Notes:
Many thanks to my wonderful beta YetiBettyFoufetti.
Chapter Text
The building towered over Draco. It looked as imposing as he'd imagined despite how badly its ornate façade had deteriorated.
He'd only ever seen the ancestral Black home in old photographs, the kind that were frayed at the edges. They lived in a box in Mother's nightstand and were rarely taken out. They made her sad, Draco had figured out as he got older. As a child though, he looked forward to the days she told the house elfs not to draw the curtains and didn't leave her bed. He was allowed to join her and they would spend the afternoon snuggled up under the covers, going through her old box of photographs.
One of his favorite photographs showed her and her sisters as children, lined up in front of the stairs of 12 Grimmauld Place. His mother was laughing and pointing to something outside of the frame while her sisters were staring sternly at the camera. They were dressed in their best robes and had their Hogwarts trunks with them. It was a Black tradition to spend the night at 12 Grimmauld Place before heading off to Hogwarts the next day. The whole family gathered for dinner to see the children to King's Cross. Draco's Great Aunt had died before he'd reached eleven and the house became impossible to find after her death, so he never had the chance to participate in this tradition.
If Draco could have gotten anything back from the Manor before it was burnt down, it would have been that photograph of his young mother laughing.
Draco had often walked by Grimmauld Place in his strolls around London, especially as a homeless man. He'd stare at the improbable gap between numbers 11 and 13 and think of the irony that the last place he could call home was hidden from him forever by ancient spells he would never be capable of breaking.
He couldn't believe he was actually looking at it. He couldn't believe Harry had had it all this time.
"Come on," Harry said, grabbing his arm and advancing up the front steps. He'd been so excited to show Draco the house he'd called in late to work so they could go straight away. Draco was still in a state of shock.
Harry used his wand to open the weathered front door which was missing a handle and a stale smell hit Draco when he stepped into the dark, narrow hallway. A handful of gas lamps sparked to light, allowing him to see that the wall was lined with jackets. Amongst them, Draco recognized Harry's Auror coat. A grand chandelier, in the same style as the one they had at the Manor, hovered over him.
On his left an arch opened into a large room. He recognized the formal dining room right away, even if it looked nothing like it did in his mother's photographs. The long table and the chairs had been disposed of. Harry hadn't replaced the furniture. Instead, the room was full of boxes. Before Draco could get closer and see what the boxes contained, Harry pulled him out of there and nudged him towards the end of the hallway.
The scene inside the kitchen was eerie. A cutting board and a knife lay next to the sink full of dirty dishes. The table was covered in papers. One chair was drawn back as if the owner had just left to get something from the other room. Yet he knew - Harry'd just told him - he hadn't stepped foot in there for more than twelve years.
At a closer look that became more obvious. A glass of water still half full was perched on top of a pile of newspapers that had yellowed. The dirty dishes in the sink were full of mold. A layer of dust covered everything.
Intrigued, Draco turned his attention to Harry. He was fumbling with the lock of a door Draco hadn't even noticed, barely visible between a set of ancient cabinets.
"You have to see this," he said when the door finally gave, gesturing to Draco to follow him.
The door led to another set of stairs that opened into a large dungeon. The walls were covered with shelves and it was very big, probably spanning the width of the house. Draco understood why Harry had been so eager to get him down there.
"This is-"
"A potions room," Draco said, mesmerized by the sheer size of the room. The temperature was perfect too. He wouldn't have to ask someone else to perform all the necessary spells to keep a constant temperature anymore. "I can't believe you own this," Draco repeated for the millionth time.
Harry'd told him on the way how it came into his possession. What it had been used as during the War. Draco had heard stories about the headquarters of the Order, it's just that nobody had mentioned that all of that had happened in his Great Aunt's house. The irony that his Great Aunt had been one of the earliest supporters of Voldemort didn't escape him either.
"I can't believe it never crossed my mind to show it to you before."
They visited the first floor next. The window in the drawing room had been left open and dead leaves had settled all over the mismatched furniture, carried by the wind. The pages of a newspaper had been spread around as well. Draco noticed he'd stepped on a page. He picked it up while Harry was messing with the curtains that covered the entire back wall.
The newspaper was dated 2 May 1999. The one year anniversary of the final battle.
"Look," Harry said triumphantly.
Draco looked up. He gasped.
"Merlin," he said, letting go of the newspaper and getting closer to inspect the Black family tree that had revealed itself. He knew that's what it was because his grandfather had an identical one in his home.
"This is insane," he said, touching the tapestry. It felt the same too.
"I'm glad the spellwork on this was so damn powerful," Harry laughed, glancing at Draco's own name in the bottom corner. "I tried to take it down a hundred times."
Draco let out a shocked laugh. The family tree in his grandfather's house had been destroyed when the Ministry seized the property, as it had been passed down to Bellatrix. Another thing he never thought he'd see again.
He put an arm around Harry's waist, his throat too tight to speak. Harry let his head on Draco's shoulder and they stayed like that a while, by the open windows.
Harry's bedroom was next. It was a small room, tucked in at the end of the hallway, just as messy as the others. The unmade bed was covered with various objects while the duvet was crumpled up on the ground. The old antique wardrobe (Draco had had a very similar one in his bedroom at the Manor) in the corner was open. It was full of clothes.
"I don't understand," Draco said, shuffling through them. "Why are your things still everywhere?"
"Huh?" Harry was going through the contents of a nightstand.
"These are your clothes, right? In the closet?"
"Ah. Yes," he said, scratching his head. "I didn't really move. I just didn't come back home one day."
Draco threw Harry a quizzical look.
"Too many memories," was all the explanation Draco got before Harry stepped into the ensuite bathroom. When Draco joined him he found him looking at an old Quidditch magazine left on the counter. Next to it, the sink was full of empty vials of Dreamless Sleep.
They visited every room one by one, like a museum. Draco sometimes stopped to admire certain elements he recognized from the Manor or his grandfather's house, such as the rosettes around the door or the corner pieces of a mirror.
With every new discovery Draco became more ecstatic. Even though the house had declined considerably in the years left alone, its architecture was remarkable. Every room was different yet coherent with the rest and the detail work was outstanding. It would cost thousands of galleons to achieve that level of craftsmanship nowadays.
However, he couldn't help but notice that there were no light switches anywhere. No electricity, in fact. Couldn't help but notice the charms Harry performed to keep the stairs from opening up before them, or to silence a portrait in the hallway. And when Harry disappeared into a room that had a plaque that read Sirius Black and Draco was left alone to wander the rest of the attic, he almost got stuck in a hole that had opened in the floor that he swore hadn't been there one minute before.
"So?" Harry asked him when they met again on the landing, pulling Draco towards him with an expectant smile. "What do you think?"
"I can't live here without magic," Draco blurted out.
Harry's smile faded. "No. It's true," he said, letting go.
They fought on the way to work: Draco made the argument that it was disrespectful to act as if it was Draco's choice not to perform magic when he was serving his sentence. Harry retorted by saying it was totally Draco's choice not to appeal when he knew very well he'd win if he did. Draco said he wouldn't dignify that with a response and in the end they compromised by saying they'll talk about it after work.
They didn't.
They did however go back to the house the next day. They were both attracted to it, it seemed, even if drawn to it by different reasons. Draco knew what drew him there. He didn't however understand how Harry felt about it all. Whatever had driven Harry out of that house must still be inside it. People didn't just leave all their belongings behind because they had a bad day.
Still, they went back day after day. To clean, they said, even if neither of them offered any explanation of why they needed to clean it since they couldn't move in as long as Draco couldn't even open the front door by himself.
They started in the kitchen. Harry did most of the cleaning with magic while Draco did the tedious jobs that required attention, such as sorting through everything to decide what needed to be thrown out. They didn't speak a lot during the process. Even if Harry hadn't mentioned his aunt since their dinner with his cousin, Draco knew this cleaning spree they were on was also a way for Harry to grieve. Something to keep his mind and hands occupied until the late hours of the night. He was happy to keep his mouth shut if that meant he could be by his side during this process, even if sometimes that was very hard. He kept finding objects that must have belonged to his ancestors, such as a tea spoon engraved with his great grandmother's birthday. He wanted to show it and others like it to Harry, but then he'd find him staring into the void while three pans were scrubbing themselves around him and he'd let it go. It could wait.
On top of that, the rumor that they were dating had finally made it to the gossip columns so they had another reason to lock themselves up in a house where nobody could find them. Thankfully, the coverage of Ulmer's trial drowned out most of it and nobody had yet come out with the theory that Draco had used a love potion on Harry, but Draco preferred to avoid public places all the same for a while.
After the kitchen, they moved into the hallway and the dining room. Draco discovered that the boxes in there were full of objects that had the Black family crest on them that Harry was probably in the middle of getting rid of when he abandoned the house. Draco spent an entire weekend going through them and restoring them to their former shine.
On Monday Harry was offered Ulmer's job. Draco had been expecting it. Harry was often offered higher positions that opened up since it would benefit the party if he took on a more senior role. What was unexpected was that Harry considered the offer.
"I didn't know you wanted to do this," Draco told him after Harry shared this while cooking dinner.
"I don't. I love my job. I'm just thinking that if I had accepted this position five years ago when they first offered it to me, none of this would have happened."
Draco wiped his hands on a kitchen towel laying around and tore Cole's proposal from Harry's hand.
"Under no circumstances," Draco said, walking with big steps towards the garbage in the corner, "will you start taking responsibility for other people's crimes."
"I'm not-"
"You are. I know this will be hard to hear, but it's not your job to fill in a post just so somebody corrupt doesn't take it instead."
Draco pushed open the lid of garbage back and held the paper over it.
"Throw it in," Harry sighed. "Thank you."
In the end, a younger member of the party got the job. With any luck, he'd turn out better than Ulmer.
It took them almost one month to finish cleaning the ground floor and move on to the first floor. They stripped the drawing room and got rid of most of the furniture since it had been badly damaged by weather. Draco researched some spells so that Harry could restore the hardwood floors to their original dark stain.
They had a long conversation about the family tree. They didn't quite know what to do with it. It meant a lot to Draco but there was no way they could leave it like that, with Andromeda's and Sirius's names crossed out while Bellatrix was still on there.
In the end, Draco found some paintings downstairs and they covered Bellatrix's name with it. That would do for the time being.
Back at his apartment, Draco walked in on Harry talking on the phone in the kitchen, his back turned towards the entrance. He didn't think anything of it and was about to go in when he realized Harry was talking to his cousin.
He turned around as quietly as possible.
"We're invited to Victor's birthday," Harry told him when he joined him in bed, half an hour later.
Draco had been wondering if they were ever going to see the Dursleys again. Harry hadn't said anything in that regard and Draco knew that with Harry it was better to let things come naturally then to pester him with questions.
"I said we'll go. You don't have to come-"
"Of course I'll come."
Harry nodded. "I thought so. You two really clicked."
Draco laughed but Harry didn't mirror him.
"I'm serious. How do you do it?"
"How do I do what?"
"How do you speak with children?"
Draco stopped laughing. He moved closer to Harry and put an arm around him. "You just need to ask them questions. About themselves. Their friends. Their toys."
"OK…" Harry said thoughtfully. "I can do that."
"Of course you can do that," Draco said, kissing his hand. "You can do anything you set your mind on."
They had finally reached Harry's bedroom after two months of cleaning. Despite the heat outside, the house remained cool and pleasant to be in.
He was sitting at Harry's desk, sorting through decades old correspondence, when he found it. It was an empty piece of parchment, yellowed by the years that had gone over it while it sat on Harry's desk squashed between other papers. There was only one word written, at the top.
The word was Draco.
He stared at it, then back at the pile of papers on Harry's desk. Sure enough, he found his own letter in that pile. The letter he'd written to Harry from prison. The letter he'd never replied to.
Harry hadn't mentioned the appeal anymore since that morning. Draco had secretly been obsessing over it. He thought about it all the time, weighing the options. He read law books. He spoke with Hermione. He spoke with Blaise.
But in the end, he needed to speak to Harry.
He turned towards him. Harry was going through some boxes of old school things he'd found under the bed.
"Look what I found."
Harry put down the caudron he was looking at - Draco recognized it as a caudron children used for potions class - and picked up the paper. Harry inspected Draco's letter with a serious face, then burst into laughter when he saw his own attempt at a reply.
"I told you I tried," he smiled, looking up.
"Do you really want to move back here?"
Harry handed him the letter back.
"Yes," he said, determined.
"Why? How is it different from last time?"
"I've been asking myself that too. I'm not sure. I guess it's before it didn't make a lot of sense for me to live here. And now it does. Because of you."
Draco opened his mouth but Harry carried on. "But we can wait until next year. I don't mind. We can stay at your place until then. I'll sell my place and-"
Draco's parole was set to expire in exactly fifteen months from then.
"I don't want to appeal," Draco said, taking in air, "because I promised myself I wouldn't. My lawyer back then wanted to do it right away. But I didn't. I thought I deserved it. I thought I deserved worse."
Harry let go of the letter. "Draco- It was the deme-"
"Don't tell me it was the dementors. I can't live my life thinking everything I did was because I spent one year listening to dementors whispering in my head that I'm evil."
"Sorry," Harry said, standing up.
Draco looked around at the bedroom. Since Harry was in the middle of sorting through everything it looked even more awful than it had at the beginning. Draco had been daydreaming about what to do with it for the last couple of days - which bed to buy for it, where to put the desk they'd bring over from his new apartment. How to organize their closet.
"But I think you're right. This is stupid. I'm the only one who still holds on to this. I'll appeal."
The appeal was a much less complicated endeavor than Draco anticipated. Hermione put in the request and a couple of weeks later they received the notice. On the day, he left his office and took the lifts to the ground floor. He waited patiently with Hermione by his side until they were called into the office. Hermione presented their arguments. Three men in dark purple robes looked over the parchment she'd prepared and after about ten minutes, one said. "Discharged of all charges."
He was given a date to go in to have the curse that stopped him from doing magic reversed. And that was all. Hermione patted him and the back.
"I need to run, sorry!"
Still dazed by the day's events, he hadn't noticed the usually bustling work area outside his office was half empty. When he opened his door he found all of his friends - including Hermione, and he had no idea how she had gotten there before him - waiting for him. They all started cheering when he came in. Overwhelmed, he looked for Harry in the crowd. He was sitting next to Ron, cheering as loud as everybody. He smiled at him and mouthed, "I love you."
Draco's first spell in fourteen years was opening the front door to 12 Grimmauld Place.
