The Bridge at Dawn
The hounds got their voices back on his third night at the Manor.
“Hello,” he told them, and they nuzzled into the wound that was his midsection and howled with their many voices. He woke up and it was so dark outside the big French windows, he thought the rest of the world might have gone away entirely. He was on the rug in the ballroom, on his back, Malfoy curled up next to him. Blaise had gone off somewhere, and Pansy was in the peacock room.
There was an open bottle of Firewhiskey on the floor next to them. Harry sat up and gulped from it.
“Barbarian,” Malfoy mumbled.
Harry lay back down and fell asleep.
In the morning, Blaise turned up with a massive spread of scones, tea-cakes, and finger sandwiches.
“Where—” Harry started, but Blaise grimaced.
“Rather not think about it.”
“That means pilfered from Mummy and Daddy’s kitchens,” Pansy said, padding into the room. She took a tea-cake and sat down.
Blaise said something in response, but the hounds were getting too loud for Harry to hear anything else. He picked up the Firewhiskey.
“I’ve had a bad influence,” Pansy said gravely. Harry felt Malfoy watching him as he took a swig.
“What’s on today?” he asked, indicating the telly.
“Prophet says mild weather tonight,” Blaise said. Harry couldn’t tell if it was a non sequitur or if he’d missed something.
“Hmm,” Malfoy said.
Pansy got up and looked out the window. “Clear skies.”
“Are they?” Malfoy said idly.
“Two-on-two,” Blaise said, raising his eyebrows at Harry.
“Quidditch?” Harry asked, catching their drift. He smiled a bit.
“Oh, alright, then,” Malfoy said.
Quidditch in the dark was a new sport entirely, Harry discovered that night. The Manor was set back on an old country lane, sheltered by miles of rolling hills and copses of trees, and Harry could hardly see a thing: he’d hear a whoosh and barely manage to catch the Quaffle as it zoomed toward his face, or just catch sight of Malfoy zipping by. The ground would rush up at him out of nowhere, and he kept losing track of which direction their makeshift hoops were in. It was exhilarating. He played with Pansy, who turned out to be a formidable flier, and together they walloped Malfoy and Blaise.
Once they’d all tired themselves out, they sprawled on the chilly grass, Pansy summoning the liquor and the remainder of their stolen breakfast from the Manor. Harry snagged a bottle of gin, ignoring Malfoy’s eyes on him, and added a few scones for good measure. There was no moon out, and maybe he was just pissed, but he was pretty sure he’d never seen so many stars in his entire life.
Malfoy and Blaise were coked up, and Malfoy kept explaining how to find Polaris, or what a parallax was, or why Ptolemy’d been right to put the planets on epicycles, but Harry was just lulled by the sound of his voice, his eyes sliding shut as the gin slowly transferred from the bottle into his stomach.
“And there’s Draco,” Malfoy told him, pointing out the dragon constellation. Blaise and Pansy were at the bottom of the hill now, Blaise climbing a tree while Pansy heckled him. “My mother chose the name.”
Harry glanced over at him. He could just make out Malfoy’s profile in the dark.
“Is your mother—”
“Dead.” Malfoy’s voice was flat. “Murder-suicide in the master bedroom, quite déclassé, you know.”
Harry ran his fingers along the lines of Malfoy’s shoulders, quiet.
“I suppose I should be grateful I was never important enough to bring along.”
Harry stilled. “That’s not true.”
“Thank you, Potter, it’s nice to know that when you’re planning your own way out I’ll make the cut.”
“I just meant—she loved you. Your mum.”
Malfoy put his own hand over Harry’s and held them there for a moment. Then he said, “You want to call Baxter.”
Harry’s stomach sank. “No.”
“You’ve been drinking all day, but it’s not helping, is it?”
It was true: the hounds had been circling since last night.
“I still owe him.”
“I paid him off.”
“He doesn’t have fangs, then.”
“No.”
Harry looked at him again. This time Malfoy was looking back at him.
“It doesn’t have to be Indolor,” he said. “There are some muggle pills that work okay, and potions…”
“Okay,” Malfoy said. “We’ll find something.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Harry said.
“We’ll go in the afternoon.”
“Are you wining and dining me?” Harry asked, smiling slowly.
They were in a posh muggle restaurant, and Harry was high, and the hounds were gone, and everything was lovely in the world.
Malfoy paused, counting banknotes out onto the table. “Well, if I’d known that’s all it would take, I’d’ve done it weeks ago.”
He drank the rest of their wine, and Harry drank in the sight of him, louche in his seat, cheeks flushed. They were both too rumpled to be in a place this nice, paying with cash, but they’d at least found shoes. Harry pocketed a few extra dinner mints as they left the place.
“Pansy’s working tonight,” Malfoy told him outside.
“At the chip shop?”
“The Leaky.”
“What about the chip shop?”
“She quit. Keep up.”
“Oh.” Harry frowned. “What about her girlfriend?”
“The girl with the scalp tattoos?”
“What? The muggle from Halloween.”
“That was ages ago, Potter.”
“She has a new girlfriend?”
Malfoy snorted. “Several.”
“Maybe she misses Pansy,” Harry said, putting a mint into his mouth.
“Who?”
“The girl from Halloween.”
“You’re soppy when you’re high.”
“Yeah, probably.”
Malfoy was tense. Harry took a minute to work it out.
“Pansy’s working tonight,” he said.
“Yes, I’ve heard.”
“Come to the peacock room with me.”
“Alright, then,” Malfoy said, careless, as though the idea had only just occurred to him.
They went to the Manor, and Harry pushed Malfoy back against the bed, and pulled his trousers down, and sucked him off.
“That was nice,” he told Malfoy as he climbed into bed.
Malfoy seemed like he had something else to say, but after a moment he just put his pants on and lay down next to Harry.
The next morning Harry found them all in the ballroom, passing around a handful of brightly coloured little pills.
“X?” Pansy asked, holding them out to him.
“Urgh,” Harry said, and snorted a painkiller from his pocket.
By midday the others were rolling. Malfoy spelled up a posh sort of waltz and led Pansy into the middle of the floor. Blaise swayed alone on the rug, Harry slowly passing from high to what he could only really describe as strung out.
“Did Baxter bite you?” he asked.
Blaise paused his dancing. “He has human teeth.”
“Oh.” He’d worried Malfoy might have been lying about it.
“You were in pretty rough shape, Harry.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“None of the rest of us got splinched, though.”
Harry avoided Blaise’s eyes. “That’s good.”
“Yes.”
“I thought I was dead,” Harry said.
“And here you are alive.”
“Yeah, well.” Harry ran his finger over the pattern in the rug. “That’s not my fault.”
“No,” Blaise agreed. “But now you’ll just have to try and get by as best you can without hurting anybody until death takes over.”
Harry’s breath caught. “What’s that from?”
But Blaise was distracted, watching Malfoy twirl Pansy under the lofty ceiling with its beautiful chandelier. There was blood on Malfoy’s white shirt, Harry realised. He did another line.
On the rug that night, Malfoy sat cross-legged in front of him, his pupils still blown, Harry’s nostrils still burning.
Harry reached for the red-brown splotches on Malfoy’s chest. “Blood will stain,” he said.
“I have a surfeit of wrinkled white dress shirts, Potter, I’ll live.”
“Yeah,” Harry said. “But—”
“Oh, but nothing.” Malfoy rolled onto the ground and arched his back. “You’re one to talk, anyway.”
“I don’t do that.”
“No, you just think you can erase yourself from existence, and no one will notice.”
Harry’s tongue felt too big and clumsy in his mouth somehow. “I don’t do that.”
“Oh, please.” Malfoy turned onto his stomach. “You won’t even let me touch you.”
Harry flushed. “That’s not true.”
“You touch me,” Malfoy said. “You’re allowed to feel good too, you know.”
“I know.”
“Do you even get hard?”
“Yes,” Harry said, defensive. “I just don’t usually…”
“What, come?”
He flushed again.
“When was the last time you touched yourself, Harry?”
“I don’t…”
“When was the last time you let someone else touch you?”
Malfoy’s eyes were so dark, and he was still splayed out on the floor, and he reached up and ran his fingers through Harry’s hair.
“You’re touching me now,” Harry pointed out.
“What are you afraid of, Harry?”
“Same as everybody else, I guess,” Harry mumbled.
Malfoy pulled him down to the rug. It was the first time they’d kissed, Harry noted through his daze. The first time he’d kissed anyone since before the war, probably. He let Malfoy’s tongue slide into his mouth, and they moved against each other.
Malfoy rolled them over so Harry was on his back. The fire crackled beside them, the house otherwise dead still.
“Let me make you feel good,” Malfoy murmured, trailing kisses down Harry’s neck.
“You already do,” Harry said.
Malfoy sat up, straddling him, one hand on his chest. Harry’s lips were warm, and he was hard, and he knew Malfoy could feel it.
“I just can’t,” he said.
They fell asleep on the rug, Harry curled into Malfoy’s chest.
It was some days later when Ron and Hermione showed up at the Manor, their faces pale and their wands drawn. Harry was so trashed that he thought his back might’ve welded itself to the rug by now, and his eyes were glazed from watching the dancing flames in the huge fireplace, and there was no need, really, for Hermione’s stupefy. It was an indignity, he thought as he saw her mouth form the words.
He woke up in their guest bedroom, his mouth sandy, and dry-heaved over the edge of the bed. The curtains were drawn, the room dim, Hermione slumped over him again as he lay in another bed that wasn’t his.
“Harry,” she said, sitting up.
“What did you do?” Harry asked dully.
“Harry, you need help.”
He tried to laugh, but the contractions of his stomach made him heave again. There was almost nothing left in him.
“How long has it been?” He remembered the Manor, and Malfoy, and frowned. “How’d you know where I was?”
“It’s all over the papers,” she said.
“Rat bastards.” The hounds were in his ears. “Hermione, how long has it been?”
She looked down. “Just a couple days.”
He put the pieces together and sat up, wobbling. “No.”
“Harry, you need to stop doing this.”
“Fuck you,” he snapped, and she flinched. “Where’s my stuff?”
“I can’t,” she said, starting to cry. “You’ll feel better—”
“Oh, yeah, I feel loads better, thanks,” he said, heaving himself to his feet. The world tilted alarmingly, and he clutched the bed for support. He was sweating. He couldn’t do this again.
“Harry, please lie down, I called Stroud and she said that Indolor—”
“Fuck you,” he said again, and it was the hounds that spoke from his mouth.
“I’m trying to help you!”
“Yeah?” he snarled, spinning toward her. “And how has your help worked out in the past, then? Heard anything from Wendell and Monica lately?”
He regretted the words even as they came out of his mouth, but it was too late. Her face crumpled.
“No, wait,” he slurred, trying to straighten up, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“Get out.” Ron was in the doorway, a hulking silhouette.
“Wait, Ron,” Harry said.
“Get the fuck out of this house.”
Hermione was crying again and Harry was stumbling down the hall, bumping into the furniture, and there was a baby wailing somewhere, maybe inside his head.
“Don’t you ever come back here,” Ron said, his voice shaking with fury, and he slammed the door before Harry could say anything else.
Harry was in muggle London, and the hounds were everywhere. He walked for a long time and then he stopped walking, and he was outside his flat. He blinked.
The kitchen table was still covered in blood, oxidised brown and splattered onto the floor. His own, he supposed. The hounds lapped at it.
He vomited into the sink and saw Hermione’s face in the bile. “I’m sorry,” he told her. Not good enough.
In his nightstand he found a few mismatched pills and a tiny bit of powder. When his head cleared, he surveyed the flat.
It was disgusting: grimy bottles, old takeaway containers, dirty clothes everywhere. There was a letter by the door that said he was overdue on rent. He couldn’t find money anywhere, except a few Knuts under the bed. He decided this was a sign, or something: no more drugs.
He had a few bottles of Dreamless Sleep in the medicine cabinet, and they got him through the worst of the detox, but when they ran out the hounds were back in full force, crawling all over his body as he lay there pathetic on his couch.
“I don’t have anything for you,” he told them, at first, and then later when they screamed he just screamed back at them, his voice becoming another of the many voices. His landlord banged on the door and told him to shut up and pay up.
“I left my wand at the Manor,” Harry said, and then picked up a pair of trousers from the floor and found his wand under them. “Wait, that’s not right.”
The guy just swore at him and left. It occurred to Harry that he was a muggle and didn’t care whether Harry had his wand or not.
He took long walks wrapped in the Invisibility Cloak, scavenging food from people’s bins, the hounds trailing him down the street. He talked to them sometimes: apologies, mostly. One of them brought him a sandwich wrapped in newsprint, and he was Colin Creevey.
“I’m sorry I killed you,” Harry told him.
The hound that was Colin Creevey whimpered, and he transformed, and he was Tonks, but Tonks was Cedric, and Cedric was Snape.
“You were a bitter old bastard,” Harry said, and Snape laughed and laughed, and all their voices joined in. Harry walked some more, and he kept passing people whose heads were pointy and red.
“Merry Christmas, love,” one of them said, hand-in-hand with a pretty blonde, and he was wearing a Santa hat and didn’t have a pointy red head.
Harry kept walking and then he was on a bridge, and it was cold, and the hounds tore off his cloak and made him stand there in the bitter wind, freezing. The barest hint of daylight was just streaking into the sky over the city, and Harry climbed up on the bridge and turned back to face the empty pavement, and the largest of the hounds leapt up at his chest, and it was Sirius.
Quicker and easier than falling asleep.
They fell.