Chapter Text
“You do know you’re using magic, right?”
Harry bit his lip. “Obviously,” he lied.
Focussing now, he could hear it. The gentle sound of dishes rearranging themselves behind him. He didn’t dare look, but he knew that if he did, everything would stop as though frozen. It never happened while he was paying attention. He woke up to laundry folded, curtains opened, coffee machine grinding.
“What do you want?”
The tea was cold. Malfoy was frail-looking. 22, Highfield Road was still humming with his magic. Harry wanted to do something drastic, like grab Malfoy and throw him out of the building.
“The Weasleys gave me the address.” Malfoy was eyeing the living room, the explosion of personality that belonged to everyone but Harry. Harry wondered if Malfoy could tell how little of this was his. He was sitting on a raggedy couch that Ron had shoved into a moving van for Harry. It made Harry’s hand twitch.
“Granger-Weasleys. And that’s not what I asked.”
“I heard-”
“No, you didn’t.” They hadn’t spoken since the trial, and Harry only spoke of Malfoy to two people, neither of whom were repeating Harry’s words.
“I read ,” Malfoy drawled.
“Better.”
“I read in The Prophet -”
“Everything they publish is rubbish.”
Malfoy shrugged. “Maybe. But they had all those photos, and they seemed pretty real.”
It was early when Malfoy knocked. Now it was still early, but things outside were stirring. Dogs were barking. Harry thought of the photos, which had once been like pressing on a bruise. He didn’t feel a thing now.
“They were.”
“So, not all rubbish,” Malfoy waved a hand, “I wanted to make amends. Since I read… what I read”
Harry felt himself make a mean face. “You’ve made amends. You’ve paid. And those photos were a year ago, now.”
Malfoy smiled nervously. Harry thought it might have been charming on another face.
“I paid. I sat in trials. I made public statements,” he rattled them off in that same bored way he had when he spoke up in school. He was still Malfoy. Harry was unsure how everyone but him had forgotten. He continued, “And yet you still drag my name in The Prophet.”
“They owled. I answered.” Not entirely true. They owled Hermione, since Harry was unreachable by owl. There were wards on the whole of Highfield Road.
“ Draco Malfoy is, behind the pretty frocks and nice hair, evil. What he may be able to do to conceal that is impressive, but still, at its core, concealment. Manipulative. So no, I don’t consider his position in the Ministry a success for the Wizarding World. I consider it a step backward. Thanks, by the way. These frocks are expensive. ” He used the paper to gesture at his blouse. It was sort of Muggle, if a bit too posh and pretty to pass in this area of London, but Harry had appreciated the gesture when he saw him. He was not feeling so appreciative now.
Harry reached across his coffee table to grab the paper from Malfoy’s hand. “No magic in my home. You agreed at the door.”
“I summoned it from my pocket.” Malfoy still had the whiny tone of a child, four years out of school.
“That’s somehow worse.” Harry had had this conversation with everyone. Luna, Neville, every Weasley, Hermione. He had never heard himself do it with such vitriol.
“I have never known a world without magic.” Malfoy sounded serious for the first time. Harry didn’t care.
“Then leave,” Harry said.
“I’m sorry,” Malfoy replied simply.
“I’ve heard this-”
“No, you haven’t,” sniped Malfoy. The humor was back in his voice, a jester-like lilt that made Harry’s fingers hurt. He gritted his teeth.
“I’ve read this.”
Malfoy smiled. Harry looked away. “Much better. You’ve only read, so you don’t know a thing. I am sorry. Genuinely so. I was cruel to you and your friends for stupid and embarrassing reasons. I was, if it is any consolation, miserable doing it. I regret it often, and I am working to undo some of it. I have undone a lot of it, whether you like or acknowledge it or not.”
He was so fucking proper it made Harry want to hit the table. He didn’t, entirely because of the way Malfoy’s eyes flicked to his hands, which were tight around his cup. He spent a long time looking at the pale blue walls of the room. Malfoy sighed.
“I’m sorry.”
Harry sniffed. “Cool. I’m sort of busy, so if you could…” He gestured to the door.
Malfoy looked at him, then. His eyes were grey, which Harry knew but hadn’t really processed until just then. They were large and lined with long, golden lashes. They were, Harry realized, filled with pity . Harry dimly registered the sound of a cup falling in the kitchen. Malfoy didn’t flinch, just held Harry’s gaze for another dozen seconds.
He left.
-
Harry walked a mile to the Sainsbury’s and got a loaf of bread and an ice cream. He thought of Malfoy the whole way.
-
“He came by!”
Harry hadn’t said a word yet, but something in his face had given it away. Hermione pushed past him into the house, which was fair enough since she had picked it out, taken the money from Harry’s savings, and furnished the place. It was the last property in the row of terraced houses on Highfield Road. It was almost certainly outfitted with muffling charms, although Hermione would never admit it. It was Harry’s.
“Yeah. He did.”
“Ron sends his love,” Hermione said quickly, “how was it?” She was unloading her bag, which Harry realized was certainly enchanted, grabbing out bits of decor much too large to fit in the little handbag. She threw a pillow onto the couch, adding to the small pile she had made there already, and straightened a print she had put on the wall last visit. Harry watched as she slowly pulled out a quilt.
“It was fine. He said sorry. I told him to leave.”
“Any…”
“Yes. But barely. Broke a cup.”
Hermione smiled toothily. She took off her jacket and laid it on the couch. “That’s good, Harry. Really good. This was yesterday?”
“Day before yesterday. Is that why you gave him the address? To see if it would break me?” He didn’t put any bite into it.
Hermione smiled in the same way Malfoy had. It made Harry want to break. “Of course not. You said you were ready, and I believed you. You should have rang me after.”
“I didn’t need to talk to anyone. I was ready.”
“Maybe you’re ready for something else, then.”
Harry knew how this worked. Hermione and Ron came by at least once a week. They apparated into a wizarding pub in the city, walked to Highfield Road, and then badgered Harry about going out somewhere that wasn’t Muggle London. And Harry said no, because he didn’t want to do magic, didn’t want to be out where people might recognize him.
“Not yet.”
Hemione smiled in that soft way again. Harry loved her, but it didn’t make a difference. He couldn’t do it.
“The kids want to show you the Burrow. They keep asking if Uncle Harry can tag along, and we keep saying no. Would it be so bad?”
Harry felt something twist in his chest. “No. Of course not, it wouldn’t be. I want to see them. I want to see Rose’s little broom. I just can’t with the…”
“You’re not going to-”
“I don’t want to,” Harry said firmly. He had started this experiment less than a year ago. It was, so far, the happiest he had ever been. Him and this home, which had not one bad memory attached to it. This street, with his pudgy neighbors who brought him cookies and waved at him when he grabbed the paper.
Hermione tucked her hair behind her ear. Her eyes darted to a spot behind Harry. He turned to see where the painting she had straightened was crooked again. Hermione sighed. “I know it makes you happier.”
“I still see everyone. I still talk to everyone. They just…”
“Have to get telephones. To pay pubs to apparate into their storage rooms. To bring two toddlers in the tube,” Hermione said. “We’ve all rearranged our lives for you, Harry. If it really makes you happier, we’ll keep doing it.”
Harry didn’t have a response to that. He was so grateful for her, for Ron, for every person who came into this house and watched him boil water the Muggle way without a word. Hermione brightened suddenly, pulling something else from her bag.
“ The New York Times . Muggle paper, from America. The Londis near the fire station on Kings Road had them. I gave them your address and bought you a subscription for the year. Early birthday present!”
Harry laughed. The paper thing had started as a misunderstanding. The Prophet had published that Harry was “quitting” being a wizard. It was sort of true, in that he wouldn’t be doing any magic, and he didn’t want magic in his home, and he wouldn’t go anywhere magical-
It was a lot true, but it had a lot more to do with not being in the Wizarding World than being in the Muggle World. If there was a third option, he probably would have gone with it. Instead, The Prophet published that he was immersing himself in Muggle culture. Well-meaning friends, supporters, and gits like Pany Parkinson sent him Muggle paraphernalia left and right. He collected The Guardian , The Times, The Sun, and the Daily Mirror. He read them in the morning. It was pleasant and domestic. It was nothing like what life had been.
“I like it. Does it have…”
Hermione grin stretched across her face. “They’ve got a love section.”
“American love stories. How novel.”
Hermione flopped down on his couch, big hair falling across the throw pillow she had just placed. She was soft-looking, and Harry felt his thankfulness for her like a shock.
“Draco and I are working on something together,” She said to the ceiling. “He’s clever.”
“Oh?” Harry said. He could change the subject, as he usually did when they got close to talking about the ministry, Malfoy, or anything that made lights flicker. But he didn’t.
“His department is helping with this new potion going around. It’s causing all kinds of aggression, strength, the works, but only in pure-blooded witches and wizards.”
“Huh,” Harry said.
“I wouldn’t usually be included in this stuff, but they needed a press liaison, so I’m doing that. And the Department of Intoxicating Substances-”
“Malfoy.” He had read it in the paper, that Malfoy was going to head the new program.
“Yes. Malfoy is working on the potion. We can’t tell if it’s being spread in some kind of pureblood terror cell or if it only affects purebloods. Draco thinks it’s the latter.”
“You disagree?”
“There’s not any literature on how a potion like that would even be made. It would take a very talented witch, and his department keeps tabs on all of them.”
“You think he’s biased?”
“Not at all. You wouldn’t, either, if you talked to him,” Hermione tilted her head to where Harry was sitting near her feet. “Careful.” The edge of The New York Times was fluttering ever so slightly, as though there was a breeze. The moment Harry was aware of it, it stopped.
“I did talk to him.”
“He talked at you, and you didn’t even listen,” Hermione said. She raised an eyebrow at Harry’s face and threw her head back. “Yes, he brought it up. He thinks he made a fool out of himself.”
“Maybe he did!”
Hermione huffed. “He didn’t. You sort of did, though. What with tying his laces together.”
“I didn’t mean to do that!” He also hadn’t noticed he did that, but he decided to refrain from admitting it.
“Little embarrassing either way.”
Harry groaned dramatically. “Can we get drinks?” He always said it like that, get drinks, even though he never did get anything.
“I have a late meeting. And I need to pick up the kids from the Burrow, Andromeda is doing something with them and Teddy.”
“Tell Teddy I say hi.”
“You could…”
“No. I couldn’t.” Something in Harry’s voice made Hermione sit up.
“I know,” She said. “But I’ll keep trying. I’ll give Teddy your love. We can get drinks with Ron tomorrow, to talk about Nick. ”
“I feel like this is what having parents must be like.”
Hermione smirked. “It’s worse. Because we’re not afraid to ask which one of you takes it up-”
“Out!” Harry shouted.
Hermione cackled the whole way out the door. A real witch, that one.
-
“Hullo,” Nick said.
Hermione had been upset when Harry moved from number 12, Grimmauld Place. This was mostly because of the location, but she eventually accepted that Harry was staying at 22, Highfield Road. It took her much longer to accept that she would no longer be his secret-keeper, and that there wouldn’t be a secret-keeper at all.
After the photos, the paper seemed to be done with him. They had already collected The Chosen One Harry, Sexy Fresh Out of Hogwarts Harry, Sometimes Shags Men Harry, and Potion-Induced Breakdown Harry, so Lives in Muggle London And Enjoys Crosswords didn’t have nearly as much attraction for the wizarding public. Most of his fans had been turned off by Potion-Induced Breakdown Harry, and the ones who hadn’t, he could deal with himself.
Nick didn’t know any of this. Nick was good at cards and slim in all the right places. Nick thought Harry had had an alcohol problem and worked as a consultant. Nick didn’t really ask questions, because mostly his mouth was occupied when he was with Harry.
“How’s work?” Harry asked. “Any new… poems?”
Nick laughed, deep and rich. “Same ones as usual.”
“Read me one.” Harry led him into the house, and as Nick followed, he recited something that Harry vaguely recognized the form of. Nick was perfectly unfamiliar, comfortable and easy to be with.
“Original language, please!” Harry laid back on his bed like a king, and Nick read to him. It was something like magic. If the carpet pulled up in the corners, neither of them noticed.
-
“He… reads to you?” Ron sounded skeptical. “ Poetry?”
“I think it sounds nice,” Hermione said, shooting Ron a look that Harry definitely wasn’t meant to see. “It’s romantic!”
Ron turned a shade paler. “Er,” he said. “I hope you don’t expect me…”
“I read enough for both of us.” Hermione rubbed Ron’s shoulder. “I could read to you, if you wanted.”
Ron replied by taking a long sip of his drink.
“He doesn’t read. He recites, very nicely. And then we…” Harry trailed off meaningfully.
Hermione said make love at the same time Ron said fuck.
“Ron’s got it,” Harry said, looking pointedly at the booth behind them. The paint was peeling off the walls.
Hermione pouted. “No romance, then?”
Harry shrugged, because it was a hard question. “Not in the way you’re thinking.”
“But you like it?” Ron said.
“Er. Yes,” Harry replied. Ron turned red.
“Not the sex. The… fling.”
“Yeah. I like it,” Harry said. He found he meant it.
“Good,” Hermione said, smile blinding. Ron nodded heartily as Hermione continued, “Rose is flying sort of scarily well. Ron thinks…”
“She’ll be a celebrity!” Ron roared. He was a little drunk. Harry sipped his seltzer.
“Sounds dangerous,” Hermione said airily. “Before Ron goes on about the…”
“The Sloth Grip Roll she did! It was like-”
“It was very cute. But I should warn you.” She sighed. “Draco. He might come by again.”
“Why would he do that?” Harry groaned. He picked meaningfully at his jumper.
“He didn’t like how it went last time. He still feels…”
“Sorry?” Harry said.
“Yeah. Something like that.” Hermione smiled in that nervous way. “I think you should give him a chance. Talk to him about something that isn’t Hogwarts, and the papers, and your history. That's how we made it work. We started with the easy stuff.”
Ron’s head bobbed up and down excitedly. Harry wasn’t sure if he really agreed with Hermione or if they had spoken about this beforehand.
“I don’t think we have anything to talk about that isn’t all of that”
“Yeah. I know.” Hermione sighed. “But it’s worth it to try.”
-
“Oi!”
Harry had been having a good morning when Malfoy came knocking. He was reading something dull, which always made the house quiet down, and was well rested for the first time in a while since Nick had stayed the night. He didn’t sleep very well when he was alone. It was, again, very early.
Malfoy had been at his door for five minutes already, and Harry was faced with a choice. He could continue to ignore him and wait for something drastic to happen, like for his magic to blow up and turn Malfoy into a corn husk, or he could answer the door. It should have been an easy enough choice, but it wasn’t.
“You’ve got mail! Like… a lot!” Malfoy was calling. “I’m going to rip it all up if you don’t let me in!”
Harry groaned up at his ceiling. He gave himself a countdown. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
“Don’t you dare-”
“This is actually quite interesting!” Draco said. His pale head was bowed down to the paper he was holding. It was The New York Times. Harry cursed Hermione silently. “Hey, given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?”
“Is that what you came here to ask?” Harry was incredulous at the Malfoy at his door, nothing like the nervous, apologetic man from a few days ago. He was unsure which one was the real Malfoy.
This one wasn’t making him as angry, though.
When Malfoy looked up, his eyes were wide. “No. Granger told me to be myself, so I was going to sing you a song. But I like this a lot better. It’s from your Muggle news. Article on how to-” He stopped himself. “How to turn enemies into mates. 36 questions to be proper… mates.”
“We’re not going to be mates.” Harry reached for the paper, but Malfoy snatched it closer. He was wearing nice enough clothes. A tie. Harry realized he probably had work after this.
“Oh, but we could be! It’s a very classic trope, you see, enemies to… mates.”
“We’re really not enemies either.”
“Don’t be a tease. You don’t write haikus in the paper about people you’re indifferent to.”
“I do not write haikus about you,” Harry said dryly. “More like sonnets.” Harry was forgetting who Malfoy was. He wondered if Malfoy would judge if he hit himself on the head a few times to reset.
Malfoys lips quirked up in a smile. “Can I come in?”
No, Harry thought. Instead, he said, “Can you give me your wand?”
Malfoy looked surprised. “I can do wandless magic.”
Harry shrugged. “I know. It’s just a gesture.”
Malfoy gave him his wand. He wandered into the apartment, and Harry felt the same shock as last time, the sudden clarity as he saw his home as Malfoy must be seeing it. Sparse furniture, Muggle appliances. Photos of the Granger-Weasleys, a knit throw from Molly. A tapestry Luna had got him in Bulgaria, a cluster of succulents that Neville had forced into his hands with a promise that they were entirely non-magical, although Harry was suspicious of the one in the orange pot. The papers, which were sort of everywhere.
“What did you want?”
“I want the boy who lived to forgive me like the rest of the world. I want to do my work at DoIS without everyone thinking it’s because of some grudge.”
“People think that you’re in DoIS because of…”
“Yes. They think I want to catch you high on potions again, which I am supremely uninterested in.” Malfoy perched on the couch like a bird. Harry started fluffing pillows, just to do something with his hands.
“Hm,” Harry said.
“The moment you move on from a pillow it flattens itself right out. Counterproductive.”
“I can’t help it,” Harry said. He hadn’t meant to say it.
“Granger did make it sound like that was the case,” Malfoy said, voice flat.
“She calls you Draco,” Harry said. It came out accusative.
“I call her Hermione. But since you’re stuck in 1998, I thought I might as well play the part.”
Harry scowled. “You’re not convincing me you’ve changed.”
Malfoy’s nose was in the paper again. “Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“ The idea is that mutual vulnerability fosters closeness. To quote the study’s authors, “One key pattern associated with the development of a close relationship among peers is sustained, escalating, reciprocal, personal self-disclosure.” Allowing oneself to be vulnerable with another person can be exceedingly difficult, so this exercise forces the issue .” Malfoy read from the paper. “Sounds perfect!”
Malfoy had a nice enough voice for reading. Not as nice as Nick’s, but still nice.
“So we run through the questions, and we’ll be…”
“Mates!” Malfoy said. He was smiling. Harry wondered if this was what Hermione had been suggesting. Talking about something else.
It was 36 questions. Harry could respond in monosyllables or outright lies to each one, and then Malfoy would be gone.
“If we do all of them, and we’re still not mates, will you leave?” Harry said, slowly.
Malfoy took a moment to skim the list with a long, pale finger. One or two of the questions made him grin in a way Harry hated. “Deal. And to be nice, I’ll go first.”
Harry nodded. “Go ahead, then.”
“I would choose my father,” Malfoy drawled. Only, when Harry thought about it, it wasn’t so much a drawl. His voice was deeper than he remembered it being. Sort of musical.
Harry raised an eyebrow.
“I miss home. I miss the manor.” Malfoy was being very, very honest. Harry felt all fuzzy compared to this sharp man. He felt like a kid for thinking half the things he did.
“Your father?”
“My father,” Malfoy sniffed, one pale hand coming to rest at his elbow. “He was everything he was. And worse. But he was my father. I have questions.”
Harry felt an ache like something had just separated from his heart and slid down his stomach. Malfoy was being honest. It would have been easy to lie, like Harry had been planning to do, but he didn’t.
“Er,” Harry said. “Good choice.”
Malfoy scowled. “Be serious.”
“I’m being very serious!”
“Go ahead, then.”
Harry thought for a long moment. It would be easy to say something fluffy and false. It would be easier still to say something truth-adjacent, like his father. Harry said, “My Godfather. Sirius Black. I need to ask him if I’m quite as good at Quidditch as my father was.”
Malfoy cocked his head. “Not interested in asking him yourself?”
Harry had thought about this, of course. “If I had dinner with my mum or dad, I would never be able to leave. I would take my last bite and stab myself in the heart with a steak knife.” The words felt like they were being ripped from him. It was the most he had spoken about everything since the last time he had done magic, one year ago. Even Hermione wouldn’t have been able to get something like that out of him.
Malfoy looked a bit ill. “Well. Good this is a hypothetical, then. Next question.”
“Can I ask a question?” Harry was starting to realize that he said things without thinking around Malfoy. Everything just fell out.
Malfoy looked surprised. “Sure.”
“Why did you join DoIS? If not because…”
Malfoy smiled brilliantly. He had grown from his slimy look in Hogwarts, filled out in the face and shoulders. He looked like a ministry official.
“Not because of you and your indulgence. I like potions, and I didn’t want to sell or create them because it felt a little heartless. DoIS has heart.”
“Huh,” Harry said. It seemed sort of noble. Malfoy’s lips scrunched up.
“Anyway. This one is good. Would you like to be famous? In what way?”
Harry smiled. “No.”
“I thought so. I wouldn’t mind being famous for being very smart or handsome.”
“It’s not all that.”
“Eh. I don’t mind it.” And just like that, Harry was angry at Malfoy again. He was an arrogant prick. He always had been, and likely always would be.
“That’s enough for today, I think.”
Malfoy shrugged. “Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?” He looked up from the paper. “I’ll be by for my answer tomorrow. Wand?”
Harry tossed him his wand, and he left.
-
“Sounds like it went well!” Harry could hear pots and pans clanging through the phone. He focussed on Hermione’s voice.
“I’m afraid I’m going to tell him things I don’t want to tell him.”
The sounds of the kitchen stopped abruptly. “Oh, Harry. He’s not like he used to be. He won’t use anything against you.”
Harry fell back against his bed, keeping the phone to his ear. “I don’t want him to know about me. About magic or the war or the whole thing last year. But he’s so open.”
Hermione sighed. “I know. He’s not got anything to lose, so he just… says everything.”
“Cards on the table. And then I feel like I need to be open, too. And I was.”
“What did you say?” A high-pitched shriek sounded on her side. Harry sat up abruptly. “Rose, hands out of the batter. Yeah, get out! Ron?” There were muffled talking sounds for a few seconds.
“Sorry, Harry. Rose is in a sneaky stage. She says hello.”
Harry grinned. “Tell her I say hi. Let her stick her hand in the batter for me.”
Hermione laughed. “I’d rather not. What did you say to Draco?”
“Er. Something sappy about my parents.”
“He won’t think any less of you for it. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“He’s not terrible to talk to,” Harry blurted out. “Well, he is. But not all the time. Sometimes it’s ok. It was ok sometimes, today.”
“That’s great, Harry!” Hermione sounded like she meant it.
“I’ll let you go. He’s coming back tomorrow, by the way.”
“Really?” Hermione said.
“Is that surprising?”
“Well. I’ve barely had any free time with the Simmons case. That’s the one I was telling you about the other day. Just surprised he…”
“Maybe he’s got better time management than you,” Harry teased.
“I’m hanging up,” said Hermione flatly.
-
“I don’t,” Harry said.
Malfoy looked taken aback. The door had barely opened when Harry blurted it out. Malfoy was wearing a tie.
“And if I did, it’d probably go something like when I tried to rehearse talking to professors. Usually end up saying the opposite of what I had planned.”
Malfoy smiled. “It did look so natural, how you put yourself into detention. Maybe it was that patronizing voice.”
Harry frowned. “I remember someone saying I had a voice like a mandrake.”
“That was before our third year. Then the patron came out.”
“Ah. I must have missed it.”
“It was very sneaky. Boy to man in a few months.”
Harry was feeling dizzy just from talking to him. He wondered distantly if Malfoy was putting in as much effort as he was. He let Malfoy in.
“You call people a lot?” Malfoy said. He curled into one of the plush chairs Hermione had found for him. Harry sat stiffly on the couch.
“I don’t use the Floo, or owls,” Harry answered. “So yes.”
“Hm. I don’t use a phone, but I think I would rehearse things if I did. I certainly rehearse before sticking my head in the Floo.” Harry found this image a little silly. He kept catching himself finding Malfoy charming.
“I got a phone,” Malfoy said, waving it around a bit like a wand. “Hermione gave me your number.”
“Oh,” Harry said.
“Anyway. This one's fun, and so I want to go first. What would constitute a perfect day for you?” Malfoy leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “I’d wake up at the manor. It’d be empty, just me-”
“This sounds miserable-”
“Oh, sorry, let me begin again. I’d wake up at the manor. It’d be full of death eaters-”
“I could kick you out-”
“Let me speak! I’d wake up in the manor. I’d be alone, and then I would go out with my mates. We’d get drunk, eat cauldron cakes, and then I would come back home and have a very, very nice sleep.” Malfoy looked positively dreamy just at this thought. Harry realized with a start that of course, Malfoy wished for sleep. Everyone he knew had nightmares after the war. He hadn’t ever thought that the other side would, too. And of course, he wished for the manor, which as far as Harry knew was still inaccessible to the public.
“That does sound like a nice day,” Harry said, honestly. “You don’t live in the manor?”
“I think I could if I asked. But it’s not the same home as it was.”
“Have you visited?”
Malfoy brightened a bit. “I still play on the old practice field father made in Wiltshire. I don’t know the charms to put up the hoops, but it’s nice. You should come fly sometime.”
Harry stiffened. “I don’t-”
“I know. Harry Potter is a Muggle now. No flying brooms for him. It’s not really magic, though. No different than that.” Malfoy looked up at the ceiling. The fan was whirring erratically. It stopped.
“Just don’t push me about it.”
“Okay,” Malfoy shrugged. “Answer the question.”
“I would wake up here. Mr. Holden next door would say hello when I got my papers. We’d chat. My- friend would come by. We would… hang out. Hermione and Ron and the kids might come by, too. And maybe I would finish the crossword in less than an hour. Or a puzzle.”
Malfoy giggled, a sound that Harry was used to hearing when he was in some sort of peril or generally being humiliated. “The papers would love this.”
“What?”
“It’s just all so domestic!”
Harry felt himself flush. “I like it.”
Malfoy’s face softened. “I know, Potter. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?” Malfoy’s tendency to throw out a question without any transition was giving Harry whiplash.
“I think I sang some nursery rhyme to Hugo a few weeks ago. And I think the Beatles to myself. Hey Jude, maybe?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It’s a song title. From a very famous Muggle band.”
Malfoy looked disgusted. “That’s not a song title. Song titles are things like All the Wizard I Need. A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love.”
Harry laughed. “I think Molly Weasley likes that one.”
Malfoy sniffed. “Then she has very good tastes.” Harry had to remind himself that Hermione and Malfoy were friends. Of course, he wouldn’t despise Molly Weasley. It still felt strange.
“You?”
“The new Weird Sisters single. Once in the bath, and then once at karaoke with Pansy.”
“Wizards do karaoke?”
“Of course!”
“You sing to a backtrack?”
Malfoy’s eyebrows shot up. “The artist sings with us. And they correct us on our vowel placement. You left the Wizarding World far too soon, Potter.”
Harry shrugged. “I don’t even know a single Weird Sisters song.”
Malfoy looked personally offended. “They were at the Yule Ball.”
“I never said I hadn’t heard them.”
Malfoy’s face went pale. “It’s excusable for you to not know them, considering your parentage. But once you heard them?” There was that arrogance. Harry was realizing that it didn’t have any bite to it.
“I should have converted?”
“Yes,” Malfoy said. “Precisely.”
Harry checked the time.
“I’ll let you go. I’m grabbing lunch with a friend-”
Malfoy’s phone began ringing, loudly.
“Er,” Malfoy said, fumbling with it a bit. “How do I?” He was turning it on and off and on again. It was sort of pathetic.
“Here,” Harry said, accepting the call. Hermione’s voice began trickling into the house.
“Sorry for the call, Draco-”
“You’re on speaker!” Harry said.
“Oh! Harry, hi. I need to grab Draco for a moment, Mysteries just approved our… request, and I need him to look at what they sent over. Could you… hurry?” Hermione’s voice was tight. She wasn’t mothering Harry, or gushing about how great it was that they were speaking. It made Harry’s stomach twist.
Hermione didn’t tend to bring up work with Harry, but for the first time, Harry realized something might be very wrong in the Wizarding World. Malfoy was biting his lip nervously.
“It’s fine,” Harry said, and he found he meant it. “You can apparate. I don’t have wards put up or anything.”
Malfoy looked relieved. “Thank you, Potter. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
For the second time in a week, Draco Malfoy did magic in 22, Highfield Road.
-
Nick noticed. Harry was on edge and twitchy at lunch, because something about that case- the Simmons case, Hermione had said- was darker and more twisted than Harry had thought. Hermione sounded worried in a way that Harry hadn’t heard since the intervention a year ago.
“Are you alright?” Nick’s arm was on Harry’s. Harry wanted to shrug it off, which was terrible. Harry remembered, vaguely, how he had once been afraid to get close to anyone out of fear of hurting them. It was easy to forget that the version of him that he was scared of was still there, thrumming nervously behind his skin. Harry pushed it down.
“Yes. Weird stuff going on with some friends.”
“Not the lovely Hermione?” Nick’s smile was just barely crooked. The two had met in a Muggle pub around a month ago because Hermione was Hermione. They had taken to each other immediately, which shouldn’t have been surprising. Nick was clever and confident, the kind of person everyone likes.
“Yeah. Her job is sort of consuming. And I think she’s stressed.” This was what Hermione was always pushing him to do- take people through his thought process. Say the thing out loud. As usual, she was right. It was helping.
“She’s got kids, right? Maybe take them for a day, take the load off.” It wasn’t a terrible idea. It really wasn’t a terrible idea.
Harry took Nick home.
-
“Why don’t you do magic?”
Harry had picked up the call on instinct. He hadn’t expected it to be Malfoy.
“I somehow doubt that was a question in the Muggle paper.”
Malfoy wasn’t amused. “Answer,” he said curtly.
“The papers pretty much covered it.” Nick was snoring softly next to him. Harry got out of bed carefully and pushed on his glasses.
“I doubt that. All they post is rubbish.”
Harry smiled as he made his way to the kitchen. “Yeah. That’s true. Hey, it’s late.”
“I know,” Malfoy said. “I wanted to say sorry again for apparating in your house.” Harry was getting water from the fridge. He wondered if Malfoy was in pajamas.
“It’s ok. I’ll answer your question tomorrow.”
-
“I didn’t like how I was when I was doing magic. I felt powerful.”
“Do you feel powerful when I do magic?”Malfoy was sitting cross-legged on Harry’s rug. Harry was in the chair Malfoy had sat in last visit.
Harry scowled. “I just feel embarrassed for you.”
Malfoy gasped in mock offense. “Do you. Tough talk from someone too scared for a singles match of quidditch.”
“This is a pitiful attempt to make me play you,” Harry said.
“You would have made a great auror,” Malfoy continued. “ The Prophet was always reporting how you were getting top marks.”
“But then I got into Felix Felicis in my third year. I know you think there’s something deeper to the story, but there’s not.”
“But when you got better…”
“I didn’t get better.” Hermione and Ron had pieced him back together into something resembling Harry, but he wasn’t entirely the same.
Malfoy tilted his head. “You’re not still taking it.”
Harry snorted. “Obviously not, or you wouldn’t be here. But the magic problem never got fixed. I can’t control it.”
“You used to be able to, at Hogwarts.”
“I had the control of a year seven Muggle-born who liked to play hero. And then I screwed up my wiring with shitty black market potions, so now I have no control. Hermione has spoken to a Healer about this. It happens.”
“You could train it back,” Malfoy said, like it was perfectly simple. He was still arrogant, but Harry had gotten used to it.
“I’m not interested in risking it.”
“I have twelve acres where nothing lives and can do whatever you want. Summon a dragon, I don’t care.”
“You’re joking, but I might do it.”
Malfoy shrugged. “You made it look pretty easy to take one down.”
“You flatter me,” Harry said dryly. He could see Malfoy’s hairline from where he was sitting. His hair looked fuller than it had in school, which shouldn’t have been possible.
“I’ve never had liquid luck,” Malfoy said conversationally. “I guess it’s nice.”
Harry bit his lip. “I don’t miss it.”
Malfoy raised a pale eyebrow. “I hear it makes an ordinary day extraordinary. You must have had a lot of extraordinary days.”
“I had a couple dozen extraordinary days. Mostly, I got scammed, and I was in the come-down. Which was the opposite of ordinary.”
“Unlucky?”
“Very. The Academy is probably still rebuilding all the walls I crashed through. I’m lucky they haven’t sent me a bill.”
“You’re not in the come-down now,” Malfoy pointed out.
Harry shrugged. “May as well be.”
It was quiet for a few seconds, and Malfoy pulled the paper from his bag, sharp elbows pointing out from rolled-up sleeves. He looked young. Harry was suddenly remembering times he had jabbed Goyle in the ribs while making cutting remarks.
Harry didn’t hate Malfoy’s elbows.
“If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?” Malfoy looked up and smirked. “I promise I won’t make fun of you if you say body.”
“Thank God,” Harry said flatly “Body. I consider anything that fools the mind Dark Magic.”
Malfoy looked taken aback. His sharp features were pinched. “Even clarifying spells? I’m not talking about Obliviate, just things to wash the rot of an old mind…” he trailed off. “I would choose body, too. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with an old mind.” He paused for a moment.”What has Hermione told you about the Simmon’s case?”
“Something about a potion. Sounds nasty.”
“It is,” Malfoy said. He looked like he was about to keep talking about the case, but said instead, “Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?
“Er,” Harry said. “This is kind of a dark question.”
“To be honest,” Malfoy said, “They get worse. But don’t you feel so much closer to me?” His voice was teasing, but there was a hint of vulnerability in it.
“A little. I don’t think I’ll be making any more statements on you, if that’s what you're asking.”
Malfoy’s face soured. “Not what I was asking. Answer the question.”
“I did sort of know how I was going to die. First from Voldemort, and then consumption. But neither of those came true, so I guess they were faulty. If I had to say, I bet it would be my magic.”
Malfoy looked up at him in a soft sort of way that made Harry’s heart constrict. He was sort of a nastier, dumber Hermione. “No one will let you kill yourself,” he said. “Hermione would imperious you before you could.”
Harry wanted to say that Hermione had tried to imperious him, at his intervention, and that it hadn’t worked. He had blown up their living room anyway. Before he could see what Malfoy’s face would do if he said it, Malfoy continued.
“I sometimes become hyper-aware of my work at the ministry. That I’m messing with potions that could that could probably kill me. So probably one of those will get me.”
“Hm,” Harry said, because he didn’t have a very good response. “Don’t you have to get to work?”
Malfoy’s lips pressed together. He usually left around nine, and it was half past. “Yeah. We’ve got three more in set I. Let's finish it tomorrow.” He stood up and wiped a massive amount of dust off his trousers. Harry felt himself go red. It was almost certainly something his magic had done.
“Er,” Harry said.
Malfoy’s grey eyes met Harry’s green ones. “I don’t mind,” he said, kindly.
-
“Hermione’s kids are coming over tonight,” Harry said apologetically. They had been snogging for a while, and Nick was getting handsy. “In an hour. So she and her husband can have a date night.”
“Oh!” Nick pulled away. “Do you need me to leave?”
Harry didn’t want him to leave. He was warm, and solid, and he didn’t point out the flickering light since Harry explained the building had messy wiring. The kids knew they didn’t bring their magic toys to Harry’s house, and they knew Harry would get sullen if they talked too much about their self-shooting water guns. It wasn’t necessarily risky.
“You could stay,” Harry blurted. “They’re weird kids, though. They’re in a… wizard phase.”
Nick turned to him, amused. “That’s cute. When will they be here?”
The doorbell chimed merrily.
“That’ll be them. Here, you can meet Ron!”
-
The kids loved Nick. It made Harry feel sort of sideways, watching Nick play along with their wizarding talk. He could pretend that Nick knew all about this world, that he worked in Mysteries or Muggle Artifacts, or something, and this was their life.
Harry wondered if Malfoy was good with kids.
-
“Name three things we appear to have in common,” Malfoy said. “I’ll go first. We’re good at quidditch, we both prefer coffee over tea-” He stopped, peering over Harry’s shoulder into the house. “Hey, you’ve had someone over.”
“Yeah,” Harry said, letting him in. “Hugo and Rose. And a Muggle friend of mine.”
“Oh?” Malfoy raised an eyebrow.
“They’re young. It’s easy to write off as kid stuff. Teddy pretended to be a dog for like, a year.”
“That’s not what I was wondering about.”
“Nick,” Harry said, as though that explained it. He didn’t want to explain what he and Nick were to Malfoy. He wasn’t entirely sure he could.
“Nice,” Malfoy said, flatly. Harry had that same feeling he had when Malfoy stopped himself talking about the Simmon’s case, like there was something else he wanted to say.
“We’re good at quidditch, we both prefer coffee over tea…” He settled onto the couch. He had sampled every seating option in 22, Highfield Road. Harry supposed he found a winner. “And we’re both devastatingly good-looking.”
Harry laughed. “Both. Sure.”
“I suppose you are a little raggedly looking, lately. I guess if one was into that rugged look-”
“Oi! Let me have my turn. We both like blokes-”
“Low-hanging fruit, Potter.”
“Fruit,” Harry said. Malfoy groaned.
“Please continue.”
“We both know Hermione Granger is better than us in every way-”
“I’ve better hair than her!”
“Sure, Malfoy. And we both had weird father figures.”
Malfoy didn’t argue with that one. “Alright, then. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?”
“My friends,” Harry said quickly. He didn’t feel the need to elaborate.
Malfoy bit his lip. He was drinking coffee. Harry had offered Malfoy a cup, and Malfoy had seemed surprised but taken it.
“I suppose it would be, and you’ll hate this, The Prophet. They redeemed me.”
Harry thought for a moment. “You redeemed you. What with all the charity and speeches and testimony at trial.”
Malfoy smiled. “Thanks, Potter. But no one would have cared if The Prophet hadn’t made so many flattering profiles.”
“I think I would have cared more, if not for the paper,” Harry said. He meant it.
Malfoy smirked. “I’ll keep that in mind. Who would have thought Harry Potter’s type was unassuming Muggles?”
Harry laughed. “Anyone who knows me.”
“Ginevra didn’t fit that, did she?”
“Ginny. Yeah, she’s flying with the Cauldrons. It’s good, she’s fantastic.” It was the automatic response when someone mentioned Ginny. Harry didn’t even process that he had said it until Malfoy spoke.
“Not at all what I asked.”
Harry shrugged. “I was young, I don’t know. I wanted someone to be close to me.”
Malfoy stared at his feet. “This is the last question in set I. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?”
“Oh,” Harry said. “You were right. They do get worse. Probably I would have more food, and someone to make me soup when I got sick. I always did like the idea of that.”
“The story on your Muggle family was true, then?” Malfoy looked sort of sick again.
“Unfortunately.”
“I’m sorry,” Malfoy said, earnestly.
“It’s alright,” Harry said. He meant it.
“If they weren’t death eaters,” Malfoy said. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“So you would change that, then.”
“In a second. But it would mean I would still be an insufferable prat. The death eater thing did a lot for my character.”
Harry didn’t argue with him.
-
“There’s whiskey in here,” Nick said. He was trying to put something together for dinner and had been rummaging through Harry’s cabinets.
“Oh,” Harry said. “I keep it in there for friends.” It was something fruity, for Luna. She liked having something to do with her hands while they talked.
“You don’t ever feel… urges?” Nick sounded hurt for some reason.
“Er,” Harry said, because he didn’t. Alcohol wasn’t his problem. He only abstained because Hermione said he better, just to be safe. And he didn’t love how being drunk made him feel anyway.
“Harry,” Nick said. His soulful eyes looked sad. “You don’t introduce me to your friends, excluding the two accidental times. You’re an alcoholic who keeps alcohol in his house. I don’t know a thing about what you do. What do you even consult on?”
“I’m sorry,” Harry said, because he was. He didn’t know how to go about telling anyone anything, unless, recently, it was Malfoy. Malfoy was easy, for some reason.
“You can’t answer me?”
“I can’t,” Harry said, voice cracking nastily. “It’s hard.”
“You know everything about me. Foxhoven and her terrible assignments. My dad’s lungs.”
“I know,” Harry said. He was still sitting in the living room. He was, probably, failing.
“I think,” Nick said. He had come to look Harry in the eye. “I think I need some space.”
“That’s okay,” Harry croaked. Nick had been about to make him soup. Leek and sausage, he said, his mother's recipe. Harry had been thinking of Malfoy’s soft eyes when he told him about the Dursleys. He could bring them up to Nick, right now, and stop him in the doorway. Nick would hold Harry and make him the damn soup.
Harry didn’t say anything. The kitchen window cracked down the middle as Nick left.
-
“Malfoy,” Harry said. “I want to go flying.”
There was some rustling on his end. “Potter?” Malfoy’s voice was thick with sleep. Harry knew it was late, but he couldn’t wait. He kept thinking of what Malfoy had said. You could train it back.
Hermione had said something like that, once. Harry hadn’t believed it.
“I want to go flying,” Harry said again. “Tomorrow. In Wiltshire.”
“Are you ok?” Malfoy sounded alarmed.
“Um,” Harry said, because he wasn’t sure. “Yes. I want to go flying.”
“Alright, then,” Malfoy said. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”
“Night.”