Archive of Our Own

Late Summer 1998, Hogwarts Grounds

The air still smells faintly of ash.

It’s been months since the battle, but parts of the castle remain half-dead—scarred stone, charred timbers, vines that twist too violently against the wind. Harry stands outside the castle with dirt on his Auror trainee robes and sweat at the base of his spine, staring at a stretch of ivy clinging to the outer wall like it owns the place.

“Don’t touch it,” Hermione calls over her shoulder. With a few intricate wand movements, heavy stones rise up to her left and right and stack into a wall far above her head.

They’re standing where one of the arms of the east tower used to be. The rubble is still cordoned off by shimmering magical barriers, but everywhere else is swarming with repair crews and volunteers. Grubbly-Plank is shouting at someone about enchanted scaffolding. McGonagall is coordinating a group of alumni who are trying to restore the protective wards.

It’s been like this all summer—and it still is now, even as the school year begins—chaos and rebuilding and long stretches of silence where no one quite knows what to say.

Harry is glad to be away from all that.

Auror training feels like he’s stepped into a different world. There are still classes and practices, still rules and drills, but none of it feels like school. He’s an adult now, and a well-respected one. He doesn’t have to sneak around to do something meaningful. No more curfews. No more detentions. If he decides to help rebuild the castle in his free time, he can. And he can leave whenever he wants.

Hermione finally looks satisfied with the stability of the wall. She approaches, one of the spellbooks she brought outside already open to a dog-eared page. “That ivy’s been badly hexed—I’d wager it’s from some vile cursework.”

Harry steps back. “Didn’t know plants could hold a grudge.”

Hermione hums, flipping pages with practiced fingers. “Dark magic lingers, Harry. Especially in things that grow. It seeps into root systems, sticks in sap. The older the plant, the worse it is.”

Ron nudges the ivy with his wand. It hisses.

“I told you, Ron, no touching” Hermione snaps.

“Alright, alright—Merlin’s—don’t bite my head off.”

There’s a pause. Harry takes a long drink of water, passes the bottle to Ron, and sinks onto the grass. He leans back on his elbows, letting the sun warm his face. Across the courtyard, Grubbly-Plank is wrestling with a section of enchanted scaffolding that keeps trying to fold itself in half.

“D’you reckon the Slytherins help with this at all?” he asks, watching a line of volunteers ferry bricks towards the east wall.

Ron squints at the crowd. “Think I saw that prick Harper from their Quidditch team earlier—there.” He nods towards a lanky boy in work robes Levitating something. A younger girl in Slytherin colours trails after him, carrying a crate of jars.

“They’ve been around,” Hermione says without looking up from her book. “Not as much as the others. Some are helping here, some in Hogsmeade. But it’s complicated for them right now.”

Harry frowns. “Complicated how?”

Hermione flicks to a different page. “Half the school thinks they should be expelled, the other half thinks they should be watched. It’s not easy to volunteer when everyone’s staring at you.”

Ron makes a noncommittal noise, tipping his head back to drink. The Slytherins have already disappeared behind the scaffolding.

“I need dragonroot weed-killer,” Hermione says, breaking the moment. “It’s the only thing that’ll neutralise this kind of magic without making it worse.”

“Great,” Harry says, wiping his forehead and pushing himself up. “I’ll go get it.”

The greenhouse has always been too warm, too green, too alive. Even now, it’s bursting with scent and steam and the occasional snort from something potted and drowsy in the sultry summer heat.

Harry doesn’t expect to see anyone inside. Most students are either helping with structural repairs or using the weekend to recover from the first week of term.

He rounds the corner of a row of bell-shaped ferns—and stops.

Draco Malfoy is crouched in the dirt beside a crate of something slimy and iridescent, sleeves rolled to his elbows, wand tucked behind his ear like a quill. He doesn’t notice Harry right away—he’s too focused on coaxing a pale spiral-shelled creature into a gloved hand.

“Come on, then,” Malfoy mutters. “No one’s going to hex you.”

A second figure is nearby—Neville, predictably, digging into a tray of soil and whispering encouragement to a potted blood-leaf.

Harry just . . . stares.

Malfoy’s cloak lies discarded in the corner. His green-and-silver tie hangs loose around his neck. There’s a smudge of something bright and green across one cheek, and whatever caused it has caught in a few strands of his hair. His eyes look the way they have since sixth year—bruised and haunted, maybe a bit tired. But even that’s softened by the greenhouse light, golden and hazy with humidity.

He’s frowning in concentration and swears softly at the tiny creature, but there’s something quiet about it. Something almost . . . affectionate. The snail extends two cautious feelers towards his fingers.

And then he looks up.

The moment stills.

Harry opens his mouth to say something—he doesn’t know what—but Malfoy beats him to it.

“If you’re here to duel me again, Potter,” he says dryly, “you’ll have to wait until I’ve finished bathing the snails.”

Neville sighs without looking up, still focused on his planter. “It’s not bathing, Malfoy. They’re being rinsed to remove hex residue. Don’t be dramatic.” He glances up belatedly. “Oh—hullo, Harry. Good to see you, mate.”

Malfoy squints at him. “I put the critters in water. I rub off the gunk. What’s that if not bathing, Longbottom. Just because they’re snails doesn’t mean they don’t deserve dignity.”

Harry raises a brow. “And you’re here to do that?”

“Yes,” Malfoy says, tone clipped. “Sprout and McGonagall agreed it’d be character-building. So here I am. Bonding with—and bathing—gastropods. One of them bit Longbottom,” Malfoy adds, as if for emphasis. “It was deeply satisfying.”

Nevill sighs again but not annoyed; Harry snorts—he can’t help it.

Malfoy glances at him, and for a heartbeat there’s a flicker of something like amusement at the corner of his mouth. It’s gone the very moment he directly looks at Harry, smoothed over into his usual faint scowl as he returns to his task.

Harry blinks and clears his throat. “Right, er . . . I’m just here for dragonroot weed-killer. Hermione says some vines are hexed to the root, and that should handle it.”

“Sure, you’ll find it in Greenhouse two, in the upper shelf left of . . . You know what, I’ll get it for you, mate,” Neville offers. He softly whispers to the soil again, ungloves his hands, and leaves through a glass door in the back.

“Thanks!” Harry calls after him.

The door opens again immediately, and there’s a horrified look on Neville’s face. “Harry, quiet! You’ll wake up the mandrakes.” Then he’s gone and Harry is left alone with Malfoy inside the buzzing Greenhouse.

The silence that follows is awkward—thick enough that Harry feels it on his skin. He studies the rows of strange plants, keeping his hands carefully away from anything that looks like it might bite. He brushes dirt from his trousers, thumbs the golden Auror trainee buckle at his waist, the engraved M and wand catching the greenhouse light. It’s busy work, something to focus on besides the fact that Malfoy is crouched three feet away, sleeves rolled, tending to a crate of magical snails like it’s the most ordinary thing in the world.

“So, the snails, er—they have been hexed, you say?”

“Not by me. But if you have any further questions, I’d like to speak to my solicitor first.”

Malfoy says in a tone so neutral that Harry can’t tell if he’s joking or not. Before he can ask, Malfoy expels a breath. “Sprout thinks there are remnants of sulphur and curse magic all over the grounds—in the plants, the soil, the creatures. Says it can only do good to pay attention now. Look for signs before they worsen. Even if it means bathing bloody snails.”

Harry nods. “Fits in with what Hermione said about these vines.”

There’s a pause. One of the snails makes a wet noise as Malfoy sets it into a fresh patch of moss. It sounds like a satisfied sigh almost, if that’s something snails can do.

Harry starts to glance away—then freezes. “Er,” he says, pointing. “You’ve got an escapee.”

Malfoy’s head turns, following his gaze. A snail has climbed halfway up his left arm, the shell faintly iridescent in the warm light. It inches towards the inside of his elbow and, Harry realises with a jolt, towards the faded Dark Mark scar. The skin around it is raw at the edges, like it’s only recently scabbed over. The snail’s trail gleams wetly across it.

Harry tries not to stare but can’t quite manage to wrench his gaze away.

Malfoy exhales through his nose, not quite annoyed. “That one,” he mutters, “keeps doing this.” Nudging the snail gently with his gloved fingers until it drops neatly into his palm, he sets it back down in the crate.

When he notices Harry’s stare, his expression sharpens. “What? Afraid it’s contagious?”

“No. Just—I was watching the snail.”

“That’s not what you were looking at,” Malfoy says, voice flat, though his eyes are cool. He swiftly removes his gloves and rolls down both his sleeves a bit too forcefully. “You’re not the first to stare.”

Harry blinks, heat creeping up the back of his neck. “I was looking at the snail.”

“Of course you were.” Malfoy turns away, the dismissal in the movement deliberate, and slips his fingers back into the gloves. Malfoy turns away, his movement deliberate in its dismissal, and slips his fingers back into the gloves. Malfoy picks up the next creature, a giant green slug with tiger stripes, and its feelers wave lazily in the damp air.

Harry crouches beside the crate himself, studying the little escapee now burrowed halfway under a leaf. “It’s different from the others.”

There are all sorts of snails and slugs in the crates assorted around Malfoy, creeping all over the place—up the walls of the boxes, across one another, the tentacles on their heads quickly retracting on contact. Some look like ordinary snails. One meows as it waits in front of the wall of the crate as if waiting to be let out.

One moss-filled box sits off to the side. Inside, only a few snails crawl and munch lazily on leafy greens.

They aren’t exactly ugly, but seeing this many slimy critters in one crowded place, Harry feels a slight prickle up his arms.

Harry’s eyes drift to the shallow tub sitting beside the crate. The stuff inside glistens like clear jelly, thick enough to hold the sluggish ripples from the last snail’s movement.

He grimaces. “You bathe them in that?”

“Don’t ask,” Malfoy replies. “Sprout produced it. Apparently, water would damage their slime coat or whatever.”

Harry shifts his weight. “They’re kind of disgusting, though,” he says lightly. “All the slime and the weird eye-stalk things.”

Malfoy gives him a sharp glance. “Obviously. They’re vile.” Despite his words, he’s already reaching out to gently turn a huge slug right-side-up where it’s gotten flipped. “You always did have a gift for making your disgust sound casual.”

Harry raises an eyebrow, unsure what Malfoy is on about. Deciding to ignore it, he says, “You’re getting good at handling them.”

“I’m being supervised,” Malfoy deadpans. “There are consequences if I only do my tasks half-heartedly.”

“Right,” Harry says, smirking. “Unusual punishment, but poetic, I guess. Slow-moving justice.”

Malfoy doesn’t smile exactly, but there’s the twitch of one in the corner of his mouth as he dips a slug in the goo bath, holding its head up with his index.

Harry’s eyes find the escaping snail again as it’s just climbing the rim of the crate. “It looks different,” he says.

Malfoy puts the slug into the salad box. When he follows Harry’s gaze, he snorts. “Now who’s being the mollusc expert?”

“I’m serious,” Harry replies, frowning. “It doesn’t look like the others.”

Malfoy follows his gaze. The shell consists of concentric circles. There are irregular lines in the areas between the deep grooves, reminiscent of runes or weathered inscriptions. They remind Harry of the patterns of Trelawney’s tarot cards. They glimmer faintly—though Harry can’t quite say what colour. It’s no larger than his thumb, though it felt bigger before.

“Maybe it’s just better fed,” Malfoy offers dryly.

Harry squints at him. “You think it’s weird too.”

Malfoy doesn’t answer at first. He pulls off one glove and wipes a bead of sweat from his temple.

Finally, he says, “Sprout says some snails respond to residual magic more acutely than others. Especially if they were close to it when the curses were laid down. This one . . . keeps returning. I relocate it. Contain it. It always comes back.”

Looking at the harmless and sort of beautifully coloured snail, Harry can’t suppress his well-festered scepticism. “Think it’s cursed?”

Malfoy gives him a pointed look. “If it were cursed, I’d be in the hospital wing.”

Harry considers that, then shrugs. “Then maybe it just likes you.”

Malfoy snorts again, but there’s something uncertain in his expression. He nudges the snail gently back towards the moss patch, watching it inch away with something akin to stubbornness.

There’s a beat of silence between them as they watch the snail.

When Malfoy speaks, his voice is quieter, “You’re really one of them, then.”

Harry looks up.

Malfoy gestures towards his belt. The badge. The holster. “An Auror.”

Harry hesitates, then nods. “Yeah, in training. Ron and I.”

 “Of course,” is all he says.

It’s not cruel. Not even particularly pointed. But something about the way he says it snags in Harry’s chest.

He straightens almost without meaning to. There’s pride in the uniform—he’s earned it, Merlin knows. Not the usual way, of course. Not by hard study and top grades at his N.E.W.T.s, not by undergoing the application process, but all those years of fighting, running, doing the right thing—the experience weighs more than any exam could. He doesn’t need to prove anything, especially not to Malfoy.

Still, the heat of it lingers in his collar.

Before something vile can escape his mouth, he says, “What’s this one called?” It sounds more petulant than he meant to.

“How would I know? Read a book on magical creatures or something.”

“No, I mean, what do you call it? If it keeps returning to you, you must have given it some kind of name.”

Malfoy blinks. “They’re snails, Potter. Not pets.”

“You’re the one who said they deserve dignity. Doesn’t that include a name?”

Malfoy stares at him like he’s lost his mind. Then, deadpan: “Fine. That one’s Harold.”

Harry huffs a laugh. “Harold?”

“It suits him.”

The snail wiggles determinedly towards the hem of Draco’s sleeve again.

The back door creaks open, and Neville steps in, a glass jar clutched carefully in both hands.

“Got it,” he says cheerfully, brushing his elbow against the doorframe to shut it behind him. “Took me a minute—the shelf was half-collapsed, and I think something hissed at me, but here.” He holds out the jar. Pale green liquid sloshes inside, labelled in Sprout’s unmistakable scrawl: Dragonroot Vine Suppressant. Use gloves. Possibly volatile.

“Cheers,” Harry says, accepting it. The glass is warm from Neville’s hand and a little slippery. He tucks it under one arm and glances back at the crates. The snails have already begun resuming their slow, mindless campaign to escape.

Neville follows his gaze. “Still trying to make friends, is he?”

“Harold,” Harry says solemnly, nodding towards the one with the shimmering shell. “He’s chosen Malfoy.”

Neville blinks. “You named them?”

“I didn’t—” Malfoy begins, then cuts himself off. “Potter’s being difficult.”

Harry grins. “I’m giving him dignity.”

Neville looks like he’s trying not to laugh, then decides to let it happen anyway. “Right. Well. Harold it is.”

For a brief moment, there’s something oddly companionable in the greenhouse—between them and the damp air and the ridiculous snails, the tension has ebbed slightly into the soil. He can’t help but wonder if that’s how Neville and Malfoy have been sitting together for days now, working in silence and some casual remarks about sleeping mandrakes and snail bites.

Harry shifts the jar under one arm again and steps back. “I should go. Hermione’s probably elbow-deep in vines by now.”

Neville nods, already crouching again near the blood-leaf. “Tell her I’ll bring more suppressant by the library later.”

Harry slips out into the heat-drenched afternoon.

The scent of damp earth lingers on his cloak. Behind him, the greenhouse glows like something alive. He adjusts the jar under his arm and starts back towards the castle, the laughter by the lake growing fainter behind him. Everyone was trying to put themselves back together. Some just did it slower than others.

Spring 1999, The Burrow

The stove let out a deep, resentful pop followed by a wheeze of smoke that curled towards the rafters like a ghost in need of exorcism.

Harry coughs and takes a step back, wand raised. “All right, you menace. Let’s try this again.”

He traces the proper arc in the air, then the tight flick, muttering, “Fumos.” For half a second, the spell holds—the smoke draws itself into a neat funnel and disappears into the flue with obedient grace.

Then the charm collapses, and the stove gives an almighty whoomp, belching soot across the tiles and into Harry’s hair.

From the other side of the kitchen, Molly barely glances up from kneading dough. “Wrong tension at the midpoint,” she says cheerfully, as if she’d seen it all a thousand times before. “You rushed the flick.”

“I’m rushing because the kitchen’s turning into a fog bank,” Harry says, wiping soot from his glasses. “Didn’t know smoke could be this aggressive.”

“Oh, it’s not,” Molly says mildly. “That stove is.” She elbows the dough aside and crosses the kitchen with her wand already out. “Watch closely.”

She repeats the charm, slower this time, firm and precise, the wand tip carving through the air like a conductor’s baton. The spell catches perfectly, and the smoke narrows into a tight stream, rising upward and vanishing into the chimney with a quiet shhh.

“There,” she says, patting the side of the stove as if it were a slightly temperamental pet. “It’s half spellwork and half attitude. You have to remind it who’s in charge.”

Harry gives her a crooked smile. “You’re going to tell me every magical stove has a personality, aren’t you?”

“Not everyone,” Molly says, eyes twinkling. “But the good ones do.”

He leans his hip against the counter, still watching the now-docile stove. “That’s . . . honestly not the weirdest thing I’ve heard this week.”

Molly gives him a knowing look over her shoulder. “That sounds suspiciously like something Ron would say when I ask about his training.”

Harry grins faintly. “I take that as a compliment.”

She doesn’t smile back immediately. Instead, she turns back to the dough and works it in silence for a moment, her hands strong and sure. Then, carefully, “You boys never say much about what it’s like.”

Harry glances down at the soot still under his nails. “It’s not that we’re trying to be secretive.”

“No, I don’t think that,” she says, softer now. “But it’s hard not to wonder. You’re both so . . . tired. And you’re barely out of school. After everything in those past years . . .”

Harry doesn’t answer right away. The stove gives a small creak as it settles.

“It’s a lot,” he says finally. “There’s training, but also expectations. Cases come up that—” He shook his head. “They want us to be good examples. I don’t always know what that means.”

Molly glances at him, her expression unreadable. “I hope it means taking care of yourself.”

“I’m trying,” Harry says. “Really.”

She nods but doesn’t look entirely convinced. “Just promise me you’ll remember you don’t owe the world all of you, Harry.”

The words catch him off guard. He doesn’t respond, but something in his chest goes tight and then strangely loose.

Molly reaches over and gives his wrist a squeeze. “I know you want to do good. You always have. But don’t forget to come home to something, too.” Then, almost as an afterthought, she crosses to the windowsill, plucks a potted basil plant from the row of spring greens, and carries it over.

“Here,” she says. “Take this with you when you go.”

Harry raises an eyebrow. “I don’t know if it’ll survive Grimmauld.”

“It’s a basil plant, Harry, not a fussy orchid. Give it light, speak to it nicely, and it’ll thrive.” She glances over her shoulder, something knowing in her smile. “Houses aren’t so different, you know. They grow into the people inside them.”

He wraps his fingers around the pot carefully, like it might break if he thinks too hard. He huffs a laugh, tension easing. “I’ll do my best.”

They lapse into a comfortable quiet. The kind that only happens in a kitchen where people love each other.

A small gurgling sound draws Harry’s attention to the cradle beside him. It rocks gently on its own, just enough to soothe. Teddy lies bundled inside, fists flailing sleepily, his hair a warm honey-brown for now. He blinks up at the ceiling beams, completely unfazed by the low thunder outside.

“He’s quieter than I expected,” Harry says.

Molly looks over her shoulder and softens. “He’s had a good day. Sometimes that’s all it takes.”

Harry glances back at Teddy. His tiny feet kick once, then relax, and Harry’s shoulders relax with them. “I wish Remus and Tonks could see him like this. Safe,” he says, not sure why it comes out just then. “Safe and boring.”

Molly’s hand rests lightly on his shoulder for a moment. “They’d be proud of him for being such a sweet little babe. And they’d be proud of you.”

He nods, unable to reply. The rain starts up again. Spring is clawing its way into the world—slow, messy, and full of promise. A drizzle against the window.

Harry shifts in his seat. “Thanks for letting me stay today.”

“You don’t need to thank me for that,” Molly says, turning back to the stove. “It’s good to have you here.”

There’s a knock on the door, and Andromeda steps in.

“Good to see you,” Harry says.

She nods. Her hair is caught back with a bronze clip, strands of grey soft against her cheeks. Her cloak is damp from the light rain. “Afternoon, Harry.”

She brushes past with her usual quiet elegance, unfastening her cloak at the neck.

“Teddy’s just drifted off,” Molly says, already conjuring a dry towel for the cloak. “You can sit a moment before waking him.”

“Thank you, Molly. How was he?”

“Perfect,” Harry says. He means it.

“Of course he was.” Her voice softens just slightly. The moment she lays eyes upon him, something in her posture eases. “He always is, for everyone else.”

Molly gives a small, fond snort and bustles back towards the stove. “He’s allowed to fuss with me. That’s what grandmothers are for.”

Andromeda glances down at the cradle, watching the slight rise and fall of the blanket with a look that’s impossible to read. Not grief, exactly—but the shape of something still healing, still sore.

Harry steps back, sensing it. He lets her sit beside the cradle and smooth Teddy’s blanket without intrusion. His fingers brush the plant again, grounding himself in the smell of basil and kitchen air. He should learn to cook too, he thinks.

“You’ll be going soon?” Andromeda asks, not turning.

“Yeah,” Harry says. “Still have training tomorrow.”

She stands and faces him, her gaze sharp. “Don’t let them burn you up too fast, Harry. There’s no merit in that.”

It catches him off guard—not the sentiment, but the clarity of it. He nods slowly. “I’ll try not to?”

“Good,” she says. Then, more gently: “Take care of yourself.”

Harry holds her eyes for a moment. “You too.”

And then Molly’s at their side, guiding them to sit, and the kitchen shifts again, a low hum of quiet voices and clinking china, a smell of pie, fresh out of the oven.

When Harry is about to leave, he thinks of home and of work. He wonders if Grimmauld Place is ever going to feel as warm and welcoming as the Burrow.

Molly pulls him into a hug and when she holds him, her hands firm on his shoulders, she frowns and purses her lips into a sad smile. “Try not to kill it, love,” she says. For a moment, Harry thinks she can read his thoughts, but then she looks down to the basil in Harry’s hands.

The door to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place creaks open; the corridor beyond is long with shadow. It’s raining in London, too, and the patter against the windows, paired with the dim light and damp air, sends a shiver up his spine.

The kitchen always feels the coldest, with its tiled floors and stone walls. He brings the basil there anyway—the windowsill is the only spot with halfway decent light. He draws water from the groaning pipes, some for the kettle, some for the plant, and sits at the table.

Steam curls slowly from the spout, but Harry doesn’t move.

He’ll meet Ron outside the Ministry at half seven. They’ll walk in together, like always.

Tomorrow is fieldwork. Something minor, probably—perhaps a suspicious object to be confiscated, perhaps an interrogation with someone who claims it was planted. The kind of assignment they give recruits who’ve recently seen too much. He has a good understanding of the inner politics of the Auror Office by now, knows not only the drills, the de-escalation protocols by heart, but also the subtle pressure behind questions that aren’t really optional.

Sitting here, in a kitchen that echoes more than it warms, Harry can’t help but feel the edges of it all—the slow press of something he can’t name. The kind of weight that doesn’t knock you over, just settles in little pieces until you realise you’ve been carrying it all along.

He takes of his glasses, rubs his eyes, then the back of his neck, and glances at the kettle. Still not whistling.

His eyes drift instead to the basil.

The leaves have begun to curl. One of them is already yellowing at the tip, too fast, like it’s been here for days instead of minutes.

Harry frowns. “Oh, come on.”

He reaches out to nudge the pot. And then, without ceremony, two of the leaves fall off. A brownish spot spreads at the edge of one. The soil seems too damp, even mouldy in places. The window’s not too drafty. Still, the plant looks wrong. Like it gave up.

He exhales slowly through his nose and leans back in the chair. Of course it dies. Of course.

The kettle lets out a shrill whistle, and he pushes to his feet. He silences it with a flick of his wand.

And then, almost without thinking, he reaches for a piece of parchment.

Neville,

Quick question—have you ever heard of plants dying within minutes after being brought into an old magical home? I know it’s not exactly urgent, but Molly gave me a basil cutting this afternoon and it didn’t even last long enough for the kettle to boil. The window’s fine, the pot’s fine. It just gave up.

Do you think it’s the house? Can magic leave a place so stale nothing wants to grow? Is there any miracle fertiliser that I can use?

He hesitates, quill hovering. It feels like a strange note to end on, and too heavy besides.

How are things at Hogwarts, and what’s going on in your life?

He considers adding something about Teddy, or the Burrow, or Molly’s new stove charm, but the words don’t come easily tonight. Instead, his thoughts drift to the warmth of the greenhouse weeks ago. The sun in the glass. The quiet. He understands why Neville enjoys it in there, and he can’t help but wonder if Malfoy is still there.

He smirks faintly.

P.S. Is Harold still around?

He sets the quill down and lets the ink dry. Then, folding it neatly, he seals the letter with a flick of his wand.

Hogwarts

The scent of charcoal and singed parchment linger in the air of the classroom from a recent Fire Charm demonstration. The sunlight through the tall windows is almost too bright to be real. Someone’s enchanted the chalkboard to scroll through bullet points in looping cursive: Internships – Mastery Tracks – University Liaisons – Preparing for Post-N.E.W.T. Life.

Draco sits at his desk, spine straight, quill in hand, parchment blank.

Around him, his classmates murmur in small clusters, heads bent together. Pansy and Daphne are trading whispered notes. Ernie Macmillan is already drafting a cover letter. Even Longbottom, with his ink-stained cuff and eternal expression of mild confusion, seems to be planning something. Something real.

Granger, of course, has an entire colour-coded folder, three references, and a timetable for post-exam interviews. She’s speaking to Padma Patil with the brisk confidence of someone who knows exactly where she’s going.

They’re imagining futures. Laying tracks for the next chapter, like it’s as simple as choosing.

Draco adjusts his grip on the quill. He’s always been good at assignments. But this one—

Draft a list of at least three career paths you're genuinely interested in pursuing after your N.E.W.T.s. Include your motivations, any known requirements, and a possible contact or mentor figure who might help you learn more.

He’s written the prompt at the top of the page in a careful, slanted hand. Below it: nothing.

He could lie. Scribble something safe—curse-breaking, spell theory, even wandlore—but the act of writing feels heavier than it should. It requires a kind of belief he can’t quite summon.

It’s not that he lacks ambition. That’s the insult people think but don’t say. He has it, in spades. What he lacks is . . . certainty. Security. Permission. He doesn’t know yet what he’s allowed to want.

Because all these futures assume you’re starting from clean ground.

Draco isn’t. His name is still the kind that turns heads, but not in the way it used to. The Manor is quiet now, shuttered against reporters and Ministry owls, but its shadow still clings to his robes. Community service hours are still being tallied. His record is sealed—for now—but one wrong step could unravel what little good faith he’s clawed back.

He’s not in Azkaban, only thanks to several accounts of his reluctance to participate at least in certain Death Eater activities. But he isn’t free either.

Professor Vector had said earlier that morning, “Some of you may be asked to defer traditional career routes in favour of reparative programmes. That doesn’t mean you stop dreaming—and properly planning.”

As if dreaming were a light switch. As if dreaming didn’t come with conditions.

He glances at the blank page again.

He could go home. It would be easy, in a way. The Manor has long wings of silence where no one would bother him. A tall fence, locked doors. Enough books for a lifetime. Dust. He could disappear there. Be safe.

But the thought makes something inside him clench.

He doesn’t want stillness. Not anymore.

He wants to do something that matters. Something real. Something his.

He taps the quill once against the parchment, just once, then finally writes:

Magical Theory – Applied or Historical.

(But who would take me?)

He pauses. Scratches that last part out. Then writes beneath it:

Curse Logic. Artefact Analysis.

He’s good at patterns, at decoding intent buried in structure. Abstract work. Clean. Contained. The kind of work that lets you study the past without having to step too far into it.

He stares at the words. They don’t feel like a plan. They feel like a possibility, if the world were different.

He adds a final line, a little smaller:

Something academic. If they’d have me.

He doesn’t bother listing names under mentors or references. The page already feels fragile with hope.

Outside, the wind shifts against the windows. Someone laughs across the room. Pansy throws him a look—something between curiosity and concern—but doesn’t interrupt.

Neville Longbottom does.

He approaches with his usual gait—slightly too fast, slightly unsure what to do with his hands—and a faint smudge of soil on his collar, as if the greenhouse has claimed him, body and soul. Draco resists the urge to sigh.

“Hey,” Longbottom says, eyes darting to Draco’s parchment. “You busy?”

“Visibly,” Draco says, without heat.

Longbottom rubs the back of his neck, glancing briefly over his shoulder. Around them, a few others cast sharp, ill-disguised looks their way—some faces twisted with thinly veiled disgust, others quietly admiring Neville’s effort to treat Draco like a person. Draco isn’t sure which is worse.

But Longbottom doesn’t seem to notice. “Right, but I was thinking—if you’re free this afternoon, we should finish repotting the sun-drenched chrysalids. They’re growing sideways again.”

Draco raises an eyebrow. “And this is suddenly my problem?”

“You said you’d help finish the section before next week,” Neville says, then hesitates. “Besides, you’re better at the light-control charm than I am.”

Draco huffs, but he closes his ink pot. “Fine. After lunch.”

Neville smiles—genuine, as always. “Brilliant. Oh—Harry wrote me, by the way. Said to ask if Harold is still around.”

Draco blinks. “He remembered the snail?”

Neville shrugs, but there’s a glint of amusement in his eyes. “Apparently.”

Draco turns slightly, just enough to catch Pansy’s smirk from the corner of his eye. She raises a brow, silently mouthing, Harold? with a theatrical shake of her head.

He rolls his eyes and mutters, “Unbelievable,” then returns to his parchment, as if it might suddenly become easier to fill with a career plan he doesn’t have.

The posture and furrowed-brow concentration seem to work like a charm on Longbottom, who chirps a cheerful, “After lunch, then!” and wanders off before he can ask anything serious—Draco already shares too much of himself with him in the greenhouse as it is.

Summer 2001, Grimmauld Place

The old wallpaper comes off in strips, brittle as parchment and twice as stubborn. Hermione mutters a mild incantation, wand slicing the air, and another swatch peels from the wall with a dry hiss.

Harry steps back, wiping dust from his palms onto his jeans. “I swear this house is trying to keep its secrets.”

Hermione squints at the faded floral pattern still clinging to the plaster. “It probably is. Did you see the note on page ninety-three? For surfaces with ancestral enchantments, consider pre-treating with a saltwater charm.” She flips one of the open books at her feet with her wand, already on the hunt. “I should double-check this.”

 “Could’ve told me that before I started wrestling the wallpaper.”

She glances at him over her shoulder, grinning.

Harry goes on to scrape off some of the wallpaper by hand instead of magic, carefully tending to the tricky part just above the skirting board.

The room is a maze of covered furniture—settees under charmed dust sheets that shimmer faintly, end tables floating half a foot off the ground to avoid stray paint, and a heap of enchanted brushes in the corner, twitching occasionally in anticipation. A cold mug of tea sits perched on the mantelpiece, forgotten.

“I forgot how satisfying this is,” Hermione says, stepping back to admire her newly cast saltwater patch on the wall. “It’s nice doing something you can see change immediately. No essays. No deadlines. Just—” she snaps her fingers, and the wetted wallpaper peels itself off the wall smoothly—“wallpaper gone.”

Harry lifts an eyebrow. “Are you actually enjoying your holiday?”

She shrugs, still scanning the notes. “Waiting for results is worse than taking the exams. This keeps my hands busy. Plus, I get to boss you around, so it’s perfect.”

He chuckles and tosses another strip of paper into the growing pile. “You always find the silver lining.”

“Someone has to.”

Harry doesn’t answer right away. There’s a smudge of glue on his sleeve and dust in his hair, and yet—he feels better than he has in weeks. The kind of good that doesn’t announce itself; it just slips in quietly and makes itself comfortable.

Hermione must sense the pause, because she looks over again, this time more softly. “You’ve really done a lot here, you know. It already feels different. Lighter.”

Harry glances around the room. The ancient curtains are gone. The carpet's been cleaned. Even the shadows in the corners seem to sit more quietly.

“Took me long enough to start.”

“Don’t always be so harsh on yourself,” Hermione chides gently.

“It’s the first time I’ve actually wanted to be here,” he says. “Or anywhere, really.”

She nods. “Robards still pestering you?”

Harry shrugs. “He’s . . . offering options.”

“You mean promotions.”

“Something like that.”

Hermione doesn’t push. She just tears off more wallpaper.

They settle on the floor for lunch eventually. The dust sheets have been shunted to one side, and Harry’s conjured a decent approximation of a picnic blanket between two half-dismantled armchairs. Hermione has brought sandwiches in wax paper and an overfilled thermos of soup that she insists is “healing, not just healthy.”

Harry takes a bite and hums in approval. “Do you ever cook anything normal?”

“It is normal, more than that,” she says with mock offense, unscrewing the thermos. “You just have a terrible palate.”

He grins. “Ron’s always on about your spice levels.”

“That’s because he thinks pepper is dangerous.”

Harry laughs, and for a moment the quiet in the room is cozy, the good kind. The house creaks faintly above them, not ominously for once, just like it’s settling too.

“How’s he doing?” Harry asks after a pause. “Ron, I mean.”

Hermione’s expression softens. “Nervous. He pretends not to be, but you know how he gets when something’s looming. Doesn’t sleep well. Keeps polishing his wand like it’s going to get him extra marks.”

Harry nods. “Final Auror exams are brutal.”

“You would know.”

“Yeah.” He looks down at his sandwich, then adds, a little too casually, “He’ll make it before I do.”

Hermione doesn’t jump in with comfort. She just waits, watching him with that particular patience of hers.

“I mean,” Harry continues, “he’s good. Focused. He’s got the instincts. The stubbornness. I’ve been . . . floating a bit, lately.”

“Floating?”

Harry pulls at the edge of the sandwich paper. “Tired. Detached. I don’t know. When Robards offered that promotion—it’s like he saw it too. Like maybe if I had something real, now, I’d stop hesitating.”

Hermione’s eyebrows rise. “What kind of promotion are we talking about?”

Harry shifts uncomfortably. “Not the usual kind. Just—skipping the exams. He said they’d sign me on officially, finished training or not. Robards said he could argue Kingsley into it.”

Her eyes narrow. “So, you’d skip the hardest part. Again.”

He flinches slightly. “It’s not like I asked for it—”

“No, but you’re considering it.” Her voice is cool. Not angry, exactly, but sharp enough to cut.

Harry just shrugs one shoulder and stares down at his sandwich, now half-eaten and suddenly less appetizing.

Hermione leans forward, resting her arms on her knees. “Do you want to stop hesitating?”

“I don’t know what I want,” he admits. “That’s the problem. And if I were to quit, I feel like I’m letting down Ron. We started the training together, and we always wanted to work together.”

She considers that, quiet for a moment, then says, “They’re not the same dream, you know. Yours and Ron’s. Wanting to be Aurors—it meant something different to both of you. Ron always liked the idea of proving himself. Being part of something official, something earned. But for you . . . I don’t know if it was ever really about the job. Maybe it was about not having to ask what came next.”

Harry doesn’t argue.

With a kind but worried smile, Hermione puts her hand on Harry’s arm. “You wouldn’t be letting him down. He worries about you too, you know. Constantly. He’ll pretend he doesn’t, but he does.”

A corner of Harry’s mouth twitches. “He’s subtle like a brick wall.”

“True,” she says, smiling. “And Ron will be proud of you no matter what, you know. We both will. If you left tomorrow and moved to Antarctica to study magical puffins, Ron would still write you weekly and try to send you biscuits by owl.” To Harry’s surprise, she pulls him into a hug. “We’ve been through too much together to lose that just because our lives are taking different turns. We’re not going anywhere.”

Harry closes his eyes for a moment. Her shoulder smells like the shampoo she’s used since fourth year, laced with the scent of torn wallpaper and sun-warmed dust—familiar and new all at once. It’s absurdly comforting. For a few seconds, he lets himself believe her completely—that maybe he doesn’t have to keep running to stay in place, that maybe stepping back doesn’t mean falling behind.

When he leans back, he smiles despite himself. “Magical puffins, huh?”

“I read an article about them the other day. Extremely puffy and even more aggressive. You’d love them.”

They eat in companionable silence for a bit, the kind that only comes with long years and longer trust.

At last, Hermione dusts crumbs off her trousers and says, “Ready for another round of paint-related disaster?”

“Always,” Harry says, dragging himself to his feet. “Just promise you won’t let me try that charm again without supervision.”

“Absolutely not,” she says, smirking. “I like my eyebrows intact.”

By the next weekend, Harry’s decision is final. He won’t come back to the Auror Office after his holiday.

The morning air is sharp with the scent of damp earth and nettles, and the stones just outside the back door are slick with moss. Harry kneels on one, hands buried in a crevice between two tiles where something deeply rooted refuses to let go. His wand lies beside him on a folded tea towel—he’s trying to do this part without magic. The strain is oddly satisfying.

Molly stands a few feet away, sleeves rolled up, brandishing a stout copper trowel like a duelling wand. “These weeds are older than my Charlie,” she mutters. “Honestly, it’s like they’re attached to the foundations.”

From the other side of the little path, Andromeda clears her throat. “They are, technically. Grimmauld’s wards seep into the stone—makes everything cling to it. You’d have better luck if you rekeyed the boundary charms.”

Harry wipes his forehead with his sleeve. “I was planning to. Eventually. Just thought I’d try the muggle way first.”

Molly clicks her tongue affectionately. “Your father would’ve done the same.” She leans down and whacks a stubborn root with the side of her trowel. “Lily would’ve hexed it into oblivion, mind you.”

Harry smiles faintly but doesn’t reply. His palms are gritty, knees sore. It’s real work. It reminds him he’s here, choosing this.

He’d written and sent the letter two days ago—formally declining the offer from Robards. No exams. No shortcut. No Auror badge. Just a quiet, clean exit. Since yesterday, he has been inundated with letters from the Auror Office, but he has not opened a single one yet.

A strand of creeping moss curls near the edge of the tile, almost following his hand as he reaches for another stubborn root. He frowns at it, then flicks it away. “There’s more of this stuff every day,” he mutters.

Andromeda, crouched beside the bush they’re trimming back from the bricks, looks up. “More moss?”

Harry nods.

Molly hums thoughtfully. “Could be all the spells this place held—it’ll take years to fully clear the layers.”

Or longer, Harry thinks. Some things never really leave.

They work in comfortable silence for a while—just the scrape of trowels, the occasional rustle of brambles. But then Molly glances sideways and says, with a touch too much casualness, “Ron mentioned you’re not going back in after your leave.”

“Yeah. I’ve decided to leave the programme.”

Molly pauses, her trowel hovering above a root. “Just like that?”

Andromeda doesn’t look up from where she’s pruning the wild rosebush. “It’s not ‘just like that, Molly.’”

Harry exhales, bracing his arms on his knees. “I’ve been floating for a while now. The further I got into training, the more I realised it wasn’t what I wanted. Not long term.”

Molly watches him with narrowed eyes, trying not to let her worry show too plainly. “But you’re almost finished, aren’t you? All that work—”

“Wasn’t wasted,” he says quietly. “Kept me busy after the war, certainly. Taught me a lot. But I can’t spend my whole life fighting.”

“Oh, darling . . .” Worry slips into her voice, and for a moment her expression cracks—but she pulls herself together, busying her hands in the soil.

Andromeda straightens, brushing some dead leaves and dirt from her sleeve. “There’s no shame in leaving a path that doesn’t fit. Merlin knows too many of us stayed in the wrong roles too long.”

“But what will you do now?” Molly asks, her voice gentler.

“I don’t know yet.” Harry says honestly. Although he was torn only days ago, the answer no longer feels like failure. “I want to find out without pretending I already have.”

Molly presses her lips together, not quite smiling, not quite frowning. But she nods—reluctant, perhaps, but trusting him, nonetheless. “All right. But you will come by the Burrow more often.”

Harry grins. “Deal.”

Just then, a patch of creeping moss—green with strange silvery tips—begins inching away from Harry’s hand, slipping towards a crack between the foundation and the garden path.

He blinks. This time, he doesn’t ignore it.

But just when he reaches to catch it, hand shooting forward, he finds the moss already gone, as though it teleported into its hideout. So much for Seeker reflexes.

“Did you see that?” Harry asks, still staring at the crack in the stones. “It moved.”

Molly squints at the spot beside him, wiping her hands on her apron. “It’s moss, dear.”

“No. It—slid. Like it was trying to get away.”

Andromeda doesn’t laugh. She sets down her shears, rising slowly to her feet. “Green, with silver at the edges?”

Harry nods.

She exhales through her nose, brushing back a curl that’s slipped loose from her braid. “Show me.”

He points to the narrow crevice between the path and the stone foundation. “It was right here. It darted in when I reached for it.”

Andromeda crouches again, inspecting the crack closely. Then, without a word, she draws her wand and murmurs a diagnostic charm under her breath. A faint shimmer lingers just above the surface, flickering like heat haze.

Molly frowns, stepping closer. “What is it?”

Andromeda doesn’t answer right away. Her brow furrows as she stands again. “Tell me,” she says to Harry, voice careful now, “have you seen anything else strange? Warped wood, pipes rattling without reason, things going soft where they shouldn’t?”

Harry thinks. “There’s been odd damp patches in the kitchen—only sometimes, though. As if it were raining in a very small spot when no one’s looking.”

Molly makes a concerned noise in her throat.

Andromeda mutters, “Merlin’s bones,” then more clearly, “Infestation, I’d wager. Spiders or mites, snails perhaps.”

Harry blinks. “Snails?”

“Not the ordinary garden sort,” Molly says.

Andromeda nods. “Whatever it is, it might only be a matter of time before they start causing real damage.”

Molly looks alarmed. “I’ve seen what a nest of wood-eating spiders did to the attic of my cousin Ignatius’s place. Collapsed a whole room.”

Harry rubs a hand over his face. “Brilliant. Just when I was starting to feel like I’d made progress.”

Andromeda’s voice turns brisk. “It’s not beyond saving. But you’ll need an expert—and soon.”

“I don’t suppose there’s a charm for flushing them out?”

“There is,” she says, “but you won’t like the smell.”

Molly’s already pulling off her gloves. “I’ll Floo the Ministry Magical Pest Control Office—we had to call them once after Fred tried breeding explosive Puffskeins in the shed.”

Harry exhales and stands, wiping his muddy hands on his jeans. “I suppose I should be flattered something wants to eat the house.”

Andromeda gives him a dry smile. “Better the house than you.”

Moss still clings to his gloves when Harry dropped back onto his heels beside the garden path. Andromeda is crouching again, wand in hand, inspecting the edges of the cracked stone where the moss had disappeared.

“Shedding tips like that,” she murmurs, mostly to herself. “And skittering. Not typical. Certainly not natural.”

Harry huffs. “You say that like this house has ever done ‘natural’.”

Andromeda’s mouth twitches at the corner. “True. Still, I don’t like the shimmer on it. And that evasiveness . . . not plant behaviour. More like—” She frowns. “Well, something else.”

Harry glances towards the kitchen window, where Molly had gone inside to Floo the Ministry. “She’ll bring the cavalry.”

“If we’re lucky, she’ll bring someone who knows how to crouch without swearing at their knees,” Andromeda mutters, brushing her palms on her robes.

They share a brief smirk, and for a moment Harry let himself enjoy it—the sun-warmed quiet, the soft scuffle of birds in the hedgerow, the brief but grounding presence of someone who expected nothing from him but honesty.

Molly returns to the garden with surprising speed, apron smeared with moist dirt and a grass stain from their garden mission, a look of deep satisfaction on her face. “Andromeda, dear, you won’t believe it. Oswald Pritchard himself is already on the way,” she announces. “Said he was in Diagon Alley and coming right over, and he’s bringing an assistant. Should be here momentarily.”

Andromeda arches a brow. “The Snail-Speaker of Sussex?”

“That’s the one,” Molly confirms brightly. “Knows more about cursed critters than anyone alive. Bit peculiar, but he’ll sort this out.”

Harry opens his mouth to ask what exactly qualifies someone as a snail-speaker when two figures stepped outside the door into the garden, dusting off Floo powder.

The first is undoubtedly Oswald Pritchard—an elderly wizard with a wild tangle of grey hair, robes patched with earth tones and what appeared to be actual moss. His spectacles sit at a slightly crooked angle on his nose, and a walking stick hangs from one elbow, unused.

And beside him—taller, leaner, wearing work robes tucked neatly at the sleeves—Draco Malfoy.

Harry’s stomach does a small, involuntary backflip.

Malfoy’s hair is short at the sides, the top styled back into an elegant wave. A smudge of dirt already streaks one glove. His wand is holstered low at his hip.

Harry doesn’t move. Neither does Malfoy.

Molly’s eyes land on him like a dropped teacup—quiet, but clearly unsettled.

“Well,” she says, brushing her hands on her apron, “I suppose the Ministry sends who they’ve got.”

Malfoy lifts his chin a fraction, clearly biting back a comment. “Pleasure to be here, Mrs Weasley.” His tone is civil, and that’s enough to make Harry blink.

Molly doesn’t answer at first, just gives him one of those long Weasley looks that can feel like a mild hex. Then, after a pause: “Don’t track dirt into the kitchen.”

It’s not benevolent, but it’s not a hex either.

“Well, well,” says Oswald Pritchard, rubbing his hands together without any acknowledgement of whose house he’s at or who he’s brought. “You’ve got Bryophyta tergoribus—Mossbacks. I can smell them from here.”

“You can smell them?” Harry echoes.

“Of course I can. Give off a musk like mildew and . . .” He squints and sniffs the air like a hound. “. . . mildew and a pinch of regret. They feed on dormant spells, them little rascals.” Shoving his glasses higher up his crooked nose, Pritchard takes in the garden, the stone path, and the house. He looks delighted. “Excellent colony conditions, too—this house practically breathes terminally rusted enchantments.”

Andromeda, meanwhile, steps forward with a faint nod. “Draco.” Her voice is carefully neutral, as if she’s not sure if she’s greeting a nephew or a disappointment. “You’re working for the Ministry, I see.”

“Community service,” Malfoy deadpans, glancing sideways at Pritchard, who is already muttering delightedly to a crack in the foundation. "Until September.”

Her gaze narrows, thoughtful but not unkind. “Good. They could do worse than you.”

Pritchard shuffles past them all without waiting for permission, his walking stick tapping rhythmically against the garden path. He leans close to the edge of the house, muttering to himself in an excited wheeze.

“Silvery fringe, twitchy moss—mhm, classic. Mossbacks, all right. But not just any. These’ve been here a while, long enough to anchor. Feel that? Hum in the ground. Magic’s thinning right here, like a cracked egg. Filthy little marvels.”

Malfoy nods as though he understands every word.

Harry steps closer, feeling oddly like a guest in his own home. “I don’t feel anything.”

“You wouldn’t,” Pritchard says brightly, like it’s a compliment. “Takes decades of wallowing in mud and ear training. And the house is helping them, see? Good old houses always do, especially when they’ve been through something. It breathes out old spells like rot, and they—” he crouches with a groan and taps the stone with his wand, “—come right in, like mice in the pantry.”

Malfoy trails behind him with practised patience, a canvas satchel already slung over one shoulder. He doesn’t speak, but his eyes sweep the base of the wall, catching what no one else does. When Pritchard gives a tiny grunt of approval and gestures vaguely at the foundation, Malfoy kneels.

Harry watches, curious despite himself.

With gloved hands, Malfoy brushes aside what looks like ordinary moss. What lies beneath is not moss at all.

A cluster of snails glistens in the shadows between stones—shells rimmed with silver, their slick bodies faintly translucent. They pulse faintly with stored magic, each one humming with residual spells so old Harry can almost hear them: a buried protective ward, a weather-stabilising charm, something that might once have been a trace of a Disillusionment jinx. 

“Here we are,” Malfoy murmurs.

He doesn’t cast. Doesn’t burn them, flood them, or whatever Harry expected one needed to do against snails. Instead, he draws a small copper whistle from his satchel and blows—inaudible, but the snails stir instantly. One by one, they turn their heads—if they have heads—and begin sliding towards him, sluggish but obedient. He opens a soft-lined box, guiding each one in with gentle precision.

Harry stares. “You’re not killing them?”

Malfoy doesn’t look up. “Why would I? They’re not malevolent. Just opportunistic.”

“They’re eating my house.”

“They’re feeding off what’s already dying,” Malfoy replies, tone even but not unkind. “The spells here—most of them have broken down or faded. The Mossbacks only finish the job.”

“Which makes them . . . what, magical undertakers?”

Malfoy finally looks at him then. “More like archivists.”

Pritchard lets out a delighted wheeze. “That’s my boy!”

Molly, standing beside Andromeda, mutters, “Merlin help us, there are two of them.”

Andromeda only hums in what sounds a mixture of astonishment and amusement.

Harry crosses his arms, not quite smiling. “So, what happens after you lure them out?”

Draco shrugs lightly, placing another snail into the container. “We relocate them to the Department’s containment gardens. They’ll finish digesting the spells, then hibernate. Some of them might be milked for trace enchantments, but most just go dormant.”

“Milk the snails,” Harry repeats.

“Carefully,” Draco adds, dry. “They bite.”

Pritchard claps his hands once, loud and sharp. “Now then! Enough gentle herding. Come have a look here, Mr Malfoy—yes, just there. Stop breathing so loud, boy, you’ll scare it off.”

Draco rises and moves to where Pritchard is crouching near a cracked section of the path, just beneath the kitchen window. The old wizard prods at a hairline fracture in the stone with the tip of his wand, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like Parseltongue sung backward.

A faint shimmer bursts across the ground, spidering out in delicate, opalescent veins.

“Oh,” Draco breathes, and kneels again. “That’s not just a nest.”

“No indeed,” Oswald says, eyes gleaming. “That’s a siphon-web.”

Harry leans in. “What’s a siphon-web?”

Pritchard turns towards him with unrestrained glee. “Rarest bloody thing in gastropodal architecture. These snails didn’t just feed on the magic here—they wove it into a kind of memory network. Imagine dozens of burrows through the stone, magic flowing through like water in a stream. This patch of foundation might be holding echoes of every major spell ever cast in this house.”

Malfoy draws back just a fraction, reverent. “This is from the original Black wards?”

“Oh, I’d bet my good knee on it,” Pritchard says. “One of them, at least. Looks like they left a few anchors beneath the renovations—very old craft, very paranoid, perhaps illegal.”

Molly makes a soft, concerned noise.

Andromeda’s brow lifts, intrigued. “You mean the siphon snails kept a record?”

“In their way, yes.” Pritchard straightens with a grunt, brushing moss from his knees. “Those snails remember what they eat. And magic, my dears, is memory incarnate.”

Harry, utterly bewildered, looks between them. “So, what does that mean?”

“It means,” says Pritchard, beaming, “we may be looking at a live, active siphon-web. We will study the Mossbacks’ behaviour, extract the spellprint—see what your ancestors got up to. Might even find a few things the Ministry missed when they unhexed the place.”

Malfoy is already conjuring what looks like a Stasis spell over the siphon-web, movements crisp and focused. “I’ve only read about one confirmed such nest before. The Greengrass estate. That one imploded after exposure.”

“Which is why,” Pritchard says, wagging a finger, “we go slow. Respect the structure. You’ll lead the collection tomorrow, Mr Malfoy. I’ll make the Floo arrangements.”

Malfoy hesitates. “Sir, I thought I wasn’t cleared for—”

Pritchard waves him off. “You’re ready. Besides, who do you think the other apprentices are? Half of them wouldn’t know a Helix pomatia from a hexed doorknob.”

Malfoy looks genuinely taken aback for a moment—speechless. He wants to protest again, but Pritchard ignores him.

Harry watches him, the way his face goes pale, struck by something quiet and strange in his chest.

Pritchard hobbles around the siphon-web with fresh excitement, wand twitching as he casts a series of hovering charms—soft gold markers that flicker into place around the shimmer-veined patch of ground. “We’ll need to anchor these channels overnight. Let the residual flow settle, then drain it gently, come morning.”

Malfoy glances up. “We should file an observation request, shouldn’t we? Get clearance for siphon analysis—especially if there’s a spellprint involved.”

“Clearance?” Pritchard snorts. “What do you think I’m doing, boy? I’m observing. If I stopped to ask permission every time I stumbled across something extraordinary, we’d still be waiting to open the Kelpie vault in Kilcreggan.”

“But there are protocols,” Malfoy insists, rising to his feet, his tone edged with a tightness Harry recognises—one part anxiety, one part learned caution. “Magical Residue Law requires documentation for magical structures older than—”

“Oh, toadstools and red tape,” Pritchard says, flapping a hand. “We’ll document it. After. Once we’ve had a proper look, not before. This isn’t Ministry territory anymore—it’s Black family ground, and your young friend here owns the deed.”

He waves vaguely towards Harry.

Harry, who had been quietly pretending to follow the conversation, straightens. “Wait, are you saying I have to approve this?”

“Technically, yes,” Malfoy mutters.

“Splendid,” says Pritchard. “You approve, don’t you, Mr Potter?”

“I—sure?” Harry says, bewildered.

“Excellent. We begin at dawn.”

Malfoy opens his mouth to protest again, but Pritchard is already drifting back towards the hedgerow, muttering delightedly to himself as he circles the garden perimeter, occasionally pausing to prod at the moss with his stick or peer beneath a tile.

Malfoy stays behind, brushing soil from his gloves in slow, deliberate strokes. He doesn’t look at Harry, just watches the moss curl faintly under the golden markers, the siphon-web shimmering with quiet tension.

Then, finally, he says, “Look—before he starts unpacking equipment and drawing runes in the rose beds—” 

Harry turns. “Yeah?”

“Do you actually want us here? For the next few days, I mean. We’ll need to monitor the colony—track migration and habits.” His voice is even, but there's a faint edge to it, a flicker of wariness beneath the careful professionalism. 

There’s something in the way he says it—your home—that makes Harry pause. He’s only just started to make it his home, his life. But now there’s something nesting in the walls, memorising ancient pureblood spellwork from hundreds of years before his own time. And Malfoy, of all people, is here to uncover it, stirring up unwanted memories.

Something inside him wants to rebel or turn around and just run away, and he doesn't know how to handle this conflicting feeling.

Harry feels the pause stretch too long. “I’ve had worse guests.”

That earns him a dry look, but Malfoy waits.

Shaking off some of the petulance clogging up his throat, Harry sobers a little. “Yes. Stay. It’s fine.” He glances towards the crumbling corner of the foundation, the silvery shimmer still threading faintly through the moss. “If those things are feeding on the spells in the walls, I want them out. Just . . . carefully.”

“We won’t harm the structure. Or the spells,” Malfoy says. “Pritchard’s methods are eccentric, but he respects old magic.”

“And you?”

Malfoy’s lips press together for a beat. “I’m willing to learn. But if you want me gone, I’ll let Pritchard know in private. He can bring someone else.”

Expelling a breath held too long, Harry shakes his head. “Sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, this siphon-web. As long as you don't set fire to anything here or unleash an old Black family blood curse.”

Malfoy looks like he wants to retort but doesn’t dare. His grey eyes only hold Harry’s gaze coolly.

By the time the sky over Grimmauld Place turns the colour of faded ink, Draco is already in the garden, boots damp with dew and wand tucked behind one ear. The hedgerow murmurs with early birdsong, and the air carries that soft, metallic chill that always clings to wizarding homes steeped in old enchantments.

Sunrise comes slowly—molten gold bleeding through the chimney stacks, painting the cracked stones and overgrown paths in warm light. He notes how it hits the edge of the siphon-web, refracting briefly in a dozen pale hues before vanishing again. If he hadn’t seen it flicker with his own eyes yesterday, he might think the whole thing a trick of bad insulation and wishful magic.

He crouches near the foundation, careful not to crush any of the mossy spread, and starts scribbling notes onto his charmed clipboard and trying to sketch—dilettantely—the locations of the individual nests, trying to find a pattern in it. Pritchard always emphasises that a sketch doesn’t have to be put in a museum, it’s supposed to help him analyse.

Sleep had been minimal once more, the third night in a row. Pritchard had insisted they “follow the slither,” which apparently meant setting up a field tent in the shadow of Grimmauld’s broom shed and waking at an hour only the songbirds might consider civilized.

Still, he doesn’t mind. He likes the quiet before the world fully wakes. Likes having something precise to study, something delicate and exacting.

And if he's honest with himself—not that he often is—he doesn’t mind the quiet of this house either. He hadn’t expected the work to be so quiet, not at Potter’s home. But Potter himself was hardly to be seen. Thankfully, it seems that he has decided to leave the garden work undisturbed and in Pritchard’s hands. The only he saw of Potter was a shadow at one of the upper windows at around dusk when Pritchard and Draco returned into the tent.

The tent flap stirs faintly in the morning breeze, and Draco hears Oswald shifting inside—the rustle of parchment, the telltale cough of someone too stubborn to admit they’ve caught a chill. A moment later, the man emerges, clutching a teapot that’s far too dented to have survived another decade but somehow still manages to whistle when he shakes it.

“Already working, are you?” Pritchard calls, his voice carrying the worn cheer of someone who has spent half a century waking up in the damp. “You’re worse than I am. Did you even eat?”

Draco doesn’t look up from his clipboard. “Tea’s not breakfast.”

“Tea’s everything,” Pritchard replies, setting the battered pot down on a stump with an air of ceremony. “And don’t use that tone with me, boy. It’s too early for dignity.”

Draco exhales through his nose but accepts the tin cup Oswald offers. The tea tastes faintly of nettle and smoke, but it’s warm. He watches the steam curl away into the crisp air and lets himself feel something close to contentment.

Pritchard joins him by the siphon-web, peering at the glowing residue markers Draco’s drawn. “Good spread,” he says approvingly. “You’ve got a sense for how the flow moves. Most people only see the surface shimmer. You’re watching the pulse.”

“I’m watching the distortion,” Draco corrects, then adds, quieter, “The pulse is still uneven. There’s an external factor—maybe a broken containment charm.”

Pritchard hums, squinting towards the walls of Grimmauld Place. “External factor, eh? Or a stubborn one. Sometimes old houses don’t like being seen through.”

Draco doesn’t reply. He’s not sure he wants to think about Grimmauld Place as anything more than stone and spellwork, though it does have that oppressive, sentient hush.

A faint scrape sounds behind them. Draco glances over his shoulder. Potter has appeared at the back door, half-dressed in a shirt and jumper, hair sticking up as though he’s fought both gravity and sleep and lost. He looks every bit as out of place as Draco had expected—too modern against the crumbling elegance of the house, too alive against its muted ghosts.

“Morning,” Potter says, voice still rough with sleep. “You’re up even earlier than yesterday.”

Pritchard beams at him. “The early worm catches the curse, or however that goes. Come to have a look? The flow’s stabilising nicely.”

Potter takes a few steps closer, eyes narrowing at the faint shimmer that runs through the moss. “Looks like frost,” he says. “Only it isn’t cold.”

“Residual charm harmonics,” Draco says automatically. “Your house is saturated with them. They bleed into the soil.”

Potter glances at him with a frown.

Oswald chuckles. “Come, Mr Potter, have a sip of tea before you start interpreting magic like weather.”

Potter accepts a cup, his gaze still drifting between the two of them and the marked ground. For a moment, the three stand in companionable quiet, the only sounds the drip of dew from the hedge and the faint rustle of parchment as Pritchard checks Draco’s notes.

“Did you sleep at all?” Potter asks after a moment.

“Enough,” Draco says.

Pritchard snorts. “He slept as much as an owl on a new moon night. You’d think the boy’s afraid the Mossbacks will vanish if he blinks.”

Draco huffs, but a reluctant smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth.

The light grows warmer, creeping higher up the ivy-clad walls. A faint shimmer catches on the moss again—quicker this time, brighter—and Draco crouches instinctively, wand raised. The siphon-web ripples in answer, a lattice of faint gold and silver veins shifting beneath the surface. Where the muted stones of Grimmauld Place look covered veined with plants and puffy patches of moss, there’s faint movement now, an almost rhythmic bustle of furry green bushes with a hint of silver on their backs.

“Merlin’s beard,” Pritchard breathes. “She’s waking early today.”

Potter takes a half-step back, not fear—just caution—but Draco feels it in the air: that subtle tightening of magic, like breath drawn and held. The soil hums. For a heartbeat, everything stills—the birds, the rustle of leaves, even the steam from the tea.

Then the shimmer fades again, leaving the garden heavy with silence and possibility.

Pritchard exhales in delight. “Oh, we’ll have a good day’s work ahead, lads.” He claps both of them on the shoulder—Potter, who startles, and Draco, who barely hides his wince—and strides off towards the tent, humming under his breath.

Potter watches him go. “Does he ever stop?”

Draco finally allows himself a faint, weary smile. “Only when he’s dead. And I don’t intend to be the one to tell him when that is.”

Potter laughs quietly—genuine, unexpected. The sound surprises Draco enough that his own smile lingers, small but real, as dawn fully breaks over Grimmauld Place.

By midmorning, the garden has softened into that silvery half-light that never quite decides between fog and sunlight. The air and earth are damp from a hint of drizzle that has been accompanying them for hours. Several golden markers Draco and Pritchard set before dawn now hover lazily a few inches above the moss, pulsing faintly in rhythm with the house’s heartbeat.

Pritchard is in his element—boots sunk into the damp soil, sleeves rolled, hair escaping its ribbon in wild wisps. “Mr Potter!” he calls towards the open back door, where Potter has just stepped out carrying a tray of mismatched cups. “Good, you’re here. Bring your wand, not your tea. We need an anchor!”

Potter blinks. “An anchor?”

Draco doesn’t look up from where he’s crouched by the siphon-web, adjusting a runic stabiliser with the tip of his wand. “He means he wants you to hold something that might explode.”

“Oh, splendid,” Potter mutters, setting the tray aside. “You’re both still standing, so how bad can it be?”

“That’s the spirit,” Pritchard says, beaming. “Now—see these runes? We’re going to thread them through the active lines. Mr Malfoy will calibrate the counter-rhythm, and you’ll maintain the focus on the dominant harmonic. Try not to think about anything too loud while you do it.”

Potter hesitates. “Define ‘loud’.”

“Regret, heartbreak, long lists of Ministry forms,” Pritchard says briskly. “Those tend to interfere.”

Draco almost hides a smirk. “Good luck, Potter.”

Potter shoots him a look but kneels beside him anyway, boots sinking slightly into the wet moss. Their shoulders nearly touch as Pritchard mutters the activation charm under his breath, the golden runes flaring bright—too bright—then settling into a steady, humming glow.

For a moment, the garden holds its breath. The shimmer beneath the soil ripples outward, the veins of light converging towards the foundation wall like veins towards a heart. The ground hums low and resonant, and suddenly—

A flash.

It’s not light exactly, but memory—magic flickering in time, replaying something long-buried. The air shivers, and faint figures bloom in the mist like reflections caught in glass. A woman in heavy robes—her wand tracing sigils into the air. A man beside her, pale and proud, holding a parchment that glows faintly with runic seals.

“Older than the house itself,” Pritchard breathes. “Look at the angle of the ley flow—she’s casting across unlaid stone.”

Draco’s throat tightens. “They’re anchoring it in the ground before the foundation—layering concealment into the soil itself. That’s not just a Fidelius.”

“No,” says Potter softly. He’s staring hard at the flickering shapes, the curve of a sigil that’s burned itself into his memory. “That’s Unplottable work. Strong stuff. But—” He frowns. “There’s something else. It’s drawing from something external. Not ambient magic.”

“Illicit power source,” Pritchard murmurs, awed. “They’re tapping directly into the city grid—old Muggle current lines, maybe even ley conduits. See the shimmer?”

Draco sees it now—the faint trace of dark silver at the edge of the vision, like a thread being pulled taut beneath the light. Beautiful and terrifying.

The figures vanish as suddenly as they appeared, leaving the air still humming faintly with residual energy. The moss smoulders faintly where the lines converge, but when Draco touches it, it’s cold.

“Bloody hell,” Potter says under his breath.

Pritchard, by contrast, looks as if he’s just witnessed a personal miracle. “Magnificent,” he says. “Do you realise what this means? The Black family didn’t just make this house Unplottable—they wove it into London’s magical geography. That’s why the Fidelius lasted so long without needing renewal.”

Draco’s quill hand trembles slightly as he scribbles notes on the clipboard, the words coming out crooked. His father used to boast about the Blacks’ old ways, their “perfect secrecy.” Now he sees the truth of it—their genius, yes, but also their arrogance. To manipulate the very foundation of a city for one family’s privacy . . .

Potter crouches beside him, still staring at the fading shimmer. “Did you know they did this?”

Draco shakes his head. “If anyone did, they didn’t write it down. The Black archives were . . . curated.”

“Meaning censored.”

Potter doesn’t push. The silence that follows is thick but not hostile—just heavy with the weight of what they’ve uncovered.

Pritchard claps his hands, breaking the spell of the moment. “Well! That’s a morning well spent. Mr Potter, you held your anchor beautifully. Mr Malfoy, try to remember you have lungs next time, will you? I thought you’d stopped breathing.”

“I was concentrating,” Draco mutters.

“Of course you were. Come lads, both of you—let’s record what we’ve seen before the memory fades.”

As Pritchard hobbles towards the tent, Draco lingers, still looking at the soil. The faint outline of the web remains, pulsing faintly like an afterimage. He can’t quite explain why, but there’s something about it that feels wrong—not in the technical sense, but in the emotional one.

Potter is still beside him, watching too. “They built all this just to hide,” he says quietly.

Draco glances at him. “Hiding was what they did best.”

Harry nods slowly. “Maybe that’s why it feels strange now—trying to make this place a home again.”

There’s nothing Draco can say to that, so he doesn’t. The drizzle starts up again—fine, steady, and cold—and the shimmer fades completely, swallowed by the damp.

They decide to let the Mossbacks rest another day before rehousing them.

The morning mist clings low to the garden, silvering the edges of the ivy and cooling the air that drifts through the cracked stones. Pritchard has already packed most of his gear, humming to himself as he levitates a stack of notebooks towards the tent. Draco lingers near the moss patch, kneeling to check the last of the markers.

From his pocket, he draws a small copper whistle, tarnished to the colour of old coins. He holds it to his lips and blows—no sound escapes, at least none that human ears can hear.

For a moment, nothing happens. Then the ground shifts.

Tiny shapes emerge from the damp cracks in the stone—snails no larger than a thumbnail, their shells iridescent with faint streaks of green and gold. They glide in slow, deliberate procession across the moss towards a wooden crate lined with broad leaves. The air hums faintly with the motion of dozens of minute trails being laid down at once, shimmering faintly before fading.

Pritchard beams. “Marvelous, isn’t it? Perfect recall of their own trails. That’s how you know they’ve settled.”

Draco doesn’t reply, just watches them with a faint, private pride. They move precisely where he’d guided them to go—content, unharmed, and wholly themselves.

When the last of the snails disappears into the crate, he straightens and fastens the lid with a gentle click.

“Good work, lad,” Pritchard says appreciatively. He carefully closes the crates and starts carrying them towards their equipment.

Potter, who had been standing in the doorway watching, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, frowns and glances down at his boots, then back up again. “Did you—did you mind being here?”

Draco blinks, caught off-guard by the earnestness in his tone. He looks around—the garden breathing again after a long sleep, the ivy swaying softly in the breeze, the stones glittering faintly with dew. Grimmauld Place still carries its share of old ghosts, but it feels like they started fading away.

“It’s work,” he says after a moment. “Better than most assignments.” A pause. “And the snails are interesting.”

Potter huffs a quiet laugh and scratches the back of his head. “Weirdly, that’s exactly how I saw you last time.”

Draco turns to him, brows furrowed. “What?”

“At Hogwarts,” Potter says, a faint smile playing on his lips. “After summer, in the greenhouse. With Neville. You were arms-deep in slug slime.”

The memory flickers through Draco’s mind uninvited—dirt under his nails, the scent of damp soil and wilted leaves. The greenhouse had felt like hiding in the beginning, but it quickly became his safe space for many more reasons than just the isolation. He exhales softly through his nose.

They fall quiet again, the kind of silence that stretches without strain. Morning has ripened into full daylight; the birdsong has softened into the hum of bees. Potter crosses his arms, gaze lowered to the moss. Then, after a beat, he asks, “So. You’re still doing community service?”

Draco considers denying it, but there doesn’t seem much point. “Until September,” he admits. “Then proper training under Pritchard—if the Ministry signs off.”

He’s not sure why he says it aloud. He hasn’t even told Pansy or Blaise about Pritchard’s offer, but somehow telling Potter feels safe. Or perhaps just inevitable.

To his surprise, Potter’s face lights up—not mockingly, but with genuine warmth. “And that’s what you want?”

Draco shrugs, the gesture deliberately casual. To deflect, he asks, “And how are things in the Auror Office? Judging by the last few days, they don’t seem stingy with days off.”

“I’m not in the Auror programme anymore,” Potter replies. He shields his eyes from the brightening light with one hand, the other tucked into the back pocket of his jeans.

Draco’s head tilts slightly. “So you left?”

Potter nods.

“Huh,” Draco says after a moment. “Good for you.”

It’s not sarcasm this time. And Potter seems to recognise that.

For a while, they both stand there, facing the garden as the drizzle begins again—thin, silvery lines threading down through the pale air. The sun tries to break through once more before vanishing behind the next wave of grey spring clouds. Potter rubs his arms against the chill.

Draco glances towards him, half-tempted to offer tea before they go their separate ways—but before he can, Pritchard’s voice calls cheerfully from the tent. “Well, gentlemen! The snails are happy, the house is still standing, and I haven’t been hexed. A successful expedition by all counts!”

Potter smiles faintly. Draco rolls his eyes, but doesn’t disagree.

Autumn 2001, Malfoy Manor

The dining room smells faintly of beeswax and old stone—immaculate, cold, a place where conversations have always felt like negotiations. Draco stands just inside the doorway, palms damp despite the cooling charms that keep the Manor at a perfect twenty-one degrees. His parents sit as if this is any other evening: Narcissa poised behind her untouched tea, Lucius reading the Prophet with the slow precision of a man weighing every word.

They both look up when he clears his throat. That sound—too sharp in the cavernous room—lands like a pebble dropped into a still pond.

“I’ve decided,” Draco begins, keeping his voice steady, “that once my community service concludes, I’ll stay on with the Ministry Magical Pest Control Office. Mr Pritchard has offered me a training position.”

Lucius folds the paper with deliberate care. “Pest control,” he repeats, as if tasting something bitter. “You would make a profession of . . . exterminating vermin?”

“Not exterminating.” Draco’s fingers curl behind his back to keep from gesturing. “Identification, containment, study. It’s complex spellwork—half curse-breaking, half ecology.”

Narcissa tilts her head. “That old gentleman with the moss on his robes?” she asks innocently as though she wouldn’t be sure.

“Yes. Oswald Pritchard. He knows more about magically adapted species than anyone in Britain. He—” Draco stops himself from saying he thinks I’m capable. “—he’s willing to teach me.”

Lucius exhales through his nose. “Draco, your talents belong in diplomacy, in commerce, in—”

“In something respectable?” Draco cuts in before he can stop himself. The words hang like a slap in the air. “I’ve spent three years paying for a war I barely survived. I’ve had enough of respectable façades. This is work that matters. It’s mine.”

Lucius goes very still, like a snake coiling before a strike. “Respectable façades,” he repeats, voice soft but razor-edged. “Do you imagine, Draco, that your mother and I endured trials, humiliation, imprisonment so that you could parade around the Ministry in—what?—mud-caked gloves, digging for slugs?”

“This is not about you,” Draco snaps before he can stop himself. His heartbeat thunders in his ears.

Lucius’s eyes flash, a pale, dangerous silver. “Everything about you is about us. Our name is still spoken with suspicion in every corridor of power. And you would choose a career that invites further ridicule? People will think we have fallen so far, we are grateful for crumbs.”

“Better honest crumbs than poisoned feasts,” Draco fires back, chest tight but voice steady. “I’m not a bargaining chip to polish the Malfoy name.”

Narcissa finally rises from her chair, skirts whispering across the marble. “Draco,” she says sharply, “your father speaks of more than reputation. Think of the life you would choose—long days in unsanitary conditions, labour meant for half-trained curse–breakers and—” her lip curls faintly “—field wizards. You were raised for finer things.”

“And those finer things,” Draco says, “nearly ruined all of us. I won’t let a family crest dictate the rest of my life.”

Lucius takes a single, measured step towards him. “You owe us—”

“I’ve paid,” Draco cuts in, louder than he intends. The chandelier trembles slightly with the force of it. “A whole year at Hogwarts where no one treated me like a human being. Every hour of community service. Every headline that called me coward or traitor. I’ve paid, and now I choose. Not you.”

Silence crashes down. Even the clock on the mantel seems to hold its breath.

Lucius’s jaw works, but no words follow. Narcissa’s eyes, cool and brilliant, linger on Draco’s face. There’s something unreadable there—a glint of hurt, perhaps, or reluctant recognition.

At last she says, quieter, “If you go through with this, you will do it brilliantly. Or not at all.”

Draco exhales, the closest he will get to consent. “I intend to.”

He leaves before the silence can grow teeth, striding through the Manor’s echoing halls until the heavy front doors release him into the night.

The gardens stretch wide and dim under a sky still holding the last streaks of twilight. Once, he would have walked here only to clear his head of family politics. Tonight, the world looks different.

Every hedge rustles with quiet magic. Dew gathers on the lawn in patterns he recognises now—early signs of nocturnal pollinators. A line of mushrooms near the yew hedge glows faintly where wards bleed into soil.

He kneels, heedless of the damp, and brushes a finger across a patch of moss. It shivers, alive with latent charm. Once he would have dismissed it as background. Now he feels the delicate network of spell-energy humming beneath, the slow and stubborn life Pritchard taught him to notice.

The Manor looms behind him, all cold marble and expectation. Ahead lies the dark sweep of the lawn, breathing and alive.

For the first time, Draco chooses to keep walking.

He follows the curve of the rose walk, gloves still stuffed in his pocket and stops at the edge of the ornamental pond. Something gleams on the nearest stone, a faint shimmer like moonlight condensed.

A snail.

Not just any snail—a familiar shape, shell whorled in an odd spiral that seems to catch every scrap of light. Silver flecks glimmer along its edge like powdered starlight.

Draco crouches. “Harold,” he says before he can think better of it. The name slips out like an old habit.

The snail pauses, eyestalks swivelling, and then resumes its slow, deliberate journey across the stone. As if it had been waiting for him all along.

Draco huffs a quiet breath, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “Of course it’s you. Couldn’t resist another cursed garden, could you?”

Harold—if it is Harold—offers no answer, only a faint ripple of silvery residue where it passes. Draco watches the trail catch the moonlight, a thin, luminous line against the dark stone.

For the first time all evening, the weight of the Manor, of his parents’ voices, of their expectations, seems very far away. There’s only the night air, the soft scrape of snail-shell on rock, and a strange, steady certainty settling inside him.

“Guess we’re both stubborn,” he murmurs.

The snail keeps moving, slow and sure. And Draco, for once, feels no urge to hurry.

Autumn 2003, Epping

The wind tastes of damp brick and late-summer nettles as Harry leans forward on his broom, cutting across the waking rooftops of North London. Below, the city is still rubbing sleep from its eyes: milk vans humming down narrow streets, chimney smoke lifting in thin blue threads. He rides low enough that the charms on the broom catch on the morning mist, leaving a faint shimmer in his wake.

His satchel thumps lightly against his hip with every turn—a reassuring weight and a reminder of how underprepared he feels. No official training. No Ministry license. Just years of patching holes at Grimmauld Place, lecture echoing in his head, and a dozen borrowed charms scribbled on crumpled parchment.

You’ve faced worse than a leaky ward, he tells himself. It doesn’t help.

The house comes into view as the street bends towards a small square of red and yellow plane trees. A narrow Georgian terrace, brickwork the colour of stale tea, roofline sagging just enough to suggest stubborn character. Even from the air the magic prickles against his skin—old charms nestling in the timber, restless and faintly offended.

Harry slows, hovering a moment to let his heart settle. He checks his satchel—wand, diagnostic quills, a flask of emergency tea that Molly insisted on—then descends towards the crooked front gate. The hinges groan a greeting, or maybe a warning.

“Right,” he mutters to the empty street, boots touching down on damp stone. “Let’s see what you’re hiding.”

The door swings open before Harry can knock.

“Oh, Merlin’s knees—you’re actually here!”

The witch standing in the doorway is short and spry, hair the colour of pewter and pulled back with a scarf patterned in leaping toads. She’s already beaming like she’s discovered a Niffler in her breadbox. “Andromeda said you might come, but I thought she was joking. Harry Potter—on my front step!”

Harry blinks. “Er—yes . . .” Then he recites the line he practised in front of the mirror yesterday evening at length: “Harry’s Homewards Handiwork—apotropaic adjustments of any kind! At your service, Madame!"

“Delightful! I’m Mrs Penbury,” she says, seizing his hand in a surprisingly firm grip. “My big sister was in Andromeda’s duelling club back in the day. She swore by her.” Mrs Penbury leans in conspiratorially. “And when she swears by someone, I listen. So, when she said you’re the wizard to tame a moody old house—” She gestures grandly behind her. “Well, here you are.”

Harry manages a polite smile while his stomach does another slow somersault. “I’m still fairly new to—er—magical restoration. But I’ll do everything I can.”

“Oh, don’t be modest. Andromeda said your work at her place was transformative.”

Mrs Penbury steps back to let him in, already chattering. “I’ve lived here fifty years and this house still throws tantrums. Doors that sulk shut for weeks, mirrors that shout Latin insults during thunderstorms—”

Harry follows, the air inside thick with layered spells, warm and faintly metallic, like a wand just after casting. The floorboards creak beneath his boots in a way that feels almost deliberate.

“Marvelous character, isn’t it?” Mrs Penbury says, practically glowing. “Of course, I’d rather it not devours the next post owl. But you’ll sort that out. And if you need anything—tea, biscuits, a memory of my grandmother hexing a Slytherin prefect—just holler.”

“Tea,” Harry says, relief flickering through him. “Always a good start.”

“Splendid!” She bustles towards the kitchen. “I’ll put the kettle on. You have a proper look around.”

Left alone in the hallway, Harry exhales. The old magic hums like a held breath, curious and faintly amused. He tightens his grip on his wand and starts his first slow circuit, already feeling the wards press against him like a polite but testing handshake.

Harry steps farther into the hallway, the front door whispering shut behind him with a sigh that sounds almost relieved. He pauses, wand loose in his hand, and lets the house’s magic settle around him. It’s different from Grimmauld, lighter and less defensive, but no less opinionated. The air smells of polished oak and old ink, with a faint metallic tang beneath, like a charm held too long.

The first door to the right creaks as he touches the knob, then swings open of its own accord. A parlour: sagging settee, tall windows clouded with the faint shimmer of an outdated privacy ward. He gives the ward a gentle prod with his wand. It wobbles like an old balloon. Simple stabilisation charm first, he thinks. Anchor it to the frame, give the glass a proper grounding.

The mirror above the hearth rattles in its frame and, in a thin, imperious voice, announces, “Incompetent intruder detected.”

Harry blinks. “Nice to meet you, too.”
 The mirror huffs and falls silent. He makes a mental note: Countercharm, third floor—consult Hermione for the proper incantation.

Moving on, he enters a narrow corridor where three doors sit stubbornly shut. He tests the first with a gentle push. Nothing. A subtle warming charm at the hinge? Or perhaps a coaxing spell like the one Andromeda taught him for the hearth. Half spellwork, half attitude—remind it who’s in charge, Molly’s voice echoes in his head. He smirks despite himself.

From somewhere upstairs comes the unmistakable sound of a latch clicking, followed by a slow, drawn-out creak, as if a door has decided to open purely for the drama of it. Harry glances up the staircase. The banister glows faintly along the grain, a sign of overgrown protection wards. Those he can reinforce with a stabilising rune, maybe combined with a mild Disarming Pulse to keep them from flaring during storms.

He circles back towards the kitchen, pausing to study a strip of wallpaper peeling like a lazy serpent. A charm for self-stripping paper should handle it—Hermione’s salt-water spell, adapted to the older plaster. He runs a finger along the edge and feels the quiet buzz of enchantments layered over decades. This house isn’t hostile. It’s simply tired.

By the time Mrs Penbury calls from the kitchen—“Tea’s ready, dear!”—Harry’s notebook is already full of rough plans: stabilise the wards, recalibrate the sentient doors, negotiate with the insult-hurling mirror. Nothing too dangerous. Nothing he can’t handle.

Still, as he pockets the notebook and heads towards the smell of brewing tea, a faint tickle of magic brushes his ankle. Like a whisper from the floorboards. He glances down, sees nothing, and shakes it off. Probably just the house saying hello.

The first three days go better than Harry dares hope.

The parlour’s privacy ward stabilises on the first try, the insult-hurling mirror now contents itself with an occasional sniff. Upstairs, the banister’s restless glow fades to a steady, healthy pulse once he lays a fresh set of grounding runes. Even the kitchen cupboards—stubborn as gnomes—submit after an afternoon of coaxing charms and the judicious use of Molly’s “half-attitude” technique.

By the fourth evening the house feels different: clearer, brighter, a little smug. Mrs Penbury beams each time she sees him, pressing extra biscuits into his hands as if good work requires constant fortification. Harry goes home tired but satisfied, the ache in his shoulders the honest kind that comes from a job well done.

Then, on the fifth morning, he hears it.

Not the usual creak of settling beams but a wet sound—soft, deliberate—rising from beneath the front hall floor. A faint smell of damp stone follows him from room to room, stronger near the stairwell where the boards have begun to bow ever so slightly.

“Odd,” he mutters, pressing his palm to the warped boards. The wood shudders, groans, then—to his horror—gives way entirely with a splintering crack.

Harry yelps, arms flailing, and lands just short of the hole. He peers down, heart thudding, and freezes.

Beneath the boards, glistening and enormous, a pair of massive snails chew at the timber. Their shells shimmer faintly, like burnished copper under the low light, and their movements are slow but deliberate. A faint musky odour rises from the gap.

He scrambles back, wand halfway drawn. “Well . . . that’s new.”

For a moment, he just watches them, fascinated despite himself. The snails aren’t harmless garden pests—whatever they are, they’re big, they’re hungry, and they’re eating his work.

Harry mutters under his breath, pacing back and forth. “No, no, no . . . can’t let her see this.” He crouches again, wand raised, trying a simple Engorgio charm to make the snails too large to move, but it only makes them wiggle faster, their shells clinking against the timber.

A hex to repel them—Repello Insectantes—fizzes uselessly against their slimy carapaces. He groans, rubbing his temples. “Of course. Of course they’re immune to standard protocols.”

Time is bleeding away. Mrs Penbury will return any minute, expecting a tidy, restored home. Harry knows he can’t contain these snails alone, not without risking more floorboards—or worse, himself.

He grabs a scrap of parchment from his pocket and scribbles a hurried note, almost illegible from the panic and urgency.

He folds the loose paper quickly, seals it with a flick of his wand, and on the front writes in bold, almost shaking letters: Draco Malfoy. The owl swoops from the open window, wings cutting the warm air, and disappears around the corner.

Harry exhales slowly, leans back against the wall, and watches the snails chew steadily at the wood. “Don’t let me regret this,” he mutters.

Ministry Magical Pest Control Office

Draco sits at the worn wooden desk in the back room of the Ministry Magical Pest Control Office, meticulously labelling jars of preserved magical insects to the occasional sound of ooohs and aahs coming from Oswald who's tending to a terrarium containing a colony of ants they've collected from a Quidditch field near Birmingham. Oswald has been closely studying them since, much to the annoyance of the offices above and below them. The thing about these ants–their marching is so perfectly in unison, so rhythmical that the ground vibrates beneath them, so hard that wixen regularly mistook it as an earthquake.

Draco's quill hovers over the label for a stag beetle, waiting for the next wave from the ants as not to mess up his writing, when another noise than expected startles him–a sudden thump against the window.

He glances up just in time to see an owl pivot mid-air, a small, crumpled scrap of parchment tied to its leg. Its wings beat furiously against the glass before it settles on the sill, blinking cautiously.

“Now what?” Draco mutters, rising to open the window. The owl doesn’t wait. It drops the note into his hands and flaps away, disappearing into the morning light.

He rips open the parchment, and the hurried scrawl immediately makes his brow furrow.

Need immediate help. Floorboards compromised. Giant snails. Urgent. Floo works. HP

Draco freezes, the quill still in his hand. A brief, incredulous pause. There weren't many people he knew who'd match the initials HP. Indeed, there was only one.

Oswald barely turns away from the ants. "What is it? I hope it's not urgent. I want to release the colony at dusk back into the wild, somewhere they won't disturb anyone. Take a long lunch break, you can join me in the evening, and we pack everything up."

"Sure," Draco hesitates, and Oswald gives him a curious glance over the rims of his glasses.

"Please don't tell me it's urgent."

"Wooddwellers," Draco replies.

"Eh, Merlin, help us! Not again!" Oswald curses. "You go handle them. I won't be of any help anyways with these old bones."

“Fantastic,” Draco mutters under his breath. He tucks the note into his robe, grabs his overalls and wand, and hurries towards the Floo Network.

"See you in the evening!" Oswald calls behind him.

For a moment, he hesitates, considering the absurdity: he’s being called out not for a Ministry assignment, not for supervision, but for snails. Yet he can’t ignore it. Not Potter. Not giant snails chewing through someone’s floorboards.

By the time he vanishes in the green flash of the Floo, Draco’s mind is already calculating: containment spells, repelling charms, perhaps a gentle luring charm . . . and of course, keeping Potter from panicking entirely. That last one might be the hardest.

The Floo spits him out into a narrow sitting room that smells faintly of polished wood and scorched tea leaves. Draco steadies himself with a hand on the mantel, brushing a streak of soot from his sleeve.

“Down here!” Potter’s voice carries from the back of the house—clipped, urgent, but unmistakably his.

Draco follows the sound, boots thudding against the hall floor. He steps into a bright kitchen and stops short. Potter is crouched near the far doorway, wand drawn, eyes fixed on the floorboards as though expecting them to sprout fangs.

“About time,” Potter says without looking up. There’s a smear of dust across his cheek and a bead of sweat at his temple. He’s in shirtsleeves, hair even messier than Draco remembers.

“I came the instant your frantic owl interrupted my perfectly civilized lunch,” Draco lies, tugging his gloves from his pocket. “Where’s the crisis?”

Potter shoots him a look that’s half exasperation, half relief. “Under the boards. Two of them, maybe more. They’re the size of—” He gestures helplessly. “—a bloody Quaffle. And they move.”

Draco arches a brow and kneels beside him. “That's what most living beings intend to do.”

Before Potter can retort, a soft crrrk echoes from beneath the floor. Then another. The boards nearest the wall shift almost imperceptibly, as if something enormous is pushing upward.

Potter flinches. Draco doesn’t. He leans closer, eyes narrowing, and with a flick of his wand casts a gentle illumination charm. The crack between the boards emits a damp smell typical of Wooddwellers, revealing a slick ripple of mottled shell sliding through the darkness below.

“Oh, splendid,” Draco murmurs. “That’s no common garden snail. Looks like a timber-borer. They eat damp oak and anything with a hint of magic. Very rare. Very stubborn.”

Potter swallows, clearly trying not to gape. “And dangerous?”

“Only to your floor—and your pride if you let them get ahead of you.” Draco tugs on his gloves with deliberate care. “Which, judging by the state of these boards, you already have.”

“Thanks for the pep talk.”

“You did ask for help,” Draco reminds him smoothly. He tilts his head towards the shifting crack, signalling for Potter to make space. “Now, step aside before you scare them deeper. They’re shy, and if they burrow further, we’ll be here all night.”

Potter hesitates, then shifts back. "They are?"

"They are what, Potter?"

"Shy. Didn't seem so when they broke through the bloody floor," Potter bristled. 

"Well, they are shy. Wooddwellers. Did the house recently have any big changes magic-wise? New wards, any domestic magic or the like?"

From the corner of his eye Draco sees Potter make an awkward gesture. When he looks at him fully Draco notices Potter is in something resembling work attire.

"Who's house is this anyway?" Draco takes a look around noticing pictures of wixen he doesn't recognise, an abyssal assortment of chubby mugs and bowls, clashing horribly with a few floral-decorated plates adorning the walls.

Potter states, "A client's house."

Too many questions pop up in Draco's mind, yet he asks none of them aloud. He knew that he left the Auror Office some years ago, from Potter himself and it was all over the Prophet. But Draco hadn't considered what the Saviour had been doing ever since.

Instead of considering it now, Draco focuses his attention back on the task at hand and unceremoniously dives with his head in the hole the Wooddwellers have caused. Cobwebs and dust glimmer in the faint wandlight of the hidden world under the floorboards. He slightly turns his head–and spotted the matt surface of the shell. A familiar sight. Wooddwellers are rather common and, despite being the size of a Kneazle, often go unnoticed until the damage is done.

Draco shifts until he's able to reach further, now hanging upside-down the hole from head to his middle. He's smooth and quiet enough not to scare the snail away and manages to guide it back in his direction. There's a second one behind it, too far for reach, so he concentrates on the one for now. It curiously extends its long eyes to investigate Draco's gloved hands. After a moment Draco can pick it up smoothly with only one hand, using the other to stabilise his weight in his awkward position.

But when he tries to sit up, he quickly realises his stomach muscles aren't built for it. "A hand, Potter?" he asks begrudgingly.

"What? Did it hex you?" Potter's head appears at the rim of the hole with worried eyes.

"Of course not." Draco cradles the Wooddweller with one and extends the other hand towards Potter. For the fraction of a second his mind is flooded with unwanted thoughts. Why should Potter–of all the people in the world–deign to help him with anything? Someone who's bullied and terrorised him and his friends at school, a former Death Eater whose parents tried to kill him several times . . ?

His heart thumps in his chest. Draco only realises he's sitting when the Wooddweller tries to munch on his glove. Potter still holds Draco's forearm in a firm grip. "Malfoy," he says in a manner like he said it several times before. "Are you alright?"

"The blood went to my head," Draco lies quickly, scooting a few inches away to push himself to his feet.

Draco sets the first Wooddweller down on the flagstones. It sits there, glossy and patient, eyestalks swaying as if taking stock of its new surroundings. The soft wet click of its mouth fills the quiet between them.

“Right,” Draco says briskly, brushing dust from his sleeve. “That’s one. I’ll need it contained before it decides to redecorate.”

Potter watches as Draco kneels, drawing a clean circle in the air with his wand. The lines shimmer silver for a moment, then descend gently onto the floor, solidifying into a shallow metal ring that hums faintly with embedded runes. Inside it, the Wooddweller stirs, testing the invisible boundary with a probing touch of its shell. The ring glows a warning blue, and the creature settles.

“Containment sigil,” Draco explains without looking up. “Keeps it comfortable, keeps it put. Works on most timber-feeding species provided they’re not nesting.”

Potter nods, crouching beside him again. “You’ve done this before.”

Draco hums noncommittally, already fishing in his satchel for something. He retrieves a smooth, rectangular box the size of a lunch tin, its surface etched with shifting runes. When he presses a thumb to the clasp, the lid opens to reveal a miniature landscape: damp moss, a fragment of bark, faint mist curling along the bottom. It smells of loam and something faintly metallic.

The snail perks up.

Potter tilts his head. “You keep a terrarium in your pocket?”

“It’s called a Stasis Habitat,” Draco says evenly. “Developed for the Department of Magical Fauna after someone let a family of Fire Crabs hatch in a Ministry storeroom. Entirely self-contained. Moisture regulation, food supply, ambient charm field for comfort.”

He enlarges the box with a muttered charm, lifts the snail carefully—“Always support the shell; they feel the vibration through the spiral”—and lowers it into the enclosure. The creature slides immediately towards a patch of damp moss and begins to chew contentedly. Draco shuts the lid, murmuring a binding spell that shrinks it back to palm-size.

“There. Secure and portable.” He slips it into his satchel, stands, and dusts his hands. “Now for the second.”

Potter straightens too. “You said they’re drawn to magic?”

“Strong ambient magic, yes. Especially if the structure’s been recently rebalanced. You’ve probably reawakened old charm residue while patching the wards.” Draco glances up at the ceiling, eyes narrowing. “They like the taste of renewal, you might say. Fresh magic in tired wood.”

Potter grimaces. “So, this is my fault.”

Draco shrugs. “Indirectly. It’s the house’s fault for smelling appetising. But we can use that to our advantage.” He gestures towards the hallway. “We’ll set a lure. You’ll provide a controlled trace of your magic, something subtle enough to draw it but not enough to excite the wards again. I’ll handle the binding.”

“Right.” Potter rolls his shoulders, focusing. “Something like . . . a low-level warming charm?”

“Too mild. Try a pulse stabiliser—short burst, cyclical. They follow rhythm. It mimics sap flow.”

Potter gives him a look. “You sound like Hagrid when you say things like that.”

Draco’s expression flickers, almost a smile. “Hagrid would have tried to domesticate them.”

Together they move into the front hall, where the boards still sag over the dark gap below. The faint scent of damp wood lingers. Draco kneels to sketch another containment ring around the warped section, leaving a narrow channel open towards the baited spot.

“Stand there,” he instructs. “And no sudden movements once it surfaces. They sense tension.”

Potter huffs a laugh under his breath. “You do realise that’s like asking me not to breathe.”

“Yes, well, perhaps practice.”

He steps back into the shadowed corridor, wand poised, and the silence stretches. Only the faint hum of the wards and the rhythmic throb of Potter’s charm fill the air—a heartbeat of magic, gentle and steady.

Minutes pass. Then, a faint scraping. Wet. Deliberate. The boards quiver.

Draco tenses, eyes sharp. The second Wooddweller has taken the bait.

He flicks his wand. The containment ring flares to life, humming low like a trapped bell. Beneath the floor, the snail’s shell glimmers once, twice, and then stills.

Draco exhales, lowering his wand. “Caught.”

Potter lets the charm fade, shoulders relaxing. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.” Draco crosses to the ring, crouches, and peers down through the narrow crack. The snail rests, half-embedded in dust, glistening faintly. “We’ll let it settle before transfer. If you jar them too soon, they secrete a resin that corrodes containment seals. Nasty business.”

Potter nods, brushing his palms against his trousers. “Good to know.”

Draco conjures two chairs from thin air—simple, wooden, unadorned. “We wait.”

Potter blinks. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not.” Draco sits, crossing one leg over the other, composed as though this were the most ordinary day in the world. “Patience, remember.”

Potter glances at him, then at the floor, then finally sits opposite, the quiet stretching again between them. The air smells faintly of tea and dust, and the slow, rhythmic sound of the Wooddweller breathing beneath the boards becomes almost hypnotic.

Draco folds his arms. He tells himself to focus—on containment integrity, on transfer calibration, on anything that isn’t the man sitting a few feet away.

Outside, the wind nudges at the windows. Inside, the house sighs—a long, contented exhale—as if approving of their uneasy truce.

They wait until the second Wooddweller settles into stillness, its shell glimmering faintly beneath the containment ring’s shimmer. Draco murmurs the same binding charm as before, transfers it into a second Stasis Habitat with practiced precision, and tucks the miniature box into his satchel beside the first. The air in the hall seems to ease immediately, as if the house itself exhales.

“Both secure,” Draco says, rising and brushing off his knees. “They’ll be released in the damp woods north of Ottery St. Catchpole. Plenty of rotting oak and low ambient magic. They’ll be quite at home.”

Potter gives a small nod, surveying the patch of ruined floorboards. “I’ll patch this up once the residue clears.”

“Give it a few days,” Draco advises, tone brisk but not unkind. “The pheromonal traces will linger. You don’t want to attract anything else.”

“Right. Good tip.”

They work in silence for a few moments—Potter Vanishing the splintered planks, Draco running a diagnostic charm to ensure no residue wards were destabilised by their intrusion. It’s only when the last flicker of magic fades that Potter notices something near the wall: a faint shimmer, like a thread of moonlight draped across the baseboard.

“Malfoy,” he says quietly. “You missed one.”

Draco straightens, frowning. “Impossible.” He strides over, kneeling to inspect the mark. A glistening trail snakes along the woodgrain—fresh, narrow, and pulsing faintly with residual magic.

“Smaller than a Wooddweller,” he murmurs, tracing just above it with his wand tip. “Different viscosity, too. This isn’t their secretion pattern.”

Potter crouches beside him, peering closer. The trail curves, loops, and ends near the skirting board, where something small and iridescent glints in the half-light.

And then it moves.

A snail, no larger than a teacup, slides into view—its shell opalescent, catching the morning light in ripples of silver and green. It pauses, as if sensing them, and then continues its unhurried journey towards the edge of the rug.

Potter blinks. “Oh.”

Draco looks at him sharply. “You know this one?”

“Harold,” Potter says simply, the name falling from his tongue with the easy familiarity of memory.

Draco’s eyebrows climb. “Don’t tell me you remember.” There’s no bite to it, though—just quiet incredulity. The snail pauses on the rug’s edge, its eyestalks extended, before turning decisively and sliding towards the door.

Draco watches it go, then straightens with a small shake of his head. “It’s harmless. Probably scent-following the magic trail the Wooddwellers left behind. Still—keep an eye on it.”

“Always do,” Potter says, still faintly smiling.

Draco shoulders his satchel, glancing once more at the repaired floorboards. “That should hold. No permanent damage, provided you let the foundations rest before layering new spells.”

“Understood.” Potter hesitates, then adds, “How much do I owe you?”

Draco gives him a cool look. “You don’t. The service is under the Office’s jurisdiction—urban containment protocols. They’ll bill the Ministry, not you.”

“Oh.” Potter looks mildly surprised. “Well . . . thank you. For coming on such short notice.”

Draco nods once, adjusting his gloves. “Try not to summon any more infestations.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Good.” He pauses at the hearth, as though considering something, then tosses a handful of Floo powder into the grate. “And, Potter—next time you decide to dabble in restoration magic, perhaps read up on environmental resonance first.”

The fire flares green, washing his pale features in light.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Potter says.

Draco steps into the flames without another word. The sound fades, the light dies, and Potter is left standing in the quiet, sunlight pooling across the ruined boards.

A faint glimmer catches his eye.

Harold, halfway up the skirting board now, pauses and looks back—as if to check that Potter’s still watching.

Potter sighs softly, amusement ghosting across his face. “You again,” he murmurs.

The snail continues its climb, leaving a delicate trail that sparkles like starlight in the afternoon sun.

Ashdown Forest

The forest hums softly, full of the kind of dusk light that blurs gold into green. The air smells of moss and warm earth and something older—magic settling comfortably into the roots. Oswald Pritchard stands a few yards ahead, a worn satchel slung over his shoulder and his patched cloak catching burrs at the hem.

“Perfect spot,” he says, crouching beside a fallen oak. “Good shade, healthy rot, no Muggles for miles. Just how the ants like it.”

Draco nods, kneeling beside him. Together they ease open the lid of the terrarium. Inside, the rhythmic shimmer of hundreds of tiny legs ripples like water. For a moment, both wizards are silent as the colony spills out, disappearing into the rich soil in neat, purposeful lines.

When it’s done, Oswald stays crouched, resting his elbows on his knees. “See that?” he says quietly. “They’ll be fine now. Took to the new ground right quick. Always know where they’re meant to go.”

Draco wipes his gloved hands on his robes. “Wish I could say the same.”

Oswald glances sideways, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Ah. So, it was urgent, then.”

Draco hesitates, but there’s no censure in the old man’s tone—only gentle curiosity. He sighs. “It was Potter. He needed help. Snails.”

“That’s a sentence,” Oswald muses. “Potter, snails. You manage to save the house?”

“Yes. Two Wooddwellers. He’d strengthened the wards too much; they were drawn in.” Draco pauses. “He’s . . . doing honest work now. Restoration. Looked—content.”

Oswald hums thoughtfully. “And that troubles you.”

Draco flicks a twig off his glove. “It shouldn’t.”

“Mmm.” Oswald reaches into his satchel and produces the small containment case with the shrunken snails inside. “You can release yours over there. East side—see that cluster of mushrooms? Damp enough for them to thrive.”

Draco crosses the clearing, sets the box down, and unseals it with a murmured charm. The two Wooddwellers unfurl like lazy storm clouds, gliding into the moss with that same unbothered calm they had under Potter’s floorboards. He watches them for a long moment. “I keep thinking about how he looked at me,” he admits, voice low. “Like . . . like he didn’t know which of us should be apologizing.”

Oswald joins him, leaning on his cane. “You can’t eat guilt for supper, Draco. Trust me, I’ve tried. It’ll rot your insides quicker than cursed beetle venom.”

“That’s poetic.”

“That’s experience.” The old man’s voice softens. “The work you do—it mends things. Not just houses. Sometimes people, too. Maybe even yourself, if you let it.”

Draco glances down at the snails vanishing into the leaf mould. “Feels small, compared to what needs mending.”

Oswald chuckles. “Small things keep the world from falling apart. You’d be amazed how much damage a creature the size of your thumb can cause—or repair.”

They stand in companionable silence as the light fades. A cool breeze stirs the treetops, carrying the faint sound of owls deeper in the forest.

At last, Oswald pats his shoulder. “Come on, lad. Let’s head back before my knees declare mutiny. You did good work today.”

Draco nods, falling into step beside him. Behind them, the forest hums contentedly—the ants, the snails, the quiet rhythm of something healing itself, one small act at a time.

Ottery St Catchpole

Rain starts somewhere between London and Ottery St Catchpole. By the time Harry steps through the garden gate of the Burrow’s smaller cousin—a tidy red-brick house with smoke curling from the chimney—his hair is dripping into his collar. Warm light spills from the kitchen window.

When Ron opens the door, the smell of curry and baby lotion rolls out to meet him.

“Oi, you look like a drowned Puffskein,” Ron says, ushering him in. “Hermione’s working late again, so I went for takeaway. Grab a towel, there’s one by the sink. And better hurry—the naan’s still warm.”

Harry grins, ruffling his hair with the towel before hanging up his cloak. The kitchen is warm and lived-in—boots by the door, Rose’s picture of what could either be a purple Hippogriff or a bizarre chicken taped to the fridge, and a small, enchanted toy snitch buzzing lazily near the ceiling.

Ron’s daughter is sitting in her highchair, solemnly stabbing bits of naan bread with her fingers. She looks up at Harry with bright brown eyes and a curry-smeared grin.

“Unca Hawwy,” she announces proudly.

“That’s me,” Harry says, smiling. “You keeping your dad in line?”

“She’s trying,” Ron says, setting out plates. “Hermione says I should feed her something ‘nutritionally balanced,’ so naturally we’re having Biriani.”

Harry laughs and sits down opposite him. Rain drums softly on the windowpanes, the house small and cocooned in the quiet.

“So,” Ron says after a few bites, grinning. “You finally did it, then. First proper job, no friends involved. No safety net.”

“Something like that,” Harry says, spearing a piece of chicken. “Didn’t collapse the house, at least.”

“High bar,” Ron teases. “Hermione’ll be thrilled. She’s been saying for ages you needed something less . . . bang-bang, curse-curse.”

Harry snorts. “Yeah, I’ve noticed she phrases things that delicately these days.”

Ron chuckles. “She’s knee-deep in some Magical Law thing right now—post-war property rights or whatever. Says if she hears one more old wizard claim his shed’s ‘inherently pure’ she’ll hex it into next week. You’d think after the war we’d have settled who owns what, but apparently half the wizarding world’s still arguing over garden gnomes.”

Harry shakes his head, smiling fondly. “Sounds like her.”

“Yeah. She’ll be home late,” Ron adds, softer now. “Been a lot of that lately.”

For a while they just eat, the silence companionable. Rose hums tunelessly, dunking a bit of bread into her dad’s curry.

“At least your work doesn’t involve that kind of chaos,” Ron says finally. “What was it this time? Leaky ward, banshee in the pipes?”

Harry hesitates. “Floorboards, actually.”

“Floorboards?” Ron blinks.

“Yeah. Something had nested under them. Two of them, actually.”

Ron grimaces. “Not spiders, please.”

Harry can’t help laughing. “No—snails actually. Giant ones. Wooddwellers. Never seen them before, but apparently, they eat damp oak like chocolate cake.”

“Urgh,” Ron makes a face. “Still can’t stand those slimy buggers. Remember when my wand backfired in second year? Tried to hex Malfoy and ended up puking them for an hour. Hermione still brings it up every time I complain about plumbing.”

Harry snorts. “That tracks.”

“So, how’d you get rid of ’em?” Ron asks, reaching for a napkin before Rose can use it as a hat. “Bet you had to call someone in.”

“Yeah, I did . . . Funny that you mention it.” Harry hesitates a beat too long, then sighs. “I called in Malfoy.”

“Who?” Ron blinks. “What?”

“Malfoy.” Harry glances away, fiddling with the rim of his glass. “He works for the Ministry Magical Pest Control Office. Has for a while, apparently. He’s . . . good at it.”

Ron stares at him like he’s waiting for a punchline that doesn’t come. “You’re telling me you summoned Draco Malfoy to help you with snails?”

“Technically, yes. Two very large ones that were eating my client’s floor. I panicked. He showed up. Sorted it.”

For a second, Ron just gawps at him—then bursts out laughing, loud enough for Rose to jump and stare at her dad wide-eyed. Ron combs through her fluffy curls with his fingers.  “Merlin’s beard, mate, that’s—bloody priceless! Malfoy! Can’t believe you saw him. Haven’t even heard from the bloke since his probation ended. According to Parker—you know, the officer who checks in with former war offenders—Malfoy’s one of the few who didn’t try to flee the country or buy their way out of service.”

Harry nods. “Yeah. I’ve seen him when he was still serving community hours. Remember when my place had those . . . Moss-things? He was working with snails back then, and still is, apparently. He’s different.”

“Different how?”

Harry thinks of Malfoy crouched in the dust, coaxing a Wooddweller from the shadows with a calm, steady voice. The careful way he handled the creature, patient as if it were something sacred. He tries to summon a memory of Malfoy, smug and disdainful, spitting the word Mudblood with that tinge of disgust in his eyes. It’s hard to bring those two Malfoys together into one person.

“More focused,” he says finally. “Like he’s found something that makes sense to him.”

Ron snorts. “Malfoy and sense in the same sentence. Never thought I’d see the day.”

Harry smiles faintly. “Stranger things have happened.”

“Like you hiring him?”

“Exactly.”

They both laugh softly, the kind that warms the space between them. Rose claps along, not knowing why but pleased to join in. Outside, the rain keeps falling—gentle, endless.

Ron stands to clear the plates while Harry helps Rose down from her chair. She toddles off, dragging a small stuffed dragon by one wing. The kitchen smells like spice and warmth and something faintly sweet.

Harry lingers by the window, watching the rain trace silver lines down the glass. Outside, the rain keeps falling—soft, steady, untroubled.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, though, Harry can’t quite shake the shimmer of an opalescent shell gliding through dust and sunlight.

Early Summer 2009, The Cauldron’s Wing

The Cauldron’s Wing smells faintly of rosemary and old parchment. Charms drift through the air like lazy fireflies—some designed to keep drinks cool, others purely decorative. The walls are lined with shimmering bottles of varying hues, and behind the counter, a copper cauldron bubbles on its own accord, steaming softly with the house’s signature brew.

Draco sits with his back to the window; he’s learned that being seen before he’s ready to see others tends to go badly. Around him, the table is an odd constellation of faces: Pansy Parkinson, her black hair tied into a glossy high ponytail; Blaise Zabini, impeccable as always in silver and charcoal robes; Gregory Goyle, looking far more at ease than he ever had at school, with his wife, Sam, tucked against his side; Miriam from the Pest Control Office, tiny, brisk, and delighted to be invited to “an actual Slytherin birthday gathering.” She’s currently trying to charm the menu into singing her the gin options. And next to Draco sits Neville Longbottom, stirring his half-finished cocktail with the basil sprig it came with.

“This place is so much better than I expected,” Pansy says as a server drops off another round of drinks, each a different colour and shape, some served in miniature cauldrons.

Neville chuckles, awkward but genuine. “I’ve wanted to come here for ages. Some of my mentors say the owner grows his own Sopophorous Beans in the back garden.”

“Not only is that illegal, but it could also cost him a fortune in fines,” Miriam says brightly. “But what’s not reported won’t be investigated, so—” she winks—“I’ve heard nothing.”

Laughter ripples through the group, warm and surprisingly easy. It still startles Draco sometimes—how natural these moments can feel, even after everything.

Pansy takes a sip of her drink, the liquid shimmering between amethyst and rose gold. “Honestly, this is the first time we’ve been somewhere pleasant together since . . . what, fifth year? No one’s hexed anyone yet, and the drinks come with garnish. It’s disorienting.”

“Don’t speak too soon,” Blaise murmurs. “The night’s still young. And that’s because you used to pick the venues. The last one had a troll skull nailed above the bar.”

“It had character,” Pansy says primly. Then she points at Draco’s drink. “What’s that? Don’t tell me you’ve ordered something respectable.”

Draco eyes the deep green concoction in its round glass. “It’s called a Verdant Hex.”

“How very you,” Blaise drawls. “Pretentious name, suspiciously pretty, probably fatal if consumed in quantity.”

“At least mine isn’t smoking,” Draco says, nodding at Blaise’s lavender-fuming goblet.

“That’s called presentation.”

“That’s called poisoning,” Pansy retorts. “If you keel over mid-toast, Zabini, I’m not reviving you.”

Blaise draws in a sharp breath in pretence shock.

“You heard me. Wouldn’t be worth the effort.”

Greg snorts house mead through his nose, and the table collapses into laughter.

Sam grins, leaning against Greg’s shoulder. “You lot bicker like siblings.”

Before the laughter can fade, Neville glances towards the window, frowning. “Is that Moonpepper climbing the outer wall? It only grows in heavily enchanted soil.”

“Oh no,” Miriam says with mock solemnity. “We’ve lost him—he spotted the local flora again.”

Neville chuckles. “Sorry. Habit.”

“Don’t apologise,” Draco says before he can think better of it. “Someone here should notice what doesn’t speak with words.”

Neville meets his eyes, uncertain at first, and they share a private smile. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was,” Draco says simply. The words came so naturally because he’s heard them before, he realises. Pritchard has said them on one of his first days with the Office. The noise of the bar overshadows his memory—the soft hiss of the cauldron, clinking glasses, the hum of charms drifting overhead.

The conversation shifts—Ministry gossip, Hogwarts memories, Neville’s earnest talk of his research of hybridising some obscure plant for medicinal use. Miriam listens with rapt interest; Pansy interrupts with tales from her Healer training, complete with exaggerated horror.

It’s after another round that Pansy turns, eyes sharp and gleaming. “So. Twenty-nine. Almost thirty. A respectable age,” she continues sweetly. “You’ve survived war, probation, and reinvented yourself as a wizarding vermin whisperer—bravo, truly—but . . .” She leans in, her grin catlike. “Still single.”

Draco tips his head back. “Please, don’t start.”

“Oh, I’m starting. You can’t just spend your life chasing snails and pretending that’s enough.”

“You’re underselling him,” Neville says mildly, though there’s amusement in his tone. “He’s brilliant at it.”

“Don’t defend him,” Pansy warns. “He’ll think you’re flirting.”

Draco’s ears burn. “You are insufferable.”

“And you’re deflecting.”

Greg grins. “She’s got a point, mate. Haven’t heard you mention a name in years.”

“Because I’ve been working,” Draco says, more tightly than intended.

Blaise lifts an eyebrow. “And that stops you how exactly?”

“That stops him because,” Pansy says sweetly, “he spends half his free time with that mossy Snail-Whisperer of Sussex, releasing bugs into the wild, petting slugs in the moonlight—”

Draco turns to Neville for backup. Neville raises both hands, laughing. “Don’t look at me, I only supervise the plants.”

“Well,” Draco says dryly. “Thank you all for this touching intervention. I’ll make sure my therapist hears every word.”

Their laughter swells again—good-natured, unstoppable—and though Draco rolls his eyes, he laughs along with his friends, unbothered to be the centre of a joke.

There was a time when that would’ve stung—when any hint of mockery, however mild, would have made his pride bristle. Especially about this. Snails and slugs and crawling things had been easy ammunition once; it had taken him years to stop flinching at his own absurdity. Now, the laughter feels like something else—something shared, harmless, even fond. And that, he thinks, might be progress.

Later, when the group has thinned and the noise of the bar softens into a comfortable murmur, Draco slips outside under the pretext of needing air. The door swings shut behind him, muffling the chatter and music, leaving only the hum of the evening.

It’s one of those early summer nights that still smells faintly of rain. The cobblestones gleam from a recent drizzle, and the air is soft and cool against his skin. Lanterns float overhead, their light caught in thin skeins of mist that curl above the narrow street.

Draco exhales slowly, a faint smile lingering on his lips. He leans against the wall beside the bar’s window, where the faint shimmer of enchantment turns his reflection ghostly—half-there, as if he could step out of it entirely. His face is a little leaner these days, his eyes less sharp around the edges. There are traces of sun on his skin from hours outdoors, the faintest lines at the corners of his mouth that come from squinting and, occasionally, smiling.

He still carries it all—the weight of who he was, the long shadow of it—but it doesn’t drag him down the way it used to. Not tonight.

He studies his reflection a moment longer, then glances towards the dark stretch of sky above the roofs. The thought arrives uninvited: what it would be like to come home to someone. Not just a place—he has that now—but another presence. The sound of another voice in the evening, the small warmth of a shared silence. He can almost see it: two cups of tea left out on a cluttered table, a light still burning long after midnight, laughter in the next room.

The idea feels fragile, almost foolish. But not impossible.

A sound behind him draws his attention—a faint, deliberate scrape. When he looks, the only thing he sees at first is a slimy silvered trail catching the warm light of the pub. And the snail can’t be far.

Its shell glossy as black glass, the rune-like patterns on it purple tonight, a snail makes its way across the pavement, slowly but steadily towards him. Not just any snail. Harold.

Draco smiles, small and private. “I suppose that’s your way of wishing me a happy birthday.”

He nudges the snail gently out of harm’s way. Harold takes that as an invitation and crawls up his hand, creeping over the back of his hand, shying away from a dainty bracelet he’s wearing tonight. After a few minutes, Draco sets Harold down and watches him disappear into the grass. It could be the alcohol making him sentimental, or the familiar strangeness of the snail that has followed him around for over a decade—Draco doesn’t know which. But as he smiles, he feels his eyes water at the flood of emotions. Good ones.

He huffs a quiet laugh, running a hand through his hair as if to shake off the sentiment. “Merlin,” he murmurs to his reflection. “Not quite thirty and you’re already getting soft.”

Still, as he straightens and heads back inside, there’s something lighter in his step—a sense, however faint, that softness might not be the worst thing in the world.

Crowborough

The road to Mrs Crickshaw’s cottage narrows until it’s little more than a dirt path hemmed in by brambles. Evening drapes itself lazily over a dense forest near Crowborough; the air hums with insects, the kind of still, dense heat that makes magic feel close to the skin. Harry walks the last stretch on foot, broom slung over his shoulder, the smell of elderflower and damp moss growing thicker with every step.

The cottage appears as though it has been waiting for him—a tumble of ivy and leaning chimneys, overlooked only from the treetops behind it. Its front garden is full of creeping vines of cucumbers and other vegetables that seem to have forgotten they were ever planted in rows.

Harry pauses on the flagstone path, listening. Somewhere behind the house, maybe from the forest, comes a sound that could almost be a tune, faint but persistent. Just when he thinks he hears it properly, the sound fades, or maybe sinks back into the earth.

He shakes his head, knocking the thought loose, and raises a hand to knock.

The door opens before he touches it. “Oh, my stars,” says a soft, quavering voice. “You’re the one my son sent, aren’t you?”

Mrs Crickshaw is slighter than he expected—small, wiry and birdlike, her white hair escaping a kerchief patterned with moons. Her spectacles are fogged at the edges, and her smile is a little unfocused but kind. “I told him I’d manage on my own,” she says, “but I suppose he knows better these days.”

“That’s right,” Harry says, offering a small, reassuring smile. “Harry Potter. I was told you needed a bit of help with your greenhouse?”

She peers at him over the rim of her spectacles, then huffs and adjusts them higher on her nose. Her gaze lands on the faint lightning bolt above his eyebrow, and her eyes widen in recognition.

“Well, of course you are,” she says, as if the revelation is only mildly surprising. “I should’ve known—always turning up when people are in trouble, hmm?”

Harry rubs the back of his neck, smiling faintly. “Something like that.”

“The greenhouse . . . That old thing.” Mrs Crickshaw sighs, ushering him in. “It’s been singing again. Always at dusk. I can’t quite keep up with it anymore.”

He hesitates on the threshold. “Singing?”

“Yes, dear. Lovely, isn’t it?” she says dreamily. “The lilies used to hum when they were healthy. But now—” She waves a hand, as if shooing away a cobweb of memory. “Now they sing to the forest instead of to me. And I can’t seem to stay awake long enough to listen.”

Harry follows her into a narrow sitting room. The air smells faintly of lavender and dust. Two teacups rest untouched on the table, one half-filled, one empty. The clock above the hearth ticks with an odd lag, like it’s pausing to remember what comes next.

Mrs Crickshaw gestures vaguely towards the back window, where the greenhouse stands half-swallowed by vines. Its roof panes glint dull gold in the lowering light; some greens and a bright white flower reach even above the roof. “See? She’s sulking because I can’t keep up with the gardening anymore. I told my son I’d fix her, but my wand hand isn’t what it was.”

Harry steps closer to the window. The hum reaches him again—faint but distinct, like a choir singing through water. It prickles the hair at the back of his neck. He blinks, and for a second the edges of the greenhouse blur. The sound deepens, warm and heavy, and a pleasant weariness slides over him.

“Merlin’s beard—” he mutters, shaking himself. “Sorry, did you—?”

But Mrs Crickshaw is fast asleep in her armchair, chin resting on her chest, breathing slow and steady.

He exhales softly, pulling a light blanket over her shoulders before slipping out the back door.

The garden hums with the same strange tune, half lullaby, half heartbeat. He draws his wand and approaches the greenhouse. The glass sweats with condensation, reflecting the faint glow of the forest beyond. Inside, the air wavers as if thick with summer heat—though the evening has cooled.

He steps inside. The door shuts behind him.

A haze of scent greets him: loam, crushed mint, something faintly metallic. The plants are overgrown and pale-limbed, their leaves brushing the glass like restless fingers.

And under it all—that music.

It’s almost too low to hear, but it thrums through his bones. A sound that feels alive.

Harry raises his wand, whispering a diagnostic charm. Gold light ripples outward, illuminating tangled roots and discarded flowerpots. The magic bounces oddly, warping as if the air itself is humming back. He frowns, trying to adjust the frequency.

And that’s when his eyelids start to droop.

He shakes his head hard. “No. Not—”

The hum swells, a note of longing threading through it, sweet and soft as a sigh. The world tilts. His knees buckle, his wand slips from his hand, and for one dizzying instant he feels himself falling not onto the soil, but into the sound—

When he opens his eyes again, the sky through the glass roof has gone dark. Stars shimmer faintly above the trees. He’s lying on his back in a patch of crushed mint, his head ringing with silence.

The music is gone.

Somewhere near the base of a shattered planter, something glistens—a faint silver trail winding towards the cracks between the flagstones.

Harry exhales shakily. “Brilliant. Singing plants, sleep spells, and now slugs.”

He pushes himself upright, finds his wand, and with unsteady fingers pulls a scrap of parchment from his pocket. He hesitates a moment, staring out at the forest’s shadowed edge, then scrawls some notes. He tucks it away, the hum still echoing faintly in his pulse, and leaves the greenhouse door half open behind him—just in case the song starts again.

Malfoy,

Hope this finds you before you head out on any field calls. Got something odd out in Crowborough—greenhouse attached to an old cottage, belongs to a Mrs Crickshaw. The place hums. Not in a ward resonance kind of way, more like a choir. Everyone nearby keeps nodding off, including me.

You’re probably going to tell me it’s a charm imbalance or mold spores again, but I don’t think so. The effect’s rhythmic—patterned. If I learnt anything about snails, slugs, and insects, it’s that they follow patterns.

I’ve tried every countercharm I know that doesn’t count as property damage, but the music keeps coming back at dusk. Could use your eyes on this one.

Bring whatever you’d normally pack for “ethereal molluscs” or “musically inclined pests.”

I’ll owe you one. Again.

—Harry

The forest opens just enough to reveal the cottage. Twilight presses low and golden between the branches; the air smells of thyme, rain, and something faintly metallic. Draco tightens his grip on the handle of his field case as he spots Potter waiting by the gate.

“Potter,” he says by way of greeting.

Potter turns sharply, presses a finger to his lips. “Shh.”

Draco blinks. “What—?”

But Potter only tips his head towards the window. Inside, through the glass, an elderly witch snores gently in a massive armchair, a wool blanket tucked up to her chin. Her spectacles glint with the last light.

“Mrs Crickshaw,” Potter whispers. “She falls asleep the moment the humming starts. I didn’t want to wake her.”

Draco exhales through his nose. “You realise this looks highly improper? Sneaking about while the homeowner’s unconscious?”

“Add it to my list of life choices,” Potter murmurs, already motioning him towards the back garden. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

They pick their way through the overgrown path, leaves brushing against their sleeves. The hum grows stronger the closer they get—low, resonant, neither quite magical nor mundane. It vibrates faintly in Draco’s ribs.

“Merlin,” he mutters. “That’s not a charm frequency.”

“I thought you’d say that,” Potter says grimly. “It starts every night around sunset. Stops just after dark. I’ve checked the wards—clean. No sign of binding, no amplification runes. Just . . . this.”

The greenhouse looms ahead of them, all fogged glass and curling vines. Draco steps inside first, wand raised. The air is heavy with sweetness, the kind that feels like it could lull a person into forgetting what they were doing.

“Anything?” Potter asks softly from the doorway.

Draco crouches, examining a faint glimmer along the flagstones. “Slime trail,” he murmurs. “Old. Faint phosphorescence.” He touches it with his gloved fingertips, the substance clinging, slick and silvery. “Texture’s different—very fine, almost woven.”

Potter frowns. “Meaning?”

Draco stands, brushing off his gloves. “Meaning I don’t know yet. But if they’re excreting a residue that refracts sound, that could account for the singing.”

“Could it?”

Draco gives him a sidelong look. “You invited me, Potter. You’ll have to live with the speculation.”

Potter’s mouth twitches like he’s fighting a smile. “Fine. Speculate away. Just tell me we’re not dealing with some cursed forest choir.”

Draco looks towards the trees. The shadows there seem to pulse faintly with the rhythm of the hum. It isn’t just the greenhouse—the sound moves, threading through the undergrowth, receding, returning, alive.

“I’m not ruling anything out,” he admits quietly.

They work in near silence, setting faint light markers and measuring magical vibrations along the perimeter. By the time the last marker dims, the sky has deepened to indigo. The hum swells, now distant, now close, like something shifting in the forest.

Draco straightens, frowning. “They’re not nesting.”

Potter blinks. “What?”

“I can’t find any concentration points—no mucus beds, no eggs, nothing. They’re moving through the area, not settling. That’s . . . unusual.”

“Maybe they just like the sound of Mrs Crickshaw’s garden?”

Draco ignores the quip, kneeling to sketch a sigil in the dirt. “They’re attracted to something. The resonance spikes every time the temperature dips. Possibly moonlight, possibly magical decay.”

He stands, brushing the dust from his palms, and glances towards the forest’s edge, where the hum thickens to a shiver. “I’ll need to consult Pritchard,” he says finally.

Potter nods. “Good. I’d rather not fall asleep on the job again.”

Draco’s mouth twitches. “You always did have a talent for dramatics.”

“Occupational hazard,” Potter mutters.

The hum fades slowly, leaving a silence that feels oddly expectant. Fireflies flicker in the garden’s corners.

Draco shoulders his field case. “I’ll be back tomorrow at dusk. Keep her indoors. And don’t tamper with the glass.”

“I’ll try to contain my curiosity.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Draco says dryly, but his voice is softer than usual.

As he turns to Disapparate, the faintest glimmer catches his eye—a silver line threading towards the forest, pulsing faintly with the rhythm of something half-asleep.

He studies it a moment longer before vanishing with a quiet crack.

Ministry Magical Pest Control Office

The workshop always smells faintly of damp parchment, nettles, and pipe tobacco. The walls are half hidden by hanging terrariums and enchanted glass jars; soft glows pulse within them, like bottled fragments of dawn.

Draco stands at the central table, parchment unrolled, diagrams of frequency sigils sketched across its surface. The quill in his hand trembles faintly as he taps it against the margin. He’s been tracing the pattern of the resonance trail for the better part of an hour, and it still refuses to make sense.

Oswald Pritchard hums under his breath as he moves around the room, watering a clutch of phosphor-moss. He’s in his seventies now, beard gone nearly white, but his eyes still gleam with that steady curiosity that makes Draco’s chest tighten with something like loyalty.

“Out with it,” Oswald says without looking up. “You’ve been glaring at that parchment like it insulted your mother.”

Draco exhales. “It doesn’t fit. They’re not building nests, not feeding. Just . . . drifting towards the greenhouse every evening. The resonance rises, then fades when the moon sets. It’s not migration—no sign of larvae or brood structures.”

“Mm.” Pritchard sets the watering can aside, folds his hands behind his back, and comes to stand beside him. “Describe it.”

Draco hesitates, searching for the words. “The sound—if you can call it that—changes when they move. Not random. It’s harmonic, layered, as if they’re . . . responding to something. Almost choral.”

Oswald gives a low whistle. “Singing snails.”

“I’m not joking,” Draco mutters.

“I didn’t say you were.” The older man smiles faintly, eyes crinkling. “You think I haven’t heard of such things? There are colonies that echo moonlight into vibration. A defensive rhythm, usually—meant to lull predators. But sometimes they mistake new magic for moonlight.”

Draco blinks. “So, they’re not nesting—they’re resonating with Potter’s spellwork?”

“Could be.” Pritchard taps one of Draco’s sigil sketches with a weathered finger. “He’s an untidy caster, that one. His charms hum whether he wants them to or not. You put a chorus of lunar molluscs near a garden like that, and you’ll have a lullaby that could fell a troll.”

Draco huffs a laugh, then immediately sobers. “It put the homeowner to sleep, nearly permanently. If I hadn’t arrived when I did—”

“You arrived just at the time you were meant to arrive,” Oswald interrupts gently.

“But I keep thinking of the way the hum shifts when it reaches the house. It sounds almost—intentional. Like something changes when it leaves the forest.”

“That’s what unnerves you,” Pritchard says softly. “You hear purpose where most people hear noise.”

Draco doesn’t answer. He studies the sigil instead, the ink lines trembling faintly in the lamplight. “Potter thinks it’s a haunting.”

“Of course he does. Song coming from the deep dark forest.” Oswald chuckles.

Despite himself, Draco’s mouth twitches. “He still treats every infestation like a war to be won.”

“And you?”

“I treat them like puzzles,” Draco admits. “But this one feels . . . alive in a way I don’t understand.”

Pritchard nods, approving. “Then it’s a good lesson. Not every creature needs to be contained, Draco. Some only need to be understood—and left to sing their song somewhere they won’t harm anyone.” The words settle in the space between them, quiet and sure.

Draco lets out a long breath. “You think they’re harmless, then.”

“Harmless doesn’t mean harmless forever,” Oswald says. “It means they’re telling you what they need. Your job’s to listen.”

Draco nods slowly. The tension in his shoulders ease, though not entirely. “I’ll go back tomorrow. Set up a resonant barrier, redirect them deeper into the forest.”

“Good lad.”

Oswald claps him lightly on the shoulder, then turns back to his chaotic assortment of terraria, jars, and microscopes. “And Draco—”

He pauses at the door.

“Don’t lose sleep over this Mr Potter,” Pritchard says without looking up. “He’s got more ghosts than he knows what to do with.”

Draco swallows, then manages a quiet, “Thanks, Oswald.”

Inside Draco’s head, the evening hum of the forest rises again—faint, melodic, and endless.

Crowborough

The last rays of the sun drip gold through the clouds when Harry finishes setting the stabilising runes around the garden. The air smells of damp soil and lilacs gone slightly overripe; the whole place feels like it’s holding its breath.

Malfoy moves a few paces ahead of him, wand out, tracing invisible lines through the air. His coat’s sleeves are rolled to the elbows, pale skin catching the low light as he mutters an incantation under his breath. The faint hum of the forming barrier rises around them, almost blending with the gentle rustle of the forest beyond.

Harry wipes his brow with his sleeve. “How’s it looking?”

Malfoy doesn’t answer immediately. He’s crouched near the corner of the greenhouse now, where a tangle of vines climbs up the glass and into the fading light. Something in his stillness makes Harry pause.

“Malfoy?”

“Come here,” Malfoy says quietly.

Harry steps closer and follows his gaze.

There, curling along the glass, is a plant he hadn’t really noticed before—its leaves broad and silver-veined, the bud at its top slowly unfurling as the light deepens into dusk. The petals spread like pale silk, revealing a wide bloom the size of a dinner plate, pulsing faintly with soft luminescence.

It’s breathtaking. And unnerving.

“Merlin,” Harry murmurs. “That’s—”

“Moonflower,” Malfoy says. “Or something very close to it. Likely cross-bred with a bit of lunar essence—see that shimmer?” He points at the faint halo forming along the petal edges. “That’s what’s calling them.”

“The snails?”

Malfoy nods. His eyes are fixed on the flower as it glows brighter, its light taking on the cool, silvery hue of moonlight. “They’re mistaking this for the moon. That’s why they come every evening. They’re drawn to its reflection, singing to it like it’s the real thing.”

Harry squints towards the forest edge, where the faintest hum is already starting up—a chorus of deep, resonant tones, like distant chimes underwater. The hair on the back of his neck prickles.

“So, they’re not nesting.”

“No,” Malfoy says softly. “They’re worshipping.”

Harry lets out a low breath. “Couldn’t we just—” he gestures to the plant “—cut it down? Wouldn’t that stop them coming?”

Malfoy turns sharply, the look he gives Harry halfway between disbelief and offense. “Cut it down?”

Harry shrugs. “It’s a plant, Malfoy. One snip and we’re done.”

For a moment Malfoy says nothing. The flower above them sways faintly in the breeze, its glow deepening as twilight thickens. Then Malfoy straightens, his tone measured but firm.

“They’re not meant to sing every night, Potter. It wears them out. They’re supposed to move with the lunar cycle—rest between songs, feed, nest. If we take away what they think is the moon without giving them another, they’ll scatter in confusion. Some might stop singing altogether. Some might die.”

Harry studies him in the half-light. “You sound like you care.”

Malfoy shoots him a sideways glance. “I do my job properly, that’s all.”

“Right,” Harry says, but his mouth quirks.

Malfoy ignores it and begins adjusting the runes around the flower instead of the greenhouse. “There’s a clearing just past the birches,” he says, half to himself. “Wide sky, good view of the real moon when it rises. If we redirect the resonance there, they’ll follow it naturally.”

Harry crouches beside him. “And Mrs Crickshaw’s house stays quiet.”

“Exactly.”

They work in companionable silence for a while, the rhythm of their movements falling easily into sync. Harry holds the rune stones steady while Malfoy murmurs a tuning spell, his voice a low hum that merges with the distant song of the snails. The sound grows richer as the first stars appear, like the forest itself is sighing in relief.

When they finish, the moonflower’s glow dims slightly, as if understanding. Malfoy lowers his wand and steps back, arms folded.

“That should do it,” he says. “By tomorrow night, they’ll find the clearing and leave this place alone.”

Harry leans against the greenhouse wall, watching the last light fade behind the trees. “You always know what to do with them,” he says quietly. “I’d have hexed the lot of them by now.”

Malfoy’s mouth twitches, but he doesn’t look at him. “That’s why I don’t let you handle containment work.”

Harry grins. “You mean that’s why you keep getting called here.”

“Call it what you like.” Malfoy crouches again, packing away the tools. “But next time, Potter, try to determine whether your ‘dark energy’ is just garden fauna with a fondness for celestial metaphors.”

“I’ll do my best.”

For a long moment, they stand together in the dusky half-light, the last notes of the snail-song rising and falling through the trees. Then Harry breaks the silence.

“Malfoy?”

“Hm?”

“Thanks for not letting me cut it down.”

Malfoy gives a faint nod. “It’s a beautiful thing. Would’ve been a shame.”

The moon lifts over the forest, and in its glow, the moonflower folds its petals slowly, content.

It’s nearly midnight when Malfoy finds him again.

Harry’s sitting on the low stone wall that borders Mrs Crickshaw’s garden, nursing a flask of tea gone lukewarm. The night is crisp and bright, stars spilled like frost across the sky. From the forest edge comes a faint shimmer of sound—so soft it could almost be wind through glass—but Harry recognises the start of the snails’ song.

“Potter.”

Harry turns. Malfoy strides up the path, coat buttoned high against the chill, a small satchel slung over one shoulder. His hair gleams faintly in the moonlight, and there’s something almost . . . buoyant in his step.

“You’re still here,” Malfoy says, as if surprised. “Good.”

“I was making sure the barrier held.” Harry takes a sip from his flask. “Seems quiet enough.”

Malfoy nods, then glances towards the forest, his eyes bright in the silvery dark. “They’ve moved,” he says, voice low. “Just as we hoped. I traced a few trails near the clearing—the resonance redirected perfectly.”

“That’s good news.”

“It’s more than good,” Malfoy says, and for the first time Harry hears an edge of barely-contained excitement in his voice. “If we’re right, they’ll gather under the open moonlight tonight. Proper lunar behaviour—hasn’t been observed in decades, at least not this far north.”

He’s rummaging in the satchel now, hands moving quickly. Glass clinks. Harry catches the faint scent of something herbal, sharp and metallic underneath.

“What are you doing?”

Malfoy straightens, holding two small vials of silvery liquid. “Preparing. Their song will begin properly within the hour. If we go too close unshielded, we’ll drop where we stand. I’d rather not be found snoring in the underbrush.”

Harry raises a brow. “You have something to stop that?”

“Something that helps,” Malfoy corrects. “A draught based on the Awakening Elixir. Potent, rare, questionably Ministry-approved.” His mouth quirks. “Pritchard keeps a bottle for fieldwork—well, kept. I may have . . . repurposed it.”

“You stole your mentor’s potion?”

“Borrowed,” Malfoy says smoothly.

Harry huffs a laugh despite himself. “Of course.”

Malfoy holds out one of the vials. “Sip slowly. Half dose only, unless you fancy hearing colours for the next week.”

The potion burns cold down Harry’s throat, leaving a tingling clarity in its wake. The night sharpens—the stars brighter, the air alive with faint magic. Malfoy takes his own dose with practiced precision, then slips the vials back into his satchel.

They stand in silence for a while, listening to the low hum rising from the woods. Then Malfoy shifts his weight, glancing towards the trees, then back at Harry. His hands fidget briefly with the strap of his satchel.

“Potter,” he says finally, tone carefully casual. “I was going to . . . well, I intend to observe the song. Properly. It’s rare to witness a full gathering—rarer still when they’re healthy. If you . . . wanted to see.”

Harry blinks, caught off guard by the hesitancy in Malfoy’s voice. He’s seen him lecture Ministry inspectors into silence, handle vicious pest infestations without flinching—but now Malfoy’s looking anywhere but at him, fingers tracing idle patterns on the satchel buckle.

“You mean,” Harry says slowly, “you’re inviting me to go watch snails sing.”

A muscle in Malfoy’s jaw twitches. “If you insist on putting it that way.”

Harry studies him, amused. There’s something unexpectedly endearing about the way Malfoy’s trying—and failing—to sound detached, his posture too straight, his tone too crisp, as though he can will away how much he clearly wants this.

“I wouldn’t want to intrude,” Harry says lightly, testing.

Malfoy exhales through his nose, the faintest trace of pink at his ears. “It’s a professional opportunity,” he says quickly. “For both of us.”

“Right.”

“Strictly academic.”

Harry lets the pause stretch. “Of course.”

Malfoy finally looks at him, exasperation flickering under the embarrassment. “Potter, are you coming or not?”

Harry grins, pushing himself off the wall. “Lead the way.”

Malfoy’s surprise flashes across his face before he schools it into something neutral. “Good. Bring your wand. And do keep quiet when we get close. They’re sensitive to noise.”

He turns towards the forest, and Harry follows, the grass whispering underfoot. The sound of the snails’ song swells as they walk—the low, resonant hum layering into harmonies that seem to vibrate through the trees themselves.

By the time they reach the clearing, the moon hangs full above the treetops, and the air feels thick with enchantment.

Malfoy slows, his whole expression softening as the clearing opens before them. For once, Harry doesn’t speak. He just watches the way Malfoy’s shoulders ease, the quiet awe in his face as he looks out into the silver-lit space ahead—where dozens of faintly glimmering shells gleam among the grass, their slow movements tracing a rhythm older than language.

And as the first true notes of the song rise—a sound both haunting and serene—Harry realises that Malfoy hadn’t just wanted to study them. He’d wanted to share this.

The clearing opens like a held breath.

They step from the shadows into a pool of moonlight, soft and blue-white against the grass. The air hums faintly, alive with vibration—the kind that makes the skin on Harry’s forearms prickle. He blinks once, twice, to make sure his eyes aren’t playing tricks on him.

There are dozens of them. Maybe more. Snails the size of small cauldrons, their shells iridescent and smooth, spiralling in colours that shift between silver, pearl, and the palest blue. They move in deliberate, unhurried lines, forming concentric patterns that mirror the moon above. Each time one exhales, faint luminescent dust lifts from its body and drifts upward, like the glow of dandelion seeds caught in moonlight.

And then they begin to sing.

The sound is low at first—a gentle thrumming that vibrates through the soil—but it grows, building into soft chords that seem to hang in the air itself. It’s not quite music, not quite language. More like the resonance of water in a shell, layered upon itself a hundred times. The shimmering dust brightens as they sing, swirling lazily through the air until the entire clearing looks filled with starlight.

Beside him, Malfoy stands utterly still. The bluish glow reflects off his face, sharpening his profile into something fragile and unreal. His lips part slightly, not in awe—no, in recognition. As though he’s listening to something older than memory.

Harry finds himself whispering, “They’re . . . beautiful.”

Malfoy’s answer comes a moment later, soft enough to blend with the song. “Most creatures are. When you stop expecting them to be anything else.”

Harry glances at him. Malfoy’s eyes are fixed on the snails, the faintest, unguarded smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. It’s not the smirk Harry remembers from school—this one’s different. Gentle. Entirely human.

“Why do they glow like that?” Harry asks quietly.

“It’s how they speak to each other,” Malfoy murmurs. “Light, sound, scent—they align under the moon. The glow attracts predators, so the song keeps them away. A lullaby and a warning all at once.”

Harry watches the slow spiral of motion in the clearing. The air is thick with that soft phosphorescence; each breath feels like inhaling starlight. For a heartbeat he forgets where he is.

Malfoy takes a small step forward, crouching just enough to study a pair of smaller snails edging along a mossy rock. His movements are uncharacteristically gentle. “Look,” he says, voice hushed. “These two—probably juveniles. See how the smaller one mirrors the larger? That’s how they learn the rhythm.” Then he lowers himself all the way into the grass, one elbow propped loosely beneath him, gaze turned towards the bluish shimmer that lights the clearing.

Harry crouches beside him, the grass cool and damp beneath his palms. The snails’ song swells—a low, resonant hum that seems to vibrate through bone and breath alike. For a moment, neither of them moves.

When Harry finally glances sideways, Malfoy’s expression has softened completely. The usual sharpness—the guarded pride, the careful wit—is gone. What remains is someone wholly absorbed by the quiet miracle before him. His hair is tied back in a loose, uneven knot, a few pale strands catching the light. There are freckles on his nose and across his cheeks, faint as dustings of gold.

Harry doesn’t speak. He watches him for another moment, then turns his gaze back to the snails, letting the quiet fill the space between them.

After a long while, Malfoy speaks again, barely above a whisper. “Most people never hear this. They never know it exists.”

Harry swallows, still watching the soft glow spill across Malfoy’s gloved hands. “Their loss,” he murmurs.

Malfoy turns to him at that, something flickering in his gaze—surprise, maybe, or gratitude quickly hidden. He gives a short, almost self-conscious nod and looks back towards the clearing.

The moonlight deepens. The song fades to a low, resonant hum, like the heartbeat of the earth itself. One by one, the snails still, their glow dimming until the clearing returns to darkness.

Neither of them moves for a long time. Then Malfoy exhales, slow and quiet. “We’ll need to guide them towards the ridge tomorrow,” he says, voice steady again. “They’ll see the real moon from there. That should break the habit.”

Harry stands, brushing dew from his hands. “Whatever you say, Malfoy.”

Malfoy tilts his head, a ghost of amusement curling his mouth. “Still taking orders well, I see.”

“Only when they come with glowing snails,” Harry replies, smiling faintly.

Malfoy huffs a laugh—quiet, genuine—and turns towards the path. “Come on, Potter. Let’s not push our luck. You’ve seen them at their best.”

Harry follows, glancing back once at the now-dark clearing. The air still holds traces of light, faint motes drifting like embers. He can’t tell if it’s the potion or something else entirely, but the world feels changed—hushed, alive, fragile.

And as they walk back towards the sleeping village, he realises that somewhere along the way, his heart started keeping rhythm with the song.

When they reach the edge of the woods, dawn is already brushing the horizon, soft pink bleeding into grey. Neither of them says much. The air feels too fragile, as if any sound might shatter the calm that still hangs over the trees.

Malfoy holds his broom loosely under one arm, squinting into the pale light. “I suppose this is where our paths part,” he says, but his voice lacks finality—like he’s still half in the moment they’ve left behind.

Harry nods. He doesn’t quite want to leave either. “Guess so.” He mounts his broom, then glances sideways. “You heading back to London?”

“Eventually,” Malfoy says. “I might take the long way. The sunrise’s decent this time of year.”

Harry’s mouth quirks. “Yeah. Might do the same. I’m awake, but my eyes feel as if I've been up for three days straight.”

“The potion will wear off, come evening,” Malfoy reassures him.

For a heartbeat they hover there, both suspended just above the dew-tipped grass, their brooms side by side. Then they push off together, rising slowly through the chill air. Below them, the forest unfurls in silvery green. The first gold of morning catches on Malfoy’s hair; the faintest glimmer of snail dust still clings to his sleeve.

They fly in silence for a while, parallel paths cutting through the pale sky. When the fork in the clouds appears—one trail east, one south—Malfoy tips his broom towards him in a brief, wordless salute.

“Potter.”

“Malfoy.”

Then he’s gone, a streak of grey and gold against the brightening light. Harry watches until the figure is little more than a speck on the horizon, before banking the other way, the wind tugging at his robes.

For once, the world below looks not weary or broken, but quietly new.

The Burrow

The Burrow smells like treacle tart and sunlight. Someone—Ginny, probably—has bewitched a handful of butterbeer caps to orbit the kitchen ceiling like tiny, metallic planets, clinking whenever someone laughs too loudly. There’s music somewhere in the garden, half-swallowed by wind and the shrieks of cousins in flight.

Harry stands by the counter, elbow-deep in frosting. Molly has commandeered the table for cake assembly, and Hermione is attempting to stack plates without them scuttling away on their own. It’s chaos in the familiar, affectionate way only the Weasleys can manage—like the universe might collapse if they all stopped talking at once.

Teddy darts past, his hair a bright, celebratory shade of turquoise. “Gran says I can open it again at dinner, so everyone can see the seal properly,” he announces, clutching the Hogwarts letter to his chest as though it might escape.

Harry smiles. “You could read it again right now if you want.”

Teddy rolls his eyes. “You’ve heard it four times already.”

“Five,” says Hermione, without looking up.

Harry laughs, but it comes out thin. There’s a smudge of flour on his wrist that he keeps meaning to wash off. He’s here—really here—but part of his mind is still at the cottage in Wiltshire, thinking of the stubborn patch of frost that keeps creeping across a client’s living-room wall. He’s tried every repair charm, even one he made up himself last night, but the thing reforms like an old scar. He’ll need to go back tomorrow, maybe consult someone from Magical Structural Restoration.

He wipes his hands on a tea towel, watching Teddy levitate sugar quills into the cake batter. The boy’s wand control has improved—it used to end in small explosions—but Harry barely sees it. His thoughts keep circling back to a different absence: the quiet one waiting at home.

Caleb had moved out three nights ago. They’d done it kindly, dividing their books with the same care they’d once used to share a bed. There was no shouting, no bitterness. Just two adults at the end of a year who realised they’d run out of words to bridge the space between them.

Harry had been the one to suggest it, and yet he feels slightly unmoored, like someone had quietly rearranged the rooms of his life while he wasn’t looking.

“Harry?” Ginny’s voice cuts through his thoughts. She’s leaning against the counter, arms crossed, an affectionate smirk pulling at her mouth. “You look like you’re trying to solve an Arithmancy equation.”

He blinks. “Sorry. Just—thinking.”

“About that frost job?” she asks, then softens when he doesn’t deny it. “You’ll fix it. You always do.”

Harry hums. He knows she means well, but the words don’t stick.

Outside, Ron shouts something about needing another set of hands for the tent, and Ginny vanishes through the back door. Harry follows a moment later. The garden is a living postcard—paper lanterns, the smell of grilled corn, a dozen people talking over each other. Teddy’s name is spelled out in floating golden letters above the table, occasionally rearranging themselves into Hogwarts! or Finally!

“Uncle Harry!” Teddy’s voice, bright and demanding, tugs him back. The boy is halfway up a broom already, beaming. “Come fly with me before dinner!”

Harry hesitates. “Maybe after we eat—”

“You always say that,” Teddy interrupts, his tone sharper than he means.

It hits harder than it should. The sulk, the slight droop of disappointment—Harry recognises it too well. He was that boy once, waiting for someone to look up.

He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Alright. Ten minutes.”

Teddy grins, triumphant, and kicks off into the air. The broom shoots upward, a streak of copper against the late afternoon sky. Harry mounts his own and follows, the wind pulling at his hair, the hum of flight washing the noise from his head. For the first time all day, he feels something unclench.

They spiral above the orchard—Teddy laughing, Harry laughing because the sound is infectious. The world is smaller up here, simpler. When they land, Teddy’s cheeks are flushed, eyes bright.

“Better?” the boy asks, grinning.

“Much,” Harry admits. He ruffles Teddy’s hair, and for a heartbeat it feels like the day belongs entirely to them.

Dinner is noisy, golden, and slightly burnt around the edges. Molly insists everyone say something nice about Teddy; George insists on saying something mortifying. The laughter rolls on until the sky darkens.

Later, when most of the guests have gone and the lanterns are burning low, Harry finds himself sitting alone by the garden fence. The ground is still warm. In the distance, he can hear Teddy showing off his wand-light spell to Hugo.

It’s a good life, he tells himself. A full one.

And yet—

He watches the stars come out and thinks of the frost at the Wiltshire cottage, the impossible charm he hasn’t solved, and somewhere in the middle of that, a faint image of pale hands sorting specimen jars, a quiet voice cataloguing the unremarkable.

He exhales, slow, almost amused at himself. “You’re hopeless,” he mutters. Then he stands, pockets his wand, and goes back to the house before anyone can notice he’s drifted.

The house feels too large when Harry returns.

He closes the door behind him, and the sound seems to echo—low, hollow, final. The lamps stir awake on their own, a charm he set long ago for company. Their light paints the hallway in amber, catching on the framed photographs along the wall. Ron and Hermione on their wedding day. Teddy, gap-toothed, on his first broom. A photograph of Harry and Caleb at the coast—he hesitates at that one before turning it face down.

He kicks off his shoes, leaves his cloak draped over the back of a chair, and stands in the middle of the living room, unsure what to do with the silence.

Usually, Caleb would be here by now, making tea or humming tunelessly as he reorganised the bookshelf for the third time that month. The absence is gentle but persistent, like the ache after a bruise fades. Not unbearable—just there.

Harry lights the fire anyway. Habit. The hearth catches quickly, sending up a little flare that warms the room.

His workbench in the corner is still cluttered from last night’s efforts: rolls of spell diagrams, half a dozen diagnostic crystals, a cracked wand core he’s been meaning to repair. And something small, sitting among the mess—an empty glass vial with a faint shimmer at the bottom, where the residue of an old potion clings to the glass like frost.

He picks it up, curious. Malfoy had given him this one—a stabiliser for tracking magical residue—months ago, when they’d worked on the sleeping greenhouse case. “It’ll save you an hour of paperwork,” Malfoy had said, and Harry had thought, somewhat irritably, that Malfoy was annoyingly often right.

The shimmer catches the firelight, silver and faintly green. It reminds him of moonlight on snail shells, the night air thick with song.

He smiles despite himself.

Across the table lies an unopened envelope. He recognises the Ministry seal and ignores it. Instead, he finds a scrap of parchment and scribbles a note to himself:

Wiltshire job—try low-heat containment ward. Ask DM

He stares at the initials longer than he means to, then folds the parchment in half and leaves it beside the vial.

By the time he changes and gets into bed, the moon has risen high, spilling pale light across the room. He can hear the wind moving through the trees outside, and for a second, he thinks of the snails again—how they’d shimmered when they sang, how quiet Malfoy had gone, how careful his hands had been.

He closes his eyes, and somewhere between the memory and the hum of the night, he feels the faintest tug of something he can’t quite name.

Summer 2009, Draco’s Cottage

The kettle whistles just as Draco finishes arranging the scones. They aren’t perfect—a bit uneven, one slightly lopsided—but he’s rather proud of them all the same. The scent of lavender honey and freshly baked bread mingles with the green, living smell of the garden drifting in through the open back door. It’s early afternoon, and sunlight pools across the tiled floor, catching the steam rising from the cups.

He hears the familiar crack of Apparition, followed by a startled exclamation.

“Good heavens, boy! You didn’t tell me you’d moved into the Eden Project.”

Draco turns, lips twitching. “Hello to you too, Oswald.”

The older man is standing at the edge of the garden path, hat askew, a small suitcase in one hand, and an expression halfway between awe and outrage. His robes are patched in at least three places, and his walking stick is topped with a slightly glowing knob of amber that hums faintly—undoubtedly something he’s “temporarily borrowing from the office.”

“It’s alive, Draco,” Oswald declares, sweeping an arm towards the riot of green and gold that stretches behind the cottage. “Positively humming! And those nasturtiums— Merlin’s left boot, are they growing into the compost bin?”

“They like the shade,” Draco says mildly, taking the suitcase from him before he trips over a trailing vine. “Tea’s ready. Come in before you start lecturing the flowers.”

“Flowers rarely listen,” Oswald mutters, though his eyes are darting everywhere—the delicate silver-leaved shrubs, the glasshouse beyond the hedge where winged beetles flit lazily under the panes, and the little stone water feature crowded with fat bees. “Oh, this is marvellous. Look at the ecosystem! Perfectly balanced chaos. I’m jealous.”

“You hate gardening.”

“I hate weeding,” Oswald corrects, tapping his stick on the flagstones as they step inside. “Entirely different matter. Besides, this—this isn’t gardening. This is diplomacy with soil.”

Draco hides a smile and pours the tea. “Lavender and nettle. I’ve started blending my own.”

“Of course you have. You always were an overachiever.” Oswald settles himself with a satisfied sigh, taking in the kitchen—neat but lived in, full of small signs of comfort: the mug hooks by the sink, a row of preserved samples on the shelf, and a half-finished notebook by the window where Draco had been sketching insect habitats earlier.

They drink in companionable quiet for a while, the kind that only comes after years of working in the field together—long days in damp grass, silence filled by the soft rustle of wings.

Oswald clears his throat. “You’ve done well for yourself, Draco. I’m glad you didn’t listen to me when I told you to take the desk position.”

Draco glances up, startled. “You didn’t mean that?”

“Oh, I meant it at the time.” Oswald’s eyes crinkle with a grin. “You were still walking like your boots owed you money. But look at you now.” He gestures vaguely towards the window. “Living things growing all around you. You’ve built something alive. That’s worth more than respectability.”

Draco looks out at the garden, where sunlight slants over the soft purple blooms of creeping thyme and a fat snail is making its way towards a lettuce leaf. “I think I like it this way.”

“I should hope so. You’ve earned it.” Oswald sets his cup down carefully, hands trembling just a little. “When I first met you, you were all edges. Too afraid to get dirt under your nails. Now look at you—dirt, freckles, and peace. Almost human.”

Draco huffs a laugh. “High praise.”

Oswald leans back, eyes half-closed. “You’ve made this place feel like home, Draco. Remember that, when the next challenge comes along. You don’t need anyone else’s forgiveness to belong here.”

The words settle somewhere deep in Draco’s chest—heavy and steady, like a hand over his heart.

Outside, a honeybee drifts lazily past the window. The kettle hums again. Oswald begins telling a story about the time he accidentally charmed an entire family of Puffskeins to follow him into a Muggle post office. Draco listens, smiling quietly, the scent of lavender thick in the air.

When their second pot of tea is whistling on the stove, Draco glances once more towards the garden. “He’s late.”

Oswald hums, stirring his tea with what Draco strongly suspects is a stirring rod he’d pilfered from the office’s sample lab.

Almost on cue, there’s a faint crack and a scatter of gravel on the garden path. Harry Potter appears, slightly windblown, clutching a battered satchel that looks like it’s been through a thunderstorm. His shirt sleeves are rolled to the elbow, and he looks exactly as he always does—like he’s in a perpetual state of uncovering at least a mild disaster.

“Sorry,” Potter says, jogging up the steps. “Long story involving a faulty cauldron and a goat. You don’t want to know.”

“I truly don’t,” Draco says, straight-faced, though the corners of his mouth twitch. “Tea?”

Potter brightens. “Always.”

Potter steps inside and pauses, his eyes flicking across the room with quiet curiosity. Draco can almost see him taking stock—the bookshelves stuffed to collapse, the faint scent of mint and beeswax polish, Oswald’s clutter of parchment rolls and vials sharing space with Draco’s more meticulous order. For a moment, Potter doesn’t speak. He just looks.

His gaze drifts towards the open back door, where the evening light spills over the garden—rows of herbs trembling in the breeze, bees lazing above the clover, and the small pond at the far end reflecting the pale sky. Something in his face softens; not surprise exactly, but a fleeting smile that brightens him for an instant.

Draco catches it and feels, absurdly, like he’s intruding on something private.

“It’s . . . nice,” Potter says finally, still looking towards the garden. “Peaceful. Is this—” He glances back towards Oswald, a hint of embarrassment in his tone. “Your place?”

Oswald chuckles, halfway through unwrapping a scone. “Oh, heavens no, Mr Potter. My home couldn’t grow so much as a single daisy. This is all Draco’s doing.”

“Ah.” Potter’s eyes widen, his gaze returning to the window. “Didn’t expect—well. It’s beautiful.”

Draco busies himself pouring tea to hide the warmth crawling up his neck. “It’s practical,” he says shortly. “Keeps the pollinators near the study window. Good for close observation.”

“And you wonder why people don’t take compliments from you, my boy.” Oswald only hums into his cup, then sits up and eyes Potter with interest. “So, this is your famous collaborator—Harry's Homewards Helpings. I’ve heard the name ‘Potter’ tossed about every other week, usually in connection with some ludicrously avoidable predicament.”

Potter’s grin falters. “Err . . . right. That sounds about right.”

Draco hides a smile behind his cup. “He means that as a compliment.”

“I don’t,” Oswald says cheerfully, pushing over a plate of shortbread. “But I’ll allow it. You’re punctual enough to have missed the biscuits while they’re still warm, so points for that.”

The three of them settle around the table. The sun leans low across the garden, turning everything gold.

Potter produces a folded piece of parchment and spreads it flat. “So—before we leave, there’s another thing I wanted to ask about. The Wickenby estate, thick stonewall surrounds the place—wardstones. High quality, but they’re ancient, brittle would be a compliment. But whenever I try to renew them, it just won’t work. It’s almost like . . .” Potter thinks and when his eyes fall on a piece of biscuit, he says, “Like a crumbling biscuit. Some crumbles of my magic stick, but most of them fall away.”

Draco leans over, scanning Potter’s notes about the stonewall and an attached photograph. “There are tiny holes in the stone? Looks like fungal bloom under the stonework, feeding off the lingering charms in the wardstones. I’d wager on Petrospore.”

“Petrospore?” Potter repeats, frowning.

Oswald perks up. “Charming little devil. Thinks ancient wards are a buffet.” He peers over Draco’s shoulder, squinting at the photo. “Ah yes, see that pattern there—fungal growth likes to spiral along ley lines. Quite poetic, if it weren’t for the structural damage.”

Potter looks between them. “So we can stop it?”

“Oh, easily,” Draco says. “Provided you can manage not to collapse the house first.”

Potter sighs. “You’re never going to let that one go, are you?”

“Not when it keeps happening.”

Oswald chuckles into his tea. “You two sound like a pair of married magpies.”

Draco freezes for half a second, nearly spills his drink. “We’re not—”

“Not what?” Oswald asks innocently. “Bickering professionally? Relax, my boy, I mean it kindly. It’s good to see you have someone who speaks your language. I was worried you’d spend your life muttering to slugs.”

Potter bites back a smile. “Oh, I think he prefers the slugs anyways.”

The easy laughter that follows feels unforced, familiar—and Oswald watches them over the rim of his cup, eyes crinkling, something proud in his gaze. He doesn’t say anything more, just sits back as the two of them begin debating containment charms with increasing animation, their cups forgotten, voices overlapping like an old rhythm rediscovered.

North York Moors

The air outside is soft with mist, carrying the faint tang of peat and the sweetness of distant blooming heather. Draco, Oswald, and Potter Apparate onto the edge of marsh, where the land flattens into a dark mirror of water and moss. The air is thick, rich with the scent of peat and rain-soaked heather. Mist curls over the pools, and beyond them the jagged silhouettes of distant pines mark the border of a pine forest. Somewhere a frog croaks like an old hinge.

“Merlin’s tits,” Potter mutters, pushing his fringe from his eyes. “You weren’t joking about remote.”

“Remote keeps poachers away,” Oswald says, leaning heavily on his walking stick. “And Ministry bureaucrats. Both equally invasive species.”

Oswald steadies himself with a cane fashioned from something that looks suspiciously like a hollowed-out wand. “Careful where you step,” he warns, cheerfully unbothered by the mud squelching around his boots. “They like the shallows best. Where the silt’s thin enough for light to pass through.”

Potter glances down, brow furrowed. “And we’re sure they’re here?”

“Of course they’re here,” Oswald says, affronted. “Marshglass Snails have been nesting in this basin for at least a century. I found them myself in ’47—well, one of them found me. I slipped on my backside and nearly flattened the poor thing.”

Draco hides a smile and kneels, wand in hand, murmuring a soft Lumos. The light spills over a slick stretch of mud, and within it—if you knew how to look—tiny glimmers shift, like distant stars beneath a pond’s surface. “There,” he says quietly. “Under the reeds.”

Potter crouches beside him. “They’re smaller than I expected.”

“They don’t need to be large,” Draco replies. “Their trails contain a mineral compound that binds beautifully with quartz powder. Makes a mirroring coat once the mixture dries—perfect for your restoration.”

Oswald, half listening, is rummaging in his satchel. “Back in my day, people crushed the shells instead. Dreadful business. Used to say the reflection came out clearer if the creature died for it—nonsense, of course. The slime works just as good, and no one has to suffer for a shiny pane.”

Potter looks up. “You discovered that?”

Oswald sniffs. “I proved it. There’s a difference. I simply refused to take part in cruelty for the sake of a looking glass. Nearly got laughed out of the Guild, too.” He straightens, beaming at the memory. “But the next year, half their mirrors were streaking because they hadn’t used the fresh trail.”

Draco’s voice softens. “You changed the trade, though you never say it.”

Oswald waves him off, though his eyes twinkle. “I just listened to the snails, my boy. They do most of the teaching if you’re patient enough.”

Potter watches them both, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. The wind drifts off the marsh, carrying the faint scent of moss and brine, and he glances towards the dark silhouette of the forest beyond. “You two make it sound almost like a philosophy.”

“Oh, it is,” Oswald says, tapping his cane into the mud. “A simple one: nothing needs to break for something else to shine.”

Draco conjures a small wooden tray, setting it on the drier patch of grass, and unfolds several narrow strips of enchanted glass—thin, translucent, shimmering faintly blue in the half-light. “They’ll hold the trail without absorbing it,” he explains, glancing at Potter. “We’ll need a few inches at least for your mirror.”

Potter crouches again, careful not to disturb the reeds. “And we just . . . wait for them to come by?”

Oswald chuckles. “Merlin’s beard, no. You’ll be standing here until next Tuesday. Here.” He produces from his satchel a corked vial of something pale and gelatinous, smelling faintly of mint and riverwater. “This attracts them. A tincture from the roots of silverweed—they can’t resist it. Just don’t spill it on your boots, or you’ll never get home without a trail of admirers.”

Draco hides a smile. “That happened to him once.”

“Twice,” Oswald corrects serenely. “In different counties.”

As Potter laughs, a thin drizzle begins to fall—soft at first, then steady, misting their hair and the reeds around them. The air thickens with that sweet, earthy scent of rain on wet ground. Draco mutters a small waterproofing charm over the glass strips, but Oswald waves him off, delighted.

“Oh, excellent!” he says, eyes bright beneath his dripping hat. “They love this. The Marshglass will come crawling right out of the water to drink it. Rain makes them bolder.”

Potter glances up, droplets clinging to his lashes. “You make them sound like poets.”

“Poets, philosophers, whatever they please,” Oswald replies cheerfully. “They’ve earned it.”

Draco rolls his eyes, though his mouth twitches at the corners. “I’ll take that as a warning.”

They kneel among the slick reeds, the drizzle turning their reflections in the puddles to soft ripples. The first snail appears soon after—a small, conical shell glinting faintly like frosted glass. Its body leaves behind a thread of luminous slime that catches what little light filters through the clouds.

Potter leans close, his voice hushed. “They’re beautiful.”

“They’re ordinary,” Draco murmurs back, though there’s a gentleness beneath the words. “That’s the point. Ordinary things can still make something worth keeping.”

Oswald hums in agreement, crouching with surprising ease for his age. “Now, you two talk like poets.”

Draco huffs, more flustered than amused.

Potter’s smile ghosts again as he watches the snail make its slow way across the enchanted glass. “Seems fitting,” he says quietly. “You’re good with the sort of work that takes patience.”

Something in the remark lodges under Draco’s ribs—not quite praise, not quite understanding, but warmer than either. He clears his throat and turns towards Oswald, who is holding another glass strip at a careful angle.

The drizzle thickens, soft but relentless, until their cloaks are slick and shining. The marsh hums with the small, secretive life of dusk—the faint splash of frogs, the whisper of wings above the reeds. When the last strip is glistening with fine, iridescent trails, Oswald claps his hands, satisfied.

“There,” he declares. “The snails will have new stories to tell tonight—and we, if we don’t drown in place.”

Draco dries the strips with a charm before sealing them in a padded case. Potter offers to take one, but Draco shakes his head. “You’ll only drop it.”

“True,” Potter says, grinning. “But I’d have blamed Pritchard.”

“Good instincts,” Oswald approves, patting Potter’s arm.

They share a laugh, brief and easy, and then fall into a companionable silence as they make their way back across the slick, shining marsh. The drizzle tapers off just as the last of the daylight fades, and for a fleeting moment—between Oswald’s humming and Potter’s quiet footsteps beside him—Draco thinks that maybe this is what contentment feels like. Not dramatic, not triumphant. Just three people walking home together, and nothing broken that needs mending.

Draco’s Cottage

By the time they return from the marsh, the rain has turned to a fine mist. The lamps along the path flicker on automatically, throwing pools of warm light across the wet flagstones. Rain clings to the folds of their cloaks and glitters faintly on the jars in Malfoy’s hands—each one sealed with a shimmer of charmwork, faintly green where the Marshglass slime has settled.

Malfoy’s cottage smells faintly of lavender and damp earth, mixed with something still new—paint and polished timber. Harry is drawn to the glass door that leads out into the back garden. Dim golden lights dance over wet bushes and the leaves of an Elder Tree. Large slugs, their naked wet bodies a dark orange, are feasting on a small lettuce patch, which somehow creates the impression it was made just for them.

Oswald takes the largest armchair by the hearth, muttering contentedly as he peels off his gloves. His fingers tremble slightly as he fumbles at a clasped jar, knuckles gnarled and pale. Malfoy moves to help without a word, easing the lid open with a practiced twist of his wrist. The faintly opalescent slime shimmers inside like liquid glass.

“Curse these joints,” Oswald says lightly, flexing his hands.

Harry gives a small smile. “I know a portrait of a witch that used to say that aging is just a slow hex no one bothers to lift.”

“Then that witch had sense,” Oswald chuckles, taking his tea when Malfoy passes it over.

He then comes over to Harry and presses a steaming hot cup into his hand. For a moment, they stand together, just looking out into the dark but very much alive garden.

“It’s lovely,” Harry says finally, taking a first too hot sip of tea.

Malfoy sets his own mug down on the table and flicks his wand towards the hearth. The logs shift obediently, but the flames sputter and die with a half-hearted crackle. A second attempt yields nothing more than a faint puff of smoke.

“Typical,” he mutters under his breath, jabbing at the kindling. “It works perfectly when I’m alone.”

Harry chuckles and sets his tea aside. “Mind if I try?”

Malfoy hesitates, then steps aside with an almost imperceptible sigh. “If you must.”

Harry crouches in front of the grate, sleeves rolled up. “Pipe to the chimney’s rather narrow. That usually calls for handling it tenderly if you don’t want the hearth to cough soot in your face.” He whispers the charm like a reassurance rather than an incantation, then taps the hearthstones twice with the tip of his wand.

A steady flame blooms—warm, golden, and immediate. The fire seems to breathe, spreading evenly across the logs, throwing a mellow glow over the small sitting room.

Harry leans back on his heels, satisfied. “It’s half spellwork and half attitude. Fires know when you’re impatient with them.’”

Malfoy huffs, though his mouth twitches as if he’s suppressing a smile. “Domestic wisdom from the Saviour. Who would have thought?”

“You’d do well to listen to him, Draco,” Oswald says, his voice gravelly but amused. “Patience and warmth—two things I’ve been trying to hammer into you for years. Seems Mr Potter here has managed it in five minutes with a bit of kindling.”

Malfoy shoots him a look, equal parts exasperation and fondness. “I hardly think lighting a fire qualifies as a moral lesson.”

“Oh, everything’s a lesson if you’re old enough to see it,” Oswald replies. “And this one comes with tea and a working hearth. Count yourself lucky.”

Harry only hides a grin behind his mug.

The rain continues to whisper against the windows, and the warmth from the fire seeps slowly into the room. Oswald sinks deeper into his armchair, sighing contentedly at the warmth. His breathing deepens where he sits, head tilted back, eyes half-lidded in contentment.

Harry glances towards him, then back at Malfoy, his voice dropping to something more thoughtful. “He’s lucky to have you,” he says. “Not many people get to see their work carried on like that.”

For a moment, Malfoy doesn’t answer. The firelight paints soft amber over his face, catching in the pale strands of hair that have come loose from their tie. Then, as if discarding a thought, he pushes to his feet. “It’s getting late. Let me show you how to mix the coating for your mirror.”

Malfoy sets to work at the table, pouring a measured scoop of quartz powder into a shallow dish. “You’ll see the reaction immediately,” he tells Harry, his tone more professorial than conversational. “The quartz needs to be pure—no inclusions, no fracture lines—or the coating becomes brittle.”

He takes up a glass stirrer and dips it into the snail slime, letting a thin thread fall into the powder. The moment they touch, a faint silver sheen ripples through the mix, the powder folding into itself as if swallowing light.

Harry leans closer, forearms resting on the table. “That’s . . . beautiful,” he says. “Looks like moonlight trapped in sand.”

Malfoy’s mouth twitches. “It’ll dull as it dries. But once applied to glass, the bond is nearly permanent. That’s what makes it ideal for mirror restoration—elastic, yet stable.”

Oswald hums approvingly from the armchair, voice laced with sleep. “Listen to you, lad. You sound like a proper craftsman.”

Malfoy ducks his head, pretending to focus on the mixture. “Someone has to sound competent while you’re drinking all the tea.”

That earns a wheezy laugh from the old man. “Ha! I’ve earned my tea, thank you very much.”

Labelling and magically sealing two jars, one filled with opaque slime, the other with glistening quartz powder, Malfoy looks at Harry. “The coating bonds better if applied immediately after mixing it. One scoop of powder, one drop of slime. Stir with glass, never metal. Understood?”

Harry takes the two jars and nods. “Understood.” He shrugs on his cloak. “I’ll owl you if it works.”

“It will,” Draco replies simply. 

Outside, the rain has eased into a fine drizzle. Harry gives Oswald a small, respectful nod before stepping out into the fading light. The door closes softly behind him. While he safely wraps the jars in a scarf and pockets them, he hears Oswald’s voice through the door.

“You know, my boy” he begins, “work’s all well and good, but it’s a rare thing to find someone who listens when you ramble about snails and fungus.”

A smile ghosts over Harry’s lips while he walks the gravel path towards the small wooden gate that marks the boundary of Malfoy’s new home. Once he’s outside, he turns and Disapparates with the familiar plop.

Spring 2010, Oswald’s Cottage

The gate to Pritchard’s cottage creaks when Harry pushes it open. Evening presses close and damp, the air smelling of moss and wood smoke. A single lamp glows in the side garden, throwing a soft circle of light over Draco Malfoy.

He sits on the stone step, fingers absently brushing over a folded piece of parchment in his lap. Fresh grassy stains are on Draco’s knees; his hair has come loose from its tie.

Harry stops a few feet away. “I came as soon as I got the owl.”

Draco doesn’t look up right away. “He went in his sleep. Left a note. Typical—final instructions and a recipe for soil tonic.” His voice is dry, but the edges fray. “Said I’m ready to take over the Office. I told him last week I’d rather have a few more years of being corrected about snail courtship rituals.”

Harry manages a faint smile. “He knows you’ll study every source about it twice anyway.”

That draws the smallest huff of breath—almost a laugh, almost a sob. Draco finally meets his eyes, pale in the lamplight and terribly tired. “He thought I could do this alone.”

“You can,” Harry says quietly. He sits down on the stone step next to Draco.

For a while they sit there without speaking. Somewhere in the dark, a bird calls once and goes silent again.

“I called you,” Draco says at last, voice roughened by the quiet. “Because he left instructions for a release.”

He exhales, a thin sound that steams in the cool air. “Cretula tergoribus—Chalkbacks, if you will. He’d been breeding them for years, quietly. Hardly anyone knew, certainly no one in the Ministry. Said the colony was large enough to sustain themselves in the wild now.”

He turns the parchment over, smoothing the creases with his thumb. The motion is absent, almost tender. “He wanted them released somewhere ‘the land still remembers its edge. Where the old boundary charms are strong enough to feed and protect them.’”

Harry studies him in the lamplight—the careful control, the way Draco’s fingers linger on the paper as if afraid to stop moving. “The national wards,” he says after a moment, understanding dawning.

Draco pauses, the faintest wry twist to his mouth. “I figured that he meant you . . . So, you know where?”

Harry lets out a quiet breath, not quite a laugh. “There are places around the coast that function like wardstones—landmarks that anchor the border wards. If you know what kind of habitat those snails need, we—”

“Chalk cliffs,” Draco says immediately. “They live both in the sea as well as on land, like amphibians. The last wild population was recorded near the Seven Sisters of East Sussex.”

Harry’s gaze drifts towards the dark outline of the trees beyond the garden. “Old wards like that—they don’t follow maps. You feel them more than you see them. They respond to intent, not instruction. Oswald must’ve known that.”

Draco looks at him then, properly. For the first time that evening there’s something like relief in his expression—fragile, but real. “I knew you would help me,” he says simply.

Harry nods once, firm and steady. “All right,” he says. “Let’s go.”

Draco blinks, almost startled by the immediacy of it. “Now?”

“Before dawn’s better,” Harry replies, standing and brushing damp grass from his knees. “The wards are quieter then. Easier to listen to.”

For a heartbeat, Draco hesitates—then folds the parchment carefully and tucks it into his coat. “All right,” he murmurs. “Let’s go.”

Inside, the cottage feels small and vast all at once—a room with a worn wingchair, seemingly randomly stacked books with dog-eared pages, and a strong smell of medicinal ointment. A mug and yesterday's newspaper still sits by the hearth, the dregs of tea gone cold.

Draco lights a lamp with a flick of his wand, the flame trembling before settling into a steady glow. He swallows as he averts his gaze from the armchair. “He kept them in the cellar,” he says quietly, as though afraid of disturbing the stillness. “Didn’t want the Ministry sniffing around.”

Harry follows him down the narrow steps. The air grows cooler, touched by the faint tang of salt and limestone. Shelves line the walls—old jars, tin labels, and a dozen tiny habitats charmed with self-cleaning runes. The faint shimmer of protective spells glows on each one, soft as breath.

In the far corner, a cluster of glass tanks glimmer faintly blue. Draco stops right before them. “Cretula tergoribus,” he murmurs, almost reverently. “He thought they’d died out entirely. Took him twenty years to have a stable population. Said the magic in chalk binds with the calcium in their shells—it makes them shimmer under light like grains of sand. The mucus they secrete can restore surface spells in decayed wards.”

“Were they used for this until they were almost extinct?” Harry asks softly, crouching beside him.

Draco nods. “There’s hardly a benefit to the spellwork used today. It was just how things used to be done—until these little lads were no more.” Inside, small shapes move—snails no larger than Harry’s thumb, their shells translucent, catching the lamplight like sea glass. Draco kneels, resting a hand against the tank.

They begin transferring the snails into a travelling crate, Draco’s movements meticulous even as his hands tremble. The tiny creatures leave faint silver-green trails across his gloves.

“This is his work,” he says abruptly, voice breaking at the edges. “Those tiny things, shells still like gummy, wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for him. He used to say there’s magic in everything that moves and wants—magic that doesn’t care about names on journals or validation.”

The silence after is soft and heavy. The lamplight flickers over his face—pale, drawn, but no longer guarded. When the first tear slips free, he doesn’t seem to notice until Harry rests a hand on his shoulder. Draco turns towards him, and the movement becomes an embrace—hesitant at first, then fierce.

They stay like that until the lamp gutters once, reminding them of the night still waiting outside.

The Seven Sisters

When they Apparate to the cliffs, the world reforms around them with the tang of salt and the roar of unseen waves. The moon hangs low, veiled in thin cloud. Below, the white face of the cliffs gleams faintly where it meets the dark sea.

Harry steadies himself on the slope, the ground soft and wet beneath his boots. “This way,” he murmurs, wand raised.

Draco follows, the crate held close to his chest. Together they make their way along a beaten path meandering its way down a hill among woody grasses and herbs. The force of the sea carries their scent to Harry’s nostrils.

After the last step over the dune, there is now sand beneath their feet. Behind them, the gigantic chalk cliffs rise up in a ghostly white, as the sea approaches in front of them with every wave. Far away, just before the horizon, a half-moon and passing clouds shine in the sky just as brightly as mirrored in the black body of water.

Harry spots the remnants of a lighthouse not far away, its base lapped by waves. There’s no other structure around—no ruins, no large rocks that stick out of the water surface. Only that tower that once served as a beacon for guarding ships safely through the channel.

“This might be it,” Harry tells Draco, pointing his wand towards the dark tower. “The outline of the wards needs anchors along the perimeter. If I had to guess, I’d say this is the one.”

“Half in water and some kind of sedimentary rock probably,” Draco mutters. “Let’s have a closer look, that might be perfect.”

They move closer, the wind rising as they descend. Spray catches the air, sharp and cold against their faces. The rhythmic crash of waves drowns out everything but breath and heartbeat.

The lighthouse ruins stand half-swallowed by the tide, its stones mottled with lichen and time. Only the lowest section remains intact. They wade through shallow water until they reach uneven stone stairs that leas up to a plateau just above the waves, in it a ring of chalk and flint that hums faintly when Harry brushes his hand along it.

“Yes,” he murmurs. “It’s old—older than the lighthouse itself. This was part of the border before anyone thought to build here.” He closes his eyes, the wand tip hovering above the stone. A faint pulse answers his magic—a low, deep thrum, as though the land itself is listening.

Draco stands beside him, the crate cradled in his arms. The lid glows faintly blue from the containment charms. “It feels… awake,” he says, voice almost a whisper.

Harry nods and lets his wand slip back into his sleeve, careful not to wield any more magic than necessary. “It’s potent. You won’t want to adjust those wards alone. If these snails both feed on them and strengthen them, then there is nowhere better for them.”

When Draco unseals the crate, the snails begin to move immediately, slow spirals carving into the sand. Their trails gleam faintly silver at first, then blue, then green—as if testing the air.

The first snail reaches the waterline. The wave breaks over it, retreating with a curl of foam—and when the next one rolls in, the snail is gone, but the faint line of light it left remains, seeping into the surf. Another follows, then another. The sea begins to shimmer faintly where they enter, the glow threading through the foam like veins of living silver.

Harry feels the wards shift then—a subtle settling, like breath exhaled after a long-held tension. “They’re home,” he says softly.

Draco doesn’t answer at first. His hand lingers on the open crate, fingertips pressed into the worn wood. The last snail slides over the edge, pausing briefly before joining the others.

When it’s gone, Draco exhales shakily. “I wish he could’ve seen this.” After a pause he adds, “In his letter, he said that entrusting the snails to my care was just as good as being there himself.” Tears overwhelm Draco the instant he finishes the sentence, and Harry doesn’t hesitate to pull him into a hug. He feels hot tears brim in his own eyes and clings onto Draco’s twitching shoulders until his breath evens.

When the tide creeps higher, Harry steps back, glancing towards the horizon where faint light is beginning to gather—the earliest hint of dawn. “We should leave,” Harry says.

They start the walk back up the slope, sand clinging to their boots. The wind has softened, carrying the scent of salt and earth. Behind them, the waves strike the cliffs in long, rhythmic breaths, each one echoing faintly with the hum of renewed wards.

At the top, they pause, turning for one last look. The sea glimmers faintly—no light, no magic visible now, but something felt, like warmth beneath the skin.

“If all goes well, no one will ever notice them,” Draco murmurs. “They’ll blend into the landscape, and people will think they went extinct.”

They stand there a moment longer, two silhouettes against the paling sky. Before Harry finds words to answer, Draco touches his arm, and with a soft crack, they vanish—leaving only the whisper of the sea and the faint shimmer of chalk dust on the wind.

Oswald’s Cottage

It’s nearing noon when Harry closes the door to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place behind him. After a few hours of tossing and turning on Draco’s settee—and a shared cup of tea before he left—he finally feels the weight of sleep beginning to settle. Then something stirs in his wand pocket.

He frowns, reaches in, and finds movement.

When he draws out his wand, there it is: a snail, so slight he almost misses it. But when he brushes away a speck of moss, the shell catches the light—its concentric spirals etched with faint purple ridges, like carvings or proper runes; familiar, only smaller and more translucent than he remembers.

Questioning his sanity—do snails live that long?—Harry puts Harold in a small container and returns to the cottage he just came from.

Draco answers the knock with a faint look of surprise, a stack of papers in his hands. “Forget something?”

Harry holds up the see-through box. “Your snail. Must’ve escaped you and crawled into my pocket.”

Draco laughs softly and takes the box, opening it at once. “You needn’t have brought him back. He doesn’t belong to me.”

Harry raises an eyebrow.

“He follows me sometimes,” Draco explains, letting the snail crawl across his palm. “But he appears wherever he pleases. Looks like he chose you today.”

For a moment, Harry can only stare. “Since eighth year? And you’ve never wanted to find out why?”

Draco’s smile is quiet, fond—half for Harold, half for Harry. “There are questions in life that don’t require answers.”

They watch in silence as the snail creeps along the back of Draco’s hand, leaving the faintest silver trail. Draco’s eyes are still slightly red-rimmed, his cheeks paler than he usually is these days. Then, after a pause, Draco looks up.

“Potter?” he says softly, “thanks,” and—as if in afterthought—gently ruffles through Harry’s hair. Harry closes his eyes at the touch of Draco’s hand, combing back his hair, then letting his hand rest in his nape for several heartbeats, before he returns to his quiet work of sorting through Oswald’s things.

Summer 2010, Draco’s Cottage

The air in Draco’s cottage hums with the weight of summer. Curtains billow faintly in the open window, carrying in the scent of lavender and distant cut grass. Somewhere outside, bees fuss lazily around the thyme and foxglove, their droning softened by the steady, unhurried breath of the man beside him.

Draco lies still on his side, watching Harry sleep, one arm trapped under Harry’s head, the other loosely swung around his middle. A curl clings to his beard along his jaw, the rest of his hair a dark, unruly mess that the heat has done nothing to tame. His face, usually all sharp lines and focus, is unguarded now—soft and sun-warmed, somehow vulnerable without his spectacles.

For a moment, Draco lets himself simply look. The slow rise and fall of Harry’s chest. The faint movement of his lips as if in the middle of some half-dreamed conversation. A few scars on his cheek, his chest, his shoulder—the markings of tougher times.

He thinks—not for the first time—how improbable this is. That the quiet he’d once thought reserved for other people has somehow found its way here, into this little cottage, and into him.

Harry stirs at something, frowns faintly, but doesn’t wake. Draco reaches over and brushes his thumb along his jaw, a touch light enough not to break the spell.

It’s the stillest kind of happiness—the kind that doesn’t demand, that just exists.

When the light begins to change, leaning towards the warm gold of late afternoon, Draco finally lets out a quiet breath. He glances once more at Harry, still sprawled across the sheet, then rolls even closer and presses a kiss to his forehead.

Harry shifts again, blinking awake this time, slow and drowsy. “M’what?” he mumbles.

Draco smiles. “You’re sleeping through the party prep.”

Harry makes a small, dissatisfied noise and pulls Draco into a hug, burying his face in the curve where Draco’s neck meets his shoulder. His arms slack as if he might drift back to sleep immediately.

“You promised to set the table and to pick up fresh baguettes,” Draco reminds him.

That earns him a groan. Harry rolls on his back and rubs his eyes, expels a breath. “Alright. I’m awake.”

Draco kisses him again—this time properly. When he pulls back, Harry’s grin has settled into something quiet and real.

“Okay,” Harry murmurs as he sits up and stretches, “let’s do it. Before your guests start thinking I’m an illusion.”

Draco stands, bare feet against the cool floorboards, and for a heartbeat, he simply watches Harry sit amid the tangle of sheets and sunlight. Then he offers his hand.

“Come on, Potter,” he says.

By late afternoon, the heat begins to ease, the kind of slow retreat that turns the air syrupy and sweet. The cloying scent of blooming flowers hangs in the air like treacle.

Draco charms the last of the floating lanterns, and it rises obediently, bobbing a little before finding its rhythm. “Stay level,” he mutters, as if it can hear him. But it tilts anyway, stubbornly drifting off course.

Behind him, Harry laughs. “You know they only listen if you’re nice to them.”

Draco gives him a look over his shoulder. “I’m always nice.”

Harry grins, wiping his hands on a tea towel before stepping close enough to nudge Draco’s shoulder with his. “You’re terrifyingly polite. It’s not the same thing.”

The lantern rights itself just then, and Draco lifts his chin, smug. “See? Works fine my way.”

They fall into an easy rhythm after that—Harry setting plates with the help of a few charms, Draco Transfiguring a cracked clay pot into a serving bowl. The table sits beneath the old elder tree, its wide branches already stringed with fairy lights. The scent of rosemary drifts in from the herb patch.

Draco bends over a wide wooden board, sorting through a bowl of wild herbs and petals they’d gathered that morning. The colours are absurdly cheerful—violet borage, nasturtium, tiny yellow fennel blooms. “You know,” he says, plucking a stray petal from Harry’s hair without looking up, “Oswald would hex me for calling this a salad.”

Harry smirks. “He’d call it something like ‘botanical chaos,’ probably.”

“‘Botanical frivolity,’ perhaps.” Draco smiles faintly. “And then he’d eat three servings.”

The crunch of gravel on the garden path breaks the quiet. They glance up just in time to see Molly Weasley bustling through the gate, wand tucked behind one ear and a large wicker basket clutched in her hands.

“Afternoon, dears!” Molly’s voice carries before she’s even halfway up the garden path. “I thought I’d best come a bit early. Getting the oven temperatures right in this heat is not a piece of cake.”

Draco straightens automatically, brushing imaginary dust from his shirt. “Good afternoon, Mrs Weasley,” he begins, but she waves a dismissive hand before he can finish.

“Oh, none of that now. It’s Molly, dear boy. I’ll not have my Harry’s sweetheart ‘Mrs Weasley’-ing me.”

Draco blinks, momentarily disarmed. “M—Molly, then.”

“That’s better.” She smiles approvingly, already sweeping past him toward the kitchen door. “Now, where shall I put this trifle before it melts? And I’ve brought a roast chicken—don’t look at me like that, Harry, of course it’s charmed to stay cool—and a few of Arthur’s pickled beetroot jars. He insists they go with everything.”

Harry, grinning, takes the basket from her before she can manage it one-handed. “I’ll get these inside. You’ve single-handedly saved us from serving nothing but salad.”

“Salad’s all well and good,” Molly says, planting her hands on her hips as she surveys the garden, “but guests need proper food, something that sticks to the ribs. Oh, this is lovely, Draco. Those lanterns—did you charm them yourself?”

“I did,” Draco says, a bit surprised by the approval in her tone. “They behave most of the time.”

Molly chuckles, the sound warm and rumbling. “Most of the time’s about all one can hope for. Same with children, husbands, and charmwork.”

Harry snorts from the kitchen doorway.

By the time the rest of the guests start arriving, Molly has commandeered the kitchen, humming as she reheats the chicken and reorganises their table settings “for better balance.” She refuses help from both men, shooing them out with an affectionate “Go on, make yourselves useful elsewhere!”

They end up in the garden again, finishing the last few touches before sitting on a shallow stonewall together. Lanterns drift lazily overhead; the light through the elder branches dapples everything in a golden haze. Somewhere behind them, Molly’s voice floats out through the open window—half a song, half instructions to some invisible helper.

Draco glances sideways at Harry. “She’s . . . rather formidable.”

Harry grins. “You’ve no idea. But if she’s rearranging your cutlery instead of interrogating you, you’ve already won her over.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Draco says dryly, flicking his wand to nudge the errant lantern higher. For a moment he’s quiet, watching how it steadies itself again, then adds—almost under his breath, “It’s strange. Having people here. The house feels different when it’s full.” He pauses, fingers tracing the uneven stone beneath him. “Not bad. Just—different. Not long ago I thought I’d end up sharing it only with the snails and the bees and whatever plants decided to tolerate me.”

Harry bumps his shoulder lightly. “First of many, I hope.”

Draco looks back toward the window, where Molly is bustling about with familiar purpose, and feels an unexpected warmth curl in his chest. “Yes,” he says quietly. “I think so.”

“Say,” Harry hesitates, then ventures softly, “your parents didn’t change their mind, did they?”

Draco shakes his head. “They sent word back this morning. Politely declining.”

Harry doesn’t answer at once, only shifts slightly closer, waiting.

“It’s all right,” Draco adds, surprising himself with how much he means it. “They’ll come around eventually. They just need time. Better not at all than out of duty—or spite.” He looks out towards the horizon, golden fields and rotund deep-green trees, then back at Harry. “Change doesn’t come easy when you’ve built your life around avoiding it.”

“You’re handling it better than I would,” Harry admits and leans in to press a soft kiss to the corner of Draco’s mouth, coaxing a smile out of him.

“There you are, you two lovebirds.” Pansy appears around the perimeter of the house, several bottles of wine Levitating behind her.

Pansy strides across the lawn as though she owns it, her sundress immaculate despite the heat. “Honestly, Draco,” she says, planting the wine bottles neatly on the table with a flick of her wrist, “if I’d known you’d gone fully domestic, I’d have brought bunting and an intervention team.” Her eyes flick to Harry, a smirk tugging at her lips. “You, Potter, look indecently sun-drunk. I approve.

Draco rolls his eyes but smiles despite himself. “Remind me why I invited you again?”

“Because I make everything look better,” she says sweetly, and with that, she sails inside to help Molly—uninvited, but utterly unstoppable.

By the time she returns, more guests are filtering through the gate—Neville and Luna first, carrying potted plants between them, followed by Ron, Hermione, and little Rose, who makes straight for the fairy lights with delighted shrieks. The air grows steadily louder with laughter and clinking glasses. George arrives last of the Weasleys, balancing a pie box and a mischievous grin, and from behind him, Andromeda appears, her hand resting lightly on Teddy’s shoulder.

Teddy beams when he spots them, hair an untidy turquoise in the evening light. “Uncle Harry!” he calls, waving so hard he nearly drops the tray he’s carrying. Harry bends to catch him in a hug that knocks the breath from both of them, then he turns to Draco, stiffens a bit shyly, and shakes his hand. Draco believes he sees his hair colour pale slightly as he does so. Andromeda greets Draco with a warm smile and a simple, “It’s a beautiful home, dear.”

And as the garden fills with voices, lanterns bobbing higher in the twilight, Draco finds himself standing beside Harry again, glass in hand, watching the mingling and laughter unfold across the lawn. The air hums with life—people, stories, and new beginnings.

Draco stands back for a moment, taking it in. The long table gleams under the floating lanterns: a patchwork of plates and flowers, glasses catching stray threads of light. Harry is laughing with Neville near the drinks table, sleeves rolled, a leaf stuck to his hair that he hasn’t noticed.

Molly’s laugh rings out nearby—warm, full, the kind of sound that fills a space. She’s seated between Blaise and Hermione, somehow managing to entertain both. Pansy and Luna are deep in conversation at the far end, their heads bent close together, while Ron and Neville roar with laughter at something Arthur has said.

It’s all absurdly normal. Messy, cheerful, imperfect—and it makes something in Draco’s chest loosen.

“Quite the turnout,” Harry says beside him, slipping a glass into his hand. His cheeks are flushed from heat, wine, and laughter. “I think Molly’s planning to adopt you by dessert.”

“She already told me she’ll Owl me the recipe for her trifle,” Draco replies dryly, taking a sip. “I believe that’s how it begins.”

Harry grins. “You don’t sound opposed.”

“Who would dare?”

They stand together for a while, watching Rose chase enchanted moths across the garden while Ron pretends not to notice her stealing extra biscuits from the dessert tray. Hermione catches his eye, shakes her head fondly, and raises her glass towards them in a small, knowing salute.

Later, as dusk deepens, lanterns drift higher, their light softening to amber. The conversation winds and folds like a tide—pockets of laughter, quiet talk, the occasional shout of “Watch it!” when a rogue lantern dips too low. Somewhere near midnight, the garden smells of mint and smoke, and the table is scattered with crumbs and empty glasses.

Draco finds himself watching Harry again, the easy way he moves between people—equal parts host, friend, and something gentler that Draco still doesn’t have a word for.

When the last of the guests have gone and the garden has fallen quiet again, Harry drops down beside him on the low stone wall. The lanterns drift lazily above, their light reflecting in Harry’s glasses.

“That went well,” Harry says, a little surprised.

Draco leans back on his hands, gazing at the starry night sky. “It did.” He smiles, slow and content. “No arguments. No duels. Only mild food theft.”

“And Molly’s approval,” Harry adds.

“That too.”

A soft breeze stirs the air, carrying the scent of crushed herbs and cooling earth. Somewhere among the flowerpots, a single familiar snail glimmers faintly, tracing a slow, perfect spiral of light. His body is pale like a ghost, but his shell shimmers like a pearl in the dim lantern light. The violet runes pulse like a heart beat, strong and predictable.

Draco watches it for a long moment, then glances sideways at Harry, whose gaze lingers on the same small shimmer of life, a small smile on his face. “I guess we both like slow things now,” he says.

Harry smiles, brushing his thumb gently over Draco’s wrist. “Some things are worth the time.”

They stay like that—two figures beneath the drifting lanterns, unhurried and at peace, the garden humming softly around them.