fact, he was crying, both because all the worst things he had been thinking since he first came to say with Harry had been said out loud, by the one person that he did not expect to say them, and also because he had been caught at it, cowering on the floor like a child. And also because he wanted Harry to tell him that it was all okay, which he was not yet doing. “Right.”

“Do you really think that?” Harry’s head snapped up, and he was crying, too, hurt by this whole thing, and Draco just wants to melt into the floor and nevere back. “That I want to say all those things?”

“I’m afraid of it,” Draco answers, because the boggart has left him no choice but to tell the truth. “I keep telling myself that it was silly, that you wouldn’t have said all those things if you didn’t mean them, and yet,” he shrugs. “Fears don’t always make sense.”

“Because I do.” Harry’s words were halted, like he was trying to reign himself in. “Care about you.”

“I know.”

“And I have iven you. For everything. Everything you’ve done, anything you might do.” Harry waves his hand in the air. “It’s like it’s nonexistent.”

“I know that, too.”

“And I know that this—what we’re doing—I’m not just screwing around. It’s,” He is searching for a word, clearly, something strong enough to express his feelings without scaring Draco away. “This is it for me. This is all I ever want, you and me and that cottage.”

That—those last six words—make Draco feel like he is able to breathe again. “I know.”

“Do you?”

Draco does not want to lie to him. Maybe he hasn’t been lying exactly, but he has been holding back, burying things that he should have laid out in the open. “I’m starting to,” He amends, which is not the whole truth but is closer than he had gotten before.

“Okay.” Harry nods his head, fastens the closet closed one more time, and sticks a hand out to help Draco to his feet. “So are we good here?”

“Yeah,” Draco says, and this time, it does not feel like a lie. “We’re all good.”

Harry

Harry had been surprised before, but there’s nothing quite like hearing your boyfriend talking to someone up in the attic and climbing that rickety staircase only to find that the person he’s talking to is…yourself.

A self that is hurling abuse, apparently, as Draco sits on the floor and just takes it, like all the fight goes away where Harry is concerned and he will take what maye flying from this person’s mouth as gospel, and Harry feels sick about it, and even more so when he remembers another time that he had stared at a duplicate of himself in this house, and realized that it was a boggart.

Which, when you think about it, is even worse than a doppleganger that runs around hurling venom at the people you care about.

“I just don’t understand,” He says later, when he has taken a shower and gotten dressed even though it is only five in the morning and came back out of the bathroom to find Draco curled up on the window seat, drawing pictures in the fog covered glass, “how you could have thought those horrible things about the two of us.”

“I’m not used to people like you loving me.” Draco doesn’t look at him. “The war left its mark on the bad guys, too.”

“I don’t think you’re a bad guy.”

“And that’s probably the biggest difference between us.”

Harry stares at him, not knowing how to fix the sudden rift that had appeared, but it seems that he doesn’t have to, because Draco turns to him, face pale and jaw set like he is preparing for a punch to the face, and he knows that the old Malfoy has showed up to the fight.

“You want the truth?” Draco isn’t waiting for an answer, but Harry nods anyways. “The truth is that I care about you a lot, and maybe this whole time we’re together I was waiting for someone to show me how it wasn’t happening, how this wasn’t real or you didn’t want me because it just seemed too good to be true. And I was so afraid of that that I started looking for warning signs that weren’t even there, and you made thisment—I et what it was, really, because it was that insignificant—about how I should start looking for places, too, and I thought that you didn’t want me toe with you, which meant that you could not think about me the same way I think about you, because you, Harry, are it for me, too.”

Harry doesn’t have a response at first, because he remembers thement (and how stupid, because he only meant that Harry wanted Draco’s opinion, not that he was trying to throw him out on the street) and it was before they even got the cottage, which meant that this must have been needling in Draco’s brain for weeks.

“You had to have known that wasn’t what I meant.” There were tears burning in Harry’s eyes and he blinked them away. “Didn’t you?”

“Well I almost bought a flat in London, so I’d say that I didn’t.”

“I just wanted you to be happy, so I was trying to say that—that you didn’t just have to follow me, or whatever, that it wasn’t my decision, it was our decision. That’s all.” He was frantic, desperate for Draco to understand this. “I was trying to let you know that we were on equal footing with this.”

(There’s another thought, one that he doesn’t want to focus on, about how maybe Draco didn’t want to live in the cottage after all, bute on. Harry had built him a potions lab, for Merlin’s sake.)

“And I knew that. Logically.” Draco lifted one shoulder apologetically. “But I also knew that you could change your mind any time.”

“I’m not changing my mind, Draco.” And even though it’s much too soon, possibly even unwanted, considering how badly Harry had apparently screwed things up, he adds, “I love you.”

It cancels out whatever response Draco had been forming. “You do?”

“Of course I do. Draco, you stupid, stupid man.” Distantly, he registers that Draco does not say it back, but Harry doesn’t think on it for long, just stumbles forward and sinks to his knees in front of him, clasps their hands together. “Of course I want you were supposed toe with me. That was never even a question.”

“In your mind.” Draco was smiling now, tears slipping over onto his cheeks, and Harry counted it as a win. “Plan letting me in on it next time, won’t you, Harry?”

Harry smiled. As long as they were talking of next times, he figured they would be okay.

本站無廣告，永久域名（fanyan.cc）