Harry

They’re both staring down at the owl.

It’s a tight scroll, the ministry signature embossed across the seal in wax so golden it almost seems to shimmer. Neither of them make a move to break it open, too afraid of what might be hiding inside—a death notice, an arrest warrant, a call to arms, or maybe even worse, a notice that Draco was somehow iven and would be free to leave any moment he so chooses. In Harry’s experience, the ministry rarely brings good news.

“Do you want to open it?” Draco’s voice is hushed. They’ve both gotten quiet since the whole sleeping in the same bed thing started, like now they didn’t need to worry about drawing attention to each other. Whenever Draco wanted noticing, Harry was already looking.

“No.” Harry holds the scroll out to him, the owl hooting balefully at the window, waiting for one of them to sign the scrap of paper saying that it was received and understood. “It’s addressed to you.”

Harry wanted to know what was inside as badly as he needed to keep breathing, but he also didn’t have a clue what it might contain, and as he watched the emotions flicked across Draco’s face, he realized that maybe he didn’t want to.

“What?” Draco threw the parchment down to the table in disgust and Harry ripped it up. “What’s wrong?”

“They’ve cleared the manor.” Draco’s hands were shaking again. Harry had thought it was getting better. “All evidence has been removed, everything dangerous taken out, and the property is returned to the only next of kin with a clear name.” His tone made it clear what he thought about all of this, dripping in derision. “Me.”

Harry didn’t know what was upsetting him so much, if it was the manor and the memories it held, of the fact that the ministry had the audacity to claim it as their own in the sake of justice, or maybe it was the fact that they considered him with the best reputation.

“That’s a good thing, right?” He felt like he was treading into unknown waters, where he won’t know how deep it goes until he takes the step off solid ground and falls down into the deep. He never had learned to swim. “To have your home back?”

Draco looked at him like he was stupid, then threw that scrap of parchment into the fire, not relaxing until he sees the corners curl and blacken. “You can’t go home again, Harry.” He passed behind him and clapped a hand down on his shoulder in a way that might have considered friendly, had they not been half asleep with their arms wrapped around each other only hours before. “Not even sure I’d want to.”

Draco

Can’t go home again Harry, Draco had said, leaving the room like he was leaving real life behind, like walking away from a problem was the same thing as solving it.

He had thought that burning up the letter and pushing it to the back of his mind was the best option, because then, at least, he would never have to step foot in it again. But then the owls kepting, one the next morning and that night and the next and the next and the next, and finally one demanding his presence in the legal department of the ministry.

“They can’t make you go,” Hermione tells him, when they’ve traded out their musty old potion books for fashion magazines, poring over dresses for her to wear to a formal. “If you wait another thirty days, it’ll be turned over to the state and they’ll sell it to collect money for some charity or another.”

“Another thirty days of owls?” Draco had snorted out, feigning horror, but that wasn’t really what was bothering. He didn’t like the thought of strangersbing through his home, and even if it was mostly bad, he didn’t want the Malfoy Manor’s history to be boiled down to this: raffled off in some auction just to be torn down, destroyed for its minerals and marble and turned into scrap, just a blank stretch of land on the face of the earth, all because the last Malfoy was a coward. Horrible things had happened there, but it deserved better than that.

He doesn’t ever really make a decision. Just one day he gets up before Harry does and gets dressed, telling himself that he was just going for a walk. And then he turned towards the town, and then he was in London, and then he was flooing his way into the public entrance of the ministry, turning his wand over to a witch that didn’t recognize him and following the map to where they said legal was, collar turned up to hide his face.

“Hey.” There’s a witch behind the desk in bright purple robes, so he chooses to go up to her for help, figuring anyone that dresses like that can’t be too painful, but then she turns to face him and he sees it’s Lavender, who supposedly hadn’t been out of the house since the war, sitting there scars and all.

“Draco.” She taps her feather on the window between them. He knows it’s hers because it’s bright yellow and has a puff ball on the top of it. “What can I do for you?”

He cannot stop staring at her, and then immediately feels horrible about it, so he looks at his shoes instead. Greyback had mauled her pretty bad. “The ministry sent me letters.” He rummages in his pocket for one of them. “About the manor.”

She clicks her tongue and reads over the parchment, and it makes Draco feel like a prat, because what kind of person has a manor? But she doesn’t seem to care. “Yeah, we’ve got that.” Lavender didn’t get up, just wheeled her chair across the room and rummaged through cabs until she came up with an envelope. “Here’s the key. And you’ve just got to sign here, and it’s yours.”

Draco fumbled for the pen, and she smiled at him, as bright as he could remember her being at Hogwarts, if a little less giddy. “Right. Thanks.” He’d done what he came for, technically, but it doesn’t seem like enough. “How have you been?”

“Good.” Considering that they’ve never had a nice word to say about each other, she seemed surprisingly ready to talk. Maybe it was depressing, hiding here down in the dark all day, just waiting for someone to claim dead people’s possessions. “Heard you’re living with Harry.”

She waggles her eyebrows at him, and despite himself, Draco could feel himself getting flustered. “Not like that.” What was it like, then? You sleep in the same bed. “Court ordered babysitting, basically. Kept me out of jail.”

He tries to shrug like that doesn’t mean anything, but she smiles like she knows better. And maybe she does. Lavender did always have an annoying habit of knowing everything about everybody. “That’s not what I’ve heard.” She gives him one last tired smile and raps her quill against the glass one last time. “See you around, Draco.”

“Yeah.” Part of him wants to invite her to him and Harry’s, just to catch up, but a bigger part tells him that maybe he should take this one in baby steps. “I’ll see you.”

Harry

They had made it all through dinner without Harry asking him what was wrong. And when Draco had finally told him the truth, he had to admit, the last thing he thought he would be hearing is that he wanted Harry to go into the manor with him.

“I know you don’t want to.” Draco said, everythinging out in a rush, looking like he might throw up that meat loaf he had painstakingly cooked. “But I can’t do it alone, and I just need to this, Harry, I need to—”

And Harry, not thinking about what he was agreeing to, not thinking about anything but making Draco feel better, said yes.

Which is all well and good in theory, but it’s quite another thing to stand beside Draco and try to be strong for him when he pushes open heavy oak doors that make you want to puke. Harry could remember every awful moment he had been inside this house—Bellatrix’s breath sour on his face, Ron pounding on the dungeon door, Hermione’s screams, and Dobby afterwards, a chandelier crashing, what a beautiful place to be with friends—stop.

“Jesus.” Draco pushed the door the rest of the way open and then just stood in the middle of the room, in the middle of all the debris and clutter. “They sure didn’t bother with a clean up crew, did they?”

They hadn’t. It looked like they had torn though every inch of this place to try and find whatever darkness might be hiding, ripping off the wall paper and tearing the chandelier down (for the second time, not that they knew it). There were spiderwebs spreading through the hallways like lace curtains, dust and grime gathering on the floor, rats scurrying in the corner.

“My father,” Draco started, and Harry had heard those words so many times he could hear them in his sleep, a sneer on his face and a threat in his tone. “Would have rather died than let this happen.”

Harry snorts. “Oh,e on.” He picks up half a marble bust, the nose shattered off and the rest of it lying on the floor. “This still sort of looks like him, don’t you think?”

“That wasn’t him, you prat.” Draco shoves his shoulder into Harry, but at least now he smiles. “That was some old Greek dude.”

He stands in the middle of the wreckage a moment longer and then kicks out at the chandelier, which doesn’t move it an inch but must have hurt him. e on.” He reaches out to Harry, leading him forward. This was his home, after all. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

They head down to the basement, because apparently they had a secret hide away down there, and Draco wants to make sure someone trustworthy witnesses that he’s going to turn everything in, no matter how many galleons it was worth.

“Nope.” Draco slammed the door closed again, wiping the dust off on his pants. “The bastards got everything, Harry, we can—” He paused, noticing that Harry was no longer listening, was no longer even in the same room. “Harry?”

“I always wondered.” Harry said, his words sounding a little strangled. “Why someone would build a house equipped with a dungeon.”

They were back in that same room, and now Harry couldn’t block it out—Ron’s fist into the metal door, the blood trailing down Hermione’s arms, Luna closing Dobby’s eyes for the last time. It was too much, too soon, and he feels his throat close up with the sudden panic of needing to get out, but then there is a hand on his arm, drawing him back.

“Harry.”

Draco’s eyes are sad, and Harry didn’t want that, that was the exact opposite of what he wanted. “I mean,” He forces a laugh. “What kind of pretentious asshole builds a house like this and thinks, yes, I’m going to need to hold some prisoners captive for a bit, better build an old fashioned dungeon?”

“It was a very old house.” Apparently they were playing their game of pretending that everything was fine. “Maybe that was the fashion back then.”

“The fashion?”

“Yeah, you know, like…” He was casting around for words, for any distraction. “Like the pointlessness of your uncle’s fake fireplace? Like that kind of thing.”

Harry snorted, and maybe the reminder of his uncle and the memories in this room cancelled each other out, because suddenly he felt better. Two negatives making a positive.

“It’s ugly, whatever it was.” He reaches out a hand to Draco and is relieved when he took it. “Let’s get out of here.”

Draco

Maybe he hadn’t thought this through.

It would hav

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