“That,” says Harry, “is so very wrong,” but before he can say anything further the man yells, “It’s now, Em!” and headbutts Harry hard in the forehead.
Harry takes the hit with all the grace his training’s taught him, falling back only the barest half-step—but that half-step’s enough. The man vanishes, smiling, into thin air, nothing left of him but the telltale whoosh of a recently departed Portkey. Harry swears, runs out into the hall, and finds his compatriot is gone too, probably by the same mechanism; a Portkey worn close to the skin, the strategy favored by highly-trained wizarding assassins who want a back door exit if they get picked up on the scene of a hit.
“God fucking damn it,” Harry yells, loud enough that his voice reverberates down the halls.
He should have seen it. He should have anticipated it, the Portkey, but he didn’t because he’s not smart enough, not good enough, they’re gone again and it’s Harry’s fault. Draco’s not safe here, Harry had the chance to keep him safe and he missed it, he fucked it up, he fucked it up and let the bastards go and he should have killed him, killed them both, it would have been worth whatever the fuck it cost him and—
Harry wheels around to punch a wall and—stops. Remembers, all at once, that it’s not the wall’s fault; that he’d be hurting the house, which helped him, which he’s only ever done wrong by, before; that he would be hurting Draco. It takes everything in him, but he unclenches his fist, places his palm flat against the wall instead, tries to imagine he can feel the current of the house’s magic pulsing underneath the whorls of his fingertips. He takes deep, steadying breaths and waits for Draco to say—whatever he’s going to say. Something pithy about how Harry’s clearly deranged, probably, but isn’t it nice that he’s developed a rudimentary grasp of basic self control.
Nothing comes.
Harry looks up and realizes that Draco—isn’t next to him. That Draco is still in the bedroom. That there are frenetic-sounding little crashes coming from the bedroom. That Harry still doesn’t know what caused the massive crash he heard outside. That Harry is being selfish.
He shakes himself, drops his hand, and goes in after Draco.
The answer to what caused the crash he heard outside is apparent immediately; Harry doesn’t know how the hell he didn’t notice it before. The far wall of the room has been blown clean through; all that remains is debris, a few determinedly clinging wooden panels, and a gaping hole leading into what must be the master bathroom.
Harry can’t believe that a month ago he was talking about someone doing this like it wouldn’t matter, like it would be fine. The hole is more than just hole, visibly and palpably, and he feels dizzy for a second to look at it; sick. He thinks that maybe he wasn’t imagining it a minute ago, that feeling of magic pulsing under his fingertips—maybe the house is bleeding, the only way it knows how. Certainly Harry feels, standing here in this room, the pervasive, creeping sense of dread he associates with hospital and battlefields, busts gone very wrong. This is a wound, and a grievous one. Harry’s chest hurts just looking at it.
Of course, then he lays eyes on Draco, and thinks that first bout of chest pain was nothing.
Harry thought—he got swept up in the moment, Draco’s hand on his shoulder, the way he said “Harry. This isn’t you,” in that calm, collected voice. He got swept up in Draco’s whole—thing. He seems so in control most of the time, like he’s got everything figured out, or at least like he’s got so much more figured out than Harry that it might as well be everything, and whatever he doesn’t have quite managed is just a wash. Harry knows, has always known, that it’s maybe a bit of a facade; Draco’s not quite as good at it as he thinks he is, and Harry sees the cracks sometimes, notes them. In some ways he’s been looking for them since he was eleven, so. It’s not like the fact that they’re there is really a surprise.
He forgot, is all. He forgot—or maybe never truly let himself recognize—that the reason Draco puts it up in the first place is that what’s underneath is the same deep well that fuels his endless talking, his endless research, the way he went and stood on a sidewalk in Muggle London and wriggled like a fish for two days out of sheer determination to find something everyone else abandoned long ago. Draco is intense and incessant, full stop, and Harry knows that, has known it for weeks now, but it hadn’t occurred to him to push that thought to its logical conclusion, to think about what it must be like sometimes inside of that forever babbling brain.
It’s occurring to him now, though. He can’t seem to make it stop.
Draco is shaking. Visibly; badly. The ropes are still trailing from his ankles and wrists. He is flitting from drawer to zhaiyuedu.com to dresser to nightstand, opening doors and pulling things out at random, tossing them aside, moving to another spot and starting again. He’s looking for something; he’s gasping for breath. He’s heavily favoring his left side.
“Malfoy,” Harry says.
“Oh!” Draco says. He turns, and his eyes are wild; bright. Narrowing dangerously. He always does try to hurt when he’s hurting. “Oh, are you done now? I’m sorry I couldn’t attend to your little breakdown, I’m a bit busy in here, it turns out it’s very difficult to find things by hand and seeing as they took my wand—”
“What are you looking for?” Harry says.
“I don’t need your help,” Draco cries, and it’s such an obvious lie, so utterly transparent, that it’s all Harry can do not to go over to him and call him on it. The only thing that holds him back is knowing how desperately Draco wants to believe that it’s true; Harry can’t bear, after all of this, to be the one to force him to admit that it’s not. “I need the potion—I need my wand—”
“Here,” Harry says, and holds out his own.
Draco stares at the wand; stares at Harry. Stalks over and rips the thing out of his hand. Snaps,“Accio Draught of Peace,” and then, louder, “Accio Draught of Peace,” and then, in a voice so thready and badly concealing desperation that Harry nearly snatches the wand back rather than see it disappoint him, “Accio Draught of Peace.”
Nothing happens. Draco makes a horrible, high pitched keening noise, drops the wand, backs up until he hits the wall opposite the hole, and slides to the floor.
“They took it again,” he says. His voice has a quality to it that Harry’s never heard before—he talks fast, sometimes, often, but not like this. Right now Draco sounds like he’s taking in too much air and not enough, the words tumbling out from between his lips breathy and too close together, each one of them an obvious choking hazard. “They took it again, Potter, what the fuck kind of thieves are these? Who does this to someone, why would you go out of your way to—are they just—sadists! Is that all it comes down to! Or is this personal, do they just hate me that much, I can’t breathe, I—”
He stops, his gaze fixing on the hole where the wall once was, and as his breathing picks up too much for him to even speak Harry realizes that he’s having a panic attack. Hermione used to, sometimes, over really big homework assignments and in the Forest of Dean; Harry used to, sometimes, in moments when nothing much was happening, after the war was over. Ron usually dealt with Hermione’s and Harry usually dealt with his own, which is to say he mostly didn’t deal with them, just gasped and cried and threw things and then, afterwards, cleaned it all up in silent, empty-feeling misery and went about his day.
Still, he knows the territory, and the important thing, Harry thinks, is that he, himself, remain calm. Somebody has to be calm here. Somebody has to show Draco how.
Harry hesitates for only a moment and then crouches down in front of Draco, settles his weight on his knees. “You can breathe,” he says, and then, when this has no effect, considers what approach Draco might try on him and adds, “you idiot.” This, too, does nothing, and when Harry says, “Malfoy,” Draco doesn’t even look round. Harry can hear the labor in his every inhalation, the work it’s taking him just to get a little air, and the urgency of the situation overrides Harry’s desperate grasping for what he’s supposed to do, his fear of getting it wrong. It pushes him back onto his instincts, which, anyway, is really where he belongs.
“Draco,” Harry says.
Draco’s eyes snap to his—they’re too-wide, brimming with panic, and they move to look back at the hole almost immediately. Harry moves too, his whole body, to keep himself in Draco’s eyeline. To get in Draco’s way.
“Draco,” he says again. It’s the gentlest voice he can come up with, but it mostly sounds like a rasp, as hushed and hurting as the rest of the room. He keeps going anyway. “Look at me. Okay? Don’t look at that; look at me. Can you do that?”
Slowly, without breaking eye contact, Draco nods.
“Okay,” Harry says. “Okay.” He thinks for a second, and then reaches out and picks up one of Draco’s hands; Draco draws in a breath as he does that hitches so horribly that Harry has to bite down on a wince. Then Draco’s eyes fix on the rope around his wrist and Harry has to say it again: “Draco, don’t look at that, look at me. Stay right here with me, okay?” He thinks about asking Draco to say it, the way Draco had asked him to say he wasn’t going to hurt his fucking torturer—it helped Harry, but he’s not sure they need the same things. Anyway, he doubts Draco could get it out.
He trusts his instincts. He takes Draco’s hand and presses it, holds it, to his own chest. He keeps himself in Draco’s eyeline and he draws in deep, even breaths, releases them steady and slow. He waits for Draco to follow.
“This isn’t—going to work—Potter,” Draco chokes out. Harry does not point out that it’s working already, that a minute ago Draco couldn’t even find it in himself to speak, because that’s not what this is about. He just keeps breathing, and after another minute Draco manages to say, “Get out.” He sounds like he means it, but his fingers betray him, closing around Harry’s pajama top in a white-knuckled grip.
“No,” Harry says, a little helplessly. He couldn’t leave Draco here like this if Draco wanted him to, and, anyway, Harry knows that he doesn’t. “I won’t.”
Draco makes this strangled little sound that might be the ghost of a laugh; Harry can’t tell. “I don’t want—you—to see this,” he gasps, and Harry’s heart breaks for him, a little, that he’s still this unbearably proud person, even now.
“I’m sorry,” Harry whispers, and means it. “But I’m staying.” Adds, in case it’ll help: “I’ll let you Obliviate me after, if you want.”
With a noise like a wounded animal, Draco capitulates; he rocks forward, makes as if he wants to curl in on himself, and Harry moves without thinking so his head hits Harry’s shoulder instead. Harry lifts the hand he isn’t using to hold Draco’s wrist to rest on Draco’s back, and he feels Draco’s free hand wrap up and around his biceps. His fingers are digging in a little too hard, but Harry doesn’t mind. Harry would probably let him do a lot worse than this if it meant he’d be all right.
Neither one of them says anything for a long time. Draco chokes and gasps for breath, hyperventilates, and Harry forces himself to keep his own breathing even, measured. He runs the flat of his palm up and down Draco’s back, tries to will it to stop heaving under his hand with slow, deliberate strokes. He’s never done anything like this before, not for anyone —Ginny’d asked him to hold her, once, after a nightmare, but she’d just been a bit unsettled and was asleep again in about 45 seconds, so Harry doesn’t think it counted. This is—awful, Harry thinks, and better than doing nothing, and strange, above all else. He didn’t know his body could contain this many warring feelings, concern and sorrow and helplessness thick in his throat even as he thinks that his knees hurt, or notices that Draco’s hair smells faintly of soap.
It’s probably about fifteen minutes. It feels like fifteen years.
When, finally, Draco’s breathing starts to even out, he uses the hand he’s got on Harry’s chest to shove him backwards, away. Harry nods, understanding, even though he can see that Draco’s eyes are closed, and busies himself with untying the knotted ropes around Draco’s wrists and ankles. It’s more laborious that Harry expected it to be—it’s thick rope, coarse, it’s no wonder it rubbed his skin raw—and when he finishes and looks up, Draco is looking back at him.
And the expression on his face is so—Harry’s never seen him like this, completely open, a raw nerve. He knows that’s because Draco’s never wanted him to see it, and probably doesn’t want him to now; Harry should look away, but he can’t. He can’t, because what’s sketched out plain as day for Harry to see is misery, sure, and resignation, but also, unmistakably, affection. Incredulous, disbelieving affection, like Harry is a mirage that has appeared before Draco in a desert, but affection all the same.
It’s somehow the single most captivating thing Harry’s ever seen. He couldn’t break Draco’s gaze if he tried.
It’s Draco who drops his eyes after a minute, mouth pulling into a strange, unreadable shape, and Harry, at long last, takes his weight off his knees. He folds himself down into a more comfortable position on the hardwood floor, and wandlessly Banishes the ropes.
“D’you want to Obliviate me?” Harry says at last.
Draco gives him a long, considering look, and then, slowly, shakes his head.
“Okay,” Harry says—like he wouldn’t have minded either way, but secretly very relieved. “D’you want me to heal you?”
Draco makes a face at him, which Harry chooses to interpret as meaning not yet.
“Okay,” Harry says. “D’you want…some tea?”
At this Draco actually laughs, though it comes out vaguely wheezing; pained. “Of all the things I never would have pegged you as, Potter, a feeder is pretty high on the list.”
Smiling slightly—glad, if nothing else, that Draco has not abandoned forever all power of speech—Harry shrugs. “Everybody has to eat, Malfoy. Come on.”
