Sincerely Draco L Malfoy

Part one – Dinner, not a date

Harry sighed and looked up from the transfiguration essay he was supposed to be writing. Trusting that Hermione was too deep into her own work to reprimand him for losing focus, he leaned back in his chair and let his eyes wander around the library. They came to rest on Draco Malfoy who was approaching their table with a determined look on his face, the black cloak flapping behind him in a Snape like fashion.

“Granger” he said, ignoring Harry and Ron. “I need a muggle.”

Hermione looked up with mild surprise. Malfoy imposing his company on them, coming up with various claims and questions had become a thing of his this term, yet this demand was somewhat unusual.

“What for?” Ron asked next to him. “Need to sharpen your crucios or what?”

Something flashed behind the grey irises. Harry watched with interest, wondering if he was going to snap but he composed himself and spoke with the usual drawl.

“It’s for dinner.”

“You’re eating them now?”

“Don’t be repulsive Weasley, it’s for muggle studies. I need to have dinner with a muggle.” He made a face. “Stupid assignment.”

“Malfoy” Ron said, clenching his fists. “You are not having dinner with my girlfriend.”

“I can speak for myself Ronald.” Hermione bumped his elbow and turned to Malfoy, giving him a look of utmost loathing. “Draco, under no circumstances will I ever have dinner with you.”

“That’s my girl” Ron mumbled under his breath.

Malfoy rolled his eyes. “I said muggle, not muggleborn.”

“Why are you asking me of all people? I’m not the only one with non-magical parents in this school, you know.”

“Of course I know, there’s an average of twelve percent muggleborns in each year.” Malfoy rambled on as if speaking straight out of the text book.

“Well, there you go then. Ask one of them.”

“Here’s the thing Granger, I can’t do that. First of all, I don’t know who they are and as you might imagine, me going around asking people for their blood status won’t play out well. Secondly, all other muggleborns are much too afraid to speak to me due to some long-ago war related issue that had, shall we say, a slight negative impact on my reputation and thirdly, even if I was to get one to talk to me, I doubt I could get them to give me one of their muggles.”

Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged glances. There was a new, raw honesty to Malfoy this term that was both fascinating and tended to make things uncomfortable while it was hard to tell if he was morbidly joking, having an odd way of showing repentance or simply not giving a damn about his actions of the past.

“Why do you even take muggle studies?”

Malfoy looked directly at him for the first time since he’d made his way over and he was somewhat taken aback by the intensity of the gaze. “As you might know, I’m not here by choice, Potter.”

Harry did know that, they had all been to Malfoy’s trial that had left him with a year of probation instead of a prison sentence, given he’d attend Hogwarts to complete his NEWTs. Harry didn’t think it was the cruel punishment he made it out to be considering that a bunch of other students, including him, Ron and Hermione were doing the same by choice.

“You’re free to choose what NEWTs to take though, aren’t you?” He knew as much, the Wizengamot hadn’t gone into the details about Malfoy’s probation but they were listed in the court protocol, which was a public record available to anyone who requested a copy and were willing to pay three sickles to have it owled. And it wasn’t like Harry was short on gold, so it was no big deal, yet he’d rather take a hex to the balls than admit it to Malfoy.

“I’m taking all the NEWTs I can cram into my schedule to optimize my chances once I’m out of here. It’s most likely a waste of time since no one will employ me anyway, but I might as well, it’s not like I have anything better to do.”

That Harry knew too, at least the part of Malfoy’s schedule being completely crammed. He was in every class Harry and Ron took and everyone of Hermione’s plus a few extra.

“Why muggle studies though? Why not divination or care of magical creatures?”

At this Ron’s eyebrows blended into his hairline. Harry springing strange questions on Malfoy was one thing but knowing what subjects were available to him was rather something Hermione would have kept up to date on, if she’d cared the least about Malfoy’s schedule. Which she didn’t. Harry felt a faint blush to his cheeks but Malfoy didn’t seem bothered. Another new thing this year was that he nearly always offered straight answers to Harry’s questions. If true or not he did not know.

“They are all useless subjects. But imagine what it’ll look like if I don’t take muggle studies, or if I fail it. I have absolutely no interest in the subject but I need to ace it.”

“I see.”

Malfoy seemed to lose interest in him and turned back to Hermione. “So, Granger. Got a sister or cousin or whatever. It’s my treat so I’ll really be doing her a favor.”

“Absolutely not.” She went back to her arithmancy book.

“Does it have to be a girl?” Harry asked.

“Course not, it’s dinner, not a date.”

“And if it was a date?” he couldn’t help but pry.

Malfoy raised his eyebrows and looked him up and down. “Are you that desperate for a free meal Potter? I was under the impression you were well off. And I highly doubt I’ll pass this assignment by spending an evening with the chosen one. ”

“Not me you prat. I might have a muggle for you.”

Malfoy’s face lit up. “Excellent, Potter. I knew you’d be good for something.” Then he turned on his heel and strode out of the library.

“What are you playing at?” Ron asked.

Harry grinned. “Thought it might be fun to set him up with Dudley.”

“You really don’t like your cousin, do you?” Hermione asked, a smile playing on her lips.

“Nope.”

What had seemed like an easy way to get a few laughs on Malfoy and Dudley in fact came with a lot of work.  Not only did Malfoy expect him to organize the whole evening but he also kept pestering him with ridiculous questions about muggle eating habits.

“Of course they drink wine, they really aren’t that different from us” he said as he was walking next to Malfoy in the darkness.

“Yesterday you said they didn’t. I know because I wrote it down, look…” Malfoy hauled up his notebook, levitated it in front of them and cast a lumos which proved he had indeed copied Harry’s words.

“I said they didn’t drink elf made wine. Not wine in general. And they drink beer too.” He pointed at the line beneath. “Just not butterbeer.”

Malfoy sighed. “I have absolutely no idea how I’m going to remember all this.”

“Yet you managed to recite the twelve uses of dragons blood by heart in latin the other day.”

“That’s easy, Potter. I learned that when I was five. Now, are they familiar with both red and white?”

“Yes” Harry sighed. “And I don’t see why I have to come with you all the way to London.”

“You need to introduce us, don’t you? It’s good manners.”

When they left Diagon Alley and ventured into muggle London, it became clear to him the real reason Malfoy had wanted him there was because he was scared to navigate the muggle world.  His eyes darted nervously at the people pushing past them and he took care to stay close to Harry and only spoke in whispers. It had started to rain heavily and even if they remained dry thanks to a couple of discrete water repellant charms, it was still unpleasant to be out on the street with people running past them to escape the bad weather. When Malfoy yelped in fright as someone’s umbrella poked his chin Harry pulled them into a more quiet lane.

He threw a glance at his watch. They were about half an hour early and Dudley had never been one to be on time, unless he was ushered there by Aunt Petunia and he highly doubted that would be the case tonight. Of his relatives, Dudley was the only one he kept in touch with. He’d be perfectly happy if he never had to see his aunt and uncle again and knew the feeling was mutual.

“Let’s pop in here for a while.” He led Malfoy into a quiet pub and pushed him down a chair.

“What’s this?” He wrinkled his nose at the pint Harry placed in front of him.

“I think the word you are looking for is thank you.”

“Highly doubt it” Malfoy muttered and took a sip.

“It’s beer, the muggle kind.”

“Absolutely awful” Malfoy said, yet took a few more gulps.

“So, this cousin of yours, is he handsome or does he look like you?”

“I thought you said it wasn’t a date” Harry said, considering the question. No one who’d seen him and Dudley together had ever thought them to be related, partly because his aunt and uncle had always had him trail a few feet behind so that people wouldn’t think they were connected, but there was not much to suggest they shared the same DNA either.

“Of course it isn’t.” Malfoy kicked him under the table. “Answer the question.”

“We don’t look alike.” He searched for words to describe his cousin’s appearance. Dudley had changed a lot over the past year, for the better, though to say he was handsome was stretching the truth beyond breaking point. With Petunia and Vernon for parents, the odds weren’t exactly in his favor appearance wise (or in any other way, Harry figured) but in some way the genes of his aunt and uncle had begun to battle each other out and Dudley was neither fat and beefy nor thin and horsefaced but rather proportional. When he’d lost weight, his features had changed somewhat and Harry had come to recognize his mother’s chin and nose on him. Perhaps it was that that had made him switch numbers with Dudley when he went to Privet Drive to see his relatives for what he’d decided was the last time.

It was supposed to be a short business, sorting out some administrative issues ensuring the legal bond was cut between them not only in the wizarding world but also in the muggle one. Few words had been uttered between them, but then Dudley had followed him onto the porch and something Harry had said had made a shy smile break out over the pale face which had reminded him of a picture from the album Hagrid had given him and had him consider that had his mother lived, she would have been the aunt of the boy in front of him.

He snapped out of his trail of thoughts and found grey eyes intently watching him.

“He’s less hideous than he used to be” he settled for.

Malfoy snorted and gulped down some more beer. “I suppose this brew isn’t totally awful.”

“I don’t get this assignment of yours” Harry said, taking a zip of his own. “You just say you’ve been on a date with a muggle and then you pass? That’s weird.”

“Dinner, not a date” Malfoy corrected him. “I have to write a report reflecting on it and have someone attest I’ve been. You have to do that by the way.”

“Whatever.” He hoped there wouldn’t be much work to it, though considering how things had gone so far, he’d probably end up writing Malfoy’s report for him.

It had been a good call to stop at the pub because once they got back on the street, Malfoy was visibly more relaxed, eyeing escalators and subway stations with curiosity rather than fear.

The restaurant Hermione had helped him pick was supposed to offer a nice view of the Thames and they had to ride an elevator to get there. The small enclosure made his skin prickle but Malfoy seemed surprisingly at ease with it and rolled his eyes as Harry started to explain the function of the buttons. There were elevators in the ministry, he reminded himself. Sometimes it was hard to keep track of what was muggle and not.

They were right on time, because Malfoy had told him it was good manners. Dudley who wouldn’t know good manners if it bit him in the ass was of course not there and Harry sat down in the chair next to Malfoy and ordered another beer for himself while Malfoy drummed his fingers against the tablecloth.

Dudley showed up thirty minutes later, by the time which Malfoy was visibly annoyed despite Harry trying to convince him lateness was normal muggle behavior and had nothing to do with his cousin being a downright bastard. Malfoy would find that out soon enough anyway.

“’lo” Dudley said, sinking down in the chair opposite Harry, his eyes going straight to the menu. “I’m starving, do they have burgers?”

Harry who’d spent the past twenty minutes reading the menu for lack of better things to do while Malfoy sulked in silence could have told him that while he understood little of the French themed dishes, there definitely were no burgers. He didn’t but cleared his throat. “Hello big D.”

Dudley looked up and his eyes fell on Malfoy. “Who’s that? Your boyfriend?”

It was hard to tell whether it was meant as an insult or an honest question but Malfoy clearly interpreted it as the former.

“Er no” Harry said, biting his tongue not to laugh. “This is my…” He stopped himself, friend was hardly the right word. “A classmate of mine, from Hogwarts, my school you now.”

At this, Dudley turned slightly green. “He’s a you-know-what?” he whispered. “Why did you bring one here?”

Malfoy looked daggers at him. “Potter, you didn’t tell him why we’re here? Why doesn’t he know who I am? What did you say to him?”

Harry shrugged. “Just asked if he wanted to grab a meal. Why don’t you fill him in on the rest? Dudley, text me when you’re ready to leave and I’ll come get Malfoy.”

He rose, the other two staring at him with frightened looks on their faces. Oh, this was going to be so much fun. He wished he’d brought his invisibility cloak so that he could hang back and watch the debacle unfold.

Malfoy should be able to make it back to Hogwarts on his own but Harry didn’t mind spending some time in London and seeing how Malfoy had handled his first meeting with the muggle side of the city, he thought it better to accompany him back. Furthermore, he couldn’t wait to hear Malfoy’s uptake on the whole thing.

After two hours he began to get restless and after two and a half with Dudley not answering his calls, he was downright worried. Perhaps this had been a really bad idea. Dudley’s encounters with wizards hadn’t exactly been smooth so there was a chance he had run out of there with his hands over his buttocks as soon as Harry left, meaning there would now be a furious Malfoy waiting for him at the restaurant. Or he would have stayed and acted his usual rude self until Malfoy snapped and transfigured him into a teapot. Yeah, the more he thought about it, the more likely the last one seemed. He hurried his steps and practically ran there, almost forgetting how much he hated elevators.

To his surprise, he found Malfoy and Dudley in deep conversation, a fair few empty pints on their table and Malfoy appeared to be cradling a glass of whiskey.

“Potter!” He sounded surprisingly happy about Harry’s appearance. “Is it true you got chased up a tree by your aunt’s dog.” His eyes sparkled.

“Er” Harry said.

“Sing that song again, will you” Dudley asked Malfoy, not taking any notice of him. Malfoy snorted and then burst out into a loud his eyes are as green as a toad which left Dudley in a fit of giggles.

“Did the dwarf really sit on him?” he asked when he’d regained some of his wits.

“Most definitely” Malfoy said and they both cracked.

Harry groaned, this really had been an awful idea of his.

It took him some time to get Malfoy to agree to come back with him and after a series of hearty goodbyes on everyone’s but his part they left the restaurant.

Malfoy was obviously unfit to apparate and refused to be sidealonged, you’ll splinch me, so Harry got them on a double decker.

“This ride is so much smoother than the knight bus.” Malfoy drew his finger against the misty window, painting what might have been a unicorn but rather looked like a horse with a penis attached to its head. “Is my brain slowing down? Was there something weird in the muggle booze?”

“You’re a funny drunk. Who would have thought.”

“Hm?” Malfoy let out, leaning back in his seat as if he was about to fall asleep. Harry wished he would but then he opened one eye and looked at him. “That was an excellent muggle, Potter.”

“Right” he said curtly, thinking there was nothing excellent about Dudley. “Any thoughts on how we’re going to get back to Hogwarts? Can you handle the knight bus?”

“Only if you don’t mind me puking on you.”

He sighed, wondering how the hell he had ended up babysitting Draco Malfoy.

“Did you really lose your wits and blow up your aunt?”

He made a non-committal grunt.

“That’s hilarious. Can’t believe they didn’t expel you for that.” He leaned forward and blew at the window, making the penis horse appear again. “We can floo from the Leaky.”

“Excellent idea. McGonagall won’t mind at all that we show up unannounced in her fireplace at this hour, drunk at that.”

Malfoy waved him off. “We’ll go through Slughorn’s, he won’t even notice, he goes to bed early and could sleep through an erumpent blasting his quarters.”

It turned out Malfoy was wrong. A confused, but very much awake, Horace Slughorn in his pajamas blinked at him as he stepped through the fireplace, trying to support Malfoy.

“Evening sir” Malfoy said, letting out a slight hiccough. “Excuse us for this lateness, see I’ve just assisted Potter here with some savior business.”

“Sorry sir, we didn’t mean to intrude, just…”

Slughorn waved them off after having him promise that he’d make sure that Malfoy made it safely back to the Slytherin common room.

“I can’t believe we didn’t get detention for that” Harry said as he was steering Malfoy towards the dungeons.

“Course we wouldn’t, you always get away with everything Potter. You can just go and blow things up whenever you want. Aunts, Gringotts, whatever. Did you really throw a cake at that business lady?”

“That wasn’t me and I did get in trouble for that one, my uncle put bars on my windows. Hey, can you at least try to stand up?” Malfoy seemed to have reached a new level of drunk where his legs were no longer supporting him.

“Interesting question Potter, it appears I can’t.”

He sighed and put his arm around Malfoy’s waist, trying to hoist him up. Malfoy only just managed to remain on his feet and they slowly trailed the corridors.

“Where are you taking me Potter?” he slurred.

“To bed” Harry said, tightening his grip around him.

“Really? Taking advantage, I see.”

“Oh yes, I really can’t help myself when you’re this appealing. To put you to sleep, you idiot.”

“Do you even know where you’re going? Feels like we’ve been walking for ages” Malfoy complained after a while.

“We have, because I have to carry you, you bastard. And I have been to the dungeons before.”

Malfoy stopped moving his legs altogether and looked at him with unfocused eyes. “Who did you fuck?”

Harry stopped too, confused by the question. “I…what?”

“It was Daphne, wasn’t it? She’s such a slut. You probably have germs now.”

“I have not slept with Daphne.”

“Bullshit. That’s a muggle word by the way, your cousin taught me.”

“Really?” Harry said disinterestedly, pulling at Malfoy’s waist to get him walking again.

“Yes, it means one is full of crap. Which you are. Everyone wants to sleep with you these days, even Slytherins.”

Harry felt his cheeks reddening, although Malfoy most likely didn’t notice, he had closed his eyes and his head kept lolling forwards as if he was going to fall asleep on the spot.

“I haven’t slept with anyone in Slytherin” he said. The full truth was he hadn’t slept with anyone at all but he didn’t see any reason to tell Malfoy that even if the chances he’d remember this conversation in the morning were miniscule.

“Mmm” Malfoy let out, his body sagging.

Harry shook him. “Damn it Malfoy, focus. Get your legs moving.” Harry pinched his side rather hard which had Malfoy let out a cry of pain. He opened his eyes and glared at Harry who grinned. After all these years, getting one on him still felt good.

“Arse” Malfoy sluddered.

“I came to see you, in the Slytherin dorm” Harry said to try to get him to stay awake. It worked quite well, Malfoy’s eyes widened.

“You wanted to sleep with me?” he asked in disbelief.

“No” Harry groaned. “I was twelve. Me and Ron came to spy on you, we’d polyjuiced into Crabbe and Goyle.”

“Now that’s kinky.”

He had no idea how to reply to that but seeing as they’d arrived at the Slytherin entrance there was no need to continue the conversation.

“I don’t know your password.” He prayed Malfoy’s brain wasn’t too clouded for him to remember it.

“That´s what stopped you, when you came to fuck me, was it? For future reference, it’s redemption.”

Thankfully the door swung open at that and he hoisted Malfoy up, trying to usher him inside.

The common room looked just like he remembered. It was empty and he considered leaving Malfoy on the leather couch, really, getting him this far had been more than enough. All things considered, Harry would probably have dumped him behind one of the statues in the corridor if it hadn’t been for his promise to Slughorn. He’d only said he’d get him back to Slytherin though, not that he’d put him in the right bed. And if Malfoy would be embarrassed by being found by his housemates in his hungover state in the morning, well, that was just a bonus, right?

The room felt damp and chilly. The fire had burned out long ago and the leather sofa, although luxurious, looked highly uncomfortable. Malfoy would probably roll off it and hit his head on the stone floor.

“Er, is your dorm still the middle one on the right?” He’d stared at it enough on the map two years ago, yet the sleeping arrangements might have changed with the eight years taking up residence.

Malfoy didn’t comment on Harry knowing where his bed used to be but let out a laugh. “I’m not in a dorm Potter, I’ve got my own room.”

“You have?” That was quite a privilege, no one in Gryffindor had their own space. Perhaps Malfoy had managed to bribe himself a suite.

“No one wants to share with me, everyone hates me.” It came out a sad whisper. The confession clashed hard with their normal exchange, even with the new level of honesty Malfoy had reached this year. Harry decided he must be completely out of it and sure enough, his legs gave way underneath him.

He had to push him against the wall and press his full weight against him to prevent him from hitting the floor.

The spot where Malfoy´s forehead connected with the skin on his neck felt warm and they stood like that for a few seconds, then Malfoy’s hands came around his waist and he let out a moan close to Harry’s ear. He prayed no one would come out to see them like this, it probably looked like they were… His thoughs were interrupted by Malfoy’s hands slipping to his ass.

“Malfoy, where’s your room?” he said sharply.

“Hmmpf…Upstairs.”

Harry groaned, watching a narrow staircase spiraling to the upper floor, there was no way in hell he’d get him up there.  

“I swear to Merlin, if you don’t get your legs working I’m going to leave you right here” he hissed, trying to hold Malfoy upright at the same time as he was pushing two searching hands away from his buttocks. “And stop groping me!”

“Could levitate me” Malfoy’s lips left a wet patch on Harry’s neck as he spoke.

“I could, couldn’t I” Harry muttered through gritted teeth, wondering why he hadn’t thought of that before carrying Malfoy through half the castle.

“Wouldn’t have given you the chance to grope me” Malfoy suggested as if he’d read his mind.

“You’re the one groping me” Harry said and then waved his wand at Malfoy who let out a cry of surprise as he came to float horizontally. Harry quickly hit him with a silenco and enjoyed watching him kick about in the air.

Getting him up the stairs like that was marginally easier than it’d have been to carry him and there was a lot of furious, silent wriggling on Malfoy’s part and some loud cursing on Harry’s.

Malfoy’s room wasn’t a suite but looked more like a broom closet with a bed crammed into it. It was only a little roomier than Harry’s old cupboard and he knocked into the bed as soon as he stepped over the threshold. They both fell down upon it in a heap of entangled arms and legs as the wingardium leviosa gave in.

“Sorry” Harry mumbled as he was trying to roll off the bed and ended up sprawled on his stomach between Malfoy’s legs. Malfoy looked up from underneath him and their eyes met. Where the grey irises had been clouded before, they now looked clear and vulnerable.

“You OK?” Harry asked, going completely still.

Malfoy nodded, his eyes boring into Harry’s before dropping to his lips. Their faces were only millimeters apart. “Stay” he whispered. It wasn’t the drunken groping or the incohesive conversation that had characterized the evening but spoken with a loaded honesty and for a moment Harry felt compelled to remain where he was. But Malfoy was drunk as a skunk and Harry was painfully sober.

“Er, you’re really wasted and I need to get back.”

There was no reply, Malfoy’s eyelids had fallen heavy and he didn’t budge as Harry crawled off him and carefully got to his feet. Malfoy was either asleep or pretended to be.

Part Two – When an owl won’t do

“So, what happened with the Ferret and your cousin?” Ron asked the following morning at breakfast. “Did he hex him into a pig or what?”

“No” Harry said, rolling back his shoulders. He was sore from dragging Malfoy across half the castle. “They ended up getting drunk together.”

 “That’s weird.”

“Yeah.” It had definitely been a strange evening.

Malfoy was at the Slytherin table, taking his morning tea and looking surprisingly healthy considering the state in which Harry had left him a few hours prior. As if he sensed him watching, he looked up and held Harry’s gaze for a beat.

Stay.

He felt his heart pond heavily, wondering exactly how much Malfoy remembered from what had happened in the dungeons.

“Potter.” Malfoy caught up with them on their way to charms. If he was bothered by the events of the previous evening he didn’t show. “Thank you for the muggle, I’ve decided to keep him.”

“Whatever for?”

“He’s hilarious. And he’d be of excellent help in muggle studies. I need his floo coordinates.”

“You can’t floo him.”

“Don’t be a git Potter, you’re just jealous he likes me better than you.”

“Not really, he likes everyone better than me” Harry said at the same time as Ron let out “He liked you? You were right Harry, your cousin really must be a brainless idiot.”

“Muggles don’t use the floo, they might have fireplaces but they don’t work well with magic.” Hermione didn’t much like talking to Malfoy but was unable to keep silent whenever there was a chance to offer her knowledge.

“Yeah, learned that the hard way” Ron snorted. “But by all means, try Malfoy. Would make our lives much better if you got stuck in a chimney for a month or two.”

Malfoy ignored him. “Are you saying I should owl instead, Granger?”

“That might be breaking the statue of secrecy, if the owl reaches him when he’s among other muggles. Wasn’t muggle communication one of the things you were supposed to talk to him about yesterday?”

Malfoy grinned, looking directly at Harry. “Maybe, but we got stuck on a more interesting topic.”

Malfoy talked to them more often after that, questioning Harry and Hermione about things like electricity and computer technology which could have given Arthur Weasley a run for his money. The answers he’d gotten out of Dudley obviously lacking in accuracy and Hermione had to patiently talk him through things.

He always took care to sit next to Harry, his thigh brushing against Harry’s and sometimes he absently placed a hand on his shoulder as he was getting out of his seat while whispering things like “Set any snakes loose lately, Potter?” that he didn’t quite know what to do with and left him wondering.

Stay. What if he had?

Most of the time, Malfoy left him feeling uneasy after having sprung unpleasant memories from his childhood upon him, like “did you really annoy your uncle so much he had to lock you up?”

It wasn’t by far the most unpleasant things Draco Malfoy had ever said to him and neither were they the worst memories of his life. There had been enough horrors in the past years that nothing concerning the Dursleys would even make it to the top fifty. They’d been but an annoyance, something to endure between terms before he could return to his real life. Yet there had been a time before he knew of Hogwarts, when kindness and happiness hadn’t seemed to be in the cards and those long forgotten years now nagged at him.

He'd brusquely brush Malfoy off when he got too fed up with it but it didn’t deter him. Malfoy, who’d made himself his arch-nemesis for years over a rejected handshake now only offered a sly grin when told to go fuck himself.

“You do realize I can read these?” Harry asked annoyed.

A long message starting with the words Your cousin really is the most pompous brat, did you know he used to give out singed photos in his second year was blinking at him on the screen of his phone.

Dudley and Malfoy had ended up communicating through Harry’s mobile, meaning Harry had to search Malfoy out whenever Dudley saw fit to text him, which was far too often.

Getting Malfoy to work the phone had been quite a challenge but it was far better than having to type the insults about himself he spelled out. While Malfoy, with some difficulty, had managed to master typing and hitting the send button he hadn’t grasped the art of texting. His messages were extensive and he always ended them with sincerely, Draco L Malfoy, although Harry told him it would be plain obvious to Dudley who the sender was.

At the moment he was staring at a long but thoroughly incorrect description of himself having gone into a bookshop with the sole purpose of getting himself on the front page of the paper.

There was a beep and Who would want his autograph? People in your school must be mad blinked on the screen.

“Let me see.” Malfoy leaned over him, peering down on it. “He writes back so fast, this communication devise really is efficient.”

“Just keep the bloody phone.”

It wasn’t like he needed it here anyway. He’d found it useful over the summer, ordering takeaway and the like but apart from that Hermione was pretty much the only one he called and there wasn’t any need for that here. And he was sick of reading about himself in conversations between the two people who had gone out of their way to make his childhood miserable.

He could have turned the phone off and that would have been the end of the unfortunate Malfoy-Dudley friendship but he couldn’t quite get Malfoy’s words out of his head. Everyone hates me. Melodramatic as Malfoy could be, there was probably some truth to his words. No one in Slytherin seemed to care much for his company and he often sat alone in class. It was possible Dudley was the first friend Malfoy had made in a very long time so Harry gave him the phone and endured the gleeful comments about things he’d much rather forget.

A couple of weeks into October, Malfoy suddenly stopped joining them in the library and didn’t approach them in class anymore but took to eyeing him from the other end of the great hall with a hesitant, almost frightened, look on his face, as if Harry was a bomb about to explode.

It should have made for a welcome break but he’d kind of gotten used to Malfoy’s quirky comments and careless jokes about his death eater past. And the abrupt change in behavior left him confused. While Malfoy avoided him like the plague, he occasionally spotted him talking to Hermione in the corridors, once even to Ron, so he could only assume there was something Dudley had told him that had left him convinced Harry was a nutcase that should be avoided at all costs.

It had him wondering what abhorrent things Dudley had passed on. If Malfoy being in a blood supremacist cult could be considered the punch line of a joke, what could Harry possibly have done in his past that was so bad Malfoy couldn’t even bare to look at him without cringing?

With Malfoy out of his life things should have gotten back to normal but once the attention had been brough back to his life with the Dursleys, it was impossible to get out of his head and he was visited by flashes of himself hiding behind dumpsters to avoid his cousin’s gang, of going to bed hungry, of walking the school grounds with everyone staring at him in his much too large clothes.

It was a strange kind of hurting, an old wound, one that he’d ignored, having left it to heal on its own and now he’d come out with the pieces put back together all wrong.

It had him edge away from Ron and Hermione. While his best friends, there were things they could never fully understand, raised by loving families as they had been.

He’d never mourned his parents, being too little to remember them go. All he had was fragments of what might and might not have been. A scream. A flash of green. Their faces on the other side of an impenetrable mirror. Scenes stolen from someone else’s memory. Those things were hard to miss.

Instead he tried for anger at what had taken them from him, but it was a tired anger, as if Voldemort already had become something insignificant of the past that he couldn’t quite piece together. Thankful at least for that he redirected the wrath towards the Dursleys who might not have bereaved him of his parents but who’d refused him what could have been in their stead. Lonely, damp nights to endure in a cupboard while another boy was put to sleep with hugs, kisses and bedtime stories one floor above. It would have cost them so little to offer it to him too.

He hadn’t even resented it at the time, it had been the only normal he knew. And then he’d turned eleven and been offered more than he’d asked for; the unnerving awe and uncomprehensible fame that came with his name, yet he’d accepted it along with the good that followed; staying fed, a warm bed to sleep in, friends who liked him, an almost-family.

He had all that still, but it was threatening to slip away.

There’d never been a doubt he’d go back for a last year, allowing the castle to engulf him in its warmth once more, but suddenly the unknown waiting at the end of it tore at him. He felt it when he and Ginny broke up, leaving him frightened to the bone that he had lost not just her but his place at the Burrow. He felt it at times watching Ron and Hermione grow closer and closer until there’d be no space left for him in between.

It hadn’t happened. He and Ginny parted on friendly terms and Mrs Weasley was still knitting him jumpers and Ron and Hermione never did anything to suggest they were bored of his company. But while he still had them, he had them conditionally. Almost.

Perhaps it was the almost that’d had him exchange awkward calls with Dudley over the summer. Perhaps it was Dudley tentatively answering but always staying on the phone that’d left him with a sense of hurt as he’d scanned through the messages meant for Malfoy.

It wasn’t that he blamed Dudley. He’d been raised to despise him and didn’t have the brains to see through the misguided dotting of his parents. Neither had the years he’d spent in the same school as Malfoy taught him to expect anything but cruelty on his part. It was just that after everything that’d happened the past year, he wished Malfoy would have been better.

Stay.

Well, whatever Malfoy had meant by that, he was glad he hadn’t.

When Halloween came, he finally cracked. He slipped out of the feast in the middle of a screaking performance by the ghost choir and haunted the eerie corridors on his own until he dropped to the ground in a fetal position in a hidden alcove where he let the tears come.

Lost in his misery he didn’t hear the footsteps until a shiny pair of shoes came into view and Malfoy was staring down at him. He froze, feeling caught, as if he was doing something nasty. Perhaps he was, it had happened too fast for him to wipe away the wetness on his cheeks.

He expected Malfoy to make fun of him for it but he simply stood there, appearing to have frozen too.

Harry was the first to recover. “Come to gloat, have you?”

Malfoy turned on his heel and stalked away without a word while Harry remained on the floor, head resting in his arms.

The second time the footsteps approached him, he was more alert and went for his wand, half wishing for Malfoy to have returned, yearning to fight him to get a reaction out of him beside the silent staring. It wasn’t, but Ron and Hermione looking down at him.

They didn’t speak but simply dropped to the floor on each side of him where they remained until midnight came and a new day with it.

Things eased somewhat after that, if not completely. Ron and Hermione folded around him. Their care could not mend that which felt irreparably broken but they filled the gaps of loneliness, they softened the edges of the pain and made it bearable. There were times when he was able to forget about it completely, reminded of the easiness of his first year when things had been new and hopeful, Voldemort a distant dark cloud he’d not yet learned to fear.

Hermione was soft with him, sometimes coaxing to get him to talk and while everything felt yet too raw to put into words, he accepted her comfort. Other times she kept her distance, allowing him and Ron to blend together in ways they’d never had.

Ron spoke to him with an awkward bluntness that only seemed possible sitting shoulder to shoulder facing the fireplace after everyone had gone off to bed. As the flames cast dancing shadows on the walls, words of Fred filled the room. The loss that still didn’t seem real. The feeling of inadequacy the days when George didn’t leave his bed. The tiredness when all he wanted to do was follow his example but wasn’t allowed, knowing his mother barely made it through as it was. Percy’s face set hard as stone only to slip and reveal guilt and self-hatred when he thought no one was watching.

Harry let him speak, hardly contributing to the conversation but somehow that worked. When they left for their dorm Ron was somber but in the mornings to follow he seemed lighter and instead of adding to Harry’s load, their late nights eased some of his.

In between there was that which was easy; complaining about their increasing workload in the library and evenings of board games and in Gryffindor as they chose to ignore it all, quidditch practice where they beat the wind and the rain until their limbs had gone completely numb. There were weekend parties where they discovered the thrill of intoxication that came with being old enough to order any drink the barmen of Hogsmede could conjure.

When the snow fell in the end of November, covering the grey fields in a fresh brightness, he was considerably lighter at heart and Draco Malfoy was no longer on his mind.

December brought an increased work load as mid year exams were approaching. Friday evening in Hogsmeade made for a welcome break. Huddled up in the warmth of the Three Broomsticks with a pint of mulled mead in front of him and reuniting with Dean, Seamus and Parvati, he was starting to enjoy himself. In the middle of one of Seamus anecdotes about having a bag of oranges exploding at a muggle grocery shop, Hermione’s phone rang, attracting some curious glances.

“Probably my parents” she said with an apologetic smile but as she answered it her voice became hesitant and she soon passed the phone to Harry.

“Hey, could you come and pick up your boyfriend, he’s pretty wasted.”

It took him a while to figure out who was calling and why.

“I have to go and get Malfoy” he told the others gloomily. “He’s gotten himself drunk with my cousin.”

The three former Gryffindors stared at him in disbelief.

“Why is Malfoy getting drunk with your cousin?” Dean asked at the same time as Seamus let out “Why is that your problem?”

Harry didn’t know how to answer either question and had a hard time to come up with a reason for giving up a fun night out with his friends to apparate to a busy, grey, cold London just to put himself in the company of the two people who had bullied him throughout his childhood. He took a sip of his mead. Delicious, he thought reluctantly.

“Do you want us to come with you Harry?” Hermione asked, which inspired another round of questions.

“You’re friends with Malfoy?” Parvati stared accusingly at the three of them.

Ron shrugged. “Kind of.”

Harry joined in on the staring.

“Well, he sort of hangs out with us, doesn’t he?” Ron said defensively.

“What? He’s some redeemed character now? You’ve fallen for some tear-dripping story and pathetic excuses of his?” Out of all their friends, Seamus was the one who had the hardest time on forgiving those who had fought on the wrong side.

“He hasn’t exactly apologized” Hermione said vaguely. “But you can tell he’s struggling with his past and he’s definitely changed.”

“He has?” Harry asked. “He’s spent half the term insulting me to my face and the other half ignoring me, being a right git and…what?” He noticed Ron and Hermione exchange glances.

“It’s not like it used to be though” Ron said. “No blood supremacy or trying to poison people and stuff.”

“I know he’s bad” Hermione agreed. “It’s just that he doesn’t know how to go about things with you, I’ve told him to…” her cheeks turned a little pink and she looked away.

“What?” he demanded but she had suddenly become very interested in fiddling with the label on her butterbeer and Harry didn’t want to press the point in front of the others.

He sighed and finished his mead, got up on somewhat unsteady feet and stalked out of the pub. Before he had a chance to apparate, Hermione caught up with him.

“You’ll splinch yourself if you go when you’re drunk.” She pointed her wand at him.

“I’m not…” he stopped as he was overcome by the unpleasant feeling of ice running through his veins. It left him shaking and sweating for a minute.

“You OK?”

“A heads up would have been nice” he said through gritted teeth and added “yes” because he was, and dead sober at that.

“What have you been talking to Malfoy about?”

She evaded her eyes but he kept looking at her, waiting for her to budge.

“Let’s leave that for tomorrow, OK?”

He decided to settle for that and reluctantly apparated to London. It took him a while to locate the right pub but he immediately spotted Dudley as soon as he walked in, sitting in a booth with a somber expression on his face, staring at Malfoy who wasn’t just pissed but completely out of it, snoring with his head leaning against the wall.

Thinking the situation required it, he ordered a whiskey in the bar before he sank down in the booth opposite Dudley, deliberately kicking Malfoy’s shins under the table. There was no reaction whatsoever.

“What have you two been up to then?”

It was a valid question. Dudley seemed surprisingly sober while Malfoy was downright wasted. The last time they’d been equally pissed.

“Arguing” Dudley muttered, which Harry didn’t have a hard time believing. He assumed they’d run out of things to mock him for at some point and come to the conclusion that their opinions differed rather a lot on the whole magic issue.

The bartender was eyeing Malfoy suspiciously and Harry flicked his wand. The notice-me-not had him advert his eyes and everyone who turned their direction simply let their eyes sweep over them without appearing to find a cloaked, snoring man the slightest bit odd. The charm wasn’t done too smoothly and the lights above them blinked at the energy. It had Dudley flinch and put his hand over his mouth but when his tongue remained its normal size , he relaxed.

Perhaps Malfoy felt the presence of magic too because his eyes fluttered open. “Potter, you came” he said, blinking at Harry a few times before his eyelids fell heavy and he toppled over in his seat and Harry had to grab on to his robe not to have him hit the floor. With a brusque move he managed to shift Malfoy enough to stay in the seat but getting him to sit upright was a lost cause and he remained draped over Harry’s lap.

Harry pulled at his hair to no avail, Malfoy had gone back to snoring. He sighed and took to glaring at Dudley instead.

The years spent at Privet Drive had left his cousin immune to Harry’s obvious dislike and he looked back with open curiosity.

“You wiped out the bad guy?”

It took him a moment to figure that Dudley was referring to Voldemort. “It was a bit more to it, but sure.” He looked down at Malfoy. “Is that what he told you?”

“Nah, it was what those order people said.”

He doubted Hestia Jones and Dedalus Diggle would have phrased it like that.

“He said you’re some kind of war hero.”

Harry shrugged. It was probably Malfoy being sarcastic and Dudley, like always, missing the point.

 “Did you really kill someone?”

He considering the question. He hadn’t thought of fighting Voldemort as killing a person, but more or less like… well, wiping out the bad guy. Voldemort had died at his own curse anyway and there hadn’t been much human left in him to kill by that point. But still. “Yeah, suppose I did.”

“Must have been awful.”

“Yeah.” But it wasn’t Voldemort’s death that came to mind at Dudley’s words, but a white shirt soaked in blood, red, thick liquid flooding a bathroom floor. It had been a close one. He tightened his grip of Malfoy, feeling the warm body, calmed by knowing there was a heart beating somewhere. Malfoy might be a git but at least he was alive.

Harry downed the whiskey and searched for another topic before Dudley saw fit to ask for details about killing curses and corpses. He’d had enough of that from the Prophet.

“How are your mum and dad?” Not that he cared, though he wouldn’t mind hearing Grunnings had gone bankrupt.

“Alright I guess.” Dudley shifted in his seat.  “They’re moving houses. Mum can’t stand it there anymore, think she’s afraid of those dementheads or something.”

He rolled his eyes, deciding against telling Dudley a change of address would be of little help if a dementor really were set out to find you.

“I found some photos of her and your mum when I helped clear the attic. From when they were kids.”

Harry wondered what it would have been like if his mother had lived. Would he and Dudley never have met then or would she and Petunia have made it up at some point, Harry and Dudley growing up not to hate each other but as friends? He stared at his cousin across the table who was looking back at him apprehensively. For most of his life he’d simply thought the further away from him Dudley was, the happier he’d be, but now he wondered if something else would have been possible.

“You could have them if you want” Dudley offered, sounding almost shy about it and Harry nodded.

“Yeah” he said. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

They sat there, allowing the music and bustle from the bar fill the silence between them and for a while things felt almost peaceful. Then of course Dudley had to speak.

“So, is he your boyfriend or what?”

“Why would you ask that?” Harry said taken aback.

Dudley made a pointed nod to Malfoy snoring in his lap.

“He’s just pissed.” He gripped on to Malfoy’s shoulder as he was threatening to slide onto the floor. He should probably let him. And leave him there for the cleaner to swipe up in the morning.

“Always thought you were” Dudley said with a shrug.

“Were what? Gay? Daddy told you I’m a faggot or what?”

He well remembered the things that had come out of his uncle’s mouth as he’d read the paper, calling whatever politician or celebrity he didn’t like a poofter or a bloody queer. It took years before he learned the meaning behind the words. Dudley probably understood them no better but hadn’t been late to copy his father.

Now he frowned, fiddling with his beer bottle, reminding him of Hermione evading his eyes a few hours earlier. “Didn’t mean it like that, it’s just…Sometimes you looked at guys, on the telly or in the park, I thought…”

Harry froze, about to say he had no idea what Dudley was on about, except that he kind of did. “Well, if I was, I wouldn’t be with him.”

“OK” Dudley said indifferently. “You can be with whoever you want, for my part.”

“Oh, thanks Big D, so glad I have your blessing” he said mockingly.

Dudley shrugged again. Harry wasn’t sure his message was coming across, Dudley had always been a bit slow on the uptake of irony.

“He seems to care about you.”

He laughed out loud at that. Nothing Malfoy had ever done could have been described as caring for him. Unless you counted…he took a large sip of whiskey and stowed the memory from the night at the manor to the back of his brain.

“Does. Was pretty upset on your part, for some things…”

“I highly doubt it.”

“Yeah, whatever…I’m sorry too.”

“For what?”

“Like…all of it.”

Harry stared at Dudley, without thinking about it loosening his grip on Malfoy who fell to the floor.

They bent down under the table, expecting an angry Malfoy to stare back at them but the bastard was still asleep, cradling the table leg and using Dudley’s shoe as a pillow.

“Right, we’d better get him out of here” Harry decided and under the cover of the notice me not, they managed to haul the limb body from the floor and drag him into an alley where Harry took out his wand, directing it at Malfoy’s face. Dudley’s eyes went wide.

“It won’t hurt him”, although remembering the feeling from earlier that night, it probably would. The effect was instant, Malfoy doubled over, puking his brains out. To Dudley’s credit, he didn’t drop him in the gutter but helped Harry hold him up until he was done retching.

“These are my best shoes.”

Harry threw a scourgify which had Dudley made a frightened jump and stare at his now shiny and vomit-free sneakers.

“Er..thanks”.

“See, magic isn’t all bad.”

They exchanged a brief smile before they were interrupted by Malfoy whining.

“My head hurts, what did you do to me Potter?”

“Just a sobering charm.”

He hadn’t been as successful as Hermione though, or perhaps it’s just that Malfoy had been much more wasted to begin with. “He probably needs water.” He searched in vain for something to transfigure into a cup.

“Let me drink from your wand, Potter” Malfoy slurred and grinned at him.

“See, it’s stuff like that which makes people think he’s your boyfriend.”

Harry ignored him and cast an aquamenti, managing to get a few drops down Malfoy’s mouth while spraying a jet down his robe. It was a mark of how out of it he was that he didn’t complain about getting soaked.

“There’s no way I’m getting him back to school like this” Harry sighed. “Where’s your place?”

“It’s about half an hour on the sub and then I have to change buses twice.” Dudley looked at Malfoy with reluctance. “And I don’t have a spare bed.”

“What do you suggest I do instead?” he asked through gritted teeth. It was Dudley who’d gone on a date with Malfoy, allowing him to get pissed on muggle booze. Harry hadn’t even spoken to the git for over a month. This should not be his problem.

“Take him over there?” Dudley nodded towards the other side of the street where a hotel sign was blinking as if it just had materialized at his words like some enormous room of requirement.

“Room is on the fifth floor.” The receptionist handed him the key card with a disapproving look.

“Thanks” Harry said, relieved they’d been let in at all with Malfoy using him as a human crutch to hold himself upright.

“I can probably walk up there” he said, eyeing the stairs.

“It’s cute that you think that.” Harry dragged him towards the elevator but Malfoy was reluctant to go inside.

“What, you’ve got something against elevators now?”

“You do. You don’t like small spaces. It’s the cupboard, isn’t it?”

He stared at Malfoy, baffled. “Well, I’m not levitating you up the stairs.” He dragged him inside, leaning against the wall while Malfoy clumsily patted his arm. “S’ alright. Be over soon.”

Harry was too stunned by the whole thing to worry about cramped spaces.

With some effort they made it into the room where a double bed was staring at them. Fantastic. Malfoy made large eyes at it but soon lost focus. “I need to pee.”

“Yeah, you do that” Harry mumbled, still eyeing the bed that seemed far too small for a double.

“Muggle loos are weird.”

He wheeled around, finding Malfoy poking at an iron board inside a tiny wardrobe.

“Merlin’s tits you’re a piece of work.” He turned him towards the bathroom but Malfoy was still not fit to have his legs carry him a single meter and Harry ended up dragging him  once more.

“You’d better sit down.” He did not want to think of what state the bathroom would be in if he left him to aim for the toilet.

At that his legs gave in and Harry barely had time to cast a spell that sent his pants and trousers down his ancles. A clever one Fred and George had thought him the summer before forth year and which he’d intended to try on Crabbe and Goyle but then the Triwizard tournament had happened and he’d gotten preoccupied with dragons and grindylows and sort of forgotten about it. Who would have thought it would come handy for something like this?

Realizing he was standing in front of a half-naked Malfoy, he panicked a little. “Right, well, I’m gonna…” but as he stepped away, Malfoy swayed to the side and would have toppled down the floor if he hadn’t managed to grab onto him. With a tight grip around his collar that had Malfoy gasp for air, he pushed him back onto the seat where he swayed forwards, putting his arms around Harry’s waist and resting his head against his stomach.

“Don’t you dare throw up” he said warningly. Malfoy didn’t but moved his head slightly and he froze, suddenly very aware of the closeness between Malfoy’s mouth and his crotch.

Perhaps Malfoy thought of it too because he also stilled and they remained in that position for what felt like minutes. Then, without warning, Malfoy peed.

“For fuck’s sake” Harry muttered, but he remained where he was, knowing it wouldn’t end good for either of them if he tried to entangle himself now. “It’s Friday night and I’m listening to you peeing. How can this be my life? I’m the chosen one for Merlin’s sake.”

Talking felt a little better than listening to the sound of urine hitting the bowl so he went on. “Why am I even here?”

“Mm” Malfoy mumbled and squeezed Harry tighter. “Because you’re good, and brave and…good” he mumbled into Harry’s stomach which was very odd but at least the peeing had stopped.

“And pretty.”

“Pretty?” Harry repeated incredulous.

“Or, you know, the boy word for pretty.”

Harry sighed. “You’re wasted Malfoy but I really hope you remember this in the morning.”

When they made it back to the room, Malfoy threw most of his clothes on the floor and got under the covers, beginning to snore almost at once. For lack of better things to do, Harry picked up the robes and folded them, swearing when something heavy hit his toes. As he bent to retrieve the offending object his hands closed around his old phone.

He blinked at it and was overcome by a sinking feeling. While Malfoy had definitely been a handful tonight, bereaving him of a fun evening with his friends, he’d neither been the blood purist bastard he’d known for years or looked at Harry with fear he’d explode in uncontrollable magic. For a little while things had felt rather like the start of term.

Although nothing good could come from it, he unlocked the phone and began flicking through the messages from Dudley, starting at the beginning of the thread with a few texts stretching over the summer; birthday greetings, a couple of what’s up? and Dudley letting him know he was moving out of Privet Drive. The messages grew in frequency once Malfoy came into the pictures. Those he knew too, insults about himself he’d helped Malfoy type. Then came the point where he’d given the phone away yet the conversation carried on in the same fashion.

Had they been about someone else he might have found it funny. Malfoy was a witty writer, the questions about muggle technology and Dudley’s responses that mixed into the thread was downright ridiculous but mostly they were a depressing read with jokes on his behalf signed off with sincerely Draco L Malfoy. Dudley’s messages were shorter and full of typos that clashed horribly with Malfoy’s pompous writing which would have had Hermione cringe. Malfoy hadn’t complained about the incohesive sentences but seemed to enjoy the mix of quirky muggle habits and the attestations of Harry Potter being a weirdo.

There was Dudley mentioning him sleeping in a cupboard and Malfoy wondering whether this was something all muggles did for some weird reason and Dudley assuring him, he had never done any such thing but slept in a normal room in a regular sized bed, thank you very much.

Why would he want to stay in a cupboard then? Is that some weird kink of his?

He didn’t want to, mum and dad made him, didn’t want him to ruin the furniture or whatever I assume. He used to wet his bed a lot.

Harry blushed, he hadn’t remembered that part. The conversation went on like that, Malfoy seemed to have been stuck on clearing out the details of his cupboard habits for quite a while but something in the tone of writing had changed, at least on Malfoy’s behalf. He’d stopped supplying stories of Harry’s mishappenings at Hogwarts and his questions grew more skeptical. How come Harry was wearing clothes too big and outworn when he saw him in Madam Malkin’s? Why didn’t he seem to know anything about magic when he came to school? How come he always spent Christmases at Hogwarts?

Dudley answered truthfully enough. Because no one wanted to waste money buying stuff for him. Because his parents didn’t like wizards, and it had been a good choice of theirs not to tell him because once he learnt he could do magic bad things tended to happen; aunts blowing up, tongues growing, people getting pig tails hexed onto them etc. And no one really wanted him around for Christmas, except maybe for doing the cooking and cleaning. Also, Dudley had enjoyed rubbing the size of his pile of gifts in Harry’s face. Hey, had he told Draco about the time Dudley received 42 presents while Harry got a dishcloth and one of his broken toy soldiers?

So this was why Malfoy found Harry a freak then. Someone locked up, raised like a wild animal, neglected of all but the most basic care to keep him alive. Someone unpredictable, wetting their bed, getting ready to bite.

Come morning, when sober again, Malfoy would be terrified to find himself in the same room as him. And it wasn’t like Malfoy didn’t have a reason he thought, transferred back to Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom for the second time that evening.

He’d been right, reading the messages had been a bad idea. He was just about to put the phone away when he figured he might as well let his friends know he was safe and flickered to Hermione’s name in the menu.

Something wasn’t right. They hadn’t texted since the holidays but the last messages in the thread were dated a month ago and were definitely not written by him.

October 31^st 22:43:

Where are you? You need to get Potter, fourth floor, between the portrait of Barnabus the third and the statue of Glenda the Greedy.

Sincerely Draco L Malfoy

October 31^st 22:45:

Draco?? What’s happened? Is Harry OK?

/Hermione

October 31^st 22:48:

I don’t know. Don’t make a scene and don’t bring anyone but Weasley. Do not tell Potter I sent this.

Sincerely Draco L Malfoy

November 1^st 01:35

Granger, where are you? Did you find him?

Sincerely Draco L Malfoy

November 1^st 08:23

Yes, Harry is back and safe. Thank you Draco, I’m sorry for not getting back to you last evening. TTYL.

November 1^st 09:07

Well, no problem Granger. It’s not like I minded staying up waiting for your reply or that I wasn’t perfectly happy to wander the entire castle in search for him in case you two imbecilles had lost him. It’s not like I needed to sleep or anything.

And what the hell does TTYL mean? How do you even pronounce that? I thought the Weasel was the illiterate one.

Glad he’s safe. Talk to you later.

Sincerely Draco L Malfoy

Harry stared at the display, despite being well familiar with Malfoy’s pompous typing by now he found it hard to believe him to have written that. And yet. There was Dudley telling him he seemed to care about you. Hermione clearly hiding something regarding Malfoy, and Malfoy patting his arm, telling him it’d be alright. Malfoy about to climb five flights of stairs so that Harry wouldn’t have to go in the elevator even if he could barely walk.  

He stared at the blond boy snoring and drooling on the pillow. Was it possible Draco Malfoy actually cared about him? And why the hell had he refused to talk to him for the past two months in that case?

He considered waking him up to demand some answers, but Malfoy’s replies wouldn’t make much sense in his drunken state so he left him to sleep and climbed under the covers next to him, not minding the small bed terribly anymore.

Part three – A brand new day

Harry was the first to wake. Malfoy snoozed on peacefully next to him. Determined to wait him out, he settled in the armchair with nothing to do but reading the roomservice menu. Soon getting bored and hungry, he made a sharp pull at the covers which had Malfoy stir and groan in pain, grasping at his head.

Having foreseen a reaction of the kind he pushed a vial into his hand. “Hangover potion.” He’d pocketed it for himself before taking off to Hogsmede but seeing that he never got round to much drinking he didn’t really need it.

Malfoy tore it out of his hand and gulped it down in one go. The effect was instant, he stopped groaning, his eyes came into focus and his skin went a fair few shades less green. His reflexes seemed to have returned too because he practically jumped out of bed.

“Listen, Malfoy…”

“I need a shower.”

Harry considered asking if he’d be needing some help in the bathroom like the previous night but Malfoy seemed tormented enough.

“Go ahead then.”

He assumed he might as well wait a couple of minutes, though minutes turned into over an hour before Malfoy came out, a towel wrapped around his hips, hair dripping down his bare shoulders. He stopped abruptly at the sight of Harry sitting on the bed, obviously having counted on him taken off by now.

“Don’t apparate” Harry said warningly.

“Jeez, thanks for the advice. Here I was thinking what a great idea it’d be to show up in Hogsmede in this attire, but now that you mention it, I shall reconsider.”

It was a glimpse of the old Malfoy, the one who’d teased him at the beginning of term but he quickly disappeared in favor of the careful version that couldn’t bear looking at Harry.

Malfoy’s half naked state didn’t do any wonders for the strained atmosphere. Harry evaded his eyes, as Malfoy pulled the towel tighter around his hips. He swallowed, having waited the whole morning to set things straight he was suddenly lost for words, distracted by the faint scars crossing Malfoy’s chest, which he had a fair idea where they came from.

“How are you feeling?” he asked lamely.

“Alright I guess.” Malfoy sat down on the edge of the bed, taking care to keep his distance. “That potion was a good one.”

“It’s a Weasleys’ product.”

“Mm, I’ll make sure to thank Ronald later then.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you will” he mumbled under his breath, annoyed that Malfoy didn’t have a problem talking to Ron while he could hardly stand to be in the same room as Harry.

“What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing…Look Malfoy, how much do you remember from last night?”

“Not much, some disgusting muggle beverage, you hitting me with a spell, throwing up on a pair of shoes. About that.” He made big eyes, looking between the bed and Harry as if the idea of them both sleeping there hadn’t occurred to him until then. “Did we….?”

“No” Harry hurried to say. “No, that was pretty much it actually. I just brought you here to sleep it off. I wouldn’t have…”

“Of course you wouldn’t” Malfoy said equally fast. “That was stupid.”

“Right.” He stared at his hands. “What do you remember before then, when you met with Dudley?”

Malfoy faced away from him. “Too much.” He let his head sink into his hands and Harry kept silent, waiting for him to talk.

It was a long time before he spoke, still shielding his face. “I fucked up.”

“With Dudley?”

“No. Yes. That too.” He sighed. “I was going to do better this time. I swore at the beginning of term I wouldn’t be a dick to you this year.”

“You weren’t…” Harry began.

Malfoy emerged from his hands and gave him a pointed stare.

“Or I guess you were, but nowhere near your usual standards.”

“That’s one way to look at it. I assume I haven’t been trying to sell you out to any dark lords lately.”

“There you go then” Harry said, letting out an awkward laugh and, because Malfoy looked like he was debating whether it would be worth apparating starkers to Hogsmede, he added “we got on alright at the beginning of term.”

“Mm”

“Then you stopped talking to me.”

Malfoy made a non committal grunt and Harry nudged him with his foot. “Why?”

“Why do you think? I fucked up. I’d spent the past month making fun of you for being abused by your family.”

“They’re not my family” Harry said automatically.

“Well, I know that now.” Malfoy let out a hollow laugh. “I should have known before. They weren’t at the Triwizard, every other champion’s parents were. You always spent the holidays with the Weasleys.”

“Not many people know about them. Even Ron and Hermione don’t know the half of it.”

“Maybe. But Dudley told me, and I just…had a laugh about it. Even after he told me I didn’t get it, I…”

Harry considered what Dudley had said about Malfoy being indignant on his part, and the awkward apology at the end of the evening. “Did you fight with him last night?"

“Might have” Malfoy muttered. “You were right, he’s a stupid fuck, I’m not sure it’d even occurred to him what an idiot he’d been. Not that I’m one to talk, I spent years mocking you for your parents’ deaths and then I went on to taunt you for being abused by your foster family.” He let out a stifled laugh.  “Feel free to return the favor Potter. Father is rotting away in Azkaban and mother is slowly going crazy in the manor, doesn’t get invited to many charity events these days if you know what I mean. I’m sure you can make something out of that.”

“I thought it was because you found me a freak”.

“What?”

“When you stopped talking to me, that it was because of the things that had happened to me when I was a kid, that you thought I was some sort of psycho.”

Malfoy’s jaw fell and he looked about as miserable as that time he’d been told he was going to have detention in the forbidden forest. “No” he let out. “No, why would I…Harry, you’re not the one who should...” His cheeks went aflame and he turned away. “Dudley calls you Harry, it stuck with me.”

Harry smiled briefly. “I don’t mind you calling me Harry.”

“Yeah…well, I shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“My father says you have to earn the use of one’s given name.”

“Your father is a tosspot.”

“A tosspot? That’s far too sweet. I give you free range on the verbal abuse front and you choose tosspot.”

“Well, he kind of is” Harry said with a shrug.

Malfoy snorted and for a moment they grinned at one another but then his face fell.

“The Malfoys are the true psychos here, which I shouldn’t need to spell out, it’s not exactly a secret my family is a bunch of fanatic bigoted cowards.”

“Family is complicated” Harry said. “I mean, I guess it would be.” He hadn’t meant the last part to come out so broken.

Malfoy cringed. “Oh Merlin please just hex me and be done with it.”

At that, Harry kissed him.

For a few glorious seconds Malfoy kissed him back before he broke away, his eyes big. “I should go.” he mumbled, got to his feet and started to grab for his clothes. It would have made for a funny sight, Malfoy trying to wriggle into his boxers without dropping the towel, had Harry not felt so mortified. He stood there helplessly until Malfoy had put everything back on, if not in the correct way; his tie stuffed in his pocket and his shirt wrinkled and misbuttoned. He was gathering his robes, seconds away from apparating Harry assumed.

“Don’t.”

Malfoy ignored him, fishing out the hawthorn wand and turned his back.

“Draco, please.”

The use of his given name had him stop in his tracks and wheel around.

Harry might know a thing or two about defense but when it came to anything where feelings were concerned he had the smoothness of an erumpent in a teapot shop. During his fling with Cho Chang he’d more or less had to have Hermione spell things out to him to get a grasp of what was going on and Ginny had called him an oblivious dumbass on several occasions, not least the night she broke it off with him, but in the moment he met Draco Malfoy’s gaze he knew he had fallen hard and that he wasn’t the only one.

“Stay” he whispered.

When Malfoy didn’t move, he took two steps towards him so that they were standing pretty much nose to nose.

“It won’t work out”

“Maybe not” Harry said, taking the bundle of robes from Malfoy’s arms, dropping it unceremoniously in the armchair.

“It will be a disaster.”

“Possibly.” He begun to undo the misbuttoned shirt.

“Possibly? I’ve stepped on your face and tried to crucio you.”

“I’ve done worse to you.” The pale chest was now exposed to him. He trailed one of the faint scars.

“That’s different.”

“Possibly.”

Harry kissed him, gently, slowly, like one would kiss something that was frail enough to shatter into a million pieces under the touch. Malfoy made a broken sound and Harry thought he was going to be dismissed for a second time but then a hand came around his neck, pulling him closer and he was kissed back.

He slowly urged them towards the bed, taking care to keep his mouth attached to Malfoy’s to prevent any arguments of how this was horrible idea escape his lips. Logic could come later.

Once his head hit the pillow, their lips parted and they looked at one another with slight embarrassment. He wasn’t sure where he’d been going with this. Kissing was pretty much as far as his experiences went and now he’d gotten Malfoy into bed. “Er…” he said.

Malfoy didn’t laugh at him but looked almost shy. Then he brought a hand to his face, trailing his fingers down Harry’s cheek. It felt nice. Harry copied him.

They went about it slow, touching one another gently and not in the right places. Malfoy stroked his thumb along the carvings of I must not tell lies and kissed his scar. Harry trailed the pink lines crossing his thorax and took his left arm in hand, daring to let his fingertips touch the black ink. Malfoy went still at the touch but met his eyes and gave a small nod of approval, allowing Harry to explore the tail of the serpent. It was more intricate than he’d expected, hundreds of dark lines weaving into the pale white. Along them, red scratches broke through, some raw, some old, leaving the smooth skin puckered. There was a story there but he didn’t ask for it.

They went on to slowly shed their clothes to discover more prints the war had left behind.

Malfoy felt the red burn the locket had left on his chest with questioning eyes and frowned at the hollowed mark where Nagini’s fang had pierced him.

Harry found scars he could fathom the origin of; a burn on Malfoy’s shoulderblade he suspected to be a souvenir of the fiendfire and discovered other parts of  blemished and mangled skin he might or might not find out the cause of in the future and that he could only guess came from living in a house filled with death eaters, werewolves and snatchers. He touched them all with reverence, sadness and acknowledgement.

When there were no more clothes to dissuade and no more scars to uncover, they laid stretched out on their sides, facing one another. It would have been wrong to describe it as arousing, their caressing had been an aching for something he didn’t have a word for yet when Malfoy’s hand closed around his shaft there was almost a primal longing and he buckled into the touch.

It was fulfilling and hurting at once as they stroked each other and he came with a cry. Malfoy was quiet yet he trembled afterwards and Harry scoped him into his arms. By now it had almost become an ordinary thing, only Malfoy wasn’t wasted this time and significantly less clothed. Just like in his drunken state, he relaxed and let himself be held, eventually dropping his head to Harry’s shoulder and they stayed like that until a grumpy maid barged through the door, taking in their naked state with an unimpressed look on her face and letting them know check out was twenty minutes ago.

They reluctantly dressed and left the room. Malfoy automatically moved them towards the stairs but Harry insisted on the elevator, figuring there came a time when one simply had to stop avoiding ones childhood fears and face them.

He did reasonably well until the doors opened at the third floor and an older couple burst in, filling up all the space, leaving him pressed against the wall and suddenly he had trouble remembering how to breath. He tried to edge away, knocking into a suitcase.

“Watch it boy.”

It didn’t help that the man was the spitting image of Uncle Vernon.

Malfoy’s hand found his. “Close your eyes” he whispered, running a thumb over Harry’s wrist. He did as told which felt a little better until…

“Ruddy poofs.”

Harry opened his eyes, to see Malfoy pull out his wand.

“Don’t” he mumbled.

“Maybe just a small one?” Malfoy whispered back. “Could try the pig tail one.”

Before Malfoy had the chance to curse any animal parts onto the man, the doors opened and they found themselves on the entrance floor.

“Come.” Malfoy pulled him towards a bench next to a fountain.

The couple hurried towards the reception desk, the man keeping his arms out and glancing behind him as if he thought they were going to overtake him and push ahead at the counter.

As Harry watched, his suitcase burst in half, briefs and undershirts littering the floor.

“You really shouldn’t have.”

“I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about” Malfoy said, tucking his wand away. He took Harry’s hand again, threading their fingers.

“It’s not normally this bad. I can usually cope.”

“Don’t apologize.”

“I’m not, I’m just trying to understand it.”

“Sometimes things are fine, as long as you don’t need to think about them. Then somethings happen that makes you unable to look away from it. Like, you might think a noseless, blood supremacist leader isn’t such a bad idea and then he goes and offs someone at your dinner table and suddenly you’re having panic attacks in your sleep.”

Harry stared at him. “Fuck.”

“Yeah, well, point is, sometimes things need to get worse before they get better.”

“Will they ever?”

Malfoy met his eyes and although there was pain there, the grey irises also had a light to them. “Yes, I think so.”

“Thank you” Harry said some ten minutes later as they were walking down a busy London street.

“Don’t be daft. Although I don’t see why you had to ride it, I could have managed the stairs.”

“That’s what you said last night.”

“Did I?”

“You really don’t remember anything from when we got to the hotel, do you?”

Malfoy shook his head and Harry sped up, pulling him by the hand. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“Back to Hogwarts, I’m going to show you some memories from last night in the pensive.”

Perhaps he did remember parts of it, or he had enough self-awareness to imagine it because his features twisted into that famous Malfoy scowl. Harry kept grinning. It was going to be a good day.

Epilogue: the Flicker of the Lights

“Thanks” Harry said, not quite knowing what to do with the bouquet of very shrill, pink flowers that was pushed into his face.

“Sorry we weren’t here for your birthday party” Dudley said.

 “I’d say you had a pretty good excuse.” He stepped aside to let the visitors in.

“Speak for yourself” Draco said with a drawl behind him, eyeing Dudley and his girlfriend sternly. “And not only did you miss the happy twentieth that I had spent months preparing but you also popped out that, stealing his birthday. Really Em, you should have known better. Couldn’t you have held it in another hour?”

Emelie grinned back at him. “Actually, it was knowing how much it’d annoy you that gave me the strength to push her out ten minutes before midnight after twenty hours in labor.”

Harry still couldn’t believe Dudley had managed to hook up with someone like Em, though less surprised none of them had had a thought of contraceptives while going at it. Dudley had always been clueless and apparently Uncle Vernon had missed out on giving ickle diddikins the talk of birds and bees, and Emelie was the most disorganized and spontaneous person he’d ever met and the chances that she’d remember to take a birth control pill at the right hour was laughable. She was loud, wild and messy in a way he was certain drove Aunt Petunia mad and he loved her for it.

Six months ago, an astonished Dudley had called to let him know he’d managed to knock someone up and somewhere along the road, the unlikely couple had decided to just go along with it and the result was now on Harry’s doorstep.

He smiled at Emelie. “Can I see her?”

“Thought you’d never ask, my arms are aching from dragging her and this load through about five changes of buses.” She dropped the bag she was holding which had Draco flinch as diapers and milk bottles scattered the floor and loaded the baby into Harry’s arms with only little more care. He reminded himself to put cushioning charms on their apartment next time he visited.

He carefully held the tiny body like he remembered Andromeda had instructed him with Teddy.

“If you had apparated, it would have taken you about a second. Oh wait, you folks can’t do that, can you?” Draco said mockingly somewhere in the background.

Harry didn’t care much because the baby suddenly looked up, staring at him with green eyes, exactly like his own. “Oh” he said.

Draco rolled his eyes at him and ushered everyone into the living room of Harry’s apartment. It was a small flat, but he liked it there. He liked how it was his very own place even if Draco fluttered through it constantly.

“Did you even bring him a present?” Draco asked, which Harry found rather rude but also charming. Since he’d found out about the disastrous birthdays Harry had spent with the Dursleys, he’d gone through great lengths to ensure Harry got everything he wanted and more.

Dudley made a nod towards the flowers that had been levitated into a vase and Draco snorted. “Well, he did get about eighty presents at his party for your information, and that’s not counting the twenty-six ones I bought him. How many did you get at yours?”

“Er” Dudley said, his face going twisted the way it always did when he was confronted with numbers. “Fewer I guess” he said, which seemed to satisfy Draco.

“We do have something for you.” Emelie nodded towards the baby.

“You’re giving him that screaming horror? That’s an awful present. You should at least have given me a heads up so that I could have gotten a cage and some bones for it to gnaw on.”

Emelie aimed a kicked at him under the table and grinned as Draco yelped. Harry could relate perfectly to the satisfaction. She turned to Dudley and gave him a pointed stare.

For a moment he seemed to struggle with words, embarrassed by the whole thing and unable to meet Harry’s eyes.

“I just thought, only if you’re OK with it I mean, that we could name her Lily.”

Harry felt his jaw drop. “Really?” He tore his eyes away from the baby to look at his cousin who was blushing.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s a family name, and she kind of looks a bit like her, I thought. And Em thinks it’s a good name.”

“A very good name” Emelie said, beaming at him. “Only if you’re on board of course.”

Harry looked back at the baby who was watching him silently. “Yes” he croaked a little. “I’d like that very much.”

Two hours later, Lily was still resting in his arms.

“I should have known you’d be here” Draco said, moving into the bedroom where Harry was in his favorite armchair.

“Sorry, it was probably a bit rude to keep her this long. Is Dudley upset?” He frowned a little, still having a hard time thinking of his cousin as a dad.

“Are you kidding, they were only too happy to be rid of it.” He wrinkled his nose. “You’ll probably have to get a new couch, I doubt a scorgify would be enough.”

“What?” Harry said which woke up the baby. “They are..?”

Draco laughed. “No. They’re sleeping, though that’s bad enough, snoring like two pigs. Your cousin is drooling and I can swear Em is leaking milk all over the cushions.”

“Mm” Harry said, not caring much because Lily had finally opened her eyes again.

“You weren’t this silly with Teddy.” Draco sat down on the armrest.

“I didn’t see him when he was this small…and her eyes…”

“They are exactly like yours, of course you can’t get enough of that, though you could just look in the mirror you know. Wouldn’t hurt if you did once in a while in fact, your hair is horrible.” He leaned forward and drew his fingers through it and Harry leaned into the touch. It was almost nice enough to take the attention away from the bundle he was holding.

“It’s just kind of nice with family” he mumbled. “I didn’t have one for a long time. Then I had Sirius for a while. And of course I have the Weasleys and Teddy and they are family but…I don’t know, it’s not like blood matters, but there’s never been anyone to carry something along from my parents before, except for me…”

He wasn’t really making himself clear and he knew he was being silly but Draco didn’t laugh.

“Families are complicated” he said, carefully stroking Harry’s neck. “And it matters, even when you don’t want it to.” The three of them sat in silence. Taking in the pain and the beauty of it, Harry met Draco’s eyes and smiled.

“Oh Merlin, you’re thinking about having one, aren’t you?”

Harry laughed. “Sure, I want kids, some day. Don’t you?”

Draco stiffened next to him a little and fiddled with his sleeves.  “I’ve always been expected to produce an heir, of course, though I never really thought about that meaning there’d be an actual child to care for, and then the war came and had me thinking Malfoys weren’t the most suitable ones for parenthood.” He shrugged and stared into the wall for a while. Harry freed a hand to trail his back.

When Draco spoke again his tone was lighter. “Anyway, Malfoys stick to having one kid. You probably want like five and I’m not doing that. And not when we’re twenty, that’s just preposterous, I’d say maybe when we’re forty or something.”

Harry grinned at him. “You want to have a kid with me.”

Draco frowned. “You just said…”

“I said I wanted kids, and then you said you wanted one with me. And now you we’re planning for us to be together until we’re forty. And you want a Potter heir.” Harry laughed and couldn’t stop at the look of Draco’s face.  His cheeks had turned a lovely scarlet and he glared at him, unable to think of a comeback.

“You’re disturbing the baby” he muttered as Harry shook with laughter. Lily did indeed skimp around on his lap but seemed to quite enjoy it. She let out a high pitched laughter and there was a short but unmistakable flicker of light.

Harry and Draco both stared at the lamp on the bedside table.

“Was that…?” Harry asked.

“Definitely” Draco said.

Harry turned to the baby. It appeared she had more than just the green eyes and the name in common with his mother.

Draco looked like Christmas had come early. “Can’t wait to teach her to hex a tail to Dudley’s ass.”

Harry let out a shaky laugh, remembering Dudley’s first obvious encounter with a grown wizard.

Though they had come a long way since then. Dudley had succumbed to the idea of magic not being all horrible lately. He had particularly enjoyed the cleaning charms that Harry had set around his flat. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia would of course be horrified that ickle diddikins had produced a witch but that was just a bonus.

“Do you think he’ll be OK with it?” Draco asked.

Harry looked up at him and smiled. “I think it’ll be just fine.”