FIC: Song for a Winter’s Night (Harry/Draco - 5869 - PG)
Title: Song for a Winter’s Night
Author/Artist: sw33tch3rrypi3
Pairing(s): H/D (Mentions of RW/HG, RW/PP, GW/Harper)
Prompt: 2015--#125 (Slightly adapted)
Word Count: 5,869
Rating: PG
Contains (Highlight to view): *Past canon character death, bittersweet ending*
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. Lyrics for Song for a Winter’s Night belong to Gordon Lightfoot and various producers. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: Thanks, as always, to our mods and to my tireless super-beta, J. This is dedicated with love to my own Colin John. You are so missed, and the world is a little less glittery without you in it. xx
Summary: When tragedy strikes, Harry Potter retreats to muggle society. Five years later, he’s volunteering at a homeless shelter when his past walks through the door.
Harry turned his coat collar up and pulled it tighter around his neck, shutting out the chill and the softly falling snowflakes. What he wouldn’t give to cast a lovely warming charm, but he knew better than to risk it outside of his home in the muggle area where he had lived for the past five years, even in the soft darkness of a new moon December night. All it would take was one person-just one-witnessing a strange man waving around a stick and Aurors would be on him in moments, ending his solitude; ending his secret.
He turned left down an older, narrower cobblestoned road and a few yards later reached his destination. He pushed through the double glass doors with a sigh of relief as the heat hit his reddened, numbed face. The furnace had been on the blink for a few weeks, and Harry was always worried he’d arrive at the shelter to find it had completely given up the ghost. They’d already had to pay for two after-hours repair visits, and they definitely couldn’t afford to replace the whole thing until at least the first of the year. Harry had managed to keep it going thus far with a few discreet spells when nobody was looking. After all, without a heater, the building that used to be a storage warehouse would be nearly as cold as outside, offering the rough sleepers who flocked to them little in the way of comfort.
“Ah, you’re early,” Michael said with a little smile as he walked into the main room from the kitchen area carrying a stack of plates.
“Aren’t I always?” Harry chuckled and removed his coat and scarf, hanging them on the stand next to the front door.
“Yes, but I suppose I’m still holding my breath waiting for you to move on. You’re the best volunteer we’ve ever had, and I can’t help but wonder how long that luck will hold.” Michael’s smile widened to a grin as he set down the plates and turned to retreat to the kitchen once more.
Harry felt himself blush. He’d been volunteering at the Colin John Centre for nearly six months now. They mostly housed and fed homeless LGBTQ people, though they didn’t turn anyone away. He’d first found them when he had been desperately seeking something to do for his birthday, something to take his mind off the fact that he no longer had anyone to spend it with. He just couldn’t take one more year of sitting home alone, remembering, missing the life he used to have.
Since he himself had come out around the same time he’d lost everything, Harry felt a special connection to the people who came into the shelter. He was very fortunate that he’d had somewhere to go, even if he’d had no one to go with him. He did his best to make sure that the people who came into their centre never felt as alone as he sometimes did. Though, that feeling was beginning to change. He had formed a few casual friendships with the regulars, and, well, lately it seemed that Michael…
“We had a new one last night,” the centre director said, returning with a large platter of prepared sandwiches and fruit. “Young guy, about our age. Didn’t talk much, just sat in the corner and looked surly, but I hope he comes back. Seemed like he could use the company more than anything else, really.”
Harry nodded and started to walk the floor, making sure all the lights were turned on; a welcoming beacon for those on the streets passing by. There was always a new one, and there were even more that hadn’t found them yet. Almost more than anything, he wished he could access his vaults and give the centre the funds it needed. If things ever got really dire, he suspected he might give up what he had to do it, too. For now, he lived on the money he had managed to take with him and the few good muggle investments he had made and donated what he could.
A gust of wind blew in as the door was shoved open, and a stooped woman in a ragged blanket entered. Though she looked about sixty, Harry knew she was likely much younger and had been aged by stress and hunger. He took a deep breath and moved forward to help her and get her something to eat.
***
Two hours later they were nearly to capacity when Harry felt a strange tingle go up his spine. He froze, searching his mind for the vague memory of that feeling. At last it came to him-it was the sensation of two magic auras touching. Barely managing to suppress his gasp, he turned sharply to look toward the door.
All he could see was the back of a tall, slim figure dressed in a faded green canvas jacket and fraying denims walking across the room. The person’s hair was completely covered by a dark blue stocking cap that had also seen better days, rolled around the edge. With an inexplicable sensation of familiarity, Harry moved to follow the newcomer as they moved toward the tables and the food.
He was a few inches away and debating whether to be so bold as to tap the shoulder before him when the other person turned, coming face-to-face with him. Suddenly, Harry was plunged back nearly fifteen years, to the day a boy had turned in the same manner and tried to take his hand. That boy had been clean and groomed and well-fed, but the eyes were exactly the same. No, that wasn’t entirely true. These eyes seemed somehow warmer, despite the frank astonishment they currently displayed. There were also tiny laugh lines at the corners that Harry was certain hadn’t been there before. There was no mistaking, however, that the man in front of him was Draco Malfoy.
He studied his former adversary for frozen seconds, noting the thick layer of golden stubble covering his face and his tired, slumped posture. He had lost track of Malfoy after the trials, when the man had walked away without his fortune but with a future outside of Azkaban to look forward to. Harry had occasionally wondered about the man he had become, but even in his most creative and vindictive moments, Harry had never imagined…this.
“Can I at least get a cup of coffee before you toss me out?” Malfoy asked wearily, and Harry started, plunging back to the reality of the present moment. Flicking his gaze away from his once-nemesis, he swallowed deeply and then walked past him, their elbows brushing. He took a paper cup from the stack beside the fresh pot of coffee and filled it to the brim. Then, a memory of Draco at breakfast in the Great Hall flashing through his mind, he poured an inch back into the pot and reached for the cream pitcher.
“Why would I toss you out?” Harry asked steadily. “I don’t know you, you don’t know me.” He extended his arm and offered the doctored coffee to Malfoy as the man walked around so that they once again faced each other. Draco studied him quietly for a moment, and then nodded before accepting the cup. When he started to go, however, Harry stopped him with a hand on his forearm. “Hypothetically, however, if you wanted to talk about what brought you to where you are now…Well, one of the services we offer is a sympathetic ear.”
As he spoke he looked not at the other man, but off into the distance, as if the answer didn’t matter to him at all, one way or the other.
Draco took a sip from his cup and cleared his throat. “Let’s find somewhere more private.”
***
Once they were settled into worn, overstuffed chairs in one corner with a small table for Malfoy to set his coffee on, Harry gestured for him to speak. The blond rolled his shoulders and sighed. “I’m not sure what you want to know. Aren’t most hard-luck stories the same? No money and no place to live means no options. Or at least very few options.”
Harry cringed and opened his mouth to speak, but Draco held up a hand. “We don’t know each other. That’s the truth.” He said it so intensely, staring into Harry’s eyes, that the brunet could only nod in agreement.
“Tell me something else, then,” he urged, unable to let go of this link to his old life-even if it was Draco Malfoy. “Tell me who you are.”
Malfoy’s brows rose in surprise, and then he smiled somewhat ruefully, which slammed through Harry’s gut with surprising force. He raised a long hand and rubbed it along the stubble on his chin, then shrugged. “My mother always swore I was so incorrigible because I was conceived during a full moon…”
They talked for hours, Harry Potter the nobody and the stranger with Draco Malfoy’s face. Well, Malfoy talked, and Harry listened. Once, when Draco reached to pick up his cup, his sleeve slid back to reveal a fading scar. It seemed like it belonged on someone far removed from where they sat, two new acquaintances in a homeless shelter in Hammersmith.
Once Draco had tired of talking about his childhood and his old friends and had retreated to his cot, Harry packed up his things and left. All the way to his flat, he kept wishing he had made Malfoy promise to return the next night.
***
As it turned out, he needn’t have worried. Malfoy was there the next evening when Harry arrived, waiting outside the door. He hesitated when Harry held the door open and motioned for him to enter.
“It’s early. Special privileges for me?” he asked amusedly as he stepped inside, the unspoken “…Potter?” hanging in the air between them. Potter rolled his eyes with a little smile and set to work preparing the night’s meal. Malfoy pitched in, and Michael entered soon afterward and joined them.
“I see you found our newbie,” Michael said to Harry, and there seemed to be something a little sharp in his eyes and his smile. It faded quickly, though. Possibly he had imagined it. The three chatted amicably about nothing as they prepared to open the doors, though Michael seemed to be pushing Malfoy to open up at times. Harry always redirected the conversation, but he suspected they would have to think of a story to placate his supervisor; Michael was good at getting the residents to share their histories so that he could help them move up into better situations.
Just over two hours later, Harry and Draco managed to settle back into their corner as if by some previously made arrangement. “So,” Malfoy said, “it’s your turn. Tell me how you ended up here.”
Harry hesitated, not eager to share the tale. He knew, however, it was important for the strange sort of friendship they were attempting. “Ron-My friend Ron and I,” he corrected, returning to their fantasy of being strangers, “we had started…law enforcement training. He loved it. It was the only thing he ever wanted to do. I hated it. I quit after three months.” Malfoy nodded, and Harry pushed away the thought that he’d probably read that in the Prophet. “They assigned Ron another partner, I can’t remember his name now. Anyway, about six months later there was an attack on-on an alley where there were many shops. The assailant had a mug-a gun. He killed several people while Ron and his partner were trying to capture him. They managed to corner him, and he pointed the gun at Ron’s partner and his partner Dis-left. Ron managed to take the man down alone, but was shot in the knee. He couldn’t do that job anymore after that. But the worst part…” Harry paused and swallowed, tears springing to his eyes as he thought of what had happened, what he had pushed so far down inside and never allowed to enter his mind. “Ron’s wife was shopping that day. She was shot and lost a lot of blood before they could get to her. The last I heard, she was in hospital, being kept alive by machines. Ron and I…Well, we had a big fight over it. I don’t think she would have wanted that,” he whispered.
Harry continued to look at the floor rather than Draco, and startled when he felt one of the man’s hands cover his. He glanced up and their eyes met, and for that moment they were Potter and Malfoy, because they needed to be. “I’m sorry,” Malfoy said, and not with the detachment of a stranger hearing a sad story, but with the knowledge of someone who knew what Potter had lost. Harry managed to give him a tight-lipped smile, but once he had pulled himself together, he bid Draco goodnight and left.
***
“So this fight,” Draco said carefully the next night over a tatty chess set that had been donated to the centre, “you ran away over it? You can’t make up with W-Ron?”
Harry sighed and reached for his piece, then moved it two squares, knocking off one of Draco’s white pieces. He picked it up and placed it off the board. “He said it was my fault.
That if I hadn’t quit, none of it would have happened. His whole family believed it, really. He was the only one who said it outright, but it was always…implied. I failed them, and if I didn’t want to fight bad guys any-fight, then I clearly had no use to the society that I was in. It was better for me to go.”
“That’s bullshit,” Malfoy muttered, making his turn.
Harry’s lips quirked, but he refrained from comment. These times with Malfoy were still surreal, and he always suspected that he would wake up one morning to find that he’d been having a bizarre dream. The last couple of nights, however, he had dreamed about Draco when he fell asleep, which only proved to him that whatever this was-unfolding weirdly and wonderfully-was as real as the awfulness of the last five years. He worried that he was getting far in over his head, and it was frightening. But it was also exhilarating, and he finally had something to look forward to every day.
Malfoy opened his mouth and closed it, seeming to weigh his next words carefully before speaking. Finally he asked, “Have you considered reaching out to…Ron? It’s Christmas. I th-sus-I reckon he might like to hear from you.”
Harry chewed his lower lip and contemplated his next move on the chess board as he let Draco’s question roll through his mind. Of course he had considered it, he considered it all the time, even more so at certain times during the year. March first. July thirty-first.
September nineteenth. Christmas. New Year’s Day. He always talked himself out of it, convinced himself that there was no going back.
“I just…It seems like you must have unfinished business,” Malfoy pressed, staring at the board and not looking at Harry while awaiting his turn.
The brunet sighed, irritated. “Since when are you such a fan of any Weasley?” he muttered.
Draco drew in a sharp break, broken by a quick shake of his head. “No going back,” he said, and it was almost a plea.
Wincing, Harry took his turn. “Sorry. Maybe you’re right. Maybe this year…”
Malfoy nodded and moved a piece, putting Harry in check. He couldn’t help but think it was a fine metaphor, and he started to laugh.
***
Several weeks passed, and Harry and Draco spent most of every evening at the centre together. Harry no longer wondered if he was in over his head, he was positive that he had gotten in deeper with Malfoy than he had ever intended. But he couldn’t, and wouldn’t, change the feelings that were developing. Their game of being newly-acquainted strangers had slowly faded, and now everything melded together into a beautifully nuanced and true friendship that was shaped by everything they had experienced together and apart. There had been some delicate conversations and tense moments, but they had survived. Just as Draco had said, there was no going back, and they were both determined to remember that.
Five days before Christmas, Draco didn’t show up at the shelter. “I’m sure he’s fine, Harry,” Michael said. “He probably walked farther today than usual and decided to stay at one of the places on the east side.”
Harry wanted to agree, wanted to believe it, but his gut told him that Malfoy would not have stood him up without finding some way to let Harry know he wouldn’t be coming to the centre that night. And when he didn’t come the next evening, either, he knew something was wrong. He expressed his concern to Michael, and noticed that even the other man’s eyes were troubled, though he patted Harry’s shoulder and chuckled.
“Sometimes that’s just what happens. They move on, find somewhere better.” He pinched his lips together. “Perhaps he was uncomfortable? You did seem to be getting overly fond of that one.”
With a sudden sense of unease, Harry stepped back and nodded. “Right. Anyway, I need to get things ready to open the doors.” Privately, he decided to do a little checking about the next day.
***
Harry spent all day on the twenty-second searching the city for Malfoy. He began with a radius close to the centre and worked outward. When he had reached the fringes of the city without any sign of the blond, the sense of foreboding that had been slowly pooling in his belly rolled into a wave that worked its way over his entire being. Something was very wrong, and he couldn’t help but be terrified for the man, homeless and vulnerable among a society he still didn’t know how to navigate well.
Hoping that Draco would show up at the shelter with an explanation, Harry made his way there at his usual time. He expected the doors to be locked when he arrived, as usual, but he hadn’t expected the thick, heavy chain and padlock around the door handles or the signs on the windows indicating that the centre was closed until further notice. He moved closer, confused, and then blinked and stepped back when he sensed magic. There was-yes, just there beneath the muggle lock that was clearly for show were some strong locking spells and intricate wards.
Something very bad had happened, and Harry had no idea how or where to begin to find out what it was. He didn’t have any personal contact information for Michael, and there clearly wasn’t anyone inside the building. The muggle police might know something, but he suspected, given the presence of the high-grade spells, the Aurors might know more. He heaved a sigh, knowing who he needed to ask. It would be difficult, but if Draco was in danger-
Harry froze as he realized that he had automatically assumed that Draco was a victim rather than the culprit of whatever had occurred. His brain rejected even objectively considering the possibility that the Draco of the past few weeks had been a façade, and his shoulders relaxed. There really and truly was no going back. But they could go forward. They all could.
Glancing around, he slipped his wand from the wrist holster covered by his sleeve. Certain the alley outside the centre was completely empty, he Disapparated.
***
The Ministry was very much the way he remembered it. Some of the plants in the lobby had been replaced, and the receptionist he approached was not the elderly dragon he remembered, but a dark-haired woman in her twenties who was looking down at a romance novel opened on the surface of her desk. “Can I help you?” she asked in a bored tone without glancing up.
“I’m here to see Auror Weasley,” Harry said quietly, sliding his wand onto the surface of the desk. The last he knew, Ron had taken a desk job in the department after being forced to leave fieldwork. He hoped his friend was still there, so that their first meeting in years could be on neutral territory.
The woman reached up and took his wand from the desk, still not looking at him. She began to place the wand onto the magical reader that would identify him and print his visitor’s badge when she actually looked at the piece of wood and her eyes widened. She finally lifted her head and stared at Harry, who smiled and put a finger to his lips.
Nearly quivering with excitement, she nodded and quickly went through the authentication process, then handed him his nametag. Her eyes kept straying to the owl perched on the edge of her desk, and he knew that news of his return would be everywhere by nightfall. It appeared he really was home to stay.
Harry thanked her quietly and took his wand back to affix his badge to his jumper when something caught his eye and he frowned. “Unspeakable Weasley?”
The woman nodded. “Do you need directions to the Department of Mysteries?” she nearly whispered.
He gave her a weak smile. “No, I remember how to get there.”
Harry made his way to the lifts and managed to catch one that was just leaving. He was sharing the car with a corpulent woman in a floral dress carrying a parrot in a cage, a short and slender man with a drab grey suit and a dour face, and a non-descript middle-aged man in black robes. He kept his head down and nearly held his breath, and none of them seemed to give him a second glance before departing the lift at their various destinations. Finally, he was alone, and his journey remained uninterrupted until he was delivered to the Unspeakable offices.
He stood in the middle of the round room, looking down at the dark, grandly inlaid floor to avoid becoming dizzy as the multiple doorways spun around him. Lifting his wand, he cast the spell to freeze the room, and then loosened his grip on the wood and murmured, “Point me.” The doorway was behind him, and he turned to find it glowing faintly. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and stepped inside.
A man sat at the front desk, dressed not in a uniform but a suit. He was large with broad shoulders, clearly there to keep out the rabble, and he looked vaguely familiar. He glanced up at Harry, and it took only a beat for his mouth to drop open. “Potter?”
Harry stepped forward and extended his hand. “I’m here to see Ron Weasley. I’m sure you can understand the need for discretion.”
The other man nodded and shook Harry’s hand. “Alistair Harper. I was Slytherin, a year behind you. I, uh…I’m married to…uh…your…”
Harry felt his eyebrows climb. “Ginny? You’re married to Ginny?”
Alistair nodded, looking nervous, and Harry finally managed a genuine smile for the first time since he’d realized Draco was missing. “Well, congratulations.”
The other man’s entire body relaxed with a sigh of relief, and he smiled in return and released the hand he had still been shaking. “I will show you to my brother-in-law’s office. I believe his partner is out at the moment, so you should have privacy.”
Harry followed Alistair down the corridor beyond his desk, to the fourth office on the left. Alistair knocked on the door and then opened it a bit and poked his head in, with Harry still out of sight. There were a few indiscernible words exchanged, and then the Slytherin retreated with another quick smile and a thumbs-up for Harry.
He entered slowly, but his care didn’t diminish the shock on his former best friend’s face. Ron sat behind a large wooden desk covered in files, papers, quills, and other various flotsam. Across the room was a desk that was identical except that it was neat as a pin, with everything obviously selected and placed with precision. Harry’s eyes darted around as he tried to think of something to say to Ron’s gawping face.
“Hi,” he finally managed. It seemed to break the stasis and Ron drew in a deep, startled breath that left him coughing. Harry waited patiently while the redhead got himself under control.
“Harry,” he breathed, wiping at his eyes, and it was anyone’s guess whether all of the tears were from his coughing fit. He reached beneath his desk and then stood and made his way toward his friend, and Harry realized that Ron used a dark brown wooden cane on the side with his weak knee, though his gait was smooth and even. He held himself still, prepared for any reaction he might receive-even being tossed out on his arse. When Ron pulled him close to embrace him and slap him on the back, he felt five years of burden roll off his back. “I’m so sorry,” Ron muttered. “So sorry.”
Harry pulled away, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have disappeared, I just-”
Ron shook his head also. “I understand why you did. We were wrong. We were all wrong.” He swallowed deeply, his eyes roaming over Harry as if afraid he might be an apparition. Ron’s face had aged a bit, but he was still so familiar that Harry could have picked him out of everyone in the world with his eyes closed.
“I need your help,” Harry said in a choked voice, unable to find a graceful segue. As much as he wanted to revel in the moment, his worry for Draco was still casting a shadow over everything.
Immediately, Ron became the professional that Harry realized he had now been for the better part of a decade. “What’s happened?”
He gave Ron a summary of his volunteer work at the Colin John Centre, and his budding friendship with Draco. He stumbled awkwardly over the words, unsure how to explain what he was feeling to his best friend who, for all he knew, still hated the man. “And Ron, I know it’s Malfoy and we-But he’s changed so much, and if you just knew him now-”
Ron held up a hand and thumped over to the corner of the office, where two owls sat snoozing on an upright perch. Summoning a scrap of parchment and a quill from his desk, he wrote a quick note and secured it to the leg of the smaller, chocolate brown owl, which promptly woke, stretched, and sailed from the room. “Calm down Harry,” he said, rotating slowly to return to his seat but avoiding Harry’s gaze. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“But there is!” Harry burst out, exasperated. If he couldn’t get Ron to help him, he wasn’t certain there was anyone else he could turn to who wouldn’t think he was absolutely insane.
Ron settled back into his creaky leather chair with a sigh. “Just wait,” he said cryptically. He drew a file folder close to him, flipped it open, and used the quill he still held to begin working on something inside as Harry stared.
A few moments of silence passed before the owl swept back into the office to alight on its perch and settled in to go back to sleep. Ron glanced at the animal and smiled, then at Harry, and then went back to his file.
Harry paced a circle in exasperation, thinking that being an Unspeakable had certainly rubbed off on his friend. He paused and opened his mouth to speak, when there was the sound of footsteps in the corridor.
“That was quick,” Ron said, without looking up.
The office door was pushed open wider, and Harry turned. Draco stood in the threshold, looking much different than when Harry had seen him last. His face was shaven and clean, as was his shiny hair-no longer covered by a stocking cap. Rather than old, shabby clothing, he wore a crisp uniform of charcoal robes over matching trousers, exactly like Ron’s. As Harry watched, his full lips quirked slightly. “Hello, Potter.”
The pieces clicked together in Harry’s head, and he glanced to the empty desk in the room, to Ron and his placid expression as he observed the two, and then back to Draco. “You bastard,” he whispered. “You. You’re Ron’s partner. You-You’re not homeless.” He struggled to get his emotions in order, uncertain whether to be angry.
Malfoy moved closer with a slight shake of his head. “I was undercover.”
“What?” Harry asked intelligently, then blinked and clarified, “What was it? Drugs?”
Draco gestured for Harry to sit down in one of the chairs in front of his desk, and then walked briskly to the other side and seated himself in his own. “Human trafficking,” he said once Harry was settled. “Your friend Michael was cherry-picking from the shelter. Once he ascertained that a certain person had no one who would be looking for them, he drugged them and smuggled them out to his partners, then told everyone he had gotten them a job and a place to live. Luckily, a few months ago he slipped up and nabbed a wizard who had managed to hang onto his wand, though he’d lost everything else. The wizard escaped and came in to report what happened, and we managed to cooperate with some muggle police officers to take him down.”
Harry released a stuttering breath, struggling to accept everything. “So…All of it was fake?” He managed to look Draco in the face when he asked, though he hated how vulnerable his voice sounded.
“No, Harry.” Malfoy’s expression was soft, and went a long way toward quelling Harry’s ire. “I’m not homeless, but I was very careful not to lie to you about that. I never want to lie to you,” he finished quietly.
Ron scoffed behind Harry, and Draco rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Weasley.”
“You’ll lie to each other,” Ron said frankly. “That’s a relationship.”
His words jarred Harry, who stood suddenly and said, “Hermione! I should-” his words broke off abruptly as he watched his best friend’s face drop and saw the look Ron exchanged with Malfoy. Without being told, he knew. “When?” he asked, swallowing around the lump in his throat.
Ron’s gaze was full of sympathy and contrition. “Just before her birthday, that next year. We-her parents and I-we didn’t want her to suffer through her birthday. You were right, she wouldn’t have wanted to live like that.”
Four years. She had been gone for four years, and he hadn’t even known. He was barely aware of Draco moving to the chair beside him and reaching out to take one of Harry’s hands as Ron continued. “We tried to send for you,” he said quietly. “Every owl we sent came back confused, and the letters were never delivered. We made her birthday the deadline. We thought-We thought you would come back.”
Harry shook his head. “I should have. I should have never run away.” Something occurred to him and he looked down at Draco. “You knew…You knew all of this. That’s why you pushed.”
Draco nodded. “I knew they wanted you back.”
Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He heard Ron’s murmured apology, but as he released the air from his lungs, he released everything he’d been carrying. He opened his eyes and gave Ron a small smile. “You did the right thing. You did. I wouldn’t-I wouldn’t want to remember her like that.”
Ron nodded and wiped at his eyes. “It was peaceful. We’d taken her home months before, so she was surrounded by the things she loved. It was just me, my parents, her parents, and Parkinson there.”
Harry frowned, confused. “Pansy Parkinson?”
“She’s a Mediwitch. She was Hermione’s at St. Mungo’s, and she was so good with her. When we decided to bring her home, I hired Parkinson away from the hospital to continue caring for her.”
“Wow,” Harry said. “Is that when you and Draco became partners?”
Malfoy chuckled. “Ron and I have been partners for more than four years. I was the one who convinced him that Pansy had grown up and could be trusted.”
“You were right,” Ron said gruffly. “Pansy is brilliant.”
“Is?” Harry asked, and watched Ron’s ears go red.
“We-About a year after Hermione-Well…We…”
“They’re getting married,” Draco cut in gently. “On New Year’s Eve. And I suspect I’m going to be thrown over as Ron’s best man now that you’ve returned,” he said good-humoredly.
Harry laughed in surprise, and then noticed his friend looked worried. He shook his head. “I’m happy for you. I really am.”
Ron relaxed and smiled, then opened his mouth to speak, but Draco interrupted again. “Tell him the rest.”
Harry tilted his head and waited patiently, and though sadness lingered around Ron’s eyes, the redhead clearly couldn’t restrain the huge grin that burst forth. “We’re having a baby. In May. A girl. We’ve decided to call her Rose Hermione.”
“And while I’m willing to give over confidant duties to you,” Draco said smoothly, “do not for a moment think you’re going to usurp me as godfather.”
Unable to stop himself, Harry laughed a bit hysterically. “My god.” The world had gone on without him.
Malfoy stood abruptly, stepped forward, and took Harry by the arm. “Potter and I are going to go for a drink,” he told Ron. “I won’t be back today, so if Masterson asks, I went home ill.”
Ron nodded, a little smile still lingering around his mouth. “I’ve a feeling choosing a godfather for Rosie won’t be an issue.”
Harry smiled, chagrinned, and Draco laughed, startled. “Let’s start with a drink,” the blond said, ushering Harry toward the door.
Ron called out, and they paused in the doorway. “Dinner? Both of you, tomorrow night?”
Draco nodded, and Harry smiled in confirmation, then turned and followed Malfoy to whatever awaited.
***
On Christmas Eve, after a tearful reunion dinner with the Weasleys, Harry joined Draco, Ron, and Pansy at Ron and Pansy’s home for a smaller celebration. There was champagne, laughter, and a few tears. More than anything, there was a sense of anticipation for what the new year would bring.
From the other side of the gossamer-thin veil that separates the lovingly remembered from the living, a woman looked on with a smile that reached all the way to her brown eyes, satisfied that everything was exactly the way she wanted it. Those two would be lost without her, after all, even though she was glad she had at least taught them about the importance of second chances.
Because there were some things you couldn’t share without ending up liking each other, and life was one of them.
If I could know within my heart
that you were lonely too,
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
upon this winter night with you
Author/Artist: sw33tch3rrypi3
Pairing(s): H/D (Mentions of RW/HG, RW/PP, GW/Harper)
Prompt: 2015--#125 (Slightly adapted)
Word Count: 5,869
Rating: PG
Contains (Highlight to view): *Past canon character death, bittersweet ending*
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. Lyrics for Song for a Winter’s Night belong to Gordon Lightfoot and various producers. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: Thanks, as always, to our mods and to my tireless super-beta, J. This is dedicated with love to my own Colin John. You are so missed, and the world is a little less glittery without you in it. xx
Summary: When tragedy strikes, Harry Potter retreats to muggle society. Five years later, he’s volunteering at a homeless shelter when his past walks through the door.
Harry turned his coat collar up and pulled it tighter around his neck, shutting out the chill and the softly falling snowflakes. What he wouldn’t give to cast a lovely warming charm, but he knew better than to risk it outside of his home in the muggle area where he had lived for the past five years, even in the soft darkness of a new moon December night. All it would take was one person-just one-witnessing a strange man waving around a stick and Aurors would be on him in moments, ending his solitude; ending his secret.
He turned left down an older, narrower cobblestoned road and a few yards later reached his destination. He pushed through the double glass doors with a sigh of relief as the heat hit his reddened, numbed face. The furnace had been on the blink for a few weeks, and Harry was always worried he’d arrive at the shelter to find it had completely given up the ghost. They’d already had to pay for two after-hours repair visits, and they definitely couldn’t afford to replace the whole thing until at least the first of the year. Harry had managed to keep it going thus far with a few discreet spells when nobody was looking. After all, without a heater, the building that used to be a storage warehouse would be nearly as cold as outside, offering the rough sleepers who flocked to them little in the way of comfort.
“Ah, you’re early,” Michael said with a little smile as he walked into the main room from the kitchen area carrying a stack of plates.
“Aren’t I always?” Harry chuckled and removed his coat and scarf, hanging them on the stand next to the front door.
“Yes, but I suppose I’m still holding my breath waiting for you to move on. You’re the best volunteer we’ve ever had, and I can’t help but wonder how long that luck will hold.” Michael’s smile widened to a grin as he set down the plates and turned to retreat to the kitchen once more.
Harry felt himself blush. He’d been volunteering at the Colin John Centre for nearly six months now. They mostly housed and fed homeless LGBTQ people, though they didn’t turn anyone away. He’d first found them when he had been desperately seeking something to do for his birthday, something to take his mind off the fact that he no longer had anyone to spend it with. He just couldn’t take one more year of sitting home alone, remembering, missing the life he used to have.
Since he himself had come out around the same time he’d lost everything, Harry felt a special connection to the people who came into the shelter. He was very fortunate that he’d had somewhere to go, even if he’d had no one to go with him. He did his best to make sure that the people who came into their centre never felt as alone as he sometimes did. Though, that feeling was beginning to change. He had formed a few casual friendships with the regulars, and, well, lately it seemed that Michael…
“We had a new one last night,” the centre director said, returning with a large platter of prepared sandwiches and fruit. “Young guy, about our age. Didn’t talk much, just sat in the corner and looked surly, but I hope he comes back. Seemed like he could use the company more than anything else, really.”
Harry nodded and started to walk the floor, making sure all the lights were turned on; a welcoming beacon for those on the streets passing by. There was always a new one, and there were even more that hadn’t found them yet. Almost more than anything, he wished he could access his vaults and give the centre the funds it needed. If things ever got really dire, he suspected he might give up what he had to do it, too. For now, he lived on the money he had managed to take with him and the few good muggle investments he had made and donated what he could.
A gust of wind blew in as the door was shoved open, and a stooped woman in a ragged blanket entered. Though she looked about sixty, Harry knew she was likely much younger and had been aged by stress and hunger. He took a deep breath and moved forward to help her and get her something to eat.
***
Two hours later they were nearly to capacity when Harry felt a strange tingle go up his spine. He froze, searching his mind for the vague memory of that feeling. At last it came to him-it was the sensation of two magic auras touching. Barely managing to suppress his gasp, he turned sharply to look toward the door.
All he could see was the back of a tall, slim figure dressed in a faded green canvas jacket and fraying denims walking across the room. The person’s hair was completely covered by a dark blue stocking cap that had also seen better days, rolled around the edge. With an inexplicable sensation of familiarity, Harry moved to follow the newcomer as they moved toward the tables and the food.
He was a few inches away and debating whether to be so bold as to tap the shoulder before him when the other person turned, coming face-to-face with him. Suddenly, Harry was plunged back nearly fifteen years, to the day a boy had turned in the same manner and tried to take his hand. That boy had been clean and groomed and well-fed, but the eyes were exactly the same. No, that wasn’t entirely true. These eyes seemed somehow warmer, despite the frank astonishment they currently displayed. There were also tiny laugh lines at the corners that Harry was certain hadn’t been there before. There was no mistaking, however, that the man in front of him was Draco Malfoy.
He studied his former adversary for frozen seconds, noting the thick layer of golden stubble covering his face and his tired, slumped posture. He had lost track of Malfoy after the trials, when the man had walked away without his fortune but with a future outside of Azkaban to look forward to. Harry had occasionally wondered about the man he had become, but even in his most creative and vindictive moments, Harry had never imagined…this.
“Can I at least get a cup of coffee before you toss me out?” Malfoy asked wearily, and Harry started, plunging back to the reality of the present moment. Flicking his gaze away from his once-nemesis, he swallowed deeply and then walked past him, their elbows brushing. He took a paper cup from the stack beside the fresh pot of coffee and filled it to the brim. Then, a memory of Draco at breakfast in the Great Hall flashing through his mind, he poured an inch back into the pot and reached for the cream pitcher.
“Why would I toss you out?” Harry asked steadily. “I don’t know you, you don’t know me.” He extended his arm and offered the doctored coffee to Malfoy as the man walked around so that they once again faced each other. Draco studied him quietly for a moment, and then nodded before accepting the cup. When he started to go, however, Harry stopped him with a hand on his forearm. “Hypothetically, however, if you wanted to talk about what brought you to where you are now…Well, one of the services we offer is a sympathetic ear.”
As he spoke he looked not at the other man, but off into the distance, as if the answer didn’t matter to him at all, one way or the other.
Draco took a sip from his cup and cleared his throat. “Let’s find somewhere more private.”
***
Once they were settled into worn, overstuffed chairs in one corner with a small table for Malfoy to set his coffee on, Harry gestured for him to speak. The blond rolled his shoulders and sighed. “I’m not sure what you want to know. Aren’t most hard-luck stories the same? No money and no place to live means no options. Or at least very few options.”
Harry cringed and opened his mouth to speak, but Draco held up a hand. “We don’t know each other. That’s the truth.” He said it so intensely, staring into Harry’s eyes, that the brunet could only nod in agreement.
“Tell me something else, then,” he urged, unable to let go of this link to his old life-even if it was Draco Malfoy. “Tell me who you are.”
Malfoy’s brows rose in surprise, and then he smiled somewhat ruefully, which slammed through Harry’s gut with surprising force. He raised a long hand and rubbed it along the stubble on his chin, then shrugged. “My mother always swore I was so incorrigible because I was conceived during a full moon…”
They talked for hours, Harry Potter the nobody and the stranger with Draco Malfoy’s face. Well, Malfoy talked, and Harry listened. Once, when Draco reached to pick up his cup, his sleeve slid back to reveal a fading scar. It seemed like it belonged on someone far removed from where they sat, two new acquaintances in a homeless shelter in Hammersmith.
Once Draco had tired of talking about his childhood and his old friends and had retreated to his cot, Harry packed up his things and left. All the way to his flat, he kept wishing he had made Malfoy promise to return the next night.
***
As it turned out, he needn’t have worried. Malfoy was there the next evening when Harry arrived, waiting outside the door. He hesitated when Harry held the door open and motioned for him to enter.
“It’s early. Special privileges for me?” he asked amusedly as he stepped inside, the unspoken “…Potter?” hanging in the air between them. Potter rolled his eyes with a little smile and set to work preparing the night’s meal. Malfoy pitched in, and Michael entered soon afterward and joined them.
“I see you found our newbie,” Michael said to Harry, and there seemed to be something a little sharp in his eyes and his smile. It faded quickly, though. Possibly he had imagined it. The three chatted amicably about nothing as they prepared to open the doors, though Michael seemed to be pushing Malfoy to open up at times. Harry always redirected the conversation, but he suspected they would have to think of a story to placate his supervisor; Michael was good at getting the residents to share their histories so that he could help them move up into better situations.
Just over two hours later, Harry and Draco managed to settle back into their corner as if by some previously made arrangement. “So,” Malfoy said, “it’s your turn. Tell me how you ended up here.”
Harry hesitated, not eager to share the tale. He knew, however, it was important for the strange sort of friendship they were attempting. “Ron-My friend Ron and I,” he corrected, returning to their fantasy of being strangers, “we had started…law enforcement training. He loved it. It was the only thing he ever wanted to do. I hated it. I quit after three months.” Malfoy nodded, and Harry pushed away the thought that he’d probably read that in the Prophet. “They assigned Ron another partner, I can’t remember his name now. Anyway, about six months later there was an attack on-on an alley where there were many shops. The assailant had a mug-a gun. He killed several people while Ron and his partner were trying to capture him. They managed to corner him, and he pointed the gun at Ron’s partner and his partner Dis-left. Ron managed to take the man down alone, but was shot in the knee. He couldn’t do that job anymore after that. But the worst part…” Harry paused and swallowed, tears springing to his eyes as he thought of what had happened, what he had pushed so far down inside and never allowed to enter his mind. “Ron’s wife was shopping that day. She was shot and lost a lot of blood before they could get to her. The last I heard, she was in hospital, being kept alive by machines. Ron and I…Well, we had a big fight over it. I don’t think she would have wanted that,” he whispered.
Harry continued to look at the floor rather than Draco, and startled when he felt one of the man’s hands cover his. He glanced up and their eyes met, and for that moment they were Potter and Malfoy, because they needed to be. “I’m sorry,” Malfoy said, and not with the detachment of a stranger hearing a sad story, but with the knowledge of someone who knew what Potter had lost. Harry managed to give him a tight-lipped smile, but once he had pulled himself together, he bid Draco goodnight and left.
***
“So this fight,” Draco said carefully the next night over a tatty chess set that had been donated to the centre, “you ran away over it? You can’t make up with W-Ron?”
Harry sighed and reached for his piece, then moved it two squares, knocking off one of Draco’s white pieces. He picked it up and placed it off the board. “He said it was my fault.
That if I hadn’t quit, none of it would have happened. His whole family believed it, really. He was the only one who said it outright, but it was always…implied. I failed them, and if I didn’t want to fight bad guys any-fight, then I clearly had no use to the society that I was in. It was better for me to go.”
“That’s bullshit,” Malfoy muttered, making his turn.
Harry’s lips quirked, but he refrained from comment. These times with Malfoy were still surreal, and he always suspected that he would wake up one morning to find that he’d been having a bizarre dream. The last couple of nights, however, he had dreamed about Draco when he fell asleep, which only proved to him that whatever this was-unfolding weirdly and wonderfully-was as real as the awfulness of the last five years. He worried that he was getting far in over his head, and it was frightening. But it was also exhilarating, and he finally had something to look forward to every day.
Malfoy opened his mouth and closed it, seeming to weigh his next words carefully before speaking. Finally he asked, “Have you considered reaching out to…Ron? It’s Christmas. I th-sus-I reckon he might like to hear from you.”
Harry chewed his lower lip and contemplated his next move on the chess board as he let Draco’s question roll through his mind. Of course he had considered it, he considered it all the time, even more so at certain times during the year. March first. July thirty-first.
September nineteenth. Christmas. New Year’s Day. He always talked himself out of it, convinced himself that there was no going back.
“I just…It seems like you must have unfinished business,” Malfoy pressed, staring at the board and not looking at Harry while awaiting his turn.
The brunet sighed, irritated. “Since when are you such a fan of any Weasley?” he muttered.
Draco drew in a sharp break, broken by a quick shake of his head. “No going back,” he said, and it was almost a plea.
Wincing, Harry took his turn. “Sorry. Maybe you’re right. Maybe this year…”
Malfoy nodded and moved a piece, putting Harry in check. He couldn’t help but think it was a fine metaphor, and he started to laugh.
***
Several weeks passed, and Harry and Draco spent most of every evening at the centre together. Harry no longer wondered if he was in over his head, he was positive that he had gotten in deeper with Malfoy than he had ever intended. But he couldn’t, and wouldn’t, change the feelings that were developing. Their game of being newly-acquainted strangers had slowly faded, and now everything melded together into a beautifully nuanced and true friendship that was shaped by everything they had experienced together and apart. There had been some delicate conversations and tense moments, but they had survived. Just as Draco had said, there was no going back, and they were both determined to remember that.
Five days before Christmas, Draco didn’t show up at the shelter. “I’m sure he’s fine, Harry,” Michael said. “He probably walked farther today than usual and decided to stay at one of the places on the east side.”
Harry wanted to agree, wanted to believe it, but his gut told him that Malfoy would not have stood him up without finding some way to let Harry know he wouldn’t be coming to the centre that night. And when he didn’t come the next evening, either, he knew something was wrong. He expressed his concern to Michael, and noticed that even the other man’s eyes were troubled, though he patted Harry’s shoulder and chuckled.
“Sometimes that’s just what happens. They move on, find somewhere better.” He pinched his lips together. “Perhaps he was uncomfortable? You did seem to be getting overly fond of that one.”
With a sudden sense of unease, Harry stepped back and nodded. “Right. Anyway, I need to get things ready to open the doors.” Privately, he decided to do a little checking about the next day.
***
Harry spent all day on the twenty-second searching the city for Malfoy. He began with a radius close to the centre and worked outward. When he had reached the fringes of the city without any sign of the blond, the sense of foreboding that had been slowly pooling in his belly rolled into a wave that worked its way over his entire being. Something was very wrong, and he couldn’t help but be terrified for the man, homeless and vulnerable among a society he still didn’t know how to navigate well.
Hoping that Draco would show up at the shelter with an explanation, Harry made his way there at his usual time. He expected the doors to be locked when he arrived, as usual, but he hadn’t expected the thick, heavy chain and padlock around the door handles or the signs on the windows indicating that the centre was closed until further notice. He moved closer, confused, and then blinked and stepped back when he sensed magic. There was-yes, just there beneath the muggle lock that was clearly for show were some strong locking spells and intricate wards.
Something very bad had happened, and Harry had no idea how or where to begin to find out what it was. He didn’t have any personal contact information for Michael, and there clearly wasn’t anyone inside the building. The muggle police might know something, but he suspected, given the presence of the high-grade spells, the Aurors might know more. He heaved a sigh, knowing who he needed to ask. It would be difficult, but if Draco was in danger-
Harry froze as he realized that he had automatically assumed that Draco was a victim rather than the culprit of whatever had occurred. His brain rejected even objectively considering the possibility that the Draco of the past few weeks had been a façade, and his shoulders relaxed. There really and truly was no going back. But they could go forward. They all could.
Glancing around, he slipped his wand from the wrist holster covered by his sleeve. Certain the alley outside the centre was completely empty, he Disapparated.
***
The Ministry was very much the way he remembered it. Some of the plants in the lobby had been replaced, and the receptionist he approached was not the elderly dragon he remembered, but a dark-haired woman in her twenties who was looking down at a romance novel opened on the surface of her desk. “Can I help you?” she asked in a bored tone without glancing up.
“I’m here to see Auror Weasley,” Harry said quietly, sliding his wand onto the surface of the desk. The last he knew, Ron had taken a desk job in the department after being forced to leave fieldwork. He hoped his friend was still there, so that their first meeting in years could be on neutral territory.
The woman reached up and took his wand from the desk, still not looking at him. She began to place the wand onto the magical reader that would identify him and print his visitor’s badge when she actually looked at the piece of wood and her eyes widened. She finally lifted her head and stared at Harry, who smiled and put a finger to his lips.
Nearly quivering with excitement, she nodded and quickly went through the authentication process, then handed him his nametag. Her eyes kept straying to the owl perched on the edge of her desk, and he knew that news of his return would be everywhere by nightfall. It appeared he really was home to stay.
Harry thanked her quietly and took his wand back to affix his badge to his jumper when something caught his eye and he frowned. “Unspeakable Weasley?”
The woman nodded. “Do you need directions to the Department of Mysteries?” she nearly whispered.
He gave her a weak smile. “No, I remember how to get there.”
Harry made his way to the lifts and managed to catch one that was just leaving. He was sharing the car with a corpulent woman in a floral dress carrying a parrot in a cage, a short and slender man with a drab grey suit and a dour face, and a non-descript middle-aged man in black robes. He kept his head down and nearly held his breath, and none of them seemed to give him a second glance before departing the lift at their various destinations. Finally, he was alone, and his journey remained uninterrupted until he was delivered to the Unspeakable offices.
He stood in the middle of the round room, looking down at the dark, grandly inlaid floor to avoid becoming dizzy as the multiple doorways spun around him. Lifting his wand, he cast the spell to freeze the room, and then loosened his grip on the wood and murmured, “Point me.” The doorway was behind him, and he turned to find it glowing faintly. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and stepped inside.
A man sat at the front desk, dressed not in a uniform but a suit. He was large with broad shoulders, clearly there to keep out the rabble, and he looked vaguely familiar. He glanced up at Harry, and it took only a beat for his mouth to drop open. “Potter?”
Harry stepped forward and extended his hand. “I’m here to see Ron Weasley. I’m sure you can understand the need for discretion.”
The other man nodded and shook Harry’s hand. “Alistair Harper. I was Slytherin, a year behind you. I, uh…I’m married to…uh…your…”
Harry felt his eyebrows climb. “Ginny? You’re married to Ginny?”
Alistair nodded, looking nervous, and Harry finally managed a genuine smile for the first time since he’d realized Draco was missing. “Well, congratulations.”
The other man’s entire body relaxed with a sigh of relief, and he smiled in return and released the hand he had still been shaking. “I will show you to my brother-in-law’s office. I believe his partner is out at the moment, so you should have privacy.”
Harry followed Alistair down the corridor beyond his desk, to the fourth office on the left. Alistair knocked on the door and then opened it a bit and poked his head in, with Harry still out of sight. There were a few indiscernible words exchanged, and then the Slytherin retreated with another quick smile and a thumbs-up for Harry.
He entered slowly, but his care didn’t diminish the shock on his former best friend’s face. Ron sat behind a large wooden desk covered in files, papers, quills, and other various flotsam. Across the room was a desk that was identical except that it was neat as a pin, with everything obviously selected and placed with precision. Harry’s eyes darted around as he tried to think of something to say to Ron’s gawping face.
“Hi,” he finally managed. It seemed to break the stasis and Ron drew in a deep, startled breath that left him coughing. Harry waited patiently while the redhead got himself under control.
“Harry,” he breathed, wiping at his eyes, and it was anyone’s guess whether all of the tears were from his coughing fit. He reached beneath his desk and then stood and made his way toward his friend, and Harry realized that Ron used a dark brown wooden cane on the side with his weak knee, though his gait was smooth and even. He held himself still, prepared for any reaction he might receive-even being tossed out on his arse. When Ron pulled him close to embrace him and slap him on the back, he felt five years of burden roll off his back. “I’m so sorry,” Ron muttered. “So sorry.”
Harry pulled away, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have disappeared, I just-”
Ron shook his head also. “I understand why you did. We were wrong. We were all wrong.” He swallowed deeply, his eyes roaming over Harry as if afraid he might be an apparition. Ron’s face had aged a bit, but he was still so familiar that Harry could have picked him out of everyone in the world with his eyes closed.
“I need your help,” Harry said in a choked voice, unable to find a graceful segue. As much as he wanted to revel in the moment, his worry for Draco was still casting a shadow over everything.
Immediately, Ron became the professional that Harry realized he had now been for the better part of a decade. “What’s happened?”
He gave Ron a summary of his volunteer work at the Colin John Centre, and his budding friendship with Draco. He stumbled awkwardly over the words, unsure how to explain what he was feeling to his best friend who, for all he knew, still hated the man. “And Ron, I know it’s Malfoy and we-But he’s changed so much, and if you just knew him now-”
Ron held up a hand and thumped over to the corner of the office, where two owls sat snoozing on an upright perch. Summoning a scrap of parchment and a quill from his desk, he wrote a quick note and secured it to the leg of the smaller, chocolate brown owl, which promptly woke, stretched, and sailed from the room. “Calm down Harry,” he said, rotating slowly to return to his seat but avoiding Harry’s gaze. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“But there is!” Harry burst out, exasperated. If he couldn’t get Ron to help him, he wasn’t certain there was anyone else he could turn to who wouldn’t think he was absolutely insane.
Ron settled back into his creaky leather chair with a sigh. “Just wait,” he said cryptically. He drew a file folder close to him, flipped it open, and used the quill he still held to begin working on something inside as Harry stared.
A few moments of silence passed before the owl swept back into the office to alight on its perch and settled in to go back to sleep. Ron glanced at the animal and smiled, then at Harry, and then went back to his file.
Harry paced a circle in exasperation, thinking that being an Unspeakable had certainly rubbed off on his friend. He paused and opened his mouth to speak, when there was the sound of footsteps in the corridor.
“That was quick,” Ron said, without looking up.
The office door was pushed open wider, and Harry turned. Draco stood in the threshold, looking much different than when Harry had seen him last. His face was shaven and clean, as was his shiny hair-no longer covered by a stocking cap. Rather than old, shabby clothing, he wore a crisp uniform of charcoal robes over matching trousers, exactly like Ron’s. As Harry watched, his full lips quirked slightly. “Hello, Potter.”
The pieces clicked together in Harry’s head, and he glanced to the empty desk in the room, to Ron and his placid expression as he observed the two, and then back to Draco. “You bastard,” he whispered. “You. You’re Ron’s partner. You-You’re not homeless.” He struggled to get his emotions in order, uncertain whether to be angry.
Malfoy moved closer with a slight shake of his head. “I was undercover.”
“What?” Harry asked intelligently, then blinked and clarified, “What was it? Drugs?”
Draco gestured for Harry to sit down in one of the chairs in front of his desk, and then walked briskly to the other side and seated himself in his own. “Human trafficking,” he said once Harry was settled. “Your friend Michael was cherry-picking from the shelter. Once he ascertained that a certain person had no one who would be looking for them, he drugged them and smuggled them out to his partners, then told everyone he had gotten them a job and a place to live. Luckily, a few months ago he slipped up and nabbed a wizard who had managed to hang onto his wand, though he’d lost everything else. The wizard escaped and came in to report what happened, and we managed to cooperate with some muggle police officers to take him down.”
Harry released a stuttering breath, struggling to accept everything. “So…All of it was fake?” He managed to look Draco in the face when he asked, though he hated how vulnerable his voice sounded.
“No, Harry.” Malfoy’s expression was soft, and went a long way toward quelling Harry’s ire. “I’m not homeless, but I was very careful not to lie to you about that. I never want to lie to you,” he finished quietly.
Ron scoffed behind Harry, and Draco rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Weasley.”
“You’ll lie to each other,” Ron said frankly. “That’s a relationship.”
His words jarred Harry, who stood suddenly and said, “Hermione! I should-” his words broke off abruptly as he watched his best friend’s face drop and saw the look Ron exchanged with Malfoy. Without being told, he knew. “When?” he asked, swallowing around the lump in his throat.
Ron’s gaze was full of sympathy and contrition. “Just before her birthday, that next year. We-her parents and I-we didn’t want her to suffer through her birthday. You were right, she wouldn’t have wanted to live like that.”
Four years. She had been gone for four years, and he hadn’t even known. He was barely aware of Draco moving to the chair beside him and reaching out to take one of Harry’s hands as Ron continued. “We tried to send for you,” he said quietly. “Every owl we sent came back confused, and the letters were never delivered. We made her birthday the deadline. We thought-We thought you would come back.”
Harry shook his head. “I should have. I should have never run away.” Something occurred to him and he looked down at Draco. “You knew…You knew all of this. That’s why you pushed.”
Draco nodded. “I knew they wanted you back.”
Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He heard Ron’s murmured apology, but as he released the air from his lungs, he released everything he’d been carrying. He opened his eyes and gave Ron a small smile. “You did the right thing. You did. I wouldn’t-I wouldn’t want to remember her like that.”
Ron nodded and wiped at his eyes. “It was peaceful. We’d taken her home months before, so she was surrounded by the things she loved. It was just me, my parents, her parents, and Parkinson there.”
Harry frowned, confused. “Pansy Parkinson?”
“She’s a Mediwitch. She was Hermione’s at St. Mungo’s, and she was so good with her. When we decided to bring her home, I hired Parkinson away from the hospital to continue caring for her.”
“Wow,” Harry said. “Is that when you and Draco became partners?”
Malfoy chuckled. “Ron and I have been partners for more than four years. I was the one who convinced him that Pansy had grown up and could be trusted.”
“You were right,” Ron said gruffly. “Pansy is brilliant.”
“Is?” Harry asked, and watched Ron’s ears go red.
“We-About a year after Hermione-Well…We…”
“They’re getting married,” Draco cut in gently. “On New Year’s Eve. And I suspect I’m going to be thrown over as Ron’s best man now that you’ve returned,” he said good-humoredly.
Harry laughed in surprise, and then noticed his friend looked worried. He shook his head. “I’m happy for you. I really am.”
Ron relaxed and smiled, then opened his mouth to speak, but Draco interrupted again. “Tell him the rest.”
Harry tilted his head and waited patiently, and though sadness lingered around Ron’s eyes, the redhead clearly couldn’t restrain the huge grin that burst forth. “We’re having a baby. In May. A girl. We’ve decided to call her Rose Hermione.”
“And while I’m willing to give over confidant duties to you,” Draco said smoothly, “do not for a moment think you’re going to usurp me as godfather.”
Unable to stop himself, Harry laughed a bit hysterically. “My god.” The world had gone on without him.
Malfoy stood abruptly, stepped forward, and took Harry by the arm. “Potter and I are going to go for a drink,” he told Ron. “I won’t be back today, so if Masterson asks, I went home ill.”
Ron nodded, a little smile still lingering around his mouth. “I’ve a feeling choosing a godfather for Rosie won’t be an issue.”
Harry smiled, chagrinned, and Draco laughed, startled. “Let’s start with a drink,” the blond said, ushering Harry toward the door.
Ron called out, and they paused in the doorway. “Dinner? Both of you, tomorrow night?”
Draco nodded, and Harry smiled in confirmation, then turned and followed Malfoy to whatever awaited.
***
On Christmas Eve, after a tearful reunion dinner with the Weasleys, Harry joined Draco, Ron, and Pansy at Ron and Pansy’s home for a smaller celebration. There was champagne, laughter, and a few tears. More than anything, there was a sense of anticipation for what the new year would bring.
From the other side of the gossamer-thin veil that separates the lovingly remembered from the living, a woman looked on with a smile that reached all the way to her brown eyes, satisfied that everything was exactly the way she wanted it. Those two would be lost without her, after all, even though she was glad she had at least taught them about the importance of second chances.
Because there were some things you couldn’t share without ending up liking each other, and life was one of them.
If I could know within my heart
that you were lonely too,
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
upon this winter night with you