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Fall 1998
The rot of fallen leaves lining the streets like dirty tissues would forever remind Harry of the trials. How the rickety red door of the visitor’s entrance smeared black-brown across the pavement each time he pulled it open, the airless booth abruptly cutting off the heavy scent of wet decay and unshed rain drops.
As the courtroom door swung open, Harry barely registered the flash of bulbs from the balcony. So much of his life had been spent in these rooms lately that their fixtures had become familiar. The imposing wall of Wizengamot members sitting shoulder to shoulder in the centre of the room. The stark wooden block of the witness stand. The rigid line of Gawain Robards’ back where he stood positioned a short distance from the table reserved for the Ministry prosecution.
Harry didn’t have to turn to the defence table to know there was a barrister sitting next to the accused — an upside of hastily imposed post-war reforms was an almost manic preoccupation with due process. But you would have to be living at the bottom of the Great Lake not to know the players in today’s proceedings by name.
Defence barrister Martin Shellback’s face had been splashed across the front page of the Daily Prophet for days, his ubiquitous scowl just barely visible beneath his shaggy white moustache. Reporters had camped out in front of Shellback’s London home, startling his wife half to death during a late-night walk with their Crup, and hid near the counsel-only Ministry Floo, shouting questions as soon as his feet appeared in the hearth. No effort appeared too shameful.
But one other image beat out Shellback’s in both number and size in the Prophet’s recent coverage, and the flesh-and-blood original now sat in the chair to the barrister’s left.
In person, he looked better than the photographs suggested. His pallor was less dull and the smudges under his eyes slightly fainter. There was a looseness to his jaw that was familiar, an effect of forced relaxation that offered a few brief hours of relief. Harry had seen it on the faces of George and Arthur and even Ginny more than once in the long days and weeks after the Battle.
Harry walked straight to the centre of the courtroom and stepped up into the witness box, nodding at the Chief Warlock. Taking his seat, he angled himself toward the prosecutor’s table where Samuel Hatt was studying one of the dozen scrolls of parchment stacked neatly before him.
As a man, Hatt was nondescript. Nothing about the Ministry prosecutor communicated vengeance or pageantry, a craven desire for righteousness or even the spotlight of success. Instead, he was a stickler for Wizengamot procedure and on more than one occasion had gently reminded the Chief Warlock of some finer point or another, much to the delight of the Prophet’s courtroom correspondent.
The first few trials had been almost perfunctory. Neither Macnair nor Rookwood presented a defence, and Dolohov went so far as to refuse to speak to his barrister or open his eyes, in a bizarre final act of loyalty. As his life sentence was handed down, he sat angled away from the Wizengamot panel, eyes determinedly squeezed shut.
As it turned out, the defendants’ quiet resignation failed to satisfy many in Wizarding Britain — although quiet was just fine with Harry — and interest in the trials only intensified. Public fervour reached fever-pitch leading up to the trial of Lucius Malfoy — finally, a defendant who might perform as he should — until Malfoy was found dead in his cell on the eve of trial.
Public outcry was swift and unforgiving, and then all eyes turned to his son.
Hatt put aside his scroll and moved to the centre of the courtroom. A hush fell over the room and when he cleared his throat, it echoed loudly under the Sonorus Charm. Harry shifted in his seat.
“Thank you for agreeing to offer testimony here today, Mr Potter,” said Hatt.
Harry nodded. He was ready to get on with it.
Hatt smiled kindly and linked his fingers under his not inconsiderable belly.
“Let’s start with the events of 20 June 1997.”
Winter 2008
“Head Auror Potter,” Gawain said as Harry walked through the door to the conference room and rounded the magically expanded table to take the seat next to his.
“Gawain.”
Robard’s lips twitched. Harry had given it his best effort, but Robards’ strict adherence to professional formalities was still holding strong.
Harry leaned his elbows on the table, shielding his face behind his clasped hands. The hallway that ran the length of the glass wall of the conference room was uncharacteristically congested due to the small horde of DMLE workers taking particularly leisurely routes on their way back from the tearoom.
“So,” Harry breathed. “Do we know anything about this ICW team?”
Gawain grunted noncommittally, lifting a page from the thick stack in front of him and holding it at the end of his nose.
Harry knew from experience that Gawain had likely memorised every word and the stack was mostly for show (he was also aware, thanks to a tipple-induced confession by Robards’ assistant Patty at last year’s Auror holiday party, that Gawain badly needed reading glasses yet refused to wear them). But before Harry could press further, the conference room door swung open, an air of authority preceding the new arrivals.
Gawain and Harry stood up, along with the Head of Legal, a slip of a woman called Martha who he hadn’t noticed had joined them at the table. As the ICW team filed in, Harry bent towards her to whisper hello. But just then he caught sight of the last ICW member to enter the room and the greeting died in his throat. Harry felt physically trapped, frozen in an awkward half-bend as Draco Malfoy, standing almost preternaturally straight in a standard issue white robe, took his place at the end of the line of ICW officials.
Suddenly Harry was 600 miles away, in a white-walled room cooled by early morning air drifting in through open windows. As he breathed in, he almost expected to inhale the acrid smell of cigarette smoke. Vaguely, he realised Martha was speaking to him right before her sharp elbow wedged into his ribs. He could barely feel it.
Malfoy’d grown out his hair. Worn loose, it brushed against his chin when he turned his head, the only sign of rebellion in his otherwise buttoned up appearance. Malfoy nodded to Robards but when his gaze slid over Harry and then Martha without acknowledgement, the rush of irritation in Harry’s gut released him from his body bind. He straightened, trying not to look at Malfoy without looking like he was trying not to look at Malfoy.
“Please,” Robards said, gesturing for the group to sit.
As Malfoy settled in his chair, Harry took the chance to look his fill. The still near-blinding shade of Malfoy’s hair against the stark white of his uniform made him look otherworldly, like some kind of celestial overlord. Or a being from the future sent back in time to hand down judgement on what a shit job Harry and his ilk were doing in the present day. Which, sadly, was not far from the truth.
A paunchy wizard in the centre of the ICW group spoke up. Unlike Malfoy’s, his uniform did not inspire imaginings of superterrestrial greatness or time-travelling authority. Rather, he looked like a package of marshmallows stuffed in a sausage casing.
“Director Robards, Head Auror Potter, Madame Head Counsel Mabry,” Mr Marshmallow intoned. “As you know, the International Confederation of Wizards has established this commission of inquiry to review the circumstances of the death of a twelve-year-old Muggle boy called Bryan Griffiths in connection to an Auror enforcement action taken on 21 September 2008.”
“A tragic event,” Gawain cut in, none too gently if Mr Marshmallow’s unimpressed look was anything to go by, “which our Professional Standards Unit concluded was accidental and unavoidable.”
As much as Harry appreciated Gawain’s forceful recital of the PSU’s findings — which echoed Robards’ own conclusions “as an Auror a hell of a lot older than you, Potter” — he felt the same cold, creeping sickness fill his chest at the mention of Bryan Griffiths’ name.
Mr Marshmallow went on. “Yes, we are aware of your internal investigation. However, as you are aware, the Supreme Mugwump deemed this incident to be of sufficient seriousness to warrant a commission of inquiry into the proper use of law enforcement procedure in mixed-use Muggle and Wizarding buildings, as well as law enforcement actions where defensive dark magic is anticipated or should have been anticipated.”
“In this limited circumstance,” Martha added, offering Mr Marshmallow a toothy smile that was equal parts disarming and foreboding.
Mr Marshmallow mumbled a concession before pointing to the ICW official at the opposite end of Malfoy, inviting each member of the commission to introduce themselves at length. Harry bounced between studying the rest of the commission and resisting — and failing to resist — studying Malfoy, whose expression remained almost painfully neutral during his colleagues’ belaboured introductions.
Finally it was Malfoy’s turn. “Good morning. I am Assistant Secretary-General Draco Malfoy. I head the ICW’s Office of Dark Arts Defense and the Proper Use of Force.”
To Harry’s surprise, there was nothing boastful or defensive in his tone, and unlike the others, he stopped short of listing every bloody commendation and notable case he’d ever worked on. Thank Merlin for small favours. But, Harry was forced to concede, Malfoy’s position was a serious one, an important one. Hell, a noble one, and Harry was struggling to assimilate this fact with the mantra about Malfoy’s unfeeling opportunism Harry had been carrying around like a security blanket for years.
“Very good,” Mr Marshmallow said, clearly pleased by the show of grandeur the introductions were meant to effect. “The commission intends to conduct its inquiry within four to six weeks. To do so, we will require access to all case files, witness statements, investigatory records, as well as unrestricted contact with all personnel involved in the enforcement action’s planning and execution.”
Martha nodded. “Done. And,” she added loudly before he could go on, “I will be present for any and all such contact with Ministry personnel as permitted by ICW Regulation 4321.7.”
Marshmallow grumbled something under his breath to Martha’s apparent satisfaction. Harry shot her a small smile and she winked in return before turning a stony look back on Marshmallow. Harry wouldn’t be surprised if the two of them came to wands before this inquiry was over.
“Our final point of business for the day is to establish whether any conflicts of interest exist that would undermine the integrity of this commission or its findings,” Marshmallow said, looking down his bulbous nose at the left side of the table and then the right. “Should any member of this commission of inquiry, operating under the authority and direction of the International Commission of Wizards and the Supreme Mugwump, possess any personal, financial, or professional interest which might compromise their judgement or influence their actions or the final determination in this matter, speak now.”
Truly, Harry had done his level best to remain professional to this point, despite the presence of Draco Malfoy decked out like an intergalactic government agent tasked with investigating the single most terrible event of his career. But this was a bridge too far.
When attempting to stare a hole into the side of Malfoy’s head didn’t seem to be producing the intended effect of getting Malfoy to open his fucking mouth and declare that, yeah, he had a conflict alright, Harry decided to do it for him. But just as he was gearing up to let Malfoy have it, Gawain’s foot came down on his instep, releasing a semi-undignified squeak, instead of the righteous demand he’d hoped for.
“Excellent,” Marshmallow smiled, his cheeks high and stretched tight. “Let the inquiry commence.”
Fall 1998
Harry’s patience was thinning.
Three Spotlight Charms beamed down on him from the courtroom ceiling, and he was sure his seat was at least ten degrees warmer than anywhere else in the overpacked room. The Wizengamot had banned Cooling Charms due to ambient sound, so not only had he been testifying about some of the most harrowing events of his life for almost an hour, but he was also sweating his bollocks off. Literally. He could feel the limp, sweat-stretched cotton of his pants cling stubbornly to his arse and thighs each time he shifted in his seat.
In front of him, Hatt looked equally tired, and perhaps even sweatier. Based on Harry’s testimony at previous trials, Harry imagined he saw things going a bit differently today.
“You did see the defendant attempt to kill Albus Dumbledore, did you not Mr Potter?” Hatt’s tone was starting to strain at the edges. He was dispassionate, yes. But he was also a straightforward man who expected a straightforward outcome.
Harry cleared his throat. “Yes, but in the end, he couldn’t do it.”
“Couldn’t do it, Mr Potter,” Hatt countered, voice slightly feverish. “Not wouldn't do it. That distinction makes all the difference, wouldn’t you agree?”
For the first time since he took the stand, Harry looked over at Malfoy. He was both surprised and not to find Malfoy staring back at him, clear-eyed and upright. To anyone who hadn’t spent almost half their life studying him, Malfoy’s expression was likely unreadable.
“No,” Harry said finally, turning back to Hatt. “Not in the final count.”
Winter 2008
Splinters from Gawain’s office door snapped under the soles of Harry’s boots. He’d barely formed an intention to close the door, let alone shatter it to pieces, but at this exact moment he really couldn’t be arsed to care.
“What the fuck?” Harry demanded. He was dimly aware that this might be just a tad over the line, even with all the leniency Gawain had shown him over the years. On the other hand, Gawain had stepped on his foot in the middle of a fucking meeting, so.
Gawain sighed, flopping down heavily in his leather tufted high-back. “Take a seat, Potter.”
Harry threw himself into one of the squat guest chairs in front of the desk, kicking his feet at a small pile of splintered wood near one of the legs. Gawain eyed him but said nothing, steepling his fingers as he waited in silent disapproval for Harry to realise he was being an arse before Gawain had to tell him himself.
An angry, reluctant flush swept across Harry’s forehead, seeping down his face and neck in a way he knew made him look on the verge of Rigiblish Fever. He breathed deeply through his nose for four seconds. He held the air in his lungs for four more, like a Mind Healer had taught him years ago, finally releasing all his breath slowly through his mouth. He took two more lungfuls as Gawain waited, trying to calm his emotions so he could take stock of the facts.
It was possible Gawain hadn’t known Malfoy was part of the commission. Although Harry suspected he did and (not unreasonably) decided to keep that particular fact to himself. But Harry also knew there was nothing Gawain could have done about it anyway. The ICW was the ICW. The only reason the commission was here in the first place was because they thought Harry and the rest of the Auror division were a bunch of incompetents. Objecting to one of their investigators because he had a complicated personal history with the Head Auror wasn’t likely to change any minds on that score. Harry’s breathing evened and he raised his eyes to meet Gawain’s.
“I am aware that you and Malfoy have a past,” Gawain began. Harry couldn’t hold back a snort — if Gawain only knew the half — but he quieted at Gawain’s raised eyebrow, crossing his arms in an effort to physically restrain himself from acting like an arse. Again.
“I am aware that you and Malfoy have a past,” Gawain repeated more forcefully this time. “But you need to put that aside. You know as well as I do that what happened to Griffiths was a horrible accident. But the stench of an ICW investigation can follow a department for years.”
Gawain rested his sizable forearms against the bite of the desk edge, leaning so far forward that Harry had to resist the urge to fidget in the too-small chair. Even now that he was Head Auror, and he and Gawain were closer to equals than anything else, getting dressed down by Robards still made him feel thirteen again.
“We don’t need to get slapped with a citation from the Supreme Mugwump for non-cooperation on top of everything else,” Gawain finished with a meaningful look. The point was well taken. An official reprimand would be tantamount to an international declaration that the British Aurors couldn’t be trusted.
Harry nodded stiffly, abashed for behaving like an aggrieved teenager when the stakes were so high. Still, even that knowledge did little to calm the tidal wave of anger crashing against his ribcage at Malfoy’s absolute nerve in there.
Robards relaxed back into his chair with a grunt, which was as good as a dismissal. When he waved away Harry’s offer to repair the door, Harry didn’t wait around for him to change his mind. He made a beeline out of the office, ignoring Patty’s disapproving cluck, and headed straight for the lifts to Level Five.
Most days, Harry’s office on Level Two felt like a pressure cooker. As if the buzz from the bullpen — the endless flood of case details and shit talk and magical energy — built and built and built until a wall of it pressed against his door hard enough to slip past the seams, blanketing the ceiling and carpet and engulfing Harry’s desk, before draping thickly across his shoulders like a cloak. A reminder of everything and everyone he was responsible for now. An ever-present hum under his skin and inside his skull that kept him at the office late every day and made sleep elusive most nights.
To be sure, being out of the field now that he was Head Auror had its perks — fewer trips to St. Mungo’s, for one, and a corresponding drop in the number of well-intended but exhausting rants at which Hermione had become expert, for another. But in many ways the job had never felt more dangerous. Harry trusted himself in the field. He felt in control even in situations where he was anything but. But in his office, he could do little more than hope he’d put together the right plan, and a team capable of executing it well. When a mission went south, as it did too often in Harry’s opinion (and apparently, the ICW’s), he anguished over whether he’d set up the field team to fail. And worse, whether things might have gone differently if he had been out there himself, instead of sitting behind his big bloody desk trying not to tear off what remained of his fingernails.
Which was why whenever he could, Harry escaped to Level Five. Unlike most other floors in the Ministry, Level Five was set up like a perfect square. Magical windows lined the outsides of long hallways set along each side of the building, with all the offices nestled in the centre. When his own office simply felt like too much, Harry could walk around and around and around, usually with little more company than the lashing rain or muted sunlight, or whatever weather Magical Maintenance had decided to display in the windows that day.
That was the other thing about Level Five: no one in the Department of International Magical Cooperation gave a fuck about him. Busy staffers moved quickly from one hall to another, rarely sparing him a second glance. And the various officials from magical governments on the Continent and beyond had turned not giving a hoot about ‘the great Harry Potter’ into a point of national pride. As a result, it was the only place in the entire Ministry where Harry felt relaxed. Or rather, the place he felt the least outrageously stressed.
Which is why it felt especially unfair when he turned the northeast corner on his fourth lap around the floor and smacked directly into Draco fucking Malfoy.
They quickly extricated themselves from the panicked tangle of limbs until there was a respectable distance between them, and Harry felt a small, vicious sense of victory when Malfoy was the first to take another small step away.
“Be careful, Assistant Secretary-General Malfoy,” Harry said, pleased to sound so composed after the unexpected collision. “Wouldn’t want you hurt when you have such important work ahead of you.”
Malfoy’s head snapped up, eyes narrowed and fists curled at his sides, stealing back the step he’d forfeited only a moment ago.
It had been years since the two of them had been this close and Harry’s eyes moved automatically to the thin skin at Malfoy’s temple, the large, blue vein on the right side that was visible even at a distance. If he got angry enough, the vein bulged, pushing away from the rest of his face. Harry used to joke that Malfoy came with a built-in warning system.
“It is important, Potter, as you well know,” Malfoy hissed.
While Harry flushed red in response to almost any kind of emotion, Malfoy’s anger made him go even paler. Now every inch of visible skin apart from the surging blue vein seemed to fade to the colour of snow, stark and untouchable, just like his ICW uniform.
“It is also my job,” Malfoy continued. “And I won’t let anything interfere with it.”
His job. Harry seethed, and before he could think too hard about it, he took hold of Malfoy’s elbow and steered him through the nearest open door.
The hallways on Level Five were nearly identical, with most outer doors to the offices unmarked. But Harry’s frequent sojourns gave him an advantage. Just last week he’d been ten laps into a brisk walk following an interdepartmental budget meeting that had ended in a screaming match, when Fabian Lyver, Undersecretary of the International Magical Trading Standards Body, threw open this very door. In his hands he'd carried a box holding a leafy plant and what looked like a brass replica of the Acropolis. He stormed by Harry in the direction of the lifts, steaming mad and muttering something about “arse-headed dick holes who wouldn’t know proper trade policy if it took off their slippers and tucked them into bed.” It had been amusing at the time but now proved unexpectedly useful.
Harry slammed the door shut and the automatic Lumos kicked in. The office was bare except for a teacup-stained desk, one spindly chair that reminded Harry painfully of the Dursleys’ dining room, and a tall bookcase with at least two missing shelves. The Cooling charm whirring to life and his own heavy breathing were the only sounds now that they were shut away from the cavernous, echoey hallways.
Malfoy wrenched back his elbow. “What the fuck, Potter. I know you don’t have a strong grasp on professional decorum, or self-preservation, but assaulting a member of a supervisory international organisation on an investigatory assignment seems extremely inadvisable.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Assault? Give me a fucking break, Malfoy.”
“I will do nothing of the sort,” Malfoy retorted, smoothing the sleeve of his still-crisp uniform where Harry had grabbed hold of him, blue vein bulging at this temple.
Harry took a step closer, and another one, and didn’t stop until Malfoy met his eye. His expression was hard, but Harry saw the wariness lurking around the edges. He leaned in until he could smell the spicy scent of Malfoy’s shampoo, sharp and sweet, like pink peppercorn, and for a moment Harry was dizzy from it. Malfoy had always been a creature of habit.
“No conflict of interest, huh?” Harry whispered, his voice low and harsh. He was so close he could see the downy hairs on Malfoy’s cheeks bend beneath his breath.
Malfoy’s expression shuttered, his face an implacable fortress. He took a step away.
“In the event you weren’t paying attention,” Malfoy said, his voice smooth and detached, the same professional posture he’d shown off at the meeting. “The existence of a conflict requires, first,” — here Malfoy held up one finger — “an interest in the matter at hand and, second,” — his middle finger joined the first, inches from Harry’s increasingly reddening face — “that said interest carries the potential to compromise one’s judgement or influence one’s actions.”
Malfoy lowered his arm, folding his hands loosely at his waist. As if he and Harry were newly acquainted colleagues engaged in banal small talk at the opening reception for some bollocks conference on international magical cooperation. Not two men whose lives had pulled them together and apart for years, standing a breath apart in a vacant office in the Ministry and dancing around a spectacular farce on which both their jobs might depend.
“Since none of those conditions apply in this case,” Malfoy smiled blandly. “No conflict exists.”
Behind Harry, the bookcase started to rattle against the wall and Malfoy’s smile grew almost imperceptibly. Harry took a slow, deep breath through his nose. He counted to four, and then let it out. Malfoy’d been at the Ministry less than two hours and already Harry’d had more bouts of accidental magic than he’d had since he was a kid.
“So, you don’t have a personal interest?” Harry asked once he had himself under control.
Malfoy blinked. “No,” he said finally, “I don’t.”
Then he stepped around Harry, pulled open the door, and disappeared down the hall.
Fall 1998
When his testimony finally ended, Harry should have left. He was hot and tired and desperately needed a shower. Stars burst behind his eyes from hours of camera flash and his heart was leaky and sore, torn open by reliving the worst days of his life while still in the thick of the worst days of his life.
But instead, he stayed. Released as a witness, he made his way to the back of the gallery. He ignored the few straggling photographers from the lifestyle rags that continued to snap pictures even after he sat down, the wide-eyed spectators close by who elbowed their neighbours, pointing in his direction and leaning forward in their seats to get a better look.
A particularly enthusiastic young woman a few rows ahead started to gesticulate wildly and Harry was prepared to chock the whole thing up to a bad job and leave when the elderly witch to his right coughed pointedly and levelled her with a glare worthy of McGonagall. The apple-cheeked witch snatched one last wide-eyed look at Harry before turning around in a flurry of robes. Harry shot his rescuer a small, grateful smile as the crowd settled and attention was pulled back to the front of the courtroom where the next witness was ready to take the stand.
What followed next was a parade of Malfoy’s would-be victims. Katie Bell. Madame Rosmerta. Even Ron, who managed to limit his testimony to less than a half hour by responding largely in monosyllables and the occasional grunt, impervious to Samuel Hatt’s clear disappointment. When he exited the witness box and started toward the courtroom door, his eyes found Harry in the crowded gallery. Harry flushed with embarrassment, caught out watching Malfoy’s trial when he should be doing anything else. But if Ron’s face betrayed any judgement, Harry was too far away to see it. Instead, Ron tipped his head slightly in Harry’s direction and slipped out the room.
Hours later, tucked into bed, the overhead Lumos long extinguished, Harry was unable to sleep. He’d been staying at Grimmauld for less than two weeks now. After the Battle, every evening saw him pulling a knobbly, multi-coloured blanket over himself on the couch at the Burrow, soothed by the home’s familiarity, the verifiable aliveness of its inhabitants. He was reassured by the Weasleys’ steady presence and his ability to clock their okayness, day after day. Even the thick, palpable grief that swelled in every room was a kind of solace. A family who loved so big that grief had no choice but to overwhelm them.
But at Grimmauld life was mocked at every turn. From the screeching portrait and burnt tapestry to the hollow troll leg and mounted elf heads. Even Kreacher seemed only half alive. Everywhere Harry saw echoes of the war, but here it was all loss without any of the love. Every memory of Sirius was swallowed up in the remnants of the family who drove him away. In only a handful of days, the house had managed to turn Harry into a pressed bruise, unable to escape the pain of the past.
So fittingly, all Harry could think about that night was Malfoy.
He’d been startled, listening to the recitations of Malfoy’s crimes, at how much of it he’d forgotten. The terror and carnage that defined the war were so pronounced, so exceptional in their barbarity, that it became harder to hold onto its lesser events. That was its own sick testament to the war’s travails. The attempted poisoning and indiscriminate use of Unforgivables, and even securing the infiltration of a school by Death Eaters were of little note in the final tally.
By the time Harry fell into a fitful sleep, it was near dawn. It didn’t matter. He didn’t have anything to do the next day — or any day, really. Still, seven o’clock saw Harry trudging into the bathroom where the shower never got quite hot and the faucet still spitted unevenly from disuse. He dressed quickly in worn denims and his favourite trainers paired with a thin, black jumper — a small show of deference to his intended destination — and stepped out into another dull, humid September day.
It was quieter inside the courtroom today, the air tense and hushed even though the case hadn’t been called to order. Across the right side of the theatre photographers dangled like English ivy over the press box railing, cameras ready to fire.
As Harry took his seat, the bailiff called the court to session and Martin Shellback pushed his chair from counsel’s table, the scrape sharp and startling in the near silence. He stood and bowed to the Chief Warlock. When he spoke, the silence was so complete his voice seemed to stretch all the way to the ceiling.
“The defence calls Draco L. Malfoy to the stand.”
Every person in the amphitheatre seemed to lean forward as one, the sound of clothing shifting and creasing to accommodate their eager owners rising from the stands in a soft whoosh. As Malfoy stood and walked slowly to the witness box, the air around him shimmered faintly. A magic dampening charm, Harry realised with a shock of surprise.
When Malfoy took his seat, Harry got his first good look at him. His expression was drawn, cheeks scooped out and hair lank and slightly too long. But its colour was still overly bright and otherworldly; fairy light beneath the Spotlight Charms. His expression was sombre, but Harry could see the fear lurking at the edges. It struck him just how many times in his life he’d seen Malfoy’s face caught between terror and resolve.
“Thank you for sharing your testimony here today, Mr Malfoy,” Shellback began, and Malfoy nodded tightly. “To start, could you please tell the Court about your family.”
For nearly forty minutes, Malfoy described life under Lucius and Narcissa’s roof. Harry had braced himself for an over-the-top performance from the start — and, even worse, for its success. But as Malfoy went on, it seemed less and less like an orchestrated bid for sympathy. He didn’t skirt around his material advantages — that he was a boy who’d hardly heard the word ‘no,’ from either his parents or the rest of Wizarding society. That he considered his entitlements deserved. His birthright as a Malfoy, as a pureblood.
But he also sketched out an insulated existence where his parents’ worldview brooked no questioning. One in which his father’s disapproval was swift and unforgiving, and his mother’s expectations rigid and exacting. Transgressions were punished with stony silence and withheld affection. It was a portrait of a boy taught that family loyalty was paramount, but that his own place was anything but guaranteed.
When Shellback skilfully steered the testimony to his involvement in the war, Malfoy was equally plainspoken. He didn’t attempt to qualify the accounts of other witnesses, only coloured them in with details very few still possessed — the Death Eater’s mobilisation, Voldemort’s increasing power and mania, his parents’ roles at the centre.
He was so sedate that Harry wondered if the magic dampening charm restrained his personality somehow. Maybe by cutting off Malfoy’s ability to access his magic, the charm also cut off the source of his pureblood superiority. But Harry didn’t have time to fully consider the magico-ideological impact of prisoner-management charms. Like everyone else in the courtroom, he was busy hanging on Malfoy’s every word. The spectators were dazed and drooling, like starving people drawn to the rich scent of a roasting chicken wafting from the kitchen. Everyone seemed hungry for a peek into the darkness after a war so few Death Eaters survived, and even fewer were willing to talk.
As Malfoy went on — through the Vanishing cabinet, his Mark, Dumbledore’s death on the Tower and Voldemort’s seizure of the Manor — he started to shake. At first, it was only a slight tremor, visible in the set of his shoulders as he spoke. But soon it became a full-body tremble, rattling his chair hard enough that the scrape of wood on wood caught on the Sonorous, slicing through his words as they boomed across the courtroom.
Shellback paused, rocking back on his heels. “Do you need a break, Mr Malfoy?”
Malfoy reached for the glass of water perched on the edge of the witness box. He took a few small, careful sips, his hand visibly unsteady. When he set the glass back down, he shook his head.
“Very well.” Shellback continued. He paced slowly back and forth while Malfoy talked, nodding his head or offering him an encouraging glance now and again. Finally, he stopped in the centre of the room and turned to face the witness box full on.
“I want to ask you a difficult question, Mr Malfoy,” Shellback said. Harry imagined the soft tone was meant to be soothing, but it sounded ridiculous to his ears. What could be difficult after all this?
“You haven’t contested the charges against you,” Shellback said as he reached out to rest a hand on the edge of the witness box. “Do you think you deserve leniency from this Court?”
The middle-aged witch seated next to Harry gasped, her fingers pressed lightly to her mouth as she leaned forward in her seat until her torso was practically parallel with the ground. She wasn’t alone. Harry felt thrown off balance by this line of questioning, and he stared hard at Malfoy’s mouth, as if he might be able to find something in the shape of his lips.
“I want leniency from the Court,” Malfoy said at last. “Whether I deserve it is more complicated.”
Shellback nodded, waiting for him to go on, and for the first time it occurred to Harry that Malfoy’s testimony was planned. Had been rehearsed, perhaps many times. That like him, Malfoy had been reliving the war over and over in preparation for this final act of judgement.
“I did things that hurt people in irrevocable ways,” Malfoy continued. His skin had paled so drastically it was almost translucent, and his voice wobbled slightly, shedding the monotone, matter-of-fact quality from his earlier testimony. As he spoke, Harry was staring so intensely he thought he could see the start of another tremble gathering at Malfoy’s bottom lip.
“I was a minor and I feared for myself and my family. But many of my peers made choices to save others, not just themselves.”
Malfoy reached for the glass of water still perched on the edge of the box. His lips seemed to separate at a glacial pace, as if they had been sewed together at the sides. He coughed as he set the glass back down, a choking, strangled sound that Harry couldn’t square with the Draco Malfoy he knew, even the hollowed-out version sitting in the centre of the courtroom now.
“In the end, even the right choices I made were to spare myself and my parents,” Malfoy said finally.
By the drop of his shoulders, Harry knew it was done. The plea for mercy was complete, if it could even be called a plea. Harry was just starting to wonder if this Shellback character knew what he was doing, when the rest of the amphitheatre filled itself in at the edges of Harry’s awareness. Spectators’ shoulders relaxed, just as Malfoy’s had done, as they exchanged sharp nods and satisfied smiles across the gallery, and that’s when the defence’s strategy crystallised in Harry’s mind like a reflection on the surface of a pond. Who was Draco Malfoy to beg for his life when so many others — good people on the right side — never got the chance?
Harry turned back to Malfoy, who was being led to the defence table for a brief recess before cross-examination. Shellback cupped a large palm around his shoulder and squeezed.
With a last look at the back of Malfoy’s too-thin frame, Harry quietly edged out of his seat and slipped from the room.
That night Hermione made shepherd’s pie. She’d channelled her grief into learning to cook, an endeavour in which Molly had taken an almost oppressive interest. In Hermione’s mind, it had become an unspoken test of her fitness as a future Weasley, one she resented and was determined to pass in equal measure. To avoid the risk of failure under Molly’s watchful eye, Grimmauld’s dank underground kitchen had become her training ground.
Unfortunately, Kreacher was proving nearly as judgmental an onlooker as Molly.
Hermione blew a stray curl that had escaped her ponytail off her face. Both her hands were currently coated in mashed potatoes.
“Kreacher, I swear to Merlin, if you do not go sit at the table right this instant, I will take that tea towel and throttle you,” she shouted.
The wizened old elf was next to her at the counter, balanced atop a small step stool. He grumbled something under his breath at her, ears flapping angrily, before shooting Harry a surly look that plainly said, This is all your fault. Then he crawled off his stool and dragged it behind him into his tiny room off the kitchen, slamming the door shut for good measure.
“You know, Hermione,” Ron said casually, “creature abuse is a very serious issue. I have some pamphlets I can share with you.”
Hermione’s glare unleashed the laughter Harry and Ron had been trying to hold back, and it didn’t die down until Harry’s gut ached and he had tears in his eyes. Hermione turned back to the counter, but they could still hear her angrily muttering about gender roles and don’t even like shepherd’s pie and your bloody mother.
When all was said and done, the meal was better than half decent, and Harry told her so, drinking in her pleased smile as they toasted her success — Firewhiskey for Harry and Ron, and a wine that Harry could only identify as ‘red’ for Hermione.
Harry was pleasantly full and more than a little buzzed, grateful for his friends’ ability to cut through the gloom of Grimmauld, if only for the span of an evening. But then Hermione glanced meaningfully at Ron, signalling the night was about to take an unwelcome turn.
Ron hadn’t said anything to Harry about Malfoy’s trial, but at that moment it became clear the same wasn’t true for Hermione.
“So, Harry,” Hermione said with an air of forced nonchalance; she could be about as subtle as Ron sometimes. “What have you been up to?”
Harry tried to pin Ron with an accusatory glare, but his friend avoided his eye, draining his glass of Firewhiskey and reaching for the bottle. Harry got there first, sliding it toward himself and out of Ron’s reach.
“What do you mean, Hermione?” Harry said, eyes still on Ron. Hermione hesitated, looking between the two of them as Ron’s expression began to strain. His lips appeared to war with each other as he bit back a response, retreating, then advancing, and then retreating again.
“I’m sorry!” he blurted out finally. “We were talking about my testimony, and she asked if I’d seen anyone in the courtroom and–” Ron sagged in his seat. “You know I’m a crap liar when it comes to Hermione.”
Hermione smiled at him indulgently and Harry sighed, sliding the Firewhiskey across the table into Ron’s grateful hands. He wouldn’t have been able to keep it from Hermione either.
“The question is,” Hermione said, turning narrowed eyes on Harry, “why would you want to keep it from me?”
“I didn’t,” Harry said, pushing his glasses up into his fringe before settling them back on his nose. Just then a loud clang sounded from the direction of Kreacher’s room, and for a few hopeful seconds Harry thought he might emerge with some complaint or another and break the moment. But nothing else stirred and Harry trudged on, resigned. “I just thought you’d think it was weird that I stayed and . . . I don’t really know why I did it.”
Harry felt marginally bad for withholding the fact that he’d returned to Level 10 that very morning, but he figured the explanation applied either way.
Hermione quieted for a long moment, twisting the stem of her wineglass against the scarred wood of the table.
“I suppose you wanted some closure,” she said finally, although it came out more like a question.
Ron refilled his empty glass and took another healthy swallow, topping it up once more before he stoppered the bottle and nudged it back to the centre of the table.
“I reckon closure isn’t really possible for any of us,” he said.
Harry’s heart stuttered. Fred was never far from their minds. Or Tonks, or Remus, or Dumbledore, or even Snape. But the reminder still felt like a fresh wound every time.
Hermione reached for Ron’s hand, tangling their fingers in an easy show of affection that still felt new whenever Harry saw it. It made him hopeful.
“No, I don’t think it is,” Harry agreed. Quietly, he added, “Including Malfoy.”
Winter 2008
Harry was halfway through his workout when he spotted him. The Ministry fitness centre was rarely crowded at half six in the morning, but even if it’d been packed, Harry wouldn’t have had any trouble picking Malfoy out of the crowd.
Unlike most of the other gym goers, including Harry, who wore old T-shirts and joggers held over from the Auror Academy, Malfoy showed up in matching white and neon activewear as if he’d stepped straight from an American billboard. Harry was beginning to think Malfoy was in on the intergalactic government agent shtick.
Malfoy hadn’t seen him yet, so Harry hung at the back of the room near the free weights. He took a few pulls from his water bottle, letting his breath even out as he watched Malfoy snake across the gym floor. He stopped at the squat rack, throwing down his towel on a nearby bench before he unzipped his neon striped sweatshirt and tossed it alongside the towel, revealing a tight white vest that tucked cleanly into his trackies.
A rivulet of sweat slipped down the side of Harry’s face, and he swiped at it with the hem of his T-shirt. From where he was standing, he could see Malfoy in profile — he looked a far cry from the boy with hollowed cheeks and sucked-in ribs of the war years, or even the spare, willowy man who’d grown into his freedom. This version of Malfoy was still tall and trim — he’d never have Harry’s brawny bulk — but he was covered in lean, corded muscle that made him look less fragile than Harry had ever seen him.
Malfoy squared his feet and dropped into an effortless lunge, smooth and controlled. He kept going until his breathing deepened, a light sheen of sweat glinting off his shoulders under the gym lights. Harry forced himself to take a look around, hoping no one had noticed that instead of working out, he was half-hiding in the corner, staring at a visiting official in the throes of his leg day.
Luckily, the few people in his vicinity didn’t seem to give a toss that the Head Auror was lurking about like a complete twit.
Meanwhile Malfoy had progressed to squats with the empty barbell, balancing the metal across his shoulders with a firm grip as he dropped toward the ground again and again. When he replaced it on the rack, he reached for his wand, which must have been hidden in a Glamoured thigh holster. Plate after plate soared neatly through the air from the weight tree before slotting on the ends of the barbell. Once he appeared satisfied, Malfoy tucked the wand away and ducked beneath the bar.
Harry barely had time to be impressed with the amount of weight he’d loaded before he’d made a decision. In a few strides he was behind Malfoy, their bodies a whisper apart.
Malfoy stiffened, his hands wrapping tighter around the barbell, but he didn’t turn. Harry wondered if Malfoy could tell it was him. If maybe he’d seen Harry watching from his corner but said nothing.
Harry leaned in until his mouth was next to Malfoy’s ear, the warmth of Malfoy's heated skin tickling the side of Harry’s face.
“Safety first,” he whispered before reaching his arms around Malfoy’s sides to tuck up into his armpits, hovering between touching him and not.
Malfoy breathed hard from his nostrils, like a snorting dragon kicking at the ground in warning, but still didn’t speak. Instead, he repositioned his hands one last time and pressed up until the bar cleared the rack. Harry was right there with him, following Malfoy’s body as he bent his legs and lowered until they were parallel with the floor, his form still near perfect. As he slowly pushed back up to standing, Malfoy grunted, soft and startling, and Harry felt himself push unconsciously closer, the soft cotton of his joggers dragging lightly against Malfoy’s neon-covered arse before he remembered himself and pulled back slightly.
They kept at it for six reps, Harry following the shape of Malfoy’s body up and down, his arms ghosting along Malfoy’s chest in case his strength gave out suddenly, the grunts getting sharper and deeper with each squat.
Malfoy straightened a final time and then leaned forward to deposit the bar back onto the rack. He turned to face Harry. His face was flush and strands of white-blond stuck to his cheeks. He didn’t look angry, but he didn’t look not angry either.
“A bit close, Potter, don’t you think?”
His breathing was laboured, loud and heavy in the space between them.
“Good thing there’s no personal interest, then,” Harry said. He swiped the towel off the bench and pushed it into Malfoy’s chest.
“Until whenever,” he said, and turned for the door.
Spring 2005
You couldn’t smoke at the Marktgasse, but that had never stopped Malfoy.
He was leaning out of one of the large casement windows that overlooked the roofs and steeples of old town, the sun-soaked morning flooding the neat, white room as he sucked down his fifth cigarette of the day.
Behind him Harry was still in bed, propped up against the headboard with the pillow-soft comforter bunched around his hips. He desperately wanted a shower, a hot cup of tea, and a hangover potion, if he could get his hands on one, but he didn’t want to be the first to speak. Harry worried that if he left the room, Malfoy wouldn’t be there when he got back.
The first time Harry had woken and reached across the bed for Malfoy that morning, it was still dark outside. He’d pulled back the sheet, exposing Malfoy’s bare skin to the dim light before covering every inch of Malfoy’s body with his own. They’d moved together wordlessly, sleepy and unhurried, chests pressed close as Harry slid easily inside Malfoy, still relaxed and ready from the night before.
But when Harry had opened his eyes again sometime later, the sun was up and Malfoy was fully dressed, the cigarette drooping from his lips burned all the way down to the filter.
When he finally flicked it out the window, Harry figured they’d talk, or not talk, as was their usual routine. But instead, Malfoy pulled out another cigarette, lighting it with the tip of his wand as he stared out into the clear June sky. It went on like that for what felt like ages, Malfoy smoking out the window without once looking at Harry, and Harry trying not to point it out.
Malfoy’s stubbornness rivalled his own and Harry wasn’t prepared to go down without a fight. But in the end his bladder made the decision for him.
“I need a slash,” he said, tossing the covers aside before padding naked to the loo. He even managed not to turn to see if Malfoy was watching.
The sound of piss hitting water echoed loudly in the small, white-tiled bathroom, minimalistic and sedate like most everything else in Zürich. As he shook himself off, Harry felt his heart batter against his ribs. He and Malfoy had survived their share of awkward mornings, but none had ever felt as ominous as this one was shaping up to be.
He flushed and washed his hands roughly in the sink, splashing cold water on his face and drying it with the towel Malfoy had slung over the shower door before they headed to Alte Kaserne the evening before.
When he stepped back into the room, Malfoy was waiting for him.
“I’m moving to Luxembourg,” Malfoy said. His expression was neutral, voice completely calm. As if he wasn’t sharing startling, out-of-the-blue news after over an hour of total silence while Harry stood across from him completely starkers.
“Okay,” Harry said. Dimly, he considered moving back to the bed, or Accio’ing his trousers, but he sensed Malfoy would bolt at the first opportunity.
They stared at one another for long minutes, Malfoy dressed pristinely in last night’s clothes and Harry bare-arsed naked, water from his damp hairline dripping across his shoulders. After what felt like a short lifetime Malfoy’s expression cracked and he looked away, shifting from foot to foot, his left thumb rubbing rhythmically against his thigh.
“I met someone–” Malfoy began, and an intense buzzing filled Harry’s ears as if he was on the other side of a Muffliato. His legs turned numb and if his eyes hadn’t been level with the side of Malfoy’s face, he wouldn’t have been able to say for sure whether he was still standing.
Harry opened his mouth to say something, not knowing what exactly, only to realise Malfoy was still speaking.
“–at the ICW and he recommended me for a job. Apparently, my history might be an asset.”
Malfoy turned back to him. A smirk twisted his mouth, but Harry could tell it was forced, meant to cover over the hope and disbelief Harry could hear in his voice. His brain whirred, still trying to sort through what Malfoy was telling him and what it meant.
“So, I suppose I won’t be seeing you in Zürich next year,” Harry said, if only to keep himself from asking one of the dozen questions he really wanted answers to, which felt too humiliating to say aloud, especially when Malfoy was already halfway out the door and Harry was still naked.
“No,” Malfoy said and pulled himself to his full height. Something about the gesture made Harry feel more exposed, if that was possible, and he could tell that this was it. That Malfoy was about to leave.
“Until when?” he asked.
Not since the first one had Harry really considered whether each liaison with Malfoy might be the last. He didn’t really believe it now. Harry searched Malfoy’s face for something — sadness or regret, or even a hint of wistfulness. But his expression was shuttered, stoic.
Malfoy paused, as if waiting for Harry to finish cataloguing his indifference.
“Until whenever.”
Fall 1998
“Why are you here?” Malfoy demanded.
He looked much like he had three weeks ago: drawn and a bit haunted, and like he needed a long, hot shower, or at least a very strong Scourgify.
Harry looked around for Famy, the achingly nervous house-elf who’d let him in after ten minutes of pleading and a few blatantly manipulative but nonetheless effective mentions of Dobby, but she’d clearly left him to fend for himself.
“Er,” Harry replied, suddenly aware that he’d gotten this far with no plan beyond charming his way into the Manor. “Can we talk?”
Malfoy blinked back at him as if Harry had spoken in Mermish. Dimly, Harry wondered if maybe he’d used Parsletongue by accident. He tried to peer past Malfoy. Perhaps he had a pet snake.
“Why?” Malfoy asked sharply, moving to block Harry’s view.
Harry sighed. It was a fair question, although surprisingly, Malfoy didn’t sound suspicious. He appeared confused more than anything else, which Harry supposed was also fair. Harry was confused himself, and this was his not quite-plan to show up to Malfoy’s house out of the blue and ask for an audience.
“I was there,” Harry said finally. “At your trial.” He silently berated himself. It wasn’t like Malfoy had been anywhere else Harry could have run across him in the last few months.
Malfoy narrowed his eyes and Harry guessed he shared the bleak assessment of Harry’s conversational skills. “I know.”
“No, I mean the next day,” Harry rushed to clarify. “When you testified.”
Admittedly, Harry hadn’t formed a clear expectation of how this meeting-slash-ambush might go, but it was obvious he was missing the mark.
Malfoy’s eyes bore into him, irritation plain across his face. “I know.”
Harry’s brows shot up. He’d tried to slip into the courtroom as inconspicuously as possible — at least, as inconspicuously as he could when attending one of the Wizarding world’s most fervently followed Death Eater trials. Still, he never imagined Malfoy would have noticed.
An awkward silence descended, and Harry shifted in his shoes. The hallway was almost artificially quiet. Above them the ceilings climbed for what seemed like miles, so it must have been due to the plush, plum carpet, which was so thick Harry could feel it pushing through a small hole in his left trainer.
Malfoy rolled his eyes and mumbled something that sounded a lot like fucking arsehole, but then he was pulling open the door and stepping aside, and Harry decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
The first thing Harry noticed — aside from the surreal feeling of being in the Manor, on purpose, to visit Draco Malfoy — was that his bedroom was enormous. It made sense, of course. The Manor was bloody huge. Still, it was startling to realise this was where Malfoy retreated to as a small child, licking his wounds after a wordless dinner, his stony-faced parents radiating their disapproval from some far-flung dining room on the floor below.
It was a far cry from Harry’s cupboard in Little Whinging.
The second thing he noticed was that the entire room was bathed in shades of green. But it wasn’t Slytherin green, like he would have guessed. There wasn’t a hint of deep emerald in sight. No, the bedclothes were a cool mint, layered with cream blankets and a tartan bed skirt. The curtains were a slightly deeper shade. Winter green, perhaps. Or even seafoam.
Harry knew so much about the colour green and its many variations because Hermione’s other post-war domestic pastime was sketching out the decor for when she and Ron eventually left the Burrow and struck out on their own. She’d made a scrapbook with inspiration photos — a “mood board,” she’d called it — cut from stacks of wizarding interior design catalogues and fashion magazines Fleur brought her whenever she and Bill came to visit.
He never would have imagined that listening to Hermione natter on about the relative merits of evergreen versus olive — a subject only slightly less tiresome than her one-person debates on the finer points of magical ethics — could be put to good use. But here he was, admiring how the sage sofa facing the fireplace really grounded the entire colour scheme.
“Take a seat, for fucks sake,” Malfoy snapped, flopping down on the beige and buff striped chair arranged catty-corner from the sofa.
Harry flushed, realising too late that he’d been standing only a few steps beyond the door for Merlin knew how long, thinking about boy Malfoy, and Hermione’s mood board, and the pleasing contrast of light greens that felt like summer hitting the surface of a lake.
He took the chair opposite Malfoy and immediately worried his trainers were too dirty to put directly on what looked like a very old, very expensive rug. But then he remembered he’d been tortured in this house, and that at one time its dining table had served as a ritual killing altar. He twisted the treads into the pile for good measure.
When he looked up, he found Malfoy staring at his feet.
“Did you mean it?” Harry blurted. He couldn’t take another long silence.
Malfoy looked up sharply.
“What you said about only doing the right thing to save yourself,” Harry soldiered on. “Did you mean it?”
Malfoy’s pursed lips deepened into a frown. “Maybe I did, Potter. Or maybe I said it for that exact reason.”
He stopped suddenly and his mouth puckered, as if whatever words he was holding back were sour to the taste. Harry worried he might start trembling again.
“Does the right thing mean more when you do it for other people?” Malfoy asked, and even through the edge in his voice Harry could hear the sincerity in the question, and the uncertainty.
“We shouldn’t care only about ourselves,” Harry said, although he didn’t think it was really that simple. Not anymore.
He wondered if Hermione’s mood boards hadn’t been the only thing to sink in when he wasn’t paying attention.
Malfoy crossed his arms, and Harry was grateful to note his shoulders stayed steady.
“Fair,” he conceded. “But we shouldn’t forget ourselves either. I know you’re used to being the sacrificial lamb, Potter, but you’ve got to matter too.”
Harry blinked, struggling to assimilate this response. Draco Malfoy thought that Harry should matter, at the very least to himself. It was more than Malfoy ever would have granted him in the past.
Again, they lapsed into the quiet of Malfoy’s cavernous, green bedroom, but this time the silence didn’t feel strained.
“I didn’t need you to save me,” Malfoy said at last. His voice was low and tight, but there was no malice behind it.
“Didn’t you?” Harry asked, because he couldn’t help himself and because he was genuinely curious what Malfoy thought, and he braced for an explosion of indignant outrage. But Malfoy said nothing, turning in the direction of the large, winter green-draped windows where the gentle September light streamed in over their heads.
“I brought you something,” Harry said suddenly, only now remembering the original motivation for his visit. He fumbled for his wand in his back pocket, his fingers stiff and clumsy as he cancelled the Disillusionment Charm concealing the holster fastened to his left thigh.
Harry stretched his arm across the chestnut coffee table, but Malfoy hesitated, his eyes darting between Harry and the slim, smooth piece of Hawthorn gripped in his palm.
“Take it,” Harry said, bobbing his arm in encouragement. “It’s yours.”
Finally, Malfoy reached for it, curling his fingers slowly around the handle before pulling it into his lap. He didn’t cast a spell or tuck it away, like Harry thought he might. Instead, he cradled it in his lap, the fingertips of his left hand not quite touching the tip.
When he finally looked up, his eyes were bright.
“I actually am sorry, you know,” he said finally, and while no one would mistake the words as kind, his tone was as warm as Harry had ever heard aimed in his direction.
Malfoy returned to gazing down at his wand. An almost-smile pulled at the edges of his mouth, but it smoothed when he looked up and his eyes met Harry’s.
“Now if you don’t mind, Potter,” he said, “kindly get the fuck out.”
Winter 2008
Harry paced outside the closed conference door until it finally swung open. The ICW hacks filed out first, with Mr Marshmallow in the lead and Malfoy at the back, before turning left down the hall in the direction of their makeshift offices.
Simmons stepped out next, looking bruised and deflated, like a peach left out in the sun. Behind him was Martha who let the door snick shut behind her.
Harry cuffed Simmons on the shoulder and gave him an encouraging nod. He was a good kid and a decent Auror, but he had neither the complexion nor the constitution for interrogation.
“You did well,” Harry said. “Take lunch and pull yourself together. I’m here if you need to talk.” He looked at Martha. “And I’m sure our esteemed counsel will let you know if there’s anything else.”
Martha nodded and Simmons gave them a relieved, shaky smile before heading for the lifts.
“I’m sorry I had to kick you out,” said Martha once Simmons was out of earshot. She didn’t sound sorry in the least.
It had been about an hour into the so-called interview, after Mr Marshmallow had asked Simmons for the sixth time why he didn’t perform a Homenum Revelio in the Wilson’s bedroom, when Harry reached his limit. In an effort not to lose his cool completely he started counting his breaths, but the sound of his inhalations was so loud that Martha promptly kicked him out of the room.
Harry shrugged. “I get it. I’m sorry I turned into a ruddy steam engine.” He glanced down the hall where the ICW team had disappeared. “It just makes my blood boil to see Simmons put through the paces like that.”
Martha smiled up at him and Harry was struck anew how such a small, kind-faced woman could be so bloody terrifying when she needed to be.
“He knows he’s got your support, and that helps more than you know.” She shrunk her binder and notepad and tucked them into the pocket of her navy suit jacket. Her smile turned a little wicked. “But next time, maybe start the breathing before you’re hyperventilating, yeah?”
It turned out Martha’s advice was for naught. Over the course of the week, Harry learned that even starting the exercises before the interview began wasn’t enough to keep his temper at bay. On Wednesday, he Owled Hermione and Ron and invited them for dinner (or, more accurately, invited Hermione to cook for them). He needed to get this investigation off his chest.
“You can’t imagine it,” Harry said as he spread his arms wide. He and Ron were at the table while Hermione finished the last of the dinner preparations. “There he is, sitting right across the table in every one of these sham interviews, looking for all the world like a marble-faced gargoyle while his boss absolutely rips my guys apart.”
Harry paused as Hermione bustled over and ladled something she was calling lasagna soup into his bowl. Harry had no idea what lasagna soup was, but it smelled delicious.
“Thanks,” he said. He brought a spoonful to his mouth and gently blew on it, smirking at Ron who was flapping his hand at his open mouth across the table.
“You’re a genius, Hermione,” Harry said after swallowing his first mouthful. The dish made perfect sense now. The tomato broth was sweet and tangy, thickened with creamy ricotta and ribboned through with thick, wavy noodles. It was the best thing Harry’d eaten in a month. “Well, even more genius anyway.”
Hermione shoved him playfully as she took the seat between him and Ron.
“Don’t be cute,” she said. “But I’m glad you like it. And,” she said, narrowing her eyes at Ron, “I’m pleased that you at least have enough self-restraint not to burn off the roof of your mouth.”
“In my defence,” Ron said as he drained the last of his water. “You’ve been cooking for almost three hours. It smells like an Italian grandmother’s kitchen in here and I couldn’t wait any longer.”
Hermione turned to Harry. “I’ve got him hooked on the food channel,” she smiled wryly. “He’s worse than me now.”
She brushed her fingers across Harry’s forearm. “Sorry, you were in the middle of something.”
“Yeah,” Ron said. “Something about Malfoy. Probably the only thing that could put me off food this good.”
“I’m sure your appetite will keep,” Hermione replied. She nodded encouragingly at Harry.
Harry sighed, comforted by the way the fragrant steam from his bowl warmed his face.
“It’s just bizarre,” he went on, face turned in the direction of his soup. “Everyday I feel like I’m back at school having been called up to the Headmaster’s office and just waiting on my punishment. Except the Headmaster is Draco Malfoy and I need to pretend he’s just another ICW twat like the rest and not someone” — Harry paused, swallowing hard — “not someone I’ve known for more than half my life, and someone who should have a bit more sensitivity to politically motivated governmental overreach.”
When he looked up, Ron’s face was ashen, his spoon hovering halfway between the bowl and his mouth.
“Malfoy as Headmaster,” he said with a terrible sort of awe. “I’m going to have nightmares after that.”
Hermione hummed thoughtfully, and a frisson of fear snaked through Harry’s belly.
“What?” he asked, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.
“I’m just wondering,” she began slowly, which meant she wasn’t just wondering but was already operating according to a fully formed thesis, “if that’s all it is. Dissonance at seeing Malfoy in a position of authority over you.”
She looked at him questioningly, and Harry felt each knob of his spine spark one after another, like a string of firecrackers lit at the small of his back. There wasn’t any reason to worry, not really, not after all this time, but Harry had learned not to underestimate Hermione’s powers of perception.
“What I mean,” she continued, and something about the way she was absentmindedly threading her napkin through her fingers set Harry on alert, “is that it sounds like you’re troubled by the moral complexity of it all. That someone like Malfoy — who hurt people, and who some think got better than he deserved — gets to sit in judgement of Aurors acting in the line of duty.”
Harry’s fear simmered to a low roil of guilt. He bent his face over his bowl and noisily slurped more of his soup. He didn’t want to look Hermione in the eye. Hermione, who was peering at him with concern, as if Harry was cut up because Draco Malfoy’s job gave him the moral high ground over Harry. As if Harry thought Malfoy deserved worse than he got.
He was spared having to come up with a response that didn’t amount to an all-out lie by what Hermione said next.
“I ran into him the other day.”
“What?” Harry barked, just as Ron half shouted, “You ran into Malfoy?”
“Calm down, the both of you,” she said. She took a small sip of soup and waiting for her to finish felt like the longest fifteen seconds of Harry’s life. “It was outside of chambers. Apparently, the delegation was there to give the Chief Witch a gift on behalf of the Supreme Mugwump.”
“And Fernspot didn’t tell you?” Harry demanded. Hermione had served as senior law clerk and chief-of-staff to the Chief Witch going on four years.
“I don’t keep her schedule, Harry,” Hermione said primly. “I’m a bit busy running her office and drafting opinions of the court.”
Harry’s mouth twisted in an apologetic grimace. “Sorry,” he said, abashed.
“Who cares about all that?” Ron cut in, waving his soup spoon in their direction, a shower of crimson droplets splattering the bare wood table. “What happened? And why am I just hearing about it now?”
Hermione tucked a curl behind her ear. “Because,” she said, “I wanted to wait until we were all together.”
She glanced at Harry and a soft warmth filled his chest. After all these years, even when things had changed so much, it was still the three of them.
Hermione’s smile was almost sad. “He apologised, if you can believe it.”
Ron’s spoon clattered against the table. “No, I can’t bloody believe it. And it’s a bit late, don’t you think?”
When Hermione seemed unmoved, Ron’s jaw dropped open and he turned pleadingly to Harry, who only shrugged.
“This is mad,” Ron mumbled.
“Be that as it may,” Hermione said, “he did, and it seemed rather genuine to me.”
“Did it?” Harry asked. He had no trouble believing it himself. But he wondered how Hermione seemed to accept Malfoy’s sincerity so readily.
She nodded eagerly. “I could see it cost him to do it, but he kept on, even with the entire ICW delegation within earshot.”
Now that did surprise Harry. However much Malfoy was humbled by his mistakes, his pride was still a guiding force.
“But what’s all this got to do with Harry’s investigation?” Ron asked.
He levitated the entire pot of soup to the table before a bottle of white wine zipped from the icebox, joined by the Firewhiskey kept on a high shelf and three glasses from the cupboard.
The conversation clearly required reinforcements.
“It just made me curious,” Hermione said as she accepted the offered glass from Ron. “He seemed so, so remorseful. I wondered if he’s been so unfeeling in Harry’s case because he thinks he’s got to keep up appearances. Can’t look like the exonerated war criminal doling out leniency, that sort of thing.”
Harry frowned. “I guess.”
Ron shook his head. “Bollocks. If anything, he should be worried about looking like he’s got a grudge against the Aurors. Trying to pull one over on the guys who let old Lucius off himself on their watch.”
Hermione wrinkled her brow. “I suppose so.”
“Besides,” Ron went on, topping off the glass Harry didn’t even realise he’d emptied. “Does Malfoy really need a reason to be a prick to Harry?”
Spring 2002
Overhead lights slashed through the darkness, lighting up dozens of undulating bodies in neon shades of purple, pink, and blue, there and gone again, swallowed up in a pounding base so strong it rattled Harry’s ribs. The scent of damp shirts and barely-there cologne and unwashed denim filled his chest. Suddenly he felt aware of every inch of his skin, the aliveness of his own body.
Hermione had asked why Zürich, of all places. He didn’t have an answer. He just knew that what he needed, he couldn’t get in London.
Harry elbowed his way to the bar and ordered a whisky. When Ron, Hermione and Harry first ventured out to Muggle bars, they’d been eager pupils, trying nearly every Muggle spirit available and living to regret at least half of them. Muggle whisky wasn’t nearly as good as Firewhisky, but it was close enough, and always on hand no matter where he went.
Harry nodded at the bartender and slid a few notes across the bar top. The hairs on his forearms clung to the sticky black resin as he turned away to survey the crowd. It was Friday night, and the dance floor was packed. At one end of the dance floor a six-foot drag queen in a platinum wig was spinning from a small stage overlooking the writhing mass of bodies under her command.
Harry still couldn’t dance for shit. But in clubs like this all over the Continent he’d learned a version that was closer to fucking than the Champions Waltz, and found partners a bit more inspiring than Parvati Patel. No disrespect to Parvati — she was a lovely girl, but in the end that was precisely the problem.
Just then a tallish, fit man with light brown hair cut across Harry’s eyeline and stopped mid-step. His mouth was sedate, but his eyes were curious, welcoming. Harry had been in Zürich less than a day, but already he’d clocked the understatedness of Swiss culture. Even in a gay club, where subtlety was hardly a virtue, the cruising seemed more elusive, almost coy.
Harry’s mouth quirked as he tipped his glass in the man’s direction. He leaned back against the bar, his posture open and inviting, and the man wound his way in Harry’s direction, stopping a close-enough but still decorous distance away. From this far, Harry could see that his eyes were, unsurprisingly, a bright, clear blue.
“Grüezi.”
Harry pushed off the bar and stepped closer. “Sorry, I don’t speak–”
Harry’s attention was forced to the opposite side of the bar, an instinctive reaction he wasn’t fully aware of until he was already peering into the dance floor’s electric depths. Only after his eyes landed on the object of his distraction did his mind fill in the blanks. The flash of bright white hair kissed by the overhead lights — a rotating display of bubble gum pink, baby blue, and lime green. The only head of hair that still glowed when the lights swept away.
With a jolt Harry realised the fit, brunette man was still waiting in front of him, patient and politely inquisitive.
“I’m sorry,” Harry said. His head swam. He was sure he was violating about six different Swiss cultural norms, and acting like an arse in pretty much any culture. But his heartbeat pounded harder than the blaring music, and it felt like his brain had short-circuited. “I have to go.”
The man stepped aside as Harry pushed through the tangle of bodies toward the magnetising force drawing him as if against his will.
Halfway there, the gleaming, silvery head turned in his direction, and their eyes caught. If the man was at all surprised, his face didn’t show it. If anything, his expression was one of resignation, as if he’d been awaiting the worst and was now prepared to accept the shape of his fate.
Despite the short distance and dense crowd, Harry was breathing hard when he reached him. Malfoy’s mouth had stretched into a relaxed line that at first glance seemed as inscrutable as the Swiss’ had been. But there was nothing sedate about Malfoy — his grey eyes wild and swirling, as if they’d swallowed up the neon lights of the club like a rainbow plunged into a strong current.
Now that they were face to face, Harry wished that it had occurred to him — when he’d still had time to concoct an icebreaker of some sort, back when he was still a dance floor away — that he’d need something to say. The obvious topic, of course, was how the fuck they were both here in Zürich, at the same Muggle gay club, presumably running from — or toward — identical things. But his tongue felt dithering and inadequate in his mouth.
He brushed off the momentary pang of regret; words had never served him best where Malfoy was concerned. Instead, Harry pressed his right hand to the centre of Malfoy’s chest, spreading his fingers wide, digging each fingertip into the firm, fleshy muscle warm beneath his palm.
Malfoy glanced down at Harry’s hand before their eyes locked, and Harry walked him backward until Malfoy’s back collided with the wall. His head knocked lightly against a framed poster of a bare-chested man in thin black briefs and feathery white wings, holding a can of Red Bull.
During his early Muggle clubbing days Harry had tried one mixed with vodka. The next morning, after thoroughly emptying the contents of his stomach, he’d decided that one Red Bull was one too many. But after tonight he was sure he’d forever associate the drink with Malfoy, danger disguised as an angel and just as likely to leave him sick.
Beneath his palm Malfoy jerked, and Harry’s hand tightened against his chest. He could feel Malfoy’s fluttering heartbeat beneath his fingertips as he trailed his hand down Malfoy’s stomach to wrap around his hip. Malfoy was wearing denims, he realised suddenly, and Harry was sure it was the first time he’d seen Malfoy in something so entirely Muggle.
When Malfoy’s muggy, warm breath ghosted across Harry’s cheeks, he realised how close they’d moved together. Before he could overthink it, Harry closed the distance, letting the tip of his nose drag across Malfoy’s cheek. His fingers tightened against Malfoy’s hip as his left hand skirted up Malfoy’s side and along his collarbone, coming to rest lightly at the base of his throat.
Harry’s eyes darted between Malfoy’s in search of some sign this wasn’t right. But all he found was desire dressed up as a dare, Malfoy’s chin tilted defiantly mere inches above his own, his eyes molten and wicked. Harry leaned in until he’d covered Malfoy’s lips with his own, his mouth parting eagerly to let Harry’s tongue slip inside.
Harry lost himself to the slide of their mouths against each other, the hot press of fingers into flesh and the way Malfoy’s body slotted against his, the moans ripped from Malfoy’s throat that Harry couldn’t hear but that rumbled against his chest, and the ghost of dozens of men dancing against Harry’s back as he kissed Draco Malfoy like it was the last best thing he’d ever do.
Winter 2008
Harry needed a drink.
It had been another completely shit week at work and he was desperate to let off some steam. Hermione and Ron had fucked off to Cardiff for the weekend and Harry felt too morose to call up any of their more chipper friends. Luna and Neville could always be counted on to offer a patient and empathetic ear, or home brewed tinctures and Wrackspurt-repelling charms, or endless pots of tea, but what Harry really needed was someone to spout off to about the department and then get thoroughly pissed.
So, he’d have to settle for getting trollied on his own. He certainly had no shortage of sorrows to drown at the moment.
With so many of his Aurors tied up with the ICW, Harry had been forced to send teams into the field lean, and the extra work had taken a toll. Two of his most senior Aurors had needed treatment at St. Mungo’s for magical depletion, and a third had woken up to her bed frozen over like a skating rink — a side effect of exhaustion-induced erratic magic. In short, it had been hell.
Although it was barely half five, The Wick was already buzzing as Harry made his way across the crowded room. He’d always found comfort and relative anonymity in the bar’s dark interior, outfitted in heavy black wood with a large, curved bar decorated with Thestrals’ teeth and claws and feathery wings carved into the surface. In contrast, the bar seats were brass-studded red velvet, and matching red armchairs flanked spindly tables set under dim, amber lights next to a heavily curtained bank of windows that stretched across the length of the bar.
Harry’s favourite bit was the ceiling covered in paintings — some Wizarding, some Muggle. The Wizarding ones included a handful of portraits whose occupants took pains to appear scandalised at the goings on of the dancefloor just below, but moments later could be seen peeking around an old whisky barrel or out of a shadowy horse stable for another eyeful of some of the patrons’ more inventive dance moves.
Harry ordered a Firewhisky. The bartender, who was at least five years Harry’s junior and sported a pierced lip and green-tipped hair, instantly clocked him as Harry Potter. His eyes flashed briefly to the spot where Harry’s scar hid behind his mop of fringe, and then without the faintest appearance of giving even the slightest of fucks, he turned to pour Harry’s drink. Harry felt a warm trickle of appreciation.
Years ago, Harry thought he needed to chase obscurity on the Continent, until he realised the patrons of London’s gay clubs were nearly as indifferent. To swim in these Grindylow-infested waters, one needed a strong jawline, a tight arse, and the right come on. Without that, being Harry Potter wasn’t worth much, which was exactly how Harry preferred it.
Harry took his drink and snagged one of the red chairs in the corner with a view of the dance floor. He wasn’t looking to pull tonight but a bit of a show never hurt. Truth be told, he’d been so stressed lately that the last meaningful human contact he could remember was a sloppy hand job in the loos two weeks before the ICW had descended and made his life an even more anxiety-ridden nightmare than it already had been.
After two more drinks Harry was starting to feel loose. And while, yes, drinking alone was maybe not the healthiest coping mechanism, he deserved a break, goddammit. He worked hard. He did his best to serve the people. And what did he get for it? An international inquisition and what he was fairly sure was the beginnings of an ulcer. Well, fuck that. Fuck the ICW. Fuck Mr Marshmallow. And most of all, fuck Draco–
Five feet in front of him, a burly man in tight black denims and an even tighter black top with COCKSUCKER stamped across the front exited the dancefloor in pursuit of a waifish redhead wearing false eyelashes and shooting him ‘fuck me’ eyes over his shoulder. This left Harry with a clear view of two men pressed together from pecs to pricks while they swayed slightly in place. Harry couldn’t see the taller man’s face, just that he was dark-haired and broad-shouldered, wearing well-cut trousers that pulled snugly across strong-looking thighs.
Harry had a clear view of the second man though. Hair down and wearing a thin, pale blue shirt that hung loose and open almost to his sternum, was Draco fucking Malfoy.
Harry was out of his seat before he’d made the conscious decision to stand. As he closed the distance in a few short strides, Harry was vaguely aware of a wet sensation seeping across his thigh. In his haste to free himself from the little prissy table that had suddenly felt as constricting as a Jelly-Legs Jinx, he’d toppled over his drink, whose half-empty state had been Harry’s biggest problem up until five seconds ago.
Malfoy saw him first. Meanwhile Fit Thighs kept rubbing his pelvis against him in small, circular thrusts even after Malfoy went stock still, his eyes wide as Harry approached them like a steam engine.
By the time Fit Thighs looked up, ostensibly to discover why Malfoy had put an end to their little gyration game, Harry was nearly as close as the two of them.
Fit Thighs’ gaze skimmed across Harry’s face, darting inevitably between Harry’s eyes and scar and then back again. Impossibly, he stepped closer to Malfoy, his mouth twisted in an amused smirk, and Harry wondered why being Harry Potter couldn’t work in his favour just this one fucking time.
“Your boyfriend?” Fit Thighs asked without taking his eyes off Harry. He sounded almost gleeful at the prospect.
Harry said nothing, just continued to stare down Malfoy with narrowed eyes.
Slowly, Malfoy extricated himself from Fit Thighs, pulling his fingers off his hips one at a time.
“No,” he said finally, and then turned and disappeared on the spot.
Spring 2003
“You’re out of your mind.”
Malfoy’s mouth was still wet from his drink. More importantly at this very moment, he was still touching the person across from him where their hands collided in the centre of a small cafe table. The man glanced confusedly between Harry and Malfoy, and Harry decided he must be Swiss. His legs were too long to fit under the table, and his knees bracketed the round wood surface like planetary moons in orbit.
Harry offered nothing in response. He wasn’t sure if Malfoy’s date was a Wizard. So instead, he was trying to remember anything about Switzerland’s Statue of Secrecy and the penalty for breaking it. He was pretty sure the Swiss were either radically more open with Muggles, or radically more secretive, and he couldn’t recall which. Briefly, he wished Hermione was here to set him straight but dismissed the thought immediately. This was not a confrontation he wanted to explain to her of all people.
After a long few moments, during which Malfoy glared at Harry and Harry glared back while surreptitiously checking out the maybe-Swiss guy and wracking his brain for facts on Swiss law, Malfoy stood from the table, his chair scraping harshly against the cobblestones of Metzgergasse.
Swiss guy looked up at him questioningly, but he still appeared entirely placid, and Malfoy rattled something off in what sounded like perfect Swiss German while Harry fumed, because of course Malfoy spoke Swiss German.
“Over there, now,” Malfoy bit out, pointing to the stone archway situated next to Cranberry Bar. He stormed off without waiting to see if Harry would follow.
Once they were tucked into the shadows of Schneggengasse, Malfoy whirled on him.
“What on earth is your fucking problem, Potter? I have no idea why the fuck you’re in Zürich, but I have even less idea why you think you can intrude on my date like some psychotic ex-lover.”
A lock of Malfoy’s hair had fallen into his eyes while he spoke. Harry focused on the way it fanned against Malfoy’s cheek while adrenaline leaked out of him, leaving behind the realisation that perhaps he was acting like a complete arse.
“I’m in Zürich,” was all Harry could think to say. But that was the thing, wasn’t it? Harry was in Zürich, and he’d thought of nothing but Malfoy since the moment he touched ground. Granted, unlike Harry, Malfoy hadn’t had advance notice that they were in the same strange idyll together once again. Still, it rankled, knowing that Malfoy wasn’t aching from some Harry-shaped need the way he was.
“Yes, that part I got,” Malfoy said snippily. He was flushed, with anger or booze or both, delicate splotches of pink traipsing down his throat and disappearing into the neck of his light jumper.
"What?” Malfoy laughed, and it was a cruel, bitter sound, eerily reminiscent of the virulent git Harry had known at school, and yet at the same time completely new. “Did you think I was waiting for you? That I hoped you’d show up again one year later and we’d do it all again?”
Malfoy leaned into Harry’s space and despite the sting of rejection, the proximity still gave Harry a perverse thrill.
“Get this through your skull, Potter. This isn’t a bloody fairy tale. Last year was a bizarre coincidence that led to a decent fuck. Stop acting like the Fates are at work.”
When Malfoy leaned back, his face had smoothed completely. The only sign that he’d just told Harry to go stuff it in the most humiliating terms possible were the fading spots still dotting his neck.
Harry stayed quiet as Malfoy crossed back to the small table and his date with the too-long legs. He watched as the waiter approached and Malfoy looked up at him with a smile, presumably asking for more time to decide. When the waiter disappeared, Malfoy turned to Swiss guy and shook his head bashfully, rolling his eyes.
But that night, when knuckles rapped loudly against the door to room 528 at the Marktgasse, Harry was waiting.
Winter 2008
Monday dawned grey and water-logged, and for the first time in eight years, Harry debated calling in sick.
By the time he’d dragged himself out of bed, he was already running twenty minutes late. The water was barely warm by the time he finished his three-minute shower, and he rushed his shaving charm and ended up nicking himself on the neck. He didn’t bother to heal it, so a bit of blood dripped onto his white shirt collar, and even after his hastily cast Scourgify there was still a pink spot.
Robards looked less than impressed when Harry slid into the conference room after everyone had already been seated.
Harry took the seat between him and Martha, pulling at the clasp of his robes in an effort to hide his mangled collar, which felt practically neon sat across from the row of ICW officials in their intergalactic uniforms.
Robards leaned over to whisper in his ear. “You look like shite.”
Harry suppressed his eye roll. “Thanks, Gawain. That’s helpful.”
To his right, Martha chimed in, “He’s right, you know,” and Harry wished he’d listened to himself for once and just stayed in bed.
Across the table, Mr Marshmallow cleared his throat to bring the meeting to order. It was a status update on the inquiry timetable — which, in Harry’s opinion, could have been done by memo — and nothing Harry didn’t already know. So he let Mr Marshmallow’s nasally voice fade to a background hum and dared a glance at Malfoy.
At the very end of the table, he looked as pristine and aloof as ever, the high collar of his crisp, bright uniform buttoned almost up to the chin. Harry’s mind flashed back to The Wick — Malfoy decked out in a relaxed, silky shirt that exposed the soft blond hairs on his chest, Fit Thigh’s fingers pressed against his waist.
“Auror Potter?”
Mr Marshmallow’s voice pierced through Harry’s daydream just as Martha dug her high heel into the top of his boot and a mild Stinging Hex landed against his ribs from the direction of Robard’s chair.
Harry barely resisted a wince. When he looked up, Marshmallow’s eyes were not on him but on the quill gripped in his hand. The eagle feather was sticking out at a ninety-degree angle where the shaft had snapped almost in two. He set the quill down on the tabletop, covering the break with his palm.
“Yes, fine. Please continue,” Harry replied finally. Mr Marshmallow resumed his monotone droning, and Harry resisted the urge to fiddle with his collar again. Before he could stop himself, his eyes slid to Malfoy, who was nodding along to Marshmallow with polite if not rapt attention. Anger flared in Harry’s gut, and he forced himself to approximate at least the appearance of attention for the rest of the meeting.
By the time he made it to his office, it was only half-nine and Harry was determined to upgrade the day from ‘irredeemably pear-shaped’ to ‘barely tolerable.’
That was until Hermione’s barn owl Emmeline rapped at his window. Unrolling the short parchment, Harry nearly groaned.
Wonderful time in Wales, except now Ron won’t stop asking for a cwtch and then falling into hysterics. Dinner on Friday? Can’t wait to see you!
Hermione
PS. I ran into Draco in the Wizengamot Law Library before we left. He was completely civil — it was a bit surreal!
Harry crumpled the note and threw it into the fire. There was no helping it: the day was officially shit.
Spring 2004
Harry had started to measure Spring in flowers. As soon as the yellow and white daffodils erupted in St. James’s Park, he began to count down. His heart sped up when he spotted the first camellias tumbling over front garden walls in Islington. And once the last of the soft, pink ballet slippers had fallen from the magnolia trees, Harry knew it was time to go.
The sunshine in Zürich made the cherry trees more spectacular than in London, at least to Harry’s eyes, though he was past denying his preference had more to do with the reason for his yearly pilgrimage than the temporary respite from London’s dreary skies.
Malfoy was already sitting at one of the small tables in front of the Marktgasse. A wide umbrella protected him from the midday sun, but he still wore a large pair of black, angular sunnies that looked elegant against his pale complexion and platinum hair. His shirt was light lavender and looked whisper-thin, whipping slightly in the afternoon breeze. His long legs were crossed, showing off bare ankles and woven leather loafers beneath slim, black trousers. He was beautiful.
Harry dropped his holdall next to the table and flopped into the seat opposite. International Portkeys always wiped him out.
Malfoy said nothing, but a small smile played across his lips as he twisted his takeaway cup of tea between his fingers on the tabletop.
The silence stretched, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Harry could feel his body start to wake up, as if he’d emerged from a long winter but hadn’t realised he’d been in hibernation.
Malfoy’s neck stretched long as he swallowed the last of his tea. Harry let his eyes rove over his skin, the curve of his throat and the hint of his collarbone as his shirt shifted and settled again. When he finished, he pushed the cup aside. Harry wished he could see Malfoy’s eyes, but at the same time appreciated the heightened tension of not being able to read his expression, hidden in plain sight.
“Why do you keep coming?” Malfoy asked at last.
Harry mulled over the question. For a moment he debated trying to turn the tables and asking Malfoy the very same thing. But this time he didn’t want to hold back. He’d travelled across countries again for no other reason than this. There was no credible pretence of restraint, at least not on Harry’s part. This push and pull between them relied on control as well as its absence.
“Because I can’t stop,” Harry said.
Malfoy’s attempted smirk couldn’t cover the surprised, pleased expression that flitted across his face, open and clear as the sky over Zürich.
Winter 2008
Harry swiped at his forehead with the back of his hand.
Irrationally, he blamed Malfoy even though for the past two hours he’d done nothing more than sit in his usual spot at the end of the conference room table taking copious notes and barely looking in Harry’s direction. But Harry was positive that Malfoy kept a handkerchief in his robes, whereas Harry had always thought it seemed old-fashioned and pretentious. Still, at the moment he’d take pretentious over soggy and unkempt, and begrudged Malfoy the difference.
Martha’s shoe came down hard on Harry’s foot and he winced. He’d need a healing charm after this.
“Could you repeat the question?” Martha asked Mr Marshmallow. “I don’t think Auror Potter quite heard you.”
“Certainly,” Marshmallow said drily, glancing at his notes before pinning Harry to the spot with an expression that strangely reminded Harry of a puffed-up squirrel defending an acorn. “What information did you have before you deployed a team to Hampstead on 21 September 2008?”
Harry bit back a sigh, not out of deference to Marshmallow but to spare his foot any further abuse. He wondered how many more times the same question could be asked in slightly modified forms.
“We received an Emergency Floo call from Janelle Wilson that her husband Robert was involved in a verbal altercation with their adult son David. She feared it might escalate and didn’t think her husband would be able to defend himself if the argument turned magical or physical.”
Even though Harry could now recite this information in his sleep, it still brought him back to that day. How at the time he’d received it everything had still seemed so typical, so benign.
“Were you familiar with the Muggle-Magical composition of that area of Hampstead?” Marshmallow asked.
“As per Auror protocol, we consulted demographic data for the area and determined that the Albermarle Mansions, where the Wilsons lived, was largely inhabited by Muggles,” Harry answered.
Marshmallow’s lips twitched, which Harry had come to appreciate as a tell that the questioning was going to become particularly pointed.
“Were you aware at that point the Wilsons had another son, who was a Squib?”
Harry held back an eye roll. What he wanted to say was, Oh, of course. Right after telling me she thought her son was about to blow her husband to bits, she casually mentioned she’d moved to Hampstead to provide a full life to his younger brother Thomas who now lives in Kensington and works as a banker.
Instead, he replied, “No, we did not have that information at the time.”
“Were you aware that the Wilsons and their son David were estranged?”
“No.”
“Were you aware that the Wilsons regularly babysat for a 12-year-old Muggle boy named Bryan Griffiths?”
Harry swallowed. “No.”
Marshmallow’s mouth shivered. “What is Auror protocol when responding to a call for a potential violent crime in a predominantly Muggle area?”
Harry took as deep a breath as he dared and blowed slowly out his nose.
“Every effort is made to avoid violation of the Statute of Secrecy except in circumstances involving the risk of grievous bodily injury or death. Whenever possible, Shield Charms are used to reduce the risk of spell ricochet or the penetration or puncture of walls or other physical structures which could expose Muggles to risk of harm.”
Next to him, Harry could feel Martha’s approval radiating off the set of her shoulders but all he could think was but we didn’t, but we didn’t, but we didn’t.
Marshmallow’s lips continued to dance, and Harry could swear the gesture carried an air of pleasure.
“Was the Auror team who responded to the Wilsons’ on 21 September 2008 apprised of the protocol in advance?”
“They didn’t need to be apprised, they’re experienced Aurors. They were informed the call was in a PMA and it was understood they would act accordingly.”
Marshmallow raised an eyebrow. “By PMA you mean Predominantly Muggle Area?”
“Yes,” Harry answered, remembering Martha’s instruction not to use Auror-speak unless necessary. Something about sounding cold and tactical.
“Under what circumstances would it not be possible for an Auror team to cast the necessary Shield charms to mitigate the risk of injury to Muggles?” Marshmallow asked.
Harry felt Martha shift in her seat. That was her more subtle tell for ‘don’t fuck up your answer.’
“In exigent circumstances in which there is a clear and present risk of death or grievous injury,” Harry recited. He thought he could hear Martha’s faint exhale beside him.
Marshmallow paused, accepting a note passed down the table from one of the other ICW members. Harry had yet to see Malfoy pass over any notes, and he didn’t know how he’d react if he did.
Marshmallow scanned the sheet before shuffling it to the bottom of the stack of parchment in front of him.
“Are there occasions on which it is still possible to establish perimeter Shield Charms even in exigent circumstances?”
Harry bit the inside of his cheek. “Yes.”
Marshmallow sucked in his lips, and Harry suspected he was fighting a smile.
“Such as?”
“When there is sufficient manpower to divide team members between offensive engagement and searching and securing additional areas outside the location of the immediate threat.”
“And do you ever assign teams with insufficient manpower to respond to potentially violent crimes?”
Under the table, Harry flexed his fingers and then rested his balled fist on his thigh. Martha coughed, another “signal” but this one deliberate.
“The sufficiency of the manpower depends on the nature of the threat and the size of the location, which is not something that can be determined in advance in every instance.”
“You were aware in this instance that the potential threat involved a two-person altercation inside a four-room Mansion flat?”
Harry squeezed his fist until his nails bit into the flesh of his palm hard enough to leave a mark.
“We didn’t know the exact number of rooms, but we understood it was a Mansion flat and therefore its likely size.”
“Was the team you assigned of sufficient number to establish perimeter Shield Charms even if the circumstances required immediate offensive engagement?”
Martha coughed again.
“Again, it depends on the nature of the altercation. Not just the number of persons involved but the type of magic deployed and the physical and logistical constraints of the location.”
“This was a four-person team, correct?”
Harry nodded. “Yes.”
“What is your understanding of the circumstances they encountered when they responded to the Wilson’s flat?”
Martha piped up. “As you’re aware, Auror Potter was not present at that time. The purpose of this interview is to establish compliance with Auror protocol.”
As Martha and Marshmallow squabbled, Harry took the opportunity to sip his water and breathe, which he knew was precisely Martha’s intent. He chanced a look to the end of the conference table. Malfoy was still not looking at him, bent so far over his parchment as he scribbled furiously that a few stray strands of hair brushed against the table.
“Do you need me to repeat the question, Auror Potter?”
Harry snapped back to Marshmallow.
“No, thank you. I am aware that the team Apparated outside of the flat and entered through the front door, which opened into the reception room. There they encountered an ongoing wandfight between Robert Wilson and David Wilson. Janelle Wilson was crouched in one corner of the room behind an armchair. David Wilson was casting a variety of hexes and curses, including the Cruciatus Curse.
Auror Seville moved to cover Mrs Wilson with a Shield Charm. Aurors Ansari and Li engaged David Wilson in an effort to disarm and subdue him. Auror Meriweather shielded Mr Wilson and cast Shield Charms around the street-facing front windows.”
Marshmallow pursed his lips. “At some point thereafter, David Wilson cast a Bombarda Maxima that struck a wall shared by an adjoining bedroom, where Bryan Griffiths was hiding and was crushed to death in the ensuing rubble, correct?”
Harry took a sip of his water. He counted it as a win that his hand didn’t shake.
“Correct.”
Martha pushed back her chair. “Now seems like a good time for a break.”
By the time Harry got home that night, he was surprised to have made it back to Grimmauld in one piece. His magic felt wonky, and he was so exhausted he was half expecting the Floo to swallow him up and spit him out Merlin knew where.
The weeks his team had spent in interview after interview had been so torturous Harry hadn’t fully considered how brutal his own interview would be. He was actually looking forward to feeling a bit more in control, free from the sense of helplessness he’d felt watching his Auorors be put through the ringer and not being able to do anything to help.
Martha had tried to tell him. She’d warned that he was last because Marshmallow was building his case, assembling the facts so he could use them against Harry to prove the team had failed to follow protocol.
Still, Harry wasn’t prepared for five hours of verbal traps and deductive set-ups. Not to mention the grating presence of Malfoy at the end of the table, refusing to look in his direction while Marshmallow laid into him question after question with barely concealed glee.
Harry poured himself an extra finger of Firewhiskey and collapsed onto the sofa. He took a deep drink, relishing the harsh burn as it slipped down his throat and began to seep into his tired psyche.
When the Floo flared to life, Harry was too languid to do anything but lift his head from the back of the sofa. He idly wondered if it was Ron or Hermione coming to check on him. Or Martha, wanting to reassure Harry yet again that he hadn’t cocked the whole thing up, which he’d fretted over for nearly an hour in her office after the interview had finally concluded.
To his utter shock, the person who stepped out of the Floor was none other than Draco Malfoy, still pristinely dressed in his ICW spacesuit.
But the shock faded, and immediately Harry’s body flooded with anger. Malfoy was lucky he was knackered, otherwise he might have pushed him straight back into the Floo. Still, there was a small part of Harry awed by the fact that Draco Malfoy was standing in Grimmauld Place, something he’d once imagined with regularity but never actually believed would come to pass.
Standing stock still in the centre of the rug next to the hearth, Malfoy looked uncertain. His eyes flitted from Harry to the rest of the sitting room and then back to Harry, as if he’d ended up at Harry’s house by accident and was still trying to get his bearings.
Harry sighed. This in no way resembled his former fantasies about Malfoy inside his home.
“Bit of an odd time for you to acknowledge my existence, finally” Harry said. “But seeing as I am completely worn out, kindly fuck off.”
Malfoy was quiet for a long moment, but when Harry opened his mouth to renew the demand for him to get the hell out, he spoke.
“Krause is a dick.”
Harry scrunched his face in bewilderment. Nothing about the name Krause was ringing any bells. He peered into his glass, worried he’d had more to drink than he realised.
“He isn’t even pretending the ICW is supposed to be a neutral factfinder,” Malfoy went on, oblivious to Harry’s confusion.
Oh, Harry thought. Mr Marshmallow.
“No shit,” Harry said, draining his glass. “But I didn’t need you to come over here to tell me that. I was there, remember? For five fucking hours. So, again, if you’d please fuck off now, I’d like to go to bed.”
Harry stood from the couch, but Malfoy gave no sign he planned to move. Harry scrubbed his hands over his eyes. He didn’t have the energy for this.
“I can’t believe you’ve turned up like this, today of all days,” Harry muttered, feeling his anger return. “You’ve always jerked me around, haven’t you? One way or another?”
Just as quickly as it rose to the surface, the fight drained out of him and Harry felt even more tired than before. He stared at Malfoy, whose expression was as closed off and unreadable as ever.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Harry asked. He didn’t expect Malfoy to respond, and he was moments from leaving him in the sitting room to his own devices when finally, Malfoy spoke up.
“Because I can’t stop,” he said, his voice low and broken, and before Harry’s mind could catch up to the visceral reaction at hearing those words fall from Malfoy’s lips, he’d crossed the room and slid a hand into Harry’s hair, pressing their lips together, hot and hard and urgent.
It was only seconds later when Malfoy pulled away, and he was across the room before Harry could even process that the kiss had ended. Malfoy’s eyes were downcast, and he breathed hard as he gripped the fireplace mantle.
“I’m sorry,” he said tightly. “I can’t. Not while the investigation is ongoing.”
Hope shot through Harry’s chest, but before he could respond, Malfoy grabbed a pinch of Floo powder from the bowl and shouted an address Harry couldn’t make out over the rush of blood pounding in his head.
Fall 1998
A few charred paper remnants fluttered to the floor and disintegrated into dust on contact.
“Nice,” Harry nodded in approval. He pointed his wand at the next sheet of parchment in the small stack between him and Malfoy, muttering the charm and watching as it folded itself up into a paper aeroplane before it launched itself into the air with another flick of his wand.
“Incendio,” Malfoy incanted, and a jet of fire shot from the tip of his wand and swallowed the aeroplane whole. The embers fell to the ground to join the growing pile of ash.
They’d been at it for at least an hour, sitting on the floor of Malfoy’s bedroom with their backs against his massive four poster while they took turns folding planes and then setting them alight. Harry wasn’t sure if the game was a childhood relic or a pastime Malfoy had picked up when he’d been confined to the Manor, and Harry hadn’t asked.
This time, after he’d landed unannounced outside the Manor’s gates, Famy had led him straight to Malfoy’s room. And while Malfoy had once again asked Harry why he was there, he’d stepped aside to let Harry by as he said it.
Other than the occasional comment on a wonky plane or an overdone jet of fire, they didn’t speak. But the silence felt comfortable and complete in a way Harry didn’t fully understand.
Harry shot down Malfoy’s next plane with an extra bit of flare, the flames sparking like mini fireworks when they made contact with the parchment.
When a few moments passed but no new plane appeared, he looked questioningly at Malfoy.
Malfoy’s wand rested loosely in his hand at his side. His face was turned in Harry’s direction and there was a slight bunch to his forehead, as if Harry was a library book he’d been tasked with reshelving but couldn’t figure out how to catalogue.
For the first time all afternoon, Harry felt self-conscious, but he willed himself not to look away.
“What?” he asked, trying to keep the defensiveness out of his voice.
Malfoy shook his head, but the gesture seemed meant more for him than for Harry.
“Why do you keep coming?” Malfoy asked.
Now Harry did turn, aiming his wand at the pile of parchment and sending a plane as high as he dared before incinerating it. He kept going like that, flinging planes into the air and then scorching them in a ball of fire, ignoring the feeling of Malfoy’s eyes searching the side of his face.
“What’s next for you?” Harry said at last, partly because he wanted to know but mostly for something to say.
“I don’t know,” Malfoy answered, lightly shoving Harry’s wand arm aside before folding his first plane in what felt to Harry like a short eternity. “What’s next for you?”
Harry watched as Malfoy’s plane exploded in a burst of flames, singed bits of paper arching toward the floor like shooting stars. “I don’t know either.”
Winter 2008
Harry slammed his door shut with a flick of his wand.
Far from comforting, Robards’ reassurances as he handed over the commission’s preliminary report — Not as bad as it could have been and The department will get through this and We knew this was coming and Krause is a right prick — only ratcheted up his anxiety to near unbearable levels. Patty, perhaps more familiar than anyone with Robards’ so-called pep talks, had offered him a sympathetic look and a shrug as Harry made for his office, report in hand.
He threw himself into his chair and flung a strong locking charm at the door for good measure. The report was bound and thick enough to qualify as a short book, and he paged through the first few pages to find the table of contents, scanning until he found the section containing the commission’s conclusions. He flicked to the correct page and with a last deep breath in and slow exhale, he started to read.
It wasn’t long before his body temperature and heart rate were high enough that he needed to close his eyes and take a break, breathing in for four beats and holding for four more, breathing out nice and slow until his lungs were empty. In and out, in and out, until his emotions simmered to a heavy weight on his chest instead of a vise tightening around his throat.
He cycled between anger and indignation and guilt with every new paragraph.
Best practices require a verbal recitation of relevant public safety policies before the execution of any field mission.
The report of a potentially violent incident in a predominantly-Muggle area required the assignment of an additional Auror to the responding field team.
The commission finds that the exigent circumstances were not such that protective measures could not have been executed simultaneously.
Auror Meriweather did Shield the street-facing windows, but failed to establish a protective perimeter within the Wilson residence.
Bryan Griffiths’ death was preventable and avoidable.
Harry let his head droop down between his shoulders and stayed like that for long minutes, the final line of the commission’s findings looping through his mind over and over. The grief was nearly as fresh as it was on the day of the mission, when Li’s sleek dolphin Patronus had appeared in his office, reporting in her steady, serious voice 'Backup requested. Perpetrator apprehended. One casualty, Muggle juvenile.'
Harry forced his eyes back to the report, turning to the next section titled Objections and Dissenting Opinions. Any member of the commission could set forth objections to any of the report’s findings or offer a minority opinion.
The page was blank.
Harry saw red.
After ten laps on Level 5, Harry was still fuming.
He’d run into a young clerk from International Magical Cooperation, who’d taken one look at him, fists clenched and muttering to himself as he stormed through the halls, and fled in the opposite direction.
By the time he got back on the lift, Harry’s rage had mellowed into mere fury, which felt like a significant improvement under the circumstances, although he was sure Hermione wouldn’t agree.
That was until the doors dinged open on Level 4 to reveal Draco Malfoy in his snow-white uniform.
Something like shock flitted across Malfoy’s features. He made no move to get on, and in Harry’s current state, the most mature response he was capable of was to angrily push the 'door closed' button until the doors started to shutter.
Right before Malfoy disappeared from sight, he stuck his arm into the closing gap, and the doors wrenched open again. He stepped on, and Harry’s fury quickly boiled over into rage again. He was glad the lift was otherwise empty, because Harry wasn't sure he could maintain any semblance of professionalism just now.
They stood facing the doors as the lift heaved into motion, and Harry’s brief hope that they’d make it through the short ride to Level 2 without exchanging a word was dashed when Malfoy started to speak.
“Any mission subject to an ICW inquisition will be reviewed with the strictest scrutiny,” he said, sounding like he was quoting directly from the bloody report.
“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Harry demanded, still looking straight ahead. His body felt on fire and if he turned to look directly at Malfoy, there was a chance his head might explode.
“You know as well as I do that under that standard any mission will come up short.”
The lift rattled to a stop at Level 2.
“Thanks ever so for your thoughts, Assistant Secretary-General Malfoy,” Harry sniped as he exited the doors. “But I can read the bloody report for myself.”
Fall 1998
Harry fingered the small scrap of parchment in his pocket.
It was the first time he’d actually been invited over. Usually, he just showed up whenever he fancied, which was more often than not these days. By now, Famy didn’t even bother to escort him up to Malfoy’s room. She just bowed deeply at the door and then got on with whatever it was she did all day.
But today when he’d opened the bedroom door, Malfoy had looked uncertain. Since he’d asked Harry over, he couldn’t demand to know why he was there, and without their usual game he seemed unsure how to proceed.
Eventually they found their way to their usual spots in the matching beige and buff striped chairs, grey light streaming through the winter green curtain-draped windows. But Malfoy’s jitteriness had only increased with time, and now Harry knew why.
“Where will you go?” he asked. His voice sounded strange to his own ears, but Malfoy didn’t seem to notice. He could barely look Harry in the eye.
Malfoy shrugged. His arms wrapped awkwardly around his waist. “Away.”
Harry nodded. He understood too well to say anything more.
But there was a sick feeling at the base of his throat, and as they sat there, the air tense and thick, he already missed the strange silence he’d found with Draco Malfoy of all people.
Winter 2008
“You weren’t in your office.”
Harry turned to find Malfoy pulled even with him, leaning against the chain fence looking out over the boats bobbing gently at St Katharine Docks. It was windy and his loose hair whipped across his cheeks in the thin afternoon light.
“How did you find me?” Harry asked because it didn’t seem worthwhile to ask Malfoy to go.
“I actually checked two other places before I came here,” Malfoy replied.
“Really?” Harry said, unable to keep the surprise from his voice.
Malfoy’s mouth tipped up at the corners. “No. I came here straight away. You always loved to watch the boats at the Limmat River Docks. It felt worth a try.”
Harry swallowed, trying to tamp down a swell of emotion. Guilt and stress and heartache had turned him into a bloody mess.
“I always said you were a simple man, Potter,” Malfoy said, but there was no bite to it. He sounded almost fond.
Staring out over the marina, they lapsed into a silence more comfortable than Harry could have imagined four weeks ago when Malfoy walked into the Level 2 conference room for the first time, the only sound the seagulls and the gentle lap of water against the docks.
“I had to join the opinion,” Malfoy said at last, and Harry wondered if he should bother telling him to stop, not to ruin this strange peace. “There’d be hell to pay if I objected,” he continued, “and then word got out we were together.”
Harry turned so quickly he needed to grab the baluster to keep upright.
Malfoy was full-on smirking now, as if imagining how close Harry had been to a midday swim.
“Together?” Harry asked, and he couldn’t spare a moment’s concern for how desperate and hopeful he sounded. Behind them, a man with a small, white dog was crossing over the bridge, the collar of his coat turned up against the chill.
Malfoy didn’t look away. “Together.”
His voice was sure, but there was something in his face, a frisson of worry, that made Harry want to trust what he was hearing.
“And your job?”
Malfoy shrugged, shoulders loose and his expression open. “I told them I needed to go away.”
Two hours later, tangled up together in his bed, Harry decided that the reality of Malfoy inside Grimmauld Place eclipsed even the very best fantasy he’d ever had.
He groaned as Malfoy rolled on top of him and slipped his tongue inside Harry’s mouth, licking languorously.
“Fuck,” Harry whispered, his hips pushing up involuntarily. “I missed this.”
He bit at Malfoy’s answering smirk against his mouth.
“Good,” Malfoy said. “Because I’m not done with you. We’ve got three years to make up for.”
“Pretty sure that last go was worth at least six months,” Harry said, and Malfoy laughed, high and bright, and Harry could feel the sound all the way to his toes.
“Am I tiring you out already, Potter?” Malfoy teased. He reached between them to wrap his fist around Harry’s hardening prick. “Feels like I could get another month out of you at least.”
“Maybe two,” Harry moaned, pushing up into Malfoy’s hand. He hooked a leg around Malfoy’s calf, urging him on until Malfoy slid his fingers down to circle Harry’s hole, still slippery with Malfoy’s spend.
Malfoy leaned down to press a soft, sweet kiss against Harry’s mouth. “Let’s see how we get on then,” he whispered before slipping two fingers inside him.
“Fuck yes,” Harry groaned, sucking greedily at Malfoy’s mouth. “I need—”
The ding of the Floo alert filled the air and they both froze.
Malfoy pulled back far enough so he could meet Harry’s eyes. “Did you not close the fucking Floo?”
Harry was about to admit that, no, he didn’t close the Floo, because he was too preoccupied with getting Malfoy’s clothes off and his cock inside of him, when Hermione’s echoey voice reverberated from the other end of the hall.
“Harry, are you up there?” she called out.
“What the fuck Potter, is she actually coming up here?” Malfoy hissed.
“It appears so,” Harry said, shoving lightly at his chest. “And maybe we could have this conversation without your fingers inside me, yeah?”
Malfoy snorted but rolled over, submitting to Harry’s hasty Scourgify before reaching over the side of the bed to grab his shirt and throw it on, fumbling with the fiddly pearlescent buttons as he pulled up the duvet to bunch around their waists.
Harry groped around the floor for his white t-shirt, pulling it over his undoubtedly sex-mussed head as he called out, “Just a minute ‘Mione.”
Unfortunately, it was at that moment that Harry’s door cracked open. A loud gasp filtered into the room, followed immediately by Ron’s distinctive, "What is it, ‘Mione?”
“Fuck,” Harry whispered, letting his head knock against the headboard. He could feel Malfoy stiffen next to him. Harry sighed. Louder he said, “Come on then. Let’s get this over with.”
He chanced a glance at Malfoy. He’d gone bright pink and was staring hard, but instead of looking murderous, like Harry expected, his expression seemed a strange mix of embarrassed and oddly approving.
Harry shot him a small smile as Hermione pushed open the door and awkwardly shuffled in.
“What on earth?” Ron screeched, and Harry turned to his two best friends with a sheepish grin. Ron looked gobsmacked, his jaw gaping open as his eyes darted between Harry and Malfoy.
“We’re sorry to, uh, intrude,” Hermione said, and Harry noticed she’d gone nearly as pink as Malfoy. “We heard about the report” — her eyes darted to Malfoy — “and we wanted to check on you.”
“Forget the bloody report,” Ron spluttered. “What the fuck is going on here?”
“Well,” Harry said, fumbling over the top of the duvet until he found Malfoy’s hand and linked their fingers. Malfoy went even pinker. “Malfoy and I, er, I mean, Draco and I,” — Harry felt a brief squeeze of his hand — “we’re together.”
Ron’s mouth gaped wider but surprisingly, Hermione only smiled. Her eyes darted quickly to Draco, and they shared a fleeting look, which Harry filed away to grill her about later.
After a long, strained pause, Ron asked faintly, “When did this happen?”
Harry looked at Malfoy, who was sitting as straight and dignified as one could manage after being caught half-dressed in bed with one’s current-former lover and one-time nemesis. A small smile played across his lips.
He turned back to Ron and Hermione. “How about you go and put on some tea, and we’ll meet you in the kitchen. This could take a while.”