e been one thing toe here on his own, put things back in order, try to get it ready to be habitable again. It was quite another to bring Harry here, Harry who had almost died here, who was held captive and listened to his best friend be tortured, who escaped with seconds to spare, which Draco paid the price for. There was enough bad memories without making Harry want to punch him with every turn of the house.

“You need to go anywhere else?” Harry appeared at his shoulder like he was popping out of thin air, his voice so loud Draco half expected the dust to fall from the ceiling. Nothing happens, except some rats scurry away from them, and Draco feels sick.

“No.” He hears himself say it but doesn’t remember deciding to. The roaring in his ears was too loud. “I just need some air.”

He pushes away from him and out what used to be a window but is now just a crumbling hole in the wall. He trips over a chunk of marble but keeps going, out into the damp grass that has grown into tangles up to his knees, sinking down into the ground, tilting his head back to stare up at the sky.

“When’s it going to get better?” He’s not sure who he’s yelling at. Draco never had believed in God, but you had to blame something when your life has this level of shit in it, and he seems like a good a person as any. “Huh? When are you ever going to let me have some peace?”

He reaches out beside him and finds a chunk of stone, and then a crystal, pieces of his house that they had blown to kingdome, and it’s the first time that he realizes it was not their investigation that made his house look the way it does. It was people, people who were hurting and angry and afraid, who stayed after their shift and blasted this place apart piece by piece and watched it all rain down into ruins.

It was a house, he though savagely. A really good house. The hell did it ever do to you?

He wants to stay out here forever, keep cursing at the stars, maybe burn the whole thing down and himself with it. Burn the whole world down just to prove that he could. But he doesn’t, because Harry is still there, walking across the lawn like he hadn’t noticed Draco’s tantrum and sitting down beside him, never mind that the ground was so wet it would soak through his jeans.

“We could fix it back up.” Harry’s tapping his wand against his knee, and Draco has to put his hand on his wrist to stop him from burning a hole through his jeans. “I’m good at fixing things.”

“I thought I would want to.” That was the other thing that was bothering, the sense of wrong that came from walking through the house, how every part of him was screaming at him just to board it all up and throw away the key. “But I don’t.”

“Course you don’t, it’s got rats in it.” Harry still wasn’t hearing him. He liked to fix things, Harry did, and this was the biggest project he could possibly undertake. “But we can fix that, too.”

“No, I mean.” Draco’s crying and laughing at the same time, leaning into Harry for support, and even with everything, he still has time to wonder how they aren’t dating yet. “I don’t want to. Like, I can imagine nothing more likely to make me want to stab my eye balls out.”

“Oh.”

Yeah. Oh. “I thought I’d walk in here and fix it up and when the year ended, I’de back here with mother and everything would be the same. But it’s not the same. Nothing is. Not you, not my family, not this house. And definitely not me.”

They’re both quiet for a moment.

“Moving on isn’t so bad. But hanging on isn’tpletely terrible, either.” Harry stood up, and they faced that crumbling place together, a house that he can no longer call his home. “We don’t have to decide now.”

“I want to burn it down.” Draco decides, and he feels better with a plan. “Build something else in his place. Somewhere he never touched.”

“Or we could keep it. Just needs a little TLC.” Harry grins down at him, making Draco notice for the first time that he was officially the shorter one. “But whatever we—you— decide, I’ll be there every step of the way. You won’t be doing it alone.”

“Together, huh?” They’ve still got their hands linked together. “I like the sound of that.”

“Yeah.” Harry squeezes his hand, and they are off, picking their way through the tall grass, going home, even though suddenly, Draco wants to stay. To show him the balcony that let him look out over the old wood, to take him out to the old fountain, show him the tree house that Dobby had magicked together for his sixth birthday. The good things, but there would be time for that later.

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