Truce
“Oh, honey,” the mirror said, “Those do not look too good.”
“I know,” Harry snapped. He was shirtless in the bathroom, twisting this way and that to look at the marks covering his body.
There was a nasty one across his shoulder blades that he hadn’t noticed before. Though— nasty wasn’t the right word for it, was it? The slashes didn’t break skin and they were still glowing, for Merlin’s sake. Perhaps ‘nasty’ could account for the pain, though that wouldn’t be accurate anymore, either. They hadn’t hurt since he’d woken up.
Harry didn’t know what to do about them except get dressed. He checked his reflection in the mirror, tugging at his collar until he was sure none of the marks were visible. He’d already decided that this was the type of problem that he’d put off handling until later, and that included avoiding drawing any attention to them.
“Now that you’ve covered up, perhaps you could do something about that hair,” the mirror suggested. Harry glared at it. The enchantment on it had been messed up since Ron had repaired it the day before, and its comments had turned from disgustingly flattering to annoyingly snide.
The door to Harry’s room slammed open with a Bang! and Harry’s magic lashed out before he could react, shattering the mirror again. Harry nearly doubled over from a sudden pain in his side, his hand automatically closing over his wand, ready to attack the intruder if necessary.
“Harry?” Ron’s voice called from his room. All the adrenaline drained out of him and he huffed out a laugh, cut short by that pain in his side.
“Mate, would it kill you to knock?” Harry was stalling, but he had to look, so he pulled his shirt up to stare at the new slash across his ribcage. This one deserved to be characterized as ‘nasty’, he decided, cursing under his breath as he prodded it and immediately regretted it. Fuck, it hurt. But this was a problem to be added to the list to handle later because Ron was still waiting outside, so he tucked his shirt back into his trousers and opened the bathroom door.
Ron grinned sheepishly, looking at least a little bit sorry. “Got to keep you on your toes, don’t I?” He eyed the mess of shards at Harry’s feet. “Talking mirrors hiding in every dark alleyway, you know.”
“Faced off with a few, myself.” Harry couldn’t help but grin back. “Dangerous characters.”
Hermione appeared in the doorway. “Oh, good, Harry, you’re awake! And your room is in one piece! And you’re in one piece. It worked, then?”
Her enthusiasm was contagious. Harry didn’t think he wanted to tell her and Ron the full truth yet, so he just smiled. “You were brilliant, as always, Hermione.”
She scoffed and pulled him into a tight hug. He tried not to grimace, ignoring the pain shooting through that mark on his side as best as he could. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said. He wished she were right, but if he was going to tell her the truth before, he certainly wasn’t going to now.
He couldn’t. Harry wanted Ron and Hermione to worry about their homework and their NEWTs and what the house elves were serving for dessert in the Great Hall. He wanted to see Ron apply to the Aurors and Hermione to the Ministry, struggling with the entry-level woes of the jobs that were the start of their dream careers. He wanted them to be disgustingly in love with each other, get engaged and married (he had a running bet with Ginny on who would propose first), and he wanted them to fight over whose turn it was to make dinner.
In short, he wanted them to be able to worry about normal things, now that the war was over, and glowing accidental magic injuries didn’t fall into that category. Nor did the former Death Eater might be saving the Savior, which he hadn’t even had time to think through on his own yet. Harry was done springing new problems on them.
This was their chance to get out, and Harry wanted to give it to them. So he didn’t say anything, still trapped in Hermione’s hug. He patted her back awkwardly.
“Thanks, ‘Mione.”
She let him go and drew her wand, looking behind him. “You’ve broken your mirror again,” she said, casting a quick Reparo. The pieces floated up and back into place until it was whole again. “See? Good as new.”
“Well,” the mirror drawled, “I don’t know if I’d say that was true for everyone here, have you seen the—”
The mirror shattered yet again. Harry lowered his wand and shook his head. “Sorry,” he said, but he didn’t feel it. “It kept insulting my hair this morning, and I’ve decided I don’t need that kind of negativity in my life. I want a new mirror.”
They must have believed him, because they just teased him and dragged him down to breakfast.
--
Harry was jumpy all day but hid it well, he thought. Well enough, at least, that Hermione only made him run through the pronunciation of each spell twice before she handed the list of wards over that evening. She smiled tiredly and made him promise to get her if he had any trouble with them and headed to bed, hand in hand with Ron.
Once Harry got back to his room, he set Hermione’s notes on his nightstand, thinking that if he left them there, it might look like he actually used them. The memory of his disheveled bed was enough to convince him not to.
The burning of the marks under his clothing was enough to make him consider the other option.
The marks had gotten progressively worse since that morning. At every burst of accidental magic, Harry felt another twinge of pain. It felt like reopening a wound every time, but instead of blood flowing out, it was his magic.
It grew steadily harder to control throughout the day, and by the end of it, Harry was all too aware of each and every mark. He refused to take another pain potion; he was sure the list of horrifying side-effects Hermione could come up with would be twice as long as the one for Dreamless Sleep had been.
Draco Malfoy was his solution.
Malfoy had found out about Harry spying on him while he played, he was sure of it. It must have been Malfoy that brought Harry back up to his room after he’d fallen asleep in the dungeons, Malfoy that fixed his bed, and Malfoy that had folded Harry’s glasses on the nightstand and hung his cloak on the rack. All of the nightmare-free sleep Harry had gotten over the last two days had been because of Malfoy, and it was only Malfoy that had been able to calm Harry’s magic and soothe the marks on his skin.
Malfoy had been elusive as always that day, and Harry hadn’t confronted him. He was too wrapped up in keeping the marks covered and hurriedly undoing the effects of his accidental magic before anyone noticed the butterflies in Hermione’s hair or the potions jar he’d broken.
The marks criss-crossing his skin burned, demanding that he not resist temptation any longer, and Harry decided that it was time to face the music. Literally, he hoped.
Harry traded his uniform for a comfortable sweatshirt and joggers, then spread the Marauder’s Map across his desk, searching for Malfoy’s dot. His heart dropped when it wasn’t in the normal room, at first, but he quickly found it on one of the staircases heading down to the dungeons.
Gotcha, Harry thought. He swept out the door, armed with Map, wand, and Cloak.
--
Draco sat on the piano bench, waiting, wondering if this was a terrible idea.
It had been all he could do to stay away from Potter that day, watching helplessly as Potter’s magic grew stronger with every passing hour, filling the room until it was almost tangible. Draco had looked around helplessly—could no one else feel it?
It didn’t let him forget about Potter’s crooked glasses and how he’d been so tense in his sleep. He wondered about the marks he’d seen on Potter’s neck, and whether they were still glowing or not. The questions needled at him, so he escaped Potter’s presence at every opportunity to keep himself from asking them.
It was that same intense need to know that drove him back to the piano in the dungeons. Potter knew that Draco knew about Potter listening to him play, then had proceeded to carry him back to his room like the knight in shining armor he wasn’t, and Merlin, what was Draco thinking, coming down there?
The bench scraped against stone as he stood abruptly with every intention to leave and go back to his room in the Eighth Year dormitory and curl into a ball until he could forget about Potter and his stupid glasses and this whole frustrating, awful experience and—
Potter’s magic flooded the room, crashing against him like a tidal wave, and Draco closed his eyes against the force of it. He didn’t need to turn around to know that Potter stood behind him in the doorway. Gripping the piano, he willed himself to speak, to move, to do something.
Potter saved him, as usual. “Malfoy,” he said. Okay, Draco could work with that. He searched for his voice.
“Potter.” He was proud of how not-strangled it sounded. Potter was silent for a moment, then walked forward, coming up beside the piano. Draco forced himself to open his eyes, to look at him. Potter was staring at the chair that Draco had conjured when he’d first arrived that night. It was an ugly thing, Draco thought, and regretted making it, but Potter didn’t seem to mind, eyes flicking to meet Draco’s as he plopped himself down.
Draco sat on the piano bench, far more graceful, but he was also sure his heart was pounding loudly enough for Potter to hear it. He looked down at the black and white keys, then up at Potter.
Potter’s gaze held a challenge. “Scared, Malfoy?”
Yes, Draco thought, but then Potter’s magic danced around him hopefully and he could see part of a glowing stripe on Potter’s neck and there was something in Potter’s eyes that hadn’t been there in a while.
“You wish.” It came out rather scathing, if Draco did say so himself, and he even found a smirk playing across his lips.
Draco turned back to the piano and played.