Narcissa's letter arrives on Tuesday.

Draco, darling.

I am doing well. I am over the worst of the disease, though I am still slow to regain my full magical potential. Or at least that's what Healer Burlington is calling it.

That said, this is a letter to inform you that I am thinking of turning the Manor into a convalescent house. I do hope that you've found accommodations where you might be comfortable for the next few months as I will be needing to co-opt the entire house. If you really must come home, please let me know so that I can delay my plans for your week long quarantine period. I just feel that this is the best way that I can give back to the community and help my fellow long term sufferers of this disease.

Draco snorts as he reads that. Give back to the community his arse. His mother just wants to get back into the wizarding world's good graces. In all fairness, that's what Draco has been trying to do for years, so if this is an opportunity to polish the Malfoy name even more, he supposes he should let his mother do it.

Of course the question is: will Harry let him stay? Draco doesn't think Harry will just toss him out on his arse, but staying for two weeks is a much different prospect than asking to stay for an indefinite amount of time. Still, he hopes he will. Harry had said just the other day that Draco wasn't over staying his welcome, so Draco just has to hope that's true.

But then there's the problem of Draco falling in love with him. It's happening. Draco can feel it. And he's annoyed about it. Annoyed is the wrong word, but he's concerned. Because this wasn't supposed to happen. They were supposed to just stay as schoolyard rivals for the rest of their lives and therefore Draco would have no reason to be sad that Harry didn't like him back. Or, at least, no personal reasons to be sad. But now if Harry rejects him — and he most likely will if Draco ever makes a move — it's going to hurt, particularly as it might mean losing his friendship now as well.

Please write back to me at your earliest convenience to let me know if you are going to want to come home. I have people ready to start the renovations at a moment's notice and would like to tell them one way or the other.

Now, I don't want this to influence your decision, but I have heard that the Minister is currently looking for a place to convalesce, and it would be so lovely if we could host her, provided we can get the renovations done quickly enough.

Stay safe, darling.

Love,

Mother

Draco puts down the letter and stares into the middle distance. While his mother has said that she doesn't want to influence his decision, she's clearly hoping he'll stay put so that Minister Patil can stay at the Manor. He should find Harry, he supposes, and ask whether it would be alright for him to stay indefinitely. He thinks he's up in one of the top bedrooms, going through some of the personal items there. Sighing, he pulls out his phone.

Where are you? he sends. He thinks about adding that they need to talk, but that sounds too serious. So he doesn't. Instead, he paces the library while he waits for Harry's response.

Regulus's Room. Draco sighs. So many stairs. The house really needs an elevator. Though, really, in normal times they could probably apparate up and down, thereby bypassing the need for another system.

He reaches the top of the house and pauses on the landing. The door to Regulus's room is closed, so he takes a deep breath before walking up to it and knocking.

"Come in," Harry calls. Draco pushes the door open. Harry is sitting on the bed, surrounded by papers.

"What are those?" Draco asks, allowing himself to be momentarily distracted from his purpose for coming to find Harry.

"Letters." Harry doesn't elaborate further, so Draco steps up to the bed and perches on the edge of it. He reaches out and picks up one of the papers.

Dear Regulus,

I hope this letter finds you well. I know we are not friends, but by now, I hope that Sirius will have mentioned me… Draco glances down at the bottom of the page. It's signed James Fleamont Potter. No wonder Harry looks so concerned. They're from his father.

"Were they friends?" Draco asks. He knows that Harry's father had been friends with Sirius — that was how Harry had come to inherit the house — but he'd thought he'd disliked the rest of the family. At least, from what he'd gleaned from Harry's occasional ramblings on the subject.

"I don't know. Maybe? My dad mostly asks after Sirius. But there are some letters that make me think they might have been?" He sighs and looks down at his hands. "I just wish," he says. "I wish I'd known him." Without thinking, Draco reaches out and puts a hand on Harry's shoulder. He doesn't say anything because he doesn't know what to say in this situation, but he hopes that his presence is in some way comforting. At the very least, Potter isn't pushing him away.

"Perhaps you should make a scrapbook of the letters, or have a special box where you put everything you find related to your family?" Draco finally suggests. Harry nods absently.

"There's just no one to ask about these things," he says. "They're all dead." As he says this, his shoulders slump. Draco sits down on the bed behind him and puts his arms around him, pulling him back to lean against his chest. Harry sighs and settles back against him, placing one hand over Draco's. They stay that way for a while, then Harry starts talking again.

"At one point," he says. "I had the resurrection stone, but I dropped that in the forest." Draco doesn't know what the resurrection stone is, nor does he want to ask about it right now, so he just nods. "Plus, the story warned that it drove people insane." Something sparks at the back of Draco's brain.

"Wait, the resurrection stone like in the Tales of Beedle the Bard?" Harry nods, his hair tickling Draco's nose. "That's real?" Harry nods again.

"Yeah, I'm the fucking master of death," he mumbles, shifting slightly in Draco's arms. "Or at least I was." Draco waits for Harry to elaborate, but he doesn't.

"I'll just pretend I understand," he says after a moment. Harry sighs, realizing that Draco has no idea what he's talking about. Then he launches into a story involving the three deathly hallows and Harry sacrificing himself. It's a tale so fantastical that Draco might not have believed if his mother hadn't told him of her involvement in checking to see whether Potter had been alive in the forest that day.

"So that's me," Harry says. "The master of death." Draco squeezes him.

"You should sign your letters that way," he says. "It would be cool and mysterious."

"But I'm neither of those things."

"Good point."

"You weren't supposed to agree with that," Harry protests.

"Potter," Draco says. "It is my sole and solemn duty to constantly insult you. I thought we'd gone over this."

"Ah, right." Harry shifts so that he can turn his head enough that he can see Draco. "Your love language." Draco can feel the flush rise in his cheeks, but there's nothing to do be done about it. Not with Harry being this close to him. So instead, he asks,

"Lunch?"

…

"So let me get this straight," Harry says. "Your mother is converting your house into a convalescent retreat and kicking you out?" Harry takes a large bite of his sandwich. He has one of his monstrosities that has both peanut butter and jam on it. Draco can't understand how they might taste good, though Potter keeps making them. He himself has a more traditional ham and cheese.

"That's the long and short of it," Draco says.

"So you want to stay here?"

"Yes?" Draco says. He doesn't mean to add the question inflection at the end, but he's so nervous about asking in the first place that he can't help it. Harry stares at him. Draco does his best to hold the stare. He wants to look away, but then Harry will have won, and maybe it would mean he would kick Draco out of the house.

"Ok," Harry says. He rolls his eyes slightly and looks away. He doesn't ask if Draco wants to stay. Perhaps he can see on his face that he doesn't have to.

"Ok?"

"Do I need to repeat myself?" Draco shakes his head.

"Thank you," Draco says. "I appreciate this."

"I can't kick you out in the middle of a pandemic."

"I mean, you could, but it wouldn't be very nice," Draco teases.

"And didn't we just establish that I was, in fact, nice?"

"I suppose we did." Harry smirks at him and really, Draco thinks, he is quite nice. At least on the eyes.

"And didn't we also establish that we're friends?"

"I suppose so."

"Then you should know that there's nothing I wouldn't do for my friends."

"Maybe not murder." Harry cocks his head to the side.

"Well, I did do that one murder for my friends."

"You what?"

"You were there, Draco."

"Oh, right. That." Harry grins and Draco's stomach does that strange thing where it does a somersault.

…

"Want to help me with the desk?" Draco looks over at where Harry is standing in front the desk in question. They're back up in Regulus's bedroom, lunch having been eaten. There's not a lot of space between the desk and the bed. Draco knows it's a bad idea, just based on how he's feeling and how the proximity to Harry will exacerbate that.

"Yeah, alright," he says. He does his best to saunter over. Really, he just does his best to appear nonchalant. He's not sure it works, but either way, Harry doesn't say anything. "What's all this then?" He peers down into the open top drawer of the desk. There are a bunch of broken quills, a mostly dried up ink bottle and a large sheaf of parchment. "Are these the letters?" Harry nods.

"I just can't figure out their relationship," he says.

"Does it matter?" Draco asks and immediately regrets it as Harry's face falls. "Sorry. Of course it matters. He was your dad." Harry nods, though he doesn't lift his eyes from where they're now staring at the ground. "Melin, Potter, I'm sorry. I didn't think. I'm an idiot." Harry shakes his head.

"It's fine," he says, though it doesn't sound like it is.

"Would you mind if I read them? Then I can give my two knuts." Harry gives a half hearted shrug and Draco wants to go back to two minutes prior and stop himself from speaking. But he can't, so he soldiers on. "Okay, give me some time with them." Draco picks up the pile of letters and carries it over to the bed, brushing past Harry as he passes him. Then he starts to read.

He thought it would be a straightforward thing, to read through these thirty year old letters and figure them out. But James and Regulus seem to talk around what they mean most of the time. There are some letters where Draco thinks they're just acquaintances, but then there are some that hint, and really only hint at something more. Though the exact nature of the more is difficult to figure out. He's decently sure they're just friends, but the multiple mentions of the Prefect's bathroom has Draco wondering.

One thing is for certain. They both cared about Sirius Black. Regulus worried about him as his brother, and James worried about him like an adopted brother. From what he can glean, Sirius moved in with the Potters after fleeing the Black house in the dead of night, and it was from that moment on that the letters began.

Reg, he's fine. We played quidditch in the back garden yesterday. Though now you mention it, he did take it out pretty hard on those bludgers…

Tell your Mother that he's not coming home, and please don't tell her where he is…

Reg, your mother is a force to be reckoned with. She showed up at our house last night and demanded we tell her where Sirius was…

Merlin. I'm sorry. I know you love her, but your mother can be a terror…

"I think," Draco says, putting down the letters. "That they were friends. Possibly in secret, and possibly not for very long."

"Is that why they met up in the Prefect's bathroom?" Harry asks.

"Honestly? I don't know what the Prefect's bathroom had to do with it. Aside from the fact that they were both prefects." Harry nods.

"The Prefect's bathroom was nice," he says after a long moment. A smile appears on his face.

"You weren't a prefect," Draco says immediately. His fifth and sixth years would have been far more stressful had Potter been one.

"Cedric gave me the password in fourth year."

"Is this the point where you tell me you slept with Cedric Diggory?"

"Draco, I was fourteen," Harry says.

"Granger went out with Krum that year."

"She was fifteen, which in my mind seems much older." Draco looks quizzically at Harry. "Her birthday's in September."

"And you're what? July?"

"Thirty first."

"Oh, you must have been the absolute baby of the year." Draco's pleased to learn that he wasn't, even if Theo liked to call him the baby of Slytherin.

"Or Neville. His birthday's the 30th."

"Which still means you are younger."

"By a day." Draco shrugs and Harry shoves him on the shoulder.

"Oh, you know what," Harry says. He looks up, his eyes shining with whatever idea he's just thought up.

"I'm not skilled in Legillimancy," Draco says. "So no, I don't know what."

"We should invite Neville to stay with us to help sort out the, uh, room of plants."

"Greenhouse?"

"We don't know it's a greenhouse," Harry protests. "We can't even see inside. I mean, Merlin knows I don't remember enough from Herbology to do it. Do you?"

"Um," Draco says. "No." As much as he doesn't want to invite anyone else into their quarantine bubble of two, it would expedite the renovation process if they had a plant expert working with him. He just doesn't want Longbottom to join them. He wants to keep Harry all to himself. But he realizes this is selfish, and so a moment later he says, "I agree. Let's invite him."

…

The doorbell rings around midday on Wednesday. Harry's up in Sirius's room, sorting through more of his godfather's things, so Draco, who is only on the first floor, traipses down the stairs to open it. He grabs a face mask from where they sit in a pile on their makeshift entry table and puts it on. Then he opens the door.

Ronald Weasley is standing on the front step, also wearing a mask and looking distinctly uncomfortable. In one hand he is holding a broom, which must be how he had gotten here, and in the other he has a basket.

"Harry, mum says these are—" he starts to say, holding out the basket. Then he realizes that Draco isn't Harry. "—Malfoy?"

"Weasley," Draco says, inclining his head.

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" Draco decides to have some fun with him.

"I live here," he says. "Hadn't you heard?" It's true, after all. At least, until the end of quarantine.

"No?"

"Well, it's not my fault that you haven't been on speaking terms with Harry."

"I—" Weasley stammers. Draco's lip twists into a sneer that his mask hides. He hopes that his dislike shows well enough through his eyes.

"I don't understand why you haven't apologized." He doesn't. Weasley had clearly been in the wrong, and the fact that he and Harry aren't talking is upsetting Harry.

"He broke up with her," Weasley says. "I had every right to be upset."

"Did you?"

"Yes?" But Weasley sounds unsure.

"You had every right? Not your sister, who by all accounts has gotten over it?"

"Um."

"You? When it was Harry you hurt with your closed minded bullshit?"

"I—"

"You were his friend, Weasley. He trusted you. And you threw it back in his face because your feelings got hurt."

"Hang on. Where do you get off on saying this? You made his life miserable for years. Why are you even here?"

"I know I was a dick in school," Draco says.

"Understatement."

"But at least I'm here now. At least I've apologized." He's not entirely sure if he's apologized with the words "I'm sorry", but he thinks at the very least his actions have shown his remorse. He hopes they have, anyway.

"I don't have anything to apologize for," Weasley says hotly.

"Bullshit."

"And what would you know about it anyway."

"Harry told me everything you said."

"He did? You?"

"Yes me, you arsehole. What part of I live here didn't you understand?" Draco knows he's implying more than is true, but he wants to get a rise out of Weasley. It appears to have worked. Weasley puts down the basket.

"Why you?" He asks.

"Why me, what?"

"What does he see in you?" Something clicks in the back of Draco's mind.

"What?" he asks, making his tone as catty as possible. "Are you jealous?" The parts of Weasley's face that are visible above his mask turn a splotchy red.

"No," he spits out. "I don't like— I don't—" Well, Draco supposes, that guess was wrong then.

"Just Krum then?" Draco sneers.

"W-what?" Weasley stammers.

"You know exactly what I mean."

"Oh fuck off."

At this point Harry comes down the stairs. Draco only knows this because Weasley's eyes go wide as he looks behind him. And then Harry's there, out on the doorstep with them.

"Ron," he says coldly. "What are you doing here?"

"Mum sent me with these pastries for you," Weasley says. He points at the basket.

"Ah yes," Draco says. "The weekly pastries."

"Weekly?" Ron asks, faintly surprised.

"Well, she hasn't sent them past few weeks," Harry clarifies. "Because, well, you know. But yes, your mother still cares about me."

"I know. She asked me to fly them over to you today," Weasley says. "Bloody nightmare, it was. I was dodging in and out of clouds. And then there was the airport…" He trails off, his eyes screwed up in remembered pain.

"We're nowhere near the airport," Harry points out.

"I got lost." Weasley has the grace to at the very least look ashamed. "You can't use Point Me's at the moment. And you know directions aren't quite my thing."

"And you didn't think it might be easier to put on a biohazard suit and apparate?" Draco asks.

"A what?" Weasley asks and Draco's pleased that Hermione has shared that information with them and not with him.

"A ghost gnome suit," Harry says and Draco laughs. Weasley looks back and forth between them in apparent confusion.

"It's a muggle invention," Draco explains. "They keep viruses and the like out. But you look like a right twit in them."

"But it's worth it," Harry says, nudging Draco, his eyes crinkling in a smile that's hidden by his mask. Weasley sees the nudge and his eyes go, if anything, wider.

"Well, yes," Draco agrees. "It is most definitely worth it when you're using them to remove the portrait of a loud, horrible woman so you can subsequently set her on fire."

"I didn't set her on fire," Harry says, rolling his eyes. "I vanished her."

"Yes, well you said you were going to set her on fire," Draco says."

"And then I changed my mind."

"Blimey," Weasley says. "So you two really are?" He points back and forth between Draco and Harry. Harry frowns at him.

"Really are what?"

"Together?" Harry turns to glare at Draco.

"Draco, what have you been saying?"

"I merely said that I was living here at the moment," Draco says, looking up at Harry through his eyelashes. "Which is one hundred percent true." Harry laughs.

"It's a little misleading and you know it," he says and Draco can hear the smirk in his voice.

"I've been living here since the quarantine started," Draco protests.

"So you haven't been alone?" Weasley asks Harry. Harry shakes his head. "Oh good. I've been worried."

"Not worried enough to call," Harry says. "Or text."

"I just flew here with pastries."

"So, you've come to apologize?" Harry asks. Weasley is a step down from Harry, but he's so tall that he's still at eye level with Harry.

"No," Weasley says, sticking his chin out. "I've got nothing to apologize for."

"You said I wasn't family," Harry says hotly.

"Yeah, but I didn't mean it," Weasley protests. Draco raises his eyebrows and crosses his arms and stares at him. Weasley seems to wilt slightly under his gaze. "I was upset." He looks down at his feet.

"Why?" Harry asks, his voice thick with emotion. "It was Ginny I'd broken up with, not you." Draco realizes quite suddenly that this isn't a conversation he should be here for. He starts very slowly to edge back inside the house, taking the basket of pastries with him.

"Because it felt like you didn't want to be a part of our family any more."

"Of course I still want to be a part of your family, Ron. You are family." Draco closes the door behind him and flees to the kitchen.