stify what we did.”

“No, it’s fine,” Harry replies, and it is. “It’s alright. If you want to talk. I want to…” He pauses, surprised at the truth in his next words. “I want to listen.”

Narcissa smiles that same amused smile. “You are kind. Remember, Harry. The world isn’t nice to kind people.”

She looks down at her hands on her lap, fingers clasped as if in prayer. “But even with that said, I still want to selfishly request this from you.” She raises her head to look at him. “Please take care of my son.”

Harry inhales, flattered and scared, but the answer is already on his lips. “Mrs. Malfoy—”

“Narcissa.” Another smile.

Harry exhales, slowly. He now feels Narcissa’s same surprise when he asked her to call him Harry instead. It feels…nice. “Narcissa. There’s no need to request. I had already planned on it.”

She reaches over, takes his hand in hers, and says, earnestly, “Thank you.”

It’s late afternoon, and Draco hasn’t shown signs of leaving his stupor.

Harry excuses himself, doesn’t want to impose by staying for dinner when he’s already stayed for lunch. By now, he already knows a lot more about Draco than Draco would probably befortable with if he knew. He also knows a lot more about Narcissa, and Lucius, and it’s disconcerting, to feel this new empathy for this family.

He wonders, If it were me, what would I have done?

True to her word, Narcissa did not make any justifications. She told her tale as it is, did not pretend that she is a saint. Apologized for what she said to him back then, about her cousin’s death.

It still hurts, when Harry remembers it, but the apology soothes, even if just a bit. She also told him more about Sirius, growing up with him, family dinners with him and his brother. Harry thinks this is another way for her to apologize, and listens to her stories, enraptured, even as his heart still hurts, hurts and aches so much for Sirius and Remus, and oh, god, Remus.

He tries to hide it, how her words affect him, but he knows it shows on his face, as plain as day.

Before he stands up to leave, Narcissa looks straight at him and asks, “Are you alright, Harry?”

And Harry thinks that she’s not just asking about the now, she’s asking about the yesterday, the tomorrow, and his every day. And he doesn’t know why he wants to be honest at this moment, maybe it’s because Narcissa has also already bared herself, that it seems… safe to bare himself, too. In the end, he allows himself a little bit of honesty.

“No. Not really.”

And Narcissa nods, doesn’t offer meaningless words offort, just the understanding of the reality that he is not okay.

Harry looks at her, too, at the dark spots under her eyes. “Are you alright?”

Narcissa gives him a wry smile. “No. Not really.”

And all at once, Harry can see it, the weight on her shoulders: Her husband forever lost in Azkaban, leaving her with a multitude of sins, a ruined name, and a tainted home that once hosted a madman. Her son, the only remaining love of her life, lost within his own mind.

Narcissa sighs, slow and heavy. “Summer is the host of many asions between families andanizations of power. I have tried to be present in each and every one of them, but it’s been…difficult since Draco returned.”

“asions?” Harry asks, thinking of the many fancy invitations that he’s thrown in the trash in the past three months. “You mean parties?”

“Yes,” Narcissa nods, and then she chuckles. “Some of those you’ve declined to attend, I believe.”

Harry gives a small, unrepentant grin.

Narcissa continues. “It is a must that I remain visible to other pureblood families. Of course, the Wizarding World knows of what part the Malfoy family has played in the war, but we cannot let that force us into hiding. There are those who are waiting for the opportunity to gain all that we have yet to lose.” She glances at Draco wistfully. “We may have done bad things, Harry, but my son doesn’t deserve to be stripped of everything he ever was and had.”

She turns back to him. “It’s been a bit tiring to attend so many functions. I dislike leaving Draco alone, especially as he is right now.”

Harry imagines then of mornings, of Draco alone in his room, staring at the garden.ing and going, but still returning to the same scene where there are flowers in his garden but no one to talk to.

And it’s weird, how Malfoy has turned into Draco in his head now. Maybe he’s been spending too much time with Narcissa, and it’s weird to call Draco as Malfoy in her presence, or maybe what happened the other night kind of makes him feel like he’s gotten to know Draco more as a person. He’s a little less slimy, little Slytherin from Hogwarts now and a lot more human.

A little less Malfoy, a lot more Draco.

The words are slipping past his lips before it fully registers in his brain. “Tell me when you need to attend those parties. I can look after Draco when you’re gone.”

Narcissa blinks slowly at him, surprised. “I…Are you sure, Harry?”

No, but he’s bing more sure as he says it. The decision settles in his chest,fortable and right. “I am.” Then, he hastily adds, “If it’s not too imposing.”

Narcissa gives him another smile, and it’s a little relieved, and real. “Nonsense, Harry. We’re the ones imposing.”

The next time that Harryes to the Manor, it is a week after Draco was released. Narcissa is in Scotland. There are pancakes on the table, covered with temperature spells, and two sets of plates and cutlery. There is also a note in Narcissa’s elegant handwriting, telling him to please help himself.

It is 8 in the morning, but Draco is already in his wheelchair, eyes staring distantly into the garden.

He is looking fuller now, more alive. His cheeks have filled and the colour ising back to his skin. Inexplicably, Harry is suddenly very, very relieved that Draco isn’t indisposed enough that he can’t eat. Narcissa has told him, through the letters that they have started to exchange, that Draco’s spending more and more time present with her lately.

His hair shines with the bright morning sun and Harry resists the urge to touch.

He sits down on the chair across Draco and lets the weirdness and the overall awkwardness of the situation sink in and settle. This is the first time he’s here without Narcissa to talk to, just him and Draco, who’s currently awake but is off in some other world in his head.

Draco Malfoy. From Slytherin.

Who lied to the Death Eaters to save you.

When he closes his eyes, he can still remember the heat of the flames of Fiendfyre licking his clothes. Draco screaming “DON’T KILL HIM” and the tight grip that Draco had on his waist as they flew above and out of the inferno.

That wasn’t the grip of someone who wanted to serve Voldemort.

That was just the grip of someone who wanted to stay alive.

He turns away, from Draco’s soft hair and the memories of fire.

He picks up his fork, takes a pancake from the serving plate, and lets it plop on his own.

“Potter.”

His fork drops in surprise. Flushing, he looks up. “Malfoy.”

“You’re…” Malfoy squints.

Harry shrugs nervously. He feels like he’s just been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. He supposes that it is weird to suddenly wake up and have your long- time enemy in your house eating your pancakes. “Yeah.”

Harry sees the moment that Draco confirms that he really is indeed Harry Potter.

Draco slowly glances out towards the garden. “Is this the Manor?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

And it’s this conversation again and Harry’s tense, wondering if what happened before will repeat itself. Narcissa isn’t here to help him anymore and Harry wouldn’t know what to do.

But this time, Draco seems to reconcile what he’s seeing with whatever’s in his head, and he visibly relaxes, leaning back on his wheelchair. e to observe me in my misery then?”

And Harry realizes that Draco remembers him, remembers a lot more about him, if he’s going to go back to old habits and his usual snark. He feels unbearably happy at that.

“No, Malfoy, I’m just here to eat your pancakes.”

Draco furrows his eyebrows at him, and then at the pancakes on the table. It takes a while for him to respond, but his eyes clear and he says, “Get your filthy fingers off my pancakes.”

“Well, you’re not eating them.”

Draco, as he has always done, responds to the challenge. He lifts a hand, reaches towards the table. It’s slow, but his palm manages to land on the fork. His fingers shake and Harry understands, with another pang in his chest, that it’s probably been a while since Draco used his limbs.

He doesn’t think his help will be wee, but it’s better than watching Draco struggle like this, and Harry looks up, but the words die on his lips when he sees Draco’s gaze is vacant again. He’s not moving anymore.

All of a sudden, the now familiar sense of despair takes hold of him and makes his fingers cold. His eyes are rapidly bing warm and he blinks to keep them at bay. A swallow pushes down the lump in his throat and a deep breath eases the pain in his chest, just a bit.

Draco Malfoy isn’t supposed to look like this.

He’s not supposed to be like this.

With another deep, shaky inhale, Harry steps forward and arranges Draco back in his chair.

He removes Draco’s hand from the fork, and Draco’s fingers are long and soft to the touch, but they’re cold, and Harry rubs them with his own to bring the blood back into them. Never mind that it’s his first time touching Draco Malfoy’s hand since that handshake during first year. His hand had been small then. Smooth, like it had never done a day’s work in his life.

His hand’s bigger now, of course, but it’s calloused, and the nails are bitten to the edge, or scraped, or whatever it is that Draco did with them in those three months in his cell.

He looks at the untouched pancakes and wonders if Draco will get angry if he cuts them up for him.

He cuts them up anyway, because he wants to see Draco angry.

Angry is better. Anything is better than this.

When Dracoes to again, the pieces of pancake on his plate have gone cold. Harry’s already on his third.

“Wipe that syrup off your face, Potter,” is Draco’s way of greeting him.

Harry does it automatically, out of shock and embarrassment. “You’re back,” he states dumbly.

“I didn’t leave,” Draco mutters, glaring at his plate. Harry doesn’t know if Draco’s glaring at it out of spite, or if he remembers that it wasn’t cut up thirty minutes ago and is now trying to recall how it got to that state. Finally, Draco raises weary eyes at him and asks, “Did you just slice my pancakes?”

Harry shoves more pancakes in his mouth, just to save him the awkwardness of talking. He nods while chewing.

Draco goes back to glaring at the pancakes, and Harry finishes his third pancake mechanically. Once he’s done and there’s nothing left on his plate for him to stuff his mouth with (and there’s no more excuse for him to shut up), he tries, “Do you want me to feed you?”

He braces himself, readies himself to stand up and run should a forke for his head, but Draco just snorts and look

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