On Monday, there's an owl. It taps impatiently on the glass, a letter tied to its leg, and Draco and Harry just stare at it for a long moment.
"How do we—?"
"Gloves," Harry says. "I'll get gloves." He runs from the room and returns wearing blue, plastic gloves. Potter retrieves the letter, gives the owl a treat and then ushers it back out of the house.
"It's addressed to you," Harry says. "I can hold it open while you read it." So he does just that, with Draco leaning over his shoulder to read the words on the parchment. It's from his mother. He would recognize that handwriting anywhere, though it looks shakier than normal.
Darling Draco, it reads.
I am pleased to inform you that I am feeling much improved. Healer Burlington was able to secure top of the line treatment for me and I am well on my way to full health again. My magic remains diminished as of right now but he assures me in the next few months it should continue to improve.
I do hope that you've found suitable accommodations for yourself in the meantime. Once I was coherent, Shreeky informed me of how he'd kept you away for you protection. As a reward, I've given all of the elves one day off per week, on a rolling rotation. They don't seem to take it, as I often see them working in the gardens in their free time, but at least the people at S.P.E.W. would approve.
Are you well? I presume that since we haven't heard from you, that are are healthy. But do please write me back and confirm this. I'm your mother and I worry about you.
I'm afraid this is all the energy I can muster today. I hope you are well my darling boy.
Warmest regards,
Mother
Draco dashes off a quick note, informing his mother that he is in fact safe, well fed and in good health. They send it via muggle post, as Potter doesn't have an owl and popping a letter in the postbox down the street feels like the least risky way to send it.
He's glad to know that his mother is doing well. He'd been worried about her, though in the strange detached way he is currently worried about everything. It is easier, he decides, just not to think about the outside world. He has enough to worry about with Potter as it is. While they don't hate each other — had they really in years? — Draco doesn't necessarily think that Potter likes him. Not yet, anyway.
…
Harry has another nightmare that night. Draco hurries down the hall with more confidence this time, though he still manages to stub his toe on Potter's bed.
"It's alright," he whispers into Harry's hair as he gathers him up into his arms. "You're safe."
"It was the Department of Mysteries," Harry says. "The night that—" He hiccups once before he starts sobbing and Draco pulls him farther up his chest and wraps his arms fully around him, so that Potter is draped over his chest. It doesn't take long for Draco to feel Harry's tears start to soak through his teeshirt.
"I understand," Draco says. Harry had told him the story of the Department of Mysteries over dinner on Sunday night — their strange camaraderie strengthened at the time by wine.
"I couldn't—" Potter gasps. "I couldn't save him."
"I know." Draco brings a hand up and starts to stroke the back of Harry's head.
"It's not fair." Harry curls his hands into the fabric of Draco's teeshirt.
"I'm sorry," Draco whispers. "I'm so sorry."
He continues to whisper quiet words of comfort until Harry finally stops crying. Draco can tell the moment that he's cried himself out by the shift in Potter's breathing. He goes from full bodied sobs with little gasps of air to a slower, more calm snuffling. Finally, Harry pushes himself up off of Draco's chest.
"Sorry," he says. Even in the near dark, Draco can see that Harry's face is splotchy. Strangely, it doesn't make him any less attractive in Draco's eyes.
"Nothing to apologize for."
"Your shirt's wet." Harry pats at the wet patch on Draco's chest.
"S'just a shirt. You're more important."
"Than a shirt?" Draco nods and Harry gives a small half sob, half laugh.
"Are you feeling better?" Harry shuffles in the bed until he's no longer directly next to Draco. Draco feels almost cold from the lack of him.
"Yes."
"Would you like me to stay until you fall asleep?" Draco asks. Potter turns his head sharply to look at him.
"Would you?" he asks.
"You did the same for me," Draco points out, nodding.
"If you don't mind." Harry's eyes are hopeful, shining even in the faint light from the embroidered constellations on his bed.
"Not at all."
…
"I think we should tackle the sitting room today," Draco says over breakfast on Tuesday. Neither of them really eat breakfast, but they congregate each morning in the kitchen for caffeine around breakfast time, so Draco calls it breakfast.
"Oh?" Potter is nursing his usual large mug of black coffee. Draco has a nice English Breakfast tea this morning.
"Well, at the very least I think we should take down the tapestry," Draco says with a small shrug of his shoulders.
"Why?"
"Because you hate it so much." And I want to you to be happy, Draco thinks but doesn't say.
"And we can do that?" Harry is tracing a finger around the rim of his coffee mug as he stares down into the liquid there.
"If we suit up we can." Harry scrunches up his face in dislike but doesn't look up from his mug.
"Fine," he says, sounding put upon. He leans back in his seat and crosses his arms in front of his chest.
"That's the spirit," Draco says. "Reluctance." He winks and Potter glowers at him.
"Haven't had enough coffee yet," he says.
"Drink up then."
…
"Right then," Draco says. He wants to roll up his sleeves, but that would defeat the purpose of the biohazard suits. The motion is so ingrained in him though, from wearing robes for so long, that he has to really concentrate on not doing it. As it is, he takes his wand when Harry proffers it.
"Now that we're in our ghost gnome costumes—"
"—Our what?" Harry asks. Draco can see the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement, even above his mask.
"That's what we look like."
"We're a little tall to be gnomes."
"Ghost gnomes who have gone through a growth spurt."
"Draco, you're ridiculous."
"You're the one that asked me to marry you the other day," Draco retorts.
"You never gave me an answer."
"I'm still weighing my options. Now come on, let's get to work on this wall." Draco wishes more than anything that he could see Harry's full face right now. As it is, he's reduced to staring at Harry's eyes, trying to glean the emotions in them. It feels, somehow, far more intimate, even as he has no idea what the other man is feeling.
Turning, Draco raises his wand. The tapestry isn't stuck on by a permanent sticking charm, so it comes away quite easily. He rolls it up as he takes it off, and it's only once he's started that he sees the exposed brick wall behind it. It gives him an idea. He's going to have to get his catalogues from downstairs, because every time he tries to talk about an interior design style, Potter looks at him like he's speaking Greek, but he gets the feeling that Potter just might like it.
As he's taking down the tapestry — and Harry is just standing there watching him — Draco starts to notice that some of the bricks sit further out from the wall than others. He frowns at them and points this out to Harry.
"Are you asking if I want you to fix them?" Harry asks.
"No. Just pointing them out," Draco says. "I thought it was interesting. It gives the wall some texture." He finishes rolling up the tapestry and Harry levitates it to an empty spot on the floor where he sets it down.
"What are you going to do with it?" Draco asks, walking forward and nudging the roll with his foot. Potter shrugs.
"Do you want it?" he asks.
"We have one, but I suppose I can ask my mother if she wants a second one?" He thinks about it for a long moment and then shakes his head. "Just vanish it."
"Really?"
"Really. You don't want to keep anything with my ugly mug around anyway."
"Good point. I'll keep it." Draco lifts one eyebrow at him and Harry waggles both of his up and down in response.
"So this brick made me think of something," Draco says. "And if you'll give me just a minute to get one of my catalogues, I will show you." He starts to walk out of the room when Harry says,
"You know, you could summon it." Draco blinks. He had forgotten how useful magic was.
"Of course. Accio catalogues." They wait for a few moments and then a small army of catalogues swoop into the room.
"Merlin, Draco. How many of these do you have?"
"Enough." Draco walks over to where the catalogues have now neatly stacked themselves into a pile and finds the one he wants. "Come look at this, will you?" Harry narrows his eyes in skepticism, but makes his way over to stand next to Draco. Draco opens the catalogue and holds it open to show Potter. As he watches, Harry's eyes light up, because this seems to be exactly the style he's looking for. It's not stuffy, but it's sleek and modern without being overly so.
"Finally," Draco says. "A style. This I can work with." He has a few sketches already that can work with this sort of industrial look, but he knows he's going to have to spend the next few days going from room to room with his notebook again. Still, he has a direction and that's better than nothing. "And it was all thanks to this lovely brick." He walks over to the wall and taps it fondly.
The brick that he's tapping depresses and there's a small popping noise.
"What the—?" Harry asks as a door appears in the wall next to Draco.
"Not a clue," Draco says.
"Should we open it?"
"It can't hurt."
"Can it?"
"Good point," Draco says. "Maybe it could."
"Let's open it."
"Bloody Gryffindor." From the way Harry's eyes crinkle, Draco can tell that he's grinning. Harry strides over and turns the doorknob. Draco readies his wand, just in case. Harry pushes the door open and Draco's jaw drops.
Behind the door, is a ballroom.
…
"I can't believe this house has a ballroom," Potter says, staring at the ballroom.
"Well, it does," Draco says. The ballroom, like the rest of the house, is in desperate need of attention. Draco's not sure it's been cleaned in fifty years, judging by the amount of dust built up on all of the surfaces. Draco thinks he can see a lovely, wooden parquet floor under the dust, but he doesn't dare disturb it to check. The walls are interspersed with floor length, filigreed mirrors along three sides, which make the room look even larger than it is, and there are massive windows on the remaining wall. Mercifully, it appears that all of the windows' glass is intact.
There is a large, crystal-laden chandelier in the middle of the ceiling, which is even grander than the one in the entrance hall. Draco judges that it must be ten feet in diameter with upwards of ten thousand crystals and it must be an absolute nightmare to clean without house elves.
"Do you think there are any other hidden rooms?" Potter asks, pulling Draco's attention back to him.
"There could be, I suppose," Draco says. It's not unheard of for old wizarding houses to have multiple hidden rooms. Just take the Manor — his father'd had multiple secret cellars that he'd kept dark artifacts in. Draco thinks he's found them all by now, but he wouldn't be surprised if he came across another one.
Potter tugs Draco back from the threshold of the ballroom by the back of his biohazard suit and then closes the door. He marks the brick that opened the door with a pencil drawn B before pressing it again. The door disappears.
They spend the next twenty minutes, poking and prodding all of the bricks that stick out of the wall — ten in total — and find nine other hidden rooms to go along with the ballroom.
There's a solarium, furnished with comfortable looking wicker chairs, replete with large, intricately paned windows. It's warm from the morning sun and Draco would consider flopping down on one of the chairs if they weren't covered in a thick layer of dust. There's a wood paneled music room that contains a grand piano and several stringed and brass instruments, and a greenhouse that's so overgrown that they're met with almost a complete wall of plants when they open the door. Behind another door there's a fully stocked Potions room, though Draco doubts many of the ingredients are still good to use.
"I'll be damned," Potter says. "I wonder if Sirius knew about these rooms."
"He grew up here," Draco says. "So I imagine he did."
There's another library, that Draco can see from a glance contains even more books on dark magic. It's the books bound in human skin that tip him off and he throws out an arm to stop Harry from entering the room.
"You're going to want to just get rid of all of these," he says. "Without touching them, preferably."
"I'll fill it with muggle fiction," Harry says happily.
There's a storage room that reminds Draco strongly of both Borgin and Burke's and the Room of Requirement. He stays out in the sitting room as Potter goes to explore it, barely reacting even when Potter says,
"Oh wow, there's a whole collection of wands here."
Instead, he moves to the window and stares down at the green of the square, concentrating on keeping his breathing even. It's hard to do in the mask, but he doesn't dare take it off. He's so wrapped up in his own swirling thoughts, that he doesn't hear Potter walk up behind him. He jumps when he feels the other man's hand on his shoulder.
"Are you alright?"
"Fine," Draco says quickly.
"I think I'll stick the tapestry in there," Harry says. "Figure out what to do with it later." Draco nods. He doesn't move from the window until Harry's done that and closed the door. He only moves when Harry gives a strange, strangled shout.
"What?" he asks, turning around quickly. There's a new door, and through it, Draco can see a room with a stone wall. He hurries over to Harry and peers through the door with him. It's an honest to Merlin dungeon, with shackles tied to the wall and a rusty cage in one corner.
"Do you think," Harry asks. "That this is a real dungeon? Or a sex dungeon?"
"Why can't it be both?" The stare that Harry gives him is priceless. Draco just shrugs and pretends to shove Harry inside.
The penultimate room is the one that Draco decides they should clean up first. The door opens to reveal a game room decked out with a snooker table, shuffleboard court, darts area and an impressive ring for playing gobstones in. There is also a large chessboard in one corner, with chess pieces tall enough that they came up to Draco's hip.
"Ron would love this," Harry says. "He's brilliant at chess."
"If only he were talking to you," Draco says, perhaps more cattily than he intends. Potter makes a noncommittal noise and they move out of the room in order to see what the final brick is hiding.
Draco gasps when they open the final door. He can't help it. The room is just that amazing. Or at least, it will be once it's cleaned. As it is, there is a thick layer of grime over everything, but underneath that, Draco can see an elaborately tiled room, decorated in blue and gold, with a large sunken pool in the middle. The pool has about a half of a meter of dirty, brown water in the bottom of it, that's topped with a layer of algae.
"There's a pool?" Harry asks, his tone incredulous.
"That settles it," Draco says. "Once this quarantine is over, we're throwing a party."
"We?"
"Yes? I mean, you did ask me to marry you on Sunday." Potter raises both of his eyebrows at Draco and Draco's very glad that he's wearing a mask that hides the smile he's trying to keep in.
"So you're saying yes then?"
"I'm not saying yes," Draco says carefully. He pauses for a moment while he fights to keep his face impassive. "But I'm not saying no either." At this, Harry laughs and rolls his eyes. "Either way, I predict that after this quarantine we'll stay fast friends."
"Will we?"
"I am sad and offended that you would dare suggest — nay, dare even think — that we wouldn't stay friends, Potter."
"We've only been on speaking terms for a week and a half."
"We were on speaking terms before. Now we're on conversation terms." Harry snorts.
"Is that some sort of weird pureblood thing?"
"No. But I think it sums us up nicely."
"You're a strange one, Draco Malfoy," Harry says, shaking his head. But there's amusement in his eyes all the same.