wherein curious is accidentally productive...twice in one week?
And now, because my beta's just that awesome, the next part of Childhood Chews.
Disclaimers and such here.
one / two / three / four / five / six
"You owled who?" Draco tried for calm, really he did, because he was the adult here, no question about it. But either Teddy Lupin was thick as a stump or he was a manipulative little shit, and frankly, Draco'd bet on that last.
Teddy, for his part, seemed utterly unconcerned. "You said I could have a play if I was good," Teddy said, eminently reasonable as only a guiltlessly misbehaved child could.
Draco rubbed his temples. Tried not to twitch.
"Yes, Merlin, a play, not some sort of Gryffindor extravaganza this weekend."
Teddy scowled at that. "S'not an eggstra…egg…one of those. S'a play. Like you said."
Somewhere in the far reaches of this Manor, his father's ghost was no doubt laughing long and hard about this, Draco and his scowling, stubborn insubordinate.
"You can't even write yet, how the bloody hell could you owl?" There were many, many things wrong with Teddy's plan, from his reckless inviting of all who'd been Wheezed smallish for a day of games and such at the Manor to his surprisingly stealthy posting of said invitations.
Teddy beamed pride and pleasure. "Oh, that. Moggy helped me. And read me my replies."
His own house elves were turning on him, he'd no choice now. Draco pinched his nose at its bridge and whimpered silently a bit, to which Teddy said, "They're all coming," like that was the most brilliant news in the history of the world.
A house full of bloody Gryffindors. Again. And yeah, maybe he'd been all right with most of them recently, but they'd kept their distance, been friendly acquaintances more than real mates, he'd not been converted to Gryffindordom or anything, and he'd liked it that way, having that space as a buffer. And in one set of covert owlings, Teddy had stripped it. Like it was nothing.
"Really, Uncle Dragon, it'll be fun, you'll see. Just like last time, only better because we'll know our own teams and everything already." And Teddy smiled like it was Christmas, and Draco's resolve drained, and Teddy said, "Didn't you say I needed mates?" and Draco was sunk.
Merlin Almighty, this day was going to shit.
***
"I don't see the problem," Granger said, closing the conversation like a book. Draco, well, it wasn't quite a gurgle of disbelief, but Malfoys never whimpered in public, either, which left him bereft of explanation for that next sound. She huffed a sigh. Turned on him in Polly Mum flashback. "Oh, honestly. It's a play date. It's hardly the end of the world, now is it?"
"I don't play," he sneered. Tried to, anyway, but it was bloody hard, a decent sneer, in the face of such blatant railroading. "Particularly not with Gryffindors."
"So don't. After all, it's Teddy's invitation, is it not?" She beamed all the wrong answers. "No one's going to force you to join in if you don't want to."
Just there, on the tip of his tongue, locked under flummoxed fury, lay the reminder that yes, Teddy would absolutely force him to join in, and anyway, he'd had more than enough gratuitous Gryffindoring in his manor as it was, and as soon as he'd sorted a way around said fury, he planned to say as much. Only, the fury didn't seem to be unflummoxing itself, so his communication was in rather an unfortunate tangle.
Story of his life, that.
***
Lovegood, blast her, agreed with Granger.
***
"You understand, right, Pansy?" Please, Merlin, just one of them…
She flashed her ever-present bottle obscenely. "More than you, I'd think," she said. "After all, darling, I know what Ginny and Potter had in common." Then she sing-songed that ridiculous, "bent as a really bent thing," again and honest to Merlin, one of these days, Draco was going to snap and do something tremendously violent with that bottle after all.
Mates, he thought, may have been overrated.
***
Merlin let him down on a regular basis, so Draco didn't bother asking for some calamity to keep Potter away. Then the git was there, standing by his Floo and shuffling nervous, looking to Ron as if for support.
"Ron, I…I shouldn't be here," Potter said, tugging on Ron's sleeve and looking quite young. Skittish, even.
Ron looked impatient, a thin sort of disgust, really, and said, "Are you telling Teddy, then? Because I'm not." Then Ron looked up and grinned brilliantly and said, "There he is, the other Wheeze, how's it going, mate?" like Draco wasn't just a potions rat, like Draco was maybe family.
Which was odd as hell, but somewhat familiar.
Bloody hell, they were mates. Mates with the Weasel, where had he gone wrong?
***
They danced avoidance at first, ignoring each other as best they could, and yeah, maybe Draco could feel his new maybe-mates staring at him like he'd turned carnival attraction, but how was that new? Him and Potter, they'd always had everyone's eye, no matter how much they didn't want it, and at least this wouldn't end in The Prophet, so that was something. A very small something.
Teddy came in from the kitchen with Nev, chattering happy like he hadn't a care, and wasn't that nice, everyone comfortable but the man of the house and the boy bloody hero? Then Nev said, "Hi, Harry," and Teddy stopped talking and kind of scraped across the floor in a burst of indoor running, only to stop short a couch-length away.
"Where is he?" Teddy asked. "Where's Grr? Did you forget him? I asked you special."
Potter flushed. "Erm, yeah. Sorry."
Draco found five synonyms for "liar, liar, pants on fire" before Potter'd said a word. What's Grr?, his arse.
"S'not right, taking things," Teddy scolded, and Potter made a good show of looking suitably chastised. Draco felt just as awkward as Potter looked, uncomfortably aware that everyone had heard, and before Pansy could say a thing about strops and silliness, Ron muttered, "Harry, give up the stuffed thing? Not bloody likely, is it?" in a tone which said far more than his words. Like those hadn't said enough.
Lovegood hummed a tune Draco swore was Pansy's "bent as a bent thing" and Granger rocked on her heels smugly.
Draco felt like he'd missed the plot until Teddy said, "S'all right, you can bring him next time, right?" in that bright chirp, at which point Draco became convinced the boy had it in for him.
***
Teddy's plans more than held that up.
***
“It’ll be brilliant,” Teddy said, eyes bright at the thought of the game ahead. “We can play Aurors and Death Eaters again, and there's real Aurors and everything.”
Potter squirmed. Hardly the most anticipatory motion, either, more evasion than enthusiasm, which Draco didn’t like. “Yeah,” Weasley said, wary eyes on Potter. “We’re real Aurors and everything.”
The smile Weasley spared Teddy, though, that rang sweetly genuine. Draco considered the unimaginable reality wherein the chief gits of Gryffindor had smiles for wee Malfoys and their ilk, then wanted to kick himself for where that thought had gone. Nowhere good, but something awfully Tiny Potter.
Teddy nodded like that was it, it was settled. “So you’ll be the Aurors, then, because you’re really really Aurors-“ he hopped then, looked about ten seconds from some form of spontaneous magical incident. Then he turned a lowered-lash smile at Draco and the Hufflepuffery so captivating the others cracked just a bit, went small Slytherin sly. "But if we have really real Aurors, we need really real Death Eaters for them to catch or it won't be fair. Right, Uncle Dragon?"
Oh, Merlin, no.
***
“That way lies Firewhisky,” someone muttered, and yeah, Draco rather had to agree.
“Loads,” he said. “On me.”
Weasley flicked his own ear awkwardly. “Yeah, all right, so it’ll be a night out at the Broomsticks and Obliviate all ‘round, yeah?”
“Perfect,” Potter muttered as Draco said, “Lovely.”
Longbottom just said, "I thought I was your partner, Teddy," in that mild tone of his, and Teddy's eyes went wide as he clapped a tiny hand over his own mouth.
***
Teddy was determined, which meant Teddy was implacable, which meant once he'd said about really real Aurors and really real Death Eaters, there was no escaping it.
"Count me in for it, too, then," George said, eyes lifting flirty and focused to find Draco's directly. "Care to partner up, Dragon? We've two for the DE."
Somewhere in that mess was most assuredly a jab at somebody, because George always did, but try as he might, Draco couldn't find the jab at him. If anything, he thought it might be friendly. Overtly so, perhaps, and in his present situation, Draco found that swampingly sweet.
"No, no, that's not your team," Teddy said, obvious frustration, and Ron and Neville swapped looks, amused and baffled. "You can't be a dark git, s'not allowed." He glared up at George like there was no height difference.
George stared back. "Not allowed? Says who, little monster?" And before Draco could take offense on Teddy's behalf, George hauled him up for a quick swing to dissolve the boy to giggles.
Those lasted until George dropped him square back on his feet, at which point Teddy braved a look in Draco's direction, then seemed to screw up his courage. "You're silly, Mr. Forge, but you still can't be a Death Eater. We've teams from last time, remember?"
The silence that flooded the room after that was anything but quiet, memory and extrapolation bouncing unvoiced through the room. Everyone bloody knew those teams, everyone, and what the hell was Draco meant to do about that?
"Now, Teddy, that's hardly fair, you'll have all Aurors and just the one…" George twitched a wince at Ron's phrasing, couldn't quite look at Draco.
Teddy huffed displeased command. "We had two before."
"Right, yeah, but Harry, he's one of your really real Aurors, isn't he? Can't be both, so you're one short."
And Teddy said, quite deliberately, "Not today."
***
“Were you really really a Death Eater, Uncle Dragon?” Teddy asked, as though that mattered, the really really being things.
Draco flinched. He wasn’t the only one. In the small, terrible silence, he felt the world turn, felt his answer be weighed before its arrival.
“Yes,” he said, as Potter said, “No.”
Their voices cracked. Their eyes met.
Draco Occluded like a mad thing and prayed Potter hadn’t learned legilimency.
***
"S'funny, how you're a really real Auror now but you were such a good Death Eater before, huh, Harry?" Teddy was on a roll of awkward, and worse, he didn't seem to know it.
Potter cleared his throat. "I'm sure I wasn't a good-" but Teddy wasn't having it, Teddy just cut him off.
"Oh, but you were. Uncle Dragon said so, didn't you, Uncle Dragon?"
Draco was Determined. Draco was Deliberate. So he had to assume his problem was Destination, then, because when he stepped, he stayed in the room, just right where anyone-Potter-could see him.
"You can still be a Death Eater, even if you're an Auror now sometimes, too, can't you?"
"Well, I…" Draco refused to watch Potter gawk and garble his way free of this, really he did, so he made to leave bipedally, as his wandwork hadn't, only Pansy stopped him with a grip of claws.
"Do it and I castrate, I swear," she hissed, ever-so-quiet, and he wanted to think she was joking but her eyes said she wasn't.
Draco wanted to snarl a "shove off" and make free anyway, only there was Wrath Of Pansy to consider, Pansy and his bits, and that was a bad bloody combination, that, in dozens of ways.
"D'you forget how? Merlin, you must forget a lot, then?" Teddy asked, and Draco turned sharp, wrenched subtly out of Pansy's hold, just in time to see Potter flush furious heat, all frustrated humiliation. The trouble with Potter was likely the Deliberate.
Only, he looked up at Draco, those awful Slytherin eyes, and held for a moment, held the whole world, all Draco's breathing, all Draco's thought, just all of Draco in that hard, bitter stare, and Potter said, "Not enough," all quiet for Teddy without moving his gaze. "Not nearly enough."
***
So, joy, Draco found himself established as resident Dark Twit acolyte and bliss, he was paired with Potter, and glee, they weren't speaking. At all. Then Lovegood said it was an outdoors game, really, there was no room inside for so many grown men to run about and such, and she was right. Of course she was; when he needed an Nargles explanation, she was inevitably right and not Loony at all.
And if Potter looked better by sunlight, mussed hair gleaming hints of red and gold like he was Gryffindor root to tip, him, and eyes like glassy grass and that faintest hint of tan, so utterly lickably bare just there at his jaw, how was Draco meant to ignore that, it felt bloody required he make use of it, preferably without speaking at all or mentioning Grr…
Well, if that was the case, and it was, then that was Draco's problem to avoid, wasn't it?
***
Really, the next disaster was all Draco's fault. Wasn't watching, was he? Wasn't bloody thinking, was more the problem, because he saw the bush beside him rustle, knew it wasn't Teddy, and rugby tackled.
Fucking brilliant, that tackle, and not just for how he'd taken brush to the face on his way down.
No, what made it perfect, just terribly, horribly, destiny-mocking-him right, was that he'd rugby tackled Potter.
Who, perhaps predictably, was something less than pleased to find himself pinned.
"Sod off, Malfoy, fuck." Harry shifted, tried to wriggle away. Draco held firm. Purely form's sake, that, nothing at all to do with how it felt being this close to the object of his elusion.
"Ah, no, Potty, I caught you fair and square." And fuck, wouldn't he like to try that bloody tackle again, only this time, he'd fully look before he leapt because, Merlin, if he'd known it was Potter, he wouldn't have done.
Accidentally breeched their mutual hands-off policy, him, and he'd likely regret it for ages.
Harry's eyes turned dangerous, hard as bottles, but he stopped wriggling. Stopped bloody breathing to just stare for a moment. "You really think this is wise?" he asked, oh-so-quiet, a low rumble that did bad things to Draco's head. Heads.
Wise? This was a half-dozen things, good and brilliant and bad and awkward and hot and right, but wise? Oh, hell no.
When Harry moved again, it was no wriggle for escape. No, that was all bloody writhe, and Merlin, it felt good, and damn it to hell, Potter did it again and Draco had no fucking distance for this, had no fucking plan, and he wanted to be surprised when Harry twisted them both, pinned Draco underneath him on his back like oh but all he could really do was gasp. Try not to grind back.
Surely it wasn't meant to be this comfortable, pinned underneath Scarhead, but it bloody was and when Harry turned grimly intent, utterly serious, and said, "See, thing here is, Malfoy, don't know whether to hex you stupid or kiss you back," Draco couldn't even answer. Couldn't even swallow.
He couldn't watch Potter's eyes long for the burning so he watched Potter's mouth, drawn by deep, tongue-slicked red. Felt Potter watch his in return, gaze so intent, it weighed.
Draco tried to exhale but it came out in words, came out like, "So do it, then," and he flinched and met Harry's eyes, and Harry said, "Which?" like a whisper, licked his lips again, and Draco's lids fluttered low as he said, "Either," and he bloody felt Harry's struggle to decide.
"Pity I don't have m'wand, then, yeah?" Harry said on a light laugh, turned grasp to hold in a way that ruled out hexing, and the kiss he had coming, the one he could almost fucking feel, it wasn't going to be a peck on the forehead.
Draco closed his eyes. Lifted his chin. Waited.
And when all he could smell was Harry, his whole world gone Potty, he heard Teddy say, "No fair, Apparating," and bushes rustled and Teddy shouted, "Oi, you two, no fighting your mates, that's not the game at all."
The words Draco thought when Harry rolled off had no place verbalized around small ears, but by Salazaar, he meant every one.
***
"Are you not good at having mates, Uncle Dragon? Because maybe you shouldn't fight with them if you are, mates don't like that. I don't fight with Nev and I don't know if I'd like him if he fought with me."
Draco did his best to rub clear through his temples. At this rate, he'd rub himself bald.
***
"Fighting, were we?" No one smirked like Pansy, just no one, and Draco grimaced through her approach. "With Potter, no less. I'd say it's a step in the wrong direction, but it's you and it's him, so I'm thinking so long as you've both survived the encounter, it's probably progress."
"Progress?" Draco snorted. Sneered. "Yeah, it's a lurve match, us; thumping each other silly, that's romance all over. Girl Weasley will be crushed."
Pansy slanted him a look, all cool survey and thoughtful mouth. "No, darling, I think she's rather resigned herself by this point. After all, who'd compete with Potter?"
Snickering like he did was perhaps not the slickest of responses to that particular bit of information, but really, it felt required. Honest, which was something. "Lay off the wine, love, it's mangling your words."
She jerked his chin, turned him to meet her gaze head-on, and stared enough to subdue. Her smile was lovely, if somewhat self-serving. "Oblivious git," she said, with heavy affection.
Then she shoved him into the sitting room.
***
"Now, you boys play nice," Pansy said. Draco fantasized thumping her with that bottle, maybe just physically removing it. Fine and all for Pansy to have her liquid Obliviate to tot around but the minute he asked for some small concession to his miserable past, they shoved him in a room with bloody Potter and swanned about like they'd just spared his immortal soul.
Bloody gits. Clearly, then, the Gryffindor was wearing off, because even the Weasleys were in on it, even the bloody Longbottoms, and Draco wanted to ask how this could go wrong with Longbottom in on it, Longbottom wasn't the malicious sort, but Longbottom was Gryffindor and they weren't exactly known for their reason. Neither was Lovegood, when it came down to it, so Pansy was his best choice for salvation from the Potterness, and Pansy, Pansy was humming that bloody "bent thing" tune for strength and guidance. Which didn't bode well.
"S'all right, mate," Ron said, spoke to Potter, and Potter sort of grunted back, not at all happy from the sounds of things, so Ron said, "No, really, Harry, you'll see. It's…You'll thank us later, yeah? Only, just, y'know, don't kill each other or anything first." And that big, tentative grin splitting the freckles, that was all Hogwarts Weasel, that, and Draco couldn't watch anymore because it felt too personal.
***
Really, he had two options. The first began with, "So I think I want to shag you," and went downhill from there.
The second was somewhat more distasteful.
Chances Potter knew anything at all about small talk were slim at best; he'd no doubt learned from Muggles and Granger and Weasley and, well, Draco supposed that lot might be beyond abusing, but conversing? Equally to be avoided, yeah?
He'd self-injure before he'd resort to talking Quidditch standings or the price of gillyweed, and if he had to hear a second of Potter's Great Girl Weasley Love, he'd fucking self-Crucio, he was not without skills.
Draco swigged pumpkin juice like a shot, like it burned all the way down. Said, “You’re meant to hate me,” and instantly cursed himself for bringing that up. Wondered just what the Gryffingits had put in his drink and decided it if was some experimental Wheeze Veritaserum variant, they'd be lucky to both get out alive.
Potter, he noticed, was brilliant at avoidance. Possibly sharp on the uptake, too, because he had to know something was wrong, that Draco wouldn't go years without speaking to him, really, and then start with something like that. Aurors knew something about Veritaserum, right? So maybe…Maybe if they could just avoid eye contact, maybe keep this short and terse, they'd actually make it out of this room with their unspoken mutual vow of evasion intact. Maybe. Then Potter said, "Same goes, yeah?" and Draco scrapped that.
But you didn’t kill the second coming of Merlin.
***
"So do you? Still hate me, I mean?"
"Well, your Grr-thieving tendencies aren't endearing, precisely," Draco said, awkward but trying, damn it, and Potter cut him off with a look.
"Don't." Potter's voice wasn't so much sharp as brittle, shards of sound. "Do you still hate me?"
Despite all he knew to be true, Draco gave that question the deliberation it deserved. "I'm trying."
"Malfoy." Potter closed his eyes. Squeezed. Looked stark in it, internalized hell, and didn't Draco know that just fine? "If you're not going to answer the question, fine, don't but don't make light of it, yeah? S'fucking serious, this, and-"
"Yeah," Draco said. Cut Potter off because feeling it was one thing but hearing it aloud, that was too much. Just too bloody much.
Potter cracked a look, wary understanding. Barest hint of a smile on that too-red mouth, and Draco thought the world wasn't bloody fair, giving him a mouth like bloody that and all those years.
"Yeah?" Potter raised a brow. Gave Draco an aborted once-over, cheek-to-chin, like all the answers he'd ever need were there somewhere in Draco's face. Maybe they were. There were an awful lot of answers on Potter's face just then, too, Draco thought it might be going 'round. "Yeah, you'll answer, or…?"
"Yeah, I hate you." Draco looked away. Couldn’t do the rest without that much, at least, because hate was something but it wasn't everything and he'd hex himself dumb before he'd admit that. "Do you still…?"
"Yeah," Potter breathed, and there it was, a rush of catharsis on whispered sound. Potter cleared his throat. "Yeah, I do."
Draco nodded. Swallowed hard. "For Dumbledore," he said by way of explanation, as Potter said, "Snape, yeah?" and they just let the names linger, that guilt they couldn't shake.
"I knew you would," Potter said finally, and Draco heard movement, the quiet rustle of Potter straightening in his seat under the near-pleasure of that tone, and when Draco looked back, could bring himself to do that much, he found Potter watching him like they'd suddenly declared best mates.
Which was so bloody wrong, Draco strangled a laugh.
"Bloody told Ron we should just leave you be, yeah? Stop, I don't know, picking at it, I guess. You didn’t want to talk about it and I didn't want to talk about it and Ron, he doesn't even want to think about it, so belting up's the best course." Potter sounded strange; passionate and wary and oh-so-bloody tired. Which Draco thought he could understand, really, for as insane as it had been, growing up Draco "Bad Decisions Unlimited" Malfoy, it had to have been as bad growing up Potter. Fucked if Draco could see how, mind, but he had his suspicions.
"There's no telling Weasley, though, is there?" No telling Weasley a thing, really, not about this, and maybe Draco could have said it didn't matter but truth was, it did. Had. Was. Dead mentors, they mattered. Living when you shouldn't, that mattered, too, and even if the rest of the world had done their best to bury the discussions, Dumbledore and Severus and sacrifices, he'd sworn he never would, because really, how the fuck could he?
One thing when the Ministry arseholes who controlled the lab and the promotions and such tried to rebuild the world in the post-war ideal, but when those who'd worked the front lines did it, pretended all was well because the Dark Git was gone, thinking that was it, Draco had trouble shaking the rage.
Funny, how rageless hating Potter seemed to be.
How very fucking comfortable.
***
"Did it for love, Snape," Potter said, apropos of nothing. "My Mum. And when she chose my dad, he went off to the…to Voldemort, really, because he was pissed and stupid and not thinking, and he was so guilty about it all, yeah? All the time, like he'd never get past it."
"Well, wasn't that foolish of him," Draco murmured. Potter's nod was swift, his smile, grateful.
"Melodrama, thy name is Severus."
"Was," Draco corrected. Felt giddy with relief. Or possibly that was something in the pumpkin juice; he really couldn't tell.
Potter smirked. Slow, shaky, yeah, but a smirk all the same, and Draco was glad to see it. Proof of life, that. "Rather the point, yeah?"
And because they were sharing, because if Draco could see past Potter's survivor's guilt to the git underneath, the least he could do was return the favour, Draco chimed in with his own.
"Second coming of Merlin, Potter. For me. What kind of daft git exchange was that to make?"
He couldn't quite read Potter then, but then Potter said, "From where I am, about as good as Snape for me," and Draco thought maybe he didn't need to.
***
"'Mione kept telling me you'd changed," Potter said. Draco snorted.
"Not bloody likely, that. Still the same heartless arsehole I've always been."
"Just, y'know, trying t' make up for Dumbledore, too, yeah?" Potter said. Not really asked, no matter the phrasing, bloody said, and Draco gripped the armrest to anchor himself in reality. Whatever impossible version he'd found.
***
"He was dying anyway," Potter said. "Dumbledore, he was…Wouldn't haven't gone much beyond when he did, so it wasn't…The timing, that was for you, but the rest? Was more an eventuality, really."
A dozen thoughts fitted then, from sheer joy to utter sorrow, and through them all was regret, the lasting sort which called to his ruddy teenaged self, cursed it for shutting out the world to block his own miseries, because if he'd known. Just fucking known…And he hadn't known because he'd never fucking asked and he'd had no one to tell him, he'd shut them all out.
He couldn’t say it would have made a difference, thought he'd always wear the headmaster's loss as one of his own, but it would have explained at least part of it because yes, going early was noble tragedy, but the other, the giving up untold years to save someone, that sat heavier on the saved. Made him responsible for living up to the implied promise that worthwhile things would be done with that life, that it might have been martyrdom but it wouldn't be meaningless.
***
"Why?" Draco asked, prayed he wouldn't need further explanation, and Potter said, "Poison, remember his hand?" And Draco did, all shrivelled and black and mangled necrosis, so Draco said, "Severus could have helped him."
"Snape did. 'S how he finished out the year. Or mostly."
Which, Merlin fucking damn it, made things worse, because now Draco had one more sacrifice to earn and he still hadn't managed the first. Thought maybe he never would and wondered if this was why Potter clung to those parents he'd never known.
***
"You have every reason to hate me."
"Like I said, I'm trying. Sometimes I do, but it's not for that."
"What, then?" Because Draco didn't hate Potter for Snape, not like he should, it had worn down over time, ground low by affection, and wasn't that horrifically Hufflepuff? And now maybe he could hate Potter for knowing when he hadn't, but it was so bloody hard to hold, a thought that wouldn't catch, mild slick with the grease of regret, the flood of secrets melting.
Potter thought about for a long while. Nursed his drink while he did, more holding it loosely than actually drinking, which was fine, Draco was going through his fast enough for both of them.
Then Potter said, "You didn't ever save yourself, did you?"
***
Things got a bit shirty after that, neither of them speaking, both of them probably a bit appalled at all they'd said. Draco was appalled, sure, because when had he ever planned to discuss this? Never, that's when, just bloody never, and damn it to hell and back that he hadn't kept to that.
Because now Potter knew and he knew Potter knew and how was he supposed to avoid it now; Potter knew everything, Potter knew Severus and Dumbledore and Unbreakable Vows and unpayable debts.
Potter knew him, all those bits he'd never said, and Draco couldn't take it back, wasn't sure he would. Just, now he had even less clue how to take the man.
"Does it help, hating me?" Because it helped, hating Potter. A bit.
"Makes a nice break from hating m'self, yeah," Potter said, voice thick and unruly, pitched low like wandless hexing, like fighting with mates in Teddy's game, and Draco's next breath made Potter look downright stable. This time, those eyes weren't anything hard, just bright and on him like they'd never leave. Potter's mouth tugged into a smirk, as slow and awkward as his speech.
Good look for him, the smirking, and Draco might have said, but Potter hiked a brow like maybe he knew that, too, and leaned in, tipped his shoulder into Draco's, wild fringe brushing Draco's forehead, hand creeping up as if to touch, moving achingly slow. Or maybe that was just Draco's impatience showing. Hard to tell, really.
"Don't suppose they've left us our wands," Draco said, and Potter didn't even check, just shook his head a bit and frowned like for once, he didn't know what Draco did, where Draco was going. No one smirked like a Slytherin, practically a house requirement, and he was only too pleased to prove it. Potter whinged, "Malfoy," a pleading pet of a thing, and Draco swallowed hard. Said, "Well, suppose that cuts down our options, doesn't it? Pansy will take up bit-thievery if I've left a mark on you," and hoped that appropriately called up their game.
Then Potter looked at him with those eyes, which weren't at all Dumbledore twinkly or Lucius determined Death To Malfoy, and said, "No marks? Can't promise that, can we?"
And Draco, Draco couldn't swallow, really, he'd lost the power of saliva, how strange was that? Couldn't speak to Potter yet, couldn't really think past those eyes, which were ten kinds of shag and six kinds of trouble and so utterly, perfectly Potter anyway.
Accio glass, though, that was easy, with the promise of Firewhisky at its end, and yeah, Merlin, Firewhisky was good, Firewhisky was brilliant, Potter had to stop staring now or Draco was going to maul him, damn it, Gryffindors really weren't fair.
He reached blindly for his glass and gulped hard, tried to wash that wave of heat with cool, sharp burn. He felt his mouth twist in grimace at an unexpected twinge of sweetness lingering, an uncommon aftertaste, and Potter looked stricken, just absolutely hexed, so Draco said, "Cheers," and tipped his glass. Drained it as Potter yelled, "No, no, wait," but Draco finished before Potter did, so that was that.
Potter looked like Draco'd gone Poly, maybe, or sprouted tentacles and a second Dark Mark, and when Draco said, "What?" Potter said, "George left the juice," like that explained everything.
Maybe it did.
Explained, at least, why it hadn't been Firewhisky in that glass.
***
The room turned hotter of its own volition, an itchy sort of heat that left him squirming. Not just Scarhead, no, this was beyond that, severe enough to drown the urge to touch with internal discomfort. Like things were moving inside him, shifting and whatnot, and he was so hot, so very tired, and he should be worried about what he'd consumed-a Wheeze, no doubt, but not fatal if it was George, just likely some small disaster he'd live to regret-but he couldn't be arsed.
Far too drained for that, wasn't he? So he flushed and he yawned and he tried to stay conscious, but it couldn't last, really, his head felt like granite and the whole of him ached. He leaned himself back, closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing. Not that it worked, mind, but he did try.
Potter, it seemed had taken to fussing and yelling at no one, gits who weren't even there, and Draco tried to say, "Shh, I'm sleeping," but he slurred it too badly, so Potter didn't stop.
And the last thing Draco heard before the world's worst-timed nap ever was Potter shouting at nothing, "No, no, we're making bloody progress, change him back, damn it."
And then, well, napping had its uses.
Even if it was Wheeze-induced.
~ next~
Disclaimers and such here.
one / two / three / four / five / six
"You owled who?" Draco tried for calm, really he did, because he was the adult here, no question about it. But either Teddy Lupin was thick as a stump or he was a manipulative little shit, and frankly, Draco'd bet on that last.
Teddy, for his part, seemed utterly unconcerned. "You said I could have a play if I was good," Teddy said, eminently reasonable as only a guiltlessly misbehaved child could.
Draco rubbed his temples. Tried not to twitch.
"Yes, Merlin, a play, not some sort of Gryffindor extravaganza this weekend."
Teddy scowled at that. "S'not an eggstra…egg…one of those. S'a play. Like you said."
Somewhere in the far reaches of this Manor, his father's ghost was no doubt laughing long and hard about this, Draco and his scowling, stubborn insubordinate.
"You can't even write yet, how the bloody hell could you owl?" There were many, many things wrong with Teddy's plan, from his reckless inviting of all who'd been Wheezed smallish for a day of games and such at the Manor to his surprisingly stealthy posting of said invitations.
Teddy beamed pride and pleasure. "Oh, that. Moggy helped me. And read me my replies."
His own house elves were turning on him, he'd no choice now. Draco pinched his nose at its bridge and whimpered silently a bit, to which Teddy said, "They're all coming," like that was the most brilliant news in the history of the world.
A house full of bloody Gryffindors. Again. And yeah, maybe he'd been all right with most of them recently, but they'd kept their distance, been friendly acquaintances more than real mates, he'd not been converted to Gryffindordom or anything, and he'd liked it that way, having that space as a buffer. And in one set of covert owlings, Teddy had stripped it. Like it was nothing.
"Really, Uncle Dragon, it'll be fun, you'll see. Just like last time, only better because we'll know our own teams and everything already." And Teddy smiled like it was Christmas, and Draco's resolve drained, and Teddy said, "Didn't you say I needed mates?" and Draco was sunk.
Merlin Almighty, this day was going to shit.
***
"I don't see the problem," Granger said, closing the conversation like a book. Draco, well, it wasn't quite a gurgle of disbelief, but Malfoys never whimpered in public, either, which left him bereft of explanation for that next sound. She huffed a sigh. Turned on him in Polly Mum flashback. "Oh, honestly. It's a play date. It's hardly the end of the world, now is it?"
"I don't play," he sneered. Tried to, anyway, but it was bloody hard, a decent sneer, in the face of such blatant railroading. "Particularly not with Gryffindors."
"So don't. After all, it's Teddy's invitation, is it not?" She beamed all the wrong answers. "No one's going to force you to join in if you don't want to."
Just there, on the tip of his tongue, locked under flummoxed fury, lay the reminder that yes, Teddy would absolutely force him to join in, and anyway, he'd had more than enough gratuitous Gryffindoring in his manor as it was, and as soon as he'd sorted a way around said fury, he planned to say as much. Only, the fury didn't seem to be unflummoxing itself, so his communication was in rather an unfortunate tangle.
Story of his life, that.
***
Lovegood, blast her, agreed with Granger.
***
"You understand, right, Pansy?" Please, Merlin, just one of them…
She flashed her ever-present bottle obscenely. "More than you, I'd think," she said. "After all, darling, I know what Ginny and Potter had in common." Then she sing-songed that ridiculous, "bent as a really bent thing," again and honest to Merlin, one of these days, Draco was going to snap and do something tremendously violent with that bottle after all.
Mates, he thought, may have been overrated.
***
Merlin let him down on a regular basis, so Draco didn't bother asking for some calamity to keep Potter away. Then the git was there, standing by his Floo and shuffling nervous, looking to Ron as if for support.
"Ron, I…I shouldn't be here," Potter said, tugging on Ron's sleeve and looking quite young. Skittish, even.
Ron looked impatient, a thin sort of disgust, really, and said, "Are you telling Teddy, then? Because I'm not." Then Ron looked up and grinned brilliantly and said, "There he is, the other Wheeze, how's it going, mate?" like Draco wasn't just a potions rat, like Draco was maybe family.
Which was odd as hell, but somewhat familiar.
Bloody hell, they were mates. Mates with the Weasel, where had he gone wrong?
***
They danced avoidance at first, ignoring each other as best they could, and yeah, maybe Draco could feel his new maybe-mates staring at him like he'd turned carnival attraction, but how was that new? Him and Potter, they'd always had everyone's eye, no matter how much they didn't want it, and at least this wouldn't end in The Prophet, so that was something. A very small something.
Teddy came in from the kitchen with Nev, chattering happy like he hadn't a care, and wasn't that nice, everyone comfortable but the man of the house and the boy bloody hero? Then Nev said, "Hi, Harry," and Teddy stopped talking and kind of scraped across the floor in a burst of indoor running, only to stop short a couch-length away.
"Where is he?" Teddy asked. "Where's Grr? Did you forget him? I asked you special."
Potter flushed. "Erm, yeah. Sorry."
Draco found five synonyms for "liar, liar, pants on fire" before Potter'd said a word. What's Grr?, his arse.
"S'not right, taking things," Teddy scolded, and Potter made a good show of looking suitably chastised. Draco felt just as awkward as Potter looked, uncomfortably aware that everyone had heard, and before Pansy could say a thing about strops and silliness, Ron muttered, "Harry, give up the stuffed thing? Not bloody likely, is it?" in a tone which said far more than his words. Like those hadn't said enough.
Lovegood hummed a tune Draco swore was Pansy's "bent as a bent thing" and Granger rocked on her heels smugly.
Draco felt like he'd missed the plot until Teddy said, "S'all right, you can bring him next time, right?" in that bright chirp, at which point Draco became convinced the boy had it in for him.
***
Teddy's plans more than held that up.
***
“It’ll be brilliant,” Teddy said, eyes bright at the thought of the game ahead. “We can play Aurors and Death Eaters again, and there's real Aurors and everything.”
Potter squirmed. Hardly the most anticipatory motion, either, more evasion than enthusiasm, which Draco didn’t like. “Yeah,” Weasley said, wary eyes on Potter. “We’re real Aurors and everything.”
The smile Weasley spared Teddy, though, that rang sweetly genuine. Draco considered the unimaginable reality wherein the chief gits of Gryffindor had smiles for wee Malfoys and their ilk, then wanted to kick himself for where that thought had gone. Nowhere good, but something awfully Tiny Potter.
Teddy nodded like that was it, it was settled. “So you’ll be the Aurors, then, because you’re really really Aurors-“ he hopped then, looked about ten seconds from some form of spontaneous magical incident. Then he turned a lowered-lash smile at Draco and the Hufflepuffery so captivating the others cracked just a bit, went small Slytherin sly. "But if we have really real Aurors, we need really real Death Eaters for them to catch or it won't be fair. Right, Uncle Dragon?"
Oh, Merlin, no.
***
“That way lies Firewhisky,” someone muttered, and yeah, Draco rather had to agree.
“Loads,” he said. “On me.”
Weasley flicked his own ear awkwardly. “Yeah, all right, so it’ll be a night out at the Broomsticks and Obliviate all ‘round, yeah?”
“Perfect,” Potter muttered as Draco said, “Lovely.”
Longbottom just said, "I thought I was your partner, Teddy," in that mild tone of his, and Teddy's eyes went wide as he clapped a tiny hand over his own mouth.
***
Teddy was determined, which meant Teddy was implacable, which meant once he'd said about really real Aurors and really real Death Eaters, there was no escaping it.
"Count me in for it, too, then," George said, eyes lifting flirty and focused to find Draco's directly. "Care to partner up, Dragon? We've two for the DE."
Somewhere in that mess was most assuredly a jab at somebody, because George always did, but try as he might, Draco couldn't find the jab at him. If anything, he thought it might be friendly. Overtly so, perhaps, and in his present situation, Draco found that swampingly sweet.
"No, no, that's not your team," Teddy said, obvious frustration, and Ron and Neville swapped looks, amused and baffled. "You can't be a dark git, s'not allowed." He glared up at George like there was no height difference.
George stared back. "Not allowed? Says who, little monster?" And before Draco could take offense on Teddy's behalf, George hauled him up for a quick swing to dissolve the boy to giggles.
Those lasted until George dropped him square back on his feet, at which point Teddy braved a look in Draco's direction, then seemed to screw up his courage. "You're silly, Mr. Forge, but you still can't be a Death Eater. We've teams from last time, remember?"
The silence that flooded the room after that was anything but quiet, memory and extrapolation bouncing unvoiced through the room. Everyone bloody knew those teams, everyone, and what the hell was Draco meant to do about that?
"Now, Teddy, that's hardly fair, you'll have all Aurors and just the one…" George twitched a wince at Ron's phrasing, couldn't quite look at Draco.
Teddy huffed displeased command. "We had two before."
"Right, yeah, but Harry, he's one of your really real Aurors, isn't he? Can't be both, so you're one short."
And Teddy said, quite deliberately, "Not today."
***
“Were you really really a Death Eater, Uncle Dragon?” Teddy asked, as though that mattered, the really really being things.
Draco flinched. He wasn’t the only one. In the small, terrible silence, he felt the world turn, felt his answer be weighed before its arrival.
“Yes,” he said, as Potter said, “No.”
Their voices cracked. Their eyes met.
Draco Occluded like a mad thing and prayed Potter hadn’t learned legilimency.
***
"S'funny, how you're a really real Auror now but you were such a good Death Eater before, huh, Harry?" Teddy was on a roll of awkward, and worse, he didn't seem to know it.
Potter cleared his throat. "I'm sure I wasn't a good-" but Teddy wasn't having it, Teddy just cut him off.
"Oh, but you were. Uncle Dragon said so, didn't you, Uncle Dragon?"
Draco was Determined. Draco was Deliberate. So he had to assume his problem was Destination, then, because when he stepped, he stayed in the room, just right where anyone-Potter-could see him.
"You can still be a Death Eater, even if you're an Auror now sometimes, too, can't you?"
"Well, I…" Draco refused to watch Potter gawk and garble his way free of this, really he did, so he made to leave bipedally, as his wandwork hadn't, only Pansy stopped him with a grip of claws.
"Do it and I castrate, I swear," she hissed, ever-so-quiet, and he wanted to think she was joking but her eyes said she wasn't.
Draco wanted to snarl a "shove off" and make free anyway, only there was Wrath Of Pansy to consider, Pansy and his bits, and that was a bad bloody combination, that, in dozens of ways.
"D'you forget how? Merlin, you must forget a lot, then?" Teddy asked, and Draco turned sharp, wrenched subtly out of Pansy's hold, just in time to see Potter flush furious heat, all frustrated humiliation. The trouble with Potter was likely the Deliberate.
Only, he looked up at Draco, those awful Slytherin eyes, and held for a moment, held the whole world, all Draco's breathing, all Draco's thought, just all of Draco in that hard, bitter stare, and Potter said, "Not enough," all quiet for Teddy without moving his gaze. "Not nearly enough."
***
So, joy, Draco found himself established as resident Dark Twit acolyte and bliss, he was paired with Potter, and glee, they weren't speaking. At all. Then Lovegood said it was an outdoors game, really, there was no room inside for so many grown men to run about and such, and she was right. Of course she was; when he needed an Nargles explanation, she was inevitably right and not Loony at all.
And if Potter looked better by sunlight, mussed hair gleaming hints of red and gold like he was Gryffindor root to tip, him, and eyes like glassy grass and that faintest hint of tan, so utterly lickably bare just there at his jaw, how was Draco meant to ignore that, it felt bloody required he make use of it, preferably without speaking at all or mentioning Grr…
Well, if that was the case, and it was, then that was Draco's problem to avoid, wasn't it?
***
Really, the next disaster was all Draco's fault. Wasn't watching, was he? Wasn't bloody thinking, was more the problem, because he saw the bush beside him rustle, knew it wasn't Teddy, and rugby tackled.
Fucking brilliant, that tackle, and not just for how he'd taken brush to the face on his way down.
No, what made it perfect, just terribly, horribly, destiny-mocking-him right, was that he'd rugby tackled Potter.
Who, perhaps predictably, was something less than pleased to find himself pinned.
"Sod off, Malfoy, fuck." Harry shifted, tried to wriggle away. Draco held firm. Purely form's sake, that, nothing at all to do with how it felt being this close to the object of his elusion.
"Ah, no, Potty, I caught you fair and square." And fuck, wouldn't he like to try that bloody tackle again, only this time, he'd fully look before he leapt because, Merlin, if he'd known it was Potter, he wouldn't have done.
Accidentally breeched their mutual hands-off policy, him, and he'd likely regret it for ages.
Harry's eyes turned dangerous, hard as bottles, but he stopped wriggling. Stopped bloody breathing to just stare for a moment. "You really think this is wise?" he asked, oh-so-quiet, a low rumble that did bad things to Draco's head. Heads.
Wise? This was a half-dozen things, good and brilliant and bad and awkward and hot and right, but wise? Oh, hell no.
When Harry moved again, it was no wriggle for escape. No, that was all bloody writhe, and Merlin, it felt good, and damn it to hell, Potter did it again and Draco had no fucking distance for this, had no fucking plan, and he wanted to be surprised when Harry twisted them both, pinned Draco underneath him on his back like oh but all he could really do was gasp. Try not to grind back.
Surely it wasn't meant to be this comfortable, pinned underneath Scarhead, but it bloody was and when Harry turned grimly intent, utterly serious, and said, "See, thing here is, Malfoy, don't know whether to hex you stupid or kiss you back," Draco couldn't even answer. Couldn't even swallow.
He couldn't watch Potter's eyes long for the burning so he watched Potter's mouth, drawn by deep, tongue-slicked red. Felt Potter watch his in return, gaze so intent, it weighed.
Draco tried to exhale but it came out in words, came out like, "So do it, then," and he flinched and met Harry's eyes, and Harry said, "Which?" like a whisper, licked his lips again, and Draco's lids fluttered low as he said, "Either," and he bloody felt Harry's struggle to decide.
"Pity I don't have m'wand, then, yeah?" Harry said on a light laugh, turned grasp to hold in a way that ruled out hexing, and the kiss he had coming, the one he could almost fucking feel, it wasn't going to be a peck on the forehead.
Draco closed his eyes. Lifted his chin. Waited.
And when all he could smell was Harry, his whole world gone Potty, he heard Teddy say, "No fair, Apparating," and bushes rustled and Teddy shouted, "Oi, you two, no fighting your mates, that's not the game at all."
The words Draco thought when Harry rolled off had no place verbalized around small ears, but by Salazaar, he meant every one.
***
"Are you not good at having mates, Uncle Dragon? Because maybe you shouldn't fight with them if you are, mates don't like that. I don't fight with Nev and I don't know if I'd like him if he fought with me."
Draco did his best to rub clear through his temples. At this rate, he'd rub himself bald.
***
"Fighting, were we?" No one smirked like Pansy, just no one, and Draco grimaced through her approach. "With Potter, no less. I'd say it's a step in the wrong direction, but it's you and it's him, so I'm thinking so long as you've both survived the encounter, it's probably progress."
"Progress?" Draco snorted. Sneered. "Yeah, it's a lurve match, us; thumping each other silly, that's romance all over. Girl Weasley will be crushed."
Pansy slanted him a look, all cool survey and thoughtful mouth. "No, darling, I think she's rather resigned herself by this point. After all, who'd compete with Potter?"
Snickering like he did was perhaps not the slickest of responses to that particular bit of information, but really, it felt required. Honest, which was something. "Lay off the wine, love, it's mangling your words."
She jerked his chin, turned him to meet her gaze head-on, and stared enough to subdue. Her smile was lovely, if somewhat self-serving. "Oblivious git," she said, with heavy affection.
Then she shoved him into the sitting room.
***
"Now, you boys play nice," Pansy said. Draco fantasized thumping her with that bottle, maybe just physically removing it. Fine and all for Pansy to have her liquid Obliviate to tot around but the minute he asked for some small concession to his miserable past, they shoved him in a room with bloody Potter and swanned about like they'd just spared his immortal soul.
Bloody gits. Clearly, then, the Gryffindor was wearing off, because even the Weasleys were in on it, even the bloody Longbottoms, and Draco wanted to ask how this could go wrong with Longbottom in on it, Longbottom wasn't the malicious sort, but Longbottom was Gryffindor and they weren't exactly known for their reason. Neither was Lovegood, when it came down to it, so Pansy was his best choice for salvation from the Potterness, and Pansy, Pansy was humming that bloody "bent thing" tune for strength and guidance. Which didn't bode well.
"S'all right, mate," Ron said, spoke to Potter, and Potter sort of grunted back, not at all happy from the sounds of things, so Ron said, "No, really, Harry, you'll see. It's…You'll thank us later, yeah? Only, just, y'know, don't kill each other or anything first." And that big, tentative grin splitting the freckles, that was all Hogwarts Weasel, that, and Draco couldn't watch anymore because it felt too personal.
***
Really, he had two options. The first began with, "So I think I want to shag you," and went downhill from there.
The second was somewhat more distasteful.
Chances Potter knew anything at all about small talk were slim at best; he'd no doubt learned from Muggles and Granger and Weasley and, well, Draco supposed that lot might be beyond abusing, but conversing? Equally to be avoided, yeah?
He'd self-injure before he'd resort to talking Quidditch standings or the price of gillyweed, and if he had to hear a second of Potter's Great Girl Weasley Love, he'd fucking self-Crucio, he was not without skills.
Draco swigged pumpkin juice like a shot, like it burned all the way down. Said, “You’re meant to hate me,” and instantly cursed himself for bringing that up. Wondered just what the Gryffingits had put in his drink and decided it if was some experimental Wheeze Veritaserum variant, they'd be lucky to both get out alive.
Potter, he noticed, was brilliant at avoidance. Possibly sharp on the uptake, too, because he had to know something was wrong, that Draco wouldn't go years without speaking to him, really, and then start with something like that. Aurors knew something about Veritaserum, right? So maybe…Maybe if they could just avoid eye contact, maybe keep this short and terse, they'd actually make it out of this room with their unspoken mutual vow of evasion intact. Maybe. Then Potter said, "Same goes, yeah?" and Draco scrapped that.
But you didn’t kill the second coming of Merlin.
***
"So do you? Still hate me, I mean?"
"Well, your Grr-thieving tendencies aren't endearing, precisely," Draco said, awkward but trying, damn it, and Potter cut him off with a look.
"Don't." Potter's voice wasn't so much sharp as brittle, shards of sound. "Do you still hate me?"
Despite all he knew to be true, Draco gave that question the deliberation it deserved. "I'm trying."
"Malfoy." Potter closed his eyes. Squeezed. Looked stark in it, internalized hell, and didn't Draco know that just fine? "If you're not going to answer the question, fine, don't but don't make light of it, yeah? S'fucking serious, this, and-"
"Yeah," Draco said. Cut Potter off because feeling it was one thing but hearing it aloud, that was too much. Just too bloody much.
Potter cracked a look, wary understanding. Barest hint of a smile on that too-red mouth, and Draco thought the world wasn't bloody fair, giving him a mouth like bloody that and all those years.
"Yeah?" Potter raised a brow. Gave Draco an aborted once-over, cheek-to-chin, like all the answers he'd ever need were there somewhere in Draco's face. Maybe they were. There were an awful lot of answers on Potter's face just then, too, Draco thought it might be going 'round. "Yeah, you'll answer, or…?"
"Yeah, I hate you." Draco looked away. Couldn’t do the rest without that much, at least, because hate was something but it wasn't everything and he'd hex himself dumb before he'd admit that. "Do you still…?"
"Yeah," Potter breathed, and there it was, a rush of catharsis on whispered sound. Potter cleared his throat. "Yeah, I do."
Draco nodded. Swallowed hard. "For Dumbledore," he said by way of explanation, as Potter said, "Snape, yeah?" and they just let the names linger, that guilt they couldn't shake.
"I knew you would," Potter said finally, and Draco heard movement, the quiet rustle of Potter straightening in his seat under the near-pleasure of that tone, and when Draco looked back, could bring himself to do that much, he found Potter watching him like they'd suddenly declared best mates.
Which was so bloody wrong, Draco strangled a laugh.
"Bloody told Ron we should just leave you be, yeah? Stop, I don't know, picking at it, I guess. You didn’t want to talk about it and I didn't want to talk about it and Ron, he doesn't even want to think about it, so belting up's the best course." Potter sounded strange; passionate and wary and oh-so-bloody tired. Which Draco thought he could understand, really, for as insane as it had been, growing up Draco "Bad Decisions Unlimited" Malfoy, it had to have been as bad growing up Potter. Fucked if Draco could see how, mind, but he had his suspicions.
"There's no telling Weasley, though, is there?" No telling Weasley a thing, really, not about this, and maybe Draco could have said it didn't matter but truth was, it did. Had. Was. Dead mentors, they mattered. Living when you shouldn't, that mattered, too, and even if the rest of the world had done their best to bury the discussions, Dumbledore and Severus and sacrifices, he'd sworn he never would, because really, how the fuck could he?
One thing when the Ministry arseholes who controlled the lab and the promotions and such tried to rebuild the world in the post-war ideal, but when those who'd worked the front lines did it, pretended all was well because the Dark Git was gone, thinking that was it, Draco had trouble shaking the rage.
Funny, how rageless hating Potter seemed to be.
How very fucking comfortable.
***
"Did it for love, Snape," Potter said, apropos of nothing. "My Mum. And when she chose my dad, he went off to the…to Voldemort, really, because he was pissed and stupid and not thinking, and he was so guilty about it all, yeah? All the time, like he'd never get past it."
"Well, wasn't that foolish of him," Draco murmured. Potter's nod was swift, his smile, grateful.
"Melodrama, thy name is Severus."
"Was," Draco corrected. Felt giddy with relief. Or possibly that was something in the pumpkin juice; he really couldn't tell.
Potter smirked. Slow, shaky, yeah, but a smirk all the same, and Draco was glad to see it. Proof of life, that. "Rather the point, yeah?"
And because they were sharing, because if Draco could see past Potter's survivor's guilt to the git underneath, the least he could do was return the favour, Draco chimed in with his own.
"Second coming of Merlin, Potter. For me. What kind of daft git exchange was that to make?"
He couldn't quite read Potter then, but then Potter said, "From where I am, about as good as Snape for me," and Draco thought maybe he didn't need to.
***
"'Mione kept telling me you'd changed," Potter said. Draco snorted.
"Not bloody likely, that. Still the same heartless arsehole I've always been."
"Just, y'know, trying t' make up for Dumbledore, too, yeah?" Potter said. Not really asked, no matter the phrasing, bloody said, and Draco gripped the armrest to anchor himself in reality. Whatever impossible version he'd found.
***
"He was dying anyway," Potter said. "Dumbledore, he was…Wouldn't haven't gone much beyond when he did, so it wasn't…The timing, that was for you, but the rest? Was more an eventuality, really."
A dozen thoughts fitted then, from sheer joy to utter sorrow, and through them all was regret, the lasting sort which called to his ruddy teenaged self, cursed it for shutting out the world to block his own miseries, because if he'd known. Just fucking known…And he hadn't known because he'd never fucking asked and he'd had no one to tell him, he'd shut them all out.
He couldn’t say it would have made a difference, thought he'd always wear the headmaster's loss as one of his own, but it would have explained at least part of it because yes, going early was noble tragedy, but the other, the giving up untold years to save someone, that sat heavier on the saved. Made him responsible for living up to the implied promise that worthwhile things would be done with that life, that it might have been martyrdom but it wouldn't be meaningless.
***
"Why?" Draco asked, prayed he wouldn't need further explanation, and Potter said, "Poison, remember his hand?" And Draco did, all shrivelled and black and mangled necrosis, so Draco said, "Severus could have helped him."
"Snape did. 'S how he finished out the year. Or mostly."
Which, Merlin fucking damn it, made things worse, because now Draco had one more sacrifice to earn and he still hadn't managed the first. Thought maybe he never would and wondered if this was why Potter clung to those parents he'd never known.
***
"You have every reason to hate me."
"Like I said, I'm trying. Sometimes I do, but it's not for that."
"What, then?" Because Draco didn't hate Potter for Snape, not like he should, it had worn down over time, ground low by affection, and wasn't that horrifically Hufflepuff? And now maybe he could hate Potter for knowing when he hadn't, but it was so bloody hard to hold, a thought that wouldn't catch, mild slick with the grease of regret, the flood of secrets melting.
Potter thought about for a long while. Nursed his drink while he did, more holding it loosely than actually drinking, which was fine, Draco was going through his fast enough for both of them.
Then Potter said, "You didn't ever save yourself, did you?"
***
Things got a bit shirty after that, neither of them speaking, both of them probably a bit appalled at all they'd said. Draco was appalled, sure, because when had he ever planned to discuss this? Never, that's when, just bloody never, and damn it to hell and back that he hadn't kept to that.
Because now Potter knew and he knew Potter knew and how was he supposed to avoid it now; Potter knew everything, Potter knew Severus and Dumbledore and Unbreakable Vows and unpayable debts.
Potter knew him, all those bits he'd never said, and Draco couldn't take it back, wasn't sure he would. Just, now he had even less clue how to take the man.
"Does it help, hating me?" Because it helped, hating Potter. A bit.
"Makes a nice break from hating m'self, yeah," Potter said, voice thick and unruly, pitched low like wandless hexing, like fighting with mates in Teddy's game, and Draco's next breath made Potter look downright stable. This time, those eyes weren't anything hard, just bright and on him like they'd never leave. Potter's mouth tugged into a smirk, as slow and awkward as his speech.
Good look for him, the smirking, and Draco might have said, but Potter hiked a brow like maybe he knew that, too, and leaned in, tipped his shoulder into Draco's, wild fringe brushing Draco's forehead, hand creeping up as if to touch, moving achingly slow. Or maybe that was just Draco's impatience showing. Hard to tell, really.
"Don't suppose they've left us our wands," Draco said, and Potter didn't even check, just shook his head a bit and frowned like for once, he didn't know what Draco did, where Draco was going. No one smirked like a Slytherin, practically a house requirement, and he was only too pleased to prove it. Potter whinged, "Malfoy," a pleading pet of a thing, and Draco swallowed hard. Said, "Well, suppose that cuts down our options, doesn't it? Pansy will take up bit-thievery if I've left a mark on you," and hoped that appropriately called up their game.
Then Potter looked at him with those eyes, which weren't at all Dumbledore twinkly or Lucius determined Death To Malfoy, and said, "No marks? Can't promise that, can we?"
And Draco, Draco couldn't swallow, really, he'd lost the power of saliva, how strange was that? Couldn't speak to Potter yet, couldn't really think past those eyes, which were ten kinds of shag and six kinds of trouble and so utterly, perfectly Potter anyway.
Accio glass, though, that was easy, with the promise of Firewhisky at its end, and yeah, Merlin, Firewhisky was good, Firewhisky was brilliant, Potter had to stop staring now or Draco was going to maul him, damn it, Gryffindors really weren't fair.
He reached blindly for his glass and gulped hard, tried to wash that wave of heat with cool, sharp burn. He felt his mouth twist in grimace at an unexpected twinge of sweetness lingering, an uncommon aftertaste, and Potter looked stricken, just absolutely hexed, so Draco said, "Cheers," and tipped his glass. Drained it as Potter yelled, "No, no, wait," but Draco finished before Potter did, so that was that.
Potter looked like Draco'd gone Poly, maybe, or sprouted tentacles and a second Dark Mark, and when Draco said, "What?" Potter said, "George left the juice," like that explained everything.
Maybe it did.
Explained, at least, why it hadn't been Firewhisky in that glass.
***
The room turned hotter of its own volition, an itchy sort of heat that left him squirming. Not just Scarhead, no, this was beyond that, severe enough to drown the urge to touch with internal discomfort. Like things were moving inside him, shifting and whatnot, and he was so hot, so very tired, and he should be worried about what he'd consumed-a Wheeze, no doubt, but not fatal if it was George, just likely some small disaster he'd live to regret-but he couldn't be arsed.
Far too drained for that, wasn't he? So he flushed and he yawned and he tried to stay conscious, but it couldn't last, really, his head felt like granite and the whole of him ached. He leaned himself back, closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing. Not that it worked, mind, but he did try.
Potter, it seemed had taken to fussing and yelling at no one, gits who weren't even there, and Draco tried to say, "Shh, I'm sleeping," but he slurred it too badly, so Potter didn't stop.
And the last thing Draco heard before the world's worst-timed nap ever was Potter shouting at nothing, "No, no, we're making bloody progress, change him back, damn it."
And then, well, napping had its uses.
Even if it was Wheeze-induced.
~ next~