Title: No Walls Around My Heart

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

Pairing: Harry/Draco, mentions of canon pairings

Warnings: Angst

Rating: R

Summary: Ten years ago, Harry and Draco got together. Now, they're not too busy in the middle of the celebration to think about how it happened, at Hogwarts, in their eighth year, when sharing a room shoved them together.

Author's Notes: Another of my Wednesday one-shots, written for this prompt by aliasfanatic04: I would love to see a story with H/D in an established relationship. They are getting ready to celebrate their ten year anniversary and both are spending the day thinking about how they got together. Happened in 8th year because they were forced to share a room together. Fighting lead to friendship lead to romance. This will be a three-shot.

No Walls Around My Heart

"Draco, do you really want these decorations?" Harry held up the stylized hearts strung on a golden chain and stared at them. They flashed and jingled, and Harry shook his head.

"What do you mean—oh." Draco came to a stop right at Harry's shoulder, sounding disgusted, and Harry concealed a snicker. "No, I didn't order those. Where did you find them?"

"In this box from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Probably George's idea of a joke." Harry nudged the box away with one foot in case something else exploded out of it. "Anyway. I'm going to send them back with a note that they'd look nice at his and Angelina's party in September."

"You do that. In the meantime, I need to make sure that all the benches are set up outside."

Harry straightened up and smiled at Draco's back as he walked out to the back gardens of the Manor, cocking his head in the way he did when he considered what flowers he was going to arrange. Draco still strutted, sometimes, when he wasn't thinking about it. He could still make snapping and cutting remarks with the best of them. But he was the man Harry knew and loved and touched and held at night now, and Harry didn't mind a bit of strutting and snapping.

The hearts in his hand started singing about "destined love." Harry rolled his eyes as he slipped them back into the box and cast a soundproofing charm around them, then went to write his note with the suggestion for George and Angelina.

Destined love? No. Far from it. At the time, Harry hadn't even thought that he and Draco would survive the year.

"I'll thank you not to shout, Mr. Potter."

Harry closed his eyes and squeezed his arms against his chest until they felt warmer than his anger did. Right. McGonagall is Headmistress now. And she fought as heroically at the Battle of Hogwarts as we all did, and she's still trying to cope with Dumbledore's and Snape's deaths. No shouting at her.

"I just don't understand why Malfoy and I were assigned a room together, Headmistress McGonagall," he finally said when he could open his eyes and not feel like killing someone with his stare like a basilisk. "I understand why you want us to share rooms. Just not why it's him and me. There'll be blood on the walls in a week."

McGonagall peered tiredly at him out of the thicket of paper on her desk. Harry could see envelopes that were from the Ministry, by their color, and St. Mungo's, and a bunch that would be from the Daily Prophet. Even though it was a few months after the battle, she was still busy with requests for interviews, reports on the progress of the rebuilding, questions about what she was going to do about things that only tangentially involved Hogwarts, and so on. Everyone was trying to make her into the next Dumbledore.

"Because your names were the closest together alphabetically of all the returning students," McGonagall said. "I had thought Malfoy was going to be with Parkinson, but her parents sent word at the last minute that she won't be coming back."

Harry flinched a little. He was one of the few people who knew why that was, thanks to a trial in the bowels of the Ministry he'd had to both attend and keep his mouth shut about.

"But you could move one of us elsewhere," he said as calmly as he could. "I mean, I don't think Malfoy would object if you did. And I certainly wouldn't." Harry thought it should be easy. If McGonagall was willing to put girls and boys in the same room, this wouldn't be that large a change.

McGonagall shook her head. "I am not…as in tune with the magic of the castle as Albus was, Mr. Potter. I convinced it to make the proper number of rooms. I convinced the house-elves to tend to you. But they would only tolerate a certain number of changes, and I believe I have arrived at the limit."

Harry opened his mouth, then shut it. Well. That was probably true. He saw it in the weary lines of McGonagall's face.

"I think things have changed since you and Mr. Malfoy last saw each other," McGonagall told him, although her weary eyes were on her hands and she didn't look up at him. Harry thought it might be more her hope than something she believed. "You testified at his trial. Mr. Malfoy has willingly let Aurors into his home to search for traces of You-Know-Who's presence. It might be a more peaceful year than you think."

Harry squared his shoulders. He could do his part for his Head of House. "All right. I'll try to make sure it stays that way."

McGonagall looked up with the kind of smile Harry knew was becoming increasingly rare for her. "Thank you."

Draco sighed and waved his wand so that the bench floated down to be more perfectly in line with the Manor. It wouldn't do much good for the people eating lunch if they had to stare at windows that flashed dazzlingly in the sun instead of smooth, calm lines of cool stone.

"Can Tizzy be doing anything for Master Malfoy?"

Draco turned to the house-elf and shook his head. Honestly, he had left only the cooking to the house-elves; Harry wanted to decorate himself, Draco didn't trust their taste when it came to arranging the benches or the flowers, and there was little else that needed formal but mindless handling. "No, thank you, Tizzy."

"Elveses is—is wanting to do something."

Draco blinked. Tizzy's wringing hands confronted him with something he'd never had to think about until recently. After all, even after he had got together with Harry and his disapproving friends it had seemed only natural to use house-elves for whatever he wanted.

But in the past few years, avoiding Granger's lectures had become a bigger priority than simply having house-elves do things.

"All right," Draco said, when he had thought it through. "Make sure the grass is properly trimmed and the gravel in the front properly raked." The Manor's grounds and entrance path were both huge. They would keep even house-elves busy for hours.

"Thank you, thank you, Master Malfoy!" Tizzy said, and bowed and bounced ecstatically before popping away.

Draco snorted and turned back to aligning the benches and chairs, and casting Cushioning Charms. Some of the Manor's old furniture was more elegant than comfortable.

To think there was a time when I wouldn't have gone out of my way to give Harry the time of day, and here I am, even obliging his friends.

It took Draco more than a fortnight to realize Potter was avoiding him.

Potter was almost never in their shared room. The time he didn't spend in classes or "emergency" study sessions with Granger for their upcoming NEWTS, he was on the Quidditch pitch. They had a window in their room that they could use to look at whatever part of the castle they wanted, and in practice Draco was the only one using it. He got used to glancing through it and seeing Potter looping and diving and soaring in the clear sunlight or driving rain.

Draco had given up his Slytherin Seeker position of his own free will. Their team would lose this year, he knew it, given the pitiful remnants that had come back. Draco had no desire to have his name associated with anything else pathetic.

But Potter hadn't felt the need to do the same. He hadn't adapted to the rooming situation, either, the way Draco had stoically promised himself that he would. He was running out on it.

Draco waited until that evening, when Potter ducked in to change his Quidditch leathers. Usually he took fresh clothes to the pitch. Draco supposed he had to count himself lucky that Potter had forgotten this time.

"So do you need to be out of the room so much to avoid punching me in the face, or what?"

Draco glanced casually up from his Herbology book to meet Potter's blinking, startled eyes. Then Potter pointed a finger at Draco, and his body began to vibrate as if he was holding back the urge to punch him in the face.

That hadn't been what Draco expected. He felt cautiously for his wand.

"I'm leaving so you can have the room to yourself," Potter said. "So neither of us has to deal with this any more than we absolutely have to."

Punching me in the jaw would have been less painful. Draco stood up. "I see," he whispered. "You don't believe people can change, do you? So much for all that cheerful, hopeful Gryffindor bollocks. I'm just going to be the evil Slytherin until the end of time."

Potter's jaw flapped open. "I thought you liked your space! You haven't been complaining!"

"I didn't know what you were doing. I just thought you were busy." Draco lifted his head, and felt as though a wave was breaking around his shoulders. He should have known from the beginning, he supposed. People like Potter didn't change their minds about people like Draco. He turned. "I know the Headmistress can't cause the castle to make more rooms, but I can move back into the Slytherin seventh-year dorms. There are people who will welcome me there."

"This is ridiculous, Malfoy!" Potter bounded across the space between them, the strip of stone between their two beds, and grabbed Draco around the chest and waist. Draco turned, gasping aloud at the contact. "Think about it!" Potter almost shook him. "We haven't hexed each other, we haven't got angry at each other until today. This is the best we can hope for!"

Draco reached down and locked his wrist against Potter's, feeling the tight way Potter held him. "Let me go."

"Not until you listen! We were getting along—"

"Because you completely avoided me and didn't even give me the chance to speak to you." Draco shook his head wildly when Potter opened his mouth to say something. "No, listen to me, you prat. You revealed more than you knew just now. You said this was the best we can hope for."

Potter fell back a step and let Draco go. He ran his hand through his hair. "I meant that. After the war and the way we fought before that? The way we were on opposite sides? It is."

"If we were on opposite sides, why did you save me in the Room of Hidden Things? Why testify for me? Why acknowledge that we owe each other life-debts?"

Potter stared at him, at a loss. Then he turned his head. Draco waited, but he still didn't say anything.

"You know as well I do that you don't think that way." Draco felt as though he was stretching stiff limbs, long held in the same position. He sounded like himself for the first time since the war. Or the person he liked to think of as himself, anyway, precise and sure and interested. "Or you didn't, recently. If you want to go back to a simple world of black and white morality, feel free. You won't drag me with you."

"It's—Malfoy, we both have a busy year, and we have NEWTs to study for, and I'm a Gryffindor and you're a Slytherin—"

"That doesn't matter. Or I would have kicked up more of a fuss at not being with other Slytherins."

Potter stood there, again. It was up to Draco to complete the thought. He shook his head and brushed past Potter, going to the desk on the other side of his bed, a huge one with books piled high.

"You haven't even given me the chance to say ordinary words to you, just in fear that they'd be sharp ones. It would be one thing if I'd attacked you and your friends again. Or if you hadn't made that little speech at the Ministry about how you believed in change and that even the worst people can be redeemed. Either way would show that at least one of us wanted to be the same."

Potter turned to face him. He had a complex expression on his face. Draco hoped that meant he was thinking about what Draco had said.

"But you don't get to say everyone has the chance to change and then not allow me to change. I'm going now."

Draco walked out of the room. It felt wonderful to be the one doing the avoiding for once, making decisions the way Potter had without telling him a thing. At least Draco had told Potter what bothered him.

There were quiet corners of the library. Draco went to study there, and ignored the people who still flinched and drew away from him in the corridors. They hadn't stood up in front of Merlin and half of wizarding Britain and made their little speech about redemption.

It was time for Potter to decide if he really wanted to be the better person.

Harry stood in the doorway of the kitchen, carefully holding his mouth closed. It was watering so hard he feared he would flood the floor otherwise.

The house-elves bustled around a cake so enormous that Harry couldn't see the far wall past it. It was made mostly of chocolate, something he and Draco had agreed on, but they hadn't been able to agree on the decorating. Therefore, the elves had compromised.

Half the cake shone in red and gold, with a regular pattern of red flames and golden Snitches. A ramping lion stood on the top of that half of the cake, and its tail spilled into the pattern. Glittering sugar brooms rose on delicate spires from the sides, turning to chase whatever the nearest Snitch to them was. The spires were so delicate, in fact, that Harry didn't know how they would move the cake if not for house-elf magic.

The other side was green and silver, with deep emerald-colored waterfalls that parted around flying metallic dragons. The dragons all looked up as if paying homage to the silver snake that faced the lion on the top. Draco had chosen sugar flowers instead of brooms, but some house-elf enchantment made them appear to be opening and closing, creating dazzling patterns of lilies and roses and what was probably deadly nightshade, knowing Draco's fondness for sneaking less than innocent jokes into apparently childish things.

"It's wonderful, isn't it?" Draco asked behind him, and laid his chin on Harry's shoulder.

"It's going to kill people with all the sugar," Harry said, reaching up and catching Draco's arm in his hand. "Or at least rot their teeth."

Draco laughed softly before he moved up and stood beside Harry. "I rather think that's Granger's line, and not yours." He glanced at Harry with his eyes glinting. "Your line is about how you're going to be the better person."

Harry smiled. "What would make me the better person right now?"

"Letting people have their fun, and not saying anything about sugar."

"Less strict requirements than last time."

Draco's face stirred with what might have been shadows, but for the light in his eyes. "I remember."

Harry walked towards the table where Malfoy sat in the library. He could feel the dread that churned in his stomach and made him feel like he would throw up with every step. He told himself that didn't matter. What did was answering the challenge Malfoy had handed him.

Malfoy didn't look up even when Harry stood right next to him. Harry had to admit that, for all that he had started it, Malfoy did avoiding even better than he did.

Harry softly cleared his throat. Malfoy still refused to pay attention to him.

Revenge. But Harry didn't mean to let the revenge last and Malfoy's challenge go unanswered. He cast a spell that would make their words sound like a soft murmuring about homework and revising to everyone else in the library, and then focused back on Malfoy.

"I'm sorry. I should have given you at least a chance to prove that you'd changed."

Malfoy lifted his head. His face was so neutral that it made Harry flinch. But Malfoy replied as though this was an ordinary encounter. "Yes, you should have."

He didn't say anything else. Harry repressed a sigh of exasperation. Malfoy was going to make him fight for every inch of ground. But under the circumstances, Harry could understand why.

Despite his speech at the Ministry that Malfoy kept reminding him of, speeches mostly weren't Harry's thing. He tried something else. "Would you like to come back to the room and study with me?"

Malfoy looked up fast enough that he ended up wincing and rubbing the back of his neck. Harry didn't smile. He only stood and looked earnestly at Malfoy, and Malfoy finally dropped his hand and stared at him in turn.

"I thought you had revision with Granger and Weasley tonight."

"I've revised with them the past six nights. Well, except Tuesday, when we had Quidditch practice. They'll understand."

Malfoy sat still. Harry waited. He had made as much of a sacrifice and a gift as he could. He only hoped Malfoy would accept it in the spirit it was offered.

From the slow way Malfoy's face was lighting up, it seemed he would.

"Let's go back to the room, then," Malfoy said, and stood, and gathered his things. Without thinking, Harry reached out to pick up the largest stack of books, the way he would have with Ron.

Malfoy watched him. And watched as Harry reached past his instinctive desire in the moment when he froze, and kept picking the books up.

Malfoy smiled. That was when Harry knew it was going to be all right.