Just like the night before, Draco watches as Potter chops vegetables. He starts with potatoes, peeling them and cutting them into large cubes. When he gets out the carrots, onions and celery, Draco offers to help, and he keeps offering until Potter relents, and hands over a knife and chopping board.

"Were you afraid I was going to stab you yesterday?" he asks, reaching over to pick up an onion. "Is that why you didn't want me to help?"

"That's exactly it." Potter says. "Got it in one."

"I'm clever like that." Draco preens and Potter rolls his eyes. "So you want these cubed again?" Potter nods and gets started on his. "Do all your recipes start with this?"

"Not all of them." And with that, Potter turns to chopping, so Draco follows suit.

At least knife skills are something he has retained from his years of potion's work. So he's able to match Potter's little cubes quite closely and in a timely manner. Again, once they've been chopped, Potter sautées some ground beef in a pan. Draco stands close — but not too close — to watch as he does this. It's not as interesting as he would have hoped, watching the actual cooking, but he makes a mental note of everything that Potter is doing: when he adds the salt; how much black pepper he sprinkles over things; the look of the beef when he takes it off of the stove.

"Could you fill this with water?" Potter asks, proffering a pot towards him. Draco complies and Potter puts the water on to boil, adding salt as he does.

Slowly, the shepherd's pie comes together. Potter layers the ground beef and vegetable mixture into a pan before topping it with mashed potatoes.

"It's not ready yet?" Draco asks as Potter moves towards the oven.

"It needs to bake for about half an hour," Potter explains.

So he goes back up to his room while the shepherd's pie bakes. If he isn't learning anything, there doesn't seem to be much point in him staying in the kitchen. It would just lead to more bickering, most likely.

He's made a decent dent in the pile of clothes by the time Potter climbs up to the second floor to tell him dinner is ready. He is now down to just his casual clothes, and really, most of those can be shoved into the sets drawers that stand on either side of the closet door.

Merlin, but it does feel a lot like moving in. The feeling is particularly exacerbated when he unearths his toiletries and finds that Shreeky has packed all of them — the bubble baths and Epsom salts and all. Not to mention everything from his cabinet that he keeps specifically locked so that his mother can't accidentally open it. Those things are shoved into one of the bathroom cabinets immediately upon Draco's finding them lest Potter walk in while they are visible.

Draco only hopes that when it comes time to leave, he's able to use magic again, because he doesn't think he could pack it all by hand, even if he tried.

…

"So how's Weasley?" Draco asks. He's not sure why he's decided to bring Weasley up over dinner — he doesn't care about him in the slightest — but the silence is starting to irk him, and the best way to banish it is by talking.

"How much do you know about my life in the last seven years, Malfoy?" Potter asks, staring at Draco over the top of his wine glass.

"Are you asking if I've read the gossip rags? Because I haven't." At least, not much. Potter nods.

"Well, let's see," he says. "I broke up with Ginny Weasley two years ago." Draco nods. He had seen that in the papers; it had been hard to miss. But he doesn't say anything. She wasn't the Weasley he had been referring to, but he's not going to tell Potter that. "When I'd said I wanted to talk, she'd thought I was about to propose."

"Ah," Draco says. This conversation is not going the lighthearted way Draco had envisioned it. He'd been looking forward to hearing anecdotes of stupid things the second youngest Weasley had done. Potter flashes him a humorless grin.

"Yes, well, unbeknownst to me, she'd told Ron about it." Potter puts down his fork and presses the back of his hand to his lips. "So when I ended it, I had a very angry Ron to contend with." Well, shit. Draco'd had no idea. How could he have?

"Oh dear," he says because he's not sure what else to say. He watches as Potter picks up his wineglass and takes a large sip. He resists the urge to do the same.

"Yes," Potter says. "Well, Ron's still not talking to me and things are very strained any time I visit them, even though Ginny's told me she's over it by now." Hurt flashes across Potter's face.

"But that was two years ago," Draco protests, upset on Potter's behalf. He'd never liked Ronald Weasley, but his estimation of him has now gone down by far.

"You tell that to him."

"Merlin, Potter. I'm sorry," Draco says. He puts his own utensils down, ostensibly to reach over to Potter to comfort him, but that feels wrong somehow. They're not close. Even if Potter is sharing this with him.

"S'fine. Hermione still talks to me." Draco had guessed as much from the fact that she had called him the day before.

"She always was smarter than him," Draco muses. "Not that that's particular hard." Potter looks for a moment like he wants to defend Weasley. That, if anything, makes Draco even more angry at the git.

"Molly still sends me pastries every week, but I don't think Ron knows about that."

"Are Granger and Weasley…?" Draco trails off because he's not quite sure what question he wants to ask. Are they friends? On good terms?

"Oh, they broke up ages ago," Potter says. "Almost right after they got together in fact. Decided they were better as friends. Hermione's quite frustrated with Ron. She says he should have gotten over it by now." Draco has a mouthful of shepherd's pie, so he just chews and nods in what he hopes is a noncommittal manner. "But the last time Ron and I spoke." Potter stops talking. He gets a far away look in his eye. Draco waits for him to continue, instead lifting his glass to his mouth and taking a sip of his wine. Silence, he's learned, is often the best way to get people to keep talking. "Well, I think we both said some things that we didn't mean."

"Did you tell him he's an idiot? Because that's just a fact."

"Malfoy."

"What? He's an idiot for throwing away your ten year friendship just because you broke up with his sister."

"It's more complicated than that." Potter shoves another bite of food in his mouth, using the angriest chewing that Draco thinks he has ever seen. Potter's shoulders are up by his ears and there's a furrow in between his brows. Draco has a strange urge to smooth out the furrow with his thumb.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Draco asks, after a moment's hesitation. He's curious — of course he is, gossip used to be traded like currency in the Slytherin Common Room — but oddly he doesn't want to push Potter if he doesn't want to share.

"No," Potter says. He leans back hard in his chair, his face scrunched up in irritation. "Yes? I don't know. It's been so long." Draco nods and shovels more potatoes onto his fork. "The long and short of it is that I told him I was breaking up with Ginny and then I told him something else that had been plaguing me for a while, both in quick succession. Ron equated the two, even though they had nothing to do with each other. He wouldn't listen when I told him they were separate things, and then he accused me of just wanting more attention—"

"—How could he even think that? Attention is the one thing everyone knows you hate." Which is exactly why Draco had enjoyed winding Potter up about it in school.

"Thank you. Precisely. I told him he was being ridiculous, and that he wasn't listening to me, just like in Fourth Year, and he stormed out of the room." Potter leans forward, puts his elbows on the table, and rests his head in his hands. Draco watches him, eating the last few bites of his shepherd's pie as he does.

"That doesn't sound so bad," Draco says, once he's finished chewing. He puts his knife and fork down on his plate and pushes it slightly away from himself. "Have you tried apologizing?" Once Draco had learned apologies weren't a permanent stain on one's reputation, he'd actually started giving out a few. Pansy likes to say that it is very Hufflepuffian of him.

Potter looks up slowly, dragging his hands backwards through his hair as he sits up.

"It gets worse," he says. Draco arches an eyebrow in response. "But for you to understand, I have to tell you something that happened during what would have been our Seventh Year."

"Mm, yes," Draco says. "You didn't come back to Hogwarts, did you?" Potter shakes his head.

"We were hunting— Oh Merlin. Where to begin?" Potter launches into a rambling tale involving horcuxes, camping, and the Forest of Dean, which ends with Weasley leaving Potter and Granger alone and "fucking off home to his family," as Potter puts it.

"Weasley abandoned you?" Draco asks. "In the middle of nowhere? Saddled with a dangerous dark artefact?"

"It sounds quite bad when you put it that way," Potter says. Draco doesn't point out that this is because it is quite bad. "But yes."

"And you're still friends?"

"He saved my life."

"Potter, you saved my life and we aren't friends." Potter stares at him for a long moment and then says,

"Yet."

Draco doesn't know what to say to that, so he just lifts an eyebrow at Potter again. "Well, anyway," Potter continues. "After Ron had stormed out of the room, I yelled after him that if he didn't like it, he could just fuck off back to his family, like he had before." Potter pauses, staring down at the table top. He reaches up and traces one of the whorls in the table. He twists his mouth back and forth for a moment and then continues,

"And he said, 'Yeah, I'll go back to my family. Because that's who they are. My family. Mine. And just like before, let me remind you they're not your family. Not if you've broken up with my sister so some guy can fuck you up the arse.'" Potter seems to realize that he's said more than he'd meant to, because he winces and brings his hand up to his mouth. Draco makes absolutely sure that his face stays perfectly neutral. He's decently sure Potter's just accidentally outed himself and Draco doesn't want for him to feel awkward about it. So he decides to do this the Slytherin way: a confession for a confession.

"I'm sorry, Potter," he says. "But Weasley just sounds like a prick." Potter's eyes flick upwards and he meets Draco's gaze. "Grade-A arsehole. He should be the one apologizing to you."

"That's what Hermione says," Potter says, eyes dropping to the tabletop again.

"She's right. Friends should support you when you come out to them. They shouldn't storm out of the room because of their own neuroses or insecurities." Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, is he really going to do this? Draco takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. "Some friends go the Pansy Parkinson route and just carry on like nothing has changed, except for now she takes you to the occasional gay bar for your post-work drinks. Others take the Blaise Zabini approach of frowning at you once, blinking for a moment, and then carrying on with whatever else you'd been talking about. Then they never mention it again except for when they're trying to set you up with coworkers of theirs that they think you might be interested in. And some go the Theo Nott route of asking if you want to sleep with them, followed by not being insulted when you say no. But perhaps that was just my friends." He forces himself to look at Potter as he says all of this. He watches as Potter's mouth forms a small o before he collects himself and shuts it again.

"Yes," Potter says eventually. "That would have been nice." There's a beat, then he continues. "Hermione's approach involved a lot of hugs and telling me that Ron is an idiot who still has the emotional range of a teaspoon."

"Well he is," Draco says.

And then, somehow — impossibly but they do it — they go back to talking about mundane topics, like they haven't just confessed something that might change the course of their quarantine together.

…

Draco wakes to the sound of screaming. Adrenaline shoots through him, turning his blood cold. He's disorientated. He's in a room that's unfamiliar. It takes him a moment to remember he's at Potter's house. Which can only mean that the screaming is coming from Potter. He pulls his feet out from under the covers and slides out of bed. He reaches for his wand before realizing he doesn't have it. He curses. But there's enough moonlight streaming through the gap in the curtains that he can see how to get to the door.

He pads out into the corridor. It's darker there, but he can make out the door to Potter's bedroom at the end. The door is shut, but that is definitely where the yelling is coming from.

"No! Not Cedric!" Potter's voice is muffled, but Draco can make out words now.

It feels like a violation of Potter's privacy, but Draco turns the door handle and pushes his way into the room anyway. It takes him a moment to orientate himself to Potter's room. It's darker than his room: the curtains are pulled all the way together. He makes his way to the bed using his vague memory of what the room looks like, and by feeling his way along the floor with his feet. He bites back a curse as he stubs his toe. But that means he's reached the bed. So he reaches up and pulls the four poster hangings apart.

It's somehow lighter inside the four poster and when Draco glances up, he sees embroidered, glowing stars on the canopy. Potter's tangled in his sheets, and is still yelling. He's thrashing about so violently that Draco's surprised that he hasn't woken himself up by now. Taking a deep breath, Draco puts one knee on the bed and leans forward to touch Potter's bare shoulder. He still doesn't wake. It takes Draco shaking him awake for his cries to finally stop.

"What?" This comes out as a yell as well.

"It's ok," Draco says gently. "You're safe." Potter squints up at him.

"M-Malfoy?"

"Yes."

"What are you doing here?"

"You were having a nightmare."

"Oh, sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for," Draco says. Because it's not. Draco's had his fair share of nightmares. Potter blinks at him. "Do you need me to stay with you?" These are things his mother says to him when he has nightmares.

"I—" Potter looks confused. And why wouldn't he be? He and Draco aren't friends. Draco would barely call them acquaintances. Housemates, at a stretch. At least for the next few weeks.

Draco looks at Potter again. Potter's hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat and his eyes are squinting; presumably he's unable to see well without his glasses. He looks oddly young, in his flannel pajama bottoms, with his face still soft from sleep. And yet, he's shirtless, which is taking Draco's mind in other directions.

Draco mentally shakes himself. Now is not the time to be having these thoughts. It's two in the morning and they should go back to sleep. Draco says as much and Potter nods.

"Do you need me to stay with you?" Draco asks again, even as he shifts his weight in order to stand up. Potter closes his eyes for a moment and gives a small shake of his head.

It's only as Draco's walking back down the hallway to his room that he realizes the question he should have asked was not did Potter need him, but rather did he want him to stay.

The playlist for this story can be found here: open. spotify. com playlist/0vRbBCRYnn2jhRjCwX4Ncf?si=bf1727a2a5b74cb7br (remove the spaces)