Benefits
Chapter Seven
Blaise walked into Draco's office unannounced and closed the door shut behind him before he asked, "So, how did the dinner go?"
"Have you ever heard of knocking Blaise?" Draco asked, "It's this new thing and I know how much you like to keep up with the times and new fashion statements-."
"Shut up Draco," Blaise said. He looked towards one of the pot plants in the room and transformed it into a gray office chair before sitting down, crossing one leg over the other, "how did the dinner go?" he asked again, sounding impatient.
"Fine," Draco said in a clipped tone, turning back to a piece he was supposed to be handing in to Barnabas that afternoon. It was about some criminal wizard trying to sell cursed collectors spoons; a bit tame considering what was happening a few years ago. Draco hoped another dark wizard would rise and try to take over the world; he'd have much more interesting pieces to write, and maybe he'd throw Blaise into the line of fire...
"What; just fine?" Blaise asked, looking unconvinced, "what happened?" he asked, sounding almost concerned.
Draco shrugged, admittedly he was still a little cut about Harry's remark and referencing him as the Death Eater's son. He felt that little touch hadn't been needed, or that Harry didn't have to say it so negatively. It would have been better if Harry had said something along the lines of 'fuck it though, I don't care, I love him,' that would have been a nice finishing touch to the Death Eater remark rather than just trailing off and letting everyone guess at what he was thinking.
"Draco," Blaise said in a dark tone, his eyes narrowing, "what happened? You always go quiet when something's wrong. It's the only time I can get you to shut up."
"It's not important Blaise," Draco said, "I'm just being stupid."
"Wow there's definitely something wrong," Blaise said, his eyes wide, "Malfoy's never admit to stupidity-."
"Yeah well I'm not a Malfoy am I?" Draco said, slamming the papers in his hand down on the desk and giving Blaise a penetrating ice cold glare, "I haven't been a Malfoy for a very, long, time. I am a disgrace to the Malfoy name."
Blaise sighed, "Harry brought up the Death Eater thing."
Draco rolled his eyes, "good going Sherlock Holmes."
"So you did read that book I gave you!" Blaise exclaimed, as if he'd caught Draco out.
"What?"
"Never mind," Blaise sighed, "but don't let the Death Eater thing get to you...in the end you're stronger than Potter because of it."
Draco made a noise between a choke, a sob and a laugh, "how am I stronger than Potter?" he asked, sounding incredulous.
Blaise gave him a supportive smile, pretty much warning Draco that Blaise's next sentence would be extremely corny, "because," he said, "you were faced with the Dark Lord everyday of your life ever since you were seventeen, and somehow you survived it all even when you weren't obeying orders and when you were spying for the Order," Blaise said, "Potter basically faced the man once a year."
Draco gave Blaise a grim smile, "thanks Blaise," he muttered.
Blaise shrugged sheepishly, "any time, Draco."
(***)
"It's weird; you ended up with Malfoy, of all people."
"Alright Ron-"
"I'm just saying mate."
Harry shook his head slowly and looked out the window of the tiny cafe that he had been told to meet Hermione and Ron at. It was nothing special; a little abandoned if anything; and they'd been sitting there for the last few hours, talking. They hadn't even ordered coffee, tea or hot chocolate of any kind yet.
"Yeah well, enough," Harry said defensively, "it is what it is; deal with it."
Ron rolled his eyes, "I have nothing against it," he said, "so don't get defensive with me when I've been showing support for you the whole time."
Hermione sat there quietly, looking at the menu with a scowl on her face.
"Well I'm just saying-"
"Can you two just shut up?!" Hermione snapped, slamming the menu down on the small round table, making it shake a little; it really wasn't the most stable thing, "I'm tired of it already; it is how it is and Ron's not trying to be judgemental Harry- he's just shocked, that's all."
"Well you can stop being shocked!" Harry exclaimed, "I'm bloody engaged to him-."
"Engaged?!" Ron responded, his voice going up an octave, "you never said anything about being engaged."
"Oh, so suddenly it's not alright anymore?" Harry asked, "Because I'm engaged to the guy, it's suddenly wrong?"
"Once again," Ron said, rolling his eyes in frustration, "that's not what I'm saying mate."
"Where's your ring?" Hermione asked.
"Pardon-" Harry said. He looked around him and noticed he was standing on his feet, ready to walk out the door without saying goodbye to either of them.
"Where's your ring?" Hermione asked again, "you claim you're engaged to him, and yet, you have no ring."
Harry snorted, "I never pictured you as being so materialistic Hermione-."
"That's not my intention and you know it-."
Harry ignored her, storming out of the tiny cafe and entering the slightly busier street in an angry stupor. He sighed, and walked back to his apartment, when-
"Harry!"
Harry scrunched up his face in annoyance and puffed out his cheeks before turning around, facing the person he least wanted to see right now.
"Lucas."
Lucas beamed, "what a coincidence!" he exclaimed, "We just keep running into each other like this!"
Harry refrained from rolling his eyes, "I'm not really in the mood for this right now Lucas," he said, "I'm annoyed and I just want to go home."
"Well then I'll walk you home," Lucas said with a soft smile.
"No," Harry said automatically, maybe a little too fast to seem casual, "no," Harry said slower, shaking his head, "I'm sure you're busy and I just don't want to be around people right now."
Lucas looked a little pissed off, his face contorting with slight rage before he settled down, his expression turning from angry to sympathy, "what's wrong?"
Harry sighed, "I don't want to talk about it," he muttered, "just leave me alone. Understand?"
Lucas looked disappointed, "I understand."
(***)
Draco was doing it again; riffling through Harry's things. He knew it was most definitely the wrong thing to do, especially seeing as the dark haired man had trusted him with spare keys for his apartment, considering sometimes Harry was out randomly, and Draco got home early. Harry had been out for the last hour and Draco had been listening to the outside door, waiting to hear the familiar sound of keys in the look.
It hadn't happened yet and he was just reading for a singular photo album in Harry's bookshelf.
He opened it and looked down at some moving photographs. They consisted mainly of Harry's parents and Ron and Hermione at their years of Hogwarts. Draco had never really taken Harry for the sentimental type; but there were many things about the man that surprised Draco. He looked around the apartment; that was a good example.
He continued to look through the photos. Some of the included him and the entire Weasley family, back when he had been briefly dating Ginny. Apparently Harry didn't visit the Weasley's as often as he used to; he felt too awkward about it.
He was in the middle of the photo album when he stopped, his hands freezing and his jaw slackening.
He looked down at the photo of Harry and a slightly taller man. Harry looked like he was forcing his smile; his eyes dead and empty. He had never seen Harry like this; Harry looked normal. His eyes lit up all the time, even when there was nothing to seem even relatively happy about. This, this was a different Harry. The man hadn't even looked that bad during the war.
The other man looked happy, menacingly so. Draco dropped the photo album as if it had burnt him and staggered back, falling onto the couch. He could practically feel the blood drain from his face as he realised who the man was.
(***)
Harry came home to seeing Draco frozen on the couch, glaring down at Harry's one photo album, which was lying on the ground, the pages open and bending slightly.
"What the fuck?" Harry asked, walking over towards the photo album and picking it up, straightening the pages. He looked down at the page and his expression darkened before he took the photos out of his photo album and ripped the photo in half.
"How do you know him?" Draco asked.
Harry paused, "pardon?"
"How do you know Lucas?" he asked, his voice sounding gravelly.
Harry frowned, putting the photo album back on the bookshelf between a few Auror books and spell books, "I could ask you the same question."
Draco wanted to kick something. He glared up and Harry and hissed out his answer, "Lucas was my ex-boyfriend before I dumped on him for cheating on me with some dark haired tramp," Draco was livid, breathing heavily out of his nose and glaring at Harry harsher than he had ever glared at him while walking up and down the halls of Hogwarts.
"Oh so I'm a dark haired tramp now?" Harry said, sounding annoyed and slightly wounded.
"If the shoe fits, then wear it," Draco muttered stubbornly.
"Well you didn't seem to mind about me being a dark haired tramp before."
"That was before I found out you stole my boyfriend away from me," Draco said angrily, turning to glare darkly at Harry.
Harry rolled his eyes, heading towards the kitchen. He couldn't deal with this sober, "I'll have you know that you're lucky," Harry muttered darkly, "compared to me you seemed to have it easy."
"Oh right, getting cheated on is so easy-."
"Did you get abused by him constantly though, physically and mentally?"
Draco paused and turned back to look at Harry who was pouring himself a glass of Firewhiskey. Harry didn't really seem to be overly invested in the conversation at that point. He stared moodily at the glass before drinking from it, almost drinking the whole first half of the glass in one gulp.
"All I wanted was a family," he muttered darkly, still looking at the glass, "but he didn't, and when I persisted to ask, he got angry; couldn't take the thought that I wanted something more from him."
Draco was left speechless, but it made sense about the dead look in Harry's eyes in the photo, posing with a man he was pretending he still loved, Draco assumed.
"Look, I don't really want to talk about it anymore," Harry said after drinking the rest of the glass, putting it down softly on the bench and not looking at it; as if ashamed of having drunk it at all, "it's in the past."
Without looking back at Draco again, he stomped his way across and went into his room, slamming the door slightly behind him.
Draco sucked in a breath and bent his head forward until he was resting it in his hands, tiredly.
"Fucking hell," he mumbled.
(***)
Harry didn't come out of his room for the rest of the night and Draco didn't feel obliged to go in there. He lay down on the couch, reading a book, not feeling tired at all. He normally would have gone to sleep by now, especially seeing as he had work tomorrow; but as he cast another tempus spell and realised it was three in the morning, there was no noticeable itch for sleep. He was wide awake and had nothing to do but read Harry's books.
He had wanted to continue going through the photo album, see if there was anything else. But he couldn't bring himself to. He had seen the slight look of betrayal on Harry's face when he had seen it on the floor and had connected the dots.
Just because he was 'living' here now didn't mean he had the right to snoop through Harry's things.
He heard creaking and looked up to see Harry's bedroom door opening. He pretended to be asleep while the dark haired man walked past the couch and into the kitchen, getting himself a glass of water. It was only after he heard the empty cup hit the bottom of the sink that he heard Harry speak.
"I know you're not asleep Draco," Harry muttered.
Draco sighed and sat up, peering at Harry from over the top the couch. The man's hair was mused up and he was wearing a loose shirt and pyjama bottoms, sitting low on his hips. Draco would have found the sight desirable if he didn't feel so guilty about what had happened.
"How did you know?" Draco asked cautiously.
Harry gave him a small smirk and shrugged, "I didn't," he muttered, "just wanted to see what would happen."
Draco rolled his eyes, but regretted it an instant later. Just because Harry was talking to him on a normal level didn't mean that he wasn't in trouble for what he had done. But Harry didn't seem to mind, and in fact took a step closer to the couch. He rested his hand on the top and looked down at Draco with a small smile.
"You don't have to sleep on the couch, you know?"
Draco frowned, "but-."
"I should have expected it," Harry said, cutting him off, "I know what you're like and you can't just invite someone to come live with you suddenly, and not expect them to go through your things and find out more about you," he shrugged, "I overreacted."
"You didn't," Draco said, "It was wrong what I did-."
"Shut up," Harry said, "before I do permanently kick you out onto the couch."
Draco shut up, it's almost like you want to sleep with him, he thought to himself.
Draco mentally shook his head and got up slowly from the couch, watching Harry warily, "thanks," he muttered, when he was standing up and facing Harry again.
Harry looked at him with a confused expression, "what for?" he asked.
"For forgiving me," Draco said with a shrug before making his way to Harry's room. Harry following close behind him.