Chapter Text
“Well, because it’s a dragonfly! I’ve tried casting a Patronus for months, only to find that it actually is a sodding dragonfly!” Draco’s voice wasn’t loud exactly – one could never be too careful in their common room, even if it seemed empty - but it was getting there. “It’s an insect, for fuck’s sake. No one has a blasted insect for a Patronus.”
Blaise just looked at him in surprise for a moment, obviously not quite sure what to make of this, whether Draco was being serious. Well, Draco was. Dead serious. And Blaise realised soon enough, cracking up with laughter. Draco had never seen him laugh uncontrollably before, but this seemingly was what had done it. "Apparently you do," Blaise now hiccoughed through his laughter.
“Well, it is a rather large one: it has a wingspan of at least 15 inches,” Draco mumbled, feeling the need to defend himself and his dragonfly.
“And Harry saw it? Your Patronus?” Blaise asked when he was able to form coherent sentences again. Draco just nodded. “You do know Harry's is has a nice, sturdy stag?” Blaise kept rubbing it in.
“Yes, of course I know. I’ve seen it. I would never have asked him to teach me the Patronus Charm, if I hadn’t known he could cast one himself.”
“And Harry was there when you finally managed to cast your insect-y Patronus?” Blaise asked smiling. He looked like he would start laughing again, if Draco gave him but the least bit incentive.
“Yes, and he didn’t laugh,” Draco said sullenly. In fact Harry had just seemed genuinely happy Draco had finally been able to cast a Patronus, but perhaps part of Harry’s joy had also come from the really rather remarkable form Draco’s Patronus had taken. Draco couldn’t be sure.
Blaise grinned at Draco and proceeded to voice exactly what Draco had been concerned about. “So Harry was just happy you cast a Patronus. Nothing else,” he said, immediately adding: “Yeah, right. He probably rolled out of bed laughing later that night.”
Draco could only shrug like he didn’t care. “I wouldn’t know. You’re in his dormitory.”
“Yes, well, wait, that would have been precisely a week ago today.” Blaise seemed to seriously try and recollect whether he’d found a laughing Harry Potter in their room that night. “No, can’t remember.” He shot Draco another grin. “He must have cast a solid silencing charm.”
“Some friend you are.” Draco’s voice sounded sulky and he knew it.
Blaise was still grinning. “That’s why you like me.” Then he got up. “But as amusing as this conversation is, I will have to leave you and your undoubtedly very impressive dragonfly.” Blaise smiled. “I promised Ginny I’d meet her and some others in Hogsmeade tonight, just for a few drinks before we all go home again tomorrow.”
Draco nodded. Blaise and Ginny Weasley had surprisingly been an item since a few weeks after Christmas break, taking the interhouse unity that McGonagall was preaching to a whole new level.
And they had been revoltingly happy ever since.
They seemed to have the sort of thing Draco couldn’t see himself having, not now, not ever. And he had to admit it hurt. Just a little. And only if he let it.
Because apparently he liked revoltingly happy.
Or perhaps he just liked things he knew he had no chance of ever getting.
***
When Blaise had left the common room Draco prepared himself to go out too. This time of the week was usually when he’d meet up with Harry and although their goal had been reached - Draco now was able to cast a Patronus, even if it was a shockingly infuriating one - Draco still wanted to go to their spot by the Great Lake. He’d like to talk to Harry before tomorrow, before they’d both leave for their new lives: their lives after Hogwarts.
He just hoped Harry would feel the same way and be there.
So Draco got up, making it to the door just when Zacharias Smith happened to come in. Smith didn’t say anything, just glanced at him with a look of contempt that left very little to the imagination. Draco stood even straighter and looked down at him with practiced disdain.
It was a dance they’d performed before, multiple times, and really this wasn’t the worst of it. Smith had started the school year hexing Draco whenever he’d had the chance and although Draco had consequently learnt to cast protective spells with an ease that left the other students sorely lacking, he wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t deserved the hexes, the occasional curse.
So, he’d never told anyone.
It had all stopped just before Christmas, though, when Smith and his cronies had had Draco cornered in a bathroom – why did it always have to be a bathroom? – and Harry had walked in. This time Harry hadn’t cursed Draco, however. He had taken in the situation in a split second and cast an almost effortless Stupify at Smith and his friends.
After that incident everybody involved had been separately heard by McGonagall and that had been the end of it. Smith had stopped hexing, just scowling instead, and Draco had perfected radiating disdain, something he had always been rather good at to begin with.
It hadn’t surprised Draco he’d encountered hostility from his fellow students, though. He’d honestly expected worse, because he and his mother had got off lightly at their trials - even Draco himself thought so - after Harry had astonishingly spoken on Draco’s and his mother’s behalf. Draco’s wand would be monitored for five years and if he didn’t do anything stupid in the meantime, that would be the whole extent of Draco’s punishment. Furthermore Draco’s mother hadn’t been punished at all. Well, other than the large sum of money that the Malfoys had been forced to pay that was.
For his father it had been different however: he had been sent to Azkaban.
It had been a sentence that Draco had understood, having expected to follow his father there, so it had been a surprise when he’d been allowed out after the trials, when he’d even been invited back to Hogwarts to finish his education.
It hadn’t been a surprise to find that some people didn’t agree with him returning to Hogwarts though. He had expected that, having decided to keep his head down and just finish the school year without attracting too much attention. He had thought that - apart from Blaise perhaps, who was the only Slytherin of their year to have returned – he would be treated with hostility or be shunned and ignored at the very least. And by some people, like Smith, he obviously had been, but surprisingly that hadn’t been the majority.
The year had started out awkward enough, all returning eighth years having to share a common room and dormitories separate from their original houses, but in the end it had turned out okay. They had made it work and even though Draco still definitely didn’t actually get along with everyone, most of them weren’t hostile any longer and some were even friendly, at least more or less.
It had probably helped that he had apologised to most of them. And meant it.
While Draco had been thinking, he’d apparently been walking too, because now he found himself outside of the castle. It was the evening to a sweltering day and the heat still lingered, making him roll up the sleeves of his shirt and robes, not ready to shed them yet. He strolled to the lakeside, to the spot where for months he’d met Harry to practice his Patronus - and some Patronus it had turned out to be – and where he hoped to see Harry again today.
He knew he probably looked relaxed, graceful to some perhaps – it was a look he’d been practicing from when he’d first started walking - but he himself could still feel the tension his shoulders were holding.
Perhaps Harry wouldn’t be there.
When he rounded the corner and saw their spot, Draco saw him straight away, though. Harry was there alright. And so were Granger and Weasley.
When Draco saw them, their threesome comfortably whole, there was just a short moment of indecisiveness. Draco had gotten to some sort of truce with Weasley and he’d learned to appreciate Granger – although he would probably never tell her that in so many words - who was smart as a whip and thoroughly decent. She’d been the first one to make her peace with him, treating him like a wizard and not someone best completely ignored.
But invading their small group now felt like too much of an intrusion. So Draco decided to turn around and leave. Which, of course, was the moment Harry saw him.
“Hey, Draco. I was waiting for you, but I wasn’t sure you’d actually show.” Harry smiled that genuine smile of his that Draco had gotten to see more and more of over this year. It was the exact moment Draco’s resolve to leave crumbled, shattered to pieces by just one smile.
“Ron and I should be off to Hogsmeade,” Hermione now said. “We’re going to meet some people there for drinks.”
“Don’t you want to go, too?” Draco asked Harry, once he’d sat down on the grass next to him, close enough to catch a whiff of Harry’s scent: warm and woodsy and by now comfortably familiar.
“No.” There was absolutely no hesitation to Harry’s answer. “All of the others there will be couples. I’d just feel, well, you know.” And Draco did, he knew exactly.
“So, tomorrow we’re going to leave Hogwarts. And next year we won’t be coming back,” Draco mused. It was a truth Draco hadn’t appreciated the exact implications of until he’d said it. Harry fell silent.
“And you’re going to live at Grimmauld Place, the old Black house.” Draco continued, when Harry didn’t seem inclined to fill the silence, knowing it was what Harry intended to do. Harry had told him how his godfather Sirius Black had bequeathed the house to him. “It didn’t seem like a particularly cheery place last time I was there, but that might also have had quite a lot to do with my Great-Aunt Walburga. I don’t remember her being particularly cheery either,” Draco added, aiming for a light tone.
It made Harry snort a laugh and Draco felt an involuntary jolt of joy, like he always did when he made Harry laugh.
“She still isn’t. Her portrait is a right pain in the arse. We actually had to cover it up to silence her,” Harry replied. “But the house definitely needs some work. I would like to do it up a bit, at least the main rooms. I imagine I’ll have time for that. When I’m in Auror training I’ll at least have my weekends off.”
That actually surprised Draco. “Auror training? Seriously? I thought you said they’d let you skip that, what with all the experience you already have, you know, slaying dark lords and all that. Seems like pretty good training to me.”
“Yeah, but I also told you we didn’t really want to start working as Aurors without any formal training whatsoever, so now Kingsley met us halfway. We’re still going to be in Auror training, but just for one year, as we’ve been exempted from quite a few subjects. You know, any subjects to do with slaying dark lords and all that.”
Harry smiled at Draco and Draco just needed a moment to savour this, the ease with which they interacted now. Out of everything he hadn’t expected to happen this year, this had probably been the most surprising: the fact that he was on more than good terms with Harry Potter of all people, that they seemed to get along in a way he hadn’t at all thought possible, their amicability almost shocking in its simplicity.
“And you all agree on this?” was all Draco could come up with next. He knew more people in their year had signed up to be Aurors, remembering he’d heard Ron, Neville and Padma talking about it.
“Yeah, although Ernie wasn’t sure at first.” Okay, so apparently McMillan was going to join too. “And you? Curse-Breaker at Gringotts?” Harry’s voice sounded bright, almost too much so. It took Draco by surprise.
“Yes, I-. You don’t think I could-?” Draco stopped himself short as soon as he realised where his question was going, how vulnerable it would sound. How pathetic. He hadn’t been able to reign in his tone, though, his voice sounding much softer than he had wanted it to.
It sounded like Harry’s answer mattered.
“No,” Harry’s voice was genuinely shocked now. “No, I think you’d be brilliant at it. It’s just, well, you’re going to be out of the country a lot. Bill used to be everywhere but here when he worked for Gringotts at first.” Harry stopped, just for a beat, adding hastily: “It must be hard on your mother.”
That made Draco school his features. “My mother will be fine,” continuing more quietly, when he heard how defensive his tone had gone: “I’ll still be able to visit her at least once a week, perhaps more often.”
Harry just nodded now, still watching Draco intently. Then he suddenly moved closer and for one breathtaking moment Draco thought Harry was going to touch his face. He didn’t though, touching Draco’s shoulder instead. It was light and fleeting, but it left Draco’s skin tingling violently all the same, even through the layers of clothing.
“Just a speck of dust,” Harry said next, “I brushed it off.” But Harry’s gaze lingered. “Will I still see you sometime?” Harry then asked. His voice was soft, the green of his eyes vibrant and warm even behind his glasses and Draco noticed he wanted to keep looking.
He also realized that was hardly an option, so Draco shrugged, dragging his eyes away from Harry’s to watch the lake instead. “Well, yes, I suppose we’ll probably cross paths one way or another.”