Chapter 3
When Harry gets to Grimauld Place he runs straight to his bedroom. It had started getting a bit messy, blankets and Weasley sweaters all piled in his bed. He doesn’t remember when he had started letting it get like that, but somewhere deep down he took a sort of comfort in it.
Something in him saw art in the way the so-called mess was arranged. A siren's call of comfort and safety and something like symmetry. Harry laid Malfoys jacket carefully in the center before furrowing his brow and adjusting it a little. It wasn’t right. Harry was missing something and he couldn’t figure out what it was for the life of him. It was incredibly frustrating, he must’ve been looking it dead in the face and still, he couldn’t see it. He wanted to scream.
Harry suddenly decides he can’t look at it any longer. If he’s forced to look for any longer he would tear his house to pieces. Purge the filth that is the imperfection of his home, unsuitable, ugly. Harry didn’t think he could cleanse it with his hands alone. He’d have to light it aflame and watch the disgusting too big place he called home become ash.
He wondered if he’d regret it when he was done, when his hands were stained with soot and his house in ruins.
Harry takes a deep breath trying to draw himself out of the train of thought and steps into the bathroom.
As he meets his own eyes in the mirror he takes stock of the same wild look he’s had been sporting for the last several weeks. In a way, he looked like something was chasing him. Harry takes a second deep breath, forcing his features to smooth out and averts his gaze from the mirror, turning the faucet on as hot as it would go and waiting for the bath to fill.
When the tub fills, Harry sinks into it with a sigh and thinks about his apparent Veela inheritance. Harry had never much cared for research, but there isn’t much avoiding it now if he wanted to understand his own instincts.
Grimmauld Places library was quite extensive, Hermione was thrilled when he first found the door opening into the library. She had stared at it with a wonder not all that different from when Ron proposed to her (Ron had grumbled at the time about how his fiance loved books more then she loved him, but beneath it was a soft private smile that Harry felt wrong seeing)
Harry had never stepped foot in the library after giving Hermione free range of it, he had never really needed to, but now there was surely to be something about Veelas in there.
It wasn’t as though he could stroll into any library or bookstore and pick out a book about Veelas, the press would be on it in an instant. So he’d have to settle for his large and dark library.
Harry sighs and wandlessly accios, “Any books about Veelas?” When three clock him in the head and one falls into the tub he groans and lets his head clink back against the porcelain. Casting an off-handed drying charm at the book that landed in the tub and picking up the only book that didn't hit him, he looks at the cover.
“Hiding Your Feathery Heir,”
Fucking purebloods. Then again it might be at least a little useful, it’s not like he wanted the whole wizarding world to know.
The other books, at least, seemed slightly less bigoted. One seemed to focus on magic differences in Veelas, one seemed to cover Veela instincts (something about Bowerbird syndrome caught his eye), the one he had thrown the hasty drying spell at seemed to be straight-up erotica.
Harry peeled back the warped cover and gave a peek inside, the first paragraph didn’t seem too bad? He continued reading quickly becoming enthralled with the story.
What? He was educating himself.
~~~
Draco doesn’t always notice when Harry Potter leaves the office, likely because Harry Potter doesn’t often leave the office. No days off, constantly either hunched over a case file or hovering nearby just observing the office with a furrowed brow.
Which is why it was strange when he didn’t show up for three days. Draco hadn’t realized how much of a constant presence Potter was until he wasn’t there anymore.
The day that he finally did show up Weasley was elbowing Potter in the side with a teasing grin, while Harry turned an alarming shade of red.
“Yeah, a lot of research you were doing mate, that book seemed very academic,”
Potter clutches a book to his chest that was obviously glamoured with a different title then it previously had.
“It’s been very enlightening.” He says defensively, with shifty eyes.
Weasley chortles going to squeeze Potter's shoulder roughly before a panicked look from Potter redirects the gesture to flicking the side of his head, “I bet it was,”
Weasley waggles his eyebrows disgustingly. Potter does the noble thing and shoves him into a wall, side-eying him as he stumbles.
When Potter catches Malfoys eye his eyes somehow change, the lighthearted glare he had been sending Weasley's way shifts into something hazy and unfocused.
Draco draws in a sharp breath through his nose feeling a little overwhelmed with the full weight of Potter's gaze on him. His head feels like cotton being looked at like that
“Did you do any research at all or did you spend the entire time reading p-” Weasley breaks off with a groan, “‘Mione told me this would happen.”
Weasley tugs at Potter’s arm none too gently, tearing his gaze away from Draco’s.
“Hmm?” The hazy look diminishes slightly when he manages to look away but doesn’t recede completely.
“Merlin's beard mate,” Weasley's tone shifts from boisterous to somewhat less intrusive, “You need to be careful about that.”
The conversation fades out as they step into Potter's office. Draco drops into his chair like a puppet with his strings cut.