The bed was empty and cold when Draco woke.
For a long moment, Draco wondered why that felt wrong. He'd woken alone nearly every morning of his life. Then he saw the little fingertip bruises on his shoulder where Harry had gripped him to wake him up and the whole thing came back to him.
"Oh, fuck."
Nightmare. Dead Potter. Harry alive. Kissing Harry. Stay.
"Shit."
Draco groaned. What an idiot he'd been! What a moron! He'd thrown himself at Harry after a nightmare, like some sniveling little girl, then he had to go and beg him to stay. If he hadn't scared him away before, he had definitely ruined everything now. It would be a wonder if Harry would even be able to look at him.
It'd be a miracle if he could look Harry in the eye.
Briefly, Draco wondered if he could just spend the whole day in bed, wallowing. Then he remembered he had planned to help Reggie with his flying that afternoon. The boy was good, but he didn't have the instinctual control his father had.
So Draco gritted his teeth and forced himself to face the day. He climbed out of bed and got dressed.
Just as he was about to leave the room, a glint of silver caught his eye. There, on the floor near the bed. Right where Harry had appeared last night. It was a knife, a slim blade with a leather-wrapped handle.
He picked it up curiously. It was no potions blade or kitchen knife. This was a weapon, nothing else. The steel blade was thick in the center and razor sharp, polished to a mirror shine. Draco had never owned such a thing in his life. All his knives were silver blades, for potions work, or ritual knives, too thin and decorative to be of any real use.
This must be Potter's, then. He must have had it in his hand when he showed up in Draco's room, then dropped it to free up both his hands. That would mean…
Draco shook his head. Just how paranoid was Harry, that he slept with a knife? Just what had happened to him since school?
-0-
Harry did his usual morning check as he got dressed.
Left bicep, left side, right side, inside right thigh, right boot…
He was missing a blade.
He remembered Draco screaming, jumping up with a knife in his hand, apparating directly to Draco's room. He must have dropped it when he tried to hold him still. He'd have to grab it after breakfast, then.
He entered the kitchen for breakfast, dropping kisses on Teddy's and Reggie's heads. He accepted a plate from Winky with a smile, sitting down across from Draco. The blond was stabbing at his poached eggs, letting them bleed yellow yolk across his plate.
"Morning, Draco," he said. Malfoy grunted, flush rising on his pale neck. "Did the eggs insult you somehow?" Draco kept his head down, skewering one rather viciously before eating it. He was quiet for a long moment.
"You left," he said softly. Harry sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. Sometimes breakfast was the most awkward meal of the day.
"You only asked me to stay until you fell asleep," he pointed out.
"So you stayed awake until then, then you went all the way back to your room?" Draco demanded. "You could have stayed, you know."
"I don't share a bed." Never again. Not after…he shook his head slightly, chasing the memories away. "I have nightmares too, Draco. Every night. Every time I fall asleep. I wake up screaming every time."
"Then why don't I ever here you?" he asked angrily. "I've been here nearly a month! How come no one hears you, but I wake up the whole house?"
"One-way silencing charms. No one hears me, ever," Harry met his eyes steadily, though he really didn't want to talk about it. "Waking me up would probably get you killed before I realize what's going on. Ask Kreacher, he's dodged a few knives."
"You honestly sleep with this thing?" Draco brought out his missing knife.
"Oh good, I was missing that one." Harry snatched it blade-first, flipping it up into the air and letting the hilt smack into his palm. He propped his boot up on the bench and slid it into place. "I hate leaving the house a blade short." He put an end to any conversation by leaving the room, figuring it wouldn't hurt to start on some editing on his proposals at the Ministry, denying that he was running away.
He didn't want Draco to tempt him into spilling his secrets.
-0-
"A blade…?" Draco muttered in confusion. He turned to Reggie. "Does he have more than one?"
"Daddy always has at least three. He has six when he goes to the Ministry," Reggie informed him in a matter-of-fact voice. Teddy nodded, shoveling eggs into his mouth.
"Why?" Both boys turned wide eyes toward him.
"He won't tell us. Daddy says we shouldn't ask."
"Well, I'm asking," Draco grumbled. He knew Harry was hiding something big. It was probably the reason he kept pulling back, the reason he didn't stay.
He wondered if it might be the reason for everything. Could Harry hide something that big? Something that might go all the way back to whatever he hadn't said about Theo? Harry had called him his jailer, a term Draco had overlooked at the time, but what did that mean? Potter had never been captured! It would have been all over the papers if he had gone missing, everyone would know about it.
Just like he had though everyone would know if the great Harry Potter was a father.
Connections started blooming in Draco's mind. Harry's tattoo, Theo, Reggie and his three fathers, his "jailer," sleeping with knives, the cut-off sentences, the haunted look in his eyes sometimes. Three years ago, Reggie had been born of a ritual using the blood of three powerful wizards, two of them bitter enemies. Two of them dead, one barely alive. The Dark Lord, the Boy-Who-Lived, and the Death Eater who changed his mind. What had brought their blood together to make little Reggie?
How had Harry Potter come to sire a child with Voldemort?
Only one answer made sense: force. He hadn't had a choice. At some point three years previous, Harry's blood had been taken from him. Somehow, Theo had a role in that story. Draco knew it, but he couldn't quite make it fit.
He knew those answers held the reasons Harry had left last night. He could feel it in his bones. Because of something that had happened in his past, Harry was holding himself back, holding himself away from Draco. It wasn't that he wanted to, Draco could tell, it was that he felt he had to. After all, Harry had kissed back. He just needed to know why Harry was like this, why he was scared.
And he didn't think Harry would be offering up answers any time soon.
He waited for Harry in the entrance hall again.
"Care to explain?" he asked coldly. Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"No," he answered shortly.
"Listen, Potter, I'm not stupid. I can tell you're hiding something, and I can bet it has to do with Reggie and Theo. I can figure out it's the reason you keep pulling away from me when I know you don't want to, and I think I'm owed some answers!"
"I disagree," Harry glared at him coldly. "I told you in the beginning there are some questions you can't ask, and you just asked a whole bunch of them. Don't forget why you're here in my house, Draco. I didn't invite you here as my lover," he spit out. Draco reeled back, hurt. Then he lunged, reaching for Potter's collar, his neck-
-and found himself slammed against the wall, the flat of a knife against his throat and a wand digging into his ribs.
"Wrong choice, Malfoy," Harry growled.
-0-
Harry stared into wide silver eyes, not letting the pressure up for a second. Draco had tried to attack him, and Harry had reacted. No one would ever get a hold on him in a fight again. He made sure of that.
"You should count yourself lucky I'm still aware enough to let you keep your head," he warned. "I'm not responsible to you for my actions, you've got it the wrong way 'round. Remember that you chose my house over Azkaban. Try to touch me again like that and you'll wonder why you didn't chose prison with your father."
He called to the wards with him magic, forcing them to bend to his will and wrap around Draco's motionless form.
"I don't want to see your face for the next week, do you understand?" As soon as the blond nodded, Harry let the wards go. They pulled at Draco, apparating him to his room and sealing him in. They wouldn't let him out while Harry was still in the house.
Harry slumped to the floor, breathing hard.
He had not needed that after his day. Support for his proposals was hard to come by. Traditionalism was strong in the Wizengamot. Very few wanted to change the Heir Laws. Most of them were only sons of only sons and had only one son each.
He hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, making sure Draco was okay, then he had come out of nowhere and wanted answers and explanations. He wanted to strip Harry of his secrets, all his moments of weakness, all the dark times in his life. He wanted Harry to love him, and Harry wanted to fall in love with Draco, but he was scared. He was afraid and he didn't want to admit it.
And it was all tied up in his secrets.
He sighed and heaved himself up off the floor. He needed to tell Kreacher to take Draco's dinner to his room.