19. What we are made of [Sunday, December 26th 2004]
Draco was already exhausted halfway through his shift. Little sleep (while lying practically on the floor) and an ambush by Mrs. Capitelli would do that to anyone. Then there was that constant back and forth with Potter. One moment they got along brilliantly and the next they were almost ripping each other's throats out.
Worst of all was that Draco found he liked it. Arguing with Potter was always a rush, and Draco's heart was hammering when he thought back to Potter pressing him up against the wall in a dark alley. If only that had been as filthy as it sounded.
Well, at least he didn't have to worry about Blaise anymore, he thought as he tended to this shift's fifth Christmas meal gone wrong (a witch losing control of her self-carving knife and cutting into her own leg instead of the turkey's).
He didn't manage to get away until half past midnight, an hour and a half after his shift officially ended. His last patient, a femur fracture, hadn't deemed it necessary to mention his dragon pox infection until after spending two hours in the crowded waiting room. After that, it was all Draco could do to drag himself to the fireplace and Floo home.
He had barely stepped out of the fire when he was suddenly grabbed from behind and pressed into his couch face down. The intruder pushed him down with one knee against his back, wand pressed against his throat. Draco's own wand was stored safely inside his scrubs, completely out of reach as he was lying on top of it.
"What do you want?" Draco spat out, and he was relieved to notice that his voice didn't quiver, even though his heart was racing madly and he felt ice-cold all over.
"Just demonstrating how easy it is to break into your house," said a rough voice right next to his ear, warm breath tickling his neck.
Draco shivered violently. He knew that voice. He dreamt about that voice, regularly, and not the kind of dreams you told your mother about. Not even the kind he would tell Blaise about, honestly.
"Potter?"
The weight on his back vanished as well as the wand at his throat. Draco rolled over and looked up at Potter, illuminated by the flickering fire, standing over him like some type of predator.
And this was definitely doing something to Draco. Suddenly he didn't feel tired or cold at all anymore. The blood inside his head was rushing down fast, apparently feeling it was needed somewhere else. And Draco wanted to agree, but there was still the pressing matter of Potter having broken into his house. And also the small inconvenience of Potter not wanting him, of course. Even if he seemed to be roaming his whole body with his eyes.
Draco felt almost naked under his gaze and wanted nothing more than to be naked under him. Wishful thinking, of course. Draco was severely sleep-deprived, that was all. He forced his mind out of the gutter with massive effort and pushed himself up.
"What are you doing here? How did you get in?"
"Please, as if that's a challenge." Potter scoffed, walking over to Draco's kitchen area. "You gave Blaise unrestricted access. All I had to do was use his Floo."
"So what? Doesn't sound that bad to me. Anyone planning to break into my house has to break into Blaise's first!"
"He has guests over all the time. Piece of cake," Potter said. "He has a soiree once a month. All you have to do is look rich or famous or influential and you're in."
"And which rich, famous and influential wizard would want to break into my house?" Draco asked sarcastically, coming over to stand in front of his dinner table.
"They don't have to be all that, just look like it," Potter explained in a tone like he was talking to a child. "A few drops of Polyjuice would be enough."
"And where would they get that? It's crazy expensive and you have to be a registered customer to even be able to buy the potion."
"Brew it themselves?" Potter suggested, opening Draco's fridge and taking out a dozen containers that had definitely not been there yesterday.
"That's not exactly easy!"
Should he even ask what Potter was doing? Draco didn't know anymore. This whole thing just kept getting weirder and weirder. Was that what associating with Harry Potter was usually like?
"Oh please." Potter set the table with a flick of his wand. "A twelve-year-old can do it."
"You can't even get all the ingredients on the open market. You even have to register to buy boomslang skin."
"I've got a boomslang!"
"By chance!" Draco said. "You didn't buy it from a certified breeder and I would be surprised to hear that you registered it with the Ministry."
Potter sidestepped the unasked question. "There's still the black market and underground events."
"Potter, this is all highly theoretical! I don't think anyone would go to such lengths just to get into my house, when they could just throw on a glamour and easily jump me at Mungo's."
Contrary to Draco's expectations, Potter did not seem amused by this. He glared at him while jabbing his wand at the containers. The contents arranged themselves on a plate, forming a miniature Christmas Dinner.
There was a tiny roast turkey complete with mashed potatoes and vegetables, mince pies, Christmas pudding decorated with holly, and two enormous slices of Christmas cake, one of which Potter placed opposite where Draco was standing. Potter sat down in front of it and looked up at him expectantly.
"Sit down and eat, and afterwards I can bully you into letting me improve your security spells."
"I can hardly wait," Draco said, sitting down. "Where did you get all this and why did you bring it here?"
Potter grinned broadly. "Blaise mentioned that you have to work tonight and Molly was very distressed. She is really worried because you look so malnourished."
"I am not malnourished!" Draco protested, but Potter just laughed at him, which made Draco scowl. "You seem rather happy."
"Oh yes," Potter said, starting to eat his cake at an exceptionally slow pace. "It's always nice when she worries about somebody else. Oh, that reminds me."
Potter waved his wand and a squishy package materialised out of thin air. He caught it and slid it across the table towards Draco.
"She made me promise I would deliver this to you."
Draco regarded the package suspiciously. It was wrapped in green paper and topped with a silver bow. In short, it looked very much like a present. Why would Mrs. Weasley give Draco a present?
Potter was watching him, so Draco got to unwrapping the package very carefully. It finally fell open and Draco stared down at it wordlessly.
"It's her thing," Potter explained, daring Draco to say a bad word about it.
Draco unfolded the emerald green sweater. It looked just like the ones Potter and the Weasleys often wore, only that this one had the head of a golden retriever stitched to the front.
"That's really nice," Draco said in a husky voice. He cleared his throat and then concentrated very hard on his plate. "She didn't have to make that for me."
"She disagrees very much. Saving my life makes you an honorary Weasley, I'm afraid."
"I'm not charming my hair red." Draco grimaced, even though he knew for a fact that there were worse families to belong to. Take the Malfoys, for example.
"I'll tell them," Potter said, grinning broadly.
They were silent for a minute, Potter savouring his cake and Draco trying his hardest to eat slowly instead of imitating Potter's usual style and just devouring everything at once. He had not eaten since lunch, more than ten hours ago, and he was starving. He thought about the cornflakes he would undoubtedly have eaten and about the zero presents he had anticipated.
He felt close to tears. Sleep deprivation really did make people rather emotional. Better find a safe topic to take his mind off how pathetically lonely he was – not right now, necessarily, more as a general theme in his life.
Draco cleared his throat. "Did you Confound my neighbour this afternoon?" he asked casually, cutting his brussels sprouts.
"That would be highly immoral," Potter said. "Seeing as she is a Muggle and all that."
"And everybody knows you are the embodiment of morality."
"Yep."
"Never used magic on a Muggle ...," Draco continued.
Potter nodded, concentrating on dividing the last tiny bit of cake yet again, but Draco could hear him mutter under his breath, "... who didn't deserve it."
Draco was all ears. "Do tell. Knowing that even our Saviour has his moments of weakness always makes me feel better," he said eagerly, pushing his empty plate aside and starting on his slice of cake.
"You weren't supposed to hear that!" Potter protested. "And don't call me that name."
"Well, I did hear, so spill."
"Only if you let me improve your warding."
Draco thought about it for a few seconds but in the end, his curiosity won out. "You may do reasonable adjustments."
"Deal. Okay, let's see ...," Potter said, rocking his chair back and forth on two legs. "There was this one time when I blew up my uncle's sister, obviously."
"Obviously?" Draco asked. "And that was justified, because ...?"
"She badmouthed my parents and suggested drowning me would have been a more sensible course of action than taking me in."
"Ah yes, that would do it. Do go on."
"I used a tripping spell on some bodybuilder type who was looking for a fight at the pub. He would have obliterated me."
Draco raised an eyebrow. "And you didn't at all contribute to this fight developing?"
"Well, he might have said something about my scar, so I might have said something about having to compensate some things with muscles."
"Naturally."
"And then there was that incident when I sicked a boa on my cousin and his friend. But that was before I knew I could even do that, so I don't think it really counts."
"You accidentally set a snake on your cousin because you didn't know it could understand you?"
"Oh no, that I knew. I just didn't know I could make the glass at the zoo vanish."
Draco was very confused. "You didn't ... why?"
"Because I was only ten years old," Potter said matter-of-factly.
"You didn't manifest until you were ten?" Draco asked, disbelieving. "Hard to believe your impulse control was better back then."
Potter didn't seem bothered at all. "Oh no, I did loads of stuff before that. I just didn't know it was magic I was doing."
Draco put away his fork to fully concentrate on Potter. "What did you think it was?"
"I thought it was some type of whirlwind when I suddenly ended up on the roof of my old school," Potter said thoughtfully. "And my hair growing back in one night after a brutal hair cut was definitely due to a genetic abnormality."
Draco laughed. "Sad to hear there is nothing anybody could do about your hair. But I definitely agree with you, that mob is an abnormality beyond compare."
"Nice of you to notice," Potter said, and then he leaned over and stole the last of Draco's cake.
"So, you didn't know about any of it until you got your letter? Your relatives didn't know about us?"
Potter scoffed, frowning at his empty plate. "Oh, they knew alright. They just hoped it would go away if they hushed it up."
"Go away?" Draco was appalled. He had never considered that anyone would rather their relatives were not magical. And Harry Potter's family had hoped he were a Squib? That was just absurd!
"They wanted the perfect suburban life, you know? You have the perfectly attentive housewife and the perfect husband, who wears a suit to work, and the perfect son, who goes to a prestigious school."
"And what was your role?" Draco asked, thinking about all the social events his parents had hosted in the past, always introducing him to important people.
"Mostly to hide and pretend I didn't exist," Potter said matter-of-factly.
Draco just gaped at him open-mouthed. He couldn't even think of something to say to that. Never in a million years would he have thought that Potter, of all people, would be someone his family wanted to keep a secret.
"Don't look at me like that. It wasn't even that bad. I was more bothered by having to pretend to attend a special school for dangerous boys later on."
"You're taking the piss now, right?"
"I wish," Potter said tonelessly, charming the empty plates and containers to scrub themselves in the sink. Before Draco could ask anything else, Potter got up and rolled up his sleeves. "Alright, on to the fun part."
Watching Potter fix his security spells wasn't fun at all. Draco had a hard time dissuading Potter from making his house an invisible, unplottable fortress.
In the end, they settled on banning anyone but the residents from entering his house directly. Nobody but Draco would be able to Apparate directly inside and every single Floo transport had to be approved by him. Draco had a small victory in persuading Potter to still allow Floo calls, as nobody would be able to come through just because of that.
Potter did all the spells nonverbally and Draco had to admit he didn't recognise most of the wand movements. Potter clearly was an expert when it came to these things. Or maybe he was just insanely overcautious.
As Draco laid in bed an hour later, thinking about Potter's Invisibility Cloak and his glamour and his nightmares and the way he didn't want any strangers touching him, he was sure that it was the latter. Potter was definitely not okay and probably hiding behind a vast number of spells, even six years later.
~o~
Draco was woken up by the tiniest owl he had ever seen steadily tapping against his window. He opened the window and the owl flew in, promptly orbiting his head. He had to catch it in mid-air (calling on every last bit of Seeker's skill he still possessed) to be able to untie the small scroll of parchment from its leg.
Malfoy,
just making sure owls still reach you.
Also, wanna come to our New Year's Bash at Shell Cottage? The Falcons and Harpies will be there and also some of Bill and Fleur's friends. You can have it out with Blaise there too. Send your answer with Pig so I will get it directly.
Harry
Draco summoned a new piece of parchment (even though he easily could have fit his answer on the back of Potter's letter – so what if he wanted to keep it?) and wrote his reply.
Good Morning to you too, Potter,
I am not entirely sure if you can call this feathery Snitch an owl, but yes, I got your letter.
I am pretty confident I will be able to get New Year's Eve off. See you there.
Draco
He was on the fence for a few seconds about how to end his letter. Signing his initials somehow seemed wrong, as Potter had just put his first name. Draco wasn't entirely sure what that meant. They never called each other by their first names, and thinking about Potter as Harry felt really weird.
But maybe Potter wanted to get to a first-name-basis? He at least seemed to want him there at the party.
And he had brought him Christmas Dinner. Had they really become friends somewhere along the way? That was something friends did, right?
Draco hoped the party would clear things up for him.
