swer, but it’s…an answer, anyway. I really don’t. At first it was like I said—I didn’t think someone who’d treated Grimmauld Place like you had deserved to know that kind of secret. Nobody’s known where the core in that house is for years; I don’t think Auntie Walburga even did. I only found it because I…well…”

“Did something a bit mental to figure it out?” Harry suggests. His voice is a gentler than he means it to be, and he winces when Draco glares at him. “You don’t have to tell me, you know. Where it is, I mean. I’m not asking for that.”

“Well, good, because you’re not getting it,” Draco says, arch. His voice drops back into a more normal register, though, as he adds, “But yes. I did something a bit mental, and it worked, and I liked that it worked. I liked being the only one who knew. So I think some of it was that, too, which is…stupid, honestly. All the reasons I cane up with are stupid! I just didn’t, that’s the answer. I was going to, and then, after the second attack—you came to stay, and I.” He stops talking, fixes his gaze firmly on the ground. “I wanted to solve the case, obviously, it was killing me, I was terrified for the house—my life—but. Maybe. I don’t know.”

Harry can’t be sure, but he thinks it’s possible—not likely, but possible—that Draco is saying he didn’t tell Harry about the core because it might have solved the case for them, and given Harry a reason to go home. And that’s—Harry can’t believe—there are fifteen things he wants to say but every one of them has an inherent question attached, that big looming truth they’re both not touching, and Harry promised he’d only ask the one.

“Okay,” he says. When Draco’s head whips up, his eyes wide with surprise, Harry laughs. “I mean, don’t do it again or anything—bloody stupid, nearly got you killed—”

“Nearly got you killed, you mean,” Draco mutters, as he moves to drop back into his chair again.

Harry shrugs. “I don’t mind.”

“Do you know,” Draco drawls, rolling his eyes, “I think that’s actually true? And it might be the worst thing about you, Harry, which is really saying something. That bar is incredibly high. I mean, it’s a disconnection from your own mortality on par with—have I ever shared with you the truly appalling details of Archibald the Archaic’s private writings?”

“Don’t think so,” Harry says, even though he knows Draco’s just trying to distract him. That’s fine; Draco’s tired, and, if he’s honest, Harry is too. They can deal with the rest of this tomorrow. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

Draco does, and Harry must fall asleep to the soothing rise and fall of his voice, because when he wakes up there’s sunlight slipping through the window and Draco’s out cold, asleep in his chair, his head a warm weight against Harry’s thigh.

His hair is loose, knocked askew, in his eyes again, and Harry, half-awake and curious, reaches out a hand to—

“Don’t touch my hair, Potter,” Draco says, without opening his eyes.

“How’d you,” Harry says, snatching his hand back, and then hastily corrects: “I mean, I wasn’t!” He’s a little horrified with himself, in fact, that he even got halfway through the gesture. Now that he’s more alert he can recognize it’s probably weird to—whatever—to roll someone’s hair under your fingertips just to see what it feels like, or stroke it back out of their eyes. He’s not sure if either or those things are what he was planning on doing, exactly, but he can recognize that two desperate, heat-of-the-moment kisses don’t give him permission to just go…touching, whenever he likes.

Draco’s eyes open, but barely; he holds them narrowed and suspicious. “How do you feel?

“Er,” Harry says, blinking at him. “I guess—hungry?”

Sighing heavily, Draco sits up. “I meant, how do you feel, since yesterday a distressing amount of your blood quit your body for the floor of my kitchen. But—sure. Hungry. All right.”

“Did you sleep all night like that?” Harry cocks his head in interest as Draco stretches and winces, cracks his neck. “I don’t think that’s good for your back.”

“Better than having a knife stuck in it,” Draco says, smiling nastily. “I win.”

He settles back in his chair, and before Harry can argue, a Mediwitch, Hermione and Ron walk through the door.

“Mr. Potter,” the Mediwitch says warmly. “Good to see you awake. Of course, I’m sure that Healer Menteur here has taken excellent care of you—I was just saying to Auror Weasley here how incredible it must be, to have a Healer from foreign parts at your beck and call because of your war efforts.”

“A lot of very interesting things were said,” Ron agrees, giving Malfoy his best ‘We’ve got you dead to rights,’ look. “Many things, of considerable interest, have been said this morning. I, for one, was very shocked to hear about your extensive celebrity clientele.”

“What can I say? The Healing, it is my calling,” says Malfoy, apparently totally unperturbed by Ron’s glare, and in a French ent so pronounced it would put Fleur’s to shame. “And to work with Harry Potter is—how you say—insufferable.”

“I believe the word you mean is incredible. Poor dear, English is a bit tricky,” says the Mediwitch absently, as she busies herself with casting an assortment of diagnostic spells on Harry. “You don’t mind if I check your work, do you, Healer Menteur? I’m sure you’re very capable, but since he’s in our hospital, and all—”

“Be my guest,” Draco says, just as Hermione, voice all pointed amusement, says, “Did you know, Harry, that Menteur means liar in French?”

Harry gives up and laughs, long and hard enough that the Mediwitch starts fretting that perhaps one of the potions has gone wrong and Draco has to start waving his arms around and explaining, half in French, that hysteria is a side effect from an old war wound and she’s being terribly rude by bringing it up. She hurries out and Harry laughs some more when Draco drops the ent at once, drawls, “What, Weasley? I had to do something; the wretched woman tried to kick me out. Are you going to arrest me for impersonating a Healer?”

“I should arrest you on grounds of personality alone,” Ron mutters, though he sits down in a chair without moving towards Draco. “Some poor bastard has to have encountered your whole—thing—before. You can’t be the first person in all of history to be this mad. Maybe they were smart enough to put some laws down to protect the rest of us.”

“Alas,” says Draco, “I’ve searched the annals of history for myself, and the closest I’ve ever found is a chap called Wildeb from the late 12th century.”

Harry starts laughing again. “The guy from the second floor drawing room? Draco, the hypothetical magic guy?”

“Wildeb was verymitted to his craft, Potter,” Draco says. His raises his eyebrows and crosses his arms, expression stern. “And while, yes, I will grant you, his methods were a little unorthodox—”

“He burned down three forests!” Harry hopes his incredulity is written on his face. “Half the exhibit is a tapestry of him yelling while a roomful of servants cover their ears!”

“Two forests and a small orchard, and it was intended to be hypothetical. I think the important thing is to focus on all the forests he didn’t burn down,” Draco says. “And, anyway, the point is, he did whatever was necessary even if everyone around him did think he was mental. He is my kindred spirit. The brother of my soul.”

“You beenmitting arson, Malfoy?” Ron says, giving Draco a speculative look. “That’s a serious offense, that is. I was just kidding before, but maybe we should bring you in for questioning.”

Draco darts a panicky glance at Harry. “Potter! Control your man, he is—the Auroring has gone to his—oh my god. Wait. Are you joking?”

“Course I’m joking,” Ron says, grinning broadly. “You can’t expect me to go without taking any shots, can you?”

“I had to talk him out of buying a ferret for exactly this reason the other day,” Hermione says, patting Ron on the arm. “Petty childhood grudges are well enough, I’m sure, but we’re all adults, and they do have such a terrible smell.”

“We do not talk,” says Draco, his voice several pitches higher than normal, “about the ferret incident,” and then he scrapes his chair back and stalks out of the room without another word.

“Shit,” says Ron, looking after him ufortably. “I just wanted to rattle his cage a little. I didn’t actually mean to, you know. Draw anything up.”

“Please,” Harry says, rolling his eyes. “He’s fine. He’s just trying to make you feel guilty so you’ll do stuff for him later.”

“See if I get you a coffee now, Potter,”es Draco’s voice, vengeful, from the hall.

“No coffee, no breakfast,” Harry calls back, even though he doesn’t know if he’ll even be out of here in time to cook it. He’s rewarded with a string of expletives that switch to French halfway through, if also forced to endure identical long-suffering looks from Ron and Hermione.

Unsurprisingly, the Mediwitch Draco tricked walks in a second later, followed by Harry’s actual Healer, a middle-aged witch who clearly has better things to do than be here dealing with this. She clears Harry to go home, though she orders him off active duty for a week, and after they’ve gone and Harry’s changed into regular clothes, he, Ron and Hermione sit on the bed to wait for Draco to return.

“Sorry you guys came all the way up here,” Harry says, a little awkwardly. “Since I’m, you know. Leaving, and everything.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Harry, of course we came,” Hermione says. She puts a hand on his arm, even as Ron knocks his shoulder against Harry’s. “We were worried about you, and you’d do the same for us.”

“Well, sure,” Harry says, “but—” He stops, looks at the wan exasperation on Hermione’s face and the badly hidden wince on Ron’s, and bites back, It’s different when it’s me. “Anyway, thanks. It’s nice to have you here.”

“Sorry we didn’t pretend to be your foreign medical team,” Hermione says, dry. Then, carefully: “So. Draco really slept here all night?”

“Yeah,” Harry says. “Or, well. I think so, anyway. I suppose he could have

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