CHAPTER THREE: Recalling the Past

Draco was propped up in bed reading when Harry finally entered the bedroom. Draco watched Harry as he closed the door then leaned up against with a sigh of utter exhaustion. Harry looked at Draco, his eyes pleading for pity, but Draco only laughed.

"Is she finally asleep?" Draco closed the book and grinned at his tired partner.

"I'm beginning to understand your 'no children' stance," Harry grunted as he pushed himself away from the door and began to shed his clothes. His shirt came off first, then his pants, until finally he was able to crawl gratefully into bed with only his boxers on. Draco watched the other man with interest as he fell into his pillow.

"She's a nightmare," Harry muttered, his voice muffled by the pillow.

"Harry!" Draco admonished, playfully. "I find her to be a delight."

"Of course you do." Harry rolled onto his side so that he could look up at Draco between his drooping eyelids. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get a five-year-old to go to sleep? It took me twenty minutes just to convince her to stop jumping on the bed. And then she wanted to be read to. FIVE times."

"This was your idea," Draco teased. He placed his book on the nightstand next to him, used his wand to shut off the lights, and then sidled down in bed next to Harry. Draco didn't fight the warmth that spread through him as he felt Harry's sleepy arms reach out and pull him closer.

"Fix it, Draco," Harry whined.

"Let her stay with Dudley," Draco replied. He could almost feel the frown forming on Harry's lips, hidden from view by the darkness of the room. "Is Dudley really that bad?"

"You have no idea."

"Give me an idea," Draco pressed.

Harry said nothing. Draco couldn't be sure if it was out of irritation, anger, uncertainty, or just plain exhaustion. The past was a taboo topic between the two of them. The past was only brought up in the most desperate of circumstances – after a bad nightmare, after Harry's occasional panic attacks, after fights… But this was a different sort of past, Draco noted to himself. This wasn't their past. It was Harry's childhood, before he had even known he was a wizard – so surely their unspoken rules didn't apply here?

And Draco was terribly curious. Harry had mentioned his muggle family on a number of occasions to Draco, but only in the vaguest of terms. He knew there was the cousin Dudley, an Aunt Petunia, and an Uncle…Berny?...no Vernon. Uncle Vernon. They had lived in three bedroom house. Harry had the smaller room. But that was all Draco knew, the bare minimums of Harry's muggle life. Granted, it was partly Draco's fault. Muggles bored him. Or, so he told Harry. In truth, Draco was a little curious about them. How does a person live without magic?

"Please not tonight," Harry finally mumbled as he pulled Draco closer to him, effectively breaking Draco's train of thought.

Draco recognized an exhaustion in Harry's voice that had nothing to do with sleep. It was the same exhaustion that Draco heard when Harry talked about the war, on those very rare occasions. Realizing this, Draco suddenly felt a deep hatred for Dudley that he couldn't entirely explain. Harry was hurt, Draco could tell, and Dudley seemed to be the cause – or at least the trigger.

"Goodnight Harry."

"Goodnight, love."


"Is she alright?" Dudley demanded to know as Draco let him into the flat the next morning. His expression was somewhere between worry and a 'I-will-destroy-you-if-she's-not' look.

"Are you worried we threw her out the window?" Draco scowled, as he shut the door behind Harry's cousin. "Of course she's fine. She's still asleep."

"Merigold?" Dudley's expression moved from relief to confusion.

"You are daft," Draco rolled his eyes and headed towards the kitchen. He needed coffee if he was going to continue to deal with this oaf.

"I just meant that I'm surprised she's still asleep. She's normally an early riser."

"Define 'early,'" Draco growled from the kitchen. As he waited for the water to boil, he glanced at the sky outside. Sunrise. The sun was just now bloody rising and he was awake and making coffee. He glared at Dudley through the kitchen wall.

"I'm sorry if I woke you," Dudley replied nonchalantly, finding a place to sit on the couch as he waited for Draco to return. "It's amazing how difficult it is to stay asleep when you know two freaks have kidnapped your daughter."

Draco was simply too tired to roll his eyes. He summoned two coffee mugs from the cupboards, cursed when he accidentally spilt the cream on the counter, and angrily grabbed the bowl of sugar tucked away in a corner. If he wasn't so bloody nice he would have forced Harry to deal with his cousin instead. But that's what Draco was now. Nice.

Now Draco could roll his eyes.

"Which room is she in? I'll go wake her," Dudley asked, standing up as Draco came into the room carrying the tray of coffee he had prepared.

"Sit down," Draco commanded. He sat the tray down on the coffee table and glared at Dudley. "Merigold is fine. And we have some things to do discuss."

"Discuss?" Dudley frowned, but obeyed Draco's command.

"Yes, discuss. While Harry's still asleep."

"Oh great," Dudley sighed and leaned back into the couch, throwing up his hands in mock defeat as he did so. "This is where I get scolded for all the things I did to Harry back in the day, isn't it? What's he told you then, huh?"

Draco raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You were much more pleasant yesterday when you needed to convince Harry to help you. Where's that charm now?"

Dudley folded his arms and remained silent.

"Harry has hardly mentioned you," Draco continued, ignoring the other man's indignant silence. He poured one mug of coffee, then a second. "Sugar?"

"No," Dudley responded automatically. "You said yesterday you were the only person he hated more than me, so he must have told you something."

"Very little," Draco offered the mug of black coffee to the guest and poured out two spoonfuls of sugar into his.

Dudley shrugged and took the coffee. "So what is it you're so desperate to 'discuss?'?"

Draco sipped his coffee and said nothing for a moment. Then, slowly, he raised his eyes to meet Dudley's. He sat there for a moment, just staring. "What did you do to him?"

"Who?" Dudley replied.

"Harry. What did you do to Harry?" Draco was becoming impatient.

"I didn't do a bloody thing to Harry," Dudley said, suddenly angry.

"Liar."

"Don't call me a fuckin' liar. I didn't do a thing to that freak."

Draco tensed. The urge to reach for his wand and curse the man in front of him was overpowering. But if Draco had learned anything helpful from his past, it was how to stay cool in moments of consuming anger.

"Liar," Draco repeated.

"What makes you think I did something?" Dudley countered. "You said yourself Harry hardly mentions me."

"And when he does, I can see the hurt in him. So spit it out, muggle." Harry would have been very angry if he'd caught Draco using 'muggle' as insult, but Harry was still asleep, Draco thought. He would get some answers of Dudley first before he talked to Harry, he had decided.

"Or what," Dudley mused. "What's a puny guy like you going to do to me?"

"Harry tells me you don't like magic," Draco replied casually as he pulled out his wand and placed it gingerly in his lap. "I can only imagine why. If you'd like, I'll show you some?"

Dudley stared at the wand in Draco's lap. He tried to hide the fear he felt, but his eyes gave him away. He considered his options, immediately ruling out running away when he recalled that Merigold was in the next room. He couldn't just leave her here. Finally deciding on an action, he began to speak.

"Alright, so I may have had a little fun with Harry now and again. But it was all just stupid pranks!" Dudley kept his eyes locked on the wand.

"What kind of pranks?" Draco encouraged.

"I dunno, just stupid stuff. It's been years. How should I remember?"

Draco's hand moved towards the wand so that his fingers began to curl around the handle. "I think you do remember."

Dudley swallowed. "I may have pushed him around a little. You know, just kid stuff."

Draco's anger was rising. He could tell Dudley was holding back. How mad would Harry be if he just did a small curse on this man? He raised his wand…

"Draco!" Harry's voice bellowed from behind him. Draco dropped his wand back into his lap and looked up at Harry with an expression of guilt.

"What is this?" Harry demanded to know. "An interrogation?"

Dudley tried to look the part of victim as Harry looked in his direction. Draco merely looked at his knees and took some more sips of his coffee.

"Accio mug," Harry called out. There was a clink of china and then Harry's hand darted up to catch the summoned mug.

"Damn," Dudley stared.

"Now how come you get to use magic around him," Draco accused.

"Because I'm Harry Potter," Harry growled as he sat down next to Draco and poured himself some coffee.

Silence overtook the room as the three men sat and sipped their steaming mugs of coffee. Harry leaned back against Draco and closed his eyes, trying to pretend for a moment that this was just a normal morning. Draco reached up a hand to stroke Harry's hair. Dudley simply stared.

"I'm hungry," a small voice called out.


A/N: Oops! It took me longer to get this chapter up than I planned. I blame school. And Easter break. And...okay, it was my bad. But now it's up!
Thank you so much to all of you who have left reviews/favorited/followed this story. It makes me happy =) I think I replied to all of the reviews that I was allowed to, but if I missed yours, I give you my sincere apologies. Yell at me in your next review.

I really like hearing y'all's feedback on the characters - both the positives and the negatives. I'm always up for a good critique if it's deserved, so don't be afraid to let me know if you think I could do something better.

Anywhoo, happy reading! ~TJ