Many thanks to YetiBettyFoufetti for looking over this chapter.
CW: swearing
Chapter Text
"He worked in your house, Draco."
The urgency in Harry's voice awakened something in Draco. A memory of dress robes being dragged across smooth wooden floors. How beautiful they were, his father's robes, with their arabesque motifs and golden hem.
Of lavish late night banquets held in the drawing room, observed through the crack between double doors leading to the kitchens. So many unknown men and women, so tall and handsome, whispering in his mother's ear, lighting her cigarette, refilling her glass. Her smile widening, brightening, as she notices him peeking through.
The elves must have forgotten to lock the kitchen doors, his mother would later tell his father in a whisper, sometimes after Draco had shaken hands with the elegant strangers. They had called him little lord of the manor, invited him into their lap, admired his eloquence and his posture. Had told him he was the spitting image of his father. He had played his part beautifully. Said all the right things - he had known it to be true because he could see it in his parents eyes. He could always tell when they were proud of him. But eventually it all had to come to an end. He was led back to bed, one hand held by his mother, one by his father, tucked in, kissed goodnight, whispered I love you in each ear.
I'll have a talk with Dobby, his father had replied, closing his bedroom door softly.
"Father's elf," he exclaimed, slapping a hand to his forehead, relieved he'd remembered. It seemed very important to Harry for him to remember.
Harry's frown deepened. "He wasn't your father's," he said coldly, taking a step away from Draco and crossing his arms.
"I just meant he wasn't one of the elves taking care of me-"
"So he isn't worth remembering then?"
"What's gotten into you? We had many elves, I don't remember all-"
"You didn't have them!" Harry shouted, stunning Draco into silence. Some passersby turned to stare. "Dobby did not belong to Lucius."
It was maybe Harry's inflection, the same one he used to speak with petty criminals he rounded up. Or maybe the venom he put into saying his father's name - a name they mostly avoided for this exact reason, preferring the much more neutral your father. It was maybe all that plus the ramifications of his words that made Draco's defensiveness turn into rage on the spot.
"What exactly are you accusing me of, Harry? Are you implying I'm pro elf slavery? Should I remind you I helped Hermione draft her bill of elf rights last year, when neither you or Ron could be bothered?"
"I'm not accusing you of anything like that." He was tapping his foot furiously, looking towards the end of the busy road, shaking his head as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "I'm just wondering how it is possible to forget a person that worked in your house for the first twelve years of your life, as if-"
"He worked in the kitchens!"
"Oh, so not important then."
"Don't put words into my mouth. I just didn't interact with him. I remember Wella and Nestor very well. They were the ones taking care of me, if you want to know!"
"No, I don't want to know the names of all the slaves you employed-"
"That I employed?"
"Whatever. Let's just drop it."
Draco felt something snap inside of him. Again with that damned word. He was tired of dropping conversations like crumbs in a forest, leaving behind them a trail of half said reproaches. Tired of the effort it took to look away from the truth that lay so evidently in the space between them.
Suddenly, it was all too much. Harry's sudden bouts of anger were too much. The shields he put up, always higher and higher, were too much. The fear that he'd go back to using if Draco said the wrong thing, did the wrong thing. That too had become too much.
Suddenly there was no more energy for the voice in his head that always told him not now. Not now, he's just started feeling better. Not now, we're having so much fun. Not now, he already seems so upset. "I knew you'd do this sooner or later. I knew it," he said, unable to control the tremor in his voice.
"Do what?" Harry asked spitefully, turning his eyes towards him like searchlights on a thief in the middle of the night.
"Knew you'd wake up one day and realize we didn't meet seven years ago, in a run down bookstore on the wrong side of town."
"I always knew that, Draco."
"Did you? Because it sure looks to me as if you're just putting two and two together now. Yes, I grew up in a manor with elves and yes, I never knew half of their names. Which you were already aware of seeing as how we went to school together and you were privy to my entitlement in all its glory."
"I never-"
"You said it yourself. That you couldn't stand me. So what changed, Harry? What changed between the day you gave me my wand back, where you treated me like I was dirt under your shoes, and the day you gave me my mother's letter? You liked seeing me dirt poor, is that it? You got off seeing me reduced to a squib with nothing to his name, after flaunting my wealth and status all my life?"
"What's wrong with you? How can you say that?"
"Well, I can only take a wild guess as to your motivations, Harry, since you're not going to be sharing them with me anytime soon. You refuse to address anything that happened before we were twenty four-"
"Please, don't start again-"
"Start again? You're the one who started this when you decided to question me about some fucking elf-"
"So what do you want from me? Do you want me to hold you accountable for every shitty thing you did in school? Will that make you stop obsessing over this? You want to apologize about Buckbeak next?"
Draco stared at him in disbelief. "Who?"
"Buckbeak, the hippogriff you tried to put down? Did you forget him too?"
"The hippogriff?" Draco erupted. "The fucking hippogriff? That's the first example that comes into your mind when you think of things I should apologize for? The hippogriff ?!"
"His name," Harry boomed, taking a step closer, "was Buckbeak!"
Draco's eyes darted across Harry's enraged features. They were facing each other, as if about to duel. The street had grown quiet around them - only the occasional car whizzed by, casting long shadows on the pavement.
"You're insane. This is the only logical explanation I can come up with", Draco uttered, bewildered. "Otherwise, I can't explain how you can keep pretending."
"Pretending what?"
"Pretending we didn't fight on opposite sides of the war. Talking about hippogriffs and elves as if-" Harry let out an angry puff, waved Draco's words away. "What's with that reaction, Harry?" he asked, his voice high with exasperation, "As if I just mentioned a relative you don't like?"
"I wasn't talking about that."
"Well, I bloody was! What the fuck. How long are we going to pretend that didn't happen? You didn't even blink when I told you I can't even get close to a broom - let alone fly! - because I still have nightmares about what happened in the Room of Requirement, but now you're questioning me about a hippogriff. Acting all righteous about it as if that's the worst thing that I've done?"
"I'm sorry you lost your friend that night. What else do you want me to say? Everybody lost somebody that night."
"You think I'm talking about Crabbe? I'm talking about the fact I tried to turn you in to Riddle that night, Harry! What the fuck!"
"You would have never turned me in," Harry sighed dismissively, as if tired of stating the same well known fact over and over again."You didn't know what you were doing."
"Is that what you tell yourself?! That I was just confused?" Draco hollered, bringing a hand to his chest. "That I wasn't of sound mind?"
"You were a child. You were trying to protect your family-"
"We were the same age, you fucking dickhead! You were just a child too when you single handedly ended a war, so don't you tell me I was too young to know what I was doing. I knew very well what I was doing-"
"What are you fighting with me about, Draco?" he asked in the same tired tone. "You're obviously not the same person you were then so I don't see-"
"Oh, am I not? So what, you're only with half of a person, then? Only half of me? We just go on as if the other half never existed?" he mocked, ignoring the tightness in his chest.
"Of course not-"
"Which person did you follow under your invisibility cloak then? The one too stupid to know what they were doing? Or the one you wanted to shag?"
"What are you talk-"
"Don't you dare lie to me, Harry. I know you followed me to the library that night. Why did you do that? You thought I was still confused? Wanted to set me straight?"
"Alright," Harry said, reaching out to Draco. Draco waved his hand away. "I'm sorry I followed you that night-"
"Which person did you ask about Dobby then?"
"This conversation is going nowhere. Let's just go ho-"
"No, this conversation is going exactly where it should be going! It's going to the core of our problem. And the problem, Harry, is that it doesn't make any sense why you would decide, out of all the people in the world, to be with me. "
Harry's eyes found his in an instant. "I didn't decide-"
"Yes. Yes, you decided. You're the one who always came to me, Harry. I never came to you! I would have never dared to, after everything! So tell me, why? Why did you show up to my work and take me home that night? Why, seeing as how I sent a hippogriff to his death when I was only thirteen and I obviously never respected my house elves and I was a fucking Death Eater - a shit one to your standards, of course! Who isn't shit compared to you? - but a Death Eater none the fucking less?!"
"Stop-"
Draco took another step towards him. "Tell me why, Harry."
"I don't know! What kind of a question is that? This isn't something I decided on one day. You don't choose who you're- "
"Obviously not," Draco cut him off with an unsteady voice, "because I would have never chosen someone as heartless as you had I been given the choice." And with that, he turned on his heel before Harry could see the tremor in his jaw.
"Draco," he heard Harry saying behind him but he couldn't turn back. He needed to get away from Harry. It was imperative that he got as far away as possible.
He noticed a taxi with the corner of his eye coming from the opposite direction. As he stepped off the curb he barely avoided the cars rushing by, waving to get the driver's attention. "Where are you going?" Harry shouted as Draco got in the car and slammed the door, shutting him out.
He became aware that his hands were shaking uncontrollably. The tightness in his chest had worsened. This couldn't be happening to him again.
He gave David's address. David would understand. David had seen it before. He used to get them a lot at the shelters - they called them Draco's tremors. As in "Draco's having his tremors again, somebody find him something to eat," or "He was shaking so bad, it was worse than Draco's tremors."
It'd been years since he last had one. It didn't make any sense. He even went down to the dungeons of the Ministry to test it one day, a couple of weeks after he'd arrived in London. He told himself that if he could step on that corridor again and stand still, then it meant he was rid of them for good.
Yet here he was.
"Sir, are you all right?"
"Ye-yes," he managed to say, his voice faint compared to the thumping of his heart.
If he could just calm his heart, if he could just breathe, then he would figure this out. Make it stop before he reaches David's.
He closed his eyes. He could feel cold sweat running down his forehead.
You're evil, boy. Plain and simple. Just like your father before you. Damn cursed family, if you ask me.
They were right. He was evil. He'd always been evil.
You've got them fancy lawyers doing the talking for you. But we know the real you. We see the darkness in your heart.
They did know the real him. They were the only ones who had looked.
Nobody will ever love you again, boy. How could anybody love somebody so despicable and wicked as you? Better if you stay with us, here.
Harry had never forgiven him. He'd simply failed to comprehend the gravity of the situation. Denied reality as it stood before him. And it was only a matter of time before the story he'd been telling himself - that he hadn't known what he was doing, that he'd been a victim - would shatter. Then he'd realize Draco was truly unforgivable.
He opened his eyes and stared at the phone ringing in his hands. It was Harry. He let the phone slip away and closed his eyes.
"Blimey, Draco," David said when he saw him on his threshold. The worst had passed in the taxi, but his hands were still trembling. "Still? What happened?"
Draco had always known the cause of his tremors, of his bouts of panic. It didn't take a detective to make the connection between a year spent in a dungeon and a sudden and new fear of closed up spaces. Or of the Room of Requirement and a fear of fires. Of anything that flew. Of Riddle and a fear of snakes. Definitely a fear of snakes. And then there were the nightmares, always there to remind him of that connection in case he ever forgot. But he couldn't very well go on and tell a muggle that story, so he'd invented a whole different one. The story of an everyday kind of violence. Something that happened to almost every man there. David hadn't questioned him further. He didn't have any reason to. So he had the tremors, so what? Everybody had something there. This was more difficult to explain.
"Just a small one. I'm fine."
"What happened?"
"I don't know," he mumbled mechanically, making for the nearest chair.
"This isn't normal, Draco. I thought you had this looked at by now. It's one thing to happen to you in a bloody homeless shelter when you're twenty, another out of the blue years later."
"I'm fine!"
"I'm taking you to the hospital."
"For what? I'm fine!"
"If you're fine the doctors will tell you you're fine and we'll come back here."
He'd seen another doctor about it once. He had married that doctor years later. Just that thought made him want to weep. Why hadn't he stayed in France? Why did he have to come back to London?
He acquiesced, simply because it was the path of least resistance and he didn't have a lot of resistance left in him. David took him to the nearest hospital. He made sure Draco was seen right away, just like he used to on the rare days doctors set up tents in the front room. It was three in the morning by the time he'd been thoroughly examined, given some calming pills and informed he had had a panic attack. Which he was already aware of, obviously.
"For how long have you been having these symptoms?"
"Since I was 18, but they stopped when I was around 26. I went through a traumatic event at 18. I'd much rather not go into the details," he said, reciting almost word for word what he used to tell the Red Cross doctors at the shelter.
"Of course. Do you also have sleep issues at the moment?"
"Just occasional nightmares."
"Moments of dissociation, anxiety, depression?"
"Not anymore."
"Are you seeing a psychiatrist?"
"No. I'm fine, it was just a one off event. I've been fine for years."
"Alright. Well in that case, you're free to go. But I suggest you see somebody. Sounds like you might be suffering from -"
"Thanks," he said, closing the door behind him before the doctor could utter those damned words. He didn't suffer from anything. He was just still paying the price for what he'd done.