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Later, Harry blames the falling chandelier.
It shatters in a spray of broken crystal. Shards spray in every direction. Bellatrix Lestrange howls. Malfoy has his hands over his face, three wands clutched in his fingers, and Harry wrenches the wands away.
Out. They have to get out.
Shell Cottage, he thinks, pulse a drumbeat in his ears. Maybe he shouts it. Shell Cottage. Shell Cottage.
A knife arcs through the air in a silver flash.
He isn’t looking for the gold of the Snitch. Doesn’t know it’s gone until it’s too late.
Hogwarts is falling down around them. A children’s rhyme repeats nonsensically in Harry’s head. London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge…
A boom shakes the castle and Narcissa Malfoy takes him by the shoulder of his jacket, Malfoy’s wrist in her other hand, and pushes Harry into a room that wasn’t there before.
The Room of Requirement.
It does not shield them from the sounds of the battle.
“You misplaced something in my home.” Narcissa doesn’t seem to notice the noise. She stands straight and tall, her hands folded in front of her. “I’m willing to come to an agreement.”
“What agreement?” Harry feels drowned in adrenaline. There’s too much. It’s worse than the dragons at the Triwizards. He stops feeling it, sometimes. Is that better or worse? He wants the Snitch back, but he can’t take his eyes off Malfoy, silent at Narcissa’s side, his eyes enormous.
“Make the Vow.”
“What Vow?”
“Swear you’ll keep my son with you.”
“Draco?” A ridiculous question. Everyone knows Narcissa only has one son, and that son is Harry’s longtime enemy, and he hates him, he does.
Except when he looks at Malfoy all he can see is the fear in his eyes when his father took him by the neck and demanded that he give Harry up, and Malfoy wouldn’t do it. Is that same fear there now, or is it something different?
Would everything be different if he’d only taken Malfoy’s hand when they were eleven?
“Make the Vow.” Narcissa opens her hand, and there’s the Snitch, wings unfurling.
Another boom. Screams push through the walls and scrape at Harry’s ears. He doesn’t have time to think, couldn’t think anyway, and if he did have time, he’d make the same decision. The same bloody one.
He holds his hand out, but it’s Malfoy who steps in front of him, not Narcissa. She moves to their clasped wrists and raises her wand.
“Swear that you’ll keep my son with you.”
It’s a simple thing, that vow. Easy. Nothing to do with Malfoy’s life or death, but there are webs of magic all through the castle and the battle and everywhere else. This is just the one Narcissa’s chosen to pull on, using the only leverage that she has.
So what if some part of Harry is relieved at the Vow? Everything he’s done in his life has been interrupted. Unfinished. He never got to know his parents. Never got to live with Sirius.
Harry needs that Snitch, though he doesn’t know why.
And he needs to finish this with Malfoy.
“I swear I’ll keep Draco Malfoy with me.”
A white-gold curl of magic circles their wrists. Narcissa frowns in concentration. The magic of the Vow snaps tight. Harry’s fingers dig into Malfoy’s wrist. He can feel his pulse, racing and racing, and for the first time in his life he has to focus on not Apparating, not getting them the hell out of here, destination anywhere else. The magic squeezes at his heart. A shrill scream in the hallway ends in a gurgling sob. Narcissa puts her wand away and tips the Snitch into Harry’s palm.
“Go,” whispers Narcissa. “It’s time to go.”
The Snitch’s wings flutter like a hummingbird’s in his palm. It’s oddly quiet in the Forbidden Forest. He’s left his friends behind. His life behind. Malfoy behind. Harry’s heart stutters. That’s only because he’s going to die. Narcissa must have known that. The terms of the Vow were pretty vague, when Harry thinks about it, so it must be okay to go for this little stroll in the Forest.
He’s not coming back out.
I’m ready to die, he thinks, and he says it, too, and it’s only half-true. He’s not ready to die. He’s scared out of his mind. But the Snitch believes him. It opens, spilling out images of his parents and Sirius and Remus, and nothing has ever sounded so loud as his own heartbeat. He curls his fist around the Resurrection Stone.
Red eyes. Robed figures. Harry closes his eyes.
Sirius was right. It’s quicker and easier than falling asleep.
King’s Cross is a blinding white, and Dumbledore’s hazy. His voice rolls over Harry in indistinct waves. Harry asks question after question, but he’s going back, no doubt about that.
Because Malfoy stands behind Dumbledore, his eyes wide, his hand to his chest, and he’s all in white, like the station. Those eyes, those eyes. How had Harry ever looked away? He looks new and wonderful.
Harry’s not leaving him here. He can’t. He made a Vow.
They could get the next train together, but fear flashes through Malfoy’s eyes, and Harry thinks no, and then he’s on the ground with Narcissa leaning over him.
“Is Draco alive?” Her voice trembles. “Is he in the castle?”
Harry nods.
The Vow is more insistent when the Battle is over, or Harry is more aware of the little tug at his ribs.
Malfoy’s parents leave, but he and Harry stay at Hogwarts and help clear the rubble. Nobody questions it. May turns to June, and June turns to July, and then it’s the first of August. They hardly say anything to each other.
Narcissa comes back to speak to Malfoy. They’re to meet at the edge of the Forest.
Harry stays at the wall he’s helping to rebuild until something hot drips down the front of his shirt.
He swipes at his nose, and his hand comes away bloody.
Harry Apparates to the trees, takes Malfoy’s wrist in his, and they’re gone.
Grimmauld Place is good at shutting out the world. Its layers of grime and history shroud everything in a comfortable dusk twenty-four hours a day. Harry touches down in that shadowy half-light.
“Why?” he asks. It feels like the night of the Battle was yesterday. It feels like they’ve been floating in a dream.
“I don’t know,” Malfoy answers. His voice is a silk sheet that’s been torn up. Shredded to pieces. Why did they stay so long at Hogwarts? They shouldn’t have.
Harry reaches into his pocket and comes up with the Resurrection Stone, which has been there all this time. He offers it to Malfoy in his palm. “This was in the Snitch.”
Malfoy’s eyebrows go up. “A stone?”
“The Resurrection Stone.”
“Is that why we came back?”
“No.” Harry laughs, and lets it fall onto the floor below them. “It gives you ghosts. That’s all it has. A last conversation with ghosts.”
“Did you need it?” Malfoy’s voice cracks into a whisper.
“They walked with me. I wasn’t alone.”
“Do you want to be alone now?”
“No.”
Their bodies are tired of fighting and tired of building. Their bodies are tired. An old instinct says that when he reaches for Malfoy’s clothes, it will be to haul him close and punch him, but his hand curls around Malfoy’s cheek instead. Harry’s too rough for all that pale skin, too dirty, too hardened from months on the run, months at war, but Malfoy leans into Harry’s touch like a lifeline.
“Please,” he says, and Harry understands he’s asking for more, more.
Is Malfoy on him, or is he on Malfoy?
Their mouths meet, and Harry tastes blood and desperation.
He tastes relief.
When he pulls back from the kiss, Malfoy lets his head fall against the wall.
“Do it,” he says, eyes closed.
“Do what?” Harry’s still got his hand on Malfoy’s nape.
“Kill me.”
“Why would I do that?”
“You’ve always wanted to. Now you have to.”
Harry’s so sick and tired of things he has to do. Live in the cupboard under the stairs. Fight a dragon. Defeat the Dark Lord. He’s done all that and then some. When does it stop?
“Who says?”
“It’s the only way you’ll be free of me.”
“I’ve had months to kill you.”
Malfoy smiles, and he looks so exhausted, so sad, that it breaks Harry’s war-battered heart. “There’s still time.”
Harry puts his hands on Malfoy’s waist. Maybe he can’t feel the Vow in his magic the way Harry can. It’s not Malfoy’s promise. He didn’t have to swear anything. He had nothing to do but hope.
“No.”
At the sound of Harry’s voice, Malfoy opens his eyes. The grey catches on Harry’s soul. “No?”
“It’s too late.”
Malfoy studies him. His eyes are the only clean, bright shade of grey Harry’s ever seen. He doesn’t want to see staring eyes or bloodied flesh or Fiendfyre.
“What do you want from me, then?” Malfoy asks.
“I want to get you out of those clothes. Can I—please. Can I get you out of those clothes?”
They don’t Banish their clothes from the end of the war. They Vanish them to nowhere, never to be seen again. Looking at Malfoy is like looking in a mirror. They’re both too thin. Both scarred. Both hollowed out in strange places.
Harry reaches for the fine, white Sectumsempra scars and freezes. Malfoy takes his hand and pulls his fingers the rest of the way until they touch, until Harry can’t help feeling what he’s done.
“I’m sorry, Malfoy.” He thinks his voice is lost in the rush of the shower.
“Draco,” Malfoy says.
They look at each other for a long time, Draco holding Harry’s hand to his chest. It’s not just the scars. Harry can feel his heartbeat, too.
“Draco,” Harry says back.
Harry’s been running for a long time, and he doesn’t know how to stop. Draco’s been trapped for a long time, like a bird in a cage.
“Please.” Draco tips his head back to let Harry drag his lips over this neck. This part of Draco isn’t scarred. This part of him is pale and perfect, as if Harry never touched it. He bites down to see the marks his teeth leave behind. Harry takes both of their cocks in his hand, rubs them together, and Draco lets out a shuddering breath. “I would be good.”
“You are,” he says, and Draco’s cock twitches again. “You’re good. You’re so good.”
“I would try, if you said—”
“You are,” Harry insists, and then, to prove it, he gets down on his knees.
Draco’s hands are gentle in his hair, and Harry’s hands are gentle on Draco’s hips.
“Can I suck you?” he asks, white spots in his vision, Merlin, he wants this. “Can I make you feel good?”
“Please. Yes.”
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Harry takes Draco’s cock in his mouth. Licking over his shaft feels like the first good thing Harry’s done in months. Draco braces himself against the shower wall and fucks Harry’s face with slow rolls of his hips. He won’t take Harry’s throat until Harry coaxes him into it, humming around him, swallowing around him. Draco comes so hard his knees go weak, and when Harry stands to catch him, he drops his head onto Harry’s shoulder.
“I’m not crying,” Draco insists, sounding very posh.
“I am,” Harry says. “It’s okay.”
For five minutes every morning they fight. Harry shouts, hot-faced and furious and grief-stricken, and Draco snaps, cold and imperious and grief-stricken. It’s all the things they couldn’t say to each other when they were eleven and twelve and thirteen and fourteen—
Afterward, they fall into bed. Harry licks Draco’s hole and ruts against him and whispers good boy, you’re so good, I made a Vow, I have to keep you with me. I wanted to. Did you know? I wanted to keep you with me. I wanted you.
Draco turns his cheek to the pillow. Harry’s so deep inside him that he’s panting, muscles working, trying to fuck Harry back as he lifts his left palm toward the ceiling, the Dark Mark lurid on his skin. “Even this?” he asks.
“Even that,” Harry answers. “Every inch of you.”
Harry’s gentle with Draco in bed.
After the first time, Harry knows that Draco expects pain, so he never gives it to him. He surrounds Draco in the softest sheets and blankets the house will give them and works him open slow, whispering to him the whole time, every time. And Draco watches him with those huge, silver eyes for as long as he can, every time. It feels like he’s staring into Harry’s soul. It takes Harry days and days before he realises he’s looking into Draco’s soul, too.
He eases in with more care than he’s ever used with anything else in his life. There’s always a moment when Harry stops and waits, holding still. He rubs Draco’s back until Draco melts around him, relaxing completely. Then it’s time for Harry to say, oh, that’s so good, look at you, good boy and Draco opens his mouth and makes a sound that he only ever makes at this moment. It’s a low moan, hot and beautiful, and it belongs to Harry, it’s all for him.
It’s only when they’ve both come, when Draco’s sated and languid and overtired, that he whispers secrets into the gloom above Harry’s bed.
They held me down
and
I couldn’t get out, I wanted to
and
It hurt so much, Harry
and Harry understands, because he’s been pinned down by prophecy for as long as he can remember, and sometimes prophecy was visited upon him by human hands, and it did hurt, it hurt so much.
Sometimes, Draco tells him things during the day.
He takes Harry’s glasses off first. That way, the world is blurry. That way, Draco’s face is the only clear thing.
“Why didn’t you leave?” Draco asks, morning light, tangled sheets.
“I’m the Chosen One,” Harry answers.
“Oh!” Draco’s eyes go wide, shocked. “I am, too! We’re meant for each other!”
It feels so heavy that Harry’s eyes burn, and Draco’s eyes are all silver tears. Neither of them had much choice, did they?
“It’s a rotten job, being Chosen,” Harry says. He makes a face to make Draco laugh, and then he’s laughing, too, and anyway, it’s over. No need to cry, it’s all right, it’s all right.
They come for Draco on a Tuesday.
Seems so odd, to know the date. Seems so odd that it would matter. Harry argues with the Aurors in his ratty T-shirt and it’s like they don’t hear him. He only had a voice when they needed him to be a human sacrifice. They take Draco out of the house and Harry follows them screaming into the street.
You can’t take him in his pyjamas.
You can’t.
Can you hear me?
They don’t listen, but none of them stop him when he forces through the Aurors and takes Draco’s wrist in his hand.
“If you take him, you’re taking me.”
“Whatever,” one of the Aurors says.
There’s a holding cell and a Ministry-provided solicitor and a list of charges. Harry knows he’s reaching the end of the Ministry’s tolerance, but he doesn’t care. What are they going to do, kill him?
There’s a trial.
Harry sits in front of a sea of plum-colored robes, his own robes stark and formal—who put him in these robes? The robes don’t matter. He tells them the truth, the whole truth, everything.
They convict Draco anyway.
The clink of the chains rings in Harry’s ears.
He gets to his feet before the Wizengamot. Nobody knows what to do. Half of them shuffle around, make notes on parchment, murmur to one another.
“It’s a death sentence,” Harry says loudly. His heart beats hard and steady, punching out his ribs. Sweat gathers at his hairline. Would they like it better if he brought the building down?
No one replies. They think he’s lying about the Vow.
More people enter the room. More solicitors. A Death Eater sympathiser.
Harry doesn’t move.
“It’s not a good look,” he calls. “To execute the Chosen One, I mean.”
“We are doing no such thing,” says the Chief Warlock.
That’s when heat slides out of Harry’s nose and down over his upper lip. He lets it meet his teeth, and then he smiles.
“Mr Potter,” says the Chief Warlock.
More blood. A wider grin. “Do it,” Harry says. “Kill me. Or bring him back.”
Harry didn’t know they could clear the dungeon so fast. He’d be impressed if he wasn’t bleeding out of his head.
They bring Draco to him in chains. Harry cuts his hand through the air and the chains fall, every link broken, into a useless pile of metal at Draco’s feet. The Aurors let go of him, and Draco steps lightly over the twisted remains and comes to Harry with his head held high. His arms go around Harry’s neck, and Harry spreads his hands out over Draco’s back, and he glares into the Chief Warlock’s eyes.
“Fix this,” he orders. “Or send me to Azkaban, too.”
Almost anything can be undone.
Not the Vow.
Harry waits with Draco’s breath on his neck and Draco’s heartbeat in his own chest until it’s as if the conviction never was. Beads of sweat run down the Chief Warlock’s face.
“Now.” Harry’s voice echoes in the dungeon. “Marry us. I’m not leaving until you do.”
At Grimmauld Place, Draco casts and casts and casts, calling the ancient wards to new strength, wrapping them in all his magic. When he’s finished, he turns to Harry, his chest heaving, tears in his eyes.
“Why?”
“Because I know what I want. You don’t have to want me back.”
“But I do.” Draco’s hand drops to his side. “I love you.”
“Swear you’ll never stop.”
Draco steps closer and puts his hand over Harry’s heart. “I swear I’ll never stop loving you.”
I love you, Harry tells him, again and again, as many times as Draco will listen.
They have a house in the countryside. Three children, one of them with Draco’s starlight hair, two of them with Harry’s dark curls. They have a kitchen table and shelves full of books. They have mismatched china and perfectly coordinated furniture. They have rainstorms and sunny days. Sometimes Draco will say you promised, and Harry will put both hands up and agree I did, I did, I made a vow. Draco keeps the Resurrection Stone in a drawer in his bedside table in case Harry needs it.
They keep promising to love each other and swearing they’ll never stop.
They have a life together.
At least once a year, Harry wakes in the middle of the night to the sound of rain on the roof or wind in the trees, the noises outside their house changing with the seasons. What never changes is that Draco sleeps next to him, his breathing sweet and even.
On those nights, Harry thinks of a falling chandelier.
He owes it his life.