Draco wasn’t helping because he wasn’t capable, he wasn’t helping because they all still saw him as a liability, even Harry. They can’t expect him to turn on his past loyalties, even though he’s tried to explain to them all that there had been no loyalty about it. Just a scared little kid who was in way over his head.
“I just don’t feel comfortable putting you in that situation.” Harry says, looking like he is trying to avoid the situation blowing up in both of their faces. And really, Draco knows he doesn’t have any right to be angry, because this is just one of those disappointments that came from finding himself on the wrong side. His choices (or lack of them) were going to haunt him for the rest of his life. “What if it’s someone you know?”
Draco wants to protest, but he hears the rest of it. What are you going to do when you come face to face with someone that you used to be friends with as a child, or had a wand pointed at you by a family friend? Are you really going to kill them? Are you really going to bring them in? You aren’t ready to do whatever’s necessary to win, but they are. And so are we.
So he didn’t argue after his original offer was shot down, even if his good bye tonight was a little colder than normal, just a press of his fingers into Harry’s wrist before he walks out the door for good, something that he hoped Harry was able to take as an apology and a warning at the same time, a silent plea for him to come back home to him.
Still, that doesn’t mean he isn’t angry, or that he’s fine just sitting on the steps and watching the hallway for Harry to come back home like he had the past three times Harry went to some meeting (meeting, bull shit, you don’t come back from meetings and return covered in blood) or sat to stake out a house. He didn’t know where he was going or how long he would be there, if it was dangerous or just routine, if he was alone or the rest of the order was at his back. Draco was just so damn tired of being kept out of the loop.
“Give me a nightingale.” Draco slides into the bar, keeping his collar thrown up around his face. He had been intending to go to the Leaky Cauldron like every other sad wizard does, but ducked into this muggle bar at the last instant, picking a drink off the menu at random. “Make it quick.”
“So demanding.” The voice, recognizable in a place where Draco thought he would be able to avoid people he knew, made Draco jump. Behind him, George is grinning, and he leans around Draco to whisper his own order to the bartender, who smiles at him before asking if she should make him more than one, or if he was going to take it slow tonight.
“Just one, darling.” George clamps his hand down on Draco’s shoulder, and even though Draco is almost entirely sure it is meant to be friendly, it still feels like a threat. Like he has no choice but to stay here. “I’ve got to let my friend here catch up.”
The word friend shocks Draco, but he tries not to show it. The situation definitely feels grumpy now.
“What are you doing here?”
George snorts into his drink, drains it in one go, and then takes Draco’s when the girl puts it down in front of him. “Oh come. You didn’t want that.” George grins, and with the dim lighting, you almost can’t tell that anything was missing, like he had shown up perfectly whole. “It was terrible.”
“Didn’t stop you from drinking it.” Draco was grumpy. He had come here to be alone and surly, and here was George, walking over like they were best friends and had every right to sit here, pestering him, and drinking Draco’s drinks.
“I’m used to it. This is my usual place.” He wasn’t lying. All the muggles here seemed to know him, from the waiter with the flashy jacket to the bartender, and even a pack of grouchy looking old men by the front door. “You, however, don’t belong here.”
Draco knew he didn’t. Everyone else was in jeans and worn down t-shirts, and Draco had shown up like he was going to a five star restaurant. He couldn’t look more like a man who had just stumbled in here on a whim, desperate to run from something.
“I’m trying something out.” Draco ordered himself another drink, and took it before George could get his hands on it. “It was working, before you came here.”
“Drowning your worries in booze until Harry dear comes back home?” George waves his hand for another, and this time, the girl just leaves the bottle. It seems to suit him better. “Trust me, it won’t work. Nothing will take the edge off the wondering.”
“How do you know about that?” Draco was pissed, now, because it felt like George knew something he shouldn’t, and he was also feeling like he was poking fun about Draco’s feelings for Harry. That would start a whole new round of problems, if everyone and their mother knew that he was in love with the world’s savior.
“Harry swung by the shop today. Told me all about it. Offered to take me into the fold, if I was up for it.” George dug his nails into a chip in the wood. “Told him he could bugger off. No way was I going to get into that again.”
Draco should have probably know to let it go, that George was working through some things, but talking to Harry’s friends was like picking your way through a minefield—most places were perfectly safe, but one wrong step and you find your world in pieces.
“Why not?”
“What do you mean why not?” He gestures wildly at the side of his head with the bottle, at the shiny mess of tissue where an ear used to be. “I lost my ear. I lost my brother. What more do you want from me?” And of course it would be about Fred, everything that has happened with George over the past year has been about Fred.
“You don’t have to stop just because he’s not here.”
He meant that to be comforting.
(Actually, scratch that, he didn’t mean it to be comforting, he was just thinking about the flames and Goyle, and Snape being dead and hailed as a hero without one word to the people like Draco who would actually mourn him, and his father in Azkaban who would be horrified to see how his son turned out, about how he could not stop just because they are gone, and then that fell out of his mouth.)
“You think I’m a coward,” George’s voice was soft and quiet, and Draco was forcibly reminded that he was Ron’s brother, because it seemed like all the Weasley boys would like to punch their feelings instead of working through them. Draco would admire it, if it didn’t keep meaning that he found himself thrown up against the wall with their fists inches from his face, hands raised in surrender and trying to fix whatever he had broken. “That I should never have walked away.”
“I don’t think anything.” There was a crowd around them, all these muggles watching with worried faces, and all of them on George’s side. “Really, man. Whatever’s going on with you, it’s cool with me.”
George snarls at him, face twisted in a way that makes Draco think he’s about to cry, and then shoves away, stalking out the door. Draco pauses long enough to throw money on the bar and then chases after him, ignoring the people who tells him he should let it go.
It doesn’t take long to find George, who didn’t get very far. He had only turned the corner, and now he was hunched over beneath a streetlight, hands on his knees. He looked like he was about to be sick.
“Are you having a panic attack?” A stupid question, because he was, and even stupider because even though Hermione was forcing them all to read up on their particular traumas, knowing the lingo and knowing how to help aren’t the same things.
George doesn’t answer, just wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and stood up. “I was going to kick your ass.”
“You wouldn’t have.”
(Lie. It’s easier to feel confident when they’re ten feet apart, but back there, with the tension running high and no one moving to stop it, he was so, so dead.)
“I’ve punched you before.” George’s mouth twitched into a smile as he said it, and Draco had an uncomfortable flash of him curled on the ground, trying to protect himself, George and Harry’s fists flying. It had hurt quite a lot.
“I deserved it.”
“Yeah.” George said, smiling, and there was forgiveness in that syllable, enough so that when he sank down to sit on the curb, Draco thought it was safe to come and sit beside him. “You really were a prat.”
Draco choked on a laugh, feeling better than he had all night. “I meant it, though. About not thinking anything about you not fighting.” He was wading back into dangerous territory, because apparently Draco doesn’t have any self preservation skills. “You’ve done enough.”
George sighed, flopped back onto the sidewalk so he was lying flat on his back. “Try telling that to Harry.”
“Trust me,” He says, thinking of going back, of getting the first aid supplies ready and staring from the clock to the door and back again, forcing himself to stay awake until Harry comes home. “I’m doing my best.”
Chapter 22
Harry
He wakes to screams.
For a moment, Harry can’t figure out where they are coming from. He knows this house is safe—Hermione had ensured it, and his countless checking of every lock and corner and crevice meant that there was no way someone could sneak in unnoticed. There was no Voldemort to chase after him, no dementors leeching away his happiness, no vengeful death eaters lurking in the shadows to pay him back for what he had done to their master.
Still, that doesn’t stop him from throwing back the covers and grabbing at his wand in a matter of seconds, sprinting down the corridor towards Draco’s room, towards the screams, ready to fight off whatever might be hurting him.
Only there’s nothing there.
There’s only Draco, sitting up with the sheets pooled around his hips and his hands pulling on his hair, bent over at the waist, taking in breaths that were so ragged that they sounded like it hurt, tears streaming down his face as he tries to calm himself down. And now there was Harry, who had threw the door open so hard it actually cracked the wall behind him, standing there just staring at Draco, with wand clutched in his hand and a curse at his lips.
“What?” Draco was on the defensive in a way that he hadn’t been for a long time, maybe since the first night he came here, but Harry supposes being caught in a moment so vulnerable would cause anyone to throw their walls back up. Still, he doesn’t want it to turn into a fight, not when things were just seeming to settle into solid ground.
“Nothing.” Harry realizes he is still pointing his wand and lowers his arm. It takes a noticeable effort to slide his wand back into his pocket and stop looking into the corners for an invisible enemy, an extreme force of will to remind himself that everything is okay, that they are safe, that Draco is here and whole, even if he isn’t completely happy. “I just—”
Just what? Just heard your screams and thought I’d come running to save you like Prince Charming, and then you would throw yourself into my arms and we’d live happily ever after? Just stand here and stare at you forever because I don’t have the words to make you feel better?
“Just wanted to check on me.” Draco manages a smile, even if it doesn’t sit right on his face. It makes something in Harry’s chest twist, like someone had reached their hand inside him and squeezed. “I get it.” They’re still just staring at each other. “But I’m fine.”
“Are you really?”
