HD 'Bed, Knobs, and Broomsticks'

Authors: tigersilver

Fandom: HP
Pairing: H/D
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 12, 200
Warnings/Notes: AU; EWE, rimming, Bottom!Draco (if you care about these things, and that's no guarantee for next time:) Set just post-war Trials, in June of '98.

000ooo000

For years, Harry hadn't the slightest idea when Draco Malfoy's birthday was and he couldn't much be arsed to care, had someone asked him to pinpoint it. He was vaguely aware the other boy was older than he was (he was certainly taller, which felt like 'older', in much the same way 'pointy' felt like 'irksome git') and he disdained it. So what if the git was older—or taller—or better-looking, or some other attribute Harry couldn't claim and didn't give a rat's arse about?

If the oily, stuck-up prat was his elder, the most it meant was that Harry might outlive him in the grand scheme of things, and therefore win—obscurely and always providing he outlived Voldemort first. Needless to say, he didn't waste much time thinking on the topic. He'd better things to do.

It did wax and wroth rather hairy for a while; looking very grim indeed for Harry in the Forbidden Forest and in the Great Hall. After the dust settled, he didn't have much time to bother himself over other people's life markers—he'd problems of his own, thanks. The destruction wreaked upon Hogwarts, the home he'd known for years; the unending toll of the dead and the wounded, a ghastly contrapunto which never left him, sleeping or waking; and the startling and rather salutary fact he was now solely responsible for the daily ordering of his own life. For, after Hermione departed, there was no one to say 'Harry, go do this,' or 'Harry, I expect that,' or even 'Potter! You have detention!' Then, too, there were his nightmares, which hadn't ceased, only changed focus, moving from featuring the nightly Voldemort-sponsored horror-du jour to the explicit specific scenes of Harry's own losses. And, after the funerals, there were the Trials to occupy him.

War crimes trials were a nasty business. Harry was forced to spend nearly every waking hour at the Ministry, and much of that trapped in a wooden stand beneath the quivering noses of the Wizangamot, testifying for or against various individuals. This included the Malfoys, and Harry paid attention in particular to Draco Malfoy, who looked peaky—and a great deal older than his seventeen—eighteen?—years.

The Wizangamot nattered often amongst themselves concerning the age of majority and whether schoolchildren, as such, should be considered underage because of their status, despite their actual dates of birth. Some, they allowed, had been without doubt compelled to actions by their attached adults that might or might not have been their first choice—or their true inclination. Harry thought Draco Malfoy was a prime candidate for that category, as he'd watched him—all unwillingly—flinching, ill and pasty-white when he was forced to torture Voldemort's prisoners or made to stand still and observe his father humiliated and his mother threatened. Those moments, oddly enough, reminded Harry of his own parents and tangentially, led him to think long and deeply of how their lives might've been, had they survived. And his own, naturally.

Draco Malfoy had this weird expression on his pallid face about him whenever Harry saw him in passing—the Malfoys had been 'detained' by the Ministry, pending further investigation, and conveniently so, whilst their home was raided for Dark leftovers and such—and more and more often Harry would catch those startling pale, bloodshot grey eyes trained steadily upon him, usually when Draco was called up to testify as to the deposition of other Hogwarts students, the ex-Slytherins in particular. He stared back, of course, unflinching.

The Wizamgamot actively debated just how they wished to handle the rehabilitation of minors and those that had just reached their majority whilst Voldemort was his worst. Draco, as it turned out, was the star witness for Greg Goyle and the likes of Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini, Theo Nott and Adrian Pucey. Crabbe, Jr. was dead, of course, and couldn't be defended, even though Draco, coming into his own as a brilliant ad hoc barrister, offered up that Greg had been greatly influenced to the Dark by his own father, an unabashed Death Eater. Goyle himself was as stone-still as a small mountain and silent as a tomb throughout his trial and it was only Draco's spirited testimony that got him probation instead of Azkaban for life. The children of the other convicted or deceased Death Eaters were generally meted out similar sentences, all due to Draco's enlightened argument and testimony: probationary periods and community service, learning a trade or profession, but then Wizangamot was of a mind to be tolerably kind and magnanimously forgiving, as that particular group of teenagers were all manifestly still enrolled at Hogwarts throughout wartime; could be considered youngsters even after, and, as Draco pointed out, had been as much at their parent's mercy as his own parents had been at the Dark Lord's.

Harry's testimony—under Veritaserum and not—generally dovetailed with Draco's more concise and organized efforts, though they never were given the opportunity to confer. After all, he'd borne witness to many of the same events, from a Voldemort's-eye view, and he was very much aware of who'd been Imperius'd and who'd genuinely bought into the whole Death Eater dogma, minor or no. In a sense, he and Draco were a team, fighting back-to-back and valiantly for the rights and lives of their unfortunate peers, all of whom had had their lives influenced by Voldemort, no matter whose 'side' their parents had chosen.

That secret connexion, and the constant burning glances Draco Malfoy sent his way daily—unreadable, indescribable glances that were just brimful of all sorts of emotions Harry couldn't quite decipher—gave him something to mull over in place of the hideous mental replays of people dying: Sirius, Fred, Dumbledore…Snape.

It was over Severus Snape that Draco and Harry truly bonded, from across the wide space of the Wizangamot meeting room and without a word ever spoken directly. Harry's feelings about his Potion's Professor were conflicting and many, deep as houses and all tinged with a lingering feeling of regret. Draco, for all that he'd issues with his Head of House in the recent past, quite clearly still revered the man, and leapt at every opportunity to defend him. Harry, armed at last with the incontrovertible knowledge of all Snape had done for the sake of Lily Potter's son—i.e. himself—stepped forward to do the same. The looks Draco sent him became softer, and easier, somehow, to decode.

Harry, with still a fair chunk of downtime on his hands when he wasn't actively standing in the midst of a large group of beady-eyed adults quizzing him, thought more and more of Draco after hours, spending his free time housed at the grey corridors of Wizarding government—the very same ones his father used to pace with such a fine show of near-ownership. He thought about Draco's arms tightening about his waist during the Fiendfyre; he remembered Draco's deliberately waffling over identifying him when he'd been Snatched (because he'd known, for a fact, that Draco recognized him right off and had very deliberately acted to save him; there'd never been the slightest doubt about that); he closed his eyes and could recall again the rush of wind sounding off Draco's broom at Quidditch matches and the antagonistic grey eyes that had always sought his instantly whenever they'd occupied the same space.

And he thought about the states of childhood, and adulthood, and how there'd been no real celebratory marker for either of them when they'd crossed that invisible line from one to the other. And it left him sad—and inspired, as well.

Off Harry went then, when the Trials ended and he was at Hogwarts to help with the rebuilding. To Diagon Alley, in the midst of being rebuilt, where he did some shopping, a task that both delighted and repulsed him. Christmas and birthdays had always been of huge importance to Harry, at first for the gifts he didn't receive and then, after he finally been delivered his Hogwart's letter, for the ones he did. Someone, Harry reasoned, should ensure Draco realized his birthday (his eighteenth, as Hermione had enlightened him) was an important occasion—that Harry would've missed him terribly if he'd not survived to have another one.

Which impulse was what delivered him to the Malfoy residence on the steamy bright morning of June 19th, a fortnight after the Malfoys had been given leave to return home, and a full two weeks and a day after—per Harry's recent knowledge-the anniversary of Draco's Malfoy's 18th year on the planet.

"Er, Draco, please?" he enquired of the house elf who answered the Malfoy front door. "May I speak with him?"

"Master Harry Potter! Master Harry Potter!"

The elf evidently hadn't heard of Hermione's much-trumpeted calls for emancipation; he—or she (Harry couldn't tell, as the elf was excessively elderly) was beside him or herself with excitement, in any road. Harry, fortunately, had grown used to this reaction and had developed a way of dealing with it, which Hermione would absolutely not approve of.

"Master Harry Potter! Oh, Master Harry Potter!" the elf twittered on, twirling. He'd have gone on like that for ages if Harry hadn't shushed him.

"Here, now, leave off at once!" Harry ordered sharply, mid-litany, "or you'll need to go punish yourself for fussing! You'll have to iron your ears or bang your head or—or something dire!"

"The great Harry Potter wishes Skipsy not to be fussing?" the elf asked, hesitantly. "Master is sure? Master is certain? Master will not change Master's mind? Master will not punish Skipsy later?"

Harry nodded decisively. Elves adored him, for some reason, and he'd gotten quite used to them tripping over themselves to please him. He shrugged off this unasked adulation like a duck in a downpour.

"Absolutely none of that, er, Skipsy—and no special sweets or promises of self-sacrifice needed, are we clear?" Harry commanded, with a wince (Dobby was yet another familiar face in his nightmares) "or anything else out of the way, for that matter. Just let me speak with Draco, please. Tell him I'm here to see him, if you will."

"…Young Master," the elf was still hesitant. He (Harry decided he was a 'he' because he was tired of caring one way or another) wrung his gnarled little hands and jittered between toe and heel, like a bobber on a fishing line. "Young Master never is rising so early in the day, Master Harry Potter. I cannot wakes him. Oh, oh-whatever shall Skipsy do?" He clutched the ears in question and fidgeted.

"Well, go and wake him anyway, Skipsy," Harry replied calmly, and made a shooing motion with the hand that wasn't clutching two Shrunken packets and the handle of his own replacement broom. He promptly leaned that against the door, realizing he didn't need to keep hold of it. "That lazy slug-a-bed," Harry went on, sneering just a bit. "He should be up and about; it's almost nine already."

"You is certain, Master Harry Potter? You is certain sure as could ever be?" Skipsy added an interestingly intricate sideways weave to his infernal endless rocking, and Harry began to feel seasick simply from following his progress. It was like tracking the dance of a rather withered cobra. "Really, really, really—truly, Young Master is not liking to be woken early, Master Harry Potter!" Skipsy whinged, insistent. Harry rolled his eyes in utter disgust.

The prat. Look at him—he'd been up since five and had repaired two classrooms already and flown miles.

"Look," he said sensibly, stoppering his frustration and shifting himself from foot-to-foot in an effort to keep Skipsy's ever-moving ancientness in some sort of focus (for an elf of indeterminate years, Skipsy was quite limber). "I swear to you he won't be angry with you, alright? On the contrary, he's going to be pleased as punch with what I've brought him—"

"And what, exactly, have you brought me, Potter?" a cool drawling voice inquired.

"Young Master Draco! Young Master Draco!" Skipsy was transported instantly into absolute paroxysms of joy. "You is awake! You is here!" Harry rolled his eyes at the drama. "Master Harry Potter is here—here to call on you, Young Master Draco!"

"I can see that for myself, Skipsy; thank you," Draco nodded acknowledgment, his voice very dry but meticulously polite. He glanced up from the joyous old elf and met Harry's eyes straight-on, snagging them in boundless depths of pewter-grey and enlarging black pupils, and holding them captive for a long, steady stare. "The question remains, why?"

"Draco," Harry replied evenly, not blinking, never for a second breaking the mutual goggle-fest. Now that he was actively looking, there was a brilliantly blinding vision in pure white before him. "You're alright, then?"

It was a moment—a curiously full moment—that Harry remembered later—and often-with great clarity. The heat and bee-buzz of a sunny mid-June morning; Draco, garbed in thin white fabric from collarbone to heel; the waft of newly shorn grasses refulgent in the air and Draco's eyes, which he'd seen in turn furious, scornful, derisive and cold as the frozen snows of the Arctic, now speaking volumes to him. They were brimful of messages telegraphed, the very signals Harry had struggled these last few long and tiring weeks to decode properly.

Harry was very conscious he'd Draco's wand to return to him and a not-at-all spontaneous birthday present. He was even more conscious that Draco in white was stunning and he was this close to actively drooling.

Oh—the present! Harry recalled himself with a mental lurch.

A belated one, now, but Harry rather thought his old Quidditch rival might like it. Harry usually stuck to the tried-and-true when giving presents, being otherwise pants at it: a book for Hermione, something Cannons-related for Ron, and sweets for everyone else, if required. He still wasn't accustomed to spending freely; had, in fact, been forced by Hermione to purchase some new gear before she'd left for Australia, and his gifting list had always been terribly short. Draco—or so he hoped—would probably want something useful, like a broom repair kit or polish, or maybe greaves or new laces. He'd every intention of buying some small thing along those lines when he'd ventured to Diagon.

But the Quidditch shop had brand new stock on their brand new shelving, and Harry was sucked in like a mark at a carny, 'ooh'-ing and 'ahh'-ing over the latest racing brooms imported in from Bulgaria and Italy, which hadn't been released on the British market previously due to the war. And there it had been, in pride of place over the till counter: the finest, fastest, most elegant broom he'd ever seen, only one of a hundred to be sold in England, and Harry had gone ahead straightaway and bought it, strictly on impulse—it wasn't ever something he'd buy for himself, no, but as a present? Well, then…he'd Galleons to burn and that particular specimen was so very, very 'Draco Malfoy'. Crafted of supple grey wood, with pale, silvery twigs neatly spliced in, and sporting deep green pin striping and weaving, it screamed 'Slytherin!' in much the way it screamed 'faster than any fucking broom you've ever ridden, mate! Are you scared?'

Harry put his slightly sweaty hand out—not the one holding the Shrunken packets—tentatively, and Draco took it within his cool, clean one. Quickly; without the slightest hesitation of any sort.

"I'm well, thank you," Draco replied. No sneer, no tundra permafrost; just that well-remembered high-class drawl slathering across Harry's senses like melted butter. It struck Harry hard that he was damned glad for the chance to hear it, still.

"Better now…Harry."

000ooo000

Draco Malfoy had made a career of knowing all about Harry Potter. Best to know thine enemy, he justified, though not in so many pretty words at age eleven, straight after the decisive rejection that had set Harry firmly on the other side of the ideological fence. Draco had fumed and brooded and finally arrived at the conclusion he'd need to be the one to show Harry up for the egotistical little git he was. Clearly, no one else had the guts to do it. That goal—with various adjustments and tweaking over the years, as they both matured—sustained admirably him through 6th Year. Somehow, though, the Dark Lord's demands of murder under duress far exceeded Harry's villainous gittishness. This was not what Draco had been expecting when his father had talked up the Dark Lord, this senseless terror. Nor was he at all agreeable with being reduced to a mere pawn, with no choice in the matter. After witnessing the horror that had been Professor Burbage's final moments, there was only so far his own willing suspension of disbelief could carry him.

By the middle of 6th Year, it was abominably clear he was the one who'd chosen the 'wrong sort of people', not Potter. It was evident, as well, that it was too late to skive Death Eating, though Draco did his very best to shoulder all responsibility for his fallen family's welfare, with the Dark Lord's addled expectation he off the most powerful Wizard since the Lord's own first incarnation. (Surely, Draco thought, the Dark Lord couldn't seriously believe the Headmaster and the Hero would remain blissfully unaware of Draco's hand in the matter, nor be unable to counter such a small breach in Hogwarts defenses as a ruddy piece of magical furniture?)

There, too, was a miniscule bit of Draco's subconscious mind that fully expected to be saved. The Potter git had pulled miracles out his arse time and again; why not one now, when Draco needed it so badly? A simple Imperio—Veritaserum, even—would serve to force him to reveal his involvement, the details of the vacuous plotting, too, and then this nonsense would be over before it even began. Draco himself would likely be consigned to Azkaban, but it'd be worth it see the Dark Lord checkmated and trounced by Boy Wonder. But no miracle was forthcoming, and Harry only alternately glared at Draco and dogged his footsteps faithfully and furtively, clearly not comprehending, and the, oh, so powerful Headmaster did not lift a friggin' finger to stop Draco from beavering away at fixing the devilish Cabinet.

Draco, ultimately cast forth from Hogwarts upon the mercy of Voldemort (which was entirely non-existent; no real 'Lord' he, and completely forfeit the required sense of noblesse oblige Malfoys had been bred to, along with proper nostrils) and under the dubious tutelage of his mad-as-a-hatter aunt and his turncoat Professor Snape (and was that so not a surprise—not!—to find his mentor so firmly entrenched in the Death Eaters camp), discovered, as he'd already suspected, that he'd no interest in 'who-the-fuck-cares?' frenzied bloodshed and berserker havoc. Every small act of torture required of him left him wracked as well, and Harry Potter was but a bright, distant speck on Draco's receding grey horizon. A sometime Saviour, who'd no care left within him, apparently, for the sheep abandoned in his wake, who'd rent the wool from their own eyes so belatedly. Draco, being one of the cannier Wizards of his generation, did the best he could with what tools he had, and countered the Dark Lord's orders in every passive way possible, short of having himself AK'd outright for insubordination. And he hated it—and Potter—with a welling, swamping passion, for ditching him like so much rubbish.

And Harry—that git Potter—Harry fucking disappeared.

It wasn't till the Snatching that Draco allowed himself to truly hope once more. And it was at that very moment of truth, when they were shoving and puling at him to identify a battered, nearly unrecognizable Boy, that he knew precisely why he'd been so utterly demoralized at the patent lack of rescue and why the rumours of Harry's disappearance had left him further devastated: he'd desired Harry Potter all these years, and not just as casual mate or even a close confidante.

And, after that, it was all helter-skelter, till the Trials, when Draco finally slid gratefully into his niche. It wasn't Potions—not as if they'd let him near a lab, the doughty Ministry blokes who'd confined him and his family on trumpery excuses—or Arithromancy, though he did his fair share of logic puzzles and whatnot to escape the dulling hours of boredom, nor even Divination, though he'd scrying in his blood, as well as Seeking. It was Goyle, once rescued from certain death by him and Harry both and still doomed, that inspired Draco. He owed it to struck-dumb, gormless Greg, his loyal supporter, his best mate when Harry wasn't, and he owed it to Vince's memory, for having allowed the events that led to his death roll on unimpeded; to debate—to take up arms and fight the good fight—to convince and persuade the adults in power as he'd never successfully managed before.

For Draco, it was an honourable debt as well, owed to a frightened Pansy and a sardonic Blaise; to stupid sulky Nott, tarred by the same brush that sullied his father; to sad-eyed Millie, who'd never supported the Dark Lord, not really, but who was still Slytherin. To Hogwarts itself, its silly Hat and its Founders, and his tarnished memory of his late Headmaster, who'd offered Draco something he'd sourly regretted not taking ever since.

Draco became his own barrister, and the strident spokesman for the ones who couldn't—or wouldn't—defend themselves. And, for once in his long string of failures, his grand scheme was startlingly effective, and Harry's unexpected and unsolicited support practically cemented each and every victory. Every concession he requested for his Housemates and others like them was granted; every allowance made for the undeniable fact they'd all been only children-merely children, heartlessly used for adult's nefarious purposes, was agreed to, and Draco, in a rather amazing manner, earned again his own self-respect and returned to his former proud posture, chin up and challenging. He'd only ever required some arena to succeed in; that this was the one was a Merlin-blessed relief.

Which was how Harry Potter found him, on the hazy-bright morning of June 19th.

"Young Master Draco! Young Master Draco!" Skipsy dithered, capering madly with effervescent glee. "You is awake! You is here! Master Harry Potter is here-here to call on you, Young Master Draco!"

Draco was damned glad to know he hadn't needed to be rescued yet again—turned out rescue wasn't what he'd wanted in the first place. Harry had helped, yes, but it was his skill with words that had bought his own freedom and what he required now of Harry was something far more complicated. Now, at last, they were equals and right here and right now—Draco exulted; finally—was his second whack at befriending Potter. And perhaps a great deal more.

"I can see that, Skipsy; thank you." Draco cocked a slow, wheaten brow at Harry, testing the waters. "The question is, why?"

Harry swallowed; Draco feasted his eyes on the movement, the twitchiness that was so 'Harry'. His irritation at Potter's annoying mannerisms had slowly morphed into enduring fondness. "Draco," the git said—rustily, his voice all over creaky and raw, like after the Fiendfyre—"You alright, then?"

Draco fell in love all over again, smack dab on his own doorstep, and it was all there, he knew, every glutting throb of want and need and please, clear as the morning dazzling his pale, reflective eyes, his wide-open features. No disguising it now; no denying it, either. And he didn't care to—it was more than time to cease his infernal habit of secrecy.

He stuck his hand out forthrightly to meet Harry's extended one, feeling remarkably hopeful—confident, as he'd not been before. The git had not been oblivious when Draco's eyes had followed him, the mirrors of his soul a feverish pewter, all throughout the daily drudgery of testifying. He'd not been able to shrug off Draco's admiring gazes, nor discount the avid, desirous eyes that lingered salaciously on his arse, his expressive hands, his wiry frame and muscled thighs, visible only sometimes under the ancient fusty black robes he'd worn to the Ministry day after day till finally someone—Granger, perhaps?—had taken him in hand and finally outfitted him with new robes.

"Better now…Harry," Draco replied, as calmly as he could with a whirlwind of glee roaming his innards, and waggled his eyebrows comically in an effort to make the clumsy berk smile in return, just as he'd used to do with the younger Slytherins when they were nervous. That was Draco's first tentative step in a seduction of a different sort entirely. He stepped closer, tripping on purpose over Skipsy's bouncing bulk, having mapped out his master plan already, in the midst of repetitive hours of serious fantasy-driven wanking.

Harry caught Draco's deliberately sliding elbow with remarkable speed, with the same hand he'd just used to shake Draco's with, and took a deep, sharp gust of breath that Draco felt rushing past his own flushed cheeks. They were seeing eye to eye at last, and Skipsy's excited dithering had faded unnoticed into the far distant background.

Perfect, perfect, perfect, he thought to himself. Keep it going, Malfoy.

"You've brought me something, Harry?" he inquired artlessly, cocking his head and darting his tongue out to dampen his lips; his present was right here, under his nose, clutching his flexing forearm. "Something…nice?" He quirked a smile, parting wet lips deliberately, and Harry's gaze darted to them instantly, his own mouth already mid-curve and rising at the corners. "Something…I'll be glad to receive, you say?"

Indeed, Draco considered; it was all about saying things without actually saying them. He grinned ruefully; he'd been practicing that for weeks now.

"Mmm-hmm, yeah," Harry murmured, blinking as if befuddled, and Draco noticed out of the corner of one eye he'd fisted his other hand more firmly 'round the tiny packets and tightened the tendons stretching the breadth of his shoulders. He noted Harry's bruised knuckles (chapped and cracked from windburn, for the fool had obviously flown on that barely acceptable brand of broom propping up the doorframe) and the ragged fingernails, which were bitten to the quick; and he could literally taste the want like sweet acid gathering at the back of his throat. "I, er—I did, Draco," Harry confirmed, his voice starting low and rumbley, then catching a hitch at the tail end. The halting reply did remarkable things to Draco's squirming intestines. "I do, yes."

Draco inhaled sharply through his nose, imagining that voice in his bed, sinking into his skin. Merlin, but he was 'sunk', truly. A goner, like that Muggle ship, the Titanic.

"Then come all the way in, why don't you, you rude berk, and show me this marvelous item you're so positive I'll fancy." Draco smiled widely, wicked-merry, entirely unguarded; stepping aside eagerly and opening the way clear into his home—his sanctuary. "Don't just rot away on my doorstep. It's not done."

"Well…if you're sure," Harry hesitated yet—perhaps Skipsy's endless dither was catching. "If you're not busy? I don't want to be a bother; I know it's early yet—least for some people. I just have these to give you—"

"No bother, Harry; you're very welcome here," Draco grin grew with his delight, his eyes glinting in the reflection from the not to distant coldhouses. "Didn't you puzzle that out yet, nit? I've been waiting."

"Um," Harry began, looking very much as though he wished to protest any such assumption. "Er. Really?"

"You are, Harry," Draco assured him, and used the hand on his arm to draw Harry after. "Believe it or not, as you will, the fact remains you're welcome here. Most…welcome."

"Ah." Harry must be fairly parched, Draco decided, flying all that way from wherever—London? The fabled Burrow? Draco's mind alit instantly upon offering tea—or brekkers-or perhaps something stronger. A little dollop of a good vintage wouldn't come amiss this celebratory moment. "Erm, okay. For a minute, then."

"Skipsy," Draco commanded softly, sparing a winning smile at his faithful ancient retainer, spinning circles at their feet, "if we may have tea in my parlour—and a bottle of the Jouët Cuvée, I think. Please."

"Yes, Young Master!" Skipsy bowed his pleasure and popped off to the non-decorative bits of the Manor post-haste.

"Oh!" Harry looked as though he might protest again; Draco squashed the thought instantly via advancing action.

"This way—up the stairs, Harry. I'm on the second level. Come, come—and bring your broom with you. I want a look at it. Your primary rudder twig's bent, you know."

"Oh, is it," Harry grabbed the broom in passing and looked at it doubtfully, trailing after. "Yeah; you're right. I'll have to fix that before I leave or I'll come a'scupper. D'you have a kit handy?"

"Of course I've a kit, Harry," Draco grinned—just couldn't stop, now he'd started. "I've loads of Quidditch supplies. Gloves, too. I'd say you could make good use of them. You'll be welcome."

Harry blushed at the repetition; it was glorious to see—all that skin flushed pink and damp. Draco swallowed and pressed a discreet hand to his groin. "Um, thanks," his visitor mumbled, and managed to follow Draco down the hallway without bolting outright or coming up with yet more excuses to do so. "This place is rather…large," he eked out, by way of small talk. "And confusing."

Draco struggled mightily not to frighten Harry off by leering too toothily. He'd have to advance crabwise and carefully or the nit might still duck out on him yet, and he didn't want that—oh, no, not at all.

"Maybe," Draco allowed, glancing back over his shoulder with what must surely have been a wink. Harry blinked at him and kept trotting. The manor was ever so huge. "But you get used to it, growing up here. Families used to be larger in the old days, Harry. And everyone would gather at the main house if there was danger and hunker down for the duration."

"Really?" Harry was curious; Binn's take on the history of magic had been boring at best, but here was someone who'd a family that had been a crucial part of all of those centuries. The name 'Malfoy' was all over the textbook he and his mates had used in Hogwarts; he'd never failed to sneer then, because Ron did. Hermione had kept her lips sealed when they had, but her eyes had been faintly disapproving. "Wasn't your family in France, then?" he asked. 'Malfoy' was a Frenchified name, sure enough. Not like Potter; good Anglo stock, he—or Welsh, maybe, at a stretch. He wished for a moment he knew more of his mother's family, but Draco was speaking again.

"Yes, but we Malfoys came over with the Norman Conquest. Been here a thousand years, now," Draco replied calmly, ushering them—finally—to a suite of adjoining rooms that made Harry's bedroom at Grimmauld Place look like a veritable rubbish heap. Harry gaped.

"It's beautiful!" he gasped, and was instantly drawn to the floor-to-ceiling windows, with their view of gently rolling hills and fields, verdant in the humid morning. The greens closer were all closely mown and there looked to be any number of outbuildings of all sorts of architectural styles.

"Nice, right?" Draco was asking, and Harry could hear the pride—and pleasure?-in his tone. "I'll take you out for a tour 'round the place as soon we've your broom fixed up. You'll enjoy the paddocks and stables, too; we've pegasi, you know," he added proudly, and then turned to thank the elf popping in with the tray.

"Oh!" Harry exclaimed and turned away from the view. "Well-I don't think—I mean, I came without much warning. Aren't you, er, busy with—with stuff?"

Draco grinned and shrugged. "It's already summer season, Harry. Everyone's abroad if they can be or sorting themselves out still—and I can't leave, you know; I've probation."

"Oh…yeah," Harry remembered. He'd thought it a master stroke, worthy of Ron, that Draco had come up with that clause. It was sop to the vengeance-hungry haters, who demanded some sort of visible humbling of the group who'd wreaked such destruction, and it seemed to assure the Wizangamot and other 'responsible adults' that the deviant youth the Junior Death Eaters had been would be properly reconditioned and become functioning adults themselves. And—Harry was very pleased with this part—it was all labeled 'voluntary', where and how it was served, but it really wasn't, not the way Draco had set it up, and people (shopkeepers and professionals and the like, many on the side of the Light) had to allow the Death Eater children their fair chance to learn trades and professions—it was mandatory. No one could be denied on the basis of their past, which was how Mr. Olivander had found himself with a still-mute Greg Goyle on his hands as an apprentice and Madame Pomfrey'd been saddled with a startling eager Pansy Parkinson. "Where will you be assigned, then?" he asked, suddenly reminded to be very curious. He'd not see Draco often after this meeting, and especially if he didn't make an effort to stay in contact. They hardly moved in the same social circles, he and Draco.

Wait! Harry thought. Were there even still 'circles'? Would the Purebloods continue to stick to themselves or would the Ministry manage to force everyone to 'get along'?

"At Hogwarts, Harry—with my parents," Draco replied. "Come and have some champagne now and let me have a look-see at your broom."

Harry went, still ever so slightly leery. He couldn't deny the well of gladness fountaining up his throat, though. He'd be at Hogwarts, too. Already was, most days. "Er…" he began, thrusting his hand out—the one with the packets this time. "I've just brought these for you. Don't you want to open them?"

"Is it my wand, Harry?" Draco asked, carelessly enough. He waved a casual hand at the two brown parcels done up with butcher's string. "Just lay them on the table, if you would. A drink first, yeah? I'd say we earned it, wouldn't you?"

"Ah!" Harry was taken back yet again—he dropped his broom, even—alcohol and so early in the morning; his Weasley breakfast had yet to settle comfortably into his stomach! Molly had thrown herself into a frenzy of cookery lately, likely to keep her mind from the lack of mouths clamouring 'round her table. "I don't think—I really shouldn't."

"Absolutely you've earned it, Harry; come on, don't say no so easily," Draco coaxed and drew near enough to niftily exchange Harry's crumpled parcels for a crystal flute full to the brim with bubbly. He was barely a foot away from Harry's person, casually gorgeous in white-on-white silk, and it was all Harry could do not to sniff him. Or just drop his jaw and fall like an utter loon into those eyes.

Very warm, those eyes. Bloody infernos. And Draco Malfoy was as impossible elegant as he'd always been; maybe more so, now that his pointy-ness had resolved to clean, pure lines and intriguing shadows. He'd a chiseled look to him, like the Norman knights of yore, and Harry, with his earthier mien and shockingly different features—green, green eyes and a bloody mane in place of a style, and by Merlin, don't forget the bleeding scar!—admired it, rather. Rather a lot. He approved of the way Draco smelt, too. Citrusy and clean, as if his morning ablutions involved standing under a lemon-scented waterfall.

And all that sorting out and telling over of 'Draco-attributes' brought on any number of extended images, which caused Harry to gulp his champagne down his gullet far too quickly and wind up coughing.

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