The Way Down (Harry/Draco) - 3/9
Title: The Way Down
Rating: this chapter, pg
Length: this chapter, 6.5K, see below for WIP info
Warnings: later, there may be sex.
Characters: Harry/Draco, past Harry/Ginny
Epilogue: not epilogue compliant
Summary: Malfoy’s all, “Come out of there,” the way you say to a cat who is badly behaved. And Harry’s all like, “No, what, I’m a hermit! And I have a chest-monster! And I am crazy magically powerful!” and Malfoy’s all, “We all have problems, bub.” (thoughtfully) “You are crazy though. I’ll give you that.”
A/N: -Thanks 7 billion times to scabbyfish, who did SO MUCH TO THIS. I’ve never had a beta like her. Of course I’ve never shared anything this messy with someone. I’m so glad she can (with magic powers) make it somewhat presentable.
-This is a work in progress. I have this grand plan I’ll finish it if I start posting. Right now it’s 60,000 words. The plan makes it look like it will be 70,000 words. Plans are very deceiving. The plan is a chapter every week. My guess is 8-9 chapters. Did I mention plans are deceiving? Especially when they are mine.
-Constructive criticism is more than welcome.
Go to: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9
Chapter 3
Hermione was talking about something that had happened at work one day when Harry said, “Right. Malfoy told me about that.”
Both Hermione and Ron looked at him, and Harry wondered why he had said it. His friends still didn't know that Malfoy had come to Chimera Downs, or that Malfoy was the reason Harry had brought himself to leave, and try to have a normal life. Harry wasn’t keeping it a secret, exactly. He just wanted to try to keep the field on Chimera Downs as a separate place, a place no one knew about and no one could touch-except for Malfoy.
Harry still couldn't explain why being with Malfoy was easier than being with people he loved. Malfoy, who had always aggravated him, was more peaceful than the people who made him happy.
“When did you talk to Draco?” Hermione asked politely.
“I’ve been seeing him,” said Harry.
“What d'you mean seeing him?” Ron asked, outraged.
“Just... you know, we hang out sometimes.”
Hermione looked blank. “I had no idea.”
Ron looked at Harry incredulously. Then he asked, hopefully, “When you say you hang out with him, do you mean you beat him up? Punch him in the face occasionally?”
“What? No, why would I?”
“I think it’s wonderful,” Hermione said suddenly.
“Because that would make sense,” Ron went on. “Do you at least kick him a little?”
“Not really.”
“Draco doesn’t get out much, you know,” Hermione went on.
“Because people might punch him in the face,” Ron pointed out, earning glares from both of them.
“What do you mean?” Harry asked Hermione.
“Well, Ron’s kind of right.” Harry scowled and started to interrupt, and she hastily added, “Not necessarily about the punching, but being a former Death Eater, Draco isn’t exactly popular.”
“So he doesn’t go out in public?” Harry asked, puzzled. Malfoy had never seemed afraid of the pubs they went to. He'd been awkward the first time Harry had invited him out, but Harry had just thought Malfoy had been deciding whether he could get over his schoolboy grudge long enough to have a drink with him in public.
“Oh, he goes out all the time,” Hermione explained. “But most people are-well, sometimes people aren’t very nice. Sometimes when it’s his turn to make a creature confiscation he has to have back-up.”
Ron snorted. “That's nothing new. Malfoy’s always had cronies.”
“But that’s just it. He doesn’t have anyone. It’s just that sometimes people are so hostile toward him that he needs reinforcements. And you even have to be careful who you send him with. Most people in the department like him, but if you’re sending him with someone from Records or even an Auror-well, Ron. You’ve heard me talk about it.” Hermione looked at her husband pointedly.
“If everyone in the department likes him so much, couldn't other people do the jobs that'll be dangerous for him?” Harry asked.
“He insists. I think he thinks he needs to prove himself.” She frowned as Ron scoffed loudly. “No, Ron, really, I've told you, he's changed. He's the best at what he does as well.” She sounded upset.
“Malfoy never told me,” Harry said to Hermione, feeling perplexed.
Hermione shrugged. “He’s a private person, I suppose. Like I told you before, he’s very sweet. Everyone likes him once they give him a chance but I think there are very few he would consider friends.”
Harry thought about that. It was true that for all Malfoy’s chatter, he didn’t share much. Harry had learned more about his situation, about his parents and his personal life, from a few short exchanges with Hermione than from Malfoy himself. He found it hard to imagine Malfoy without all the people he had surrounded himself with at Hogwarts. Ron had been right about that: Malfoy had rarely been without Crabbe and Goyle, and Parkinson had trailed after him like a puppy. More often than not he'd sat at the middle of a knot of Slytherins, the center of attention and in his element.
Malfoy was bright and talkative, just like he had been then. He had told Harry he was happy, and Harry had believed him without thought, because surely everyone but himself was happy.
Selfish, said Malfoy's voice.
Harry was thinking this one night at the pub, while Malfoy babbled on about how crap the Chudley Cannons were. He never mentioned the Harpies when he was on a Quidditch rant, for which Harry was always grateful.
“Their Keeper!” Malfoy was saying, waving his hands about. “Is he on Muscle Max? Doesn’t he know that leeches your brain? Of course, he wouldn’t know if his brain has been leeched already. Which it probably has, considering their Left Beater.”
“Do you still play?” Harry said suddenly.
“What?” Malfoy’s hands tightened around his glass, which held a peculiar-looking concoction with a straw. “Of course,” he said, in a detached kind of way. “Former Death Eater versus Ministry. Guess who always wins.”
“You don’t, do you.”
“Who am I supposed to play with?” Malfoy asked irritably.
Harry shrugged. “Goyle? Zabini? I don’t know. All your little friends from school.”
“Zabini is in Montreal.”
“Why?”
Malfoy was getting more and more defensive. “Why do you care?”
Harry shrugged again. “I was just asking, Malfoy.”
“Well,” Malfoy said, looking ruffled, “don’t.”
“Don’t ask you about your friends?”
“I don’t ask you about yours,” Malfoy said pointedly.
Harry scowled. “Yes, you do.”
Malfoy looked scandalized. “As if I would ever.”
“I guess you don’t ask about Hermione and Ron,” Harry said. “But you already know about them.”
“Sadly.” Malfoy stirred his drink with the straw.
Impulsively, Harry said, “Want to come with me to Ron and Hermione's for dinner on Thursday?”
For a moment Malfoy looked stunned. He very quickly recovered, frowned, and looked down at his drink. He poked it unkindly. “Ha ha, very funny, Potter,” he said.
“I meant it.”
“Well, of course you meant it.” Malfoy’s stabs at his drink were getting more and more vicious. “You’re ridiculously earnest.”
“Well?” Harry said.
“Why should I want to have dinner with your friends?”
Harry was pretty sure Malfoy meant to sound quarrelsome, but somehow he’d misjudged his tone and only seemed uncertain. “I don’t know,” Harry said honestly, shrugging. “Because I want you to.”
Malfoy looked up. There were pink spots high on his cheeks, and his eyes seemed very bright. “You-” he started to say, then cut himself off, his gaze drifting down again. “Have you cleared this with them?”
“Hermione says she likes you.”
“Then you haven’t.”
“They’ll be alright with it.”
“Weasley doesn’t like me.”
“He’ll get over it.”
Malfoy was gazing into his drink with an expression of deepest concentration; perhaps, Harry thought, he was trying to decipher why on earth it was so pink. “Because you say so?”
“I got over it,” Harry pointed out.
“Have you,” Malfoy said, but it wasn’t a question. He was still looking at his drink.
“Mostly.” Harry smirked. “Except when you’re a git.”
“Thanks for that.”
“Then are you coming?”
“Fine.”
“Really?”
Malfoy shot him a disbelieving look, caught sight of Harry's grin and quickly looked away. “Yes.”
Harry regarded him curiously. “Why?”
Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Honestly, Potter. Because you asked.”
*
“Malfoy, Harry?” Ron exclaimed when he opened his front door the following evening to find them both standing there. “Have you forgotten he poisoned me?”
“Is that why your face looks like that?” Malfoy asked politely.
Red in the face, Ron gestured wildly, evidently lost for words. Harry was starting to think perhaps he should have warned him ahead of time.
“Is it also why he can't control his arms?”
“Ron,” Harry said, shooting Malfoy a stern look, “he's just baiting you. Ignore him.”
“Why have him around if the best you can do with him is ignore him?”
“Aesthetic appeal,” Malfoy said. “I have a very fine brow.”
“You really don't,” Harry told him. “Ron, he's alright.”
“It's Malfoy, Harry. Bloody hell, it was bad enough when Hermione was going on about him, but you...”
“Granger’s got good things to say, has she?” Malfoy was never very good at hiding earnest pleasure, though Harry thought maybe he was trying to conceal it, especially when Hermione appeared at the door.
Her brows raised as she glanced from Harry to Draco. Then she looked at her husband, snorted, and said, “Draco, Harry, please come in. Honestly, Ron.”
Muttering something unintelligible, Ron turned and strode back inside. Malfoy, squaring his shoulders, followed after him with a nod to Hermione and a pink flush in his cheeks.
One of the things Hermione admired about Malfoy, Harry discovered to his surprise a little while later, was his taste in music.
“You really should give Sting a go,” she was saying to Harry as Malfoy nodded agreement.
“Soft rock.” Ron made a disgusted noise. “I tell you, the whole world's mad. The only sane people in this house are me and the three-month-old.”
“The three-month-old is dribbling like a crazed lunatic,” Malfoy informed him, “and Sting is magnificent. You probably like Celestina Warbeck or something.” He looked at Hermione. “He does, doesn't he?”
“You mean you don’t like . . . ?” Harry trailed off. “But what about 'Love At First Spell'?” All three of them turned to him with incredulous expressions. “It’s a classic,” Harry finished, disgruntled.
“It’s alright, Harry.” Malfoy’s tone was gentle. “You’re not one of the sane ones in the house.”
Ron scowled at Malfoy, and Hermione cleared her throat uncomfortably. Then she moved onto less contentious subjects, talking about work to Malfoy. They got caught up in a discussion of kneazle lore, leaving Ron and Harry easily behind. Malfoy shouldn’t have looked so happy about it, since it was easy to get Hermione caught up in lore of any kind, but Harry was noticing that Malfoy had a tendency to hover where Hermione was concern, and to listen very seriously to everything she said. It was more than anyone could have ever said for Harry and Ron.
Ron leaned over and said, “There’s only one way to handle this.”
Harry, afraid that Ron had noticed Malfoy was a trifle sweet on his wife, whispered, “Handle what?”
“Malfoy in the living room,” Ron answered. Harry felt pretty sure Ron's suggestion was going to involve fists somehow, because he had a very determined look on his face. Instead, Ron said, “I’m going to get him a butterbeer.”
Then Ron went into the kitchen, Harry looking after him in surprise.
“What do you think, Harry?” Malfoy asked suddenly.
“Huh?” said Harry, and Hermione started enthusiastically explaining something about Egyptian cats and gods while Harry tried his best to pay attention this time.
So attentive was he, in fact, that he didn't notice Malfoy slipping away until he was in the kitchen. Oh god. “I'd better go see what Malfoy’s up to,” Harry said nervously, and stood up.
“Probably just helping Ron,” Hermione said offhandedly.
Harry stared at her, halfway out of his seat. Ron was right. Everyone really had gone crazy. “Helping make Ron want to beat the crap out of him, you mean,” he said.
“No. Ron’s getting drinks, isn’t he?”
“What?” said Harry, and then Malfoy and Ron came out of the kitchen, each holding two bottles, Malfoy smiling and Ron looking mostly bemused and neither of them sporting any visible bruises.
There was something about Malfoy sneaking off to the kitchen and coming back looking like the cat that got the cream that was very unsettling.
“Here,” said Malfoy airily, handing Harry a bottle. “I propose a toast.”
“What for?” Harry asked suspiciously.
“To the Chudley Cannons,” Malfoy announced grandly.
Harry’s eyes narrowed. “Malfoy, you-”
“Love the Chudley Cannons? Ardently admire and adore them? Yes, I do.” Smugly, Malfoy raised his bottle.
“You’re a lying git,” said Ron. “But I’ll toast to that.”
Malfoy beamed.
*
In the last few months-since Ginny's wedding, since Harry had started thinking he might actually make it-Harry had been meeting Ron a couple of times a month to play Quidditch with whoever else they could scrounge up to make two teams. Playing again was great; the only problem was that no one but Ginny could really come close to matching him as Seeker. Even if they had not had an unspoken agreement which meant playing against Ginny was out, she would have won any game too quickly were she Seeker anyway. This made for some mismatched teams, and boring matches.
For all that Malfoy had been a horrible cheat at school, he really was a fabulous Seeker and so, each eager to keep in practice, they came to play one-on-one games from time to time, meeting on Saturdays. The competition was good and so was the chance to burn off some excess energy. Harry had to think of the field less and less.
He kept thinking, though, about the conversation he had had with Hermione about Malfoy, and he realized two things. The first was that Malfoy really loved Quidditch. He didn’t love Quidditch the way Ginny loved Quidditch-Harry was convinced no one really loved Quidditch the way Ginny loved Quidditch. But Malfoy did love it; you could tell by the way he was those Saturdays.
He was a little ridiculous, really, zooming about and crowing, reminding Harry just a little of the way he'd been at school. Malfoy was all confidence and posturing, jeering even, because Malfoy was unhealthily competitive. He was also competitive in a breathless, utterly elated way; “you’re going down, Potter!” was perhaps his favorite comment ever, and he really really meant it.
But even if he became a holy terror whenever it looked like Harry was going to get to the Snitch ahead of him, Malfoy was careening with unassailable glee the entire time. When he did lose, he demanded rematches and made ridiculous excuses, but he was pink and breathless and his eyes were alight with exhilaration.
Afterwards they would go for lunch or dinner, and Malfoy would talk about their match the whole time, waving his arms, using his hand to imitate his broom. He recreated Harry's moves, too, and it wasn’t always to imitate the times Harry had lost control. Once Malfoy even said, “That was amazing, that turn. How did you do it?”
And Harry had to say, “Well, you’ve got to pull up a bit first.”
Malfoy’s eyes lit up. “You’re going to teach me.”
Harry smirked. “Am I?”
“Oh, yes. I’m going to be invincible at Quidditch.”
“Why’s that?”
“Don’t you see? With your powers and mine combined, I would be unbeatable.”
“Wouldn’t I be able to beat you?”
Malfoy looked incredulous. “Don’t be ridiculous. As if I would ever give you my powers.”
The next time they played, Malfoy caught the Snitch, and he didn’t let Harry live it down for days.
The second thing Harry realized was that most of the other people Malfoy might have played Quidditch with were dead, or in prison, or had moved away.
Harry was thinking about this, about Malfoy loving Quidditch and not having anyone to play with, when he invited Malfoy to play a game with his friends. He wasn’t thinking about the rest of it, how no one liked Malfoy, how in fact most of the people he played with actively hated him.
But Malfoy accepted. He came to the field looking white and nervous and extremely drawn about the mouth and eyes. He was painstakingly polite to everyone-except Harry, because he had never really been polite to Harry. No one was pleased to have him there, but no one made him leave.
If one thing could be said for Malfoy, it was that he was persistent. He played the game doggedly, and his team won the match.
No one clapped Malfoy on the back, and he did not stay to go out to the pub afterward. The next time Harry asked, Malfoy still agreed to come, and by degrees, everyone got more and more used to the idea that Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy could be friends.
That was how Malfoy got to better know the Weasleys. In time Ron had actually come to quite like Sting, but the rest of the family had suffered less exposure, and tended to be wary.
Arthur was never rude to Malfoy but sometimes Harry caught the puzzled glances he threw him, like he was looking at another version of Lucius. Molly's maternal instincts seemed to take over and she tended to feed him pies on the basis that he was too pale, but she kept her distance. Bill, his scars a constant presence, wasn't disposed to like him, and nor was Charlie, who apparently didn't think Suzy the spine-tailed blue would approve of him. George expressed a very definite desire to lock him in a Vanishing Cabinet just like Montague, except, for preference, the part where they found him again. Percy, on the other hand, rather liked him, which was damning in and of itself.
Ginny only said, “He cheats at Quidditch, Harry.”
This was really all that needed to be said, when Harry came one day to the practice pitch they all reserved once a fortnight, with a broom, Quidditch gloves, a Snitch, and Draco Malfoy.
But this too, eventually, changed-due in part, Harry suspected, to secret kitchen visits. In fact, Harry thought Malfoy and Molly spent an abnormal amount of time in there. One time Malfoy came out with flour on his cheekbone, looking very earnestly pleased.
Later that day, Teddy learned about pie.
Once Molly had warmed to Malfoy, the rest of the family started to follow. Arthur spent more time with him and seemed to realize that he really wasn't his father. Bill was too big a man to hold a grudge, and Suzy too big a dragon to focus too much dislike on one Malfoy. Percy-well, Percy was family.
George still didn’t like Malfoy, and the feeling was mutual. A few pranks were traded back and forth between them, too malicious for the tastes of Harry and Hermione and anyone with an ounce of brain, honestly, Ron, no one should be laughing. But George had to admit Malfoy could really play Quidditch, and Malfoy had to admit that George could really torment people, and continual, inventive annoyance of others was something in which Malfoy took keen interest. They settled into a kind of grudging respect for one another and were occasionally seen plotting together, which kind of scared Harry and Hermione and anyone with an ounce of brain. Ron thought he really shouldn’t laugh and did anyway.
Ginny only said, “He still cheats at Quidditch.”
Ginny could hold a grudge for a long, long time. Also, Ginny could be really, really obsessive about Quidditch.
In some ways it made Harry love her more, that she was so fiery, stubborn, competitive, so willfully loyal. In other ways it made Harry angry, made him want to shake all the hatred out of her, force her to accept Malfoy, force her to do whatever he wanted or needed her to do because she couldn’t be her own person; she was his.
She was married to Dean Thomas, who seemed to think Malfoy was alright, maybe because of the way Harry stayed away from Ginny and close to Malfoy.
Most of the monster was buried deep inside Harry these days, not a problem, but the sight of Ginny’s flaming hair and subtle curves could draw it forth. Most people didn’t any more. Malfoy certainly wouldn’t. Malfoy had been part of the impetus to get the monster under control in the first place.
*
“You know, there were a lot of strange rumors about you,” Malfoy said one day. It was a Saturday; they’d spent the afternoon on broomsticks chasing a Snitch. They were sweaty and exhausted. Harry was lying in the grass with his arm over his eyes and Malfoy was somewhere beside him, determined to exert his superiority over the grass by ripping it up in handfuls and letting it flutter about him. “Rumors about all the crazy stuff you did after quitting the Aurors.”
Malfoy had never brought up the specifics of Harry’s behavior during that time, and Harry didn’t want to talk about it. He was keeping the monster down.
“They’re all bollocks, of course, the rumors,” Malfoy said, yanking out more grass. “But there was one more bollocksy than the rest. I don’t even know why people bothered, had nothing to do with anything, just stupid, Boy Who Lived Savior of the World Chosen One Gryffindor-”
“Got it.”
“-Hero Golden Boy gossip.”
Harry lay there and did not pull his arm from his eyes. He thought of the field. There, the grass waved in sunlight. There was no road. Malfoy walked down the slope; his legs were long and sure.
“Well,” Harry said, after a while. “Come on then. What rumor was it?”
Malfoy stopped tugging on the grass. Harry could feel his gaze. “That you’re a homosexual.”
Harry relaxed and didn’t say anything.
Malfoy flicked around the poor murdered pieces of grass some more. “I didn’t believe it, of course. Even if everything else was true, that wouldn’t be.”
“Hm.” Harry stirred. “Why’s that?”
“What?” Malfoy said, startled. “Because it was the most bizarre. It had to be a lie.”
“I always rather thought making a dragon dance the paso doble was the most bizarre.” That one wasn’t true. Making that dragon walk away had become making a dragon dance, which had then become the paso doble. Harry didn’t even know what a paso doble was.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Malfoy said. “No doubt the second Weasley can make a Norwegian Ridgeback dance the can-can.”
“A French dragon would be more suited.”
“You mean a Parisian Wetback, and they’re all extinct.”
“You spend a lot of time talking to Charlie,” Harry said.
“He’s decent. Unlike some Weasleys we know.”
“Hm,” Harry said again. Then, after a pause, “It’s half true.”
“What? That the Weasleys are alright? Let’s see. I like William. And Charles. And Molly is . . .” Malfoy stared into space for a moment, and Harry remembered Malfoy’s thing about crazy hair. “Ronald is acceptable, and Arthur reminds me of-this doesn’t bear discussion. ” For a moment, Malfoy seemed taken aback. “Surely that’s not half.”
“That I’m homosexual,” Harry clarified. “It’s half true.”
Malfoy was silent for a while. “But you liked girls in school.”
“That’s what I mean. I like girls, too.” He looked at Malfoy curiously, wondering what his reaction would be. He had first discovered his interest in men as a form of self-destruction, but now he didn’t think of it that way. He tried not to think of it at all, actually, because being interested in anyone at this point seemed like too much too soon.
Harry hadn’t known what the rest of the world thought, when he started sleeping around with men. He hadn’t cared what the rest of the world thought. But now he wondered what Malfoy would think, whether pureblood bigotry extended to homosexuality. If it did, if Malfoy was disgusted with him, it would be . . . disappointing, Harry realized. He was really starting to like Draco Malfoy.
Malfoy merely sniffed. “As I recall, you liked girls enough to be snogging Mrs. Weasley-Thomas almost before my guts were back inside my body.”
“You're the one who's so fond of reminding me I'm no longer sixteen, Malfoy. And Ginny and I are long since over.”
“You sure about that? I see the way you look at her.”
“Do you?” Harry asked, distracted. “We are.”
“Fine.”
“Okay.”
After another short pause, Malfoy said again, “Fine. But I have a question.”
Harry finally moved his arm from his eyes, slanting a glance at Malfoy, wondering what his reaction was. “Yeah?”
“Was it Lockhart’s flaxen locks that first made you fall in love with him or not?”
*
That summer, Harry learned to speak to mermaids.
He did not go to the lake at Hogwarts. Instead he went to Cumbria and, using gillyweed, got to know the merfolk there.
Merfolk were not welcoming beings, but Harry had been used to centaurs, and he was in no hurry. He discovered underwater a kind of patience he had never had before.
At first, the merfolk resented his encroachment on their territory. Harry tried to show them that he meant no harm and, gradually, they grew to tolerate him, if not welcome him. Sometimes they spoke to him. Harry still did not understand them, but their mocking expressions were so reminiscent of Malfoy that Harry got along with them rather well.
“I resent comparison to fish people,” Malfoy said later, when Harry told him this.
By then Harry had learned some Mermish. Most of the merfolk were still rather cool toward him, but they also seemed quite interested. “They do have fun laughing at me,” Harry said, “and tell me my hair manages to look bad even underwater, where everyone’s sticks up.”
“I must meet these wonderful creatures. It’s obvious they have incredible intellect and superior taste.”
The merfolk had many strange customs, an entire culture that had flourished unnoticed for six years under his nose, but eventually Harry began to understand this foreign culture, to respect it.
He spent long hours under the lake, learning the trident games the merfolk played, discovering the secrets of giant squid, hearing rumors of buried treasure and eating kelp and trout tossed salad. He had never been much for learning out of books, but this practice of learning by experience suited him entirely. And, in time, the merfolk began to respect him back.
“They’re scaly,” Malfoy said, emerging from the lake drenched. “They’re scaly and they’re fishy and they laugh too much, and their seaweed salad is dreadful.”
“You just don’t like them because they laughed at you.”
“Points to Gryffindor for your keen powers of observation.” Malfoy was slogging up to shore. Once there, he found his wand and cast a drying spell on himself. “Did you figure that out on your own? Or did they reveal it some time when they were babbling at you in fishese?”
“I told you they didn’t like strangers.”
“Yes. But I am me, and the people of Mer and me share a natural affinity.” Malfoy had insisted on keeping his shirt on and now, though it was dry, it was ruined. “Ugh. Pond scum.” He tried to brush off the algae caked on the material, frowning at Harry. “We both suffer putting up with you.”
Harry laughed and splashed him.
For several moments, Malfoy stood there, his mouth open, looking pitifully wet and miserable. “Oh, no you don’t.” He crashed back into the water, hands outstretched, lunging for Harry’s neck.
Harry laughed again and dunked him.
Malfoy reached for him again, thrashing, and tried to hold his head underwater, but he was too angry to really be effective. Harry kept laughing.
“I hate you,” Malfoy said, sitting in the muck in the shallow water. “I really hate you. I’ve always hated you. I want you to know it was I who sent you the singing Valentine in second year.”
Harry trudged up out of the water. He’d taken his shirt off before he went in, and reached for it blindly in the pile of clothing. His hands closed on clean, dry cloth and he brought it up to get the excess water out of his hair. “Why were you sending me Valentines if you hate me so much?”
Malfoy was looking at him furiously. “It was to humiliate you, Potter, and what are you doing with my robes?”
Harry looked down at the cloth in his hands. Then he found his glasses and looked down at the cloth in his hands again. Then he looked at Malfoy and smirked. “What?” he asked. “Drying my hair. Hope that’s okay. I mean, you obviously want to spend more time down there in the water, but some of us would rather stay up here and try to get dry.”
“I-you . . .” Eventually Malfoy stood up, frowning deeply as he waded again up to shore. He snatched the robes from Harry’s hands. He cast a drying spell, then a cleaning spell. He looked down again at his shirt, but some of that stuff wasn’t coming off without more serious care.
“If you weren’t so modest,” Harry said, “your shirt would be clean.”
“If you weren’t such a lumbering troll, my robes would be clean,” Malfoy snapped.
“You can wear my robes,” Harry offered.
“I don’t want your robes,” Malfoy said, but took them anyway.
Harry watched him put them on. Then his hand stretched out without him really thinking about it, without thinking about how he’d never really touched him.
He thought about it, though, when Malfoy jerked away.
“Here,” Harry said quietly, and moved closer. Malfoy-pale and wet, everything sticking to him and looking like a drowned rodent-was very tense. “You’ve got . . . seaweed,” Harry explained. He reached again and Malfoy let him, and Harry pulled the seaweed out of Malfoy’s hair.
Malfoy made a face. “I’m never going to be clean again. Why do you do this?”
Harry shrugged. “I wanted to learn Mermish. Why did you?”
“What?”
“You didn’t have to come.”
Malfoy’s frown turned frightful. “You said I should meet them and they’d get used to me and I would have lots of fun.”
Harry winced. “I-I’m sorry.”
Giving a noisy sigh, Malfoy said, “Don’t go all guilty and brooding and tragic. No one wants you to run off again and hole yourself up in a hovel just because you absolutely ruined everything. Besides,” Malfoy went on, pulling on his clean shoes and socks. “They were kind of neat.”
“Oh,” Harry said. “They are, aren’t they? With the creepy singing. And the trident stuff.”
“Don’t go getting excited, Potter. You still ruined everything.”
*
After that, Harry learned Gobbledegook.
“What is it with you and magical creatures?” Malfoy asked.
Harry hadn’t thought about it that way. He’d been thinking instead that he should apologize, somehow, for breaking into Gringotts. After all, the goblins had been neutral during the war. Goblins didn’t understand apologies, as it turned out, but they did understand work as a form of remuneration.
“You just want my job,” Malfoy said gleefully. “Glory hound.”
“You handle the politics,” Harry said. “Contract negotiations and legislation and things.” Harry shrugged. “I’m just the human interest guy.”
“You mean the goblin interest guy. Hey, is fancying both witches and wizards sort of a gateway to fancying an even more diverse range of magical beings? Goblins do have those ears, you know.”
While Malfoy didn’t seem like he was against the idea of bisexuality deep down, he did say horribly offensive things from time to time. Harry wasn’t offended. Occasionally, it occurred to him that Malfoy brought up the sexuality thing rather more often than he really had to, but he didn’t really think about it much more than that.
Harry eventually got a job as an assistant in code-breaking, which was fun, since he occasionally exchanged correspondence with Bill Weasley. He also got to be on good terms with a goblin couple who invited him for brunch sometimes. Goblins, Harry learned, were very keen on brunch.
Harry thought he might stay on six months or so at Gringotts, and was already considering what to do next. He liked not being tied down to any one thing.
“Commitment phobic,” Malfoy said, in a horribly self-satisfied tone.
Harry was thinking of going to Romania next to work for Charlie.
“I suppose you’ll be working for One-Eared Weasley next,” Malfoy grumped. He had finally convinced Harry to go flat-hunting. They were stood alone in the main room of a flat above a shop, while the woman who was showing them round let a couple in downstairs.
“Maybe,” Harry said, looking out the window at Diagon Alley. “It would be interesting to know something about owning a business,” Harry added.
“Fine,” Malfoy said. “But you can’t go to Romania.”
Harry looked at Malfoy, startled. “Why not?”
“It’s too-” Malfoy broke off, looking startled himself. “There are too many vampires there. You’ll come back too pale and pasty and if you can’t go out in the sunlight, how will Thomas and Smith and I make you eat dust at Quidditch?”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Yeah, there’re vampires. Not to mention dragons. And you'll never make me eat dust at Quidditch.”
“Just you wait, Potter. You’ll get what’s coming.”
“You always say that and then I never get anything.”
A familiar glint appeared in Malfoy’s eye. Harry was convinced it had something to do with mania and possibly acute schizophrenia. “So,” Malfoy said amiably, much too amiably to be innocent, “you’re moving out of your hermitage and into London-town, where all the world is happening. Curse-breaking, romps in Romania with the fittest Weasley, internment and torture under a Middle Weasley. Looks like you’ve got your career all planned out.”
Harry sorted through this speech to see if he was being insulted anywhere in it. “You think Charlie is fit?” was what he came up with.
“There’s only one thing you’re missing in your life,” Malfoy continued imperiously, ignoring him. “A dream, a wish your heart has made: the love, eternal devotion and marriage vows of one Gorgeous Gilderoy.”
Harry grunted. “I wish you would stop calling him that.”
“Don’t be ashamed,” Malfoy advised him. “Half of Hogwarts fancied him. Make that half plus one, seeing as we need to add you to the female population of our revered Alma Mater.”
“You bring him up so much, I’m beginning to think you had a crush on him yourself.”
Malfoy drew himself up with dignity. “I was engaged in a torrid affair with Pansy at the time.”
“You were twelve at the time.”
“Malfoys mature early. I was a very charming twelve-year-old, if you’ll recall.” At Harry’s look, Malfoy shrugged. His lips twitched. “At any rate I had little time to poof about fancying professors.”
“But time enough to send me a Valentine,” Harry pointed out.
“I was also engaged in a formidable battle of wit and cunning, possibly to the death, with my most unfairly exalted and kind of crazy foe, if you will also recall.”
“I don’t remember that. Must’ve been killing a basilisk at the time.”
“Don’t feign ignorance. We were bitter enemies and rivals.”
“Come to think of it, sometimes there was this annoying buzzing in my ear.”
Malfoy jabbed a finger at him, somehow wildly missing his shoulder and managing to poke his ear. “You threatened me! In snake.”
“What?”
“Have I ever mentioned how off-putting all that hissing was? It almost made me give up on you completely as a worthy opponent. Not that you ever were. Besides, it’s just plain revolting; imagine having an enemy insensate enough to have a speech impediment. Nemesssisss just doesn’t sound the same, you know?”
Somewhere during this tirade, Harry had stopped listening. “Malfoy, you idiot, I was talking to the snake, not you.”
“Maybe we all should’ve left you two alone. First goblins, now snakes. Harry, you bring shame on me.” Strangely, shame on Malfoy looked rather like pleasure.
“Anyway, it was Justin Finch-Fletchley everyone thought I was trying to threaten.”
Shame suddenly looked displeased. “Well maybe I should just leave you alone with Justin Finch-Fletchley.”
“Er, no.”
“Not your type,” Malfoy suggested. “Doesn’t play Quidditch.”
“What?”
“Pay attention, Potter. You have a type and it’s Quidditch-obsessed. Take Chang and the icklest Weasley. Come to think of it, both of them were Seekers. Do you have a Seeker kink or does any position suit you?”
“Er. Position?”
Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Don’t be vulgar. It’s-well, vulgar. I’m just clearing your name a bit, here. If you never had a thing for Keepers, for instance . . . I can Scourgify my brain of all the hideous, insidious suspicions I’ve had, since learning you’re a poof, that you’ve got a thing for the Weasel.”
Harry didn’t say anything.
If he had thought about it, he would have expected Malfoy to grow horrified. Instead, Malfoy looked out the window, and said much more quietly, “Have you got a thing for Ronald Weasley, Potter?”
“No.”
Malfoy kept his back turned. “Don’t sound so sure of yourself,” he said. Harry knew Malfoy meant the comment to be mocking, but he’d gone wrong again and instead it sounded soft.
Harry looked at the line of Malfoy’s neck. He didn’t want to tell Malfoy about the way he sometimes thought of his friends, even when he didn’t mean to, even when it wasn’t what he wanted. Malfoy had never really understood the monster, and Harry didn’t want to explain it now that he had it locked away, and the claws inside his chest so rarely tried to rip themselves free.
So instead he said, “I don’t want Ron, Malfoy.”
Malfoy lifted his nose. “Good.”
Harry tried to smile. “Don’t want me to suffer from unrequited love?”
“After Lockhart, I’m not sure you could withstand the heartbreak.”
Harry shook his head. “You’re insane, you know that?”
“You admire insanity. Thus your fatal attraction to our darling lunatic, Gilderoy, and his gorgeous hair.” Malfoy’s nose wrinkled.
“Oh yeah,” Harry said. “I completely go for blonds.”
“Do you?”
Harry was going to go on being sarcastic when he saw that Malfoy was looking away, very earnestly pretending not to care.
Harry felt his blood thrum; it was a drum which could wake the monster. “Malfoy,” he said, very carefully. “Are you-”
Malfoy gave a fluid shrug. “Someone has to help you with your love life. Else you’ll go on determined to martyr your sexuality in a noble self-sacrificial effort to save us all, and then where would we be? They’d probably start a religion after you, just like that Christian fellow the Muggles love, the one with well-defined abdominal muscles.”
“Malfoy,” Harry said, after a startled moment. “You just said Jesus has nice abs.”
“He’s always hanging about in a loincloth. How could anyone fail to notice?”
“On the cross. You are utterly . . .”
“Clever? Witty? Possessed of nice abs?”
Harry frowned. After a moment he said, “I’m not martyring my sexuality, or whatever you said.”
The lightness had gone out of Malfoy’s eyes and voice. “Don’t give me that. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do. Well, actually, I don’t, because it’s you, and who can fathom your brain?” Malfoy paused dramatically. “But anyway, don’t think I don’t know that you promised yourself if you could never have Mrs. Weasley-Thomas you were never going to have anyone at all.”
“It’s not like that.”
“You think you’re too good, or too bad. Pick one, it’s all the same; you think you’re too special to have a girlfriend. Or boyfriend. Or goblinfriend, Harry, you deviant. You think it’s all about you.”
“I rather think my love life is about me, thanks.”
Malfoy flapped a dismissive hand. “Precisely. You think that anyone cares? You think you’re making some big sacrifice? You’re only punishing yourself.”
“You seem to care.”
Malfoy stopped flapping and suddenly grabbed Harry’s arm. “I don’t like stupidity,” he hissed.
“Shut up,” Harry said, trying to pull his arm away. “I’m not-”
“Yes, you are.” Malfoy’s fingers dug in deep, knuckles going white. His lips were the same color. “Merlin knows how I got into this, saving you from yourself.”
Harry didn’t try to pull away again. “Okay. I get it. You’re just trying to be a friend.”
Malfoy looked surprised, and dropped his arm. “Well . . . yes. But don’t tell Granger,” he added, looking around as though Hermione might jump out from a cupboard. “She has an unbecoming propensity to gloat when she feels she’s been proven right.”
Go to: Chapter 4
Rating: this chapter, pg
Length: this chapter, 6.5K, see below for WIP info
Warnings: later, there may be sex.
Characters: Harry/Draco, past Harry/Ginny
Epilogue: not epilogue compliant
Summary: Malfoy’s all, “Come out of there,” the way you say to a cat who is badly behaved. And Harry’s all like, “No, what, I’m a hermit! And I have a chest-monster! And I am crazy magically powerful!” and Malfoy’s all, “We all have problems, bub.” (thoughtfully) “You are crazy though. I’ll give you that.”
A/N: -Thanks 7 billion times to scabbyfish, who did SO MUCH TO THIS. I’ve never had a beta like her. Of course I’ve never shared anything this messy with someone. I’m so glad she can (with magic powers) make it somewhat presentable.
-This is a work in progress. I have this grand plan I’ll finish it if I start posting. Right now it’s 60,000 words. The plan makes it look like it will be 70,000 words. Plans are very deceiving. The plan is a chapter every week. My guess is 8-9 chapters. Did I mention plans are deceiving? Especially when they are mine.
-Constructive criticism is more than welcome.
Go to: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9
Chapter 3
Hermione was talking about something that had happened at work one day when Harry said, “Right. Malfoy told me about that.”
Both Hermione and Ron looked at him, and Harry wondered why he had said it. His friends still didn't know that Malfoy had come to Chimera Downs, or that Malfoy was the reason Harry had brought himself to leave, and try to have a normal life. Harry wasn’t keeping it a secret, exactly. He just wanted to try to keep the field on Chimera Downs as a separate place, a place no one knew about and no one could touch-except for Malfoy.
Harry still couldn't explain why being with Malfoy was easier than being with people he loved. Malfoy, who had always aggravated him, was more peaceful than the people who made him happy.
“When did you talk to Draco?” Hermione asked politely.
“I’ve been seeing him,” said Harry.
“What d'you mean seeing him?” Ron asked, outraged.
“Just... you know, we hang out sometimes.”
Hermione looked blank. “I had no idea.”
Ron looked at Harry incredulously. Then he asked, hopefully, “When you say you hang out with him, do you mean you beat him up? Punch him in the face occasionally?”
“What? No, why would I?”
“I think it’s wonderful,” Hermione said suddenly.
“Because that would make sense,” Ron went on. “Do you at least kick him a little?”
“Not really.”
“Draco doesn’t get out much, you know,” Hermione went on.
“Because people might punch him in the face,” Ron pointed out, earning glares from both of them.
“What do you mean?” Harry asked Hermione.
“Well, Ron’s kind of right.” Harry scowled and started to interrupt, and she hastily added, “Not necessarily about the punching, but being a former Death Eater, Draco isn’t exactly popular.”
“So he doesn’t go out in public?” Harry asked, puzzled. Malfoy had never seemed afraid of the pubs they went to. He'd been awkward the first time Harry had invited him out, but Harry had just thought Malfoy had been deciding whether he could get over his schoolboy grudge long enough to have a drink with him in public.
“Oh, he goes out all the time,” Hermione explained. “But most people are-well, sometimes people aren’t very nice. Sometimes when it’s his turn to make a creature confiscation he has to have back-up.”
Ron snorted. “That's nothing new. Malfoy’s always had cronies.”
“But that’s just it. He doesn’t have anyone. It’s just that sometimes people are so hostile toward him that he needs reinforcements. And you even have to be careful who you send him with. Most people in the department like him, but if you’re sending him with someone from Records or even an Auror-well, Ron. You’ve heard me talk about it.” Hermione looked at her husband pointedly.
“If everyone in the department likes him so much, couldn't other people do the jobs that'll be dangerous for him?” Harry asked.
“He insists. I think he thinks he needs to prove himself.” She frowned as Ron scoffed loudly. “No, Ron, really, I've told you, he's changed. He's the best at what he does as well.” She sounded upset.
“Malfoy never told me,” Harry said to Hermione, feeling perplexed.
Hermione shrugged. “He’s a private person, I suppose. Like I told you before, he’s very sweet. Everyone likes him once they give him a chance but I think there are very few he would consider friends.”
Harry thought about that. It was true that for all Malfoy’s chatter, he didn’t share much. Harry had learned more about his situation, about his parents and his personal life, from a few short exchanges with Hermione than from Malfoy himself. He found it hard to imagine Malfoy without all the people he had surrounded himself with at Hogwarts. Ron had been right about that: Malfoy had rarely been without Crabbe and Goyle, and Parkinson had trailed after him like a puppy. More often than not he'd sat at the middle of a knot of Slytherins, the center of attention and in his element.
Malfoy was bright and talkative, just like he had been then. He had told Harry he was happy, and Harry had believed him without thought, because surely everyone but himself was happy.
Selfish, said Malfoy's voice.
Harry was thinking this one night at the pub, while Malfoy babbled on about how crap the Chudley Cannons were. He never mentioned the Harpies when he was on a Quidditch rant, for which Harry was always grateful.
“Their Keeper!” Malfoy was saying, waving his hands about. “Is he on Muscle Max? Doesn’t he know that leeches your brain? Of course, he wouldn’t know if his brain has been leeched already. Which it probably has, considering their Left Beater.”
“Do you still play?” Harry said suddenly.
“What?” Malfoy’s hands tightened around his glass, which held a peculiar-looking concoction with a straw. “Of course,” he said, in a detached kind of way. “Former Death Eater versus Ministry. Guess who always wins.”
“You don’t, do you.”
“Who am I supposed to play with?” Malfoy asked irritably.
Harry shrugged. “Goyle? Zabini? I don’t know. All your little friends from school.”
“Zabini is in Montreal.”
“Why?”
Malfoy was getting more and more defensive. “Why do you care?”
Harry shrugged again. “I was just asking, Malfoy.”
“Well,” Malfoy said, looking ruffled, “don’t.”
“Don’t ask you about your friends?”
“I don’t ask you about yours,” Malfoy said pointedly.
Harry scowled. “Yes, you do.”
Malfoy looked scandalized. “As if I would ever.”
“I guess you don’t ask about Hermione and Ron,” Harry said. “But you already know about them.”
“Sadly.” Malfoy stirred his drink with the straw.
Impulsively, Harry said, “Want to come with me to Ron and Hermione's for dinner on Thursday?”
For a moment Malfoy looked stunned. He very quickly recovered, frowned, and looked down at his drink. He poked it unkindly. “Ha ha, very funny, Potter,” he said.
“I meant it.”
“Well, of course you meant it.” Malfoy’s stabs at his drink were getting more and more vicious. “You’re ridiculously earnest.”
“Well?” Harry said.
“Why should I want to have dinner with your friends?”
Harry was pretty sure Malfoy meant to sound quarrelsome, but somehow he’d misjudged his tone and only seemed uncertain. “I don’t know,” Harry said honestly, shrugging. “Because I want you to.”
Malfoy looked up. There were pink spots high on his cheeks, and his eyes seemed very bright. “You-” he started to say, then cut himself off, his gaze drifting down again. “Have you cleared this with them?”
“Hermione says she likes you.”
“Then you haven’t.”
“They’ll be alright with it.”
“Weasley doesn’t like me.”
“He’ll get over it.”
Malfoy was gazing into his drink with an expression of deepest concentration; perhaps, Harry thought, he was trying to decipher why on earth it was so pink. “Because you say so?”
“I got over it,” Harry pointed out.
“Have you,” Malfoy said, but it wasn’t a question. He was still looking at his drink.
“Mostly.” Harry smirked. “Except when you’re a git.”
“Thanks for that.”
“Then are you coming?”
“Fine.”
“Really?”
Malfoy shot him a disbelieving look, caught sight of Harry's grin and quickly looked away. “Yes.”
Harry regarded him curiously. “Why?”
Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Honestly, Potter. Because you asked.”
*
“Malfoy, Harry?” Ron exclaimed when he opened his front door the following evening to find them both standing there. “Have you forgotten he poisoned me?”
“Is that why your face looks like that?” Malfoy asked politely.
Red in the face, Ron gestured wildly, evidently lost for words. Harry was starting to think perhaps he should have warned him ahead of time.
“Is it also why he can't control his arms?”
“Ron,” Harry said, shooting Malfoy a stern look, “he's just baiting you. Ignore him.”
“Why have him around if the best you can do with him is ignore him?”
“Aesthetic appeal,” Malfoy said. “I have a very fine brow.”
“You really don't,” Harry told him. “Ron, he's alright.”
“It's Malfoy, Harry. Bloody hell, it was bad enough when Hermione was going on about him, but you...”
“Granger’s got good things to say, has she?” Malfoy was never very good at hiding earnest pleasure, though Harry thought maybe he was trying to conceal it, especially when Hermione appeared at the door.
Her brows raised as she glanced from Harry to Draco. Then she looked at her husband, snorted, and said, “Draco, Harry, please come in. Honestly, Ron.”
Muttering something unintelligible, Ron turned and strode back inside. Malfoy, squaring his shoulders, followed after him with a nod to Hermione and a pink flush in his cheeks.
One of the things Hermione admired about Malfoy, Harry discovered to his surprise a little while later, was his taste in music.
“You really should give Sting a go,” she was saying to Harry as Malfoy nodded agreement.
“Soft rock.” Ron made a disgusted noise. “I tell you, the whole world's mad. The only sane people in this house are me and the three-month-old.”
“The three-month-old is dribbling like a crazed lunatic,” Malfoy informed him, “and Sting is magnificent. You probably like Celestina Warbeck or something.” He looked at Hermione. “He does, doesn't he?”
“You mean you don’t like . . . ?” Harry trailed off. “But what about 'Love At First Spell'?” All three of them turned to him with incredulous expressions. “It’s a classic,” Harry finished, disgruntled.
“It’s alright, Harry.” Malfoy’s tone was gentle. “You’re not one of the sane ones in the house.”
Ron scowled at Malfoy, and Hermione cleared her throat uncomfortably. Then she moved onto less contentious subjects, talking about work to Malfoy. They got caught up in a discussion of kneazle lore, leaving Ron and Harry easily behind. Malfoy shouldn’t have looked so happy about it, since it was easy to get Hermione caught up in lore of any kind, but Harry was noticing that Malfoy had a tendency to hover where Hermione was concern, and to listen very seriously to everything she said. It was more than anyone could have ever said for Harry and Ron.
Ron leaned over and said, “There’s only one way to handle this.”
Harry, afraid that Ron had noticed Malfoy was a trifle sweet on his wife, whispered, “Handle what?”
“Malfoy in the living room,” Ron answered. Harry felt pretty sure Ron's suggestion was going to involve fists somehow, because he had a very determined look on his face. Instead, Ron said, “I’m going to get him a butterbeer.”
Then Ron went into the kitchen, Harry looking after him in surprise.
“What do you think, Harry?” Malfoy asked suddenly.
“Huh?” said Harry, and Hermione started enthusiastically explaining something about Egyptian cats and gods while Harry tried his best to pay attention this time.
So attentive was he, in fact, that he didn't notice Malfoy slipping away until he was in the kitchen. Oh god. “I'd better go see what Malfoy’s up to,” Harry said nervously, and stood up.
“Probably just helping Ron,” Hermione said offhandedly.
Harry stared at her, halfway out of his seat. Ron was right. Everyone really had gone crazy. “Helping make Ron want to beat the crap out of him, you mean,” he said.
“No. Ron’s getting drinks, isn’t he?”
“What?” said Harry, and then Malfoy and Ron came out of the kitchen, each holding two bottles, Malfoy smiling and Ron looking mostly bemused and neither of them sporting any visible bruises.
There was something about Malfoy sneaking off to the kitchen and coming back looking like the cat that got the cream that was very unsettling.
“Here,” said Malfoy airily, handing Harry a bottle. “I propose a toast.”
“What for?” Harry asked suspiciously.
“To the Chudley Cannons,” Malfoy announced grandly.
Harry’s eyes narrowed. “Malfoy, you-”
“Love the Chudley Cannons? Ardently admire and adore them? Yes, I do.” Smugly, Malfoy raised his bottle.
“You’re a lying git,” said Ron. “But I’ll toast to that.”
Malfoy beamed.
*
In the last few months-since Ginny's wedding, since Harry had started thinking he might actually make it-Harry had been meeting Ron a couple of times a month to play Quidditch with whoever else they could scrounge up to make two teams. Playing again was great; the only problem was that no one but Ginny could really come close to matching him as Seeker. Even if they had not had an unspoken agreement which meant playing against Ginny was out, she would have won any game too quickly were she Seeker anyway. This made for some mismatched teams, and boring matches.
For all that Malfoy had been a horrible cheat at school, he really was a fabulous Seeker and so, each eager to keep in practice, they came to play one-on-one games from time to time, meeting on Saturdays. The competition was good and so was the chance to burn off some excess energy. Harry had to think of the field less and less.
He kept thinking, though, about the conversation he had had with Hermione about Malfoy, and he realized two things. The first was that Malfoy really loved Quidditch. He didn’t love Quidditch the way Ginny loved Quidditch-Harry was convinced no one really loved Quidditch the way Ginny loved Quidditch. But Malfoy did love it; you could tell by the way he was those Saturdays.
He was a little ridiculous, really, zooming about and crowing, reminding Harry just a little of the way he'd been at school. Malfoy was all confidence and posturing, jeering even, because Malfoy was unhealthily competitive. He was also competitive in a breathless, utterly elated way; “you’re going down, Potter!” was perhaps his favorite comment ever, and he really really meant it.
But even if he became a holy terror whenever it looked like Harry was going to get to the Snitch ahead of him, Malfoy was careening with unassailable glee the entire time. When he did lose, he demanded rematches and made ridiculous excuses, but he was pink and breathless and his eyes were alight with exhilaration.
Afterwards they would go for lunch or dinner, and Malfoy would talk about their match the whole time, waving his arms, using his hand to imitate his broom. He recreated Harry's moves, too, and it wasn’t always to imitate the times Harry had lost control. Once Malfoy even said, “That was amazing, that turn. How did you do it?”
And Harry had to say, “Well, you’ve got to pull up a bit first.”
Malfoy’s eyes lit up. “You’re going to teach me.”
Harry smirked. “Am I?”
“Oh, yes. I’m going to be invincible at Quidditch.”
“Why’s that?”
“Don’t you see? With your powers and mine combined, I would be unbeatable.”
“Wouldn’t I be able to beat you?”
Malfoy looked incredulous. “Don’t be ridiculous. As if I would ever give you my powers.”
The next time they played, Malfoy caught the Snitch, and he didn’t let Harry live it down for days.
The second thing Harry realized was that most of the other people Malfoy might have played Quidditch with were dead, or in prison, or had moved away.
Harry was thinking about this, about Malfoy loving Quidditch and not having anyone to play with, when he invited Malfoy to play a game with his friends. He wasn’t thinking about the rest of it, how no one liked Malfoy, how in fact most of the people he played with actively hated him.
But Malfoy accepted. He came to the field looking white and nervous and extremely drawn about the mouth and eyes. He was painstakingly polite to everyone-except Harry, because he had never really been polite to Harry. No one was pleased to have him there, but no one made him leave.
If one thing could be said for Malfoy, it was that he was persistent. He played the game doggedly, and his team won the match.
No one clapped Malfoy on the back, and he did not stay to go out to the pub afterward. The next time Harry asked, Malfoy still agreed to come, and by degrees, everyone got more and more used to the idea that Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy could be friends.
That was how Malfoy got to better know the Weasleys. In time Ron had actually come to quite like Sting, but the rest of the family had suffered less exposure, and tended to be wary.
Arthur was never rude to Malfoy but sometimes Harry caught the puzzled glances he threw him, like he was looking at another version of Lucius. Molly's maternal instincts seemed to take over and she tended to feed him pies on the basis that he was too pale, but she kept her distance. Bill, his scars a constant presence, wasn't disposed to like him, and nor was Charlie, who apparently didn't think Suzy the spine-tailed blue would approve of him. George expressed a very definite desire to lock him in a Vanishing Cabinet just like Montague, except, for preference, the part where they found him again. Percy, on the other hand, rather liked him, which was damning in and of itself.
Ginny only said, “He cheats at Quidditch, Harry.”
This was really all that needed to be said, when Harry came one day to the practice pitch they all reserved once a fortnight, with a broom, Quidditch gloves, a Snitch, and Draco Malfoy.
But this too, eventually, changed-due in part, Harry suspected, to secret kitchen visits. In fact, Harry thought Malfoy and Molly spent an abnormal amount of time in there. One time Malfoy came out with flour on his cheekbone, looking very earnestly pleased.
Later that day, Teddy learned about pie.
Once Molly had warmed to Malfoy, the rest of the family started to follow. Arthur spent more time with him and seemed to realize that he really wasn't his father. Bill was too big a man to hold a grudge, and Suzy too big a dragon to focus too much dislike on one Malfoy. Percy-well, Percy was family.
George still didn’t like Malfoy, and the feeling was mutual. A few pranks were traded back and forth between them, too malicious for the tastes of Harry and Hermione and anyone with an ounce of brain, honestly, Ron, no one should be laughing. But George had to admit Malfoy could really play Quidditch, and Malfoy had to admit that George could really torment people, and continual, inventive annoyance of others was something in which Malfoy took keen interest. They settled into a kind of grudging respect for one another and were occasionally seen plotting together, which kind of scared Harry and Hermione and anyone with an ounce of brain. Ron thought he really shouldn’t laugh and did anyway.
Ginny only said, “He still cheats at Quidditch.”
Ginny could hold a grudge for a long, long time. Also, Ginny could be really, really obsessive about Quidditch.
In some ways it made Harry love her more, that she was so fiery, stubborn, competitive, so willfully loyal. In other ways it made Harry angry, made him want to shake all the hatred out of her, force her to accept Malfoy, force her to do whatever he wanted or needed her to do because she couldn’t be her own person; she was his.
She was married to Dean Thomas, who seemed to think Malfoy was alright, maybe because of the way Harry stayed away from Ginny and close to Malfoy.
Most of the monster was buried deep inside Harry these days, not a problem, but the sight of Ginny’s flaming hair and subtle curves could draw it forth. Most people didn’t any more. Malfoy certainly wouldn’t. Malfoy had been part of the impetus to get the monster under control in the first place.
*
“You know, there were a lot of strange rumors about you,” Malfoy said one day. It was a Saturday; they’d spent the afternoon on broomsticks chasing a Snitch. They were sweaty and exhausted. Harry was lying in the grass with his arm over his eyes and Malfoy was somewhere beside him, determined to exert his superiority over the grass by ripping it up in handfuls and letting it flutter about him. “Rumors about all the crazy stuff you did after quitting the Aurors.”
Malfoy had never brought up the specifics of Harry’s behavior during that time, and Harry didn’t want to talk about it. He was keeping the monster down.
“They’re all bollocks, of course, the rumors,” Malfoy said, yanking out more grass. “But there was one more bollocksy than the rest. I don’t even know why people bothered, had nothing to do with anything, just stupid, Boy Who Lived Savior of the World Chosen One Gryffindor-”
“Got it.”
“-Hero Golden Boy gossip.”
Harry lay there and did not pull his arm from his eyes. He thought of the field. There, the grass waved in sunlight. There was no road. Malfoy walked down the slope; his legs were long and sure.
“Well,” Harry said, after a while. “Come on then. What rumor was it?”
Malfoy stopped tugging on the grass. Harry could feel his gaze. “That you’re a homosexual.”
Harry relaxed and didn’t say anything.
Malfoy flicked around the poor murdered pieces of grass some more. “I didn’t believe it, of course. Even if everything else was true, that wouldn’t be.”
“Hm.” Harry stirred. “Why’s that?”
“What?” Malfoy said, startled. “Because it was the most bizarre. It had to be a lie.”
“I always rather thought making a dragon dance the paso doble was the most bizarre.” That one wasn’t true. Making that dragon walk away had become making a dragon dance, which had then become the paso doble. Harry didn’t even know what a paso doble was.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Malfoy said. “No doubt the second Weasley can make a Norwegian Ridgeback dance the can-can.”
“A French dragon would be more suited.”
“You mean a Parisian Wetback, and they’re all extinct.”
“You spend a lot of time talking to Charlie,” Harry said.
“He’s decent. Unlike some Weasleys we know.”
“Hm,” Harry said again. Then, after a pause, “It’s half true.”
“What? That the Weasleys are alright? Let’s see. I like William. And Charles. And Molly is . . .” Malfoy stared into space for a moment, and Harry remembered Malfoy’s thing about crazy hair. “Ronald is acceptable, and Arthur reminds me of-this doesn’t bear discussion. ” For a moment, Malfoy seemed taken aback. “Surely that’s not half.”
“That I’m homosexual,” Harry clarified. “It’s half true.”
Malfoy was silent for a while. “But you liked girls in school.”
“That’s what I mean. I like girls, too.” He looked at Malfoy curiously, wondering what his reaction would be. He had first discovered his interest in men as a form of self-destruction, but now he didn’t think of it that way. He tried not to think of it at all, actually, because being interested in anyone at this point seemed like too much too soon.
Harry hadn’t known what the rest of the world thought, when he started sleeping around with men. He hadn’t cared what the rest of the world thought. But now he wondered what Malfoy would think, whether pureblood bigotry extended to homosexuality. If it did, if Malfoy was disgusted with him, it would be . . . disappointing, Harry realized. He was really starting to like Draco Malfoy.
Malfoy merely sniffed. “As I recall, you liked girls enough to be snogging Mrs. Weasley-Thomas almost before my guts were back inside my body.”
“You're the one who's so fond of reminding me I'm no longer sixteen, Malfoy. And Ginny and I are long since over.”
“You sure about that? I see the way you look at her.”
“Do you?” Harry asked, distracted. “We are.”
“Fine.”
“Okay.”
After another short pause, Malfoy said again, “Fine. But I have a question.”
Harry finally moved his arm from his eyes, slanting a glance at Malfoy, wondering what his reaction was. “Yeah?”
“Was it Lockhart’s flaxen locks that first made you fall in love with him or not?”
*
That summer, Harry learned to speak to mermaids.
He did not go to the lake at Hogwarts. Instead he went to Cumbria and, using gillyweed, got to know the merfolk there.
Merfolk were not welcoming beings, but Harry had been used to centaurs, and he was in no hurry. He discovered underwater a kind of patience he had never had before.
At first, the merfolk resented his encroachment on their territory. Harry tried to show them that he meant no harm and, gradually, they grew to tolerate him, if not welcome him. Sometimes they spoke to him. Harry still did not understand them, but their mocking expressions were so reminiscent of Malfoy that Harry got along with them rather well.
“I resent comparison to fish people,” Malfoy said later, when Harry told him this.
By then Harry had learned some Mermish. Most of the merfolk were still rather cool toward him, but they also seemed quite interested. “They do have fun laughing at me,” Harry said, “and tell me my hair manages to look bad even underwater, where everyone’s sticks up.”
“I must meet these wonderful creatures. It’s obvious they have incredible intellect and superior taste.”
The merfolk had many strange customs, an entire culture that had flourished unnoticed for six years under his nose, but eventually Harry began to understand this foreign culture, to respect it.
He spent long hours under the lake, learning the trident games the merfolk played, discovering the secrets of giant squid, hearing rumors of buried treasure and eating kelp and trout tossed salad. He had never been much for learning out of books, but this practice of learning by experience suited him entirely. And, in time, the merfolk began to respect him back.
“They’re scaly,” Malfoy said, emerging from the lake drenched. “They’re scaly and they’re fishy and they laugh too much, and their seaweed salad is dreadful.”
“You just don’t like them because they laughed at you.”
“Points to Gryffindor for your keen powers of observation.” Malfoy was slogging up to shore. Once there, he found his wand and cast a drying spell on himself. “Did you figure that out on your own? Or did they reveal it some time when they were babbling at you in fishese?”
“I told you they didn’t like strangers.”
“Yes. But I am me, and the people of Mer and me share a natural affinity.” Malfoy had insisted on keeping his shirt on and now, though it was dry, it was ruined. “Ugh. Pond scum.” He tried to brush off the algae caked on the material, frowning at Harry. “We both suffer putting up with you.”
Harry laughed and splashed him.
For several moments, Malfoy stood there, his mouth open, looking pitifully wet and miserable. “Oh, no you don’t.” He crashed back into the water, hands outstretched, lunging for Harry’s neck.
Harry laughed again and dunked him.
Malfoy reached for him again, thrashing, and tried to hold his head underwater, but he was too angry to really be effective. Harry kept laughing.
“I hate you,” Malfoy said, sitting in the muck in the shallow water. “I really hate you. I’ve always hated you. I want you to know it was I who sent you the singing Valentine in second year.”
Harry trudged up out of the water. He’d taken his shirt off before he went in, and reached for it blindly in the pile of clothing. His hands closed on clean, dry cloth and he brought it up to get the excess water out of his hair. “Why were you sending me Valentines if you hate me so much?”
Malfoy was looking at him furiously. “It was to humiliate you, Potter, and what are you doing with my robes?”
Harry looked down at the cloth in his hands. Then he found his glasses and looked down at the cloth in his hands again. Then he looked at Malfoy and smirked. “What?” he asked. “Drying my hair. Hope that’s okay. I mean, you obviously want to spend more time down there in the water, but some of us would rather stay up here and try to get dry.”
“I-you . . .” Eventually Malfoy stood up, frowning deeply as he waded again up to shore. He snatched the robes from Harry’s hands. He cast a drying spell, then a cleaning spell. He looked down again at his shirt, but some of that stuff wasn’t coming off without more serious care.
“If you weren’t so modest,” Harry said, “your shirt would be clean.”
“If you weren’t such a lumbering troll, my robes would be clean,” Malfoy snapped.
“You can wear my robes,” Harry offered.
“I don’t want your robes,” Malfoy said, but took them anyway.
Harry watched him put them on. Then his hand stretched out without him really thinking about it, without thinking about how he’d never really touched him.
He thought about it, though, when Malfoy jerked away.
“Here,” Harry said quietly, and moved closer. Malfoy-pale and wet, everything sticking to him and looking like a drowned rodent-was very tense. “You’ve got . . . seaweed,” Harry explained. He reached again and Malfoy let him, and Harry pulled the seaweed out of Malfoy’s hair.
Malfoy made a face. “I’m never going to be clean again. Why do you do this?”
Harry shrugged. “I wanted to learn Mermish. Why did you?”
“What?”
“You didn’t have to come.”
Malfoy’s frown turned frightful. “You said I should meet them and they’d get used to me and I would have lots of fun.”
Harry winced. “I-I’m sorry.”
Giving a noisy sigh, Malfoy said, “Don’t go all guilty and brooding and tragic. No one wants you to run off again and hole yourself up in a hovel just because you absolutely ruined everything. Besides,” Malfoy went on, pulling on his clean shoes and socks. “They were kind of neat.”
“Oh,” Harry said. “They are, aren’t they? With the creepy singing. And the trident stuff.”
“Don’t go getting excited, Potter. You still ruined everything.”
*
After that, Harry learned Gobbledegook.
“What is it with you and magical creatures?” Malfoy asked.
Harry hadn’t thought about it that way. He’d been thinking instead that he should apologize, somehow, for breaking into Gringotts. After all, the goblins had been neutral during the war. Goblins didn’t understand apologies, as it turned out, but they did understand work as a form of remuneration.
“You just want my job,” Malfoy said gleefully. “Glory hound.”
“You handle the politics,” Harry said. “Contract negotiations and legislation and things.” Harry shrugged. “I’m just the human interest guy.”
“You mean the goblin interest guy. Hey, is fancying both witches and wizards sort of a gateway to fancying an even more diverse range of magical beings? Goblins do have those ears, you know.”
While Malfoy didn’t seem like he was against the idea of bisexuality deep down, he did say horribly offensive things from time to time. Harry wasn’t offended. Occasionally, it occurred to him that Malfoy brought up the sexuality thing rather more often than he really had to, but he didn’t really think about it much more than that.
Harry eventually got a job as an assistant in code-breaking, which was fun, since he occasionally exchanged correspondence with Bill Weasley. He also got to be on good terms with a goblin couple who invited him for brunch sometimes. Goblins, Harry learned, were very keen on brunch.
Harry thought he might stay on six months or so at Gringotts, and was already considering what to do next. He liked not being tied down to any one thing.
“Commitment phobic,” Malfoy said, in a horribly self-satisfied tone.
Harry was thinking of going to Romania next to work for Charlie.
“I suppose you’ll be working for One-Eared Weasley next,” Malfoy grumped. He had finally convinced Harry to go flat-hunting. They were stood alone in the main room of a flat above a shop, while the woman who was showing them round let a couple in downstairs.
“Maybe,” Harry said, looking out the window at Diagon Alley. “It would be interesting to know something about owning a business,” Harry added.
“Fine,” Malfoy said. “But you can’t go to Romania.”
Harry looked at Malfoy, startled. “Why not?”
“It’s too-” Malfoy broke off, looking startled himself. “There are too many vampires there. You’ll come back too pale and pasty and if you can’t go out in the sunlight, how will Thomas and Smith and I make you eat dust at Quidditch?”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Yeah, there’re vampires. Not to mention dragons. And you'll never make me eat dust at Quidditch.”
“Just you wait, Potter. You’ll get what’s coming.”
“You always say that and then I never get anything.”
A familiar glint appeared in Malfoy’s eye. Harry was convinced it had something to do with mania and possibly acute schizophrenia. “So,” Malfoy said amiably, much too amiably to be innocent, “you’re moving out of your hermitage and into London-town, where all the world is happening. Curse-breaking, romps in Romania with the fittest Weasley, internment and torture under a Middle Weasley. Looks like you’ve got your career all planned out.”
Harry sorted through this speech to see if he was being insulted anywhere in it. “You think Charlie is fit?” was what he came up with.
“There’s only one thing you’re missing in your life,” Malfoy continued imperiously, ignoring him. “A dream, a wish your heart has made: the love, eternal devotion and marriage vows of one Gorgeous Gilderoy.”
Harry grunted. “I wish you would stop calling him that.”
“Don’t be ashamed,” Malfoy advised him. “Half of Hogwarts fancied him. Make that half plus one, seeing as we need to add you to the female population of our revered Alma Mater.”
“You bring him up so much, I’m beginning to think you had a crush on him yourself.”
Malfoy drew himself up with dignity. “I was engaged in a torrid affair with Pansy at the time.”
“You were twelve at the time.”
“Malfoys mature early. I was a very charming twelve-year-old, if you’ll recall.” At Harry’s look, Malfoy shrugged. His lips twitched. “At any rate I had little time to poof about fancying professors.”
“But time enough to send me a Valentine,” Harry pointed out.
“I was also engaged in a formidable battle of wit and cunning, possibly to the death, with my most unfairly exalted and kind of crazy foe, if you will also recall.”
“I don’t remember that. Must’ve been killing a basilisk at the time.”
“Don’t feign ignorance. We were bitter enemies and rivals.”
“Come to think of it, sometimes there was this annoying buzzing in my ear.”
Malfoy jabbed a finger at him, somehow wildly missing his shoulder and managing to poke his ear. “You threatened me! In snake.”
“What?”
“Have I ever mentioned how off-putting all that hissing was? It almost made me give up on you completely as a worthy opponent. Not that you ever were. Besides, it’s just plain revolting; imagine having an enemy insensate enough to have a speech impediment. Nemesssisss just doesn’t sound the same, you know?”
Somewhere during this tirade, Harry had stopped listening. “Malfoy, you idiot, I was talking to the snake, not you.”
“Maybe we all should’ve left you two alone. First goblins, now snakes. Harry, you bring shame on me.” Strangely, shame on Malfoy looked rather like pleasure.
“Anyway, it was Justin Finch-Fletchley everyone thought I was trying to threaten.”
Shame suddenly looked displeased. “Well maybe I should just leave you alone with Justin Finch-Fletchley.”
“Er, no.”
“Not your type,” Malfoy suggested. “Doesn’t play Quidditch.”
“What?”
“Pay attention, Potter. You have a type and it’s Quidditch-obsessed. Take Chang and the icklest Weasley. Come to think of it, both of them were Seekers. Do you have a Seeker kink or does any position suit you?”
“Er. Position?”
Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Don’t be vulgar. It’s-well, vulgar. I’m just clearing your name a bit, here. If you never had a thing for Keepers, for instance . . . I can Scourgify my brain of all the hideous, insidious suspicions I’ve had, since learning you’re a poof, that you’ve got a thing for the Weasel.”
Harry didn’t say anything.
If he had thought about it, he would have expected Malfoy to grow horrified. Instead, Malfoy looked out the window, and said much more quietly, “Have you got a thing for Ronald Weasley, Potter?”
“No.”
Malfoy kept his back turned. “Don’t sound so sure of yourself,” he said. Harry knew Malfoy meant the comment to be mocking, but he’d gone wrong again and instead it sounded soft.
Harry looked at the line of Malfoy’s neck. He didn’t want to tell Malfoy about the way he sometimes thought of his friends, even when he didn’t mean to, even when it wasn’t what he wanted. Malfoy had never really understood the monster, and Harry didn’t want to explain it now that he had it locked away, and the claws inside his chest so rarely tried to rip themselves free.
So instead he said, “I don’t want Ron, Malfoy.”
Malfoy lifted his nose. “Good.”
Harry tried to smile. “Don’t want me to suffer from unrequited love?”
“After Lockhart, I’m not sure you could withstand the heartbreak.”
Harry shook his head. “You’re insane, you know that?”
“You admire insanity. Thus your fatal attraction to our darling lunatic, Gilderoy, and his gorgeous hair.” Malfoy’s nose wrinkled.
“Oh yeah,” Harry said. “I completely go for blonds.”
“Do you?”
Harry was going to go on being sarcastic when he saw that Malfoy was looking away, very earnestly pretending not to care.
Harry felt his blood thrum; it was a drum which could wake the monster. “Malfoy,” he said, very carefully. “Are you-”
Malfoy gave a fluid shrug. “Someone has to help you with your love life. Else you’ll go on determined to martyr your sexuality in a noble self-sacrificial effort to save us all, and then where would we be? They’d probably start a religion after you, just like that Christian fellow the Muggles love, the one with well-defined abdominal muscles.”
“Malfoy,” Harry said, after a startled moment. “You just said Jesus has nice abs.”
“He’s always hanging about in a loincloth. How could anyone fail to notice?”
“On the cross. You are utterly . . .”
“Clever? Witty? Possessed of nice abs?”
Harry frowned. After a moment he said, “I’m not martyring my sexuality, or whatever you said.”
The lightness had gone out of Malfoy’s eyes and voice. “Don’t give me that. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do. Well, actually, I don’t, because it’s you, and who can fathom your brain?” Malfoy paused dramatically. “But anyway, don’t think I don’t know that you promised yourself if you could never have Mrs. Weasley-Thomas you were never going to have anyone at all.”
“It’s not like that.”
“You think you’re too good, or too bad. Pick one, it’s all the same; you think you’re too special to have a girlfriend. Or boyfriend. Or goblinfriend, Harry, you deviant. You think it’s all about you.”
“I rather think my love life is about me, thanks.”
Malfoy flapped a dismissive hand. “Precisely. You think that anyone cares? You think you’re making some big sacrifice? You’re only punishing yourself.”
“You seem to care.”
Malfoy stopped flapping and suddenly grabbed Harry’s arm. “I don’t like stupidity,” he hissed.
“Shut up,” Harry said, trying to pull his arm away. “I’m not-”
“Yes, you are.” Malfoy’s fingers dug in deep, knuckles going white. His lips were the same color. “Merlin knows how I got into this, saving you from yourself.”
Harry didn’t try to pull away again. “Okay. I get it. You’re just trying to be a friend.”
Malfoy looked surprised, and dropped his arm. “Well . . . yes. But don’t tell Granger,” he added, looking around as though Hermione might jump out from a cupboard. “She has an unbecoming propensity to gloat when she feels she’s been proven right.”
Go to: Chapter 4