Harry had the tendency to sleep in some of the most intricate positions when overtired. He would twist and turn until vaguely resembling a rag doll, carelessly dropped on the ground in a twisted heap of limbs, helpless to rearrange itself.
Despite seldomly waking up before the other boy, that particular morning Draco blinked his eyes open at the crack of dawn, to promptly shut them again when a glance at the clock told him it was barely ten past six. Ugh, matters of life and death aside, there was no reason for someone to be conscious that early in the day.
He wished he could blame it on whoever idiot had shut the blinds the night before, leaving them askew just enough for the first beam of light to shine directly onto his face, but Draco had the fair suspicion he'd have to point the finger towards himself. Past him was notorious for making mistakes, after all.
Truth was, Draco hadn't been sleeping well for the last few nights, not since Harry had relegated them to the living room in a sort of privacy deprived exile. One that featured foldable beds and the thinnest mattress Draco had ever had the displeasure to lay on. Saying goodbye to Lupin's ugly sofa had been easy, but he hadn't been able to contain the gasp of horror when Harry had conjured two shabby single cots to put in its place.
"Don't you have something better in there?" He had asked, pointing at Granger's beaded bag with pleading eyes.
"We are out of the deluxe options, I am afraid. The last phoenix feather model sold out last week."
Leave it to Granger to adopt the same brand of Potter's dry snark Draco was hopeless against.
He had scowled, kicking at one of the metal legs and causing the frames to knock into each other with a clank. Draco's frown had deepened. They didn't even align properly.
Granger had taken a look at his disgruntled face and, out of what he bitterly suspected to be pity, had fused the beds together. "You are rather clingy, you know?" She had observed, contemplatively, and Draco had pretended not to know what she had meant with that.
Miss Best-at-tranfiguration-since-the-coming-of-Circe had conveniently forgotten to join the mattresses together, leaving a very annoying gap in the middle that Draco didn't trust himself fixing. With anything bigger than a pillow, his skills weren't honed enough to guarantee the spell wouldn't wean off while they were sleeping, making for a very abrupt wake up call.
He glanced over at Harry, who was still softly snoring into his pillow, legs tangled with the sheets and folded awkwardly so that his feet hovered in mid air. Draco tickled the one closest to himself, just a quick brush of his fingertips, and Harry shifted, groaning, but did not wake.
Draco sighed, and got up to fix the blinds, plummeting the room in semi-darkness. Too alert to go back to sleep, he wobbled to the toilet to empty his bladder. His hair dye needed topping up, he observed, looking at his reflection in the mirror. Blonde roots were peaking through the dark brown, almost white in comparison. The effect wasn't bad, but it would defy the whole point of it. He mentally added it to his to-do list, and washed his hands, yawning deeply. He hadn't heard Harry coming to bed last night, but he would bet his wand that the other boy didn't get to sleep until very late. If there was even the smallest chance that he would be able to catch another couple of hours, Draco would have joined him back in bed right that minute, but he felt way too jittery for that.
He rummaged through the few clothes he had hastily thrown in his rucksack after having to relinquish their room, looking for a clean t-shirt, when his fingers touched the firm edge of a book. He extracted it carefully and his eyes widened when he saw the pink, glittery cover of the diary.
Draco hadn't thought about the diary in ages and a pang of guilt stabbed through his chest, making him sniff. He blinked rapidly, willing away the prickle that had started to blur his vision, and ran a finger along the spine of the book. Lupin must have charmed it in a way that whatever colour Draco changed it to would eventually fade back to pink, but he couldn't even find it in himself to be irritated at the pettiness.
After a long, calming breath that did nothing to actually sedate his nerves, Draco opened it to the first page.
And there it was, the small black smear of ink with his mother's name. It was moving, slowly, across the page.
Alive.
Draco wondered what had woken his mother, if it could be the same nervous restlessness that had been plaguing him. He wondered if she had even slept at all. He imagined her in his room, pacing, her eyes trailing over his belongings. Lingering on the corner between his wardrobe and the desk, where dozens of pictures telling her son's life hung like a mosaic of memories, each carefully preserving some of their most cherished moments in time.
Draco's room had always been minimalistic, almost sterile, little of his personality showing through the expensive, classical furnishing. All but for that portion of the wall, and the small toy chest Draco still kept underneath the frames.
He could see his mother reaching in, searching for a battered old dragon that had a button for an eye and was missing three scales near the tip of his tail. Prince had been Draco's first love, one that had accompanied him through the loneliness of a huge, empty manor and the naive, childish dream that one day he might grow to tame the real things. His father had scoffed, telling him that dragon tamer was not an appropriate career prospect, and Draco knew that now. As a six year old, though, he had nodded dutifully and then hugged Prince tight, whispering different promises into his soft, fluffy ears.
He wondered if his father would be more accepting, now that his son had been missing for months.
That made him think of Harry, and how much his life had changed in so little time. When had Harry become his priority? Draco couldn't tell when, just that he had, without any doubt.
He never knew love could hit so hard, that a person could become the centre of his whole universe in a matter of weeks. Maybe it was the urgency that came with Harry's ticking clock that made his feelings stronger. That wretched curse, counting down to a date in the future Draco wasn't privy to but that he knew would come, sooner or later.
It was this half knowledge, this looming doom that could face them when he least expected, that consumed most of Draco's musing. He couldn't help having the sort of pessimistic thoughts he had often chastised Theo about. If Harry wore something that made Draco's eyes linger a little longer, he would ask himself if maybe that would be the last time the other boy got to look like that. Every smile could be the last. Every heartbeat.
Every time Draco's name fell from Harry's lips, whether in annoyance or fondness, teasing or lustful, Draco imprinted it to memory, afraid that he'd never get to hear it again.
He knew that, as long as their hunt for horcruxes was unsuccessful, he had time. It made him want to sabotage their whole mission, sure that Harry would not willingly face the Dark Lord until they had eliminated all of his potential links to resurrection.
However, Harry's growing frustration had started to affect the quality of their interactions so, really, there was no winning in slowing things down.
The four of them were already spending entire days bent over tedious research, or trying new spells on each other with the sole effect of ending up bruised and achy, but overall not any less inadequate against trained Death Eaters. The occlumency lessons were some of the only few moments he and Harry got to spend alone. While Draco felt they had helped them connect on a deeper, new level, they were still exhausting and awful and nothing like the levity and freedom they got to experience in California.
In old, rainy England, it was all about work.Yet, they had made very little progress. The medallion taunted them from inside one of Harry's socks, an incessant buzz in the air every time they huddled around it, hoping that one of them had found a way to destroy it.
They had a little breakthrough when Weasley had discovered Horcruxes were susceptible to basilisk venom and fiendfyre, but it turned out to be a short lived-victory. Since, as Draco had so helpfully pointed out, the former was hardly found at Tesco's and the latter would most likely kill them all, their enthusiasm had reverted back to gloom pretty quickly after.
Draco had a plan, though. One that was most likely stupid, and quite reckless , but a plan nonetheless. After days of hitting their heads on the same brick over and over, he counted it as an improvement.
There was only one person he could think of that might have the answers they needed, the only other person alive that knew of Harry's "condition".
Draco needed to talk to Snape.
Snape, who was in Hogwarts, where reaching him would be an impossible mission at best, a suicide one at worst. Snape that had killed Dumbledore and whose reasons to betray the Dark Lord were still unclear to Draco.
Snape that Harry hated with a burning passion.
It was obvious why he couldn't really share his plan with the rest of the house. For one, Granger and Weasley absolutely did not trust him fully, despite his mortifying confessions under veritaserum. And, while Harry might have been whipped enough to put his faith in Draco, he also despised Snape too much to believe there were any redeeming qualities in the man. Not that Draco could tell him as much without betraying other things he had seen in the pensieve.
So, he was on his own. Even if Draco could somehow find a way to reach Snape without any of the other Death Eaters in Hogwarts noticing, there was also the problem of sneaking out to meet the man in secret. Doing anything undetected while on virtual house arrest with a bunch of nosey Gryffindors that used to hate you wasn't really that simple.
He had gotten so far as thinking to get Kreacher involved but, even though the elf had never made it a secret that he liked Draco better than any of the others, he was still bound to Harry. Despite being small, the risk of Harry finding out and misunderstanding the situation was far too high for Draco, who wanted nothing less than to lose that precious trust.
All he could do, then, was hoping that a stroke of genius would hit him in the head before he'd resort to dose everybody in the house with a batch of that strong sleeping draught Lupin had left behind and pray they wouldn't realise.
Just as Draco was starting to wonder if there was a more productive way of spending his morning than hiding in the bathroom, raised voices coming from the corridor interrupted his musing.
He poked his head out of the door and was met with an eyeful of Harry's naked back.
"I think that's more than a valid concern, Hermione." The other boy was saying, some droplet falling off his wet hair and rolling down his bare skin. Draco thanked the Heavens above that he was wearing trousers.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Harry. Haven't you got better things to think about in the shower?"
Draco couldn't help snorting at the involuntary double entendre and Harry whipped around to look at him, clearly just noticing he was there.
"Uh, hi." Harry greeted, blinking slowly.
"Morning." Draco replied, his mouth still curved in an amused smile. "What were you thinking about in the shower?" He asked with a wink.
Granger was beet red when she cleared her throat and muttered "I didn't mean it that way!"
"Her parents." Harry spoke over her, and Draco laughed harder when she groaned and hid her face in her hands.
"Kinky." He said, delighted at the horror on Harry's face when he realised what he had just said. "No, but really, why were you thinking about Granger's parents in the shower of all places? Something you want to share with the class? I'm not jealous, I swear."
"I hate you." Harry said, with a sigh. Before Draco could reply, he turned, face stony, towards his friend. Granger wasn't meeting his gaze, hands fidgeting nervously with the hem of her pyjamas. Suddenly, Draco wanted to know what they had been talking about that made her so shifty.
"I think we need to make sure they are safe. After what happened with Colin's family…"
"They already are!" Granger interrupted him, sounding pained. Her voice was higher than necessary and Harry stopped talking, mouth slightly parted as he watched her with a confused frown.
"They are?" He asked, after a while. "Oh, well, that's great. Good thinking, Hermione. Well, of course, they'd be the first to be targeted… Are they staying with the Weasleys?"
She grimaced, rubbing her nose, but remained quiet.
Harry grabbed her arm, forcing her to look up. "Hermione, what are you not telling me?"
"I- they were. But, Harry, you need to understand. They are Muggles, they are powerless and don't really understand any of this. Yes, over the years I've talked about… you, and our world. They know a bit of what's going on but…"
She paused. Harry's grip tightened on her arm and she winced, making him take a step back and release her.
"But?" He prompted, a bit more gently. His eyes were still intense, and she averted hers once more, looking down at her feet.
"They were getting really worried and making it hard on everybody… we just don't have the time for that. Then Remus told me what he had done to you and it gave me an idea… what if, you know, they didn't know I existed. If I changed their identities and encouraged them to move far enough, then no one would be looking for them." Her voice wobbled and Harry's hard frown shifted into something warmer.
"Where?" He asked, simply.
"Australia. We don't have many relatives around, and Remus helped me. It was fairly easy and, you know… You are back, it worked out for you… I know you are still angry with him for making that choice without your consent, but it- it worked, Harry. I just need them safe. I'll deal with the consequences later."
"No, yeah, you are right. It's not…ideal." Harry said, struggling for words. "But then, really, nothing about this situation is ideal. You shouldn't need to protect your family in the first place."
He looked thoughtful and Granger let out a relieved breath, wiping the corner of her eyes.
"We should consider doing something similar with my relatives." Harry mused, looking down at his naked stomach as if just realising he had left the bathroom in nothing but joggers to chase down his friend.
Draco handed him one of his own t-shirts and was about to argue that Harry owned nothing to his so-called-family when a crash from upstairs, followed by rushed footsteps and Weasley's panicked voice, had the words dying on his lips.
"-Rry! Harry!" Weasley called, urgent and strained. Draco threw a quick glance at an equally bewildered Granger before the two of them followed Harry up the stairs and into their former room.
The boy in Weasley's arms seemed particularly small compared to the 6 foot 4 of overgrown ginger. He was scanning his surroundings with wild, terrified eyes, struggling weakly in the awkward embrace that was keeping him upright.
Weasley sent them a pained grimace and explained, with a tinge of guilt. "I needed the loo. He must have woken when I was in there, I was only gone five minutes, honest. I think he tried getting out of bed."
"Hi Colin." Granger told him, gently. "You are safe."
The boy's eyes snapped in her direction and widened comically when he spotted Harry next to her. "Harry? Harry Potter?" He whispered, voice rough with disuse.
"-lo, Colin." Harry said, with an awkward smile. Colin's gaze trailed down his torso, resting on the t-shirt that Harry was still clutching nervously in both hands. There was astonishment and a dreamy sort of haze in the boy's perusal but, in Draco's professional opinion, it hadn't lacked a certain interest. Something akin to annoyance flared in the pit of his stomach, and he subtly ran a finger down the small of Harry's naked back, making the other boy shiver.
Harry let out a little, choking sound and hastened to put on the t-shirt Draco had given him, groaning when he noticed it was the one with a white python and flowers print in the middle of the chest Draco had bought as a joke.
"This is so tacky!" He hissed from the corner of his mouth, and Draco shrugged with a smirk.
The lack of naked skin must have awoken the younger boy from his stupor because he straightened his spine, wobbling when Weasley lessened his grip.
"Hey, slow down, mate. You just regained the bones in your legs, I wouldn't try standing on them just yet." Weasley said, guiding him back towards the bed and helping him to sit on the edge.
Colin gave him a grateful nod, before turning to Harry once more. He was still very weak but there was a definite note of uninhibited excitement when he spoke. "There have been rumours, you know, that you were back." He said, voice raising in tone and speed with every word. "I've never believed you left for good, obviously. You'd never abandon us."
"Err, yeah, I guess. It wasn't actually my… choice." Harry grimaced, rubbing the back of his neck. The younger boy trailed the movement eagerly, an adoring smile stretching his lips.
Draco believed he had found the president of Harry's fanclub. The thought was mildly irritating and, irrationally, he felt the need to make a statement, however childish that might be.
His touch light and subtle, he let his fingers graze the hem of Harry's t-shirt until they met skin, coming to rest possessively just above the hip bone.
No one but Harry seemed to have noticed. Draco felt him squirming slightly under his touch and smiled to himself, rubbing teasing circles into the other boy's skin.
He allowed the babble of conversation between the others to wash over him, focusing his interest on observing the newcomer. Aside from his clear infatuation with Harry, the boy seemed to possess a skittish kind of energy that reminded Draco of a mouse. Even in appearance, with his small frame, dull brown hair and big, shiny eyes he was very mousy.
The more Draco watched him watching Harry, the more he felt that sense of familiarity that he had first experienced when Lupin had arrived carrying the boy's sleeping body. He tried recalling where in Hogwarts they might have met, to no avail, until a snippet of conversation caught his attention.
"… until I tell Dennis about this. Wish I had my camera with me. You wouldn't mind, would you, Harry?" It was then that Draco remembered flashes of a small, excited boy screaming Harry's name at every quidditch match, a bulky camera dangling from his red and gold scarved neck.
Bloody Gryffindors.
Harry's face twitched into something complicated, and Draco suppressed the urge to laugh. Before he got the chance to watch Harry fumble for word, Weasley interjected, robbing Draco of life's little pleasures.
"I'm sure Harry wouldn't mind giving you an autographed headshot to bring back to your family." He said, an amused tilt in his voice that gave away how much he actually knew Harry would mind. "But for now we should focus on getting you in shape to join them. Are you hungry?"
Before the kid could even do as much as parting his lips in reply, Harry blurted out "On it!" at a more than reasonable volume, and fled the room, Draco hot on his trail.
"Oh, he most definitely does." Draco found himself agreeing, with Weasley of all people, that same afternoon, during one of their breaks from training.
"He does not have the… ugh, hots for me, Ron. It's just a case of misplaced hero-worship… If you two idiots don't stop laughing, I swear to Merlin!" Harry groaned, taking a big gulp of water and wiping his mouth with the hem of his t-shirt.
"Sure. But maybe avoid doing that…" Draco said, gesturing to the sliver of Harry's stomach that peaked through his ill-adjusted clothes. "…in front of him if you don't want to risk giving him a boner and, maybe, a stroke."
He snorted as Harry flushed, pulling the t-shirt down so quickly it stretched around the neck.
"No need to cover yourself in front of me, Potter. I can control my boners."
"Eww, Malfoy, disgusting. Look, you killed my Patronus." Weasley whined, pointing at where his silvery Jack Russel had just popped out of existence.
Draco shrugged. "Either way, no point in denying that Creevy kid has some other kind of worshipping in mind when it comes to you, Henry."
"Oh, that's for sure. You weren't there when he started talking about how tall you have grown and how wide your…"
"Can we please just focus, before I need to Obliviate myself?" Harry pleaded, adjusting his glasses and stance to make sure they knew he was done with the conversation.
The three of them had left Granger to her research back in Wales, where she had assured she didn't mind staying in case Creevy needed help. After all, she was the quickest to master new spells, Draco could admit as much.
The room they had chosen for training was more spacious and open than the one he and Harry would use for their Occlumency lessons, and Draco almost liked it. He was quite used to opulent decor and, while it caused Harry to wrinkle his nose at every turn, it was familiar to Draco in a way that made the place feel comfortable, almost homey. The rest of Grimmauld Place was undoubtedly a victim of bad taste, too much money and little sense of harmony, but not this room. With his rich, mahogany flooring and pale cream walls, which blessedly lacked any family portraits or embalmed elves, Draco could imagine it fully furnished to perfection. Maybe a piano, in the corner, a comfortable sofa and a plush rug.
As it was, the corner Draco envisioned as having the perfect lighting for a reading nook, was currently scattered with slashed cushions, bleeding feathers everywhere, and a couple of dummies with no heads and burning marks across their chests.
It was one of these dummies Harry summoned, looking determined. "I think we should work on some controlling spells, like Oppugno or Piertotum Locomotor. I know you managed to contain the damage from that Confringo solely on the arm, Draco, but I'd rather find alternatives, to be honest. You showed great control, not saying you didn't, but…"
"Yeah, the idea of using that to blast someone's real limbs off makes me queasy, not gonna lie." Weasley agreed, looking green at the mere idea.
"'S not like they'll be extending the same courtesy." Draco warned, thinking of what had been done to Creevy. "There won't always be a statue, or something around, to animate and do the job for you. Without their wand arm they'd be as good as useless, not many of those idiots have mastered even basic wandless magic." He said, remembering the Dark Lord's rage when addressing his less than adequate followers, who could count the likes of Crabbe and Goyle's fathers among their forces.
"I'd be as good as useless if I'm gonna be sick all over the place." Weasley countered, with a shudder. He braced himself, raising his wand to the dummy with clear appreciation that it was made of rags and not flesh, and muttered "Oppugno".
The dummy raised one arm weakly before it dropped back down, and Weasley cursed.
"It's more like a-pug and not a-puhg. Also, try putting some intent behind it, I find it works much better when I do magic than whatever that piss-poor attempt was." Draco suggested flatly.
"I'm not a fucking squib, Malfoy, thank you very much. I don't need you teaching me how magic works!" Weasley snapped, but Draco had stopped listening to him.
Squib.
How hadn't he thought about it before? And, suddenly, Weasley's enraged babbling and Harry's groans of frustrations faded to background noise. Draco knew how to get in touch with Snape.
It wasn't until a few hours later that Draco could finally think about enacting his plan. In all honesty he hadn't believed it possible for the occasion to present itself so quickly, already resigned to wait who-knew-how-long for the right time. Training had dragged on, peppered with disagreements and mutual annoyance at each other. It came to the point that Draco had finally decided to leave the room and hide in the library, under the pretence of research.
Not long after that, Harry had popped his head in to say he and his friend would be going grocery shopping. Draco had learnt to translate such regular trips to Tesco with Harry's need to escape the metaphorical four walls that seemed to cage him so much when frustrated. So, he had waved them off, assuring he would be meeting them back in Cardiff when done with his reading.
The sound of their disapparition by the front door was all he needed to realise he was completely alone for the first time in ages, and that it would be stupid not to do something about it.
He waited a few minutes, despite knowing that Weasley wouldn't risk such a long distance joint apparition twice in so little time, unless it was for something very urgent.
"Kreacher?" He called, after the silence had stretched long enough.
The elf appeared with a pop, bowing ridiculously low until the tip of his thin nose brushed the floor.
"Young Master Black has called Kreacher, Sir. Would the Master like some tea, perhaps?" He asked, in that subservient tone of his that made Draco cringe.
"No, uhm, Kreacher… thank you." He said, remembering manners Harry would be proud of.
"Kreacher would have made dinner, he would." The elf continued, a note of annoyance entering his voice that was quite common when he was preparing to talk about Harry. "But Master Just Harry said it was not necessary. As if he could do any better than Kreacher, a young fool such as himself. Kreacher has been serving the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black for over 40 years…"
"Yeah, Kreacher, I know." Draco interrupted. "He is actually a decent cook but, anyway… Listen, I need you to do me a favour."
"Of course, Sir, Kreacher can. Kreacher will. Mistress Narcissa's son simply has to tell Kreacher what he needs, and…"
"Kreacher!"
"Could Master Draco be wanting some steak pie, or a roast?"
"I don't want any food!" Draco snapped, as tempting as the offer might have sounded. "What I need is for you to lie to Harry."
"Kreacher can't, Sir." The elf said, his nasal voice pitching higher. He looked sorrowful, as if his obligations to his true Master conflicted painfully with his honest desire to make Draco happy. Draco supposed they did, and for the first time he felt pity for the elf, bound by ancient laws to obey a wizard he didn't even particularly like.
"No!" He hastened to amend. "I don't want you to lie directly, just, err… omit the truth. There is little chance you're even going to be asked, I reckon. No one should be back here for today. I'm almost sure of it… and if they do come I am fucked anyway. But I need to leave for a bit. It's to help Harry, but I can't tell him because he wouldn't understand. So, well, in case the topic comes up in the future, I need you to confirm I was here all the time. Could you do that, Kreacher?"
The elf nodded, oversized head bobbing. It was enough for Draco, it had to be.
With one last grateful tilt of his head in the direction of the creature, Draco scurried towards the exit. As soon as the front door had shut behind him, he took a deep breath and, mind firmly on his destination, disapparated with a muffled crack.
