"Morning," Draco says, entering the kitchen the following morning. He'd taken his time getting up, taking a shower and getting dressed before he'd ventured downstairs. Not that he's wearing anything nice. He's in jeans and his old Slytherin quidditch practice shirt, the long sleeved one in block colors of green and black that's the foil of the one Potter had given him to wear.

"Mmph," is the only reply that Draco gets. He frowns at Potter. The other man looks decidedly worse for wear. He is wearing pajama bottoms and a teeshirt that is three times too big for him. It looks decidedly like he's wearing a muggle rubbish bag and it does nothing for him. Not that pajamas necessarily should, though Draco's do fit him rather nicely if he says so himself.

"Couldn't sleep?" Draco asks and then wants to kick himself for the stupid question. Of course Potter hadn't slept well.

"You could say that." Potter glares balefully at him.

"Sorry that was stupid of me," Draco says. Potter shakes his head.

"Just— no talking until there's coffee," he says.

"Right," Draco says with a nod. There's a long stretch of silence, during which Potter glares at the kettle. Potter must have only just woken up then, Draco realizes. He looks at the wristwatch he wears when he's in casual clothes. It reads quarter to ten — well past the time that Draco would normally have been at work. He wonders what Potter does for a living if he normally wakes up this late on a Wednesday.

Instead of asking, he waits while Potter makes the morning coffee. He knows where the milk and sugar are now, so he adds both to his mug before settling down opposite Potter at the kitchen table. So far the kitchen has been where they've spent most of their time together, either while cooking or eating. Draco watches as Potter sips at his coffee. After a few minutes, Potter seems to perk up as the caffeine hits his system.

"Where did you learn to cook?" Draco asks, filled again with that need to fill the silence with conversation. He's had two delicious dinners made by Potter now, and he's honestly curious.

"I guess you could say I learnt from my aunt," Potter says. He gets a faraway look on his face that Draco doesn't entirely understand.

"The one you lived with?" he asks.

"I only have the one." Potter takes a large sip of his coffee.

"Oh," Draco says. "I didn't know." His parents had never discussed the Potters much, though the fact that Potter had inherited the entire Sleekeazy Potions fortune hinted at the fact that his father'd had no siblings.

"Why should you have?" Potter challenges.

"Fair." Draco waits for a moment before pressing on. "So you learned to cook from your aunt?"

"In a fashion. She would often have me make breakfast or dinner for the rest of family, though after I started at Hogwarts that happened less often."

"But you started Hogwarts when you were eleven," Draco says. Potter nods, lifting his eyebrows as if to say 'and?'. "So you were cooking for them when you were a child?"

"I guess."

"But you were a child." Draco had known his own childhood had been more sheltered than Potter's, of course he had — Potter had shown up to school looking malnourished more than once — but he hadn't imagined it had been as bad as this. The cupboard revelation had certainly been shocking, but it's sounding more like Potter's family had used him like Draco's parents had used the house elves, except the house elves hadn't been children.

"It wasn't so terrible." Potter shrugs. "Unless I burnt something. Then I'd get locked—" He stops there and looks away. He takes another large sip of his coffee. He looks now like he's trying to drain the entire cup in one go.

"Locked away?" Draco prompts once Potter's lowered the mug.

"You know what? I don't want to talk about it," Potter says. He stands and slopes out of the room, coffee in hand. But Draco isn't going to be brushed off so easily. He pushes himself out of his chair and follows Potter into the stairwell.

"Did they lock you up? In that cupboard they made you sleep in?"

"I said I didn't want to talk about it," Potter repeats and Draco realizes he's not going to get any more out of the man.

"Fine," he says and watches as Potter retreats up the stairs. He sighs and turns back to his own coffee. He doesn't expect he'll see Potter for several hours now, unless he hunts him down. Draco sits back down heavily in his seat. He pulls his notebook — the one that's filled with notes on the house — towards himself again, and begins to write, pausing every now and then for a sip of coffee.

If this is how the entire quarantine is going to go, it's going to be a very long two weeks.

…

"Good news," Potter says, entering the kitchen around lunch time.

"Oh?" Draco asks, looking up from the sketch of the sitting room that he's making.

"Hermione says we can do magic."

"What?" Draco surges to his feet.

"Soon," Potter says, holding out his hands in front of him in a slow down motion, lest Draco get too excited.

"Tell me more," Draco says, because clearly Potter has more to say.

"She's done some more experiments, and she's found a barrier of sorts that works against the virus." Potter walks into the kitchen properly now, and sits down opposite Draco.

"Wonderful. What is it?"

"A biohazard suit."

"Sorry what?"

"A muggle biohazard suit." Potter goes on to explain the suit with its plastic exterior that covers a person from head to toe, combined with things he calls N95 masks that protect the nose and mouth. "Also we have to wear glasses. Or, I think there are suits that cover your face with plastic as well." Potter frowns. Clearly Granger could have explained it better to him.

"So we have to dress up like astronauts in order to cast magic?" Draco asks.

"Something like that."

"Well, we can't just do casual magic then," he says. "As that requires far too much effort for little spells."

"Well, yes," Potter concedes.

"But we can get started on some of the renovations," Draco says, a smile spreading across his face. "Such as getting rid of the lovely Walburga."

"I can't believe you know how to remove things that are stuck on with a permanent sticking charm." Potter looks genuinely impressed. Draco scrunches up his face.

"Well, I don't really," he says. "But I do know how to cut holes in walls and fill them back up again, and it amounts to the same thing."

"Are you serious?" Potter asks.

"Deadly."

"And you can patch it up again?"

"Potter, this is my job," Draco says. "Of course I can patch it back up again. It will be like she was never there."

"Right, yes. Of course." Potter reaches up and scrubs at the back of his head. It's oddly endearing. Many things about Potter are, it seems.

"Speaking of jobs," Draco says, getting his mind off of admiring Potter. "Do you do anything? You seem to have no commitments. You appear footloose and fancy free, if you will."

"Ah, right. Yes. I recently quit my job, actually." He walks over to the pantry and comes back with a loaf of bread, clearly intent on making sandwiches for lunch.

"Oh?"

"And this was supposed to be a vacation of sorts while I figured out what I wanted to do next." Potter begins spreading peanut butter on one of his two slices of bread.

"And now you're stuck with me," Draco says flatly. "Mm, trust Draco Malfoy to fuck things up."

"You're not," Potter says and Draco quirks an eyebrow up at him. "You're not fucking things up. You're… fine."

"Ah, yes. Fine," Draco says. "The bare minimum of good." Potter lets out a bark of laughter. "What did you do then, even if you're not doing it now."

"I was an auror," Potter says. Draco nods. Of course Potter would want to track down dark wizards. "Now I'm just a professional celebrity." He's spreading jam on his other slice of bread and Draco is quite worried he's going to stick the two slices together in some Frankenstein style combination.

"Seems like a poor time for a career change," Draco says. He wanders over to the cold pantry to find some fillings for his own sandwich. "What with not being able to go out and do celebrity type things due to quarantining."

"I suppose I'm a professional recluse, then."

"Weren't you mostly that before? I mean, you're hardly ever in the papers as is." Draco asks. He's found ham, cheese and some mustard, all of which will make an excellent sandwich.

"I thought you didn't read the gossip rags?"

"My mother always made a point of mentioning when you were in them," Draco says. "And I always made a point of tuning her out."

"Of course." Potter sticks his two slices of bread together, and laughs at the horrified face Draco is giving him. Then he wraps the sandwich in a napkin and exits the kitchen, leaving Draco alone again.

…

Once he finishes his lunch, Draco goes in search of Potter. He finds him in the sitting room, curled up on a chair, staring out of the window. It's a typical London March afternoon. Grey, but not actually overcast; vaguely damp, but not actually raining; chilly, but not actually cold. The garden in the middle of the square is empty, but Potter is staring at it anyway.

Draco sits down in a chair opposite Potter, and pulls out his fountain pen. He lets his notebook drop open on his lap.

"For this room," Draco says, with no preamble. "I think we should start by taking out all of the furniture."

"What?"

"Well, do you like these chairs?" Draco asks.

"They're comfortable."

"Yes," Draco concedes. "But do you like how they look?" He watches as Potter looks at the four armchairs in the room. They are all made of tufted, deep brown leather and remind Draco of the Slytherin Common Room. The whole room does, if he's being honest. Though that could have a lot to do with the green background on the Black Family Tree.

"No," Potter says. "They're too stuffy." Draco nods and jots that down. "I want something that's cleaner."

"Mid-century modern perhaps?"

"Malfoy," Potter says. "I don't know what that means." Draco rolls his eyes. He's going to have to get out his catalogues if they're really going to settle on a style. But in the meantime, he can keep peppering Potter with questions.

"Right then. You're sure you want to take this down?" Draco asks, indicating the tapestry. Potter glances at it quickly, before turning his attention back to the window.

"Yes," he says. "As I said, they're not my family."

"But they're your godfather's family."

"He hated them."

"All of them?"

"Well, not Andromeda, but— why are you even asking this?"

"I'm on there," Draco says. He winks, trying to diffuse the tension that's sprung up.

"That's particularly why I want it off the wall," Potter says, turning back to Draco. "Don't want your ugly mug in my sitting room." Draco lifts his eyebrows at this statement and Potter just smirks at him. Draco bites down on his lower lip to stop himself from smiling.

"I'm not that ugly," he says. "Surely you can't want to get rid of this just because of me."

"No, but your father's there too." Draco's mouth falls open.

"Take that back, Potter," he says.

"At least I didn't say your mother."

"No," Draco muses. "Thank goodness for that. The last time you insulted her, I got turned into a ferret." Potter snorts in amusement.

"You made a very good ferret," Potter says, a definite smile creeping across his face now.

"I did not."

"Yes, you did. And I'm sure you would have made a wonderful pet ferret. All pampered and loved by some six year old child." Potter is outright grinning now.

"Oh, take it back," Draco grumbles. He crosses his arms in front of his chest and leans back in his chair.

"You wouldn't want that?" Potter asks, all innocent, but with amusement dancing behind his eyes. Draco shakes his head. "But then you could live on just raw carrots, the way you'd said you could earlier." Draco's so surprised by the fact that Potter's remembered he'd said that, that he forgets he should be pretending to be annoyed at him. Instead, he throws his head back and laughs.

The entire playlist is now up and can be found here: open. spotify playlist/0vRbBCRYnn2jhRjCwX4Ncf?si=85bb025986c84dc3 (remove the spaces)