Chapter 1
The knock on the door came just past midnight.
Draco had been awake—he always was at this hour—but the sound sent a shiver through him. He wasn’t expecting anyone. No one came here. His friends from university had learned to text before visiting. And there was no one else who could possibly show up.
His fingers tightened around the pencil he had been using to scribble calculations along the edges of a worn physics book. He let out a breath and carefully closed the textbook, placing it on the small desk that took up most of his tiny Parisian apartment.
His old friends wrote sometimes. Theo’s letters were full of dry humor, Pansy’s full of scathing insults about everyone around her. Blaise rarely bothered to send letters, but every few months, a package arrived—sometimes a bottle of expensive wine, other times a book. But none of them ever visited. They knew better.
Whoever was outside his door now, clearly didn’t.
Another knock. This time, firmer.
Draco sighed, shoving his glasses onto his face. He was still dressed—sweatpants, an oversized wool sweater that was starting to fray at the cuffs. But something in him hesitated. Like he already knew that opening the door would change everything.
His fingers hovered over the doorknob. Then, exhaling quietly, he pulled it open.
And froze.
Draco Malfoy saw something he hadn’t even seen in his nightmares.
Harry Potter stood in the dimly lit hallway.
Harry Potter.
In his hallway.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. They simply took in the sight of each other. Harry Potter looked older—not dramatically, but enough for Draco to see the years between their last conversation and now. His green eyes were the same, though exhaustion weighed on them. He wore slim, dark Auror robes, the hood pushed back to reveal his perpetually messy hair. Some things never changed.
“Malfoy,” Harry said, breaking the silence, his voice low and even. “Can I come in?” He asked it like it was nothing.
Draco’s grip on the door tightened. “No.”
Harry’s brows lifted slightly, but he didn’t look surprised. “I need to talk to you.”
“I don’t doubt it, but I don’t care.” Draco started to close the door, but Harry moved faster, stopping it with his hand before it could fully shut.
“It’s about your parents.”
Something in Draco’s chest twisted.
He let the silence stretch for a moment before finally meeting Harry’s gaze.
“Fine. Five minutes.”
He turned, letting Harry follow him inside.
The apartment was small—one room, with a tiny kitchenette tucked into the corner and a bed pushed up against the wall near the window. The desk was piled with books, papers, and half-empty mugs of tea. It was a space that looked truly lived in.
Harry closed the door behind him, glancing around before setting his gaze back on Draco.
“They’re dead.”
Draco’s throat closed.
He had always known it was coming.
Not in a clear, defined way—but the way seasons changed, the way stars shifted in the sky. An inevitability. His parents weren’t young. They had made enemies. The war had fractured their carefully built reputation. But still—he hadn’t thought it would be now.
Draco swallowed and turned away, walking to the kitchenette. He pulled out a tin of loose-leaf tea. His hands were steady—because he forced them to be.
“How?” he asked quietly, as if he was afraid of the answer.
A beat of hesitation. Then Harry, without looking at him, said:
“Murder.”
Draco’s hands tightened around the tin. He exhaled and set it down.
“And I assume you’re here because you think I had something to do with it?” Draco’s voice rose, his face twisting with anger. “I don’t know what they say in your stupid world, but I’m not in some mafia, I don’t do drugs. I live in this tiny apartment, and I spend my whole life studying. On weekends, I work in a bookshop. I don’t have time to plot murders in a world I can’t even step foot in—”
“Draco, stop.” Harry cut him off. “We don’t think you killed them. We need your help.”
Draco let out a sharp, humorless laugh. He turned back around, arms crossing over his chest.
“Do you? Now?”
Harry studied him. Draco wondered what he saw. The last time they had stood face-to-face had been in a courtroom. Harry’s testimony was the only thing that had saved Draco from a worse sentence than exile.
Draco almost wanted to tell him to fuck off. But his parents were dead. And whatever had killed them—whoever had killed them—was something worth knowing.
Harry sighed, rubbing a hand over his face before adjusting his glasses.
“Look, I get it. You don’t want to help me. But this isn’t just about you.”
Draco’s lips curled. “Of course not. It never is, is it?”
Harry’s jaw tensed. “There was something happening at Malfoy Manor. Something deeper than just your parents living out their lives in silence after your exile. We don’t know what it was, but whatever it was—it got them killed. And you’re the only person who might have any idea what that was.”
Draco stared at him. “I haven’t spoken to my parents in years.”
“But you knew things,” Harry pressed. “They trusted you more than anyone else.”
Draco almost laughed. Trusted? His father only trusted his own instincts. His mother trusted necessity. Trust, in the way Harry meant it, had never been part of his family’s nature.
Still, there had been letters. Not often, but his mother had sent them. Carefully worded, calculated. They never revealed much, but there had been something off in her last message. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time. But now, the memory made his stomach twist.
“I don’t know what you expect me to tell you,” Draco said. But the words lacked their usual bite.
Harry exhaled. “Just come back.”
Draco hesitated. The thought of walking through Malfoy Manor again felt like a knife in his ribs.
“I can’t,” he said. “I’m exiled, if you forgot.”
“You’re allowed to visit,” Harry said. “I was sent here to bring you back.”
Draco hesitated. His life here was small, but it was his. He didn’t know if he wanted to go back.
But it was his parents.
And his home.
“…Fine.”
Harry blinked. “Really?”
Draco smirked. “Well, it’s not every day that Harry Potter searches through Muggle France for me, begging me to come with him.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Fine. We leave tomorrow morning.”