WARNINGS for this chapter: sex.

Chapter 37: The new deal

Something warm and shiny crept across Harry's face and nudged him out of sleep. He opened his eyes halfway. The blinding rays of the rising sun made him close them again. He had forgotten to draw the curtain around his bed last night. Last night? Wait a second! The sun? Harry was wide awake in an instant. He was not in the Slytherin dungeon. He was in the Gryffindor tower, in his own old dorm, in his own bed, and Ron was snoring away right next. Harry touched his sunlit forehead: a thin dent in the skin ran from top to bottom in the form of a lightning. It was not a dream!

Harry's first impulse was to wake up Ron and to break the great news to him, but he stopped short. What level of brain activity was necessary to process the message that Harry Potter was Harry Potter again? Would Ron even be happy for him? The way they had parted yesterday didn't promise an easy conversation. No, now was not the moment, Harry decided, and sneaked quietly into the shower.

As water streamed down his body, stroking its every bulge and hollow, Harry couldn't get enough of it: He touched his face, and chest, and thighs, and as much of his back as his fingers could reach. This skin felt snug, like home, like he was protected from the elements.

Harry stepped out of the shower, wiped himself dry, and swabbed the fog from the mirror and his glasses. The saturated colours, the contrast of his eyebrows against skin, the bluish shadow along his jaw. Not half bad to look at. He played with his muscles. Draco had taken good care of his body. Harry turned around and... never mind. Thin scratches criss-crossed his back. Harry bent forward. Parallel straight lines a blurry shade of purple ran horizontally across his buttocks. No way!

Harry ran the tips of his fingers cautiously over the welts. A memory of pain still lingered under the skin. The mere guess of what could have brought it about sent Harry's mind swirling. The burn of the slashes turned to heat that spread through his entire abdomen. What the—? Did he like it? Did he like pain?

Dean murmured grumpily in his sleep as Harry stole past and out of the dormitory. The common room was empty, but he heard the tap of slippers coming from the girls' staircase, and jumped through the portrait hole before he knew why. Only crossing the Entrance Hall did he come up with a plausible rationalisation. He needed to concentrate to prepare his speech.

The morning dew soaked his shoes and socks. It had only just started to melt in the rays of the rising sun, filling the air with moist scents. The Quidditch pitch towered like a gigantic corned beef tin, as high as the castle, its spectator stands extended to accommodate half wizarding Britain and Ireland. Harry felt an uneasy flutter in his stomach, trying to wrap his mind around the number of ears that allegedly wanted to hear a few words from his heart. Was his heart even that interesting?

To be honest, right now his heart was completely impassive to questions of war and peace. He could have defeated a dozen Voldemorts and saved a ton of worlds, but being a more recent acquisition, his own wet feet had a more sizable place in his heart right now. Harry walked on with a swing as if he had a purpose, but the real purpose was just to get his, his, feet wet.

Hagrid's hut with the new barn next to it came into view. Harry saw the giant figure emerge from the latter and disappear inside the former. He hadn't talked to Hagrid for a whole year. Was it an intrusive memory of feeling lucky or just a sudden urge to procrastinate, but Harry knew immediately that he had to visit Hagrid. Now.

"Come on in!" Hagrid's voice sounded in response to Harry's knocking.

"Hagrid!" Harry entered the hut, stepping on feathers strewn all over the floor. Carcasses of two unusual-looking pheasants lay on the table, and a bunch of big brown-and-blue-dotted eggs piled in a bowl.

"Gallopin' Gorgons, Harry!" Hagrid froze with a frying pan in his one hand and a scoop of some greyish fatty substance in the other, but his face darkened quickly. "Bin a long time." He turned to the fireplace, threw the fat into the pan and shoved it over the fire.

"Yeah, I'm sorry. It's been a crazy year." Harry gulped. What should he say now?

"It was, wasn' it?" Hagrid looked askance from under his bushy eyebrows.

"You've got a new barn!" Harry hurried to change the subject.

"Not that new any more," Hagrid said to the pan. "So me patients needn' hear me snorin'."

"Patients?"

"The thestrals had a plague of Raven's curse in the winter. Now, Airheart with a broken wing. Got stepped on by Grawp, poor girl. Clumsy little bugger, Grawp is."

The fat began to fizz and smelled not half as bad as it looked.

"Why didn' yeh come?" Hagrid asked so quietly, Harry hadn't thought such a big man could speak like that.

"Er, I got into a bit of a mess, to be honest." If he were to explain the situation with Malfoy now, where should he even start?

"Yeh young people think we old folks are stupid, don' understand anythin'—"

"I don't think you're stupid!"

"Yeh think yeh're the firs' in the world with that sorta problems." Hagrid cracked three of the colourful eggs into the pan. "Yeh could've talked to me, y'know!"

Could he? He had almost talked to him once, but it all ended in just another misunderstanding. Whatever sort of problems Hagrid thought he'd had.

"When I was a young lad, I had that girlfriend."

"You had what?" Harry said a tad too quickly. He had never thought...

"Yeh think we old folks never bin young, eh?" Hagrid put three terracotta plates on the table and broke a loaf into three liberally equal hunks. "What a woman! Bit older than me, she was, an' way bigger," Hagrid's gesture hit the ceiling. "An' yeh know, 'tis no easy job ter hide when yeh're so big, not easy at all."

Harry eyed the third plate, wondering what Hagrid was getting at.

"But we knew our bushes. Never got caught. Not once!" Hagrid scratched the giant fried eggs off the pan onto the plates. "Y'know, I don' never get in nature's way. But, Harry, in the library! With all them rabbitin' books! What the hell were yeh thinkin'?"

Now it finally struck Harry what Hagrid meant.

"Oh, I wasn't— it wasn't—" But before Harry could say it was Malfoy—

"'Course yeh weren't thinkin'!" Hagrid said and picked up two of the plates. "Yer friend bin cleanin' out me new barn fer detention since small hours. Bring him some breakfast, will yeh?" He handed Harry the plates.

Ewen doing detention? He should be in the hospital wing! Harry wasn't sure if he had said 'thank you', as he made way to the barn with a jug of water in one hand, balancing both plates in the other. He kicked the loose-hanging door open. A few bales and a haphazard heap of hay leaned against the opposite wall. Two stalls were separated with breast-high barriers on both sides. One was empty and immaculately clean. The other was occupied by a small hippogriff with a bandaged wing.

"Harry?" Ewen's surprised look wandered from Harry to the plates, and turned sceptical.

"Are you hungry?"

Ewen went from sceptical to defeated. "I'm vegetarian." His lip made a curl oddly reminiscent of Snape.

"Er, aren't eggs vegetarian?"

"Not these eggs." Ewen's stomach growled loudly. "Haven't you seen their parents?"

"Oh okay." Harry set one plate on the floor and started towards the door. "I'll ask Hagrid if he—"

"Wait!" Ewen caught his elbow. "Let's pretend we don't know." He took the plate from Harry's hands. "As they say, the less you wonder, the purer your blood."

They sat on the floor, tucking away the eggs. Ewen moaned gratefully, as the plate emptied. The tension that hung in the air when Harry had entered the barn started to ease.

"How are you? Are you all right?"

"Oh, I am very all right." Ewen was wiping every smudge of yolk with a chunk of bread. "I don't know what Pomfrey did, but when I came around I was already all right. Then she knocked me out with a Sleeping Draught, and when I came around again, it was five o'clock, and she told me that I'm perfectly fit to serve my detention." Ewen's cheeks flexed as he chewed. He licked his lips and fingers.

"What happened to you?"

"I don't know." The empty plate rumbled over the wooden floor, as Ewen shoved it aside. "It was just," Ewen sighed, "overwhelming. Like, too much of everything, and I just blacked out." He leaned back on his elbows. "Nice stags though."

"Are you really all right?"

"Of course, I am!" Ewen laughed, and Harry couldn't hold it any longer. He clambered forward, and their jeans rubbed softly against skin and each other. Harry looked down at Ewen's exposed neck, some elusive unspoken word short of a kiss. He smelled Ewen's fresh sweat, he felt his heat seep through the T-shirt, and he felt his own—his own—erection growing and pressing against Ewen's thigh. It was not the first time they were touching like this. But it was the first time that it felt so real.

"I am Harry Potter," he whispered, listening to the new sound of the familiar words.

"I know." Ewen was struggling not to giggle. "We did it!" He pulled Harry down and they rolled over the floor, laughing. "We did it! We did it!"

A hoarse low screech mingled with scratch of talons against board interrupted the jubilation. Ewen froze, with a terrified look at the hippogriff.

"Okay, maybe, not quite all right." He shifted away from the stall. "I'm a bit stuck with this detention because of this lady." The barn was as clean as you could get it without magic, but that stall was still strewn with clumps of hay sticking to hippogriff droppings. "To hell with the rules, I've tried vanishing it, but she starts doing that when I so much as point my wand at her poo."

"Have you bowed?"

"What?"

Okay. Harry got up and met Airheart's eye. He went through the ritual, but this hippogriff was harder to impress. Miss Airheart kept expressing her dissatisfaction with the depth of his bow until he switched to 'your majesty'. The wooing eventually got them so far that Ewen could aim at the queenly dung, the stall was spotless in minutes, and fresh hay was locomoted where it should. Ewen flung himself into the remaining heap of hay at the back of the barn and slid to the floor. Harry sat next to him, leaning against a bale.

Ewen's shoulders sank in the hay, his eyes were closed, as if he was enjoying the touch of every single straw on his skin, as if the simple furnishings of the barn were just another Hufflepuff sofa that was giving him a loving hug. It was the same Ewen Harry had been seeing for months, but... Harry tried to grasp the difference. It escaped him. It was the same Ewen, but he saw him with new eyes.

"What do you mean 'we did it'?" Words suddenly seemed to have meanings they hadn't had before. "What did we do? Why? Why were you wearing the locket?"

"I just put it on when you weren't looking."

"But, why? How? How did you— we—" Harry wasn't sure at all about the 'we'. "How?"

Ewen got out of the hay and sat upright.

"Baby Cassius and his parents, they managed to set it off. They managed to start moving their souls."

"Yes, that much we figured out without you."

"Remember what Norma and Circinus said about the vicious circle?"

"Yeah, well, the older you get, the bigger your soul, the more power is needed to set it loose, and that has to come from the bond somehow."

"Yes?"

"But the more powerful your bond gets, the bigger your soul. Roughly." Something strained inside Harry, when the word 'bond' crossed his lips. He looked at Ewen again. Some other word danced on his tongue, but slipped away into the darkness before he could think it properly.

"Right. So I thought, you'd be stuck in this vicious circle as long as it's just the two of you. Cassius's parents were able to start the backswap because they were not just a couple, they had a third one in their relationship, their son, who they loved and who loved them both. Cassius's love added the necessary extra power that they could not get out of their bond alone, so he served as a catalyst, sort of."

Their eyes met. Ewen had said it yesterday. About love. But only now had the words hit bottom.

"So, you were the catalyst?"

"So to speak, yes."

"We just needed a third one?"

"Yes! For Cassius's parents that was Cassius. And for you, well, my humble self."

"You do realise that you could have left us soulless?"

"Are you angry now? I got you swapped back, and you're not happy? If you're not happy feel free to use the locket again."

"No, that's not what I—"

"It went well!"

"But why? How could you be so sure it would—"

"I suppose your Patronuses played a certain part in it. The guardians of unsettled souls, you know."

"But Draco couldn't cast a Patronus until yesterday, not that I know of."

"But you could. I sort of counted on that. And it turned out Draco made it in the end, so—"

"Wait a second! You counted?" That was a bit of a mouthful to swallow. "You knew? You actually knew what you were doing? Wait." The thought rolled loose, growing like a snowball. "You started this whole affair with both of us because you knew? It was a plan from the beginning?" Harry couldn't sit any longer. He got up and started pacing. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"Hey, Harry, no!" Ewen jumped to his feet, hay sticking loosely to his trousers. "That's not how seeing works." He stood in Harry's way. "Seeing is just a very good feeling for probabilities, no more, no less! And most of the time it's subconscious. It's not like you have a fucking plan, it's just like you feel that it's the right thing to do!" Ewen turned as Harry got around him and continued pacing. "I wasn't hiding it from you! Oh Merlin!" Ewen gave a frustrated moan. "It wouldn't have worked if I didn't— if I wasn't— if I didn't have feelings for both of you."

Harry stopped in front of Ewen. Ewen's shoulders slumped.

"Okay, I knew it. But only when I was brushing my teeth last night. And then I just rushed over to you, and then it went so fast!" Ewen met his eye. "I just did what I felt was right."

Damn it! Harry breathed out and put his arms around him. It was scary how often Ewen was right.

"You ungrateful brat," Ewen whispered into Harry's cheek, and every single hair on his neck quivered. Ewen's lips brushed his skin, on their way to his mouth, and Harry already expected the floor to evaporate under his feet, but it didn't. He stood, grounded by Ewen's firm grip, pressing back, and kissing like there was no tomorrow. He felt Ewen's arousal, and his own, surging inside him, and the sweet longing for more, and more, and more.

Except...

Today, there was a tomorrow! An actual next day, leading to the next one, and then the next, streaming into the boundless ocean of the future. The thought was so new that Harry broke off the kiss. The kiss suddenly felt like it had consequences.

"What's wrong?" Ewen asked.

Harry made a step back. He needed to have a proper look. Somewhere in the depth of Ewen's eyes (or was it just in his own mind?) he saw a threshold that he wasn't prepared to cross. And a grey cloud of uncertain fear.

"You know what? Draco's right."

Ewen raised his eyebrows.

"If we go on like this, sooner or later I'll fall in love with you for real, and then there'll be Wizarding War III."

"War?!" Ewen intoned incredulously.

"Between me and Draco. I don't think I'll be so good at sharing at the end of the day. Especially with Draco."

"You were fine with it yesterday."

"Yesterday was different." Harry didn't know how to explain it, even to himself. Now that Draco was back in one piece, what were yesterday's confessions worth anyway? "Yesterday was... different."

Ewen frowned. "Are you dumping me?"

"Er." Now that was the thing with seers! They were not just always right. They were right in the most unflattering manner. "I wouldn't call it that." Harry searched for a better expression, fruitlessly. "It's not like I'm leaving you alone and hopeless."

"You politely withdraw," Ewen said without enthusiasm.

"Yeah."

Ewen stayed silent.

"Come on! Draco is head over heels for you. You'll see. When we're done with our N.E.W.T.s here, he'll be down on one knee."

"Shut up! He'll never— His family won't let him. Ever!"

Something in the fall of Ewen's voice told Harry that he'd been right. He, Harry, was the third one.

"I don't know. Give him a chance." Harry wondered for a second if he really believed it, but yes, he did. "Draco knows exactly what he wants. And I think he's starting to get a bit more realistic about what he can and what he cannot get."

Ewen chuckled but his eyes weren't laughing. "And what about you?"

"Me? Well, I..." Harry wasn't sure what Ewen wanted to know. "I don't know exactly what I want yet. I need to sort myself out first."

"You do, don't you?" Ewen gave him a long look, full of demigod-like serenity.

"Thank you for everything. Thank you for swapping us back. You're a genius."

It seemed like they reached an end point and Harry had to leave. He almost stumbled over their empty plates as he turned to go.

"I'll take these back," he said, picking them up. The jeans stretched over his buttocks as he bent forward, and he felt the soreness in his skin again and the inappropriate tingling in his stomach. No. He could not leave before he had clarity on that issue. "One more thing."

Ewen was smiling dangerously, as if he already knew what Harry was going to ask. Harry mustered all his Gryffindor courage and threw his chin up.

"I asked Draco a few times, but couldn't get a word out of him. But now that we have swapped back, I think you owe me an answer."

Ewen's smile broadened.

"I've found marks, down there." Harry pointed at his backside. "What have you been doing with my body, you two?"

"What marks?" Ewen said innocently.

"You know what marks!"

"Erm." Ewen shrugged. "Will you show me?"

Harry went for his belt, but stopped.

"You just want me to pull down my pants again, don't you?"

"Yes," Ewen admitted with a shameless grin.

Unbelievable! Ewen peered at Harry with a challenge. Harry stared back. He would be damned if he admitted to being embarrassed! He turned around and obliged.

There was a silence, and a vague touch of Ewen's breath on his stressed skin.

"What a colour!"

"Where does it come from?"

"Erm, whipping."

Harry's breath hitched. He had expected to hear something like that, but now that he actually heard it, his heart beat faster.

"Did Draco consent?"

"Of course, he did! I wouldn't— Oh, come on, Harry! Why do you think so badly of me?"

"And what else did you do?" Harry turned around and pulled his pants back on, as an afterthought. "It's my body. I have the right to know. You have to tell me."

"Erm." Ewen stared at the front of his pants and blushed.

Was it that particular shade of red, or the faint pain in his welts, or the thought of what had caused it, but Harry's pants failed to conceal his excitement. He went for his jeans, but before he sorted it out, Ewen's hand stopped him.

"I could show you."

It would probably be a good idea to say no, but Harry hesitated for too long. Ewen's hand slipped under his. Now Harry really wanted to know.

"One last time, Harry. Before Draco puts me in golden chains."

One long messy kiss and a flurry of frantic groping switched Harry's mind off for a few seconds. His back crashed against the empty stall. Ewen's tongue in his mouth pinned him down. He heard the soft clang of Ewen's buckle. When had that happened? His own pants were already down again. Ewen flicked his wand and removed the rest of his clothes.

"Turn around." It was a hoarse groan.

Before Harry fully realised what was going to happen, he stood facing the other way, leaned on the barrier, waiting.

"What if Hagrid comes in?"

"Well, then he'll see us doing the exact same thing for which I'm in detention." The summoned jar jumped out of Ewen's bag and zoomed into his hand. The squeak of the opening lid, a short silence, and the slick of oil on skin. "All the more reason to hurry up."

Harry prepared to accept the inevitable. The tip of Ewen's cock bumped against his rear. And before Harry knew it, an oiled finger slipped inside. Harry forgot to gasp. He hadn't realised he had nerve endings down there. The new sensation undid a boundary he didn't know he had.

"It may hurt a little in the beginning." Ewen said calmly, and his hand was gone again. "You just relax. Just... give in."

Slow but firm pressure weighed on Harry's arsehole, more demanding than a finger, stretching and making space inside him. Harry didn't dare breathe. Was it pain or pleasure? He couldn't tell the difference. His body quivered, arched, and opened up to accommodate more Ewen. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the young hippogriff crane her neck.

"Are you okay?" Ewen's hands held his hips firmly.

Harry struggled to think of an answer. He was in Ewen's hands and did not belong to himself anymore. His body had long said yes, all that mattered now was what Ewen wanted from it.

"Take me!"

Was it a groan or a muffled appeal to God? Ewen thrust once, twice, Harry's mind melted, but his skin was wide awake. Three times. Thrusts followed one after the other. The bite of his sore arse magnified the sense of Ewen's presence. Harry was here for him. So wanted, so filled, and so lost.

Ewen leaned in and Harry found himself enclosed between his warm arms. The edge of the barrier cut into Harry's forearm, his welts burned in their mixed sweat, there was little he could do than hold still and grant Ewen a smooth passage. It was happening.

Airheart watched spellbound. Harry listened to Ewen's breath, which grew heavy and irregular.

"Touch yourself." The words seeped through a groan, and it took Harry a moment to realise what Ewen wanted. He untangled his arm free, and shifted for balance.

If that was what Ewen wanted...

Harry felt himself harden in his hand, everything hardened inside him, like a monolith, perfectly fitted around Ewen's cock.

"I can't—"

Harry grabbed it and held it with his ring of muscle. "Don't stop."

"I'm almost— I need to—"

"Don't—"

"Harry, I—" Ewen went on. His hot breath flowed down Harry's back, strewn with random outbreaks of voice. Harry felt Ewen's pleasure. It rose like a wave, obliterating the boundary between them. It rose. It rose beyond the breakingpointgulpeddrowningandwithadesperatecalltothedivine crashed, growling, groaning, gasping, cursing, naked, wet, and done.

"Oh god, what a mess!"

"Is this your cum or mine?"

"No idea."

"The straw is all sticky."

They were lying sprawled over the heap of hay. How they got there missed from Harry's memory.

"Fuck it."

"Wha—"

"Sorry."

"Huh?"

"Sorry, I lost it."

"What?"

"It's like, my third time topping." Ewen yawned. "I'm not so good at it."

"What the fuck? It was great!"

"Was it?"

"Yeah."

"Did you come?"

"I think so."

"You don't know?!"

"I'm pretty sure I did. It was just—" It was just— Harry's thoughts were shifting, and turning, and clambering over each other like a litter of kittens. It was just... "Different." Deep happiness didn't nest at the bottom of his cock, but filled his entire lower body.

Ewen heaved a long contented sigh.

"And the other two?" Harry turned over and propped on his elbow.

"Mhm?" Ewen's pants were pulled down halfway, his T-shirt was crushed into an inconceivable ball under his armpit, and his hair stuck to his forehead.

"The other two times that you topped."

"Mhm?" Ewen opened one eye.

"Was it also with...?" Harry glanced over his shoulder at his behind.

"Oh yeah." Ewen touched the spot Harry had indicated.

Of course. That's why it felt so right? Natural? Whatever. Whatever Malfoy had done to him, Harry had to face it. It was himself this time, and there was no way around it. He liked it. He, Harry Potter, liked to be fucked in the arse. A lot.

Harry fell back against the hay and stared at the wooden ceiling. He still had to prepare a speech, by the way—a few words from his fucking heart.

When Harry left the shore of the Black Lake with a few clumsy sentences scratched on a piece of parchment in his pocket, crowds were already streaming from all the gates towards the Quidditch pitch. Laughter and cheering grew closer and louder as he walked, and if no one had noticed him yet, that would not stay like that for long.

Harry's first thought was the Invisibility Cloak. But last night he had been carrying it in the breast pocket of Draco's jacket, until the jacket returned to its rightful owner. Harry stopped. He had to tell Ron. And Hermione. Where would they be? Harry's next thought was the Marauder's Map, but it had also been sitting in that same pocket together with the Cloak. Now two of his most precious possessions were in Malfoy's hands. Brilliant.

A beetle buzzed past Harry's ear, and his final thought was 'Skeeter' before he heard voices behind him, "Mr Potter?" "Mr Potter." "Mr Potter!", a cannonade of flashes rattled around him, and in a matter of seconds he was encircled by an impenetrable wall of shouting reporters.

"How has your life changed since the end of the War?" "Which subjects are you taking at the N.E.W.T. level?" "How is Dumbledore's Army these days? Do you keep meeting?" "Why did you choose to become an Auror?" "Is it true that you are on good terms with the Malfoys?" "Are you dating anyone?" "Do you continue to insist that Severus Snape was a hero?"

"Hello." Harry pushed forward slowly. But behind the rows of reporters had formed another circle of curious citizens, and it felt like he was walking knee-deep in a pool of honey.

"Did you consider a professional Quidditch career?" "Will Miss Weasley attend the celebration?" "What is your opinion on the Minister's decision to disemploy Dementors?" "You are the youngest Auror in the history of British Magical Law Enforcement, how come?" "Are the rumours true that you have recently served detention for public indecency?" "Do you think Azkaban is guarded adequately?" "Did Miss Weasley sustain a life-threatening injury in a duel with—?"

Harry stopped apologising and stepped on a foot. "Cheers." Heads started turning and the crowd thinned a little in the direction of the Quidditch pitch.

"When—" "What are your plans—" "—will you be—" "Our readers are—" "—available for an interview?" "—yearning to hear—" "—for the summer?"

Professor McGonagall emerged in front of him, wand drawn. "Potter, there you are. Please hurry up. We are starting in three minutes."

Harry peered helplessly through the gaps between his pursuers for a spark of red hair. He spotted a few here and there, but none of them was Ron.

Thousands of mouths shut up when McGonagall came forward to a small podium at the bottom of the stack of crowded galleries and greeted the audience. Draco sat on the third floor, Benveniste and Charnay dutifully guarding his back. He had tried to catch Benveniste's eye and silently hoped that she would read his mind. Or that Charnay would go to the loo, so he could finally tell her that he was Draco Malfoy. But Charnay didn't need to go, and Benveniste was focused on the proceedings, so Draco turned his mind to scanning the wall of faces. Ewen had been missing the whole morning, he was bound to be on the stands somewhere, but it was like searching for a needle in a haystack, let alone a needle that had a funny habit of turning invisible.

The towers were clad in banners befitting the occasion. The Slytherin banner from the last Quidditch match was there too. I'm Slytherin. Blood doesn't matter! But instead of the giant king cobra, the faces of his housemates appeared in a slow succession. Parkinson, Gibbon, Harper, Greengrass, Urquhart, some first years Draco didn't know. Every time his own face shone up, Draco wanted to look away, or better, just disappear. If he had known that his innocent foray to the Muggle job market would get such publicity. Astoria had edited out the hair gel bottle, though—there was some small comfort in that.

Draco concentrated on his search. There was a whole gallery of Hufflepuffs on the far left, but no matter how much he squinted, Ewen's face did not come into view. McGonagall finished her address, the stands exploded with applause, overblown by a lurid fanfare, and the Minister appeared on the podium. McGonagall, Flitwick, Slughorn, Sprout, and other veterans stood in a row behind him. Right next there was Potter, and then a bunch of DA—Longbottom, Bell, Abbott, Cho Chang, Boot, the Patils... Hey, wait! Between Parvati and the other one stood Ewen. The sod had inserted himself among the heroes.

"I'll be fine," Draco replied to Benveniste and Charnay's silent protest, and headed towards the nearest staircase, clambering over bags and feet.

"Malfoy? Malfoy... Malfoy!" He heard his name echo behind his back in a variety of whispers, some contemptuous, some surprised, some undecided. But by the time he finally reached the stairs, no one had stabbed him, or cursed him, or soaked him in dragon piss. It wasn't going all that bad.

Shacklebolt had kept it short, and another muffled fanfare blared, as Draco ran down flight after flight behind the stands. The next second, there was a contented roar and a delighted squeal, and Potter's magnified voice filled the space.

"Dear friends!"

Draco closed his ears. Not another toe-curling war song! The only thing he wanted to hear now was if Ewen was all right. Well, he seemed all right. But how all right? And how had it all happened? And he had to say 'thank you', and give him a hug, and a kiss...

Draco pushed through the crowd, which grew thicker as he approached the gallery behind the podium. Aurors threw distrustful looks at him, but found no pretext to stop him. He already caught a glimpse of Patil's beaded braids behind a row of backs, when strong arms grabbed him from behind by his elbows, and Granger's face, skewed with fury, popped out in front of him.

"How could you?!"

"Could what?"

"Let him speak?" Weasley rasped into his ear, as he bulldozed him towards the front row.

"What the—? He's—"

"Don't you tell me that McGonagall agreed to this!" Granger hissed venomously.

"Wait! Didn't he tell you?"

Potter hadn't told them! They didn't know! They had reached the front, and Draco craned over the heads searching for Ewen, when Weasley finally let go of him. Ewen could confirm.

"I'm Dra—"

The tip of Weasley's wand flicked before Draco's nose, and he flew over the railing, in a somersault, past Shacklebolt and McGonagall, turned over twice more as he landed on the podium, and finally came to a halt a few feet away from Potter.

"Paricactum!" Draco threw over his shoulder, as he stood up, and hoped he hit Weasley's crotch.

Potter stood frozen to the spot, his wand before his open mouth. Draco brushed the dust off his suit. An uncomfortable murmur whirred over the spectator rows. The teachers exchanged baffled glances.

"You're probably wondering why we're standing here together," Potter resumed his speech in a trembling voice. He was clearly wondering the exact same thing. "We used to fight..." He stared helplessly at McGonagall, but she gave him an approving nod. "But this whole year we've been learning to live in peace." Now Potter definitely ran out of ideas, and fixed Draco with a terrified look, as Draco whispered, "Sonorus!"

"And we've managed!" Draco added, facing the thousands. "Sort of," he breathed out, lowering his wand, but the words got magnified enough to set a clatter of incredulous laughter loose across the lower galleries.

Granger had fought her way to the front and was whispering something into McGonagall's ear, throwing deadly looks at Potter.

"Oh, by the way, for those who didn't know, or had any doubts, I am Harry Potter," Potter returned Granger's menacing look, "and this is Draco Malfoy!"

A wave of laughter rolled over the crowds, louder than the first one. Potter and Granger stared at each other like this was the end of diplomacy.

"You're laughing because you think it's self-evident, but it's not," Draco took over. "I— I don't know what I used to be, I don't know what I was yesterday," Draco took a breath, "but today, I'm Draco fucking Malfoy!" He didn't actually pronounce the F-word, but thought it. His first name reverberated in the resulting gap, and his last name followed suit after.

Granger froze in shock. Thousands of voices died out, and a heavy silence fell over the Quidditch pitch. A shiver ran down Draco's spine. What the hell was he thinking, throwing about his name like that? He wanted to turn and flee, but Potter's hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Same here."

A rustle ran across the rows.

"I don't know what I was. Some call me a hero, but I didn't choose to be one, and now I know that I'm not. This whole year, Draco and I, we've been learning to be ourselves." Some sniffs broke the silence. "And today, I'm Harry Potter. Because now that we're at peace, I can finally allow myself to be me."

Potter dropped a couple more soppy phrases, and the stands exploded in an ovation. Draco plunged behind the front row as soon as he got a chance, and wished he could vanish, like Ewen. But he couldn't, and found himself presently facing Granger again.

"What is this now? One day you're telling me this is permanent. Next day, you're Malfoy again. What am I supposed to believe?"

"This is Draco!" Ewen surfaced out of the crowd. "They've swapped back. I saw it."

"Are you covering for them?! I thought better of you!"

"Hermione," Weasley turned his pained face from his pants to Granger, "this is Malfoy." A small but spiky cactus lay at his feet. Draco's hex had obviously hit its target. "Harry would have never done this to me!" Weasley said and went back to pulling thorns out of his trunks.

Granger turned to Draco with a deadly look.

"So you're Malfoy."

Before Draco could say yes, Granger's fist crashed on his nose.

Draco dearly regretted that he had so light-heartedly dismissed Benveniste and Charnay's offer. They found him eventually, and Charnay fixed his bleeding nose. Ewen didn't leave his side now. Draco kept reminding himself not to get used to it too much. He closed his eyes and opened them again, but Ewen was still there, for thousands of eyes and dozens of cameras to see. Draco tried to do what he would always do, but all his inner compartments were gone. All of the sophisticated structure he had been building up for years had been flattened in one blow, and he felt pulled into a funnel of treacherous comfort, the whole of him. When Ewen explained how they had swapped, Draco was lost forever.

"I love you," he said, and didn't care that Benveniste and Charnay were still guarding his rear.

"I know," Ewen said and kissed back.

"What did I miss?" Potter arrived with a bottle of firewhisky and a quill behind his ear. The autograph-hungry fans had finally left him alone and scattered with their butterbeers over the benches and tables that stretched across the Hogwarts grounds as far as the eye could reach.

"You could have told Granger and Weasley!"

"I didn't get a chance."

"You had the whole morning!"

"I—" Potter blinked guiltily as he stepped over the bench. "I needed some quiet to prepare my speech." He uncorked the bottle and accioed three glasses and a plate of potato scones from a passing serving cart. "They're not talking to me any more."

The glasses clanked in silence.

"Ah! Here you are!" Gibbon trotted up with Astoria in her wake. She straddled the bench on Ewen's side, Astoria shifted to Draco's right, and unrolled a scroll of parchment before him. It was a long...ish list of names. The title on top read:

Society for Hate-free Reassessment of the Slytherin Heritage.

'Hate-free' was crossed out, though, and 'love-driven' stood above it in Astoria's elegant hand-writing. A furious flurry of black strokes covered the syllable 're' in 'reassessment'.

"Want to join?" Gibbon said. It was not really a question.

Draco scanned the list. Parkinson and Harper were in, Urquhart too.

"What is this about?"

"What the title says. One thing we're planning is to look for new role models. Non-pureblood, please."

"Like, Snape?" Potter pushed the plate of potato scones to Gibbon.

"That'd be one." Gibbon took a scone, and shoved the plate to Astoria. "Just so you know, Potter, we decided that we believe your story about him."

"It would be cool to get his portrait somewhere," Astoria said.

"Oh, that can be helped!" Draco clapped Ewen's shoulder. "I know someone..."

"No!" Ewen winced. "Not for a hundred Galleons!"

"Of course not! A portrait like that is five hundred Galleons at least!"

"That's not what I meant! Argh, shut up!" Ewen faded into the scenery.

"Hey! We want it! Storrs, we'll have to raise some money!"

Storrs? Astoria had earned a cute nickname.

Suddenly, Gibbon grabbed the list from the table and swayed with it in front of the approaching Zabini. Blaise twisted his lips and averted his bored look as he walked past. Gibbon stuck out her tongue sullenly after him.

"Zabini thinks that to say 'fuck' once is enough to change the course of history." She put the list back in front of Draco.

"And, what else?"

"We're also planning to have a serious talk with the Sorting Hat. We need more people like Granger."

Draco sighed and felt at his nose. "Are you sure?"

"If you need something to write with." Potter pulled the quill from behind his ear.

Below the list there stood the familiar slogan: Blood doesn't matter.

"Okay. What does matter then?" Draco looked at Astoria. She had put quite some effort into a more positive wording for the title. Now, this slogan could definitely do better.

"Why? Isn't it obvious?" She looked into Draco's eyes. "Excellence. Excellence, not blood."

"Genius, Storrs! Write that down!"

Potter still held his quill out to Draco, as Astoria was correcting the slogan. Ewen had faded in again. Draco felt dizzy as Ewen's fingers ran gently down his spine.

"Your probation officer will love it," Ewen whispered into his ear.

Draco took the quill and put his name under number twenty-four.

"Right." Potter refilled the glasses. "That's worth another drink."