Author: Miggy
![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
miggyRating: R
Canon: This is set after the events of HPB, at an undetermined but not terribly long stretch after the end of the book. Pretty much every major development of the novel gets at least a passing nod here.
Length: 6,600
Scenario: I promise to wait up for you.
Summary: Harry and Draco plan for the end of the war--in very different ways.
Disclaimer: I do not own, nor pretend to own any characters or locations within the HP Universe, they remain the sole property of J. K. Rowling, Warner Bros., Christopher Little Agency and associates. No money is made from this work, it is purely a work of fanfiction.
Notes: Thanks (as always) to
kphoebe for prodding and poking this into a much better form, and thanks to bookshop for 1) running this whole madhouse and 2) saying "sure thing!" when I said I'd be a few hours late because of editing. ;) The title comes from "Song for a Winter's Night" by Sarah McLachlan. (You know, just in case you forgot that a chick wrote this.) And I played pretty fast and loose with the whole cheque concept.Have You Near to Breathe a Sigh
For one brief moment, Harry considers not telling them the truth. Katie, Ron... they could have died. They nearly did.
(For enemies.)
It's not because Malfoy had a similar brush with death. He feels sick over what happened when he ripped apart a living body with an untested spell, but not guilty. If Harry has guilt to carry around, there are plenty of other people to dole it out to before he'd put on the sackcloth and ashes for the sake of Draco Malfoy.
He'll kill me!
It's not because he's worried that Malfoy might suffer, or even die. He knows any killing would be done on false assumptions, but that's still not it. Harry's been facing death since he was a year old, over and over in a hundred different ways. Looking into its face doesn't concern him now, doesn't make him flinch. It's a punch in the gut and a stab through the heart, yes, but he no longer has any illusions that it's something anyone can hope to avoid.
He'll kill my whole family!
"Ron, Hermione... stop."
Death might wait for everyone, but that particular brush with it should be put off as long as possible.
"It's not his fault."
Outside a broken-down house in Kent, Ron and Hermione stare at Harry in bewilderment. Their eyes are bright and hard in the moonlight. "What?" Hermione asks, completely ignorant for one of the few times in her life. Harry hates himself now for letting her stay that way.
Very slowly, and mindful of Ron and Hermione's gazes on him, Harry says, "Malfoy didn't do anything." He swallows hard and tries to think back to that night, as much as he doesn't want to. "He... I think he was going to switch." It takes a long explanation before he sees realization dawn, going all the way back to seeing a breakdown in a bathroom that finally gives context to why he ran into their common room covered in blood. As he tells them about the moment before the Death Eaters entered and everything fell apart, Harry realizes that he really does believe Malfoy was ready to take Dumbledore's offer. "He was going to go under the Order's protection," Harry says, firmly. He's sure of it now.
"Instead, he went under Snape's," Ron says. Hermione shifts her weight and looks uneasy.
Harry's jaw twitches and he takes a deep breath. "Well, Snape's not here now." Lucky for all of them. Logic's surprising appearance surely would have been put off if he'd seen the face of the man who killed Dumbledore. It would have been simple, though: go in, wands throwing off hexes and revenge. Instead, they're standing outside of a run-down cottage and he's entirely unsure as to what to do next.
He finally says, "Well, I guess I'd better go talk to him. You two wait outside. We all go in, he'll think it's an attack and it'll all go to shit."
Ron snorts a little and smiles. "Understatement of the year, that. But mate, are you sure you want to-"
"Yeah," Harry says, surprised at how much he means it.
Hermione glances at Ron, then back to him. "We'll be right outside, Harry. Just call if you need us."
Harry nods once, then walks to the front door and taps his wand against the lock. It opens. Hardly a defense against anyone coming there with a mind on killing, but then, there's not much to do against those kinds but hide.
"I'm alone, Malfoy. I want to talk. I saw what really happened and I'm not here for payback, or anything like that."
A voice behind him makes him turn. "Which is why you have your wand at the ready, I'm sure."
There's no one there. Harry curses his gullibility and turns back around, ignoring the way Malfoy's words are magically thrown across the room. After a moment of consideration he steps away from the voice and walks toward a tilted door at the far end of the small, dusty dining room. Rounding the edge of the door puts Malfoy's wand at his chest.
"Well," Malfoy says as his voice returns to his throat, "I'm so glad I took the time to learn that terribly valuable spell."
"It'd be a useful distraction if you were out in the open, trying to run away," Harry says. He lets his wand hand fall to his side.
The action doesn't go unnoticed. Malfoy narrows his eyes and asks, "What are you trying to pull, Potter? You have your big important destiny to fulfill. The only reason you'd take the time to track me down is if you wanted me dead."
"Because you let Death Eaters into Hogwarts, because you were trying to kill Dumbledore, because you nearly killed my best friend in the process?"
Malfoy's gaze narrows as Harry says all this and yet lets his wand hang useless. He presses the tip of his wand into Harry's chest, dimpling it. It stops his hands from shaking. Harry doesn't think the motion came from panic this time; his face has the drawn, sunken look of someone who hasn't eaten enough and didn't have much spare flesh to start with.
"Yeah, well. You deserve to get punished for that. Serious kick, right in the arse." He shrugs, heedless of the way that makes the wand tip drag against his robe and the skin beneath. "Looks like that's already happening."
Malfoy smiles and � bizarrely � starts to laugh. "Oh," he says with great relief when the laughter finally stops. "You've come to rub it all in."
"Actually, we've been calling on favors and friends across all of Britain, trying to see if Snape's anywhere near where we're going. Someone told us he was here, then we only saw you through the shutters. You should stay away from them when it's night and you have candles lit, by the way. They've got holes."
"Your concern touches me. Severus left two days ago. He had something to do. I'm not his only mission." Malfoy still looks oddly lighthearted and comfortable.
"I imagine you're not going to tell me where."
Malfoy smiles at him condescendingly and tightens his grip on his wand. Harry still doesn't flinch. "You couldn't hit a fly right now, Malfoy," he says in carefully measured tones. "Are your parents still alive?" The other boy's eyes open wide at the sudden change in topic and Harry presses on. "I told you I saw what happened. I know why you did what you did, I know what Dumbledore offered you, and I saw you lower your wand."
"Why are you telling me this?" he finally asks.
Harry shrugs again. "Seemed like the right thing to do, since you couldn't see me watching. Are they still alive?"
Malfoy stares at him, hollow-eyed.
"I guess you wouldn't want to tell me about your father. You'd want me to think he was dead even if he wasn't, right? You think I'd try to see him killed?" Harry asks baldly. "I don't know, I suppose. But I really hope nothing happens to your mum."
"Potter, be quiet," Malfoy says in a strained voice.
"I could've told people this earlier and I didn't. I probably should have. So I'm just making things square."
Red rises to Malfoy's cheeks, hot dark spots of anger. He whips his hand away from Harry and stalks to the other end of the tiny kitchen. "Well, stop it!" he yells, casting his arm about for emphasis. "The only thing I want to hear out of you is a spell coming right at my head."
"You first," Harry dares.
Ten minutes later, Malfoy stomps back into the kitchen, casts a Finite Incantum to remove Harry's paralyzation, and begins to quite loudly bemoan the fact that he wasn't smart enough to turn his hated enemy into a very small and very squishable bug. With a dollop of wisdom that he'd misplaced ten minutes prior, Harry has the sense not to ask why he didn't do anything to him while he was under Petrificus Totalus if Malfoy hates him so very much. He also thinks on how lucky they were that Ron and Hermione didn't take that span of time as a warning that something had gone wrong.
"Look," he says in the middle of Malfoy's ranting. "I need to go. They'll be wondering where I am."
"Fine," Malfoy bites off. "And don't come back."
Harry makes a noncommittal noise and turns for the door.
"Hurt, Potter."
"What?"
Malfoy is looking at him with surprising patience. "You meant to say that I couldn't hurt a fly. Either that, or that I couldn't hit Millicent Bulstrode while she had a hippo under either arm. It's stupid to say I'm off my game because I couldn't hit a fly; that's hard to do at the best of times unless it's perched still on the wall."
Harry smiles a little despite himself, but quickly controls it. "Thanks for the tip."
Malfoy very obviously does not say "You're welcome" and Harry's smile grows when he ducks out the door.
Ron and Hermione look at him oddly when he rejoins them on the walk, still with a quirky little smile on his face. "How did it go?" Hermione asks with great hesitation.
"You know," Harry begins, chuckling, "I have no idea."
"Snape's not back?" Harry asks the next evening. He knocked, this time.
"Go away."
Harry ignores Malfoy and pushes his way through the door.
He sighs and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Look, shouldn't you be off trying to save the world instead of staking out a cottage in the middle of nowhere? I'm not particularly keen on being stalked by Harry Potter. The last time that happened, I had to hold in my own liver."
A shiver runs through Harry and his casual facade drops. He tries to fight down rising horror. "Seriously?"
"Damned if I know. I was busy dying, as you might recall; made it hard to concentrate on the specifics. It felt like everything was coming out. Now, will you please leave?"
All of this, the back-and-forth, is bizarrely comforting. Harry understands Malfoy's sudden outburst of laughter the night before. "'Please,' Malfoy? You're losing your touch."
"Lost everything else, I suppose."
Harry has no idea how to react to that. After a few silent minutes he turns and walks out the door.
They get a tip on where to find a Horcrux. In a fit of irony, an intimate sliver of Voldemort's very being has been hidden in the middle of Muggle London. When they learn they will have to run a heist to retrieve the one impostor of Britain's Crown Jewels, the fit of irony begins to look a bit more like familiar sadism. It takes a week to plan their attack. Hermione finds a spell that turns glass as weak as fog, Harry wonders over whether an Invisibility Cloak can make him invisible to electronic eyes the same as human ones, and Ron calls on a friend of his father's and gets a Portkey made.
"Where should it go to, Harry?" Ron had asked him.
Harry thinks on the question for only a moment. "Kent."
They look at him oddly, knowing just where in the county he means.
"Close enough that you can get there before tonight by the train, far enough away from London that they won't be able to find me after I use the Portkey. That way there's only one bit of magic travel if someone's tracking us that way." He shifts his weight back and forth as their eyebrows creep further up their foreheads. "And we can check to see if Snape finally showed."
"Whatever you say, Harry," Ron says. He pauses. "So, these jewels... do they do anything?"
"Just be pretty, really," Hermione says. "Well. Except for the one."
Harry's mind is already racing past their conversation and an impossible heist to what he'll see after he touches the Portkey and everything goes black.
"Oh," Malfoy says when Harry turns up wide-eyed and ready to collapse from stress. "You." He steps back, looks Harry up and down critically. "You look like shit, Potter."
"I just got out of a room ten seconds before a dozen guns entered it, with guards attached at the triggers."
"Sharing your terribly secret doings, Potter? Not very sneaky of you. I could be feeding all of this to the Death Eaters right now, for all you know."
Harry looks at him flatly and yanks up Malfoy's left robe sleeve, popping shirt buttons in the process and revealing unmarked skin. He tugs the material back down, casts Reparo on the buttons, and says, "Guess you don't get in the club unless you pass your initiation."
Malfoy sounds sulky when he says, "If I did have the Mark, that whole little display of yours would have been ruined."
"If you did have the Mark, you'd be dead right now. With the task you were set to, I'm guessing Voldemort had one plan for you: cannon fodder." Malfoy doesn't react, so Harry adds, "Considering the fact that you're hiding in a rat-infested house and that my suggestion didn't surprise you, I'm guessing you've come to the same conclusion."
"I've come to a variety of conclusions, most of which are far too complex for your pathetic Gryffindor brain to comprehend."
"But all of them focus around the idea that palling around with the Death Eaters isn't a good plan for a long and full life, or you would have tracked them down ages ago." As he talks, Harry realizes a plan is beginning to percolate at the back of his mind. It's a foolish, pointless thing, really. He has far more important things on his plate.
Malfoy natters on about wizarding politics and how Harry can't hope to understand years of history with his limited exposure to their world. Harry ignores him and falls into his own thoughts. It works well; Malfoy gets to feel self-important and superior, and Harry gets the momentary comfort of seeing lodestar behavior return to its proper space in the sky.
"Right, then," he says, his adventures an hour prior forgotten. "Time for me to go."
Malfoy waves him out. It's amazing how a brusque jerk of his hand can somehow seem a bit more friendly than the same motion made a week earlier.
Harry turns and looks before he walks through the door. Carefully, and with great effort, he finds the mental notebook that reads "Malfoy" on the cover and changes it to "Draco."
"You plan to find Malfoy a bunch of hiding-holes all across Britain?" Ron asks in disbelief. "Why on earth-"
"Because that's what Dumbledore wanted to do," Harry says firmly. Ron and Hermione share a pained glance and nod reluctantly. He knows that look: Harry's off and running on some insane scheme again. Best to just go along with it or he'll start yelling at everyone. He swallows down the comment he very much wants to make.
"But Harry," Hermione says, "how on earth are you going to find all those places to hide? You only know one person who's done that, and he's..." She trails off apologetically.
Harry firmly ignores the way his heart twists around. "No," he says. "I can think of someone else."
I am more than pleased to contribute to the success of your mission. Given the amount of effort expended on your request, Harry, I do hope you will remember my name in the future. Do not worry about money; public thanks will be enough after this whole messy war business is over and through. I do expect that you will show all due decorum until such time as those matters are settled.
-H. Slughorn
"Shameless," Harry sighs to himself as he tucks the note in his pocket.
"Slughorn," Ron says, gape-mouthed.
"Shameless Slughorn," Harry muses. "It does have a bit of a nice patter to it."
"Don't be daft, Harry. You've given the Slytherin head of house a heads-up that he can contact you at any time, and he thinks you're going to be hiding out in the places he suggests?" Ron shakes his head. "Mark my words: Malfoy's going to wake up one day and stare at a bunch of Death Eaters who were sent there with 'kill Potter' orders. And we'll be lucky if he doesn't have some sort of owl exchange set up so anything you send to him goes right off to You Know Who."
"Ron," Harry says. "Shut up."
He notes Ron's hurt look before he turns and leaves, but does nothing to assuage it.
He has to show Draco the letter before he's believed. Glancing between paper and courier, Draco finally admits, "That is his signature, and I don't recall you having any particular talent with forgery."
"I know I don't know him like you do, probably," Harry says, "but it looked like he really knew how to go underground."
"Does he know it involves me?" Draco asks.
He shakes his head. "I made it sound like I wanted to have some reliable safe houses to run to if things got a little rough. He drew up the list for my sake." He tries to sound casual, but ruins it by swallowing hard. "Do you trust him to give safe locations, still?"
"Right now, I trust myself and one other person in this forsaken rock of a country."
"Snape?" Harry asks. He doesn't manage to keep the sneer of disgust out of his voice.
"I used to," Draco says blankly. "He said he'd be back two weeks ago. He might be dead, I suppose. Either way, he got me here and left me to rot."
Fourteen days is all it takes to lose trust, Harry thinks with some sadness. I guess he must not have much to give away. He clears his throat, hard. "Then... m- your mum?"
Draco doesn't nod. Instead, he smiles humorlessly and says, "So, if the family luck holds out, I should be down to trusting just myself within the week." He shrugs hugely and pockets Slughorn's list. "But it's not like I have any better options. Hopefully my association with Slytherin House will have one last benefit."
"You could leave Britain, you know. Leave all of Europe, be on the safe side," Harry says carefully. He'd be furious if someone suggested he turn tail and run. He'd never think the same of Hogwarts' Draco Malfoy, but this new Draco, hardened yet made raw by the outside world, is an enigma. A maddening, fascinating enigma.
"If I hear that my parents have died, I might," Draco says like he's discussing which socks match which shoes.
Harry has the sneaking suspicion that upon hearing that news, there wouldn't be much of him left to attempt an escape to the Americas.
"Well, might as well get onto it, then. I'll make it as hard as possible for Voldemort and company to track me down. Maybe it'll work marvelously and I'll even last the month. Amazing how being unceremoniously abandoned makes you realize how bloody fucking unprepared our glorious alma mater has left us." Draco walks for the front door and Harry follows.
Something about that sounds wrong, and when realization slams into place Harry stops walking from the shock. "You called him Voldemort."
"I've already got his attention, Potter." Draco Apparates without another word, or any indication of which of the locations he's decided upon.
Something in Harry's world feels suddenly unbalanced and he has no clue why.
A month later, there is an unplanned but welcomed break forced upon them. Their leads have gone cold, skirmishes between Death Eaters and the Order or Aurors have died down as the factions lick their wounds, and Britain has entered a blessed period of silence. There is time for laughter, talk of the future, and carefully planned casual trips for Ron and Hermione. Being the only one of them not to have been put through the full rounds prior to leaving Hogwarts, Harry tells them he wants to practice Apparating before it's needed in the heat of battle. Hermione has a tip sheet ready to avoid splinching, which is so perfectly her that he gives her an impetuous hug before willing himself to a townhouse in Wales.
After a failure there, he goes down the list from memory. When he's sure he can make the trip safely, he journeys to a shed in the middle of a rocky outcropping near Lands End. He's not surprised to find it empty; a dirty kitchen was pushing it for Draco. A one room shack is entirely too little for him to tolerate, even for the sake of survival.
A basement in Swindon. A tiny flat in Blackpool. Above a downmarket restaurant in Manchester that seems to coat the sidewalk and walls in grease, he finally finds Draco.
"Sorry," Harry says when Draco has finished clutching at his chest and trying to steady his breath. "You should really block the flat from Apparation attempts when you're just going to be sitting in it like this."
"'Yes, Malfoy,'" Draco says in a high-pitched voice that sounds like a mincing girl version of Harry. He's slightly offended. "'Very sorry to have popped in on you after a month of silence; oh, hope the heart attack wasn't too much of an inconvenience.'"
"I'm sorry, Draco," Harry says, trying his best to sound sincere. The precise amount of idiocy contained in his actions is starting to dawn.
Draco looks at him suspiciously when Harry uses his first name, but lets it drop. "Well?"
"Well... you lasted the month! So there's one dire prediction gone astray."
"The 'well' was more of a prompt for you to say, 'Well, I have big news as follows, which is why I've decided to insert myself back into your life." He doesn't go back up into the falsetto, which is a welcome change, but he does wait expectantly.
"Uh. Everything's gone quiet, I wanted to see whether you were still... alive, I guess, though that sounds rather blunt, and so I popped back and forth between the places on Slughorn's list."
"Did you see the one near Lands End?"
"And promptly left it, because I knew you wouldn't stay there in a million years."
"Ugh, I've never seen anything more horrid, and I've seen what kind of conditions House Elves like to live in."
"Better not let Hermione hear you say that," Harry says impishly, "or she'll stick a S.P.E.W. button on your nose. Actually, she might just turn your nose into one."
"How charming. A heart attack and talk of further Gryffindor-induced merriment, all in the same few minutes. What my day really needed was more Granger. So: you wanted to see if I was still alive to see if yet another of your grand schemes was a success, or if you failed to protect the person who never wanted your help in the first place. Am I right?"
Harry flops into an overstuffed chair across from Draco. He has no delusions that Draco will care about what he's about to say. But he's only been talking to Ron and Hermione for months on end, and they're exactly the ones he can't raise these discussion points with. "The two of them might be serious."
Draco just keeps staring at him like he's speaking a foreign language.
"I mean, we all would be graduating this year. So that's when you start talking about the jobs you want to hold, whether you hope to have a whole gaggle of kids someday or want to be a career wizard, all that. I bet the same thing comes up in all the dorms, right?"
He nods, visibly annoyed and likely hoping that Harry will get right on with it.
"So, Ron and Hermione are talking about all of that. I don't know that they'll wind up together in the end, even if they seem serious now, but they're talking about the future. How they'll play their part in all this, and then life'll go right on."
"You cannot possibly think I want to hear gossip about Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. I'm still focused on how I can force you to leave, and 'thrown out the window' is coming up tops at the moment."
Harry ignores him. "So, every time they do that, I think... that sounds so bizarre to me. Having absolute faith that the war will be won, thinking it's a bump along the road to an actual life a few miles down... It's funny, but my best friends don't really understand what it's like to really be caught up in something this big and terrible."
Draco stays silent, but the petulance has vanished from his face.
"So I just wanted to see if you were still kicking around," Harry continues. He stands and motions to the small kitchen. "I'm thirsty. Glasses?"
"Above the sink," Draco says. After a moment, he adds, "Get me one."
"No please?"
"If you say it, I might reconsider throwing you out the window."
So long as he gives them deadlines for his returns, Ron and Hermione are perfectly happy to let him zip off as much as he wants. The small house they're bunking in wouldn't feel nearly so tight if those two weren't treating every footstep on his part as a potential privacy violation. They're fastidious about keeping him safe, but as soon as that's assured it's nice knowing you, Harry, enjoy your trip, be back by ten or we'll release the hounds but don't be back too far before that.
He is getting the sneaking suspicion that Draco looks forward to his visits. For Harry, it's a temporary reprieve from being the third member of a crowd; for Draco, it's probably the only human contact he has. A few varieties of liquor have made their way into the flat's kitchen: some wizard brews, some harder Muggle stuff... whatever's easy for Harry to grab. It's always an adventure seeing whether they'll wind up laughing (or, in Draco's case, trying not to) or drunkenly yelling at each other until Harry Apparates away and just barely avoids a textbook case of Splinching.
As the weeks wear on, the latter turns up with lower and lower frequency.
"I realized something a while back, Potter."
Harry wishes Draco would call him by his first name.
"That detention we got sent on together, back in first year. In the Forest. You and I were the first wizards anywhere in England to see Voldemort alive again." He pauses, musing over his words. "Well, really, I suppose we tied for second. Quirrell'd be the first, but he hardly matters now, does he?"
"He wasn't really alive, then," Harry says. "Just... in limbo. Kind of alive."
"Imagine that."
With great determination, Harry once again drags Draco away from all those tempting pits of self-doubt and apathy. "You know how you turned tail and ran when we saw him?"
"The dog did, too," Draco says, sounding offended.
"Yeah, well." Harry smiles a little, lopsidedly. "So did I. I just tripped after a couple of steps."
A rare and precious smile breaks out on Draco's face. "That is where all that vaunted Gryffindor bravery came from? We both tried to run for our lives; you were just incompetent at it." He actually laughs out loud, a rich sound untouched by desperation or condescension.
Harry rolls his eyes. "'I'm Draco Malfoy,'" he says in a falsetto to match any used by the other boy in days past. "'I'm rich and snooty and I think everything's horrible unless I own it, and then I probably have two of them. My robes are better than yours, and you look pretty dodgy yourself. ...Let's be friends!'"
"And you turned me down," Draco says with sudden and sobering neutrality.
"You were a complete arse, Draco. And you kept right on being a complete, total, award-worthy arse up until... well, you still pull out that card more than anyone would like." Harry takes a deep breath and lets roll with, "And you need to eat something, because you look about ready to blow away in a stiff breeze."
"I have no idea what the fuck to make of you, Potter," Draco finally says. He looks too bewildered to be angry.
"Neither do I, about me or you, so we're even."
The rest of the evening passes awkwardly, but before Harry Apparates he says, "Same time tomorrow?"
Draco nods, and the next day goes far more smoothly. That night, it crosses Harry's mind that he hasn't thought about Ginny in nearly a month. He doesn't feel bad about it like he thinks he should, and barely manages to muster up any guilt over that omission.
"Slughorn gave a whole list for a reason, you know," Harry says during another visit to Manchester. A few dirty dishes are in the sink and a pair of worn pants are neatly folded across a chair instead of tucked in a satchel. Considering what he's seen from Draco, that practically counts as nesting.
"I'm aware."
"If you don't take a little more interest in your well-being," Harry snaps, "I'll start thinking that you really do want to die." He's sorry the instant the words leave his mouth. Not because Draco looks stricken at them; because he doesn't.
"It would be very inconvenient," Draco says, "if I died."
"Inconvenient-"
"Because then Mother would come here for no reason at all and put herself in danger in the process."
Harry winces. He'd hoped Draco wouldn't be able to get any of the wizarding news in this tiny little hole. Monday's issue of the Prophet had another run of the now-standard article about which wizards and witches were rumored to be dead. Narcissa Malfoy had made her first appearance. "Draco-"
"I figure... if I'm going to really try and see if she's out there," Draco says slowly, "now'd be the time."
"I'm sure she's fine," Harry says. "Things have been quiet. I wouldn't have been here every night if they hadn't been, right?"
"...when on earth did that start happening?' Draco asks, looking surprised instead of disgusted, like he surely would have just a month earlier.
Harry shrugs and tries to contain his own surprise. He finally processes all the pieces of the conversation and hastily adds, "Wait one bloody minute. You're doing something to let your mother track you down. That means other people could find you, too."
"I'm not entirely without caution, Potter," Draco says. He almost manages to keep his voice steady. Almost. "I took a long time to weigh the options before I did anything. I know what all I've done. Covered my tracks nicely, I think."
"I thought I was the one who made all the rash decisions," Harry says. He tries to make the words light, but they come out tight as a drumhead.
"I have always been a model of restraint," Draco says. His voice breaks again and he coughs to hide it.
Harry walks over to the cabinets in slow, measured steps. He considers the butterbeer, then moves his hand to a bottle of whiskey. "Who did you..." He shakes his head as he pours two fingers of the liquor into each glass and starts again. "I take you trust more people now, then?"
Draco takes the offered glass and looks down at the rippling amber surface. It takes him a long, long time before he looks back up and says, "Still just the two, I think."
Harry nods and tilts the glass up to his mouth. It glides a long burn down to his stomach; the sensation makes him wonder just how strongly the stuff hits Draco's system. Focusing on that question helps him steady himself as he considers Draco's reaction: he had to think about it. Hard.
Warmth and confusion fill his head in equal measure. He sets the glass down on the table before any more of the liquor can kick in, and sees Draco swirling his around rather than drinking it. He's gone distant again, a thousand-yard stare directed at the whiskey.
"But I'm sure things will be fine despite that," Draco eventually says without looking up from his glass. "I think I might actually trust those people when all's said and done. You know. The two."
"Well," Harry says as his and Draco's drinks go untouched, "that's good to hear."
On a bright and cloudless morning, Harry, Hermione, and Ron hear about a massacre on the North Sea coastline, just on the Scottish side of the wall. The sudden burst of activity puts them all into immediate mission mode and they nearly trip over their own feet to launch back into action. They Apparate over when news comes of strange new spells being used by Death Eaters; Harry's the most skilled of all of them by now. They spend a desperate week testing the edges of the danger zone, looking for any hiding enemies ready to spring, and trying to find any hints as to just what the Death Eaters used to achieve their attacks. If it was a spell, too bad; if it was a magical object, it might be some tiny, infinitesimal lead.
A few Aurors show up and help with the search, though their version of helping centers around telling the trio to stay out of the way and letting the adults handle this. They eventually find broken bits of pottery that make a Seer in the group clutch at his head. They'll be analyzed, and a blessed few members of the group realize that Harry Potter should be filled in on the findings. They get the address and promise to owl anything relevant.
"I really don't think you need to practice Apparating any more, Harry," Hermione says once the three of them are back in their little house. Harry's ready to leave it again the second they darken the doorstep. "You were better than both of us."
"Better safe than sorry," he says with a too-casual shrug. He sees her weigh and measure him with a look. She knows, he thinks. Harry's not sure what there is to know but is suddenly very self-conscious about having it pinned down. "Right, then. Back by ten."
The Manchester flat is empty, and there are scorch marks and blood on all the walls.
Harry just barely manages to avoid being sick.
He flashes back to Lands End, Blackpool, Kent, and finally lands on the townhouse in Wales. It was a beautiful place once, but now has all its windows blown out and plywood nailed up in place. He barely takes in any of the old beauty as he rushes through the front door and looks for a person he's halfway sure is dead.
"You left," Draco says distantly.
"Oh my god," Harry chokes out, holding a hand against his chest until he can feel his heart return to a normal pace. "I saw... blood everywhere and... Death Eaters?"
"Yes."
"What did... how did..."
"A little spell you taught me, Potter," Draco says in tones that veer from dark to delirious and back again. It makes Harry's skin crawl. "They never knew what hit them. I suppose they never will."
"They were going to kill you," Harry says in sudden desperation. "If you didn't go with them, didn't go off to be put up for slaughter..."
"So I killed them," Draco says, and bursts out into mingled laughter and crying. "Suppose your old bat of a headmaster was wrong about me after all, wasn't he? Well, that's it, then. That's my death warrant. No more neutrality for me. The second they find me again, I'm dead."
Harry kisses him. He's not sure why, only that he's realizing he'd found a perfect fit when everything else had been off-center and now even that's been left in shambles. He left for no good reason, he could have stopped this, he could have lived up to what people expect of his name and not treated it like a cross to bear. He might be the only person in the world who wants to connect to Draco Malfoy, is certainly the only one making the effort, and the fact that he left has everything to do with why he's not being kissed back.
Draco pulls away. For one brief, terrible second Harry is sure he's made a fundamental miscalculation about every last encounter they've ever had. Oh god, he's so thin. It makes his heart ache. "At least you came back," Draco says before he leans in again.
It shouldn't be as desperate as this, Harry thinks dumbly to himself. It shouldn't feel like the stairs and the gallows are in sight. He takes Draco's face in his hands and shivers when the pad of one thumb runs across a long, thin scar on his cheek. He hadn't noticed it before; Draco's too pale.
"I take it you're changing your answer on the friend offer," Draco says shakily when they pull apart for breath.
Harry laughs just as desperately as Draco ever has. Their foreheads are resting against each other's and they're staring blankly at the other's torso, not up to meeting each other's eyes. He looks up, suddenly. "Come back with me."
"Harry, don't be stupid."
"You're on our side, they'd never question it for a moment now-"
"They'd see a killer. They'd be right. Besides... I could never do that. I could never stand up and be counted there."
"Why the hell not?"
"The second I was born with the name Malfoy, I had my life decided for me."
"That's not true," Harry snaps.
"I find that rather funny coming from you, the great Harry Potter."
Harry struggles to find something in response to that, but can't. He waits uncomfortably.
Draco says, "I have as many people counting on me as you do. They just happened to live centuries ago."
"Fuck history and lineage and all those things that are making you think you don't have any other choice but to die." Harry glances at a clock on the wall. Nearly ten o'clock. Ron and Hermione will be expecting him.
Draco sees him looking and smiles fatalistically. He already looks faded and blurred, like he's his own death portrait. "Best be getting back to your friends. They'll want you to check in."
"They can just worry for tonight," Harry says. For some reason, for some strange, wonderful reason, that brings a little light into Draco's eyes where everything else failed. He doesn't know what'll happen, what he hopes will happen, how much of any of this is just stress bubbling up and how much is them finally acting out a scene set up by six years of careful practice.
Through more kisses, he extracts and gives promises: Draco will try to stay alive. He'll go to the Lands End cottage, because no one would ever expect him there. He won't give up on Harry if he vanishes for a day or a week or a month, because his promise to come back will hold true. He'll wait up for him through long winter nights if this goes that long. If any of them survive, he adds before Harry quiets him and makes him add one more promise: he won't despair.
In return, Harry will save him.
He takes the promises back with him, written in elegant script on scraps of paper. Ron and Hermione ask where he was and he won't tell them. When they talk of the future, he smiles and wishes them all the best on their well-worn road. He doesn't try to describe his own.
