Chapter 36
“Malfoy, up.”
Draco stood, barely aware of the motion. They spoke to him like he was a poorly behaved dog in the pound. He’d learned better than to disobey.
“Hands.”
Wordlessly, Draco shoved his hands through the little square in the bars. His cell had the smallest square, but it was still enough to get his wrists through and that was all the guards cared about. Besides, he probably had the smallest wrists on his floor.
Metal cinched around the fragile skin, digging into bruises that still hadn’t healed. He doubted that they ever would.
“Back.”
He stepped back, watching as the guard unlocked the gate to his cell and slid it open, stepping to one side so Draco couldn’t charge him. As if he had the strength to do any damage.
“Come on, move. You know the way.”
He did. Mindlessly, Draco put one foot in front of the other and ignored the sounds coming from nearby cells. His father was in one of them.
“Sit.”
Draco sat, ignoring the press of cold metal against his ass and staring blankly ahead at the wall. He knew the drill by now. This was… what? His fifteenth interrogation? Something close to that, at least, and he already knew that it wasn’t going to go well.
“Draco, how are you feeling? I must say you don’t look well.”
He kept his face blank and his eyes forward. Katie stepped into the room, closing the door behind her and sealing it with a magic dampening rune—just in case he made a grab for her wand. Draco didn’t like Katie. She was nicer than the other Ministry officials, at least on the surface, but there was an undercurrent in her voice that set him on edge. He didn’t trust it.
“Draco, I need you to cooperate. I’m trying to help you, remember?”
Draco kept his expression neutral and refused to meet her eyes. Katie sighed and finally took a seat across the table from him.
“Come on, Draco. I want to help you but I can’t do that if you aren’t willing to help me.”
She sighed again, as if Draco’s silence was personally inconveniencing her. When he only blinked at her, she pulled out a folder and began laying photographs on the table in front of him. He recognized them immediately. It was the same set she’d brought the time before, and the time before that—a collection of people who had died in the war, or people she thought he should care about.
“I want you to look at them. Her,” Katie pointed to one of the pictures in the center. “Do you remember her name?”
It was Charity Burbage, the Muggle Studies professor that had been killed on his dinner table. He could still see the blood running into her eyes and the saliva that had dripped from her open mouth, landing on the table less than a foot from his plate. Katie pushed the picture towards him.
“Remember her? Professor Burbage? They brought her in just before the main course and dropped her on the table right in front of you. Like a Christmas ham, huh? All trussed up and ready for the feast? What happened next, Draco? Did he make a speech? Did you all take turns casting hexes until he decided that there’d been enough foreplay?”
Katie took the picture back, examining the face as if it were her niece’s third grade yearbook photo.
“Did she scream, Draco? Did she beg for her life as you sat there and watched?”
She had screamed. They’d put a gag in her mouth to keep the noise at a tolerable level, but she had screamed. One of the Death Eaters had commented that pigs always squeal. Draco’s stomach churned dangerously beneath his skin. That sound still rang in his ears whenever he tried to sleep—a choked, muffled scream that only began to weaken after the third or fourth Crucio.
But he hadn’t cast them. He had to remember that.
“I didn’t hurt her.”
“No, you just watched, didn’t you? You could have saved her, but you chose to do nothing. Was it fun to watch her die? Did it feel good and powerful the way he said it would?”
Draco swallowed hard, fighting against his gag reflex and the tears pricking behind his eyes. The Dark Lord hadn’t promised anything like that. Her death wasn’t a celebration or a strengthening—it was a reminder for the weakest in the audience what would happen should they fail. It was a message targeted at Draco.
“Was it fun, Draco? To watch her die?”
“No.”
“No?” Katie repeated, feigning surprise. “Do you feel guilty, Draco? Do you feel any remorse for having let this woman die right in front of you?”
“Yes.”
He’d been drowning in guilt ever since that dinner. It curdled in his gut and made him scared to close his eyes at night. He hadn’t been able to eat more than a few bites of food at a time without suddenly seeing her cold, dead eyes staring at him. The slab of mystery meat they gave me at meal times tasted like her blood.
“Do you feel guilty about any of the others?” Silently, he nodded. “Which ones, Draco?”
“All of them.”
And more, his brain added, because there were hundreds more that didn’t have their pictures laid out on the table right now. Katie hummed, shifting a few of the photos around and glancing at some as if she had to remind herself of who they were. Draco could have told her, but she hadn’t asked. Not this time, at least.
“See, you say that you feel guilty but there’s just one tiny little issue. I don’t believe you. I don’t think that you’re capable of feeling guilt because guilty people don’t keep doing the thing that makes them feel guilty, do they?”
Draco just shrugged, not sure how else to answer.
“This isn’t confession, Draco. You don’t get to tell me your sins and then be forgiven. You understand that, right? No matter what happens, you will never be forgiven.”
He choked back a sob, but nodded. He knew that. They’d told him a thousand times and he’d known it even before the final battle. Some things couldn’t be forgiven—some people couldn’t be forgiven. He was one of them.
“You need to understand that you were very lucky to be given a deal at all. Because you are young and because you have information that we can use, the Ministry is willing to offer leniency. Do you remember the terms of the deal I explained last time?”
Draco nodded. He remembered perfectly because it was all he’d been able to think about. It was simple, Katie had said, and it was the best deal he was ever going to be offered. A reduced sentence in exchange for testimony. He’d already given them information against anyone he could think of—every friend of his father’s or servant of the Dark Lord whose name he knew—but that wasn’t what they wanted. Those cases were already a done deal, Katie said. The deal was simple: a reduced sentence for himself in exchange for Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy.
“Do you think your family is being loyal to you, Draco?” He didn’t know how to answer that so he stayed silent. “We offered your father the same deal, you know. He took it in a heartbeat. With his testimony, you’re looking at at least 40 years—50 if they can get you on manslaughter via failure to act. Your mother is already halfway to a life sentence.”
Draco bit his tongue hard enough to taste blood. Was that true? No one had told him anything since he’d been arrested but surely his father wouldn’t have turned on them like that? Then again, it was in the spirit of self preservation. There wasn’t much his father wouldn’t do to ensure his own survival…
“I want you to think about your mother, Draco. Look at her face,” Katie pulled a photo of Narcissa from the bottom of the pile, shoving it at him. “I need you to stop being selfish and think about someone else for a change. Your mother loves you, doesn’t she? You said in your original statement that everything she did was to protect you, and vice versa right?”
“Yeah.”
Draco hated how broken his voice sounded, but he couldn’t help it. He reached out to hold the picture, staring at it. It barely looked like his mother anymore. She was sitting in a Ministry interrogation room in scrubs similar to his own, looking straight into the camera. Somehow, between his childhood and the end of the war, Narcissa seemed to have aged forty years in the span of ten. Her smile was gone and she looked… sad.
“Think about your mother, Draco. I’m sure she wants to see you again. You’re an only child, right? A bit of a mama’s boy? Don’t you think she’d want to see you at least one more time before she dies?”
The contract reappeared in front of him. It was the same deal he’d refused to sign last time, already open to the page with a line for his signature. A quill appeared with it.
“Your mother isn’t that old and the Black family has a history of long lives. She’ll live to a hundred and twenty easily. Thirty years may sound like a long time to be in Azkaban, but once you’re out you would have the potential to visit her. To see her again before she dies alone. She’d be what? Eighty three? If you don’t take the deal, though, they’ll get you in for at least sixty years—probably more. Do you think she’ll live that long?”
She wouldn’t. Especially not in Ministry custody.
“Think about what she would want. Are you really going to deny your mother a chance to see her only child again before she dies?”
He couldn’t breathe.
“Are you really that selfish, Draco?”
Draco woke up drenched in sweat. Jesus. It took him at least ten deep breaths to be able to take in oxygen like a normal human being again. He scanned the room, unconsciously looking for any source of danger, and sighed when he found none. Sometimes he wished there would be an actual threat. Then he would feel less stupid for being so afraid.
He glanced at the clock on his bedside table and determined that it wasn’t too early to go into work and feign productivity. Kicking off the tangle of sweat-soaked blankets, he forced himself to take stock of the situation. Shitty nightmare? Check. Empty cupboards? Check. Locked doors and windows? Check. Enough time to scrub the panic out of his expression before he got to work? Check.
He didn’t know what to make of that dream-memory or what to do with the vague, panicky sense of betrayal it left rotting in his chest so he elected not to think about it at all. For now. It would come back, he knew, but for now thinking about his mother was not on the schedule for this morning. Instead, he forced himself into the shower so he could at least be hygienic before showing up to work with bags under his eyes and caffeine in his veins.
But, with every beat of the hot water against his skin, Draco felt that question echoing back at him.
Are you really that selfish, Draco?
Harry had woken up in a remarkably good mood given the events of the previous day. Yes, there was still a body down in the morgue and yes, that body belonged to an Auror rookie who did not deserve to die but he also had Draco to think about.
A large part of his original work in therapy had centered around being able to hold multiple truths at once. At first, he’d practiced with small things. Yes, he was anxious and yes, he was sleep deprived but the vines outside his window also smelled good and he’d had pancakes for breakfast. Both were true, and neither one impacted the validity of the other. He’d struggled a lot in the beginning not to give more weight to the bad things but he’d gotten better with practice and time. Still, that didn’t make something like this easy.
He liked thinking about Draco, though. There were less appropriate ideas that his brain suggested involving the blonde, but those weren’t the ones that he chose to focus on. Right now, it was the sense of connection that appealed to him. It was the fact that Draco had stayed with him all night when he hadn’t needed to and it was the fact that Draco had seen him blaming himself for this latest death. But, even more than that, Draco had called him out on it.
Draco had always been the one person he could count on to hold him accountable.
With anyone else, Harry would have shrugged them off or copped an attitude to get them to leave. Ron and Hermione had both tried to intervene whenever he took on a particularly grueling case and some of the few fights they’d had had resulted from those interactions. It was different with Draco for some reason, though.
Harry hadn’t necessarily wanted Draco there with him and he’d been tempted to pull the same shit he usually did, but something had stopped him. There was something about Draco… The blond had high standards and he was not quiet about it. Rather than shove those standards back in the git’s pointy face, however, Harry found himself wanting to meet them. To prove that he could meet them. Draco expected honesty and realness, so that was what Harry had given him.
Which had turned out to be the right choice. Harry could still see that gentle glaze over those piercing grey eyes. The phantom movement of Draco’s head, bending to the slightest pressure, ghosting against his hands the way the rocking of a boat could linger long after stepping onto dry land. It was intoxicating.
On his desk, Harry scribbled catalog numbers mindlessly over different evidence bags. He’d given himself the task this morning because it required very little thought and he’d pulled a late night so he thought he could survive a little manual labor. Technically, some intern or rookie could have been doing it instead but Harry wanted to. He needed to let his mind wander for a bit before diving back into the horrors of his job.
So, he let his mind continue to drift. More snippets of the night before came back to him. The company, the companionable silence, and the surprising warmth of Draco’s skin haunted him in the best way.
I think we’ve established that I know very well what I’m playing at, Potter.
Merlin, the sheer confidence in Draco’s voice had been enough to spark something deep in his chest. It was the same playful, taunting voice that Draco had used all the way back with Mr. Doe—that addictive, bratty smugness that had been the blond’s signature since childhood.
Draco liked to push him. Harry had known that from the beginning, of course, but he hadn't been old enough, mature enough, or quite frankly observant enough to see it for what it really was. But now he knew. Or he knew enough at least to make a few guesses as to why Draco felt the need to push him so often.
Draco enjoyed riling him up and goading him—that much was obvious—and Harry couldn’t lie: their banter was part of what made them them. But there was another kind of pushing that Draco liked too. The kind where he intentionally acted up or mouthed off, acknowledged the warning Harry had given him, and kept pushing.
At first, Harry had considered Draco's history with authority figures and thought this might be the blond's way of retaining some level of control over the situation because he could decide whether or not he escalated it. But then he'd felt Draco melt under his palm and calm in his hands the second Harry grabbed him. He was all too ready and all too willing to give up control—hell, he practically begged for it every time he softened his eyes or bit his lip or...
That was it. Draco would never ask him to take control—his pride wouldn't allow it—so Draco didn't ask. He pushed. Harry wondered idly if it had something to do with the way Draco had grown up or if he saw asking as some kind of inherent weakness. Or maybe he was ashamed that he was submissive in the first place? Harry wasn't sure, honestly, but he decided that the next time Draco pushed him, he was going to push back.
Draco hated his coworkers and his boss. They’d noticed when he arrived early and talk had already spread, accusing him of coming in at odd, unpredictable hours so he could meet with illegal clients. Kaiser had popped in for two surprise inspections before lunch, and another three after.
Still, there was something soothing about brewing. It was something to focus on and it was something he knew he was good at, so it let his brain work on autopilot while still avoiding the nightmare he’d been trying not to think about all day. Draco was willing to focus on anything except that dream. Which, coincidentally, was the only reason he even noticed the first note.
It was small, barely even a scrap of paper, and it’d been caught under the leg of one of his brewing tables. He’d only noticed because he’d dropped one of his mouse skulls and had reached down to get it, touching the paper in the process. On it, written in horrid chicken scratch, were three words:
You did this.
Not the most pleasant thing to find hidden in your office. But Draco’s mind was on Harry, honestly, and the paper looked old enough to be targeted at the office’s previous inhabitant so he didn’t worry. Any little inkling of paranoia that popped up in the back of his mind was promptly squashed. He didn’t need another thing to worry about.
Draco forced himself to think about Harry again because it was the only reliable train of thought that he knew would overpower the anxiety. He was stuck at work either way, so he would rather be distracted by something pleasant at least.
His skin still tingled whenever he thought about the previous night. The sensation of Harry’s fingers against the thin skin of his jaw and the thrill of watching his eyes widen every time Draco obeyed his silent instructions. It was addictive. He wanted more and he’d spent half the morning trying to figure out a way to get it.
Asking for it was the most obvious solution, but it was also the one thing that Draco absolutely refused to entertain as an option. Even just considering the words was enough to send his brain into a panicked spiral. So, Draco moved on to other options. He could force Harry’s hand by just appearing one day and kneeling the way he had the night before, but that seemed unfair and, though consent had never really been a big deal in his past relationships, he didn’t want to ambush the Auror.
A tiny part of his brain told him to act like an adult and just talk to Harry, but that was far too scary. Pain was always a risk, of course, but even more so now. Draco wasn’t sure that he could handle it if Harry rejected him again and, though a quick curse or punch to the face might be easier, he wasn’t sure he wanted that either. So he had to be more discreet.
Ironically, this was the exact sort of thing that Draco used to be good at. The other Slytherins in particular had always commended him on his ability to play verbal poker, as they called it, and to get his opponent to reveal their hand before he did. But Harry Potter always had to be the exception, didn’t he?
Draco was so distracted by his train of thought that he missed the Ministry owl alert and didn’t open the door in time. A loud thud shook the room, and then a very angry chittering as said owl realized what had happened. He considered hiding from it and pretending to have gone out, but he was too anxious about receiving mail from Kingsley to let it go so he pulled on his dragonhide gloves just in case and opened the door.
The owl was definitely not pleased. It glared at him, a mess of tousled brown feathers and slightly bruised ego. He’d brought a treat as a bribe and an attempt to apologize, but the creature took one look at him and immediately dropped his mail. He tried to reach for it, but received a harsh bite to his glove. Thankfully, he wasn’t stupid enough to try again so he merely watched as the owl walked over the mail, turned around, narrowed its eyes…
And promptly relieved itself all over his letters.
Draco didn’t dare yell and attract an audience, but he threw the treat at the creature and managed to scare it off. Good riddance. He wondered if it knew he couldn’t cast scourgify—it could be used to remove fingerprints, the Ministry had said—or if it didn’t care. Either way, he was forced to pick up his mail, owl shit and all.
Back safely inside his office, Draco tried to clean as much as he could off the envelopes before he pried them open. The envelopes themselves couldn’t be salvaged or even read, unfortunately, but he hoped that whoever had sent them would sign their message like a dignified person.
The first piece of parchment was a short, official looking summons signed by Kingsley himself. It wasn’t to the usual office, however. This time, Draco was being summoned to the morgue, tomorrow at 9am. He tried not to let his mind start overanalyzing that as he opened the second letter and examined the parchment. This one was far less official and, if he was being honest with himself, he knew the handwriting immediately.
Draco,
‘Mione sent me a new warding rune she found that she thinks will help keep whatever is messing with your office from getting to you at home. Yes, Andrea filled me in on that by the way. Why didn’t you tell me?
For a moment, Draco’s heart stopped and ice flooded through his abdomen. His brain became a relentless loop of he’s mad he’s mad he’s mad and Draco wanted to curl into a ball on the floor but he forced himself to keep reading.
I’m not mad, for the record. You don’t ever have to tell me anything if you don’t want to. Sorry, I’m rambling. It’s been a long day here and I wanted to know if I could drop by with the rune tonight. I have some news (it’s not bad, I promise, stop panicking). I’ll bring us pizza if you want :) Either way is fine, just let me know.
- Harry
Draco took a slow, deep breath and forced himself to reread the second half of the message. Not mad, just let me know. He should have considered it carefully and weighed the pros and cons like he usually would have, but he didn’t. It was Harry and, honestly, he was kidding himself if he thought he wasn’t going to take every single opportunity that he could to get the man alone. He scribbled back a note agreeing to meet Harry after work and sent it.
Verbal sparring it was, then. Tonight, the game would begin and Harry Potter had never been famous for his poker face.
Okay, on second thought, maybe Draco was still a bit on edge from his dream the night before. It’d been at least a month or two since he’d had any dreams like that so it was understandable that it threw him off balance. Still, off balance or not, that didn’t mean he should look to Harry to ground him. He knew that, and yet…
And yet Auror Harry Potter was sitting on his couch, drinking a glass of red wine that he’d conjured out of thin air just because he could. Show off. If someone had told him a year ago that he would have Harry Potter in his apartment on a Thursday night, he would have laughed in their face. But, true to his word, Harry had shown up after work in sweats and a T-shirt, holding a big stone. In it, someone had carved a warding rune the size of Draco’s palm. It was still sitting on his kitchen counter.
“Don’t ask me what it is, you know I barely passed Ancient Runes even with Hermione’s help.”
Harry laughed self-deprecatingly and conjured another glass of red wine, handing it to Draco as he joined him on the couch. Draco couldn’t help remembering the last time they’d both sat on that couch. The time that he’d broken down and cried in Harry’s lap like a child…
“Don’t worry, Potter, I know better than to ever expect you to have answers.”
Harry lifted a hand to his heart, pretending to be wounded, but his smile never dipped.
“I have news.”
Draco felt his stomach drop straight through the floor but he kept his face neutral. He leaned back on the couch, trying to subtly put a bit of distance between them as if that would stop the sudden warmth of Harry’s magic against his skin. It didn’t, but it was worth a shot.
“So you said.”
Draco wasn’t desperate or curious enough to outright ask—not yet, at least. He wondered if that was what Harry was waiting for or if baiting Draco was part of the game but he was not intoxicated enough to fall for something like that so quickly. Instead, he just took another stalling sip of wine and waited.
“A few months ago, we were on a raid and Robards took a pretty nasty curse to the chest. We got him out and he healed, of course, but there was some lasting damage and the man is over sixty as it is.”
The wine tasted like strawberries. Draco tried to focus on that instead of Harry’s face or the pregnant pause between them. Harry wanted him to ask. He knew that and a big part of him wanted to ask, both because it would get him an answer and because it was what Harry was expecting. But he’d always been a bit of a brat, so Draco just crossed his legs and raised an eyebrow.
“Am I supposed to pity the man who incarcerated me for over a year?”
Harry’s face did something complicated and, for a second, Draco doubted himself. Sure, he didn’t particularly like Head Auror Robards and he certainly had no reason to empathize with the man, but he didn’t have anything against him either. Robards wasn’t the one who had personally signed his paperwork or conducted his interrogations. In all likelihood, Draco was just another name in a file to the man who ran the entire bloody Auror department.
“No, like I said, he’s fine now. Just old and motivated to retire before he takes an even worse spell.”
“Sixty isn’t old.”
It wasn’t—not by Wizarding standards—but Harry just shrugged.
“He’s looking for excuses to move to the coast and drink margaritas all day. The point is: he’s unofficially named his replacement and they’ve unofficially accepted. It’s all very hush-hush and I’m not supposed to tell people but…”
“But I don’t count as ‘people’?”
Harry rolled his eyes, not even pretending to be incredulous.
“I trust you to keep it to yourself,” Harry countered, as if that wasn’t a monumental statement all by itself. “But now you’re being difficult so maybe I don’t want to tell you anymore.”
It was the wine. It was 100% the wine and had absolutely nothing to do with the ghost of a touch that Draco could still feel against his jaw. He still found himself leaning forward on the couch, ever so slightly inserting himself into Harry’s personal space.
“Oh, I’m being difficult, am I? My sincerest apologies, Saint Potter. Please, oh please bestow the gift of your overwhelming knowledge upon me.”
Harry threw a pillow at him.
“You’re a prick.”
But Harry was chuckling under his breath and Draco knew the Auror wasn’t upset so he just righted himself and pretended to nonchalantly sip his wine. Harry Potter was not known for being a patient man and he—
“It’s me. He offered me the position.”
Draco stopped short, gaping at the man sitting in front of him.
“You’re going to be Head Auror?”
“No need to sound so surprised.”
Draco just stared at him, completely taken aback. There was a flash of something vulnerable and uncertain in Harry’s face but Draco didn’t know how to interpret it. He was struggling enough as it was just to form words.
“No, I… That’s incredible! Congratulations, Potter, you’re going to be the youngest Head Auror in Ministry history. I don’t know why I’m even surprised it’s just so…”
“Sudden?” Harry supplied, though his face had lost whatever twinge it’d held before. “Yeah, I know. I was pretty much speechless when he offered me the position. I thought he was going to fire me or something, given how serious he was acting. But he made a whole speech about his legacy and his beach house and how he wanted me to be the one who took his place. It hasn’t been announced or anything, of course, but he’s hoping it will happen within a year.”
“That’s quite soon.”
Would they have caught Broken Crown by then? Would Draco have perfected the wolfsbane brew? Would they even have an excuse to see each other or interact at all once Harry was the head of the entire Auror department?
“A lot can happen in a year. Like I said, nothing’s been announced or made official yet. But I wanted to tell you.”
“You wanted to tell somebody and I’m the least connected to the Ministry.”
Harry’s eyes darkened, all of the humor and humble pride suddenly leaving his face. He leaned back, crossing his ankle over one knee and splaying his arm over the back of the couch. The openness of it should have eased the tension brewing in Draco’s chest but the sheer understated dominance of the gesture was like whiplash. Harry hadn’t said a word, but Draco felt inexplicably guilty, as if he’d just been called out on mouthing off.
“I wanted to tell you,” Harry corrected, his voice low. “Don’t assume that you know what my motivations may or may not be.”
Draco took another sip of his wine, unsure what to do under the sudden intensity of Harry’s stare. It only bought him a second or two, but that was enough.
“Well, you know what they say: assuming makes an ass out of you and me.”
Harry’s eyes narrowed. It was miniscule—something that Draco wouldn’t have even noticed if he hadn’t spent seven years learning the exact shape of Harry’s eyes—but it was enough. He was not amused. Good. A very large (and very childish) part of Draco was pleased that he’d succeeded in getting under the Auror’s skin.
“You get bratty when you drink.”
Draco let his mouth quirk up a bit, confident that such a casual observation meant Harry wouldn’t escalate this too quickly.
“I’m bratty all the time, Potter, I’m just less distracted by fear when there’s alcohol involved.”
It was a joke—self-deprecating and far more truthful than it should be, like answering ‘dead inside’ when someone asks how you’re doing—except Harry didn’t laugh. His eyes didn’t narrow either, which Draco’s brain was quick to notice, but he didn’t seem to find it funny. Draco had even thrown in the last name, hoping to draw attention away from the admission. But Harry let it slide.
“What are you afraid of, normally?”
Draco’s stomach twisted uncomfortably in his gut. He didn’t have to answer—he knew that, and yet… And yet he was going to. Because Harry had asked and because the man’s body language hadn’t changed at all. Everything about their current dynamic suggested that Harry expected an answer.
“It’s called anxiety, what am I not afraid of?”
That wasn’t what Harry had meant and they both knew it. Draco held his breath, waiting to see if the man was going to call him on it or demand a better answer, but Harry just let out a small exhale. It could have been a sigh of disappointment, or it could have been nothing. Draco’s mind opted for the first interpretation. Something hot and shameful curled between his lungs at the knowledge that he’d disappointed the man.
“Have you eaten?”
Evidently, Harry wasn’t going to push it. Draco knew he should be relieved by that but a small part of him was strangely displeased. As if he’d wanted Harry to push.
“No, though I had dinner plans with a bottle of Bordeaux before you conjured this swill.”
Harry raised an eyebrow.
“If I didn’t know better, I would think your dinner plans were a bottle of Bordeaux,” Harry shot him a look and Draco averted his eyes, shrinking under that same guilt from before. “But your Bordeaux can wait. How do you feel about Thai? My treat.”
Draco wanted to protest. The spoiled little aristocrat in him wanted to stomp his foot and demand that Potter couldn’t pay because that meant that Potter was the boss. His wallet, however, was more than willing to let Potter pay. Free food was good food, right?
“Thai is fine. Are you going to conjure more of whatever this is?”
Harry waved his hand dismissively, refilling Draco’s glass as if it were nothing. Bloody show off. Draco could name on one hand the number of people he knew that could conjure a palatable wine on short notice, but even then it was always whites. Apparently white wine was easier for some reason? Draco had never personally tried, given that the Ministry didn’t view conjuring wine as relevant to his job, but he wondered why sometimes.
“It’s a Strawberry Port,” Harry explained, keeping his eyes on his phone where he was probably ordering their food. “And it’s from the late 17th century. Goblin-made.”
So specific. Draco was tempted to call bullshit because most conjured wine was just ‘wine’, but Harry seemed like he’d be capable of specificity.
“You trying to impress me, Potter?”
Those deep emerald eyes snapped up, landing briefly on Draco’s face then skirting down to his lips before moving back to his phone.
“Depends. Is it working?”
Draco smiled in spite of himself, hiding it behind another mouthful of Strawberry Port. Harry saw it anyway. It absolutely was working and the petty part of Draco hated that Harry could be so effortless about something that would have taken another wizard decades to master. A bigger part of him was struggling not to bask in the sheer magical skill of it all.
“I don’t usually like red wine.”
“I know.”
Harry glanced up again, rapidly scanning his expression before returning yet again to the phone. It was ridiculous, but Draco wanted to act out just to get that attention back. He held his tongue, waiting as Harry tapped a few buttons and then replaced his phone back in his pocket. Those green eyes burned into his skin.
“You didn’t try to tell me what to order for you.”
He’d thought about it. He’d considered reaching for the phone or demanding to hear the day’s specials as if Harry were his personal waiter, but he’d quelled the urge. Rather than give Harry the satisfaction of knowing that, Draco just shrugged.
“I like surprises, occasionally.”
“No, you don’t.”
Harry didn’t say more—didn’t imply that Draco was trusting him or comment on the fact that Draco kept insulting the wine but had already almost finished his second glass. The knowledge hung heavy in the air between them.
They waited in surprisingly companionable silence, commenting occasionally on something mundane but otherwise content to wait for their food to arrive. Once it did, it took less than five minutes for that childish petulance to return. Draco was on the drunker side of tipsy because it was good wine, okay? That translated itself well into making a game out of stealing food from Harry’s containers and he was on his third stolen piece of fried garlic pork before Harry noticed.
“Hey! Eat your own food, you git.”
Draco made a show of eating the stolen morsel and ignoring his own dish. He reached out again, gunning straight for Harry’s container, but was stopped by the firm grip of Harry’s hand around his wrist. That energy was back in Harry’s eyes and it made something in Draco’s chest sing.
“Behave yourself.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Draco smirked, even as he said it, and Harry’s face broke into a smile. It was a joke. The same harmless banter they’d been engaging in since before the case. Except Draco really wasn’t kidding. That energy hadn’t faded, just fallen to the back burner for a moment, and Draco was determined to get it back. He waited approximately seventeen seconds before going again for Harry’s food. This time, Harry pulled it out of reach before he could. Draco compensated by stealing from one of the other containers.
“Keep your hands to yourself, Draco.”
“Or what?”
It was automatic—instinctive, even—and fell out of his mouth before he realized he was speaking. But he meant it. He absolutely meant it and the way that Harry’s eyes flared at the blatant challenge sent a shiver down his spine. The Auror set down the container he was holding.
“I want to try something,” Harry said carefully, measuring his words and watching Draco’s expression. “Will you let me?”
“Depends what it is.”
Harry smiled, taking a sip of his wine, and it took Draco a solid ten seconds to realize that the git had no plans to answer him. Bastard. He was weaponizing Draco’s natural curiosity and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, it was working.
“Okay, but I reserve the right to punch you should the need arise.”
Harry laughed—a small, subdued sound compared to his usual—but Draco couldn’t stop the instinctive thought that he’d earned that sound. That he’d pleased the Auror. It was stupid and he shouldn’t have agreed that quickly, let alone without knowing what he was even agreeing to. But if Harry was surprised by his answer, the Auror didn’t show it.
“Good, thank you for trusting me. Here.”
And then Draco was holding Harry’s wand. It was warm and solid, exactly the way he remembered, and it thrummed with Harry’s magic.
“I want you to try to use my magic to restrain me. Or block me, but ideally restrain.”
“Excuse me?”
Draco was too dumbfounded to process those words in that order. Use Harry’s magic? Against him? It probably wouldn’t let him, even if he tried. But Harry’s face was completely serious and Draco rolled the wood in his palm unconsciously.
“Why?”
Harry flashed him a small smile.
“Call it a hunch. You know the spell?”
Draco wasn’t sure what ‘the spell’ was, but he knew at least seven spells that would restrain a person so he nodded. He gripped the wood and raised it at the Auror. For a split second, he was sure this was a set up. Aurors were just waiting outside the door to barge in and catch him threatening the Savior of the Wizarding World—an offense punishable by death.
But Harry wouldn’t do that to him. And, sure enough, even as he raised the wand the Auror didn’t flinch. He didn’t reach for any panic button or try to lunge for the stick between them. Harry just smiled and nodded at him to continue.
“Incarcerous!”
Instantly, ropes appeared out of thin air and constricted around Harry’s limbs, binding them back behind his head. Draco hadn’t envisioned a very detailed plan for the ropes (though he should have, he realized belatedly) so the rest just pooled around the Auror’s waist. Harry looked at them, flexed his wrists, and smiled.
“Very good, Draco. Can you release me now? I want to try again, but make it a bit harder this time.”
Very good, Draco.
Draco released the ropes with a quick wave of the wand, watching as they disintegrated into the floor and pretending his heart wasn’t a lead weight in his chest. Harry just rolled one wrist and looked at him. He was still smiling, Draco realized, but it was looking less and less like a smile made of amusement. Was Harry… proud of him?
“Again, but this time I’m going to try to stop you, okay?”
Draco nodded. He lifted the wand, feeling for that familiar warmth in the air.
“Incarcerous!”
True to Harry’s word, it was harder this time. It was incredibly vague, but Draco got the impression of a battle being waged over the potential energy between them. He pulled, and Harry pulled back. The magic hesitated before yielding to him and felt half-hearted once it did, but the ropes still appeared. They wound their way around Harry’s wrists and down to his ankles, binding the man’s limbs much more effectively this time.
“Good, Draco!” he exclaimed, almost laughing. “That’s very good.”
Draco didn’t understand what was so good about it, but he decided he could live off that underdone of pride in the man’s voice. It was a verbal clap on the back but coming from Harry… coming from someone he knew was a Dom it felt a lot more like approval. He’d been starving for approval since before he could walk.
“God, you’re incredible, Draco. Can you release me again? I want to try one more time and I’m not going to go easy on you, okay?”
Draco, who still did not understand the point of this exercise, waved the wand to release the ropes and squared his shoulders. He didn’t know what ‘going easy on him’ meant or why Harry wasn’t doing it now, but it sounded like a warning. So he did the only thing he could think of, and he braced himself.
“Incarcerous!”
But this time, there was no war over the magic in the air. There was no struggle, no fight. Rather than choose between their opposing wills, the magic split itself right down the middle and went to them equally. Ropes appeared, and Draco didn’t have time to process what that meant before Harry was on the floor.
“Shit! Sorry, sorry! I—”
He released the ropes and practically shoved the man’s wand back into his hand, eager to undo whatever damage he’d just done but Harry was… laughing? The Auror pulled himself up off his ass where he’d fallen once the ropes had taken away his sense of balance. His entire face was lit up with happiness, though. Draco didn’t understand.
“Are you okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“Draco,” Harry leaned forward, grabbing his hands. “Draco, stop. Do you understand what just happened? Do you know what this means?”
Mutely, Draco shook his head. He didn’t understand in the slightest why Harry wanted him to use his magic while ‘not going easy on him’ or what any of this had to do with casting restraining spells.
“Draco,” Harry squeezed his hands, barely managing to quell the elated disbelief in his own expression. “I put all my energy into trying to stop you, okay? All of it. And rather than choose between us, my magic split the difference. Do you know what that means?”
“Do you?”
Harry laughed, his voice bright and full of something dangerously close to relief.
“Well, no. Not in the big scheme of things or the way Hermione would probably try to explain it. But I know what it means for us. You can stop me, Draco. It doesn’t matter if I’m trying to keep you from using my magic at all or if I’m trying to counter what you’re doing—you can stop me!”
“Okay… Why is that important though?”
Harry laughed again. For a split second, Draco could have sworn he saw tears in the other man’s eyes but that was even more confusing. Before he could investigate further, Harry pulled them both back up onto the couch and handed Draco his wine.
“Sorry, I’m not making much sense, am I? I wanted to test it because one of the biggest issues that Andrea brought to my attention was the potential power imbalance in our relationship.”
Draco opened his mouth, prepared to fire off some retort about how that was the whole idea, but Harry silenced him with a look.
“Oh, shut it. I mean a genuine imbalance, the kind of thing that would… well, it doesn’t matter now. Because you can use my magic and you can stop me, even if I’m trying to prevent it.”
Draco took a long sip of his wine. He thought he understood now, but he didn’t want to show his hand by guessing. If one of Andrea’s main concerns had been Draco’s lack of magic, then that meant that Harry was considering a… what? A relationship with him? A friends-with-benefits type of thing or a play partners situation? At this point, Draco would have taken any of it. But he didn’t let himself focus on that right now because he knew his expression would give him away.
“And that made you so happy you almost started crying?”
Harry’s face flushed a bit pink at that. The Auror smiled and took a long, stalling sip of his own wine.
“Touché. In the spirit of honesty, that didn’t have as much to do with you. I’m pretty powerful—don’t give me that look, I’m not bragging—but that makes it hard. I’m always scared of accidentally hurting people or of losing control. But Draco… you can stop me. You can stop me with my own magic. You don’t understand how big a relief that is.”
He didn’t understand, but he could see it written clear as day in the other man’s face. Harry looked genuinely lighter than he had a few minutes ago and that realization made something in Draco’s chest warm. The Auror was calm, relieved even, and genuinely enjoying his company. He was smiling, leaning back on the couch to sip his wine, and he looked like he was going to say something but he stole one of Draco’s spring rolls instead.
“Asshole.”
Harry shot him a blinding smile that definitely made Draco’s knees weak.
“Brat,” he shot back, eyeing the wand that Draco was still holding.
“Yeah? What are you going to do about it?”