Malfoy Manor was a right bit brighter than the last time I'd visited. Cleaner, perhaps, or maybe all the drawn curtains were just letting in enough light that I noticed the glint of polished floors and spotless furniture for the first time. My memories set a grim filter firmly over it, but it was… Different.
I had Hermione with me for emotional support, bless her, and Ron was thankfully bearing the burden of dealing with the Ministry and all the reporters that had started flooding into my life the minute the war ended. Bless them both, honestly.
For some reason, it'd felt important for me to do this myself. I could've turned it over to the Ministry, sure, let them handle it, but this felt too heavy. I knew I needed this closure, as uncomfortable as it made me to walk through these halls again. Hermione's hand in mine was a pillar of reassurance as we followed a butler through a pair of double doors.
The walls were lined with windows, interspersed with portraits of sneering blondes I didn't doubt dated back centuries. I briefly wondered if the Malfoys had a family tree mural like Grimmauld place, what with them being purebloods, but didn't really care enough to ask. I had one aim here today, and the sooner I got it over with, the sooner we could leave. Hermione's screams echoing through these halls rang in my ears, and I tightened my grip on her hand. Her other hand lifted to wrap around my elbow, and I shot her a shaky smile. She had that intent look in her eyes, assessing my state, and I didn't have to wonder if she could see through the thin veil of my false confidence. Her lips pursed into a sympathetic smile, and then our guide halted before another pair of double doors and turned.
"The young master is within," he announced with a bow before stepping aside.
Young master. Master of the house now, I suppose.
With a shuddering inhale, I set my jaw and approached the doors. Hermione released my arm to allow me to push them open, and my eyes immediately landed on a tall, blond figure facing out the window at the far end of what seemed to be the sitting room. Bouquets of daffodils and carnations rioted from their vases between the couches and chaise, but I only dimly noted them. Malfoy didn't turn to look as I stepped onto the plush rug, Hermione hanging back as the doors clicked shut behind us.
I cleared my throat, more of my own awkwardness than trying to indicate we'd arrived. I knew he heard the door, and was waiting a bit too long for him to acknowledge us when I cast a frown back at Hermione. She shrugged curiously, but when I'd returned my attention to Malfoy, he was facing us.
Even from across the enormous room, I could tell he was pale. Paler than normal, mind. His cheeks, nose, and ears were prone to splotching in the winter and when he was upset, but not a drop of colour graced his countenance as he started a slow procession toward me.
As his features came into view, the dark circles beneath his eyes became shockingly apparent as they darted between myself and Hermione several times. He stopped a good arm's length away, stiff like someone was poking his spine with a knife. And waited.
What am I supposed to say? Here's your wand back, thanks for letting me use it to kill Voldemort? With a sigh, I withdrew his wand from my pocket and eyed it. There wasn't really much to say, I realised as I twirled the hawthorn between my fingers. A sudden worry that it wouldn't recognize Draco as its owner anymore had me withdrawing my own wand and handing it to him.
He frowned down at it, just a bit of a crease between his brows before hesitantly accepting it.
"Disarm me," I explained as he shot another wary glance over at Hermione. Thankfully, my wand didn't immediately explode in his hand, but he hesitated a moment more before giving it a flourish.
"Expelliarmus," he muttered quietly, and his wand flew out of my hand, arcing cleanly through the air and into his right hand.
My heart gave a lurch at the sight of him with both our wands, but he handed mine back hastily as he took a moment to appreciate his own. I'd expected him to be relieved, but as he pocketed it again, the frown on his brow only deepened.
"Right," I said, clearing my throat again. That's over with. Time to return to regularly-scheduled badgering by the press. I wasn't looking forward to it, but the sooner I could escape the manor, the better.
Just as I was turning to leave, Malfoy stopped me.
"W-wait…" I quirked an eyebrow at him, the touch of pink on the tips of his ears only confusing me further. His throat worked for a moment before he spoke again. "Can I… T-talk to you?" I turned back to face him fully, my eyebrows now firmly crushing down on my eyes as I frowned. "Alone."
The pink in his ears was slowly spreading to his cheeks, bringing life back to his features as I turned my frown back to Hermione. She asked me what I wanted to do wordlessly, and I figured I could bear a few moments alone with him in the manor if it meant I never had to come back. With a silent warning to Malfoy, she excused herself from the room and I turned back to him.
He dropped his attention to his shoes, and my brain sort of short-circuited at the idea that he was about to apologise. But it wasn't an apology when he finally spoke.
"I… I have a lot of things to say to you, and all I'm asking is that you listen." A hesitant glance up at me. "And I know if I don't say this now, I never will, but I have no idea how to start so I'm probably about to monstrously fuck this up, but I can't just say nothing because then I really will end up in St. Mungo's, and that's a future I'm hoping to avoid."
My head was already spinning. These were already the most words he'd ever said to me without insulting me, and he had more to say? I couldn't ken it, but I was silently glad he'd only asked me to listen. Being a man of few words didn't seem to be a temporary state, and I was deathly curious as he hissed a curse under his breath.
"I never hated you. I… Wanted to be your friend, and yeah it hurt when you turned me down. But then for years, I watched you get everything I wanted. Friends, fame, family. Approval. And I was fucking jealous, alright?"
The pink that had been pooling in Draco's cheeks was now a violent red as he launched into the rawest, longest and most confusing tirade I'd ever witnessed.
"Couldn't stand watching you get everything I was working so hard for. So I tried turning people against you, did everything I could to fuck up your life because if you didn't like me, I could at least get people to dislike you, too. And then when everything started getting real, I just panicked. It's not like I actually wanted you dead, just miserable like I was. But then the shit with my aunt and your—" His voice cut off for a moment as he swallowed, and I felt dizzy as I tried to keep up. "I saw how it killed you to lose him, and I realised seeing you miserable just made me miserable. But I couldn't exactly do anything to help the situation, could I? And then he moved into my fucking house and I'd never been so painfully aware of how useless I am, while you were out there literally saving the world and it's taken me all of that to realize that I have no fucking idea how to like someone."
Pure fucking whiplash. I think I was gaping at him, couldn't be sure, but I was stunned silent. What?
"I was jealous of you because you didn't have to try at being the Chosen One, you just were, and I was no one. I wanted to be important, so I did the most asinine shit I could think of but it wasn't until it finally clicked for me that your life's been fucking awful that I realised all I really wanted was to be important to you. And I royally fucked that up, too, but it doesn't matter. None of what I've just said matters because it's me. It doesn't matter that I'm a great bloody poufter, or that I've spent years fancying you all wrong, or that I'm even sorry about any of it because you're gonna get on with your life and you'll never see me again and maybe years down the line I'll have recovered from this most mortifying thing I've ever done and I'll actually be able to get over you, but even that doesn't matter because now that I've finally said it, we can both forget this ever happened and you can go have forty fucking ginger babies and we'll never, ever see each other again because I'll probably just melt into a puddle of shit if I ever see you again after this, so…"
Malfoy was so bloody red, I worried he'd pop a vein in his face. That, or he was going to cry. Wait, did he just say...?
"Thanks for saving the world, sorry I was a prick, have a nice life."
He ran.
He ran.
And I was still frozen in shock. All my thoughts felt like they were moving through molasses as they desperately tried to process what I'd just heard.
Malfoy fancies me. Beneath the tumult of my raucous thoughts, those three words played on a loop, layering and stacking until they overwhelmed all the other thoughts. I think I'm gonna pass out.
Hermione didn't give me the chance, because her hands gripped my biceps, pulling me out of my trance as I finally realised she'd been calling my name. I focused on her face with some effort, and saw the same worry that seemed carved into her features by now.
"Harry?"
I swallowed, finding my mouth suddenly dry.
"I need to sit down."
Hermione gingerly helped me to one of the couches, clearly panicking over my state, but I couldn't muster any reassurance for her.
Malfoy bloody fancies me. I'm going to shit a brick.
A gentle knock came at my door hours after I'd finally stopped crying, and I didn't have to guess who it was. With a sniff and a sigh, I sat up from where I'd been curled in foetal position atop my comforter and swiped a sleeve over both eyes.
"Yeah," I croaked. And in walked mother, wearing sympathetic concern that made me want to rip my hair out.
"You alright, darling?" she asked carefully as she came to sit on the edge of my bed. I sat up a bit more fully against my headboard, discomfort shifting around my ribs at her maternal tone.
"Fantastic," I snarked, but it was hollow. All the fight had left me, leaked out of my eyes and dampened my bed covers. "They gone?"
"Left hours ago," she said softly, lifting a hand to push my hair off my forehead. Now that we were both free of my father's influence, she'd become increasingly doting, and it chafed at me. Like she was just going to pretend she hadn't treated me coldly for the last decade, just because he was gone. But she was still mother, and I bit back the impulse to swat her hand away for her sake.
I nodded, pulling my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. Mother was still touching me, gently stroking the corner of my forehead with her thumb, and I fisted my hands around my sleeves to help me bear it.
"Shall I make you a cuppa? You look like you could use it."
Despite how well I was tolerating her affection, I couldn't resist shooting a sharp glance up at her, because when had she ever made me anything? It was always the staff fetching me things, always the chefs cooking. I could hardly believe she even knew how to work a kettle, let alone make tea.
"Sure," I decided dubiously. She gave me a tight smile, a kiss on the forehead, and then left. "What the fuck?" I whispered to myself once she was gone.
For years, she'd obeyed my father's wishes to raise me militantly, withholding her affection and pushing me away, shutting me out. And I couldn't be arsed to care how it'd affected her, whether it killed her to keep me at arm's length, because clearly, no one had ever properly modelled love for me. It was her bloody fault I fucked up so severely with–
A stab of pain went through my chest as I curled further into myself. The tears had run out, but the brutal fucking humiliation of what I'd just done only seemed to worsen as the hours ticked by. He knew now. I told him, laid my soul fucking bare for the one person I'd have gone to Azkaban to prevent ever finding out. I tucked my burning face into my knees, groaning internally at the memory of his shock.
Of course, it'd've come as a shock. I bullied him for seven fucking years! I felt so fucking stupid for not realising I'd wanted him to like me, not to mention the fact that I wanted him to like me at all. Maybe I should've broken his nose again for good measure, since he clearly wasn't picking up my obvious attempts at flirting.
A true growl of frustration squeezed out of me, and I was surprised to feel my eyes prickling. Bugger wasn't even gay! What was I hoping to achieve by confessing to him? It'd been selfish of me, I acknowledged as much even though I was now experiencing what was the worst agony of my fucking life. Selfish self-torment. A short laugh sobbed out of me at the irony of it all.
At least I never have to see him again. Maybe lack of proximity will let me forget his stupid fucking green eyes and ridiculously messy hair that no potion or spell could hope to tame or the stunning branches of that scar down the side of his brow that oh-so-effortlessly seems to frame his eyes, marvelous fucking eyes, really, like it couldn't possibly be natural–
A gasp lifted my head from my knees as my door clicked open, and I furiously scrubbed at my eyes again, unwilling to see the compassion in my mother's as she returned with a cup of tea.
"Thank you," I whispered as she came back to my bedside. The tea bag was still in it, and I considered rolling my eyes, but the beast of a headache that was gathering behind them prevented me.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked quietly, reaching out to stroke my ankle. And as I lifted an unamused stare to her postured sympathy, a sinking feeling in my gut told me that I need to get the fuck out of here.
"No." I pulled the teabag out and set it on the saucer, pointedly taking a sip to indicate I was in no mood to talk at all. Mother sighed and touched my forehead again, and I barely concealed the shudder that went through me at both her hands on me. Get out, I wanted to say. Take your precious pity elsewhere, it's far too late to try kindness on me. "I'd like to be alone," was what I did say.
She clicked her tongue, and I took another sip of the horridly bitter tea, silently begging her to leave.
"Alright. Just ring for me if you need me." Another fucking kiss on the forehead. I wanted to be sick.
"Right."
She took her sweet fucking time leaving, but as soon as she did, I discarded the offending tea and settled back onto my side against the pillows. A bitterness that went deeper than the tea washed through me at her behaviour. Of course, when I'd needed warmth, where had she been? My father had been absolute in his influence over the family dynamic, but she could've at least made an effort.
Pain and humiliation writhed in my chest, wrestling for dominance but they were fairly evenly matched. And as I turned my eyes up at the pitiful fucking olive branch she'd extended, sat on my bedside table, I made my decision.
I have to move out.