Foundations

by Sara's Girl

When one door closes, another one opens... with a bit of a push. Life, love and complications. Sequel to Reparations. HPDM slash. COMPLETED.

10. Chapter 10

Foundations - chapter ten - by Sara's Girl

Disclaimer: see chapter one. If anything, this story completely and utterly owns me. I'm tired, and my typing fingers hurt. Reviews, ice lollies and strokes appreciated... as would be a lift into town, so I can buy some decent coffee and stop drinking the abhorrent swill from the Spar shop *sniffles*

A chapter for the lovely Veritas, who is awesome and always has such thoughtful things to say about this story, especially Evil Peacock. She is also a fantastic HD writer herself and had a birthday yesterday. *stops waffling now*

**~*~**

By the time the last tour has been given, the last pumpkin-pasty-on-a-stick has been eaten and the last guest has vacated the grounds of the Manor, it's late in the afternoon and the Foundations team are united in a desire to collapse into a relieved, exhausted heap on the front lawn. Which they do, for five minutes or so, all six of them sprawling out in a comfortable silence, enjoying the fading warmth of the day and watching the drifting smoke from the end of Fyzal's cigarette.

However, the huge clean-up operation awaiting their attention ensures this is only a temporary respite—apparently, a hundred or so curious guests are capable of leaving a once-immaculate house and lawn looking very much like the aftermath of some terrible natural disaster.

Narcissa's response to the prospect of manual labour is predictable—she summons Flimby onto the lawn with a careless click of her fingers, sighs, and retreats into her sun-room without another word.

Clive, meanwhile—after a moment or two of watching the house-elf and the reluctant team at work—hangs back, still holding on tight to Zeus' collar. Apparently conflicted, he bites his lip and glances back and forth between the house and the group on the lawn.

"Clive... alright, mate?" Harry asks after a moment, pausing in his mid-air collection of what seems like a thousand cocktail sticks.

Clive blinks. One more glance back at the house, and then: "Can I help you?"

Surprised and heartened, Harry smiles. "Of course you can. You look very carefully at the grass and tell me where there are lots of little sticks, and then I'll come and pick them up with this spell."

Nodding seriously, Clive drops his eyes to the grass and drags Zeus after him in search of the pointy bits of wood which cannot be safely Summoned all in one go. Harry follows him, half-amused and half-exasperated, trying to remember whose bright idea the impaled food had been in the first place.

He can't recall for sure, but the apologetic look on Fyz's face as he spots the hovering cloud of little sticks is rather telling, Harry thinks. Across the grass, he watches Draco's drawn-down eyebrows as he levitates a number of foreign objects, dripping, from his fishpond.

"Oh, there's lots here, Harry!" Clive calls with obvious relish, and he sets to work.

**~*~**

He doesn't want to think about what time they stop, but it's after dark by the time everything is eventually straight and sparkling once more. The day has been an unmitigated success, that's for sure, but Harry aches all over and by the time he flops into bed and wraps himself around a softly mumbling Draco, he feels as though he's been holding his breath for hours.

Sleep comes quickly and is deep, soft and delicious. The pink tint to the light slanting into the bedroom tells him it's still early when he stretches awake on Sunday morning, but he's alone in bed. Without opening his eyes, he's still wondering whether to go back to sleep or join Draco in the kitchen for tea when a soft rustling sound startles him.

"It's alright, it's only just after six," Draco says, sounding surprisingly personable for the hour, leading Harry to wonder exactly how long he's been awake already and how much caffeine has been consumed.

He opens his eyes. Draco is sitting cross-legged on top of the sheets at the foot of the bed, half-dressed in his modified morning uniform of black boxers and white shirt. He's gazing down at the newspaper spread open in his lap, eyebrows knitted.

Despite the slight frown, the whole tableau is wonderfully peaceful, and Harry leans up on his elbows amongst the pillows to take it in. And then it occurs to him: if it's just after six, and he's only just waking up for the first time, then... Harry glances at the closed bedroom door, and without thinking performs his one-way wandless Transparency Charm—as the door melts away he sees that Clive's door is indeed still firmly shut.

"He slept through the night," he says, voice light with disbelief.

"He did. And I could've told you that, you great show-off."

Harry turns back to meet teasing grey eyes as Draco looks up at last and pretends not to be amused.

"Must've worn him out with all that work yesterday," Harry muses.

"I think it's a good sign," Draco ventures uncertainly.

"Definitely. He must feel more comfortable... or less afraid, or... I don't know," Harry sighs. "But I'm not complaining, whichever way."

"Seconded." Draco smiles, eyes warm. He indicates the paper in his lap with a careless hand. "So, I'm not quite halfway through this yet, but absolutely no Skeeter character assassinations as yet."

Abruptly reminded of his deal with Rita and then of his... capitulation, he supposes, as regards the media and his private life, Harry's pulse speeds momentarily. One look at Draco's carefully-guarded hopeful expression as he turns pages over, though, assures him that he's done the right thing. Perhaps not the instinctive thing or even the smart thing, but the right one all the same.

"Well, that's something."

"Hmm," murmurs Draco, eyes scanning the pages at speed. "Is it bad that I almost want her to write something awful and then we don't have to give her an interview?"

"Not in here, it's not," Harry replies, invoking the 'say anything' bedroom rule, and Draco glances up at him for a split-second, mouth quirking upward at one corner. "And you don't have to do it if you don't want to, anyway. My insane sense of honour doesn't extend toward the press, believe me."

Draco smiles properly now, but he shakes his head. "Honestly, I wouldn't give her the satisfaction of backing down, even if... well, look at that. Intriguing."

After a moment or two, during which Harry waits as patiently as he knows how, Draco hands over the paper. Harry shoves on his glasses and looks at the half-page article about the Foundations open day, astonishment rendering him silent.

Nothing about him, except to mention that he was present. Barely anything about Draco beyond the bare minimum, and nothing insulting, nothing linking the two of them. Just an account of the facts and a reference to the paper's ongoing 'Clean up the Streets' campaign, before going on to detail the various dignitaries and persons of importance in attendance. Both photographs are of the Manor, inside and out, and the tone of the reporting is carefully, painfully neutral.

Harry has to do a double-take when he sees Skeeter's byline. He thinks it's fairly safe to assume that she has never written such an unbiased, factual report in her entire career. She must, he reflects with some trepidation, want the exclusive very, very much.

"Bloody hell. I didn't expect her to actually do it," he says at last.

"Me neither."

Harry stares at the article until it ceases to make sense, and then returns the paper to Draco, who after a moment, folds it and casts it aside, only to lean down to the floor and straighten up with an armful of what looks like the Saturday papers, which are of course still unread.

Amused, Harry accepts the cascade of papers and glossy supplements that are spilled into his arms, but it's when Draco crawls up the bed, settles on his side facing Harry and produces the chewed-up red pen that he's flooded with silly, connected warmth and has no choice but to pull Draco into a kiss, spilling magazines all over the sheets.

"Saturday crosswords on a Sunday?" Draco muses, somewhat breathlessly, when they slip apart, fingers still touching atop the sheets. "Whatever next?"

Harry grins. "Next? Next Sunday will be everyone waking up to 'Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy: at home' or something equally disturbing."

"Oh, no." Draco groans and covers his eyes. "Or... 'Ill-fated pair share the secrets of their tragic love'," he suggests.

"Fucking hell. I should have fed her to the peacock after all."

Emerging from behind his hands, Draco smirks slowly and props his head up on one elbow. "He'd have liked that. You could've have solved two problems at once, there."

"You're a useful person to have around... the day after that advice could have been helpful," Harry deadpans, holding the expression for about a second and a half before Draco's mock-scowl forces a smile to stretch his face until it almost hurts.

And then, as he catches himself grinning, sprawled there as close to Draco as he can get with the sheets still tangled between them, he's suddenly stricken. Surely it's wrong for him to feel so... carefree. Surely. And as quickly as that, the hot guilt is back to scald his insides. Back to bubble up and erode his good humour, as he supposes it should. He closes his eyes against it for only the briefest of seconds—Draco doesn't need to see it, after all—but Draco does see it, of course he does.

A strong hand wraps around his forearm. "No."

Harry turns his head on the pillow and focuses on the narrowed grey eyes looking down into his. "No what?"

"Don't. You know what I'm talking about. You can't keep going there... I can see it; it's like watching all of the happiness drain out of you."

"Sorry," is all Harry can think of to say. The roughness of Draco's tone scrapes at him, and he just feels worse.

Draco shifts closer, until the edges of his open shirt brush Harry's bare skin. He shakes his head. "I don't want your apologies; I want you to get rid of whatever horrible thing is in your head. Contrary to popular belief, I don't actually enjoy seeing you in pain."

Heart twisting with love and remorse and frustration, Harry tugs him closer and sighs, holding on tight. "I know. Sounds like one of those 'easier said than done' kind of things, though," he admits.

Draco obligingly drapes himself over Harry's prone form, folding his arms on Harry's chest and resting his chin on top. The pale eyes are large and contemplative as he seems to search Harry's face, and, feeling curiously exposed, Harry holds his gaze and strokes his back under the shirt.

"Say it out loud," Draco says eventually.

"Say what?"

"Say, 'I don't deserve to be happy any more' or whatever it is that pops up in your head and makes you look as though you're standing next to a Dementor."

Harry's stomach flips at the words, and he almost doesn't catch the flicker in Draco's eyes at his own words. Almost. Another little sore point from the past, he thinks, and tightens his grip on Draco in the hope of relaying the unspoken message that it doesn't matter any more. Draco relaxes against him, but his expression remains expectant.

"You said I shouldn't say those things out loud. You said it would make it worse."

"I know. I've changed my mind, that approach didn't seem to be working," Draco admits.

Harry sighs. "I feel like I'm in therapy."

Draco flicks an eyebrow. He doesn't move his chin from atop his forearms but shifts closer in the bed, tangling his legs with Harry's through the twisted mess of sheets. "This would be highly unprofessional behaviour for a therapist and client."

Despite his playful tone, those eyes are uncompromising and Harry has nowhere to hide. But as he lies there, pinned and exasperated and vulnerable, he realises that though it's still there, the acid burn of his guilt has ceased; he can't help wondering if Draco simply intended to distract him all along.

Until: "Come on." The small smile is warm and wry-edged. "I'm a professional."

And even though Harry feels ridiculous and ashamed, he finds the words anyway, because he trusts Draco; he trusts that Draco actually wants to help him, even though he doesn't deserve... Harry sighs.

"I fucked up. I fucked up so badly that someone died, and now I have this... responsibility," he says, eyes flicking to his wrist automatically even though he can't see it where it rests against Draco's lower back. "I have this responsibility and it doesn't feel right to enjoy myself until I've put things right." As the words tumble out, Harry is surprised to feel his face flushing, and he turns his head away from Draco's steady gaze, pressing his heated skin into the cool pillow. "So, there it is. Now what do we do? Tell me how stupid I am?"

Draco's long exhale feathers across his burning cheek, but he doesn't turn back. "No. I understand about wanting to put things right."

The words strike Harry and slowly he lifts his eyes back to Draco's, a different kind of guilt grasping him tightly—Draco has built a life on atonement, hasn't he? Harry feels, suddenly, humbled. Insensitive. Selfish.

"I know you do. I'm s—"

"—if you apologise to me again, I'll have to hurt you."

Harry falls silent.

"Have you considered that your patient didn't even think it was your fault?" Draco continues, and surprise widens Harry's eyes. "Yes, I saw that list. It fell out of your pocket last night. Harry... she didn't want you to feel like this."

The softly-spoken words open up the ache in Harry's chest and he swallows dryly, once, twice, three times. "She didn't... but..."

"She didn't," Draco repeats. "And as you're fond of pointing out, I'm not a Healer, but I can't help but think it's her opinion that counts in all this."

Suddenly, Harry's eyes hurt. He blinks rapidly. "What did you do with my list?" he rasps.

"Put it in the bedside drawer." Draco unfolds one arm to gesture negligently. When he brings it back, his fingers thread into Harry's hair, stretching out and flattening the unruly strands in a gesture that Harry hopes belongs to him alone.

"Thanks."

"Alright. Now, consider this. Looking after Clive—finding a family for Clive—is not your punishment. It's not even some twisted reparation. It's just... something you have to do."

"Something I have to do."

"Yes. But your life goes on, because your misery doesn't negate his. And because you do have a responsibility, that part was right, and you can't make a judgement when all you can see is guilt. And because..." Draco pauses, eyes glowing pewter-bright with warmth, "...and this is purely selfish, I admit, but I rather like to see you smile."

As he falls silent and stares at Harry, waiting, the corners of his mouth twitch and Harry is overwhelmed. Clenching his jaw to control the stinging wave of emotion crashing through him, he lifts a hand to trace Draco's almost-smile. Fuck, I love you, whispers the voice inside his head. I love you so much.

Oddly, it isn't fear that stops him from saying those words out loud, not any more. Something in Draco's eyes, something in the very slight catch of his breath and the astonishing openness of his expression and the careful fingertips in his hair, something tells him that—in this moment—he doesn't actually need to say them.

And once again, Draco Malfoy is making a lot of sense, and Harry thinks he should probably get used to it. "Why do you have all the words?" he asks after what seems like a very long silence.

"Because I'm brilliant." Draco allows the smile to widen, just for a moment. "Because I've done a lot of what you're doing right now. And because it's not happening to me this time."

"It's happening to us," Harry murmurs, thinking out loud.

Draco kisses him. He unfolds his other arm from Harry's chest and leans forward, supporting himself amongst the pillows, fingers splayed across white cotton and mouth sliding against Harry's in a slow, warm affirmation that feels like Sunday and chases the remnants of those dark feelings out, right out to Harry's fingertips.

Harry slides both hands into his hair and kisses back as though he's being saved. Perhaps he is.

"Shame you can't do that every time," Harry mumbles as they part, turning his head unthinkingly to press his kiss-grazed mouth against the marked skin of the forearm next to his head on the pillow.

The fingertips of that hand slide over his scalp, and Draco huffs softly. "Where do you think I'm going, exactly?"

Harry just has time to smile against the warm skin before it's pulled away; he looks around to see Draco retrieving the red pen and the Saturday Mail, which is apparently 'an abhorrent newspaper, but sadly the best crossword of the lot', and curling on one side with it.

Exhaling slowly and thoughtfully, Harry watches him for a moment before reaching for the nearest shiny supplement and opening it to the back page. He won't say it out loud, of course, but Draco's right... and until the next time, he might as well enjoy feeling just a little bit normal while he can.

"What's the name of that Muggle actress that looks like a horse?" Draco wants to know.

Harry snorts and glances up from the Horoscope page. "I have no idea."

"You do. Look, there she is," Draco insists, dangling the folded paper in his face so that he can see the slightly smudgy photograph in the centre of the crossword puzzle.

Amused, Harry turns back to his magazine. "Nicole Kidman. And that's not very nice, Draco."

"That's not very nice, Draco," Draco mutters under his breath, too busy filling in the letters in red ink to see the sudden blinding smile that Harry tries to suppress; all at once he's back in that steakhouse with Ron and Hermione, watching his best friends and wishing he had... well, this. "It's not my fault that she has a very... equine face," Draco interrupts his musings. "Read me," he adds.

Harry props the magazine up on his chest and sighs, not really minding at all. "Gemini," he mutters, scanning the page. "Right. Your powers of persuasion are legendary, and this week you will need them to repair what is broken."

In the pensive pause that follows, Draco looks up. "Seriously?"

"Mm. But it also says you're going to find love with a blue-eyed stranger, and that a pink teapot is significant, so I wouldn't set too much store by it," Harry informs him, reading further.

Draco laughs, pen moving rapidly over the puzzle now. "Read yours, then."

Harry obliges, and barely hears the soft knock at the door before it swings cautiously open. He hears the creak of the hinges, though, and lowers the magazine to his chest to look at Clive, who's standing in the doorway gazing at them both in silence. He's blinking rapidly as though confused to be waking up during daylight hours but otherwise looks completely unperturbed.

"It's morning," he almost whispers.

"Certainly is, mate," Harry says, sending him a small smile which he tentatively returns, as though unsure whether it's allowed. Harry knows how he feels.

Stretching, he gets up and hunts on the floor for something half-clean to wear. Behind him, the rustle of sheets and papers tells him Draco is dragging himself out of bed, too.

"'Lo, Drake," Clive says uncertainly. Still uncertain, even now. Both of them. Harry sighs softly.

"Good morning, Clive." Draco pauses. "You know, Harry was just telling me how much he was looking forward to making a great big breakfast for us both," he says.

Harry drags a creased blue t-shirt over his head and spins around to catch two sets of hopeful eyes in the doorway, one with just a touch of a smirk.

"Did I? Did I now?" he enquires of Draco, lifting an eyebrow.

Draco smiles innocently.

'Looking after Clive is not your punishment. It's not even some twisted reparation. It's just... something you have to do.'

"My mummy..." Clive begins and then falls silent, looking at the floor and chewing his lip.

Draco's eyes are suddenly full of anxiety and Harry finds himself touching him briefly before appealing to Clive. "Go on."

"My mummy did bacon and eggs on a Sunday," he says all in a rush.

Harry fights the hot, horrible rush this time and looks at Draco, who is still hanging onto his red pen and folded newspaper, shirt unbuttoned and messy-haired. Somehow he still manages to look authoritative as his eyes challenge Harry and his silent guilt.

"Bacon and eggs it is, then," Harry says at last, nudging Clive and Draco out of the bedroom and toward the staircase.

He can do this. He thinks.

**~*~**

"Oh, El. You should have seen it." Cecile sighs dreamily into her cappuccino. "It was... it was magnificent."

"And disturbing," adds Terry.

"Magnificently disturbing," Cecile amends.

Eloise pouts and prods discontentedly at her teabag. It's just after eleven on Monday morning, and all anyone can talk about is Tremellen's impromptu drag act. At least, anyone who had been at the Foundations open day, and Harry has been so far delighted to realise just how many of the staff of Gen One are among that number.

So far, no one has dared to make a direct comment about it to the man himself; Tremellen is an intimidating man on a good day, and has a reputation for harsh, swift retribution for those who cross him. Still, no amount of fearsome reputation has stopped the giggles and the whispers and the wonderful, delicious rumours, which have already begun circulating the hospital, each time exaggerated just a little more.

"Is it true that Healer Tremellen performed a striptease at Malfoy Manor this weekend?" one nurse Harry didn't even know had asked him earlier that morning.

"Have you heard? Tremellen's getting a sex change," a Healer from Trauma had informed him.

Harry has done nothing to encourage the rumours, but nothing to discourage them either. He suspects that the man himself has heard something, because his expression—dark and threatening even at their first morning rounds back—has only deepened with time. Harry's almost concerned that Tremellen might explode, or at least he would be, if he could bring himself to be concerned about the colossal wanker at all.

"I know Malfoy was behind that little stunt," Tremellen had hissed right into Harry's face at the end of rounds, moustache quivering.

The image of stretched sequinned fabric behind his eyes had kept Harry's expression admirably seraphic. That, and the fact that there's no way Tremellen can prove anything of the sort. "I doubt that, Sir. Draco was standing right next to me, and he never drew his wand."

Incensed, the man had merely glowered at Harry and Disapparated on the spot.

The lovely thing is, Harry thinks now, folding his arms on the shiny canteen table and half-listening to his friends, yes, the lovely thing is that not only is Tremellen completely rattled, but there's really not much he can do to treat Harry any worse than he already does.

Harry supposes he can—and no doubt will—try, but it's hard to care.

"I can't believe none of you even got a picture!" Eloise cries, anguished.

He's really missed this.

"It was too fast, really," Terry says, dark eyes apologetic as Harry refocuses on the conversation. At a loss, Terry offers Eloise one of his custard creams and she almost smiles.

"Daisy reckons we're making it all up," Cecile puts in, nose wrinkling in disdain. "Now that's dedication."

Surprisingly, Eloise perks up. "So I wasn't the only person who wasn't there?"

Harry snorts, amused. "No. Know what, El? If you're that desperate to see Tremellen and his disturbing chest hair poured into red satin, you could come and look at it in our—in Draco's Pensieve."

Eloise beams. She sips her tea at last, placated, and Cecile shoots Harry a significant look across the table.

'Our Pensieve,' she mouths, murky green eyes sparkling.

Harry tries to kick her, but she whips her leg out of the way just in time.

When Eloise asks after Clive, Harry answers her as honestly as he can, dropping his voice and reflexively pulling his sleeve further down over his wrist—no need for the whole canteen to know about it. He'd wavered briefly over the decision to confide in his work friends about the Promise, but it hadn't taken much to convince him that they'd find out anyway; Cecile in particular is frighteningly tenacious when she thinks someone's hiding a secret.

As it turns out, the level of practical and emotional support he's received during the last week has left him feeling somewhat ashamed of himself for ever doubting them.

"Deathbed promise, eh? Wherever you go, there's yet more archaic pureblood crap," Cecile had sighed with such heavy disparagement that Harry had almost smiled. Eventually, though, even she had had to admit defeat and put her habitual piss-taking on hold to ask: "OK. I give in—are you alright?" and Harry had been touched by her obvious awkwardness when forced to express concern in a straightforward manner.

"What's the plan, then, now the open day's over with?" Terry asks, leaning in and lowering his voice, too. He folds his biscuit wrapper into a little shiny triangle and fixes Harry with his serious dark gaze.

Harry forces down a mouthful of what tastes like no more than brown water after a month of Kelly's expertly-brewed filter coffee; Reversals has spoiled him forever, he suspects.

"The plan?" Terry is very big on plans, Harry has found. "The plan is to do what I was asked to do. I'm going to have a look around some of these places the Ministry recommends, speak to the lady who runs the adoption service, and attempt to make a list of what Hermione is calling 'other options'," Harry explains, weary at even the thought of it.

When? his subconscious demands, and he silences it, because that is not at all helpful.

"When?" Cecile asks, and Harry sighs.

"I don't fucking know." He scrubs at his face and then drops both hands heavily to the table. "I'll find time. I have to, don't I?"

"You will," Eloise says, and almost manages to keep the uncertainty out of her voice.

For long seconds, all four occupants of the table are quiet, and then a ripple of squashed laughter and whispering ripples across the canteen toward them. Harry doesn't need to turn to see Tremellen entering the room, but he does anyway, and watches him stalk across to the counter in a blur of lime green robes and dark purple face.

Oh, yes. Gossip travels fast in a hospital, doesn't it? Harry thinks with vindictive pleasure.

"Sequins, really?" asks Eloise. Again.

"Really."

She sighs. "I wonder who did it."

Harry smiles into his cup. He's not dropping Healer Aquiline in it for anything.

"Don't know," Terry muses. "But whoever they are, they deserve a bloody medal."

Across the room, Tremellen practically spills his coffee in his haste to get away from the snickering serving witch behind the counter.

"Order of Merlin, if it were up to me," Cecile adds, smirking.

Harry makes a noncommittal sound. He's hoping to do even better than that.

**~*~**

Tuesday the 4th of March brings with it the first two residents for Foundations, and a level of agitation Harry has never before seen in Draco. Compared to this, his mood on the morning of the open day had been positively mellow.

"This," Draco mutters to his reflection as he brushes his teeth, "this is the real test, after all. Oh, fuck, it's like judgement day." He pauses, harassed grey eyes meeting Harry's in the glass as he spits into the sink. "The day of reckoning."

Harry, who has been leaning against the tiled wall behind him, steps closer and drops an indulgent kiss to his shoulder. "Draco, not that I want to discourage your sense of the dramatic, but it's just two women, not the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. It's going to be fine."

"Well, that's very encouraging," Draco says crossly. "And anyway, I don't know what you're talking about, I don't have any sense of the dramatic."

He drops his toothbrush into the glass with a sharp rattle and turns to face Harry, arms crossed and eyebrow arched. Something about his posture just reinforces Harry's point and he smiles, wanting to kiss the prickly expression off his face.

"Of course you don't."

"Hm," says Draco, and Harry gives in to that compulsion, pressing him back against the sink, cupping his face in both hands and licking gently into that cold, mint-flavoured mouth until Draco relaxes against him. "You make a persuasive argument," he concedes as Harry releases him.

Though Harry knows, or at least hopes, that deep down Draco is ready and confident and knows exactly what he's doing, there's still a warm thrill of gratification to be had in being the only person who's allowed to reassure him. And perhaps, the only person who knows that the direct route is rarely the most effective one when it comes to comforting this man.

Harry holds the eye contact. "You concentrate on what's-her-name..."

"Gretchen," Draco supplies drily, wiping a smear of what is hopefully toothpaste from Harry's bottom lip with his thumb.

"Gretchen, and I'll bring you the other one at lunchtime after Shelagh's discharged her."

"I'm not going to tell you her name," Draco says, and the glint of challenge in his eyes is reassuring to see. "And we are going to be late."

With that, Draco extricates himself and stalks from the bathroom with long, sure strides, all traces of agitation swept under the poised, serene front that Harry so admires. Harry watches him go in the reflection of the mirror and smiles to himself; he might still need that protection in the outside world but he doesn't need it here, and that feels good.

"I know her name," he lies to the empty room.

"Of course you do, dear," says the mirror.

**~*~**

Her name is Lupe, of course it is. Harry knew it was something beginning with L.

As he dashes up the fifth floor on his lunch break and collects the small, dark-haired woman from Shelagh Carmichael, Harry can't help but think he's setting a dangerous precedent—he has quite enough to do without establishing himself as an escort for patients between what used to be Stage One and the Manor.

Still, she's the first, and Draco is still faffing around with the security of the Floo connection, so Harry quickly introduces himself, takes the paperwork from Shelagh and one of the patient's battered leather bags, and Apparates them both to the gates of the Manor.

Lupe, who has yet to say a word beyond 'hello', shakes heavy dark hair out of her face and takes her second bag back from Harry with the slow lift of an eyebrow. As the gates slide open and they crunch up the drive, Harry wonders if he's offended her, and suddenly feels more awkward than he had previously thought possible.

To his alarm, Lupe moves at an amazing rate for a woman who has just completed a seven-day detox regime, and he finds himself having to pick up his pace to keep up with her. It's a warm day for March, and he wishes he'd taken his heavy robes off now, having left them in place in an attempt to present a professional, 'you can trust me, new patient!' image. Having sneaked another sidelong glance at the silent, wary Lupe, Harry can only conclude epic fail on that score.

He hopes the team are having more success with Gretchen. At least she has met Draco and Ginny before, having been one of the last patients to complete the old Chem Dep programme. Draco had been delighted to accept her into Foundations after a couple of unfortunate lapses, his pet theory being that short-term treatment just doesn't work for some people, and: 'This, Harry, this is where we come in.'

From what Harry can recall, Gretch is a bright, loquacious woman and is unlikely to be silently scaring the crap out of the rest of the team. He realises that he, as the professional, should be making the effort here, but he has no idea what to say to Lupe and they're already halfway up the drive.

'Anything. Quidditch. The price of Owl Treats. The meaning of life. They aren't imbeciles,' echoes the memory of Draco's voice in his head, the utter disdain dripping from his tone reminding Harry just how far they've come. He looks away from Lupe and smiles grimly.

"So, ah... are you nervous?" he blurts, and immediately administers a mental slap.

"No," Lupe says shortly and with a trace of a European accent that Harry can't quite identify. "Of course not."

She still doesn't look at him, but the set of her dark eyes and the swift denial lead Harry to believe that she and Draco might actually understand each other rather well.

"Course not," Harry echoes, plunging his hands into his pockets and lengthening his strides yet again to stay in step with her. "Good, well... good."

She's a Chromia patient, he knows that much from her discharge papers, and what he really wants to ask her is how she found her detox, but somehow he doesn't imagine she'll take too kindly to that line of questioning.

Alright. Focus. Harry drags in a deep breath and tries again. "So, do you—ah, fuck's sake!" Harry jumps, wincing in pain and so startled that he's completely unable to bite down on the loud cursing that just slips out.

Right on the back of the knee, the little bugger. And god, through trousers and robes, it still hurts like hell. Scowling, Harry spins around and watches Evil Peacock streaking away across the lawn, crooked crest bobbing merrily. It's his own fault, really—he'd been so absorbed in wondering how to communicate with Lupe that he'd completely dropped his usual careful vigilance.

He sighs and turns to see just how far up the drive Lupe has managed to stomp without him, and is astonished to find her right behind him with an odd little smile on her face. He almost thinks she's trying not to laugh, and despite his prickle of humiliation and the sore spot on the back of his knee, he's relieved.

"He enjoyed that, I think," says Lupe, dark eyes meeting Harry's for a moment.

"I don't doubt it," Harry replies, and when he smiles at her, she almost smiles back.

With that, she turns and starts walking again, making rapid progress toward the house, and he hastens to follow her. Harry pretends that his leg doesn't hurt, and Lupe doesn't say another word.

Still, when he hands her over to an impressively calm-looking Draco and introduces her to Gretchen, she thanks him gravely and glances at his knee so quickly that he almost misses it.

Despite his slight limp all the way back down the drive, Harry can't quite deny that he's developing some warm, squishy feelings toward Evil Peacock. He has his uses.

**~*~**

To Harry's utter not surprise, Draco's doom-laden pronouncements are unfounded and by Wednesday, Gretchen and Lupe are quite happily rattling around in the vast East Wing. To everyone's surprise, the two women are quickly content in one another's company, despite being absolute polar opposites in every way Harry can think of.

"That's just how it works sometimes," Ginny says, and rather pointedly, too. Harry wonders if she's referring to him and Draco, and if so, he thinks she's way off base. Their differences, he's starting to realise, barely reach below the surface; it's their sharp, striking similarities that make them so...volatile. Passionate. Just... right.

On Thursday morning, the girls are joined by Gerard, a Muggle-born Northerner who chats animatedly about football to Harry all the way up the drive, and though he barely gets a word in edgeways, Harry's rather relieved that there's no need to allow Evil Peacock to bite him today as some sort of weird, masochistic icebreaker.

He's so relaxed this time, in fact, that when he spots the crafty bugger tracking their progress along the drive from under a gently rustling bush, he points discreetly and invites Gerard to assist him in yelling something, anything, to send their winged undercover assailant packing.

In hindsight, perhaps he should have been more specific, because Gerard's consequent ear-splitting bellow of, "Come on the Reds!" right next to his ear startles Harry almost as much as it does Evil Peacock, who scurries back under the bush as though something's hit him.

Still, it works, and he's not complaining.

The confident young man quickly finds a place for himself within the tiny community, and Harry takes quiet pleasure in watching from the sidelines as things start to come together. It doesn't feel quite right yet, and he supposes that has a lot to do with there being twice as many staff as there are residents, but this, of course, is very much a temporary situation, and Draco has been heard to remark that the current residents should enjoy the space and the silence and the staff's time while they can.

According to Ginny, however, Draco spends much of Thursday in his office engaged in a series of harassed fire-calls with Hermione. Though Harry is not surprised to hear this—Friday will be Draco and Hermione's attempt to gain support for their reform proposal from the Vulnerable Wizards committee in order to bring it before the Wizengamot for a vote—he can't help but feel slightly anxious.

After a terse exchange of words at the office door, Harry reluctantly (but probably wisely) decides to let Draco alone and Apparate home with Clive for the evening.

"Are you upset?" Clive asks in a small voice from his spot on the kitchen counter where Harry has set him down while he attempts to find something to cook for dinner.

"What makes you say that?" Harry mutters, struggling with a particularly disobedient cupboard.

"You look upset. Your forehead's all scrunched up." Clive chews his lip and swings his legs back and forth. "Where's Drake?"

Staggering backwards, clutching a box of rice, Harry glares at the cupboard and then looks at Clive. One hand immediately goes to his forehead and he's surprised to register just how deeply he's been frowning. "Drake has lots of work to do, and he doesn't need our help," he says, slightly bitterly.

"Oh," Clive says softly, and then: "Is that why you're upset?"

Harry puts the rice down and leans on the counter beside Clive, sobered and a little ashamed. The child is not only disturbingly perceptive, but his genuine concern for Harry's wellbeing is both touching and so reminiscent of his mother that Harry aches.

"I'm not upset, I promise. I just..." Harry hesitates, finding himself wondering what Narcissa would say in this situation; her unique brand of delicate honesty would be really helpful right now. "I'm just tired," he says eventually, smiling at Clive and grabbing the rice. "We both have a lot to do, that's all. Draco has a really important job."

"I know," Clive says. "Mrs Mafloy told me."

Harry smiles as he fills a pan with water and flicks his wand to light a fire underneath it. It warms him to know that Narcissa is proud of her son, even if she probably won't tell him directly. He wishes she would, but she's probably not going to change at her time of life.

"And you make people better, don't you?" Clive continues.

The simple, innocent question turns Harry's stomach over, but he tries not to show it outwardly, choosing instead to gaze into the simmering water in front of him. Except your mum, he thinks. Swallows hard. "Yeah, I try to. That's my job."

Clive says nothing for a long time, and just watches Harry throw together a simple meal of fish and rice from his perch atop the counter. When the cupboard flaps gently above his head, he leans back and shushes it with such soothing politeness that Harry has to smile, even through the haze of unpleasant heavy feelings that only Draco can smooth away.

But Draco's not here, is he? Harry reminds himself forcefully, picking up Clive and depositing him in a seat at the kitchen table. He's probably pacing Ron and Hermione's living room, driving the pair of them bonkers. Of course, it's Hermione's bloody project, she deserves it... Harry's just toying with a chunk of tuna and the idea of inviting Ron over for the evening when Clive speaks again.

"Why did my mummy die?"

Harry lowers his fork to his plate very carefully and takes a long, deep breath against the feeling of pure panic clawing at his insides. He'd known, known that question or one very much like it would be inevitable, but more than two weeks on, he supposes he'd started to... hope that Clive didn't need to know. Which is ridiculous, he knows, but no less the truth.

Clive has his elbows on the table and is poking at his rice with his fork as he stares at Harry, blue eyes wide as he awaits a response.

"Well..." Harry coughs, trying to remember what his normal voice sounds like, "...she was very ill."

"Why?"

Why? Draco was right, Harry realises, that really is the biggest question of all. How much to say? Is a lie of omission still a lie when explaining to a four-year-old about his mother's... murder, essentially? Will telling the truth frighten him out of his wits and give him nightmares, or will it help him just to know?

Harry chews his thumbnail until it hurts. He wishes Draco were here. Not that he can't deal with this alone—he hopes—but they're a team now, and he feels like an important bit of that team is missing when it's most needed.

"Harry?"

Pulling himself together, he meets pleading blue eyes across the table and sighs. He wishes someone had told him the truth about his parents' deaths—the Dursleys' lies certainly never helped him, and perhaps it's as simple as that.

"She was ill because someone put a curse on her to stop her body from working properly," Harry says eventually. "A bad person."

He's relieved for a split second when Clive's next question is not "Who?" but again, "Why?"—relieved until he realises that 'Why do people do bad things to other people?' is a much harder question to answer.

"I don't know. I don't know why people do bad things," he says, feeling horribly inadequate.

Clive looks down at his plate and pushes a grain of rice from one side to the other with a small finger. He hasn't cried in a couple of days now, but his voice catches when he speaks again. The catch and the words themselves evoke a sick feeling in Harry's stomach and he barely restrains himself from pushing his half-full plate away.

"Why didn't you make her better?"

Harry rubs his face and really wishes he'd chosen the route of nice, pleasant lies instead of this. For purely selfish reasons, of course, but still. "I tried," he says at last, and it's barely more than a whisper.

Clive looks up, dark eyelashes wet, and Harry winces inwardly. "You did lots of spells," he says.

"Yeah." Giving up on setting a good example, Harry pushes his plate away and rests his elbows on the table, too, and props his chin up in one hand. "I did."

As he sits there, their breathing and the drip of the kitchen sink loud in his ears, all of those well-worn 'it's my fault', 'if only I'd...', 'she died because of me' thoughts crowd his head, but right behind them are Draco's words and Romilda's list and the knowledge that voicing those thoughts would assuage his guilt, not reassure Clive. He keeps them in.

"I'm sorry I couldn't help her," he says, and the next words—while true—are the hardest of all: "I tried my best."

Clive's pale cheeks are tear-streaked now, and when he scrambles to get down from his chair, Harry doesn't stop him. Fully expecting him to run from the room, to want to get away from him, Harry is astonished when the little boy comes to him and silently demands to be picked up.

Harry scrapes his chair back and pulls the sniffling child into his lap. Somehow the fact that Clive is still looking to him for comfort makes him feel even worse than before.

He's four, Harry reasons, perhaps he just doesn't understand. Harry remembers very little about being four, apart from feeling afraid, and his cupboard under the stairs and talking to spiders, hoping they'd talk back. He wonders how much of this Clive will remember in detail. Harry sighs heavily and rests his chin on top of Clive's head.

Slowly, the tears subside, and Harry almost thinks Clive has fallen asleep, but for the sudden words mumbled against his shoulder, which he has to ask Clive to repeat.

"Are you and Drake and Mrs Mafloy going to send me away?"

Harry thinks his heart stops, just for a moment. The question is plain enough, and though he doesn't know where Clive got the idea, the fear that stains the words breaks him inside.

What is he supposed to say to that? The truth, which is, essentially, yes?

Yes, Clive, this was never supposed to be a permanent arrangement? You see, your mother extracted this Promise from me...

Harry bites his lip, extremely pleased that this time Clive isn't looking at him. "No one's sending you away, Clive. But... don't you want to live with a proper family? Or somewhere there's other children to play with?"

"Mrs Mafloy plays with me," he whispers. "And Zoos. Don't they want me?"

Harry closes his eyes and lets it hurt.

"Of course they do. It's... complicated."

"Grown-ups always say that," Clive whispers. Sniffs.

Harry almost smiles. "Yeah, they do."

**~*~**

Clive doesn't ask again, and Harry even manages to persuade him to finish most of his dinner, once a Warming Charm has been applied and once Clive has watched Harry eat his, too. Even so, after Clive is settled in bed, Harry can't get the little boy's words out of his head, and it's with a particularly vicious flick of his wand that he banishes the shiny brochures into a drawer in the living room where he doesn't have to look at them. For now.

As for that list Hermione keeps referring to... well, he has one of those, if one can count a folded piece of parchment with 'Molly Weasley?' written on it as a list. She's the ultimate mother-figure as far as Harry's concerned, and knows everything there is to know about raising children, having raised seven of her own. She's been typically helpful so far, despite having only met Clive at the Foundations open day, and has fussed and bustled and provided Harry with more practical childcare advice than he knows what to do with.

He can't help but think, though, that she—and to a lesser extent, Arthur, who spends the majority of his time slogging his guts out at the Ministry—has done more than her fair share of child-rearing already. Not that he's asked her. He can't even begin to imagine how he'd go about it, which doesn't exactly bode well.

'Mrs Mafloy plays with me.'

Harry looks at his list and reaches for his pen. Hesitates. Folds his list up again, picks up 'Dog Rose' and trails up the stairs to his bedroom. He sprawls across the bed and spells the door transparent from the inside, then opens the book to the place where Draco last left off.

As Rex strode up the path toward the house no-one was supposed to enter, propriety could not have been further from his mind, Harry reads, half-smiles and closes his eyes, just for a moment.

"Reading without me?"

"Hm?" Harry opens his eyes and blinks in the darkened room as the mattress depresses next to him and Draco sits on the edge of the bed. He stretches, feeling the heaviness of sleep in his limbs and the ache in his neck from falling asleep in a strange position, half-sprawled across the book with one hard edge pressed into his face. "What time is it?"

Draco carefully extracts the book from underneath him and runs fingertips over the creased skin of his cheek.

"Almost eleven. Hermione, in her wisdom, wanted to rehearse." Draco's eyes are tired and anxious and Harry feels an immediate twinge of sympathy. "I think Weasley was about ready to kill us both and make it look like an accident."

Unwittingly, Draco's weary, irritable choice of words stirs up the memory of Clive's tears and impossible questions, and Harry looks away.

"I don't know what she's stressing about, it's her sodding committee," he says, needing to say something before his throat closes up.

"Do you think I haven't told her that?" Draco snaps, rubbing circles into his temples as though attempting to dissolve a headache.

Harry sighs and watches him stand. Watches him remove his clothes with short, economical movements and fold them carefully, tension tightening every line of his body and forcing the breath from his nose in sporadic, audible bursts. This, whatever this is, isn't about Hermione and her irrational stage-fright; the woman exasperates, baffles, and frightens Draco on a regular basis, but she doesn't wind him up like this—tight enough to snap.

"What are you really upset about?" Harry ventures, sitting up and unbuttoning his shirt.

Draco turns, stripped down to underwear, and stares at Harry. His eyes are hard for long seconds before he closes them and leans heavily against the bedroom wall.

"I don't want to go to the Ministry tomorrow."

Comprehension is sudden, uncomfortable, and Harry is dismayed that he hasn't put it together before. He exhales slowly and nods in the darkness even though Draco can't see him. "Ah."

"I haven't been there since the trials. I'm not exactly relishing the prospect." Draco opens his eyes and comes to sit beside Harry on the bed, elbows resting on his bare knees.

"Does 'Mione know that?"

Draco laughs shortly. "I haven't mentioned it. Nor am I likely to." Looking down at his hands, he continues, before Harry can say a word, "What's your excuse?"

"I'm fine." Harry stands and struggles out of his trousers; he almost overbalances when his hand is grabbed and pulled closer to Draco's narrowed eyes.

"Really?" Cool fingertips trace his ragged, bitten nailbeds and he hisses involuntarily at the touch to his sore skin.

He doesn't know whether to be irritated at being called out, or calmed by the casual gesture of concern and understanding.

"Bedroom rule," Draco adds, catching Harry's other wrist and pulling gently until Harry is forced to crawl forward onto the bed, straddling his lap. He shifts back onto the bed and Harry shifts with him, mattress giving slightly under his knees and sheets cool against his bare skin.

Heaving a deep, cleansing sigh, he nudges Draco onto his back, wrists still caught, and leans down over him. He presses his nose into the warm, lemon-scented neck and shivers.

"I had to tell Clive what happened to his mum." Harry pauses; the soft string is rubbed over his pulse point, but Draco doesn't say a word. "And then he asked me if we were going to send him away. And I didn't say no."

Draco's breath is warm and contemplative against Harry's skin, and it lifts the fine hairs on the back of his neck in a gentle rhythm.

"I can't help but wonder where people learn how to be parents," he says eventually, releasing Harry's wrists to tuck one arm behind his head and wrap the other around Harry's waist as they lie there, touching everywhere but not looking at each other.

Harry laughs softly, painfully, into his neck. "I think some people just know."

"I think there's a class," Draco whispers. "A secret class. You were too busy saving the world and I was too busy... doing all those things that are the reason I'm terrified of setting foot inside the stupid fucking Ministry tomorrow morning. And so we didn't get invited."

Harry laughs again, or at least he tries to, but to his ears it sounds more like a whimper. The hand on his back flattens out, as though trying to increase the surface area contact with Harry's skin as much as is physically possible. And god, he really fucking loves Draco. He doesn't have an answer, and somehow, knowing that is far more comforting than some hollow platitude.

Harry pulls back just far enough to lean up on his elbows over Draco, heart tight and racing with too many things to name.

"I love your words," he whispers, meeting softened grey eyes and lowering his head to kiss Draco.

After a short, surprised exhalation, Harry feels the smile against his mouth and the hand sliding from his back up into his hair as he is kissed back with unhurried dedication.

"Yes," Draco murmurs into the kiss, all slow, breathless warmth, and Harry melts against him.

It's all yes, of course it is.

"Do you... want to talk about... stuff?" he offers uncertainly, because in all likelihood, he probably should.

"Fuck, no. All I've done all night is talk," Draco mutters against his lips. "Do you?"

"No."

Harry sighs with almost-contentedness and in an effort to press still closer, repositions his knees on the bed, shifting his hips and sparking a definite thrill of arousal somewhere low down and temporarily forgotten. As though seeking to remind him of their current positions, mostly unclothed, and the fact that it has once again been days since they've had chance to, well, do anything, really, his cock twitches with interest and forces a soft gasp from him.

Neither this nor the increased contact escapes Draco, and he groans faintly and pulls Harry harder into the kiss. "Didn't you decide that we shouldn't... ah... while.... hm?"

Incoherent-with-desire is a fantastic look on him, Harry decides. "I did, but..."

...but I really need you. But you're anxious and I'm sad and I don't really care. But...

"He's up."

"What?"

With what looks like tremendous effort, Draco pushes him away and then flops back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling and gesturing toward the door with one hand.

"Up," he repeats.

Harry looks, and sure enough, Clive is standing in the hallway just outside their door. One-way transparency is a wonderful thing.

He's not really surprised that the little boy hasn't managed to sleep through the night after their earlier conversation, but it's a blow to their progress all the same. Harry sighs and sits up, gazing down at Draco.

"OK." Harry rubs his face. "You get the cocoa and I'll get the whisk."

**~*~**

Halfway through the night, the long run of good weather breaks in spectacular style with a severe thunderstorm, and the rain bounces and hammers against the windows in unrelenting sheets. It's still raining after breakfast as Harry stands in the kitchen and looks out of the window, inhaling his fragrant tea steam and curling his fingertips away from too-hot ceramic.

Clive is drawing at the kitchen table with quiet absorption. He's a little subdued, but not visibly distressed, and right now that's all Harry feels he can hope for. The photograph of his mother is sitting next to his wax crayons on the crumb-strewn tabletop, and Clive glances at it from time to time, seemingly reassured by the very sight of it.

The sky is a dark, ominous grey, and the longer Harry stands there, the more it seems to ferociously sling it down. Opening the window for the post owl earlier was enough to demonstrate that it's bitterly, bitingly cold for March, too. Harry only hopes it's not some kind of omen—Draco is nervous enough about today as it is, without meteorological portents of doom.

Just then, he stalks into the living room, muttering to himself. Harry glances back at Clive just once before leaving the kitchen and pulling the door almost closed behind him. He can't stop the smile and rush of warm desire when he sees that Draco is wearing that coat.

Harry steps closer, abandoning his teacup to the nearest available flat surface. The grey eyes are clouded with tension but Draco looks and smells delicious and Harry can't quite resist touching him.

"I can't believe I'm going to the fucking Ministry," Draco says, accepting the hand that steals inside his coat but twitching away from the one that attempts to ruffle his hair. "Voluntarily! I must have lost the bloody plot."

Harry smiles and meets his eyes. "I don't know, Draco. Maybe the plot's finding you."

Draco gives him a withering look which he fully expects, but doesn't move away.

"You'll both be fine. The bad news is, you'll have Hermione trying to protect you from anyone who dares to look at you a bit funny." He pauses, and Draco lifts an eyebrow, pained. "On the plus side, you look hot."

Draco's mouth twitches up at one side. He looks at the floor for a moment, and Harry doesn't miss the light, surprised flush, even if his next words are, "Of course I do."

Harry smirks, kisses him and prods him toward the fireplace. "Go. Lateness will not endear you to your... partner-in-crime. Co-conspirator. Et cetera."

Draco turns, handful of sparkling powder aloft and grey eyes glowing. "Et cetera later, when we have the house to ourselves," he promises, almost managing to conceal his nerves.

Harry nods, amused, and Draco disappears into the green flames. He'd almost forgotten that today's Friday, and that Narcissa's offer—no, insistence—of taking Clive to allow them a night off each week opens up all kinds of possibilities. If he can wait that long, that is.

Deciding he has time for one more cup of tea before dropping off Clive and heading to work, Harry heads into the kitchen. One look at Clive's drawing suggests that he didn't close the kitchen door quite as well as he imagined.

Next to the smiling woman with dark hair, the white not-dog, the tall, pale lady, and the man with glasses that he assumes is him, is a cross-faced, yellow-haired man in a long, black coat.

**~*~**

Harry is rushed off his feet for almost the entire morning, a flurry of new patients being admitted into Gen One ensuring that he, Terry, Cecile and the others barely have time to breathe, let alone do anything as luxurious as taking a coffee break.

Harry doesn't mind too much, even when he has to pick up the slack from a negligent Lisa, who seems to have taken it upon herself to suck up to a still-wounded Tremellen instead of treating her actual patients. It's better than worrying about Draco, and to a lesser extent Hermione, and he hangs onto his optimism, even as eleven a.m. finds him treating his fifth set of all-over Suppurating Boils.

As lunchtime approaches, the tide of patients seems to ebb, and Harry and Cecile retreat to the nurses' station to catch up on paperwork.

"Explain to me again what exactly they're doing," Cecile says, frowning and crossing out violently.

"They'd both hex me into oblivion for simplifying it like this, but basically they want to change the law so that people being convicted of drug-related offences—Wizarding drugs as well as Muggle ones—are directed into rehab instead of prison." Harry pauses, frowning at the large, looping writing in front of him. "Did you know that Lisa's recommended her ninety-year-old patient for aggressive Potion therapy?"

"No, but I do know she's in-fucking-competent." Cecile looks up briefly and she and Harry share a weary glance. She shrugs. "Reverse it. She won't even notice. Changing the law's a pretty big deal then, eh?"

"Mm." Harry scribbles a safer set of recommendations under Lisa's and turns to the next chart in his stack. "Yeah. That's why it has to go before the whole Wizengamot, if they get it through this stage. It's called—" He looks at his hand, where he's written it down, knowing someone would ask—"Amendment 2741a."

"Snappy."

"I know."

"You know," she says after a moment, at last looking up from her frantic scribbling, "I might be forced to reconsider my position on Malfoy."

Harry lifts an eyebrow. "What, that he's a 'good looking bugger'?"

Cecile grins and Harry steps back, startled at the cold feeling raking unpleasantly over his skin—it's been a good while since he was last wet-fished. Shivering, he folds his arms and her smile widens.

"No. I stand firm on that one. I mean all of the other stuff... the more I hear, the more I have to concede that, well... perhaps he has some other admirable qualities, after all."

Cecile's delicate nose wrinkles as though the tentative compliment has caused her discomfort, and Harry grins, impressed. High praise indeed.

"He has lots of admirable qualities," Harry agrees, suddenly full of a pride that feels wonderful if misplaced—it's not as though he can take responsibility for Draco's hard work and strength, after all. Still.

"Owl for you, Healer Potter," a nurse informs him as she rounds the nurses' station and huffs in exasperation at the amount of space the two non-nurses are taking up with all their charts and bits of parchment.

"Thanks, Nurse..." Nurse what? Nurse Nose-Ring? Oh, fuck.

"Hunter," Cecile coughs against the back of her hand, and then continues her writing, completely disregarding the nurse's disapproving eyes.

"Nurse Hunter," Harry says, flashing her a smile and taking off down the corridor before she can say a word.

The rain is still pouring down as he ducks out of the main doors, takes the roll of parchment and retreats back into the warm, bustling foyer to read it. He's fairly confident, but all the confidence in the world doesn't stop him from holding his breath as he unrolls the letter.

Hermione's writing is messier than usual, as though she had been in a hurry to send the note.

Harry,

Success! Wizgt. vote 29th May.

See you tonight, Litton Tree, 7pm.

--Hermione and Draco.

PS. You were right about the bad news. It was rather charming, actually.

The postscript is in Draco's handwriting, and Harry's smile of delight at the important news only widens when he remembers his own words from earlier in the morning—Hermione has protected Draco, as Harry had known she would.

Lightened, Harry spares one more glance for the heavy, portentous sky and tucks the parchment into the pocket of his robe.

Something tells him he won't be waiting until seven o'clock to offer his congratulations to his half of the victorious team.

**~*~**

Thinking about the form that congratulation might take proves disastrous for Harry's concentration, and he can only thank Merlin and anyone else that the morning is almost over, and that he has no more new patients.

Even Tremellen's acidic, "I can't imagine what you could possibly be so happy about, Healer Potter," doesn't put a dent in his good humour, and from somewhere deep down, he finds a calm, bland smile for his mentor.

"Sorry, Healer Tremellen," he murmurs, delighting in the alarm on the older man's face and hurrying past him toward the foyer.

"This is how much I love you," Harry mutters to no one in particular as he eyes the nearest Floo point with deep suspicion. With a deep sigh, he holds his breath and walks into the flames, thinking of the time he's saving and what he can do with it, instead of the horrible spinning sensation and mouthful of smoke.

The lounge is deserted when Harry walks inside, and he follows the sound of voices and the smell of lentil soup to the dining room. As he stands in the doorway and scans the room, his stomach issues a growling demand for attention, which he forces himself to ignore for the time being.

Everyone's here, and though the usually light-flooded room is dulled by the grey sky, the laughter and chatter and little arguments of its occupants fill it with life. So involved are they, that not one of them has yet noticed his presence, so he continues to observe, feeling oddly contented.

Ginny is talking to Gretchen and flipping through a sheaf of clipped parchments; at her other side, Fyz pauses in buttering a bread roll—no offending sliced white now Draco's in charge, Harry notes—and leans over to shake his head and point at the page with his butter knife. Ginny looks up sharply, bats his knife away but appears to concede his point.

At one end of the large table, Lupe is calmly watching everyone else as she eats her soup. Beside her, Annette is chattering away and folding a green napkin into a rather impressive dragon.

"No!" comes the anguished cry from the other end of the table, and Harry turns to see Gerard just about avoid hitting his head on the table.

"I'd give up on him now, if I were you," Draco advises, eyes bright with amusement. Harry finds his lips tugged into a helpless smile along with him; the tight, suffocating tension is gone and Draco looks every inch relaxed, playful and in charge.

"But... it's not hard, seriously," Gerard protests, tucking messy sandy-coloured hair behind his ears and gazing at Marley with obvious exasperation.

Seated between them, Marley dips his bread roll into his soup with a dramatic sigh. "Why do I need to know the overside rule, anyway?"

"Offside," Gerard groans. "Off. Side."

Amused, Harry watches him pick up a salt shaker and set it down in front of Marley with the weariness of a man who has done this many, many times before.

"Who's that?" asks Marley, licking his fingers.

"The player with the ball."

"Which ball, though?"

"There's only one ball!" Gerard cries, and it's apparently too much for Marley.

"Make him stop, Draco," he appeals, dropping his head to Draco's shoulder in a theatrical gesture that sends glossy dark hair spilling across his face and over Draco's pale sweater.

The hot tangle of jealousy Harry had managed to force down now rises effortlessly into his chest, mixing with his contentment and anticipation until he's unsettled and confused.

'Don't!' he wants to cry from the doorway, but something stops him. Wrapping his fingers tightly around the glossy painted doorframe, he waits.

Relief floods him when, two seconds later, Draco rolls his eyes and pushes Marley away.

"I'll do nothing of the sort. I think Gerard made a rather valid point in group yesterday, and if you don't listen to him, how can you expect him to listen to you?" Draco hides a small smile behind his soup spoon and glances at Gerard. "I'd start again at the beginning, if I were you."

Harry grins, thrilled to see the same balance of good-humoured informality outside of therapy groups that he remembers from Chem Dep. He supposes he shouldn't have doubted for a second that Draco would achieve it here, too; the man seems to inspire an at-times baffling mixture of seriousness and playfulness in anyone who spends enough time with him.

It's Annette that notices him, eventually. "Oh, hello, Harry," she calls, and then everyone looks up.

Finding eight pairs of eyes fixed upon him, Harry smiles and offers a small, sheepish wave. He's immediately drawn into one particular pleased little smile and grey eyes that warm at the sight of him, and something in the pit of his stomach thrills as he remembers exactly what he came for.

He'd be astonished if any of the residents were unaware of the nature of his and Draco's relationship—the pre-open day Rita Skeeter will have seen to that—but had they been, he suspects that the look they are sharing right now would be more than enough to give it away. And he doesn't care.

"Got a minute?"

Draco sets his soup spoon down and rises, attempting a stern glare in Ginny's direction but failing miserably. "Certainly."

As they walk away from the dining room, the previous chatter starts up again.

"You do realise that now they all think we're going to my office to have sex," Draco says.

Harry laughs. "Aren't we?"

Draco says nothing, but walks a little bit faster. They reach the office in record time, and the last thing Harry sees before the door is slammed closed and he's pushed hard against the unforgiving grain is the thrice-underlined demand to WAIT.

"You did it," he offers, allowing his wrists to be pinned to the wood at either side of his head.

Draco stops a whisper away from his mouth, lips curving into a wry smile. "Apparently. It's changed a lot, you know. The Ministry. I expected... no one tried to hex me."

"Er... good," Harry manages, a little saddened that he had apparently imagined someone would.

"She was brilliant."

"Mm." Harry tilts his head to close the tiny distance and press their lips together in a soft, slow kiss that he feels all the way down his spine. "She's always brilliant, that's what she does. What about you? Were you brilliant?"

Draco snorts and presses Harry's forearms harder against the door, fingers slipping under string and holding tight. "No comment. Ask me another."

Harry grins, euphoria lifting and intensifying the urgent desire spiking in his veins. Go with it, insists his unusually helpful subconscious, and Harry's not arguing with that.

"Feel like celebrating?"

Draco kisses him again, this time pressing warm and hard and full length against Harry's body, the familiar weight and pressure sending his fingers curling and cutting ragged nails into trapped palms.

"Silly question," Draco murmurs as the kiss turns messy and heated.

"Silly question yes?"

The soft huff of frustrated amusement emptied into Harry's mouth draws a short gasp of laughter from him but he doesn't pull back from the demanding kiss that tastes like spices and lentils and something else that makes him ache with dizzy want.

"Yes, silly question yes, idiot," Draco mumbles, and the words are the go-ahead Harry needs—he wrenches his wrists away from the door and pulls Draco across the office toward the desk.

Suddenly, as he looks into enquiring, lust-darkened grey eyes, he knows exactly what he wants. He lifts a hand to clear a space on the desk with a quick wandless spell, but overdoes it a bit in his eagerness, sending papers and parchments and quills skittering to the floor.

Hoping somehow that Draco might not notice, Harry pushes him onto the desk, attaches his lips to a sensitive spot of warm skin just behind his ear and sucks gently, insistently.

"You will pick those up if it's the last thing you do," Draco says, even as his head tips back in almost-submission.

"Later... I had a thought."

"Surely not."

Again, there's a dry smile in his voice; Harry's mouth twitches and his heart leaps. "Shh. I was thinking that this desk—" He leans on his hands on the mahogany surface, one either side of Draco's hips, and speaks soft, low, harsh-toned against his ear—"this desk has seen far too much 'almost', and it's just not right. Someone needs to be thoroughly shagged on this desk, and since it's your day—"

"—and my desk," interrupts Draco, efficiently unfastening Harry's trousers.

"—and your desk, I think you should decide who."

Draco leans back, his weight on one hand behind him on the desk, and meets Harry's eyes as he deftly pulls trousers and boxers down around Harry's thighs and wraps cool, firm fingers around his painfully hard cock.

Harry shudders, both at the long, slow strokes and the expression of longing and poorly-concealed amusement in the grey eyes.

"How very magnanimous of you," Draco offers, tongue flicking out to trace his bottom lip. He bites gently on the threatening smile, but Harry has no such control, somehow managing to laugh and groan at the same time as skilled fingers twist and slide over his cock, stealing his breath.

"I thought so."

"In light of my success, I think you should do all the work," Draco continues, hair obscuring his eyes as he looks hungrily at Harry's cock sliding in and out of his fist, his dry smirk just visible as he shifts his hips on the desk and draws Harry's eyes to the delicious tightening of black trouser fabric. Harry's mouth fills with saliva and he leans into the touch, pulling at Draco's belt and buttons.

"Fine. That's not..." Harry hisses and pushes into Draco's hand, pleasure raking through him, "...going to be a problem. Lift up."

Draco's silent compliance as Harry pushes his clothing out of the way is completely undermined by his expression as he finally looks up and into Harry's eyes; despite his dilated pupils, ragged breathing and light flush, he's obviously very amused indeed. As he continues to teasingly stroke Harry's cock, he suppresses his smile, digging perfect teeth into his bottom lip, kicks off one shoe and slides one leg free of his trousers. Draws his foot up onto the desk, still leaning back on his free hand, and levels a playful, challenging stare at Harry.

Harry stares back, tearing his eyes away only to rake them over the tensed, black-lined sinews in Draco's supporting arm, pale fingers spread over shiny dark wood, the dark overcoat thrown over the back of Draco's desk chair, his flushed skin and barely-contained amusement and beautiful, quivering hardness leaking steadily against his expensive sweater.

He presses one palm firmly against that firm flesh until Draco gasps and gives up his composure, letting the smile blossom and closing his eyes. Harry can't quite decide what's responsible for this delicious bursting warmth that has nothing to do with arousal; it could be trying—again—to have sex in this or any office, or the fact that the rest of the team know what they're doing, or that actually, he's ridiculously proud of this odd man with his trousers around one leg and one black-socked foot up on the desk, looking simultaneously so beautiful and so ridiculous all at once.

Draco lifts an eyebrow and watches avidly as Harry slides his fingers into his mouth and holds eye contact. The grey eyes flicker and his cock jumps under Harry's fingers.

"Can you be serious?" he demands, mouth still flickering.

"Can you?" Harry mumbles around his fingers.

Draco snorts and bites his lip harder. Harry smothers his grin in a slow, deep kiss as he leans close to press wet fingers greedily inside that incredible heat, breath catching when Draco groans harshly into his mouth and pushes back against him, demanding without words what Harry wants so much to give to him. Still, he drags it out just a little longer than they both want because the thin, urgent sounds he teases from Draco with each slide and twist are beautiful and just a little bit out of control.

Finally, unable to wait any longer, he pulls back and with hands wrapped around pale, angular hips, drags Draco right to the edge of the desk. He's breathing messily and shaking slightly as he lifts to meet the slow, firm push of Harry's cock inside him, but the smile hasn't left his eyes and Harry finds himself returning it, even as he presses all the way inside and the hot, tight relief makes him lose his breath.

He holds still for a moment, determined not to laugh or come, even though the temptation in both cases is strong after what feels like a very long time. Unblinking, Draco drops his leg from the desk and wraps it around Harry's back, dragging him in closer, breath hitching at the deeper penetration and leaking helplessly against Harry's palm as he waits, leaning back on both hands now.

Eyes flitting to the closed door, Harry chews his lip as he slides out slowly. "Do you think we should lock that door?"

"No. If they know what's good for them, they'll pay attention to the... sign," he manages, tightening and pushing up indolently to meet Harry's strokes.

"What if they don't?"

Shaking the hair out of his eyes, Draco flashes a wicked, heart-stopping smile. "Well, they'll only do it once, won't they?"

Harry snorts and privately doubts that very much, but leans to capture Draco's lips again, invading his hot mouth and stroking his tongue in rhythm with the quickening snap of hips as they move together on the edge of the desk with increasing desperation. Thighs bumping the hard wooden edge painfully, he ignores the discomfort and focuses instead on the agonizing, hot, tight slide of his cock inside Draco, the taste of his kisses and the tight grip of their fingers laced together on the desktop, steadying, holding on.

"Do you think they went in the office, or into the other side of the house?" comes the voice from the corridor, unmistakeably Marley's.

Harry falters and pulls back from the kiss, breathless, opening his mouth to speak, but Draco is shaking his head and urging him to keep moving.

"Shh."

"You shh," Harry whispers, sliding slowly, and Draco lifts an eyebrow.

"I don't know," says a second voice. Annette's. They're fucked. Or not. "Just knock on. Draco's in a good mood, isn't he? And so he should be, he should be very proud of himself."

The fingers wrapped around Harry's tighten and Draco allows his eyes to close in silent exasperation. Something about this expression reignites the spark of inappropriate humour in the pit of Harry's stomach, and as he continues to push insistently inside Draco's tight heat, he can feel the soft laughter bubbling up and threatening to overflow.

When the knock on the door comes, after a moment or two's mumbled conferring in the corridor, Draco groans softly and Harry loses it. Silently shaking, he buries his face in Draco's neck and laughs helplessly.

"Should we knock again, or just go in?" Annette wonders, and Harry snorts inelegantly against the warm, citrus-scented skin.

"Don't you dare stop," Draco whispers after a moment, and there's a waver to his voice that just tickles Harry even more.

"Won't."

Out in the corridor, there's one more sharp knock followed immediately by a small scuffle, during which a third voice joins the conversation.

The words sound a lot like, "Come the fuck away from that door, you pair of tits," but the hissed tone makes it impossible to discern the speaker.

Either way, the corridor falls silent. Eyes wet and shoulders shaking, Harry pulls back, meets intense grey eyes and swallows dryly, registering with a jolt the warm, needy, tension-bowed body beneath him and thrusting hard enough to make Draco cry out.

"Shh," Draco insists somewhat illogically, seeing as he's the one who made the sound, throwing them both slightly off balance to wrench one hand up off the desk to grip Harry's arse and encourage him faster, deeper, harder.

Harry grins, licking salt from his top lip and kissing Draco, enclosing his cock in a slippery hand. So close now, heart pounding with all of it: messy pride, the almost-interruption and god, just because it feels so fucking good.

Annette's words quirk his lips against Draco's and he can't help it.

"Are you very proud of yourself?" he murmurs, and Draco snorts. Moans softly. Snorts again.

"Shut up."

Hand flying over the hard cock trapped between them, Harry shudders as inexorable heat floods his belly. Every word is a breathless effort, but he's nothing if not determined. Leaning back to gaze into the heated grey eyes, Harry smirks. "I'm very proud of you. Fuck it, I'm going to say it again, while I can. I'm very proud of you, Draco Malfoy."

"Stop it," Draco growls, or tries to, because he's laughing now, too.

"Not a chance," Harry pants, but his next words are lost in a desperate, open-mouthed kiss as Draco tenses and gasps and comes hard, hot, sticky-slippery in his hand.

Kissing him again, slower and softer this time, Harry closes his eyes. Already on the edge, it only takes the breathless flick of a hot tongue against his and the silent encouragement of Draco's hand urging him deeper into that clenching heat and he's falling, groaning his release with a stupid smile on his face.

As his breathing returns to normal, Harry releases Draco and opens his eyes. He looks around the room as though realising for the first time exactly where he is, and exactly what they've just done. In Draco's office. On his desk.

Draco leans back on the desk on his elbows and Harry, suddenly unsteady, leans over him with his weight on his hands. Draco meets his gaze with soft, amused eyes and the faint remains of a smirk.

"Look at this mess," he says, indicating with a jerk of his head the scattered desk contents, dishevelled clothes and his white-streaked stomach and sweater.

Harry shrugs and trails sticky fingers over Draco's marked forearm, chewing on his bottom lip and watching the shiny trail, fascinated. "Not bothered."

Soft, dry laughter makes him look up. "Well, I know that." Draco pauses and lifts an eyebrow, mouth curving into a smile that wraps a hot, tight band around Harry's heart and makes him forget—just for a moment—that anything exists beyond that door with the sign that doesn't really work properly. "Out of interest, what are you going to do if we pass at the Wizengamot?"

"Don't worry," Harry advises, not wanting to move. "I know plenty of ways to make a mess. You're going to need a bigger sign."

**~*~**

Harry slips back into Gen One with just seconds to go before afternoon rounds begin, and Cecile's expression just deepens his lingering feeling of well-being. He knows full well that his warm satisfaction is written all over his face, his languid posture and his worse-than-usual hair, but it's so very difficult to care.

Cecile drops to the back of the group to walk beside him as they trail behind Tremellen and hope to avoid his sadistic questions. Harry knows that he's on top of everything with his patients, and he also knows that Tremellen will try to catch him out anyway, so there really isn't any use worrying about it.

"No prizes for guessing what you've been doing, you lucky bastard," Cecile whispers, keeping her eyes on Tremellen.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Cecile."

"That's about—"

"—shh, Tremellen's saying something really interesting," Harry murmurs, smirking, and she kicks him.

The afternoon, once the torture of rounds is over, is relentless, and Harry is the last to make it to the Litton Tree. He's almost, but not quite, late, and he has to scan the Diagon Alley restaurant twice before he spots Draco, Ron, and Hermione, who have for once pulled off an impressively co-ordinated effort with their Polyjuice disguises.

Knowing that Clive is safe and settled for the night with Narcissa allows him to enjoy his evening with a minimum of guilt. The Promise is not fooled by Polyjuice and wraps around his unusually-tanned wrist in an incongruous band, but Harry takes a deep breath, allows it a glance, and pulls his shirtsleeve down over his fingers.

He and Ron listen as Hermione and Draco retell the events of the morning in careful detail; their not-quite-right eyes are alight with enthusiasm and before long, half of the items on the table are pressed into service as illustrative props.

As Ron proposes the first of many celebratory toasts, Harry lifts his glass and echoes it, luxuriating in the warm press of Draco's thigh against his, Ron's genuine pride as he looks at Hermione, the warm aroma of bread and oregano, the pink tint to 'Mione's face that's part wine and part delight, and the knowledge that this, all of this, is his, and no one can take it from him.

"You're thinking something disturbingly sentimental, aren't you?" Draco says in an undertone.

"No," Harry whispers back, knowing he's bang to rights.

"I call bullshit," Draco counters, but lets it drop, running a light fingertip over the back of Harry's hand before folding his arms on the tabletop and turning to Hermione.

"Haven't seen anything from Skeeter this week," Ron says, and Harry looks up. "Think she's actually going to keep her word?"

Harry shrugs. "So far, so good. We said a week." He glances at Draco with a twinge of apprehension.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'd make her wait," Ron says.

"What?"

Ron leans back as the waitress arrives and places an impressive tiramisu in front of him; after gazing adoringly at it for a moment, he remembers Harry and looks up, grabbing a spoon and gesturing with it.

"Well—and this is just my opinion, mate—but a week's not all that long. If it were me, I'd call her up and tell her to make it a month." Ron digs into his dessert, and Harry pokes distractedly at his panna cotta. "You know, see if she really wants it or not," Ron continues, swallowing and earning a sharp look from Hermione.

Contemplative, Harry nods and gazes at the superfluous raspberries on his dessert plate. He carefully gathers them on his spoon and deposits them on top of Draco's chocolate-something-or-other without even looking at him.

"Raspberries," observes Draco, and Harry is offered a forkful of rich cake for his trouble. He accepts it in silence, and Draco continues: "You know what, Weasley? That's a marvellous idea."

Ron grins, strange dark eyes gleaming. "Thank you."

"I still say you should have given her to the peacock," Hermione puts in petulantly, and Harry is reminded that Rita Skeeter is one of a tiny group of individuals to which his forgiving friend would actually apply the word hate.

"Thought you wanted me to talk to the press?" Harry points out, exasperated.

"I didn't mean her," she argues, leaning to steal from Ron's plate, despite having insisted she didn't want dessert. Ron scowls but allows the transgression.

"I think we're sort of stuck with her now," Harry says, attempting to convey a spoonful of his slippery dessert to his mouth without spilling it on the nice linen tablecloth; beside him, he can feel Draco watching him and trying not to laugh. "And you know, as good as a month's reprieve sounds, she'll never go for it. Not in a million years."

"Strong words," Draco says, and something in his tone makes Harry turn to look at him. Eyes that should be grey but aren't flash dangerously, and Harry bites his tongue.

"Yeah, well. She won't. She's not exactly famed for her patience, is she?"

"Maybe not, but this is something... special. This is the Harry Potter Exclusive." Draco rolls his eyes and across the table, Ron snorts. "I say she will. Want to make it interesting?"

Harry smiles, thinking of pub toilets and Chem Dep Galleons and all the times in between. "Do you remember what happened the last time you bet with me? In fact... any time you've ever bet with me?"

"Your overconfidence is my advantage," Draco insists. He licks a fallen speck of chocolate from the back of his hand and thinks; Harry can actually see the moment he hits upon inspiration and those strange eyes glow. "If I'm right, you will give the residents a cooking lesson."

Harry suspects he should have seen that one coming. Across the table, Hermione is apparently very amused indeed, and her soft snickers aren't helping one bit. His mind, dulled by two glasses of wine and too much rich food, isn't turning up much by way of a return wager. And then he catches Ron's eye, and there it is—something he wants but has always refused to push for.

"Alright. If I'm right, then you come with me for Sunday lunch next week," he says before he can change his mind.

There's a small sound of approval from Hermione's end of the table but Ron splutters noisily, having almost inhaled his mouthful of wine. He's just surprised, Harry tells himself, keeping his eyes on Draco. The 'oh, really?' eyebrow is almost in his hairline, but a smile threatens the impassive line of his lips.

"Deal."

Harry mirrors his expression as best he can and shakes Draco's outstretched hand.

Cooking lessons, indeed. Not a chance.

**~*~**

It's still pouring down with rain as the four of them prepare to leave the restaurant but it's barely fifty yards down the Alley to the nearest bar, and so they opt to forgo Apparation, instead casting strong Umbrella Charms and braving the elements.

Hermione and Draco are still raking over the minutiae of their committee hearing in a way that reminds Harry strongly of Hermione's insistence on doing the same after every exam during their Hogwarts years. He lets them walk out in front and casts his own charm over himself and Ron, who is surprisingly coherent for this point in this evening.

As he looks sideways at his friend, Harry is niggled at by a question he's been trying to push away all night, and he decides he might as well ask it while Ron can still answer. He sighs.

"Any news from Larkin?"

Ron wrinkles his nose and looks away. Auror Larkin is the best, Ron has assured him of that, and he's had the name of Romilda's ex-partner for days now. Though Ron had warned him it may be slow progress, there's something in the expression on his borrowed face right now that makes Harry feel uneasy.

"Ron?" he prods, nudging him gently in the shoulder as they walk.

Ron glances at him and sighs. "We should talk about this tomorrow. Or on Sunday."

Harry's stomach tightens at the implication. "No, let's talk about it now."

"Harry, come on. You're supposed to be..." Ron shrugs and waves a negligent arm at the surrounding street, dark and wet and yet still bustling with Friday night revellers. "I don't know. You've got enough on your plate, this isn't... Friday night stuff."

Harry scrubs through hair that is slightly damp, despite the charm. "Yeah, well, I can pretend it goes away, but it doesn't really, does it? Just fucking tell me, you're scaring me now."

Ron glances at not-Draco and not-Hermione; they're way ahead now, almost at the door of the bar they're all heading for. He sighs and casts a Privacy Charm. "Larkin found him. Today. He's in Azkaban."

Harry hears 'Larkin found him' and 'Azkaban', mind whirring. "Azkaban? Oh, he will be. Fuck, that's great news... so, is there going to be a trial, or—"

"No," Ron interrupts. "He's already in Azkaban. Now. Went there a little over two months ago."

Shock roots Harry to the spot. Ron keeps walking for three or four paces, reaction times slowed by alcohol, and has to shake water from his hair when he retreats back beneath the shelter of the charm.

"Sorry... what?"

Ron sighs. "Philip David Harris, born 04/05/71, is already in Azkaban. That's where Larkin found him. Harry, look..." Ron pauses and glances over at where Hermione is squinting and beckoning from the doorway of the bar, Draco beside her. He waves his hand in a way that she seems to understand, and she simply turns and drags Draco inside with her, leaving Harry and Ron standing in the middle of the street in the pouring rain. Harry watches the exchange blurrily and doesn't know how to feel.

"Listen, since he's already in there, it's not going to be a problem verifying Romilda's story under Veritaserum," Ron continues, voice and eyes clear, calming, as though he's shaken off Friday night Ron and put on his Auror head. "With any luck, he won't be getting out for a very long time."

"Why is he in there already?" Harry's not sure he wants to know, but has to ask.

Ron exhales slowly. "Murder."

Harry closes his eyes for a second or two, feeling sick. Two months ago... just after he first met Romilda and Clive. "What—how?"

"Rapid Ageing Spell." Ron's eyes are steady but apologetic. "Apparently, he barely knew the girl, and it killed her instantly. Larkin's been fitting it all together, and... well, it seems that Velecia Robbins, this other girl, was the first victim. Around two weeks before he must have cursed Romilda. Larkin reckons... he reckons Robbins was the practice run. The one he got wrong."

Head spinning, Harry just stares. The rain slants down without touching him, and he looks at it until his vision blurs. "You mean that Romilda was the one he got right?"

Ron's face is grim. "I don't know how else to put it. Either way, the first victim is the reason he's in a cell. Apparently, certain members of the Auror Department aren't in the business of asking more questions than they need to, or we'd have known about this weeks ago."

"He knew she wanted to leave him," Harry murmurs. Stares wildly at Ron. "So he... practice run? Fucking... fucking bastard," he spits, kicking viciously and ineffectually at a nearby puddle.

Anxiety creases Ron's unfamiliar features and he grips Harry's shoulder. The simple touch spreads something through Harry that allows him to breathe, and he looks at his best friend's worried expression, pulse hammering with fury and something like... disappointment.

"Mate, listen... it's fucking awful, I know it is, but at least you know where he is now," Ron offers, and Harry almost sags with relief—it's definitely Ron talking now, not Auror Weasley, and he's glad. "I didn't mean to keep it from you, just thought there might be a better place to discuss it than... well, here."

Harry gulps at the cold air and fights the strange little impulse to dispel the Umbrella Charm just so that he can feel the rain on his skin. "Yeah," he says unsteadily, "you're probably right. You know me... rarely listen to reason," he adds, forcing a half-smile that hurts and wanting to touch Draco, just to ground himself.

"Nah, you're... well, sometimes." Ron frowns. Blinks uncertainly. "You going to be OK?"

"Yeah. Larkin'll keep you informed, won't he?"

Ron nods. "If he knows what's good for him."

Harry's attempt at a smile is a little stronger this time. "Firewhisky—double," he says, and starts walking.

"Are you sure you're alright?"

"Mm. I know I should feel relieved, but I sort of feel... I don't know. Come on."

**~*~**

"...cheated," he says finally, several hours later, as he lies in a tangle of sheets and naked limbs with Draco. He presses his nose into the damp hair at the back of Draco's neck and wraps around him tighter. "I feel cheated. Is that really fucked up?"

"No," says Draco, linking their fingers together over his chest. "No, it's not."

Harry believes him... almost enough for it to help.

**~*~**

With some effort, Harry forces all thoughts of Philip Harris into a tiny box in his mind, slams down the lid and locks it up tight in a dark corner. He has to wait on news from Larkin, and though he's never been adept at waiting, he's smart enough to know that he has no choice. Besides, he thinks he knows what he's going to hear, and while it's a huge comfort to know that Clive is safe, there's a confusing part of him that wanted to see him hunted down and captured and brought to justice.

He wants Romilda's death to be the one Harris feels, pays for with his freedom, and though it's illogical, Harry can't fight the feeling that this reduces her life to just another sentence piled upon the head of an already-damned man. Perhaps, the more logical part of Harry suggests, he's just imagining the loss of a satisfying outcome that never existed in the first place.

As he lies there staring at the ceiling on Saturday morning, in the odd silence before Clive wakes up and before Draco returns from whatever it is he does in the kitchen on his own, he wonders why nothing ever turns out quite the way he expects. Why it is, that even years after the war, he still manages to attract complications and strange little dramas to him without any effort at all.

The introspection is getting him nowhere, though, so with a self-derisory snort, he hauls himself out of bed and slouches into the bathroom. He blinks at the mirror and frowns at the flash of pale yellow up in the top corner. He reaches up to retrieve it, and the little sticky-note unpeels from the glass.

#21 – I'm afraid that no one looks good in lime green. But you do look very good in just your pants, like right now. And even better in nothing at all, which can be arranged after you've come down and made me some tea.

Harry stares at the message, at Draco's small, spiky handwriting, and inhales tremulously. It's cold in the bathroom and he's barely dressed—that's why the tiny hairs on his forearms and the back of his neck are standing up, though it's difficult to use temperature to explain away the rush of sadness and sharp, sweet gratitude that makes him close his eyes for a moment.

He meets his own misted green eyes in the mirror and is surprised to find himself smiling slowly. Turning away, he sticks and unsticks the tacky strip of the note to the palm of his hand, and heads for the stairs.

He wonders if Draco Malfoy is a complication or a strange little drama. In all likelihood, he's both.

**~*~**

Whatever he is, he definitely has his uses when it comes to obtaining obscure items for people who really, truly deserve them. Having thought long and hard about a suitable thank you gesture for his former mentor and her superb sense of humour, Harry has almost given up all hope, and consulting with his friends on the subject has been no help whatsoever.

"Get her one of those shrunken heads," Cecile suggests, and, when asked why the department head would want one of those, replies with a worrying amount of relish: "Because she likes weird things. And everyone likes a shrunken head."

"How about a book?" Terry offers, and while not a bad idea, Harry suspects that Healer Aquiline has read every book in existence already.

"Don't look at me," Eloise demurs. "I think she's scary. I haven't a clue."

It's only when late one night, whilst running over his notes from the day, he reaches for the little box and remembers that of fucking course, there was something that Lorne Aquiline had admired very much.

Draco, once made aware of the person responsible for bringing his throwaway remark to life, can't move fast enough to help, because, "Anyone who hexes Tremellen is a friend of mine."

That Monday, with the coveted item finally in his possession, Harry makes his way to the second floor. He knows Aquiline well enough to know that she's likely to refuse the gift if given directly, so he enlists an enthusiastic Kelly to help him sneak into her office.

Harry breathes in the musty smell he's missed and looks around at the strange objects littering Aquiline's many shelves, reflecting that perhaps she would have enjoyed a nice shrunken head after all. Still. This is better.

Carefully, he sets the brand-new Retrievo-Box on Aquiline's overloaded desk. This one is smaller and less intricately-carved than his own, made from an elegant silver birch wood that feels satiny under Harry's fingers. He fishes out a small piece of parchment from his pocket and slides it under the corner of the box.

Healer Aquiline,

On behalf of (almost) everyone in attendance at Foundations Open Day, 01/03/04 – thank you.

Don't let anyone else touch the light before you do. Enjoy.

As he slips out of the office, Kelly flashes him a smile and a thumbs-up. Harry grins at her and Apparates back to Gen One before Tremellen notices he's missing.

**~*~**

When he receives a demanding owl from Rita Skeeter later that afternoon, Harry knows that he can no longer put off having a conversation with her—one way or another, he has to act. With Clive in his bedroom and Draco watching with interest from the sofa, Harry fire-calls the irksome reporter and hopes for the best.

The thing is, he's not quite sure which outcome that actually is.

Rita, predictably, is fuming at what she considers to be Harry's reneging on their deal. But, even though he can feel Draco's eyes burning into the back of his head throughout the argument, Harry keeps his cool and feels almost weary as he grips the cool stone of his fireplace hard and points out for the fifth or sixth time:

"No one's forcing you, Rita. But if you really want the exclusive, you can wait. We aren't going anywhere. Take it or leave it."

"She'll take it," Draco murmurs, just loud enough for Harry to hear. "Fucking vulture."

Harry suppresses a snort, staring into the sharp, calculating face that Draco can't see. She won't.

**~*~**

In hindsight, Harry thinks on Saturday afternoon as he slices into an onion with seven pairs of fascinated eyes fixed upon him, he should have known that Skeeter would never give up so easily.

"If there's one thing Slytherins are good at, it's waiting," Draco had gleefully informed him. "But most of us are multi-talented individuals, of course."

Everyone's a fucking Slytherin.

Harry looks around the brightly-lit kitchen at his audience. Gretchen and Lupe are sitting on tall stools next to his work surface; Gerard and the two new male residents lean against the far counter-top with studied nonchalance that doesn't fool Harry, and Draco is standing next to the door beside a fascinated Clive, fixing Harry with immensely entertained grey eyes.

The little boy is doing well, though he never seems entirely carefree, and Harry feels his sporadic flashes of anxiety like something is being wrenched inside. He hasn't asked again about being sent away, but Harry is all too aware that he never really answered the question. Harry shakes himself and chops the last section of the onion with feeling. The round blue eyes are full of intrigue today, not sadness, and Clive is completely unfazed by the patients, who absolutely love him.

Beside Harry Gretchen sniffs and blinks rapidly at the onion fumes.

"Erm, OK, does anyone know a spell that stops the onion from hurting your eyes?" Harry ventures, wishing he was a natural at teaching cooking—he managed fine with Defence, but this is apparently a quite different kettle of fish.

Silence.

"Is this Muggle cooking or cooking with magic, then?" Gerard asks eventually, looking confused. "Not that I know anything about either."

Harry sets his knife down. "Well, it's a bit of both, really. Some things are best done with magic, and some things are best done without... you just have to figure out which things are which."

The residents nod solemnly, as though Harry is imparting some great wisdom.

"Is this a cooking lesson, or a metaphor for life?" Draco speaks up from the door, and all the staring eyes swivel to look at him.

He leans against the wall, arms folded, but there's a smile in his eyes when he gazes at Harry, and it's a long second or two before Harry can look away.

"Both, maybe," offers Gretchen, still rubbing her eyes.

Harry says nothing but pushes up his sleeves and demonstrates the onion-fume-neutralising spell that he learned from Molly Weasley several years ago. Gretch, the nearest person to the offending vegetable, blinks and grins, impressed.

As he shows off his not-inconsiderable knife skills with an array of vegetables and then shows the assembled group how to make them into a simple soup, Harry is both pleased by their rapt attention and increasingly involved enquiries, and astonished that Draco has managed to gather so many people—himself included—who are utterly clueless about basic cooking.

"Now you do it," Harry instructs, supplying fresh ingredients and watching with interest the expressions of alarm on the residents' faces. Then come the questions.

"How do you know when it's ready?"

"What's the difference between boiling and simmering?"

"Is this a parsnip or a turnip?"

"Can I use magic to peel the potato?"

"Mine's gone black—what shall I do?"

Harry stands beside Draco, who is enjoying himself immensely, and allows Clive to take his hand when he reaches for it. The afternoon sun is warm on his face and glints attractively off knives and shiny pans and bubbling liquids as the residents' first not-bad-at-all efforts steam up the kitchen.

"So, are you going to—"

"Oh, crap... I think I've done something weird with the carrot," Gretchen interrupts loudly. "Harry, please come and look!"

Intrigued, Harry bites down his smile at her look of panic. "Coming."

"Look at that," Draco says. "They love you."

"Of course they do, I'm teaching them to make soup," Harry murmurs, brushing his shoulder against Draco's. "And then, when they know what they're doing, they can teach the others..." He turns his hand over in a circle, "...and so it goes on."

"Self-help," Draco surmises. "I like it. You know how you lost our bet?"

"Yes, but it's good of you to keep reminding me about it."

Draco's lips twist in a wry half-smile, and his fingertips skate over Harry's against the wall. "I think you would have done it anyway."

Harry looks at the tiled floor and says nothing, because he suspects that's true. "Probably," he admits very quietly indeed.

"Seriously, Harry, it's moving," Gretch advises, and Harry peels himself off the wall to hurry to her aid.

**~*~**

#22 – You have persuasive powers that I suspect you are unaware of. I'd say 'use them wisely' but really, we both know that you won't. Hopefully.

Harry unpeels another yellow note from the bathroom mirror on Sunday morning and grins unreservedly around his toothbrush. Well, there's no one here to see him, apart from the mirror, and he's long given up caring what it has to say.

He thinks that Draco might have a point, because for reasons unknown, he has decided, of his own volition, to accompany Harry to lunch at the Burrow. Having debated with himself and a not-very-helpful Draco, Harry has squashed his impulse to take Clive along with them. He's now so accustomed to the calm, impassive attentions of Narcissa Malfoy that Harry thinks an afternoon of Molly Weasley and her energetic brood might just be too much for the little boy.

As it turns out, Clive is in a bright mood and is delighted at the prospect of a bonus afternoon with his two favourite playmates. Harry Apparates over to the Manor with him just before lunch and finds Narcissa in her sun-room. Zeus jumps up, resting front paws on Harry's knees and he smiles—it's been a while since he's been greeted with such enthusiasm by the fickle not-dog.

"Hello, Mr Potter."

"Hello. Apparently, our house is boring," Harry informs Narcissa as he sets Clive down and loses Zeus' affections immediately.

"Your house?" Narcissa lifts an eyebrow.

"Yes." Harry frowns, puzzled, and then remembers what he wants to ask. "Who is Swanson? He keeps drawing pictures of someone called Swanson."

Narcissa smiles, amused. "That will be Swanson Malfoy. He's Draco's great uncle. Or more specifically, he's a portrait on the third floor. He and Clive have been discussing... death, if I'm to be frank."

Alarmed, Harry stares at the unconcerned woman. "Why is my... Clive discussing death with some bloke in a portrait?!" he hisses, forgetting all of his manners.

Narcissa sighs, flicks pale blue eyes to the tangle of boy and not-dog now next to the window.

"Do try not to have a conniption, Mr Potter. Swanson passed away at the age of eight, shortly after he sat for the portrait. Clive seems to find him something of a comfort."

"Oh." Harry pauses, uncertain, and scrubs at his hair, a nervous gesture he usually fights hard to suppress in Mrs Malfoy's company. "Sorry," he adds impulsively.

For a long moment, she searches his eyes and he feels as though he's being turned inside out.

"The protective instinct is nothing to apologise for," she says at last and turns away in a swirl of pale hair and robes before he has a chance to respond. "Enjoy your lunch, Mr Potter."

"Right," he almost whispers.

**~*~**

Lunch is a surprisingly laid-back affair, with only Mr and Mrs Weasley, Ron and Hermione, Ginny and Neville present, though Harry strongly suspects that advance knowledge of Draco's attendance would have filled some of the empty chairs around the large kitchen table.

Harry is torn between amusement and aching empathy as he sits beside Draco at lunch and watches his tight, serious expression, impeccable manners and ramrod-straight posture. It's been quite some time since Harry has seen him so ill at ease and there's nothing he can do to help, not really. This warm, well-worn home is a safe place for him, but apparently not for Draco. Not yet, at any rate.

Molly, bless her, seems to be attempting restraint, and doesn't batter Draco with nearly as many questions as she looks like she wants to. She asks about Clive and about Foundations and stares at Draco very hard, expression flustered, as though she doesn't know quite what to make of him.

Draco's restraint is frightening, but Harry is close enough to hear his tiny, relieved exhalation when Molly turns her attention to Neville and begins grilling him on the number of hours he's working and whether he's eating enough vegetables. Across the table, Arthur shoots Draco a quick but genuine smile and the grey eyes widen, startled.

Aware that he's staring, Harry looks at his plate and concentrates on Molly's delicious roast chicken with thyme. Why Draco is even here is anyone's guess; he won their bet and is clearly uncomfortable with the idea of Weasleys en masse, and yet. When Draco hooks an ankle around his under the table, he glances sideways and catches the flicker of a nervous smile that quickens his breathing.

For you, his subconscious prods. He's doing it for you.

Draco doesn't drop his guard until the six of them retreat into the garden, but it's fascinating to see—as soon as the back door swings closed behind them, it's as though he realises he's among friends, and perhaps has been all along. It's a matter of minutes before the biting humour and merciless Weasley-baiting are back in full-force, and Harry had never imagined he would be so pleased to see them.

The light and warmth of the day are fading as Harry and Draco make their excuses and head to pick up Clive from the Manor before returning home to Grimmauld Place. Draco retrieves 'Dog Rose' without a word and drops into an elegant sprawl on the sofa. He stretches with beautiful languor and gazes up at Harry in silent invitation.

Full, warm, relaxed, Harry gazes back and thinks curling up with Draco and further adventures of Rex Cardonia sounds very tempting indeed. And then the green flames jump in the grate, and some well-honed instinct tells him it's not to be.

Harry quickly conducts his conversation with the harassed hospital employee and extracts the important information—there's an issue with one of his patients, and he has no choice but to return to work. On a Sunday evening. Harry steps away from the flames and sighs.

"Hopefully it'll just be an hour or so," he says with optimism that he doesn't really feel.

On the sofa, Draco's eyes are bright with pure panic. "You can't."

Harry frowns, confused. "I have to. I won't be long, though... in theory."

Draco glances over at Clive, who seems to be talking to a plant and not paying attention to them at all. "Harry, you can't leave me with him. I... what will I do?"

Exasperated, and with his mind already racing through what might be awaiting him at St Mungo's, Harry has no response. Just barely containing his eye-roll, he heads upstairs to find a clean set of work robes.

When he returns downstairs, crinkled robes slung over one arm, Draco is sitting very upright on the sofa, fingers wrapped around the cushions; he looks as though he's ready for a battle, but Harry doesn't have the time or the energy for one. Part of him thinks he should be more sympathetic to Draco's obvious apprehension, but... he sighs.

"Harry..."

"You'll be fine." Relenting, he leans closer to Draco and murmurs against his ear, "He doesn't not like you."

**~*~**

He Apparates into the hallway just over an hour later, irritable and stinking of lavender. As he should have suspected, someone else could have easily dealt with the situation, and as he pulls off his robes and slings them over the balustrade, he's still trying to dispel the suspicion that Tremellen has some evil scheme to fuck up his weekend at any cost.

The hallway is dark, and that's probably why Clive fails to see him as he clatters into the kitchen, calling out in obvious distress, "Drake! Drake, I fell down and it hurts!"

Harry follows him to the kitchen door and is just about to reach out and comfort Clive when something stops him—it's a split-second decision, but a quick once-over reveals that there's nothing seriously wrong and besides, neither the little boy nor Draco have noticed his presence.

Turning from his tea-making at the kitchen counter, Draco looks terrified, but when Clive plasters himself to his denim-clad legs and sniffles, he seems to shake himself and swallow hard. "May I see it?"

Holding his breath, Harry steps back into the shadows and watches.

Clive unpeels his face from Draco's thigh and holds his arm out to shows him a nasty graze down one arm. Draco rakes a hand through his hair and then drops it to rest on the counter, as though unsure what to do with himself, but Clive continues to stare up at him with wet eyes and a trembling lip, and after what seems to Harry like a very long time, Draco takes a deep breath and bends to pick Clive up.

Carefully, he sets the little boy on a kitchen chair and then, to Harry's astonishment, lowers himself to sit cross-legged on the tiled floor at his feet. Without a word, he holds out his hand for Clive's arm. Harry watches, hanging onto the doorframe, as Draco narrows his eyes and slides a slow, careful palm over the angry graze. Clive goes very, very still and watches him, entranced; the tears still brim in the blue eyes but do not fall.

Blond hair slides over Draco's forehead as he gently pulls back from Healing the graze, but he doesn't brush it away, choosing instead to stare hard at the clean, scratch-free skin of Clive's arm.

"Wow, it's gone."

Draco smiles uncertainly and drops both hands into his lap. "Does it still hurt?"

Behind the door, Harry's heart races and he bites his lip.

"Only a little bit," Clive says. "Mummy sang when I got hurt."

"Ah," Draco says, bewildered. "I can't sing, I'm afraid. But... when I get hurt, I like chocolate biscuits."

When you get hurt, you like tequila and blowjobs, Harry thinks. And chocolate biscuits, he has to concede.

Clive blinks hopefully from his chair at the strange man sitting on the kitchen floor. "Really?"

"Of course. How about this?" Draco draws his wand and says, "Accio biscuits," in the general direction of the kitchen cupboards.

Harry, behind the door, cringes in anticipation, wondering what exactly the cupboards will do. A second or two later, what they do is spit out approximately fifteen different kinds of biscuits. They rain down onto the floor around Clive and Draco in their shiny, brightly coloured packets and Clive laughs delightedly, tears forgotten.

Draco looks mildly surprised at the warm sound and then grins up at Clive, reaching out and picking up the nearest packet.

"You'll rot your teeth," Harry says, stepping into the kitchen at last.

Immediately, the smiling pair turn to look at him, faces amusingly guilt-ridden. Harry hesitates, unsure that he wants to be the grown-up in this situation. After a moment's thought, he shrugs and drops to the floor beside Draco, sitting back on his heels and helping himself to a biscuit.

"Told you," he whispers.

**~*~**

The joint efforts of Shelagh Carmichael, Hermione and Draco's team mean that as March turns to April, Foundations has seventeen patients and is positively humming with life. Ginny makes a collage out of the old Chem Dep photographs, and steps up to continue the tradition on one of the walls of the new lounge. Groups and departments and activities work themselves into place, and new traditions spring up to cement and twist around the old ones.

Auror Larkin's interview of the incarcerated Harris confirms all of their horrible suspicions and affords Harry several sleepless nights that, for once, have nothing to do with the war, or Draco, or Clive-shaped interruptions. It's with great effort that he dismisses the weird desire to see the man for himself; it would do no good, he knows that, but still.

The knowledge that Harris will probably be spending the rest of his life in prison for what he did to Romilda and his other victim has another, unexpected side effect: Harry's desire to fulfil his Promise to Romilda flares into life, consuming him in a frenzy of motivation. He can't be sure it's not the ancient magic of the Promise itself, but he also wonders if perhaps he's been subconsciously holding back until now, holding back from letting go of Clive until he knows that he'll be safe from the man who took his mother's life.

Not that it matters either way, he supposes. He reads the brochures and meets with a rather stern lady from the Ministry who tells him more about the adoption process than he ever needed to know. He manages to inveigle a couple of days off out of the hospital and arranges to visit some of the recommended children's homes. For a man of so many opinions, Draco is strangely reticent when Harry outlines his plans and thoughts, but Harry presses on, because he has to.

All the while, he isn't unaware of the deepening relationship between Clive and Narcissa, but... well. She's Narcissa Malfoy, and he doesn't know what he's supposed to do with that. Having tried to speak to Clive about the whole thing on someone's advice that 'his feelings have to be taken into account', all Harry feels he's succeeded in doing is upsetting him. Maybe he did it wrong, it's hard to know; he's never been the world's most sensitive communicator, as Hermione is so fond of telling him.

On the first of his personal days, Harry accompanies Draco and Clive to the Manor in the morning and is startled when Ginny appears from nowhere and invites Clive—and an inevitable Zeus—to help her with something mysterious.

Harry looks around the entrance hall, first at Draco, who shrugs, looking equally baffled, and then at a sharp-eyed Narcissa.

"Mr Potter." She pauses, and Harry stares; he doesn't think he's ever seen her look uncertain before. "I should like to come with you."

Blindsided, Harry coughs. Fiddles with his sleeve. "Come with me to see the home?"

"That is correct."

"Er... right," Harry says faintly, not knowing quite what to say to that.

"Mother," Draco cuts in, not bothering to hide his surprise, "you haven't been outside the grounds of this house in over two years."

Harry, too busy being confused and bewildered by the request, had forgotten all about that. But Draco makes a good point.

"Yes, thank you, Draco," she snaps, cut-glass tone sharp enough to draw blood. "I'm quite aware where I have and haven't been."

"I was just suggesting that perhaps..."

Harry stops listening and instead glances wearily between them, realising that once again he seems to be a dangerously close third party observer to one of those... Malfoy arguments.

"Yes, Mrs Malfoy, that's fine," he says before he can stop himself, gratified when they both fall silent and stare at him. "Would you like to meet me out the front in about ten minutes? Excellent. Draco, I'll see you when I get back."

He shoots a hurried smile at a puzzled Draco, doesn't look at Mrs Malfoy at all, and walks out into the spring sunshine before either of them have time to draw him into their disagreement.

As he walks around the edge of the house, looking through the windows just for something to do, his eyes settle on Marley in one of the group rooms; the Irishman is leading a small group, writing furiously on a large flipchart and wearing his characteristic sparkling grin. Harry exhales heavily and rolls his eyes.

Behind him, there's a soft snort. He turns. Lupe is sitting on the ground, back against the wall of the house, smoking a cigarette. There's a silver bucket and trowel next to her, and Harry suspects she's supposed to be working rather than smoking, but he's not about to start telling her off.

"I don't like him either," she says. "He's a big show-off."

"Who?" Harry knows exactly who, but he's still marvelling at the most consecutive words he's ever heard out of Lupe.

"Mephisto," says Lupe, dark eyes full of contempt.

"I don't not like him," Harry lies.

"You aren't very good at pretending."

Harry smiles ruefully at her. "So I've been told."

Lupe drags hard on her cigarette and offers it to Harry. He shakes his head and she shrugs. "I think he shows off because he's jealous," she offers.

Harry raises an eyebrow. In the back of his head, a voice that sounds a lot like Draco is insisting that he should be telling Lupe not to gossip, but he can't help it. "What has he—"

"—Mr Potter!" calls Narcissa delicately from around the corner.

"Excuse me." Harry shrugs apologetically at Lupe, and with a resigned sigh, she puts out her cigarette and picks up her trowel.

**~*~**

The lady who meets them at the door of the whitewashed building looks stunned to see Harry Potter and Narcissa Malfoy arriving together, not least because Harry still has a careful hand wrapped around Narcissa's silk-robed arm—she had rather formally offered her arm as they'd prepared to Disapparate from the Manor, and he'd been startled until it had occurred to him that she might prefer a Side-Along jump when faced with an unfamiliar destination.

Still, it was a surprising gesture of trust, and as the dark-haired manager of the home allows her eyebrows to descend out of her hairline, Harry prolongs the contact, allowing the touch to turn solicitous as he and Narcissa step inside the building. When he releases her, she nods just once, and he realises that actually, they haven't touched each other before. Now they have, and Harry has neither melted nor exploded into smoking ashes.

Oddly, he's reminded of the first time he touched Draco in Chem Dep, and his surprise at finding him warm. Narcissa slips him a sidelong glance as the loud-voiced woman—Julie Something-or-other, Harry can't remember—leads them down an echoey corridor, and the icy blue eyes glint with just-under-the-surface solidarity. A warmth that's there, if only one is prepared to look hard enough for it. Suddenly, he's glad she's here.

"Our older children are in classes right now, of course, Mr Potter," Julie Loud Voice says, turning around to look at them. To look at him. Not Narcissa. "But perhaps, after the tour, you'd like to speak to some of the younger ones."

"Yes, OK."

Distracted, Harry looks around each room, walking beside Narcissa and her precise, sweeping strides, and wondering if Julie has anything to tell him that he didn't already read in the brochure. The place is nice; he's actually surprised by just how nice. All the rooms are clean and airy and comfortable and he admires the large garden dominated by an immense play area, which in turn is crawling with tiny, noisy children.

At Julie's request, a handful of these are persuaded down from swinging tyres and monkey bars to stare wide-eyed at Harry and his beautiful, glacial companion. They seem happy enough, Harry thinks, but the big question is: can he imagine Clive here? And the truth is, he doesn't know. He doesn't know if the sometimes-solemn, sometimes-excitable little boy would be happy with this polite, if rough-and-tumble, brood and their collection of fresh-faced carers.

Carers, at least, is the word Julie uses.

"Handlers," Narcissa corrects in a dry undertone, and Harry suppresses a smile.

"You come highly recommended," Harry remarks as Julie leads them back inside and into a large, warm sitting room.

"Thank you, Mr Potter. I believe our unique edge is communication—it's just essential, don't you think?" Julie Loud Voice smiles brightly at Harry as she offers a flowered tea service.

Narcissa accepts a cup and gazes into it with thinly-veiled suspicion.

"Communication, I see," Harry echoes, shifting in his chair. He wants to like her, he really does, and he's fairly sure hers is a thankless job, but he's not sure it excuses the way she's almost refusing to acknowledge Narcissa's presence.

"Tell me, Miss Forshaw," Narcissa says at last, demonstrating a memory for names far superior to Harry's, "because I am intrigued... how exactly do you use communication to enrich young lives?"

Her eyes pin Julie to her chair but when Harry glances at Narcissa, there's nothing but perfect politeness on her face.

"Well," begins Julie earnestly, and Harry looks out of the window at the playground.

Inhaling deeply, he wonders what Draco would make of all of this. It smells like cooking grease and paint and... he sniffs and looks at his cup. Camomile.

He only wishes he knew whether or not that was a good thing.

**~*~**

After quizzing Julie Loud Voice to within an inch of her life, Harry and Narcissa step out into the sunshine, blinking as they adjust to the sudden brightness.

"Thank you," he says, turning to her and shading his eyes against the light. The words seem hollow somehow, and he can't figure out why; his head is spinning with information and sense-memory and instinct fighting with reason.

She looks surprised, but as he holds out an arm, uncertain of the correct etiquette, her face clears. Directly across the street from the sprawling, white building they have just exited is a park, and now blue eyes scan the manicured grass and scattered benches with interest.

"With me, Mr Potter," she murmurs, taking Harry's offered arm.

Before he can do a thing, the familiar pull startles him and, seconds later, he's standing in front of a painted bench containing an expectant-faced Malfoy matriarch. He hastens to sit, before she employs some spell or other to compel him to do so.

The sun is still bright despite the dappled shade offered by a nearby oak, and Harry finds himself studying the fine lines around Narcissa's eyes and mouth as she sits in silence, not looking at him. Nervous, suddenly, he can't help but wonder what she wants, but he knows better than to phrase the question so directly.

"I expected a lot worse," she says finally, eyes fixed on the middle distance.

Surprise making him honest, Harry sighs. "So did I."

Why did you come with me? he wants to ask. Why don't you want to go home? Why are we sitting on a park bench in the middle of Wizarding London?

But he doesn't.

Narcissa turns her face slightly into the sun and trails pale fingers over the warmed wooden slats of the bench. Harry wonders just what it feels like to be... in the world, after hiding behind the protection of her own property for two whole years. He can't even imagine, and as Draco's concerned eyes flash into his head, Harry hopes he's not worrying about his mother too much.

While she's sitting on a park bench with Harry Potter, for no good reason that he can see. At least, he thinks, if anyone from the Prophet is nearby, there's a strong chance Rita Skeeter will hex them herself to prevent anything reaching print before she gets her hands on that exclusive.

"Have you read my book, Mr Potter?"

"We're about halfway into it," Harry says, too quickly to self-censor.

Face in profile, the one pale eyebrow he can see lifts a fraction. "Draco has read it already, I am certain."

Harry doesn't know why he bothers with dignity where this woman is concerned. "He has, yeah." Flushing, Harry leans forward, elbows on his knees, and picks at his string fretfully. "He's reading it to me. It's... an information absorption thing."

"Is that so?"

The question is rhetorical, of course, but that doesn't stop Harry from muttering, "Yes," and looking away.

"And your thoughts?"

Harry bites back one of a thousand possible barbed remarks and hesitates, closing his eyes against the sun, just for a moment, and scraping his shoes through the gravel at his feet.

"I don't think it's only about a man who doesn't know when to give up. None of them know when to give up—he wants her, she says she doesn't want him, nobody wants her family and everyone wants Rex Cardonia, even though he's clearly off his trolley and not only that, just wants to be left alone."

"An accurate, if pithy, summary," Narcissa concedes after a moment.

"Are you trying to tell me that stubbornness can only end in disaster? Because I know I've some way to go before the end, but it seems to be going that way."

A dry sound of amusement is the only response. Harry rakes tense fingers through his hair and glances back at her, but her expression is impassive.

"I admire your tenacity, Mr Potter," she murmurs. Taken aback, Harry opens his mouth to respond but she meets his eyes at long last and he closes it again. She glances across the road to the whitewashed children's home, and then back to him. Exhales slowly. "It is adequate, in the absence of other options," she continues, and it takes Harry a moment to realise that she's talking about the home they have just visited, and not him.

When their eyes meet again, something swoops and tightens in Harry's chest. "Yes," he manages.

"Other options are scarce in this world. I would like to offer you one." She pauses and with a lightness of touch that makes Harry shiver, draws a fingertip over the Promise band on his wrist. "I would like to take Clive, Libere Ostendo."

Harry stares, even as she withdraws her hand, and flails inside his head for a word; any word will do. The directness of her offer yet again throws him all off balance, and the best he can do right now is focus on what is familiar—vaguely familiar, at least—those words.

Libere Ostendo—he remembers Draco reading those words from the book. The book Narcissa had given him. But...

"Isn't Libere Ostendo a proposal? Like... of marriage?" he splutters, alarmed. "Draco said..."

Narcissa almost smiles. "Draco can be amusingly literal at times. Libere Ostendo is merely a proposition in the purest sense—a declaration of intention. Laying out one's cards on the table, so to speak, without hope or agenda."

"Right."

Harry swallows against his dry throat and feels entirely justified in raking all his fingers through his messy hair yet again. He should have known, should have known that this was why she brought him here. Why she accompanied him. And yet, when he allows himself to look at her, she's staring at the pale hands folded in her lap with mild surprise etched onto her features, and he has trouble believing that she started the day with a plan, either.

He can't quite believe that Narcissa Malfoy, a woman who not six months ago called him nothing but a 'bad match' for her son, is sitting calmly beside him on a Thursday morning in April and offering to raise a child for him. Libere Ostendo.

Where's that fucking box when he needs it? And where's Draco when he needs other hands touching that worn string and other fingers pulling and flattening at his hair? Oh, fuck.

Aware that the silence is stretching out, Harry attempts to get a grip of himself. "Why?" he asks.

"Because I want to. Because a lost child needs a parent, and because your life—" Narcissa pauses, seems to rethink, "—because your lives are just starting, and perhaps there isn't quite enough space. Are you searching for a reason, or for my ulterior motive?"

For an odd split-second, Harry imagines Hermione sitting in his place, and the way she'd leap all over the chance to find and expose Narcissa's ulterior motive. And yet he doesn't believe she is pretending altruism, even for a moment.

"Either. Both. I'm interested."

She looks out at the park once more, and a light breeze lifts white-blonde hair from her forehead. "I am all too aware of the mistakes I made as Draco's mother," she offers stiffly.

Though moved by the honesty, something about the statement sends a warning prickle over Harry's skin. "Are you looking for a second chance, then?"

"No," she cuts in quickly, "you misunderstand. I do not offer in the hope of rectifying my errors in judgement. Clive is a child, not a potential demonstration of my skills as a mother. I merely mean to say... to hope... that I have learned, Mr Potter."

Harry leans back and draws his elbows up to rest his forearms on the top slat of the bench, no longer caring about his sloppy posture. For a long time, they sit in relative silence, breathing in grass-scented air and waiting. Waiting for something, though Harry's not entirely sure what.

"And now what do I do?" he asks faintly.

Narcissa stands carefully and gazes down at him, her tall, slender figure blocking out the sun from his face. "Whatever you must, Mr Potter. It is not a time-limited offer. Libere Ostendo," she repeats.

"I... pera gratia," Harry offers, having no other suitable words right now. He stands.

She smiles, a split-second flicker before the cool mask drops once more and she nods. And Disapparates.

**~*~**

Everyone appears to be in group when Harry enters the Manor, and Narcissa is nowhere to be seen. Head spinning, he drags himself into the deserted East Wing lounge and sits down at the long table, arms crossed on the shiny surface and chin resting on top.

After a minute or two, he pulls out his crumpled bit of parchment with 'Molly Weasley' written on it and locates a chewed-up pen in his trouser pocket.

Narcissa Malfoy, he writes. Libere Ostendo.

Chewing his lip, he stares at the words until the ink dries, then he folds the sheet back into his pocket, drops his chin back to the table top, and waits for Draco to finish his group.