Chapter 6

It was a bad night.

Harry had known it would be. Their Defence class, the last class of the day, had been a practical lesson. They were few and far between that year, and Harry might have even put it down to blessed luck if Ron hadn't spoken otherwise.

"Reckon they're doing us a favour," he'd said as Hermione spoke to herself of the wealth of essays they'd received that year already. It wasn't even Christmas yet and quill-hands were aching with the strain throughout the Dragon's Nest.

"What do you mean?" Harry had asked.

Ron had shrugged. It was a limp gesture, somehow melancholic, and almost seemed to sigh with feeling. "Just that, you know, I reckon they'd know not many of us would be all too keen to jump into duelling or defensive magic again. After everything."

It made sense. Harry supposed it really did. The talks the professors had offered, repeatedly and with more gentleness than he'd thought capable of some of them, to say nothing of the mandatory counselling sessions with the Ministry appointed Healer, and maybe he should have already made those same deductions.

The curriculum for Defence Against the Dark Arts – for all of their classes – might not have been changed, but the way they were taught certainly seemed that way. Harry hadn't even realised until that moment just how little he'd really used his wand that year.

Defence that day had been a trial. The spells weren't challenging. Their professor, an older woman by the name of Leachway that Harry hadn't ever met before attending her classes, had been far from demanding. And yet the first moment that Harry had acted upon her instructions had left him ringing as though struck like a gong.

"A contained explosion. It takes skill to ensure it is not excessively destructive, and that the blast radius is minimised to the designated region."

Not an easy task but simple enough in theory. What made it hard was the vibrancy of the light. The sound of the crash of contact. The splinter of wood as the dummy shattered, and the scatter of those splinters in a spraying array at the mannequin feet. Harry hadn't flinched, but he'd noticed those that did. He hadn't whimpered, but he heard more than a few voices that couldn't stop themselves. He hadn't even blinked, couldn't look away from the point of destruction, and barely noticed when his arm dropped limply to his side.

It had been a bad day. Not the first he'd practiced magic, nor the first that his own magic had dredged forth feelings he'd hoped had been vanquished, but that didn't make it any easier. Lying awake in his bed that night, staring at the canopy ceiling, he blinked slowly. The afterimage of shattered dummy remnants still swum before his gaze, a feeble mimic of the image of a real person, a real target, thinly hidden behind it.

Ron was snoring. Again. He didn't draw the curtains closed any more, didn't smother the sounds of life and company, and it wasn't only Harry and his friends that felt the need for awareness. Barely a handful of eighth years drew their curtains tight of a night, and even they struggled to manage it at times.

Ron slept. How he managed, Harry didn't know, but he'd always been a fast sleeper. They'd spoken quietly, shortly, before bed that evening, murmured words of little consequence – "Hermione wanted to head to Hogsmeade this weekend for Christmas shopping," and "Cool. Maybe I'll come this time" – but Ron's eyelids drooped and he didn't last long. Harry envied him that. When was the last time he'd fallen to sleep without a struggle? He didn't know. It felt like a long time.

Shivering slightly, Harry tucked his arms a little more tightly around himself. His chill had nothing to do with his blankets, magically warmed to stave off the iciness of winter's fingers that seeped through the dormitory's windows. Rather, it was the bed itself. It was his own arms, wrapped through one another, that seemed so insufficient. It was that the bed, once so gloriously his own, felt far too big for just himself.

That was another thing Harry understood of himself now as he never had before. The space. The size. Harry had never noticed how discomforting so much spare mattress was until that year. It could have been another product of the war, another affliction, but Harry didn't think so. When he scratched and picked at his memories, he didn't think there had ever been a time when the size of his Hogwarts bed hadn't been strange. Not even after years of occupation. It was simply that now, staring up at his canopy and shunted to one side of the bed as he'd always been, he felt it just a little more strongly than usual.

It's too big, he thought, hunching around the side of the mattress. And too cold. He tightened his arms around himself. Why did space and aloneness hit him so hard lately? It was so stupid of him.

Yet, regardless of that stupidity, it was an affliction that warded off sleep. Sighing, pushing himself upright, Harry scrubbed a hand over his face as the other reached for his nightstand. He barely thought about what he was doing as he shoved his glasses on with more force than necessary, swung his legs over the side of the mattress, and left the too big and too cold bed behind him. All but tiptoeing across the room despite the snores and mumbles that bespoke the prevalence of sleep, Harry made his way to the window and sunk to the floor.

Not since first year had he spent a sleepless night staring onto Hogwarts' grounds. That first year it had been a stare of wonder and euphoria, excitement and persisting disbelief that he was here, and away, and that the world of magic was a playground for him to explore with people who actually wanted his company. Many a sleepless night had been savoured with wide-eyed ecstasy, curled in upon himself and grinning like a fool through the darkened window.

Eight years later, and Harry curled upon himself once more. Arms hooked around his shins, chin resting atop his knees, he stared through the frost-coated window. He didn't smile this time, though. That in itself wasn't a surprise, wasn't a realisation the likes that Harry was struck by, for he knew why he didn't. Couldn't. Too much destruction seemed to weigh upon his hands and cling to the wand that sat abandoned on his nightstand. He would never have thought himself capable of wanting to have nothing at all to do with magic until then, but…

If I could give up magic to take back all the wrongs I did, would I? Would everyone else, too?

A heavy sigh flushed from Harry's nose, almost as loud as Ron's snores, as Seamus' sleep-addled muttering across the room. The dormitory was stuffed full of boys, more than any other tower or House dormitory, but somehow it felt so distant and empty when each of its occupants were lost in sleep.

Or at least most of them were.

Harry didn't know how long he'd been sitting on the floor, arms locked and gaze vague, before the sounds of slumber were interrupted. Not fiercely, and barely noticeably, but in the quietude that thrummed like a sound of its own, the slight scuffle of feet was as loud as stomping steps.

Harry didn't glance over his shoulder at the noise. Not until it approached and stopped at his side. Even then, he only drew his gaze sidelong, a heavy glance weighted with weariness yet unable to sleep.

Draco stood at his side. With a silk nightgown drawn over his pyjamas, slippers on his feet, and his usually immaculate hair slightly ruffled, he was a picture asking to be teased and taunted that a year or two ago Harry would have been more than happy to oblige. Such a pureblood, arose in detached amusement even then. Such an upperclass prat. But it didn't feel like such a bad thing. There was no animosity anymore. If expensive clothes were something someone like Draco clung to, he could wear them. It didn't bother Harry, had nothing to do with him, and there wasn't really any reason to point it out.

For a moment, Draco didn't speak. Neither did Harry. Instead, he blinked down at him as Harry stared up in return, before stepping to the opposite side of the window and lowering himself to the ground.

"You'll freeze your arse off." He spoke quietly, yet in the hush of the dormitory it somehow felt loud.

Harry shrugged. It was cold, true, but a different kind to that he'd felt in his bed. This sort felt better. "Whatever."

"I pity Pomfrey if you go crying to her with frostbite."

"I wouldn't bother. She'd just tell me it was my own stupid fault before giving me a disgusting potion." Head tipping to rest his cheek atop his knees, Harry returned his gaze out the window, to the frost and darkness that spread like a film across the mass of shadows beyond,. "She's seen a whole lot worse."

"Is that the problem, then?"

Harry didn't really know what Draco was referring to. He didn't know, but he didn't ask, instead staring and blinking listlessly. Not quite asleep yet not quite awake. It was an intermediate suspension that sounded good in theory but was really a right pain in the arse, and not of the frostbite kind.

"It hit you, didn't it?"

Harry swallowed. Draco's words were low, barely a murmur, but loaded with exhausted resignation. Harry didn't really want to hear it. Not from Draco. Not when Draco usually wore so much cool aloofness, so much detachment, that he could have been the picture of boredom most of the time had he not been such a committed student.

That aloofness and detachment was stripped from his tone, and the raw scraping of pain beneath was revealed in stark relief. Harry had known it was there, as much because every single person at Hogwarts had it and felt it, but it was different to hear it. It was different to bear witness to when he was scrabbling to cover up his own damaged surfaces.

"In Defence," Draco added, as though it needed specifying.

Harry swallowed again.

With a sigh, Draco tipped his head back against the window frame behind him. Harry saw only from his periphery – the slight motion, the heavy blink of hooded eyes. "You know," Draco said slowly. It could have been almost conversational had it not been for that persisting rawness. "I didn't expect to feel this way. That it would hurt. Or that I wouldn't be able to move on. No one ever tells you about that part. Not my parents, even though they were in the first war. Not the Death Eaters – fuck, definitely not them. What we… what I did always just felt like a momentary thing. Like a short task to be completed and then left behind. I didn't think it would…"

Harry watched him sidelong. Why Draco was telling him this, he didn't know. Why he was speaking at all was just as much of a mystery; Draco didn't really speak to people. Not anyone but his friends. He didn't spend time with anyone else either that Harry knew of, with the exception of Harry himself when they spent hours in largely silent company every other day. But that company was loaded with study, or distracted by whatever meal Harry was all but forcing down Draco's throat for reasons he couldn't explain himself.

It wasn't like this. Nothing like this. Harry hadn't asked for it, wasn't even sure he wanted to hear it, but –

"I did bad things. Everyone did, I know, but especially me. Sometimes, when I hold my wand, I can hardly even move my hand to conjure something as simple as a Lumos. Sometimes I struggle to hold it at all, and I have to stop myself from throwing it away."

Harry slowly turned towards him. The dormitory was dark, but the pale glow of the frost, cast awash in almost luminescent white from the backdrop of moonlight, was illuminating enough to see by. Draco sat against the window, his head still rocked backwards, and his legs extended before him. With his ankles crossed, his hands held loosely in his lap, and eyes heavy lidded as they stared up at the dark ceiling, he was the picture of lazy relaxation. It was a sharp contrast to the words that spilled from his mouth, rough and coarse in more than just tone.

"I thought Hogwarts would be a way to get better," Draco murmured. "A way to show I could change – I would change – and that I'd already started to. I know I can't apologise for what I've done, and a part of me still thinks I shouldn't have to. I think… that what I was really trying to do was to survive, just like everyone else, so I don't know how…"

He trailed off, and it was in that moment, as Draco stared at the ceiling for a beat of silence before scoffing and closing his eyes, that Harry realised he wasn't really being spoken to at all. That Draco simply needed to get it out, and Harry happened to be the pair of ears to listen to his confession.

Why, he didn't know. It was still a mystery. Why not his friends either was also unclear, though Harry supposed that he might be able to relate to that a little himself. He told Ron and Hermione just about everything, but there were still parts that he couldn't speak of. There were still fears he couldn't voice, regrets that he knew he shouldn't admit to, not to them, and revelations about himself that barely made sense to him but seemed to be becoming more and more pronounced in his stagnant world of disrupted priorities.

Maybe it was a little like how Harry felt. How, with Draco, it felt alright to sit with him, to sit on him, to simply absorb the warmth and comfort of contact from someone he no longer hated but couldn't claim he really liked all that much either. Maybe, just like it was for Harry, Draco could speak because there was nothing much between them anymore.

And maybe Draco was onto something.

Turning away, resting his cheek back onto his knees, Harry gazed through the window once more. He opened and closed his mouth three times before he could utter a single word.

"I get it," he said. "Yeah, I get that. Magic seems harder than it was before."

"Tell me about it," Draco said, still little more than a murmur.

"I love magic. I love using it. It saved me more times that I can say –"

"And me."

"- and not just in the war. Before that, too, when I was a kid. Moving to school, away from my family, away from –" all of it, the hatred and everyone who hated me, "- everything. It bloody well sucks that it almost doesn't feel right to use it anymore. Like I've used up my quota sometimes by using it in bad ways, or…"

Harry trailed off, barely conscious of the words that spilled from his mouth. Funny, how he hadn't quite realised what he felt until that moment. Funny, and yet so, so horrible. Sad, and unutterably unfair. Why was it that the one gift that had changed everything seemed to have been taken back years later? Recollected as though it had been borrowed rather than given? After everything, how was that fair?

"It really fucking sucks," Harry said, though the words were emitted in barely more than a croak. "Everything's changed, and it sucks. And it's not just with magic, and school, and everyone who…." He tightened his arms around his shins, tucking his legs a little closer to himself. "And me. Yeah, it changed me a whole lot, I think."

Draco shifted. Harry felt more than heard him. He didn't glance his way but instead loosened a hand from his crushing self-embrace and pressed his fingertips to the cold window. The contrast to his lukewarm skin was jarring, but only detachedly. "I think having something like that happen really opens up a lot of doors to learning more about yourself."

"Like what?" Draco asked. Asked Harry, that was. He definitely spoke to him this time.

Harry traced his fingers over the glass, leaving snail trail-like smears behind each movement. He didn't speak for a moment, but not because he couldn't. Not because he didn't want to. Somehow, it was easier to admit things to Draco, too. Easier to consider voicing his suspicions, to admit that he wasn't as strong as he'd hoped he was, nor as courageous, or as resilient. That he was pretty sure dying had hurt him in ways more than physical, and that it had shrivelled something more than the Horcrux within him. Was it possible to destroy one's fortitude with little more than a curse that had struck wrong anyway?

When words arose, though, it wasn't any of that. Not even a little. Rather, since it was Draco, what came forth was, "I don't like being alone."

It was the first time he'd said it, the first time he'd admitted it, and when he uttered those first words, the rest just spilled out. "At all. I don't like – I really don't like being by myself, but at the same time, I can't stand it when people are around and just talk, and talk, and talk all the bloody time. I –" His voice caught, thickened, and Harry only pushed past it with a convulsive swallow. "I think that's why I did it, you know. Do it. With you."

"Do it?" Draco asked.

"Sitting with you." Swallowing again, Harry squeezed his eyes briefly closed and drew a deep breath before turning back towards Draco. It was a surprise, though perhaps not as much as it had once been, that Draco stared back at him with quiet contemplation, not taunting or lashing out, not leaping upon Harry's vulnerability and grasping it with both hands to tear limb from limb. He just sat, as aloof as ever, his face upturned but dark eyes drawn towards Harry.

"I didn't mean to, you know," Harry said. "What happened and everything. It just – it just sort of –"

"Happened," Draco said.

"Yeah. And it felt really, really… nice."

"Comfortable."

Harry nodded. They'd said as much before, but it felt different this time. "Yeah. Because you're warm, and kind of soft."

"Soft?"

"Kind of." His voice was growing strangled now, and Harry couldn't quite work out the exact reason why. It wasn't quite awkwardness from but something like it. Not quite embarrassment either, though that felt a little closer to the mark. Tucking his face into the cradle of his arms, Harry spoke as much to the dark crevice in his lap as to Draco. "I really like it. It makes me feel calmer for some reason. Just touching, or whatever. I don't even care how that sounds, 'cause it's true."

Draco didn't reply. Not for a long, long time. Harry's not-awkwardness, his not-embarrassment, quivered in teetering confusion for a moment before slowly dissipating, and he closed his eyes with its departure. The quietness of the room, Ron's incessant snores, a muffled whimper from the direction of Wayne Hopkins' bed, was lulling and soothing in its own way.

Not quite as soothing as the presence of a warm body leaning against his own, however.

When Draco moved, he was so silent that Harry almost didn't realise he was moving at all until he was at his side. He flinched, snapping his head up from its bowed retreat, and stared at where Draco had dropped to the cold floor at his side. He adjusted himself slightly, settling the silk folds of his nightrobe around himself, before assuming the position he'd been in moments before but a window's length away.

He glanced towards Harry. Harry stared back. Draco blinked. "What? I'm not heartless, you know."

"Why…?"

Draco shrugged. "Because I like it, too. You're not the only one to make some strange discoveries in the past few months." Shifting slightly, Draco adjusted himself until his shoulder propped against Harry's. "Is that wrong?"

Harry stared. Slowly, he shook his head. "No. It's not."

"Good. Then we have another agreement of sorts in place."

Tipping his head back against the wall, Draco closed his eyes once more. His calm aloofness, his relaxed demeanour, was reinstated, but Harry thought it looked a little different now. A little less fool-proof. Almost without realising it, he found himself smiling just a little.

Shaking his head, Harry leant a little more comfortably against Draco. The warmth that spread from the point of contact wasn't quite the same as the warmth from the Warming Charms throughout the room, but it staved off the chill. The otherwise unshakable chill, the one that had nothing to do with frost or icy draughts.

If it's for both of us, then it's not quite so bad, Harry thought, closing his own eyes as he mimicked Draco's posture and rocked his head back against the wall. At least I'm not alone.

When Harry woke, he was warm.

The sun hadn't quite risen. Eyes cracking open, squinting through the skewed lenses of his glasses, the still-frosted window bared at his side was only faintly illuminated by a hazy grey dawn. For a moment, Harry stared in groggy lethargy, sleep-addled mind flicking through the list of acknowledgements that it had taken to conducting in his months on the run with Hermione and Ron.

Morning – yes, it was definitely morning.

A Wednesday morning. He was fairly sure it was Wednesday, with that surety increasing with each lazy blink.

And where…? Hogwarts. At Hogwarts, in the Dragon's Nest boys dormitory. Yes, he could remember that, too. He'd fallen to sleep beside the window, which wasn't for the first time. He usually didn't manage to properly sleep, though, spending the night staring across the dark grounds before clambering stiffly to his feet and retreating to his cold bed before the rest of the dormitory began to haul itself into wakefulness.

But he'd slept. He'd really slept. And he was warm and comfortable, the press of his cheek against smooth material soothing, the rise and fall of the warmth beneath him…

Harry blinked. Straightening from where he'd been slumping, curled, he peered up at Draco, reclined as he'd been the night before in his languid seat and eyes still closed in sleep. Harry could remember that now, too. The brief but starkly revealing conversation they'd shared, the moment of commiseration and understanding, Draco sitting at his side and the comfort of contact from their touching shoulder.

They weren't touching shoulders anymore. Or not just shoulders. Pushing himself more decidedly upright, Harry cast a bemused glance around himself, at Draco who still slept, before scrubbing a hand across his face. He was sitting on Draco again, which wasn't a surprise anymore, really. Except that this time it was more than just 'on top of him'. Facing chest to chest, his legs framing Draco's where they extended before him, Harry realised that it must have been more of an embrace than anything as simple as sitting on Draco's lap. Draco's arms even rested in a loose clasp around his waist as though to embrace him in return.

Harry scrubbed his face once more, jostling his glasses as he smeared the sleep and confusion from his eyes. He didn't quite know how they'd ended up in such a position. He didn't know if it had been at Draco's sleepy encouragement or – more likely – his own actions, the drive to be close, to touch and to feel that wordless comfort that seemed almost a necessity to him these days. What was more disorienting, however, was that it didn't feel wrong. It didn't feel like a taboo, or even all that odd. Just unexpected.

Pursing his lips, Harry glanced over his shoulder at the dark dormitory. Snores and the gentle squeak of springs still added a quiet backdrop to the otherwise silent morning, and not a single person had started to awaken yet, but it wouldn't be long. Harry should get up, should retreat to his bed before anyone noticed, before they saw that not only was he not sleeping properly – Ron already regularly commented on that – but that he'd taken his sleeplessness into Draco's company where Draco had, somehow, unwittingly, fixed the problem.

"What's wrong?"

Turning back to Draco, Harry met his bleary gaze as he too dredged himself from sleep. Regardless of a night spent in what was surely an uncomfortable position, he looked barely worse for wear, which was fairly typical of him. Harry could still remember in the war, at Malfoy Manor, even during his trial and that of his parents – Draco always fought to maintain a well-groomed, immaculate visage. A night spent on the floor, leaning against the wall with Harry draped over him like a misshapen blanket, had added only a faint stiffness to his movements as he rolled his shoulders, the barest of unruly tufts to his usually pristine hair.

"Sorry," Harry said, keeping his voice to a whisper. "Did I wake you up?"

Draco shook his head and raised a hand to his head. As if he'd automatically felt its disorderliness, he pressed upon the slight mess of his hair, erasing it in an instant. "No," he said, his voice thick and a little hoarse with sleep. "I was already waking up."

"No, you weren't."

"I was, actually."

Harry snorted. "You were dead to the world, is what you were. Although, I'm surprised you managed to sleep at all, what with, you know." He gestured down to himself, to Draco and where Harry still sat on top of him. There wasn't all that much between them in size difference; it must have been uncomfortable –

"I'm comfortable enough," Draco said, as though he'd heard Harry's thoughts. When Harry glanced up at him, he shrugged. "You make a fairly functional blanket."

"Gee, thanks."

"You're welcome. It appears you've found your purpose in life."

"I'm happy to hear it. Just like it looks like you've found yours."

"From your perspective?" Draco's eyebrow rose. "You seem to have forgotten I'd been informed of my status in your eyes for several weeks now. You've certainly made a habit of reminding me of it."

Harry winced. A habit. Was that a bad thing? "Sorry," he muttered, glancing down at himself again, at Draco's lazy recline that was probably not as comfortable as he was pretending it was. Maybe he was overstepping his boundaries. Shifting in place, he rose onto his knees to to climb to his feet. "I'll just – maybe I should just –"

Draco's arms tightened briefly, just slightly but enough that Harry paused. When he glanced down at Draco, it was to find his face blankly composed but staring up at Harry within unblinking focus. All residue of sleep had been erased, just like the slight mess of his hair.

"It's fine," Draco said. "I'm not bothered to get up right now anyway."

"Aren't I squashing you?" Harry asked.

"No."

"It's not annoying?"

"You're asking that now, after four whole weeks?"

Harry pulled a face, though had to accept the reprimand for what it was. That was certainly true. He didn't move, however, until Draco nudged him with a sighed, "you're warm enough, so it suits us both. If it bothers you that someone will see, just move when they start waking up."

Harry cast another glance over his shoulder. At least for that moment, he didn't really care what the rest of the boys in the dormitory thought. Maybe he should have, but the soothing aftermath of the first decent night sleep he'd had in months more than overrode it. Slowly, he settled back onto Draco's lap and, at Draco's readjustment, back against his chest in the sighing slump he'd assumed in the mindlessness of sleep.

It really was warm. And comforting. And… right. It felt simply right.

"Thanks," Harry murmured, cheek resting against Draco's shoulder that didn't feel as disagreeably hard as it perhaps should have.

"Are you always so sincere and appreciative this early in the morning?"

Harry snorted. "What, you'd prefer I poked shit at you?"

"I was just asking."

Harry closed his eyes against the pale grey of dawn. "Maybe. Or maybe it's just nicer not to argue with you sometimes. So shoot me for only just realising, okay?"

Draco didn't reply. He didn't shoot him down, or even grunt in acknowledgement. He simply sat and allowed Harry to benefit from his warm proximity. He even left his loosely cradling arms where they were, and Harry found he was nothing if not grateful for the allowance. That it came from Draco, once rival and once prat, didn't seem to matter in the least.

A/N: Thank you to all of the lovely people who have been reading and reviewing! I know I haven't gotten back to you all yet but I'm working on it. I appreciate each and every review so, so much, though, and every one inspires me to keep going :)
I hope you continue to enjoy the story!