he can’t deny that her methods seem to help him.

“Draco,” she says when he’s done, “have you given any thought to the possibility of living with Harry?”

It isn’t something he’s at all prepared to hear. Narcissa responds first.

“Absolutely not.”

Draco and Lovegood both turn to her, surprised.

“He needs to be with someone who will take care of him,” she says. “I know that Harry cares about you, Draco, but he is not a caretaker. He has his own life to consider. He can’t see that you’re fed and that you manage your energy and don’t overexert—”

“I don’t believe any of that would be a problem anymore, Narcissa. If Draco were to live with Harry, I’m actually quite sure he’d be able to do everything for himself. After several hours yesterday and only a few today, he has more vitality than I’ve seen at any point in his recovery. Normally he’s in bed by nine and has trouble standing at that point, but last night he was not only standing, but moving. He’s doing just as well today. I think that if this continues,” she says to Draco, “you’ll be able to start practicing magic again very soon.”

Narcissa can’t say no to that.

Draco goes to Harry’s again the next day and asks him. Harry shrugs in response. “You can do whatever you’d like,” he says. I want you here, Draco hears.






They celebrate Harry’s twenty-fourth birthday the week after Draco starts staying with him. It makes Draco realise he’s already twenty-four as well; having been magically sedated for his birthday, he hadn’t given much thought to its passing.

Harry tells Draco that he doesn’t do things for his birthday, that it has never felt special enough to warrant celebrating, but they do do something anyway, at Ginny’s insistence. An assortment of relatives and old Hogwarts schoolmates come to Number Twelve for dinner, which Ginny cooks with Lovegood’s help. Molly brings a very large, very rich chocolate cake.

Draco keeps his distance from those he doesn’t already know well, trying to avoid any uncomfortable interaction and/or sudden unexpected inability to breathe. Some of them approach him, though. Dean Thomas, who is apparently dating Lovegood, tells Draco he thinks the lack of consequence for Peakes is “just bollocks.” Thomas was in Draco’s year at Hogwarts and they never had a single friendly interaction. It’s startling sometimes how much things can change.

Draco knows that Granger hasn’t seen much of Harry lately, and he can see the slight tension there as she greets him and wishes him a happy birthday. After she hugs him, she joins Draco in his corner, where he’s standing apart from the rest.

“I think he’s doing better,” Granger says, “now that you’re here.” It sounds backwards. She should be commenting that Draco seems better, but Draco knows what she means. Harry spent a month only leaving his house to get shitfaced and have sex, and now he’s having friends over for dinner and being perfectly pleasant all the while.

“He seems like he’s all right,” Draco says. And it’s true, he does. He hasn’t shut down with Draco the way he did before, the last time Draco stayed with him. He is comfortable holding him and touching him affectionately, even in front of other people, and he openly says that he cares, though not in so many words. They don’t have sex, though. They haven’t done anything more than deep kissing, and they sleep in their pants rather than in the nude. Harry is afraid to break him, Draco can tell. And while Harry hasn’t closed himself off entirely, there is a subtle but constant and tangible sadness about him.

They all eat in the dining room, nearly filling the long table. The guests toast to Harry’s health and happiness, and Harry smiles bashfully. Molly refers explicitly to Harry and Draco making each other happy. Draco half expects someone at the table to gasp, or for Harry to freeze up and behave awkwardly for a while, but no one so much as raises their eyebrows. Draco knew the Weasleys knew, but the easy acceptance from the others surprises him. He can’t help wondering whether a real, public coming-out could be met with easy acceptance as well.

After the meal, everyone migrates to the sitting room. Some people have brought Harry presents, most of them small and silly. Draco didn’t buy him anything. Draco doesn’t have any money, or the ability to be in a room with strangers without having a panic attack. He’s sure Harry doesn’t mind, but he wishes there were something he could do all the same.

Draco sits on the sofa, first with Ginny, then with Granger, then with George and Weasley; he feels more comfortable staying in one place as the others mill about than navigating the interrelated social groups present. The room—the whole house, even—feels so different like this, all full of people. Its scale seems less austere, more open and inviting. Seeing Harry surrounded by family and friends this way, Draco wishes life could be like this all the time. He wishes Harry didn’t spend his life either locked away alone or out in public and masked. Either way, he’s hiding from the world.

As it gets later, people start to leave. Andromeda and Teddy first, then the others with young children. Ginny puts James to bed upstairs, and Bill and Fleur carry home a sleeping Dominique and a nearly-asleep Victoire. The others stay, too engrossed in conversation to go home just yet. Draco, still on the couch, watches Harry laugh with Neville Longbottom and Dean Thomas and contemplates the transformative power of friendship. It feels as though a perfect peace has come over the room, and Draco wonders whether it will last when the night is over.

Ginny comes to sit with Draco again, curling up against his side and resting her head on his shoulder. “How are you doing?” she asks, taking his hand and entwining their fingers.

When Lovegood explained that Draco can, in a manner of speaking, absorb energy from others, Ginny started doing this when he grew tired. Draco told her that it’s more based on interaction or simple proximity than physical contact and that conversation with her would have just about the same effect, but she likes the physical affection, and he rather likes it too.

“I’m all right,” he says. “Tonight has been really nice.”

“Glad I forced Harry to have this,” she says, nodding against his shoulder. “I think he forgets that he needs people.”

“How are you, Draco?” Lovegood asks, and comes to sit on his other side.

“As a fellow friend of Harry’s, or as your patient?” Draco asks.

“How ever you like,” Lovegood says.

“I’m fine, really.” Ginny laughs into his shirt. “Ginny was just asking the same.”

“It’s nearly eleven,” Lovegood points out. They all know Draco is usually asleep by this time.

“You can go upstairs if you’d like,” Ginny says, and gives his hand a squeeze. “No one would mind.”

“I’ll wait for Harry.”

Lovegood nods, but keeps watching him. Ginny stays with them on the couch for a bit, but is eventually called over to the other side of the room by George, who appears to be arm-wrestling with Thomas. Lovegood watches and laughs from where she is, on the sofa with Draco.

“You really aren’t tired,” Lovegood says, and Draco realises she’s watching him again, not Thomas. She sounds surprised, but it isn’t a question, and she doesn’t seem to expect a response.

She’s quiet for long enough that Draco’s attention shifts back to the group on the other side of the room, and when she speaks again, it takes a moment for him to register her meaning.

“He visited you.”

When he understands what she’s saying, he physically jolts in surprise.

“He didn’t want me to say anything. He came every night and sat under his invisibility cloak, all night. He’d come at different hours, but he was almost always still there when I came to check on you in the morning.” Lovegood’s gaze is inscrutable. “I don’t think he knew the wards were set to record whenever anyone came in or out. I could see it whenever he came and went.

“It strengthened you the whole time, you know. I wasn’t sure until you sneaked off to see him. Every morning you woke up a little bit stronger. I thought it might have just been the rest, but you didn’t wake up from afternoon naps feeling rejuvenated, and once you moved home it didn’t happen anymore. Sleep didn’t make you feel stronger, people did. Harry most of all.” Lovegood says gravely, “I’m not sure you would have ever woken up if he hadn’t come.”

Draco watches Harry laugh with Weasley and Ginny, and he wonders what else he hasn’t told him.






“Every night?” Astoria repeats.

“Every night.”

“Wow.”

They sit in silence and contemplate that for a moment. Draco remembers how Harry was when he came to Number Twelve unannounced. I didn’t do a damn thing to stop it, Harry said. Draco wonders how guilty a person would have to feel to come to sit with someone he couldn’t save every night for months.

“And you haven’t talked to him about it.”

Draco shakes his head. “He was so happy after the party. I didn’t know how to bring it up.” Instead, they made out rather intensely for over an hour, until Harry felt tired and said they should go to sleep. Draco never felt tired that night; he lay awake, curled up with Harry, and listened to his breathing until it was already starting to grow light outside. Somehow that was far more relaxing than sleep.

“So he doesn’t know you know. But he knows Lovegood knows?”

“I assume so. She said he didn’t want her to tell me. She probably caught him one morning, if his invisibility cloak slipped.”

“I still can’t believe he has a sodding invisibility cloak.”

“Since he was eleven.”

“The bastard.”

Draco laughs. “I always thought so,” he says, “but I’m not sure anymore.”

“It sounds a bit psychotic, honestly,” Astoria says, eyebrows knit together. “If he wanted to see you, he should have just come and visited the way the rest of us did.”

“The rest of you came through the hospital,” Draco points out. “How do you think it would have looked for him to visit every day?”

“He has an invisibility cloak.”

“Solid point.”

“I’m only saying, he could have just visited and not forgone sleep to watch you lie there unconscious instead. And once you woke up, he could have come and talked to you like a normal person.”

“I don’t think he knew what to say.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe asked how you were feeling and seen what he could do to be there for you in your time of need, like a normal person.”

“Astoria.”

“You have to admit it’s a little psychotic.”

“I don’t have to admit anything.”

“You just like it because you’re a little psychotic, too.”

Draco opens his mouth to defend himself but laughs instead. Just then, someone clears their throat behind them.

Draco turns to see Pansy in the entrance to the sitting room. She’s wearing her office robes, fresh from work. She stands awkwardly in the doorway as though unsure of whether or not she’s welcome to enter. Draco wants to say It’s your flat, too, but he still isn’t sure how to speak to her.

“Hello, Draco,” Pansy tries. It’s the first time since she moved into the flat that she’s spoken to him without prompting from Astoria.

“Hello, Pansy.”

His non-hostile response seems to encourage her, and she steps fully into the room. “I wanted to apologise,” she says, somehow sounding incredibly aggressive rather than remotely apologetic.

“What for?”

Astoria has tensed, and Draco realises this must not be as out-of-the-blue as it feels.

“For getting you kicked out of home,” Pansy says just as assertively. “It was an awful thing to do and you didn’t deserve it.”

“You’ll understand if I don’t believe you,” Draco says slowly, “given that you don’t sound a bit sorry. Also, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Pansy sighs deeply and sits in the armchair across from the love seat Draco and Astoria are sitting on. “When those rumours about you started. When they put all of those pictures together. I sent it to your father because I knew he didn’t know the first thing about what you were getting up to, and I knew he’d be furious, and I wanted to see you put in your place. I didn’t know you’d have to leave home, and I’m sorry.” She sounds slightly more sincere this time, though still rather exasperated at the entire concept of apologising.

“And I forgive you,” Draco says. “Having to leave the Manor may have been the best thing that’s happened to me.”

Pansy frowns. “Oh.”

“Were you hoping it had been terrible for me?”

“No, but—well, I thought it must have been. I’m not sure I’m sorry, then.”

“I forgive you anyway.”

Astoria gives Pansy a pointed look, and Pansy sighs again. “I only—well, we were all a bit frustrated with you then. You were doing so well, and the rest of us were barely scraping by. But, I mean, look at you now.”

Draco isn’t sure how he’s supposed to take that. “Look at me now?”

“Well, it’s easy to resent someone for being successful, but it’s awfully hard to be angry with you now that you’re so pathe—”

“Pansy,” Astoria warns.

“It’s the truth!” she exclaims. “You can’t even do magic anymore. How could I resent you now?”

“Understandable,” Draco says.

“I only—” she starts, then rolls her eyes and starts again. “What I’m trying to say is, it was hard to see you rubbing elbows with all of the right people and making something of yourself. The rest of us suddenly found ourselves on the bottom rung of society, and there you were, making nice with all of Harry Potter’s friends, and then Harry Potter himself. You were on your way to a highly esteemed, well paid career, and everyone had forgotten all about that Dark Mark on your arm. I didn’t even have a Dark Mark and there weren’t any opportunities for me, simply because of my father and the people my family associated with. I was no more guilty than you—arguably less guilty, even—and you were making something of yourself, while I….I had to take whatever I could get. All of us did.

“Theo was the only respectable one out of all of us, and that’s because he ran away instead of taking the Mark. He made the brave, stupid choice, and he was rewarded by getting to become a Healer and redeem the Nott family. But he made the brave, stupid choice. You didn’t. He didn’t abandon the rest of us. You did. Daphne and Theo and Gregory and Tracey and Millicent and I—we had to stick together. Zabini fucked off to Italy and you fucked off to the Aurors and Crabbe died, and the rest of us were left to keep each other afloat while the world shit on us over and over. It should have been enough that we weren’t in Azkaban. The guilty ones were sentenced, and that should have been enough. We were kids. But the world doesn’t work that way. Staying out of prison doesn’t mean freedom.”

She clenches her jaw and glares very forcefully, but Draco can tell her anger is directed at the world, not him.

“And it was so hard to see you succeeding, Draco. It was so hard. I was so angry with you. We always looked out for each other in school. We Slytherins—no one cared about us, but we cared about each other, didn’t we? It looked like you only cared about yourself. But you were barely staying afloat too, weren’t you? Just barely.”

Draco nods and swallows hard. He had been thinking of himself. He had been thinking of what he could do to restore his own place in society, with the wiped (though still smudged) slate miraculously handed to him. He hadn’t thought about the people he was leaving behind.

“I thought they’d accepted you. When I heard you’d been attacked, I thought they’d rally up behind you, I really did. And then they didn’t. You were in hospital in a barely stable state, and your attacker was rewarded. He got to have the future you’d been working toward for years, and you suddenly had nothing. Even less than me. So I’m sorry, Draco. I’m sorry for hating you, and I’m sorry for what happened to you.”

There is no question of her sincerity this time.

They sit in a rather sombre silence for several moments, until Draco says, “I haven’t—I haven’t been abandoned, Pansy. The people who didn’t rally up behind me were never behind me to begin with. It’s just that the people who did rally up behind me weren’t enough.”

Pansy nods. “I know. And I know they aren’t—I know they’re really your friends. You aren’t just using the right people to your advantage. I know you really care about them.”

Astoria actually cracks a smile at that. “Oh, he definitely cares.”

The remark confuses Pansy. She looks back and forth between them, and Draco decides there isn’t any harm in telling her. After all that, it seems wrong not to trust her.

“Pansy, what Astoria finds so terribly amusing is that I’m in love with Harry Potter.”

Disappointingly, Pansy barely reacts. “I saw it coming when we were thirteen, to be honest.”

“You and I dated when we were fifteen.”

She shrugs. “I saw it coming then, too.”

“I’m not just in love with him. He’s also in love with me.”

This does surprise her, which Draco finds rewarding. “Harry Potter is in love with Draco Malfoy?”

“Rather passionately,” Astoria confirms. “Sometimes it’s a bit sickening.”

“When is it sickening?” Draco asks.

“When you tell me all about everywhere his mouth has been.”

“That isn’t sickening,” Draco says, “that’s titillating.”

“How did that happen?” Pansy asks.

“How did Harry put his mouth all over Draco?”

“How did they—you know, love, and all that. How did that happen?”

“I think once you’ve had enough contact with another person’s penis it just happens automatically,” Astoria says, and Pansy raises an eyebrow.

“Please stop talking, Astoria,” Draco says.

“Didn’t he speak for you, at your trial?” Pansy asks.

Draco nods. “He owed my mother. I don’t think he would have otherwise. There really wasn’t anything to go on, just his gut feeling that I wasn’t really a bad person. But when it’s Harry Potter testifying, gut feeling is all anyone needs to be convinced. I probably would have gone to Azkaban otherwise; there was too much evidence against me.”

Pansy snickers at that. “It’s a shame we don’t all have Harry Potters defending us.”

“It’s the truth, though,” Astoria says. “Hermione Granger did everything she could to get justice for Draco, and it didn’t mean a thing to anyone.”

“She works on anti-discrimination legislation,” Draco tells Pansy, “or tries to. It’s been her goal for years to make the Wizarding world a fairer place, with equal opportunity for everyone. That’s why she helped me get into Auror training.”

“Gryffindors,” Pansy says. “Always fighting for a cause.”

“Doesn’t mean they always win,” Draco says.

“They never win,” Pansy says. “They only change the terms of the next battle.”






Draco doesn’t mean to get ideas. He doesn’t want to expect anything of Harry. Harry is more than what he’s done for Draco. Yes, he kept Draco out of jail and made it possible for him to finish his education and train to be an Auror. Yes, he’s taken Draco in and let him be a part of his life, even while Draco has absolutely nothing to offer. Yes, he’s the reason Draco has been able to recover from Peakes’ spell as well has he has. But Harry is not a solution to all of Draco’s problems. He is not a genie. He cannot grant wishes.

Draco can’t help wondering, though, what would happen if Harry put his support behind some of Granger’s proposed legislation. He wonders whether Harry stating his support for equal opportunity for all—Muggleborns and purebloods and werewolves and half-breeds and former criminals alike—would make a difference. He knows from experience that Granger does all she can to fight for her causes, and he is sure she’s talked to Harry about this before, but all the same, Draco can’t help wondering. It’s a shame we don’t all have Harry Potters defending us.

He tells Harry about his conversation with Pansy and Astoria, about how difficult it’s been for his old friends. “Goyle served out his probation, same as I did, but he doesn’t have anyone like Granger helping him out. He’s working in a pub in Knockturn Alley, barely making a living wage. Nott has it relatively good, but sometimes patients will insist on a different Healer, one whose father wasn’t a Death Eater. And Nott wasn’t ever even a Death Eater himself!”

Harry nods absently, and Draco wonders whether he’s even listening. They’re laying across Harry’s bed, and they had been kissing for a bit before Draco paused things to talk about this. He can’t help suspecting that Harry is only waiting until they can go back to the kissing.

“We got to thinking about what was different for me,” Draco continues. “You know, how I got to be so lucky.”

“Lucky,” Harry repeats sceptically. So he is listening.

“Yes, lucky. I could have gone to Azkaban. Instead, I had the chance to go back to Hogwarts and take my NEWTs, and then to go on to Auror training—”

“Only to lose it all,” Harry finishes.

“Not all,” Draco says.

“So your friends all want to be Aurors too, then.”

“No. They’d just like to live in a world where they aren’t hated on sight.”

“Nice thought.”

“If Granger could get anyone to take her legislation seriously,” Draco says, “it could be reality.”

“If.”

“It could happen.”

Harry looks doubtful. “How’s that?”

“They’d take it seriously if you told them to.”

“I can’t tell anyone to do anything,” Harry says.

“Yes, you can,” Draco insists. “You could tell anyone to do anything, and they’d listen to you.”

“They listen to Harry Potter, not me.”

Draco isn’t entirely sure what to say to that. “You are Harry Potter?” he says uncertainly.

“Harry Potter is a carefully engineered creation,” Harry says bitterly. “He doesn’t exist. I have nothing to do with what Harry Potter endorses or condemns.”

“That isn’t true. You decide what you do and don’t say.”

“They write the script and I just read it,” Harry says, and he isn’t only talking about speeches.

“They’d let you endorse Granger if you wanted.”

Harry sits up, suddenly looking quite cross. “And why would I want to do that?”

“Because there are people out there being kicked while they’re down,” Draco says. “Because there are people out there who aren’t as lucky as me, who didn’t get the opportunities I—”

“You aren’t lucky,” Harry says, volume rising. “Your life is fucked. You tried as hard as you could and you’re still nothing.”

“And if Granger could make it right, if this was law instead of her far-fetched dream, maybe I’d have a chance to be something.”

“Hermione can make it right on her own,” Harry says, standing up from the bed. “She doesn’t need me getting in the way.”

“You wouldn’t get in the way, Harry. You’d be able to make people listen. You could change things, in ways no one else can.”

He doesn’t want to be asking this of Harry. He doesn’t want to be asking Harry for anything at all, not when Harry has already done so much. But Harry’s resistance aggravates Draco, makes him want to push back twice as hard. He stands, too, the bed between them.

“It wouldn’t make a fucking difference,” Harry says forcefully.

“But what if it could? What if you could change things for them?”

“I don’t owe them anything.”

“I’m not saying you owe them, or that you have to. You don’t owe me anything either.”

“Yes, I do,” Harry yells. “I owe you for everything. It’s all my fucking fault, and I want to make it up to you, but I can’t. I’m sorry I can’t fix you,” he says, his voice going cold and quiet, and it’s so much worse than his shouting. “I’m sorry I can’t make it better. I’m sorry your life is fucked, but I can’t do anything about it, so stop your fucking whining. I’m not your saviour. I can’t save you.”

He storms out, slamming the door hard behind him. Draco hears his footsteps down the stairs, and the faint sound of the front door slamming shut as he goes.






James starts crying.

That’s the sound Draco hears, though it takes a while to register. James has woken up, and he is crying. Draco sits on the edge of the bed and listens to the sound of it travelling across the hall, through the door of Ginny’s bedroom and of this one. After a while, the crying stops. Ginny’s door creaks open, and there are footsteps, and then a soft knock.

“Draco?” she asks through the door.

When he doesn’t answer, she opens the door anyway. It isn’t until she approaches him, until she’s sitting beside him on the bed and rubbing soothing circles over his back, that he realises he’s having a panic attack. He’s crying and gasping and his skin feels hot and his chest feels tight, and he thinks that if Ginny weren’t there he’d have fallen to the floor.

“He loves you, Draco,” Ginny is saying. “He loves you. I know it seems like he won’t be there for you, but he’s there for you all the time, Draco. He’s there for you every way he knows how to be, and all you’d have to do is ask and he’d do even more.”

Draco doesn’t know why he’s crying, but he can’t stop, and his chest hurts so much, and somehow Ginny’s words only make it worse.

“He loves you. He’d do anything for you, Draco; he loves you so much. He gets scared sometimes, but he loves you, and he only wants you to be happy. He’d do anything.”

Draco shakes his head, but he doesn’t know what part of what she’s saying it is that he’s trying to refute. Ginny keeps saying things like this, keeps repeating how much Harry loves him, and Draco can’t stop crying. He feels as though something has cracked open, as though he’s going to keep crying until he physically can’t anymore, and nothing can stop it. Ginny holds him tight against her and rocks him gently back and forth, and slowly his shallow gasps become deep, shuddering breaths, until those, too, become regular and even. He’s still crying, but his chest doesn’t hurt the same way anymore.

“What happened?” Ginny asks, very gently.

“No,” Draco starts, but that’s wrong. “It wasn’t—Harry didn’t—”

Ginny links their hands together. “Harry didn’t what?”

“He didn’t do anything,” Draco says. “I’m just—I’m just wrong.”

“You aren’t wrong,” Ginny says, sounding as though she takes this personally. “Draco, you’re all right. It’s all right.”

“He didn’t do anything,” Draco repeats. “He just—he can’t save me. I know he can’t save me. I don’t want him to save me.”

“Save you?”

Draco shakes his head. He doesn’t know what he means.

“Draco,” she says, “it isn’t whether you want him to save you. It’s that he wants to save you, and he doesn’t know how. He wants you to be happy, and it’s killing him that you aren’t.”

“I am happy,” Draco says. “He makes me so happy. I want him to be happy.”

“Harry doesn’t know how to be happy,” Ginny says, and Draco can already tell there’s more she wants to say. She hesitates, though, and squeezes his hand, as though to reassure herself rather than him. “Draco,” she says eventually, “Harry asked me to marry him.”

Draco lets out a choked sob, and Ginny immediately adds, “Oh, no, no! Not—not just now, not recently. Before. No, Draco, no, he loves you—he wouldn’t—”

“Just tell me,” Draco interrupts.

“He proposed. He proposed three times, actually, and I said no three times. He didn’t—he thought he was supposed to be with me. He didn’t want it, not ever, but he thought he should want it. The first time was the summer after the war, amidst all of the reparations. I told him I didn’t want to get back together, and he said he didn’t want to either because he needed to focus on himself for a bit, but we were young and horny and happy to be alive, so we had sex anyway. The second or third time he asked me to marry him afterward. Merlin, it was the worst pillow talk. I let him down gently and let him play it off like it had just been a joke, but he meant it. He really thought we should get married, as a couple of teenagers fresh out of some of the most traumatic experiences of our lives. I think he had his parents in mind, honestly. They married at eighteen, and he’d never seen any other way to do it, really.”

“You said you were never together,” Draco says, remembering the conversation they had in the first floor bedroom, all those months ago.

“We weren’t. That’s what was oddest about it. We didn’t even want to be together for the short term, so the idea of committing to forever was just—it was ludicrous. And then he got the same idea in his head the next summer because he knew Ron was planning to propose to Hermione when we graduated. So he got a ring, too, and he proposed to me, too. And we still weren’t together, and he still felt he ought to, and—it was completely absurd, Draco. I wanted to play Quidditch. I didn’t want to start a family. And neither of us felt for each other anything like what Ron and Hermione felt, and still feel. It didn’t make any sense. I talked him down from it and we agreed to be friends, but only friends.”

It does sound absurd, but Draco can picture it. He can imagine Harry at eighteen, no longer sure of his place in the world and looking for some sort of comfort and security. He can see how Ginny, such a warm and positive source of energy, would seem like an answer. He can see Harry telling himself she was what he wanted, and even believing it.

“And I’m so glad I said no, and he always was glad as well. We joked about it over the years, laughing at the idea of us settled down together. It always seemed ridiculous. But then I got pregnant with Jamie, and apparently it didn’t seem so ridiculous, because he tried again. He bought another ring and got down on one knee and spouted all of this utter bullshit about stability and how maybe this was a sign that we were supposed to do it. Never mind that neither of us wanted to. Never mind that even though we determined Harry was indeed the father, there had been four other equally likely candidates. Never mind that the offer was still entirely based on duty. I talked him out of it again. But we didn’t tell anyone, so my mum spent the next six months trying to convince us to do something we had already decided quite firmly not to do.”

Draco thinks this information should surprise him, but it doesn’t. It makes a lot of sense, and it explains a lot about their relationship. Draco remembers what Ginny said, that time in the first floor bedroom. I don’t want to settle for him, and I don’t want him to settle for me. She said they were too close to fake it.

“It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

Draco shakes his head. “It doesn’t.”

“It is ridiculous,” Ginny insists. “The lengths Harry will go to try to satisfy others, without a bit of thought to what might actually satisfy him.”

“Making you happy would have made him happy,” Draco says. “He would have been content with that.”

“That’s precisely it, though. Marrying him wouldn’t have made me happy, and so it wouldn’t have made him happy either! I’m happy now, like this, with us in each other’s lives without any forced togetherness. We have Jamie and I love him more than anything, and I know Harry does, too. We don’t need a marriage to make that love legitimate.”

“So you’re telling me this because you want me to see the lengths he will go for obligation,” Draco says.

“No, I’m telling you this because Harry doesn’t know the first thing about how to be happy. All he ever does is try to make other people happy. He never tries to do what would make him happy—he doesn’t even let himself think about what would make him happy! He doesn’t know because he won’t let himself know. He just beats himself up over not being able to singlehandedly save every single person he cares about from every single thing wrong with their lives, and it makes him miserable.”

“It’s killing him that I’m like this,” Draco says. “That I’m broken.”

“You aren’t broken.”

“My life is fucked.”

“He’s happier with you here,” Ginny insists.

“He’s sad all the time, Ginny. Sometimes less so, but he is always sad.”

“If he’d stop beating himself up—”

“Or if I absolved him,” Draco says.

“I know you’ve told him it isn’t his fault.”

“Not that—if I let him go.”

Ginny frowns. “What, as in—”

“If I stopped being his problem. I can take care of myself. I’m doing better. He doesn’t have to be my miraculous cure-all. He doesn’t owe me anything.”

“He’s doing it because he loves you,” Ginny says, “not because he owes you.”

“I don’t know if he can tell the difference.”

“I can,” she says. “He never looked at me the way he looks at you.”

“You said he doesn’t know how to be happy,” he says. “If I’m not helping him, I’m hurting him.”

“You are helping.”

“He’s so sad, Ginny. I don’t know how I could be helping when he’s always so sad.”

Ginny squeezes his hand and rests her head on his shoulder.






Ginny is asleep by the time the front door opens and closes again downstairs. She started to doze off there in bed with Draco, and Draco walked her back to her room. He couldn’t sleep, though. Not without Harry.

Harry’s footsteps up the stairs are slow and sound reluctant. It’s nearly two in the morning, and Draco is prepared for the worst. He almost expects Harry to stop short of the top landing and sleep in one of the other bedrooms instead of returning to Draco.

He doesn’t, though. He opens the door and steps inside. He lingers in the doorway for a few moments, looking hesitantly at Draco on the bed. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

“Needed you here,” he says honestly.

“You don’t need me,” Harry says, but he comes to sit on the bed.

“I do,” Draco says.

Harry shakes his head. “I can’t be what you need.”

“I don’t need you to be anything,” Draco insists. “I just need you.”

“I make your life harder.”

“That isn’t true.”

“Yes, it is. It’s what I do. I get people killed, or maimed, or crippled. I ruin lives. Everything I touch turns to shit.” It would sound completely melodramatic if not for the utter conviction with which he says it. “You don’t know how many people have died because of me, or been irreparably damaged—”

“Harry, you’re the only reason I’m doing better.”

“I’m the reason you were hurt in the first place.”

“That isn’t true. Peakes had it out for me from the first day of training. He saw a chance and took it—”

“Because you disappeared with Harry Potter.”

“I went to the loo alone and he followed me because he saw an opening. Your involvement was his justification after the fact, but he would have done it anyway.”

“I didn’t stop him.”

“You couldn’t have.”

“That’s my point. I can’t do anything to help you.”

“I never would have even woken up if not for you.”

“Of course you would have.”

“Lovegood doesn’t think so.” He swallows. “She told me you were there. She told me you came every night.”

Harry doesn’t seem to know what to say to that. “Not every night,” he says eventually.

“You make me stronger,” Draco says, and Harry clenches his jaw. “I’m doing better than I ever was at St. Mungo’s or the Manor, and all that’s changed is that I’m here with you. I was stronger every morning just because you were there while I slept.”

Harry shakes his head as though trying to shake off Draco’s words. “Sitting there isn’t helping.”

“It made the biggest difference.”

“I could have really made a difference. I could have seen he was punished for what he did to you. But I’m far too selfish—”

“Granger told me how the trial went.”

“Oh, did she?”

“You aren’t selfish, Harry.”

“Who else have you been talking to, then?”

“I’ve been talking to Ginny,” Draco says, just as Harry prompts, “Your mother?”

“What did Ginny tell you?” Harry asks, and Draco asks, “What about my mother?”

“I didn’t—” Harry starts.

“What did you think my mother told me?”

“It’s nothing. I—she saw me. We saw each other. At Andromeda’s, while you were staying with me after you left the Manor. She wanted to know how you were doing.”

Draco knows that Harry doesn’t mean they saw each other once. He remembers Harry suggesting that Draco write to Narcissa and telling Draco she would be there on Christmas Eve, and he feels like an idiot for not realising it on his own.

“What did Ginny tell you?” Harry asks again when Draco doesn’t say anything.

“She told me…” He clears his throat. “She told me you proposed.”

Harry is already tense, but the line of his shoulders goes positively rigid. He closes his eyes, and a muscle twitches in his neck as he hardens his jaw.

“I think she was trying to help,” Draco says. “She came in while you were out just now, and she wanted to make me feel better. It didn’t—it didn’t work. I’m not sure I understood her right.”

“I didn’t mean it,” Harry bites out. “I didn’t want—”

“I know.”

“I felt like I should. Like we should, for him. I even—I asked Arthur and Molly for their permission, and they thought she would say yes. I don’t think Molly ever really believed Ginny didn’t want to. And obviously she had no idea that I didn’t want to. But—Jamie,” he finishes weakly. “I would have for Jamie.”

Draco takes a deep breath. “Harry—she told me about all of them. Every time. I mean, the times before, too.”

Harry’s shoulders fall, and he holds his head in his hands. “It wasn’t anything,” he says quietly. “I just—I really thought I loved her.”

“You don’t have to explain it to me. I understand it, I really do.”

“I thought I had to,” Harry says. He won’t look back at Draco.

“You thought you were supposed to be in love with her,” Draco says. “You thought that was supposed to make you happy.”

Harry nods, crossing his arms.

“So how do I know,” Draco asks, even though he doesn’t want to, “whether you love me or just think you’re supposed to?”

At that, Harry looks at him, and the green of his eyes is overwhelming.

“I know you haven’t said you do, and I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, but—you don’t have to take care of me, Harry. You really don’t owe me anything. All you ever do is try to make other people happy, but you don’t have to do that anymore. If you’re keeping me around because you feel like you should, well, I don’t need to be here. I’ll land on my feet. You’ve already done everything you can—more than enough. Do what makes you happy.”

He thinks the strained, pensive silence will continue, that perhaps Harry will say something more about how he does owe Draco because all of it is his fault. He does not expect Harry to pull him close and kiss him more forcefully than he has since before. He does not expect Harry’s hand on his neck, fingers on his pulse, steadying him. He does not expect this desperation.

“You make me happy,” Harry says, and kisses him again. “You make me happy.”

“You make me happy,” Draco says against Harry’s mouth.

Harry is still afraid to break him, but Draco reassures him that he won’t. He reassures him with his hands and with his mouth, and with his words, too, because it is good to say these things out loud. Harry touches him with all of the feeling and urgency he’s been holding back, and Draco isn’t going to break. Harry uses his words, too, softly against Draco’s skin. Words like love, and mine, and us.

It feels like the first time, but without all of Draco’s nerves; the comfortable familiarity of it gives it a new sort of thrill. Harry still touches Draco in a way that feels intensely personal, in a way that soothes and excites him all at once. Harry kisses him as they move together, kisses him over and over and over, and Draco believes him.

It’s intense when he comes, making him feel so shaky and lightheaded that he remembers he’s still in recovery and definitely can’t go another round or two like they used to. Harry freezes for a second, until Draco insists that he’s all right and that Harry should fuck him all the way through it. Harry follows him down, and they lie still together, curled close around each other.

“You don’t make me feel like I should take care of you,” Harry says quietly, tracing idly over the skin of Draco’s shoulder blade. “You make me want to take care of you.”

Draco presses a kiss to his jaw.

“And before you say you don’t need anyone to take care of you,” Harry adds, “you make me want to let you take care of me, too.”

They lie awake, savouring the feeling of skin on skin, as the sky grows light outside.






The Wizarding world doesn’t seem to know what to do with the Harry Potter that returns to the Ministry for the first time after months of absence. He is bespectacled once more and wears faded jeans and an old, worn t-shirt. He smiles politely at the witches and wizards that stare at him, but still avoids conversation. A few unsuspecting folks even step into the lift with him, having failed to recognise their old hero. When one of them asks him what he’s wearing, he says he thought he’d like to be comfortable today.

He re-emerges in the Atrium two hours later, coming down from the first floor with Hermione Granger. The pair are deep in conversation, and both wear broad, genuine smiles. Their picture is on the front page the next day. He makes the front page almost daily for weeks: walking through Diagon Alley with Ginny Weasley and her son, visiting the Leaky Cauldron to see Hannah Abbott and Neville Longbottom, having lunch in the canteen at St. Mungo’s with Luna Lovegood. But he never seems to be doing anything interesting; there is no scandalous story behind lunch with friends. By the end of August, Harry Potter sightings slip the notice of the press entirely.

It would make the papers if they caught wind of his outings in the Muggle world. His daily walks with Draco Malfoy clearly have a story behind them—Draco holds his hand tightly all the while, and he will stop periodically to grab Harry’s arm or bury his face in the crook of his neck. Sometimes, faced with crowds, he freezes and seems not to want to walk any further, and Harry whispers to him quietly until he can move again. Draco gradually stops less frequently, and soon not at all. His hold of Harry’s hand becomes loose and voluntary rather than necessary.

James Sirius Potter has his first birthday as summer ends, and they have a modest party in the garden of the Burrow. George Weasley tells Luna and Narcissa the story of Harry showing up an hour after the birth with a well-hickeyed Draco in tow, embellishing some of the finer details. Ginny laughs riotously and kisses Harry and Draco each on the cheek.

“I’m so glad it happened like this,” Ginny says.

“Yeah,” Harry says, and Draco squeezes his hand. “Me, too.”



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