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Chapter Text

Harry inhaled an indulgent lungful of crisp, pre-dawn air as he strode the familiar path from the Forest to his forge. The sun was gradually following him, a faint blush on the horizon of a cornflower blue sky, creeping over the dark, forbidding treeline.

His mind wandered, musing and daydreaming. He chuckled at the feeling of a budding bruise on his arm from a bony, overeager snout.

The birds had awoken by the time he reached the concealed entrance to the city. He vanished the blood from his hands just in time to open the hidden door in the high stone wall, making his way through the dark tunnel into the walled fortress of Hogwarts.

The streets were silent and empty, the citizens still slumbering peacefully in their beds. The scent of fresh baked bread wafted to him as he neared his forge—Molly Weasley always got started early, in her bakery next door. Harry’s mouth watered, thinking about the bread she would bring him today.

His pleasant thoughts were flushed out the moment his forge was in sight.

A Knight of the King’s Guard was leaning up against the wall of the apothecary across the street, frowning at the heavy door to Harry’s forge, deep in thought. And not just any Knight.

Harry froze, half of his mind trying to figure out what on earth Sir Draco Malfoy could possibly want at this hour of the morning, the other half taking in the sight of him up close, for the first time.

He had always assumed that Malfoy would look different, up close. That Harry would find spots and softness and imperfections. But Malfoy looked as flawless and statuesque as he always did: like some sort of hero of legend, aloof and imperious and stoic. Carved marble skin and eyes like polished steel, sleek chin-length hair the colour of sea pearls.

A boy who was never meant for combat, and a man who had no choice in the matter.

It made Harry want to touch him, just to see if he was as cold as he looked. A stubborn desire to touch the untouchable, for the sake of it. To make him real.

“It’s nicer on the inside, believe it or not,” Harry said, causing Sir Malfoy to jump. Had he honestly caught a Knight off guard?

Malfoy collected himself quickly, glaring down at Harry.

“Then by all means, invite me inside,” Malfoy muttered. Harry tried not to grin. By the way Malfoy’s frown deepened and his hand twitched for the dagger strapped to his side, he wasn’t successful.

Harry turned his back on the man and walked towards the door to his forge. As discreetly as he could, he unlocked it with a faint twitch of magic from his finger, a little annoyed at having to hide it at this time of day. He never brought his keys this early in the morning. Because no one was ever around to see him use illegal magic, this early in the morning. And the keys were noisy and cumbersome—disturbing, to the Forest and its inhabitants.

“You leave your forge unlocked?” Malfoy scoffed behind him. Harry rolled his eyes.

“Yes,” he lied easily. “No one wants to come in that badly.” He turned his head to raise an eyebrow at Malfoy with a mumbled, “Obviously.”

Malfoy kept up his glare, but didn’t take the bait, which was a shame. Harry loved being difficult to the Knights, especially knowing they couldn’t do a damn thing to him.

Harry was the kingdom’s finest swordsmith, after all, and was under King Albus’ protection—meaning, employment. More accurately, servitude.

Harry was responsible for outfitting the kingdom’s warriors with weaponry. It was an agreement he had come to with the King when he’d finally refused to keep serving him, at the age of fourteen. After seeing his fellow pawn murdered in cold blood by the enemy and having to fight his way out, he’d tried to flee.

One couldn’t run from the King, however. He hadn’t made it halfway to the Forest before wards went up, locking him in.

For a man who had outlawed the use of magic, King Albus was very fond of magic.

So King Albus struck a deal with his former magical child soldier, his best kept secret. The child of the King’s favourite deceased magical spies. The child whose soul was tainted with darkness, whose parents were murdered, who wore magic and violence like it was made for him, because he had been made for it.

He gave—revealed Harry to his godfather, the swordsmith. Sirius Black.

The King promised Harry protection, and a life free from violence, as long as he worked the forge with his godfather for the kingdom’s armoury, and outfitted the Knights with the finest swords—laced with subtle, but powerful magical enhancements.

No one needed to know, except King Albus and his closest confidants, his small, secret army of witches and wizards, and Harry himself.

For two short years, Harry had had some sort of family. A dull, hollow resignation had long since taken its place.

“Something I can help you with, Sir Malfoy?” Harry prodded, walking to his bench to dig out his manual flint starter. He normally started the fire in his forge with magic, but of course, he couldn’t exactly do that in the presence of a Knight, regardless of the Knight’s history.

Harry knew quite a lot of Malfoy’s history. Too much, probably.

Malfoy paused in his inspection of Harry’s shop, a grimace of distaste on his face. Harry tried to see it from his eyes: the coned ceiling with the vent at the top, the walls lined with hammers and tools and half-finished swords and shields, the massive coal forge in the center of the floor, surrounded by bins of coal and various-sized anvils.

Harry loved his forge in the morning. It was quiet and peaceful, and almost entirely his; it was where he was the most himself, letting his magic flow through him freely, before the world woke up around him. He knew Molly was the same way in her bakery. There were probably several hidden witches and wizards in this city, starting their days similarly. As themselves.

Harry couldn’t start today like that, apparently.

“I need a weapon,” Sir Malfoy said haughtily, “of the highest quality.”

Harry snorted, and quickly covered up the sound by shuffling his coals around in the forge, piling tinder in the center.

“Yes, I’d gathered as much,” Harry replied, as politely as he could. “The standard weaponry of the Guard not to your liking, then?”

“It is fine,” Malfoy gritted through his teeth. “For an ordinary Knight on ordinary Guard duty.”

Harry pretended to wipe soot off his face with his arm, biting his lip to suppress his laughter. With a few scraping clicks, the fire was lit, slowly consuming the tinder and lighting the coals.

“And I’m sure you’re far from ordinary, sir,” Harry forced out, fighting to keep his tone neutral. He faced away from Malfoy to hide his inevitable grin.

“It’s not—” Malfoy huffed. Sighed. “I won’t be on Guard duty much longer, is what I’m saying. I’m being sent to the warfront.”

Harry’s spine snapped straight, all amusement wiped from his mind. He turned to the Knight with wide, incredulous eyes.

“You’re what?”

Malfoy tsked impatiently. “I’m being sent to war. To fight,” he added, as if Harry were an idiot.

“And you need…”

“…A weapon,” Malfoy said slowly. “A sword, preferably.” He looked around again. “I am at the right place, aren’t I?”

Harry blinked himself out of his shock and cleared his throat.

“Yes. Right. When do you need it by?”

“June.”

“That’s less than two months from now,” Harry noted, frowning.

“Yes.” Malfoy nodded, raising an eyebrow. “And…?”

Harry stared at him, then glanced around at his piles of projects, his months-long waiting list, his stacks of orders on parchments.

His curiosity won out over his prudence, as it always did.

“Fine. Stop by tomorrow for dimensions and specifics.”

***

The day Draco Lucius Malfoy joined the King’s Guard, there was a riot in the streets.

Harry remembered the noise. He didn’t join, and he didn’t watch. He never did; he stayed in his forge, hammering away, while the shouts and stomps of hundreds of outraged citizens marched past his door, decrying the King’s choice.

Of course, it didn’t change the King’s mind in the slightest. Albus the First was not so easily swayed. Harry knew that firsthand.

Harry couldn’t help but think his fellow citizens were misdirecting their anger. There was no way a prisoner of war would willingly join the ranks of his captors, right?

To fight in a war against his own family?

Harry didn’t have any family left—the closest he had was his friends, the Weasleys, in the bakery next door—but he couldn’t picture such a thing. Whatever the reason, he was sure the King did not have Malfoy’s best interests at heart.

It didn’t make the man any more popular, but that seemed to suit Malfoy just fine. In fact, contrary to Harry’s theories, he seemed to be thriving.

He’d gotten a few glimpses of him, in the ten years since his capture at the age of sixteen. Harry had first seen him in the caravan that paraded through the streets, as they returned from a “victorious” battle against Tom Riddle and his dark wizard army. An army that had included Draco Malfoy, and his family. A battle that had cost Harry his godfather, Sirius—the only family he had left. The man who’d taught him everything he knew about the forge.

Malfoy had looked too thin and too pale, his white-blond hair dulled and tangled from war and captivity, but he’d walked with his back straight and chin high, imperious and proud. Harry wouldn’t have believed he was wearing shackles, if he hadn’t seen them with his own eyes. Something about him still made Harry want to hit him, and from the jeers and spitting from the onlookers around him, he wasn’t the only one.

He didn’t know how someone could look so beaten down, and yet so arrogant. Malfoy was so young, the same age as Harry, and yet Harry recognized the darkness and depth in grave silver eyes—eyes that had seen too much.

No one saw Malfoy for several years, after that. The city of Hogwarts had all but forgotten about him, assuming he was wasting away in the dungeons where dark wizards like him belonged, until the announcement was made of the next generation of Knights of the King’s Guard.

These days, Malfoy was anything but thin. He rode through the city with his fellow Knights, on the back of a tall black mare. He’d grown tall and muscular, and he could be spotted a mile away, thanks to his distinctive hair and the gleam of reflected sunlight on his meticulously polished armour. He stood straight and proud, regardless of the way he was treated by citizens and his fellow guardsmen. He was every inch a Knight of the King’s Guard, so much so that no one seemed to wonder about how or why he got there.

No one except Harry.

But there wasn’t anything he could—or would—do about it. He’d sworn long ago, he was done being King Albus’ pawn, in a kingdom that would crucify him if they knew what he was, and what he was capable of.

He was tired of fighting. He hated the violence that had followed him in adolescence, he hated the war and everything it had taken from him, he hated Tom Riddle and the sickening things Harry had seen in his youth, while spying and fighting with his innocent magic.

He hated Malfoy, a little bit, for the same reason everyone else in this city did: for believing in and being a part of the bloodthirsty, dark-magic-ridden army that had taken so much of their livelihood. But the fact that Malfoy was being sent to the warfront, to face off against his own side of the war—his own family—was gnawing at Harry, an itch he couldn’t reach. Something was off, more than usual.

Harry was not surprised to see Sir Malfoy in the exact same spot the following morning, though he was annoyed at the disturbance of his early morning peace.

“I have open shop hours, you know,” Harry grumbled.

“You didn’t specify a time, yesterday,” Malfoy retorted. “It was only right to assume you had meant the same time.”

Harry rolled his eyes, but conceded the point, and vowed to himself to be more specific with his appointment times, unless he wanted Knights showing up at his door at the most inconvenient hours.

“Right,” Harry sighed, shutting the heavy door behind them. Only a faint light came through from the vent in the top of the roof, so Harry got to work lighting the forge again. Once the small pile of tinder was lit, the coals around it starting to glow, he whipped out his measuring tape and beckoned Malfoy over.

“What size do you normally use?” Harry mumbled, motioning for Malfoy to straighten his arm down his side.

“The standard.”

Harry rolled his eyes again. He couldn’t hide it from Malfoy, as close as he was standing. “I make three sizes of standard swords for the King’s Guard. Which one do you use?”

Malfoy frowned. “Whichever I’m given,” he answered flatly. “You don’t honestly think I have my pick of weaponry?”

Harry paused his hands, mulling over this new insight before giving a short grunt of acknowledgement, and continued. He raised the end of the measuring tape to the side of Malfoy’s eye, careful not to touch, and extended it down the length of his arm to the V between thumb and forefinger.

“The one you use,” Harry said. “Is it comfortable?”

Malfoy took a deep breath. He seemed to be forcing himself to meet Harry’s eyes.

“It is satisfactory,” he replied. Harry made a mental note of his measurements, and tried to decipher the hidden meaning behind Malfoy’s guarded tone.

He decided satisfactory meant significantly unsatisfactory, but there is nothing to be done for it. He rolled up his tape, furrowing his brows in thought.

“Too big or too small?”

Malfoy blinked. His eyes darted to the side, as if checking for listeners.

“Too big,” he mumbled, “but it’s what I work best with now.”

“They give you a shield?”

“Not often.”

Harry met his eyes, incredulous. “Parrying dagger?”

“No,” Malfoy answered. “I use the one I have well enough.” He motioned vaguely to the dagger sheathed at his side. The blade was short, and the hilt was old and worn, a scarred, faded wood.

Harry stepped back, suddenly aware that he was staring, not measuring, and standing uncomfortably close—close enough that he could make out the scents of polish and leather on the Knight’s clothes. Malfoy’s shoulders relaxed slightly as he moved away.

“Fucking Knights,” Harry grumbled under his breath, shaking his head.

Malfoy stood perfectly still, tight-lipped, watching Harry work. Harry took more measurements, silent and steadfast, until he was satisfied he had enough to work with.

“Alright, that’s all I need. I’ll come watch you train at some point to see how you handle and balance, it’ll be ready by the time you leave.”

Malfoy frowned. “That’s it?”

Harry rolled up his tape and nodded. “That’s it.”

“But what about—” Malfoy stopped himself, his hand twitching, clearly enduring some sort of internal conflict. Harry watched it play across his face: confusion, resentment, shame, resignation.

“Something specific you have in mind, sir?” Harry asked tentatively. Malfoy cleared his throat.

“I simply want to ensure that this sword is…” he huffed, frustrated. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter.” He closed his eyes for a second, and Harry watched as he shouldered an invisible armour, smoothing out his expression, straightening his spine, until he was the cool and distant Sir Draco Malfoy once more, untouchable. Harry hadn’t realized how vulnerable the man had looked, a second ago, comparatively. Malfoy opened his eyes, cold as polished steel, and Harry scrambled internally, wondering when he had taken off that armour to begin with. “Thank you for your time. I look forward to seeing the finished product.”

With that, Sir Malfoy turned on his heel and walked out of the forge, leaving Harry gaping in the middle of the floor, his blood running cold with slow comprehension.

Malfoy was looking for a sword worthy of dying with.

Chapter Text

Harry could have made him a slightly better standard sword. He could have added some gold or engravings to the hilt and called it a day. He didn’t really need to watch Malfoy spar to make him a proper sword.

He shouldn’t even put much time or materials into this sword, if Malfoy was so convinced he was going to die anyway. And yet, here he was, packing away two apples he’d picked from the Forest that morning into a leather satchel, locking up his forge and heading to the castle in the middle of the city.

Perhaps he was shaken by the revelation, or by the way Malfoy had allowed himself to be vulnerable in front of Harry, for just a moment, or by the quiet, casual manner in which Malfoy shouldered his own burdens. His fate.

His doom.

The War was in their favour, as far as Harry had heard. It had always been in their favour. It was just unending. The last major battle had been—well, there were few casualties, including Harry’s godfather. The Battle of Mysteries, they called it. Because no one could recall the events of it the same.

Harry remembered it as the Battle where the Malfoy heir was captured, and Sirius was murdered. The first major Battle Harry himself hadn’t played a part in, thanks to his deal with the King. What he’d lost instead—Harry shook himself out of his thoughts, trying to ignore the hollow ache in his chest, the one that never went away.

He approached the Knights’ training yard, doing his best not to scowl at the sight of the castle. He heard the clanging of swords and the shouts of men and women fighting and running drills. He felt exposed, being here without disguises or invisibility charms. It was the only way he’d been allowed to wander in daylight, back then. He had to remind himself that when people saw him, now, they only saw the smith, the quiet young man who worked the forge, whom Dumbledore had recruited from some unnamed land. They all had their own stories about him, anyway.

He was both thrilled and dismayed to find a familiar face leaning against the fences, watching the Knights, with a head full of vibrant, Weasley-ginger hair.

“Enjoying the view?” Harry teased. Ron turned to face him, a knowing grin on his freckled face.

“How can I not?”

Harry laughed, elbowing him in the side. Ron offered one of his sandwiches, which Harry waved off as he joined him at the fence.

Ron was as close as a friend could be to someone like Harry—someone who had to hold himself at a distance, whose history was kept vague and secret. No one was allowed to know of Harry’s magic. Molly, Ron’s mother and a witch-in-hiding herself, could detect his magic, and had suspicions about his history, but she doted upon Harry as she would any of her children. She used her magic sparingly, and she told no one—not even her unwittingly magical children.

Harry loved the Weasleys. They’d always been kind to him, but they truly enfolded him into their family upon Sirius’ death, refusing to let him fester in his loneliness for long. Ron, who was Harry’s age, was exuberant and funny and loyal, and a better friend than Harry had ever thought he’d have. But now wasn’t the most ideal time to see him, when Harry was caught up in his head, his magic and his history and his fixation on a certain controversial Knight simmering too close to the surface.

“Aren’t you supposed to be helping your mother?”

“Please,” Ron scoffed, taking a bite of his sandwich. “I have six siblings, mate. Bakery doesn’t need eight people to run it.”

“As if your siblings are any help.”

“Mum’s got the twins working, at the moment,” Ron said. “Which is why I’m having a lovely afternoon off.”

“Right,” Harry replied. “For your own safety, more like.”

“Exactly.”

“Which one are you pining after, this time?” Harry asked, as they turned their attention back to the training Knights.

“Hard to pick just one,” Ron mumbled, smirking. Harry rolled his eyes. “What about you? You never come out here.”

Harry shrugged. That was true. For good reason, he thought.

“Client,” he answered vaguely. Ron’s eyebrows disappeared under his fringe.

Thankfully, a particularly loud clang of swords clashing drew Ron’s attention before he could ask any more questions, so they leaned against the fence together in silence, watching.

Of course, it was Malfoy, deep in a feverish swordfight with Ron’s longest-standing crush. Ron hummed his approval.

Lady Hermione Granger was a fierce opponent. She was small, but no one dared underestimate her strength and cunning. Not even Malfoy, apparently, who didn’t hold back a single blow with his longsword.

It was instinct, Harry thought, that made him a little worried for the slighter woman. Malfoy’s face was flushed with exertion and the fury of the fight, his bright hair sticking to his skin with sweat. The two of them kicked up dust as they danced around each other, Granger releasing a hard shout with every swing and parry.

Harry narrowed his eyes, watching the flash of Malfoy’s sword in the bright afternoon sun.

He knew what his swords looked like, felt like, sounded like. He knew how to catch the almost-imperceptible shimmer of magic in the air when they collided, and after enough years of practice, he could discern the magic within them from a simple glance or touch.

Malfoy’s sword looked like one of Harry’s, certainly. It sounded like one, too. It was, without a doubt, one of the hundreds he’d hammered out of his forge. But where there should have been a shimmer, a faint flash of colour, a tingle of recognition in the back of Harry’s mind, there was nothing.

It was just a sword. Magicless and mundane. It hurt Harry’s heart to see it: his hard work, his careful, subtle magic stripped from it.

Granger, on the other hand, had some explaining to do, if anyone else was as perceptive as Harry was.

Her sword was loaded with magic, powerful and precise, the air in the sword’s wake oscillating like a heatwave, almost indistinguishable from the heat off the dusty earth.

Some of it, Harry recognized as his own. Most of it, Harry guessed, was hers.

Interesting.

The King most certainly would have noticed, attuned to magic as he was. Harry wondered what he was using her for—or if she was just a secret witch Knight of the King’s Guard. She was certainly the first magical being in service of the crown that Harry had seen in broad daylight.

Malfoy seemed to be doing fine, even with the unfair disadvantage. Granger’s magic made her sword hit harder, and reflect light brighter to distract the opponent. Harry would have to look at it closer to see what other charms she’d woven in. He was begrudgingly impressed, if a little insulted. It wasn’t like she knew there was already magic in that sword, right?

Harry could see, now, that the sword Malfoy used was indeed a little big, but he wielded it perfectly. It didn’t hinder him in the slightest. Neither did the lack of magic. He favoured his left side, clearly, Harry thought—

No, he didn’t.

Malfoy sidestepped as Granger swung at what she thought was a weak spot, which Harry could now tell was what Malfoy wanted her to think. She grunted as the momentum caught her off balance, and she had to pour all of her strength into blocking his next move, a hard downward thrust aimed at her shoulder. She barely got her sword up in time to block it, which was when Malfoy hooked his foot around her ankle and yanked it forward, sending her sprawling to the ground.

Ron clicked his tongue, and Harry couldn’t tell if he was impressed or disappointed.

Malfoy sheathed his sword, panting, and held out a hand to help Granger up. She huffed, but took it anyway, wrapping her fingers around Malfoy’s wrist. She didn’t immediately let go once she stood, her dark brown eyes staring intently into Malfoy’s face, both of them still looking furious from the fight.

When she released him, Malfoy immediately pulled down his sleeve to cover his wrist, but not before Harry caught a glimpse of a thin, tight iron cuff around it.

Harry’s eyes were fixed on his covered wrist, now, because something about that cuff was wrong, Harry could feel it in his gut. It felt like happening upon a dead unicorn in the Forest, or the look in his godfather’s eyes when he’d left for the warfront.

Harry finally tore his eyes away to find Malfoy staring straight at him, his face unreadable. Harry swallowed hard, gathered his nerve, and waved him over. Ron made a little shocked sound next to him, which Harry ignored, as Malfoy reluctantly started walking in their direction.

“Don’t tell me he’s the latest crush,” Harry mumbled. Ron scoffed.

“Good-looking bloke, but something tells me we wouldn’t get along,” he said lightly.

“Oh, and you think you and Lady Granger would mesh perfectly, then?”

“Please.” Ron rolled his eyes. “I’d gladly get beat up by her all the time. Should’ve tried for Knighthood, I regret it every day.”

Harry snorted, but stifled it, because Malfoy was within hearing distance. He’d hoped Ron would leave, by now, but he couldn’t think of a good reason to tell him to go.

“Sir Malfoy,” Harry greeted with a nod. “Good fight.”

Malfoy nodded back, darting wary glances between Harry and Ron. He didn’t respond.

Harry’s eyes kept falling to Malfoy’s wrist, his mind still consumed with that dark, mysterious cuff. It was then that he caught the glimmer of magic, just the faintest hint of it, on the hilt of Malfoy’s sheathed sword.

He frowned at it—had Malfoy changed swords? No, it was the same one he’d just used. And now that Harry focused on it, it was clearly Harry’s own magic he could sense, the same set of enhancements he put in every other Knight’s sword.

Ron elbowed him gently in the side, and Malfoy, probably uncomfortable, put a protective hand on the hilt. Immediately, the magic was cut off, and Harry had to suppress a gasp as his eyes widened, watching the sword become mundane once more under Malfoy’s touch.

“Right,” Harry said, clearing his throat, his mind racing. “We need to talk about—your sword. Materials, preferences, you know.” Malfoy raised an eyebrow, confused and unimpressed, and Ron snorted quietly next to him. “Stop by at the usual time.”

“‘The usual time,’” Malfoy repeated in a flat tone.

“Yes,” Harry said, meeting his eyes.

Malfoy searched his expression, while Ron looked on in amusement.

“Alright,” Malfoy said, finally. Harry pushed himself off the fence to leave, but paused.

He reached into his satchel, plucking an apple at random, and tossed it over the fence. Malfoy caught it deftly in one hand, his eyebrow still raised in suspicion.

Harry nodded at him, pulled another apple out of his bag, and took a bite, before dragging a spluttering Ron away with him out of the grounds.

“‘Client,’ indeed,” Ron muttered, a teasing tilt to his mouth. Harry shoved him, making him laugh uproariously.

“No apples for you,” Harry grumbled, fighting the urge to look back over his shoulder.

***

The next morning, in the blue, liminal hours before dawn, Harry returned from his daily trip to the Forest to find an even more unexpected visitor hovering by the door to his forge.

“Your Majesty,” he greeted, eyes narrowed. King Albus watched him approach with a fond smile, his blue eyes warm in a way Harry knew better than to trust.

“It’s good to see you, Harry,” the King replied. “Enjoying your morning jaunts? How is the herd?”

Harry looked down, as he always did. He couldn’t help it. Deferring to this man was muscle memory.

It was why Albus didn’t ask to come in, but simply followed Harry into his forge, making himself comfortable. It was why Albus asked questions that to anyone else seemed friendly and interested, but that Harry heard for the threats they were: remember the freedoms I give you in exchange for your service? Imagine, if those were taken away.

“The herd is well,” Harry answered, as politely as he could. He piled tinder into the middle of his forge and lit it with a lazy flick of wandless magic. “What can I do for you, Your Majesty?”

The King sighed, his shoulders sagging an inch. He looked down at the floor, then back up at Harry over his half-moon spectacles, and Harry fought to keep his face blank, trying not to visibly react to the bewildering sight of the aged King pouting. At least, that’s what it looked like. Harry couldn’t see his mouth very well through his long, silver beard.

“Harry, my boy,” he said, and with the barest tilt of his head, he flipped right back to condescending, domineering, familiar. “Can an old man not reconnect with his former ward?”

Harry tensed. “Apologies, Your Majesty,” he said quietly, “I know you’re very busy. I don’t want to waste your time, is all.”

“You, Harry, could never.” Dumbledore clasped his hands in front of him. “It is your time I worry about wasting.”

“Sir?”

“I hear that Sir Malfoy has been in to request a sword, for battle.”

There it is. There was always something. Harry kept his mouth shut, and waited.

“Listen to me very carefully, Harry,” the King said. Harry’s spine snapped straight, out of habit. He stared at the beard draped on Albus’ chest—the man was as tall as Malfoy, he noted. “You are not to waste an ounce of magic on that sword.”

Harry’s eyes shot up and met icy blue ones. He held it as long as he could, keeping his expression blank, void of challenge, as practiced. Albus gave a single nod, as if allowing this eye contact was a kindness he generously bestowed.

“However,” Albus continued, “you are to make it the most beautiful sword this kingdom has ever seen.”

Harry couldn’t help raising an eyebrow, that time. This seemed to amuse the King, thankfully.

“An odd request, I’m well aware,” Albus said. “Sir Malfoy has been striving for this honour for a long time. He is most deserving of a strong and beautiful weapon—but, as I’m sure you understand, he lost the privilege of his magic long ago.”

Harry took a deep, slow breath, and looked down. “I understand, sir.”

“Good.” Albus was smiling at him again, in that fond, grandfatherly way, Harry could feel it. “I knew you would. You’re an invaluable part of this kingdom, Harry, and it is imperative that we conserve your talents.” He shifted, a faint swish of his plain, pale blue robes, the ones Harry knew he wore when visiting with the public. “Sir Malfoy has made it this far without magic, and he’s become quite a formidable young man, don’t you agree?”

“Yes, sir,” Harry said, daring another glance at his eyes, daring a single parry in this one-sided conversation: “You’ve done well with him.”

Because there was no doubt in Harry’s mind, anymore, that King Albus himself was completely responsible for whatever had happened to Draco Malfoy in the years between being captured and being Knighted, and he was surely responsible for whatever Malfoy’s future held.

Nothing happened in Albus the First’s kingdom that wasn’t thoroughly, utterly intentional.

Albus’ eyes twinkled, and Harry held his gaze a second more before looking away again.

“Indeed,” the King murmured, stroking his beard. “I’m rather proud of this one.”

This one. Harry stood straighter, his face expressionless, his entire body subconsciously rearranging itself into the perfect, impressionable child soldier he’d always been. Albus reached out and squeezed his shoulder with a bony, ring-adorned hand, his eyes sweeping once around the forge before turning away.

“Good day to you, Harry,” he said lightly, making his way out the door. “I look forward to seeing the finished product.”

The door swung shut behind him, and Harry sagged, scrubbing his face with clammy, shaking hands.

***

Clang.

Sparks flew from the hammer. The metal glowed against the anvil, bright and red hot and uncomplicated. Harry thought of the cuff around Malfoy’s wrist. Imagined it glowing on his anvil. Swung the hammer.

Clang.

Flipped the metal over.

Clang. Clang.

A familiar rhythm, a heartbeat Harry felt in his hand. A heat Harry felt in his blood. The only thing that made sense to him, the only thing that was his.

Clang.

But it wasn’t really his, was it? Everything that came out of this forge went in service of the King, in one way or another. He felt like a child, who’d been given something to keep his hands busy when he got unruly. To capture his attention and talents, to keep him complacent. To make him sit still.

He stuffed the metal back into the hot coals. Wiped the sweat off his forehead with his arm, smearing soot on his skin.

He wondered what Malfoy had been given to keep his hands busy. Or if he just served without complaint, like Harry had his entire childhood.

Harry stared at the glowing steel, the ripples of red heat inside the coals, the King’s words echoing in his head.

“He lost the privilege of his magic long ago.”

According to King Albus, almost everyone had lost that privilege. The second his former protégé, Tom Riddle, had gone rogue, dabbling in the Dark Arts and amassing a following of power-hungry dark wizards, King Albus had drawn the line between them.

Because magic was a privilege, he’d say, and a chain was only as strong as its weakest link, and if one person could do so much evil with magic—one who had looked so promising—there was no saying anyone else with magic wouldn’t go the same way, and then where would we be?

But of course, a dark wizard army couldn’t be fought without magic. So Albus had taken to rounding up as many talented witches and wizards as he could, in secret, and hiding them away in his castle, training them as soldiers and spies and saboteurs and sending them out in the dark of night. Harry’s parents had been Albus’ favourites, he always said. Until they were murdered, by Tom Riddle himself, and Harry had survived it, somehow, and replaced them as the King’s Favourite.

Harry wiped his hands on his apron and leaned against the bench, closing his eyes.

He remembered very little of that night. He’d only been a baby, after all. He remembered a flash of green light, a woman screaming. A high, cold laugh.

All he had left of it was a gnarly scar on his forehead—the result of a botched Killing Curse. The worst thing someone could do with magic, marring his face like a jagged tally mark.

What Harry had long since gathered, and boiled down to its simplest point, was that witches and wizards “lost the privilege” of their magic once it was no longer used in service of the crown. And Harry knew, even in his sheltered, crown-focused life, there was something very wrong with that picture.

Just as there was something very, very wrong with this Malfoy situation.

He pulled the bright metal out of the coals, the air around it rippling with heat, and brought it back to the anvil.

Clang.

This sword couldn’t have any magic… but it had to be the most beautiful sword the kingdom had ever seen. This sword needed to be a show. It needed to be remembered. Why?

Clang.

How did they even get that cuff on Malfoy’s wrist? It was solid iron, it ate magic, Harry couldn’t figure out—

Clang.

And where had Malfoy been, all these years, what had the King done to him? “I’m proud of this one.” Did that mean he’d turned out more compliant and obedient than Harry did? Did he actually want this?

Clang. Flip. Watch the angle, the light and heat. Even, precise, strong, swing the hammer. Clang. Clang.

On and on it went, the heat haze in his eyes and his wrist sore from the hammer, the impacts zipping up his arm to his skull where a slight headache was forming as he wrestled with everything he didn’t know. He shoved the steel back into the coals once again, harder than necessary, wondering why he even cared.

It wasn’t his problem, was it? He’d sworn to himself that he’d never get involved with King Albus’ schemes ever again. He lived a quiet, peaceful life, as a secret wizard in Hogwarts, working his forge. He had his immunity and his freedoms and he had access to the Forest, when no one else did. He had the herd and the sunrise and the kind, raucous Weasleys in the warm, delicious-smelling bakery next door. Why couldn’t he just let this go, and do as he was told? Why on earth was he this worked up over—over him?

“Is this a bad time?”

Harry whirled around to see Sir Malfoy standing there, at a safe distance, his impeccable posture and bored, aristocratic drawl stirring something in Harry’s gut.

But he didn’t look bored. He looked clean, and gorgeous. His expression was a little strained, and Harry thought he saw a flash of something like concern, but then it was gone.

And then he realized that he was panting from exertion, and his own expression probably looked a bit frightening, wild and enraged. He cleared his throat and tried to gather himself.

“Sir Malfoy,” Harry greeted, pulling off his heavy apron. Malfoy’s eyes widened. “Come in, I’m nearly finished for the day.”

Malfoy didn’t move. He stood completely still, his wide, grey eyes trained on Harry’s chest. Harry looked down, unsurprised to find his tunic nearly soaked through with sweat, smattered with soot. He grimaced apologetically.

“Right. Er… Sorry. I’ll just finish up here, then we can sit down and… talk,” Harry finished lamely, wincing at himself. Malfoy blinked himself out of whatever daze he’d been in, but he was unable to meet Harry’s eyes.

“Talk?” he repeated, staring at the glowing forge. Harry noticed a pink flush on his cheeks, perhaps from the heat. “I was not aware that custom swordsmithing required conversation.”

Harry turned away and pulled the sword out of the coals, hanging it up with the rest of his current projects.

“Not usually, but in this particular instance, it does.” Harry made quick work of cleaning up, sweeping up the non-magical way, putting out the coals. “Unless you have other plans…?”

He chanced a look at Malfoy, whose lips were pressed together in a hard line, his eyes flinty as they darted to Harry and away. Harry quite liked the deepening colour in his cheeks.

“No,” was all Malfoy said. Harry shrugged and motioned for Malfoy to follow him, which he did, after only a moment’s shock and hesitation.

Harry’s living quarters were situated just behind the forge. It was a spacious single room with a loft for his bed, a small table with two chairs, and a large, cozy chair in front of his hearth, layered with cushions and knit blankets, all gifts from Molly next door. He had a countertop with shelves and hooks for a kitchen, a washbasin in the corner, a bureau of low-quality garments that would get ruined in his line of work anyway. And in the back was a closet, locked and warded, with plenty of raw meat from the butcher in freezing and cooling charms.

For the herd.

Harry ushered the confused Knight into the door and offered him a chair at the table, which he took with only a mild grimace of distaste, to his credit. Harry started a fire in the hearth and hurried over to his bureau, ripping off his sweaty, soot-covered tunic and rummaging through his drawers for a clean one. He heard a quiet spluttering sound behind him, but when he turned, Malfoy was gazing intently at the hearth, tapping his fingers idly on the table. His face was placid, but nearly fuchsia.

The silence was grating on Harry’s already frayed nerves, as was that rhythmic, incessant tapping of Malfoy’s long fingers on wood.

He set down two cups of wine on the table, a loaf of Molly’s bread, and some cheese he’d gotten from the market. Malfoy continued to look as if this was the weirdest thing to ever happen to him, but he was weathering it valiantly. Harry could admit it was one of the odder things he’d ever done, inviting a Knight in for a spontaneous meal.

Harry sat down with a heavy sigh, facing his client, who looked at him expectantly. He realized he had no acceptable reason for doing this, and no idea what he wanted to say. Where to even begin.

Malfoy’s frown deepened. “What is your name?”

Harry blinked, taken aback. “What?”

“You’ve invited me into your home and offered me food and drink, but I do not know your name.”

“Oh,” Harry said, his lips twitching in an amused, self-deprecating grin. “My apologies. I’m used to being referred to as simply ‘the blacksmith.’”

“I’d gathered,” Malfoy replied, raising an eyebrow.

“My name is Harry,” Harry said, clearing his throat again. “Harry Potter. At your service.”

Malfoy narrowed his eyes. “Harry Potter…” he searched Harry’s face, his forehead creased in thought. “Sounds familiar.”

With a jolt, Harry realized exactly why that name would sound familiar, to someone who’d spent half their life among Tom Riddle and his followers. Thankfully, his sweaty hair covered his forehead—he didn’t know if Malfoy knew what a Killing Curse scar looked like. He looked away, grasping blindly for a cover.

“It’s a very generic name,” Harry muttered. “You should continue referring to me as you have been—outside of here. No one will know who you’re talking about, otherwise.”

“I haven’t been,” Malfoy said.

“Haven’t been… what?”

“Referring to you.”

“At all?” Harry raised his eyebrows. “You’ve told no one that I’m making you a sword?”

“No one,” Malfoy confirmed with another puzzled frown. “Though it’s not as if you have competition.”

Harry took a deep breath, and a fortifying sip of his wine.

“The King paid me a visit today,” he declared, as nonchalantly as he could.

Malfoy’s face paled. His expression smoothed out, his spine straightened, shoulders back—automatic. It made him look even more imposing and… dazzling, almost. Entirely out of place in Harry’s simple home.

But Harry recognized him, regardless, and with the feeling of a stone sinking in his stomach, he understood why he was so fixated on this man. He recognized him.

He saw himself in Draco Malfoy: someone who’d been thrown into impossible situations as a child, who’d been groomed and isolated and molded into the perfect little soldier by King Albus himself.

But where Harry had struck a deal and escaped the King’s immediate clutches, Malfoy remained shackled to him, a prisoner in Knight’s clothing. Harry’s eyes darted to Malfoy’s wrist, where the horrible cuff was currently hidden by his sleeve.

“And what does that have to do with me?” Malfoy asked, though he looked like he already knew the answer.

Everything, Harry thought. “He wants this to be the most impressive sword I’ve ever made,” Harry said instead. “His Majesty believes you deserve the most beautiful weapon I can create.”

Malfoy’s eyes flashed, but he remained otherwise expressionless.

“I see,” he said. “And you disagree?”

Harry frowned, realizing how that must have sounded. “I don’t disagree with him,” he replied, idly rotating his wine on the table. “On that count,” he added under his breath. Malfoy’s eyebrow twitched.

“Forgive me, but I still don’t see how that leads to…” Malfoy made a quick, vague motion with his fingers. “This.”

Harry breathed in deep through his nose. He tapped his fingers against the wood, mirroring Malfoy’s fidgeting. He took a sip of wine to stall, tearing off a chunk of bread.

“I need to know more about you,” Harry finally said, “if I’m to make a sword to your liking.”

Out of all the reactions Harry could have expected, Malfoy’s sudden and obvious panic was not one of them. His hands clenched on the edge of the table, his knuckles white with tension. Grey eyes widened as they stared at Harry, then up at the framework of the small building, lingering on each corner of the room. A muscle jumped in his cheek.

Harry opened his mouth to ask what had frightened him, but before he could speak, Malfoy’s hand shot out to his side, hit the wall, and stayed there.

Harry’s confusion lasted barely a second more as he felt the abrupt, yet extremely subtle shift of magic being cut off, charms being silenced.

“No,” he breathed, his head whipping around, as if more charms would reveal themselves even with Malfoy cutting off the magic with a simple touch. Surveillance charms. All this time—how had Harry not noticed? He was nearly as perceptive to magic as the King. “That bastard—”

“I don’t know what you’re playing at, Potter,” Malfoy hissed, “but I want no part of it. You would not believe what I’ve had to endure to get where I am today—to gain His Majesty’s trust. I finally have a chance at a life in the sun and—”

“A life, Malfoy?” Harry cut him off. “If you’ve spent as much time with him as I think you have, you know better than to believe he trusts you. You know better than to believe this is a life he’s giving you.”

“Who do you think you are?” Malfoy spat, his fingertips white where they held the wall. “You don’t know me at all. You’re a bloody smith—and apparently, a prized source of information for King Albus himself. So you can tell him that I have no reservations about going to war for him. I am grateful for the chances I’ve been given and I am not so easily swayed as he evidently believes me to be.”

“I am not—” Harry began, but Malfoy removed his hand from the wall, and Harry felt the charms return, the quietest hum of energy in his walls. He could only assume he’d been too young to notice when he started living here, and had since grown accustomed to it. Gods, how much had Albus seen, or heard? Harry didn’t think he’d said or done anything remotely incriminating in here. Not since his godfather—

“You’re aware of my preferences in weaponry, and you have my measurements,” Malfoy said in a placid tone. “That is all I imagine you need to know about me in order to craft a sword. Thank you for your hospitality.”

With that, Malfoy stood smoothly, nodding once. Harry stood as well, just as he turned to leave.

“Sir Malfoy.”

Malfoy paused, levelling an unimpressed glare at Harry. Harry held his gaze, then darted his eyes to the wall, imploring. After a tense hesitation, Malfoy reached out just enough that his fingers brushed the wall, cutting off the charms again.

Harry swallowed hard. “It’s true that I am a prized asset of the King,” he said quietly, his mouth and stomach twisting over the words. “But not… by choice.”

Malfoy’s eyes snapped up to meet his, a crease of tension between his brows. Harry clenched his hands at his sides to stop their shaking. He’d never before said it out loud. He hadn’t even come close, since Sirius.

Malfoy searched Harry’s face, looking for the lie. Harry could lie, if he wanted to. He’d been lying for a long, long time, after all. But not now.

“If only I’d known how much trouble it’d be for one measly sword,” Malfoy muttered, which felt like more of a slap in the face than it ought to have. He took his hand off the wall and straightened up, then walked out the door without a single backward glance.

The door swung shut, leaving Harry alone with his turbulent thoughts. The walls resumed their quiet humming, almost imperceptible—but now, it was all Harry could hear, the energy thrumming through his bones and the wooden frame of his home.

His cage.

Chapter Text

Sir Malfoy didn’t return to Harry’s forge. Harry wasn’t sure what he had expected, or why he felt so disappointed every morning he returned from the Forest to the conspicuous absence of a Knight scowling at his door. He grew more agitated as days passed with no word from or about Malfoy.

He hardly heard whatever Ron was yammering about next to him as they ambled through the marketplace, too stuck in his own head. Why did it matter if Malfoy wanted to be a good little soldier for the King? Why did it matter if Malfoy was cut off from his magic? Why did it matter if he was certain he would die in this war? Why did it matter if King Albus wanted this sword to be a spectacle?

“...I mean, she may not have said anything to me, but it was all in the eyes, mate. There’s something between us, I’m telling you,” Ron was saying, between handfuls of fresh blueberries. When Harry blinked himself out of his own thoughts, he noticed a smattering of purple stains on Ron’s freckled hand, and allowed himself a smile. “Y’know, the warfront’s starting to look downright appealing.”

Harry stopped dead. “Ron.”

Ron at least had the decency to look mildly regretful. “Come on, you know what I mean, Harry. It’s at a standstill because it’s too evenly matched—bloody decades this has been going on, and King Albus is sure that with a bit more manpower, we can finally tip the scales!” He couldn’t manage to look at Harry while he spoke, and his ears were turning red under his orange hair. “And if that’s where the fresh Knights are going…”

Harry couldn’t contain his astonishment and dread.

“You’re telling me that you’re willing to sign yourself up for murder—” Ron clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes at this, “—in a desperate attempt to win the affections of a Knight?”

Ron opened his mouth to retort, but paused as his eyes flicked up over Harry’s shoulder, widening at whatever he saw there. Harry frowned and turned, reluctantly.

Sir Malfoy and Lady Granger were riding idly through the market on horseback, probably on some sort of patrol. Malfoy towered over the teeming mass of people, his expression carefully blank, his eyes alert and watchful, his distinctive hair like a beacon, unignorable. Harry realized after a moment of indiscreet staring that he’d forgotten to breathe like a normal person, and Ron’s curious gaze was now torn between him and the incomparable Hermione Granger.

Granger’s presence wasn’t as striking as Malfoy’s, in Harry’s opinion, but that didn’t stop her from commanding the space around her, her shoulders straight and strong and her brown eyes bright, her curly hair tied neatly back away from her face. The crowd moved around them automatically, deferring in respect of the Knights, even as some of them sneered up at Malfoy, who ignored them all atop his huge, black mare.

The Knights were muttering quietly to each other, lips barely moving, eyes scanning the crowd. Malfoy’s eyes met Harry’s, and his jaw tensed fleetingly, before he looked away and continued muttering. Harry was treated with Granger’s piercing gaze not a second later.

Harry blinked, and looked down, all too aware of the traitorous heat blooming in his cheeks. It was only then that he saw the man to Malfoy’s immediate left duck his head, step too close, and reach into his grimy satchel, pulling out—

The horse reared as the snake was thrown to the ground, writhing wildly. Malfoy’s face was pure shock, then fear, then indignation once he realized what was happening, then shock again as the mare bucked and reared again, Malfoy’s hands slipping from the reins, his body thrown—

In a surge of panic and adrenaline, Harry hardly noticed himself moving, shoving through the crowd. He barely registered the cushioning charm leaving his fingertips, invisible among the panicking crowd. He only saw Malfoy falling, falling; he heard nothing but the rush of blood in his ears, and then the sickening thud of a body hitting the cobblestones.

Harry shoved the last person out of the way and dropped to Malfoy’s side on the ground, panting. Granger was subduing the horse, holding tightly to the reins as well as her own. The snake was nowhere to be seen, and Malfoy was breathing hard and strained and thin, his teeth clenched in pain. He stared at Harry with fury in his eyes, and Harry’s hands hesitated over his body, where Malfoy was trying not to clutch his side, trying not to move too much.

A broken rib, then. Harry’s brain finally caught up with him as he caught a glimpse of black peeking from the hem of Malfoy’s sleeve: the cushioning charm would have cancelled the second Malfoy came in contact with it. Useless.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” Malfoy hissed, furious and barely audible over the excitable crowd pressing in on them. His harsh breaths whistled through clenched teeth. The last of Harry’s rational thought joined him, as he faced the abrupt realization that if his charm had worked, everyone here would have assumed that Malfoy had cast illegal magic, unless Harry wanted to reveal himself. He couldn’t imagine what that would do to Malfoy. He opened his mouth to apologize, but was cut off by Ron’s low voice behind him.

“Broken rib, sir?” Ron asked, crouching down next to Harry with a hand on Harry’s shoulder. Harry was shocked to see genuine concern on his face, his gaze focused on Malfoy’s wary expression and shaking hand. Malfoy seemed to be having the same thoughts, but he gave a short nod. Ron clicked his tongue in sympathy.

“Me too, once. Hurts like a b—” he stopped himself with a quick glance at Granger, who had maneuvered their horses closer and was frowning down at them all with suspicion and poorly concealed rage. “Hurts real bad. We’re gonna help you up, if that’s alright?”

Malfoy’s eyes darted between the two of them, then up at Granger, who shrugged faintly. He gave another short nod, and Ron moved to his other side so he and Harry could pull him up by his shoulders. Harry winced at the awful, hollow feeling the contact induced, as he was subjected to the indirect effects of Malfoy’s horrible magic-suppressing cuff. Even Ron’s face twisted in a puzzled frown, but he made no comment—Ron wasn’t too aware of his own magic. Thankfully.

They stepped away as soon as Malfoy was upright. Harry reached out automatically when he swayed a little, but Ron elbowed Harry hard enough that he snatched his hands back and let Malfoy recover his dignity on his own.

“Draco,” Granger said, “can you ride? Or should we walk back to the castle—”

“Molly can patch him up,” Harry interrupted, like an idiot, drawing an impressive glare from Granger and an incredulous look from Ron and Malfoy. “She’s good with that stuff, the bakery’s just there.” He pointed somewhere up the street, where he could see the tip of the chimney of his forge peeking over the rooftops.

Malfoy stared at him, his tense jaw and defensive posture the only indication of what must have been agonizing pain and shortness of breath. Grey eyes scanned Harry’s face, searching for the lie, the catch, trying to puzzle Harry out.

“Draco,” Granger called again, softer this time. “What do you want to do?”

Malfoy swallowed, then tried to take a deep breath, which was apparently painful enough that he expelled it all in a rush and swayed again with dizziness, his face red, a sheen of sweat on his brow. Harry clenched his fists to keep from reaching out again. He didn’t look at Granger. Ron seemed unable to keep his eyes off of her, as usual, though he was trying his best.

Malfoy eventually looked at Harry and gave another one of his quick nods. Harry felt warmth and relief flood through him, until he heard Granger sigh.

“Alright then,” she said wearily, “let’s see if this ‘Molly’ can ‘patch you up.’”

And so Harry found himself walking down the street next to the injured Sir Draco Malfoy, who looked resolutely ahead of them and avoided Harry’s curious glances. He had one hand loosely holding the reins of his horse, the other still curled protectively around his torso. Behind them, Ron walked silently next to Granger, at a respectable distance, hardly believing his luck. She seemed to be the only Knight for whom he would actually wait to be spoken to, though it looked like she would keep him waiting a long bloody time.

“What’s her name?” Harry asked quietly, motioning to the horse. Malfoy’s lips thinned. He still didn’t look at Harry.

“Vega,” he answered in a grunt.

“The star?” Harry hummed. “That’s nice.”

Malfoy glanced at him, then, allowing Harry to catch that crease of puzzlement between his brows.

Molly was surprised to see Harry and Ron barging in with two Knights, but she recovered quickly enough once she recognized that one of them was injured, carefully bustling Malfoy over to a stool and tutting about nothing and everything along the way. Malfoy let her, in a daze of pain and confusion, while Harry, Ron, and Lady Granger watched from the side, a little bemused.

Until Molly placed her hand on Malfoy’s ribs, and Malfoy flinched, then winced at the sudden movement, but it didn’t compare to the complete fear and dread that took over Molly’s expression.

She did it again, very carefully, and Malfoy didn’t flinch this time, but she did. Harry knew why, and cursed himself for his complete lack of foresight.

Molly looked over at the three of them in silent alarm, and Harry glared at Malfoy’s wrist, avoiding Molly’s piercing eyes.

She knew more about Harry than anyone else in this city, other than the King, and whatever she knew, she had pried out of him with the sheer power of a shrewd, motherly gaze. He couldn’t let himself meet it now, afraid of what he might blurt out in present company.

“Can you fix him, Mum?” Ron prodded, confused by the sudden tension. Molly cleared her throat and gathered herself, smoothing out her apron.

“I can bandage it and give you something for the pain, sir,” she told Malfoy, in a more formal, deferent tone than Harry had ever heard from her. “But the rib has to heal on its own. Forgive my boldness—you’ll need to rest, and practice deep breathing to prevent illness.”

“Bad luck, that,” Ron mumbled sympathetically, shaking his head. “She was able to fix me right up when I fell off the roof.”

Molly’s head snapped up from the bandages she was preparing, eyes flashing in warning at her son. “Because you were merely a boy, at the time,” she retorted. “You practically bounced. Grown men heal differently, Ronald.”

Ron looked like he wanted to argue, because he’d been nineteen, actually, but he heeded the unspoken warning in her tone and kept his mouth shut.

Molly and her husband never spoke about magic in the company of their children—for their safety, they’d told Harry. They all had magic, but no one could blame them for it if they didn’t know about it.

Gods, this was a twisted place. Harry ground his teeth, riding out a wave of righteous indignation, watching Molly patch Malfoy up the non-magical way, watching her bravely not wince at the contact.

He couldn’t imagine living without his magic. He had to wonder why the King hadn’t cuffed him, too, after he tried to run away. Anyone could work a forge, any magical being could learn to weave subtle enhancements into the potential of molten metal, like Harry did. Surely Albus would have wanted someone less… troublesome? Insolent?

Harry didn’t believe him when he claimed Harry was his “favourite,” like his parents had been. Harry had been his fixation, his special interest. Harry had been isolated and kept away from the rest of the magical force, had been groomed and trained especially in magical combat and espionage since before he could walk.

His uncomplicated life away from the King was starting to look a lot more complicated.

Harry looked up, blinking his way back to the present. He felt an odd pang of disappointment as he noticed Malfoy lacing his shirt back up, catching a glimpse of bandages before they were covered by cloth. How long had Harry been staring at the ground, lost in his thoughts?

Long enough for Lady Granger to finally engage Ron in stilted conversation, Harry noted. Ron looked somewhere between confused, fascinated, and enamoured as she spoke, her hands and expression becoming more animated every time Ron gave her a genuine “What do you mean?” or “Go on, please.”

She sounded extremely intelligent, which Harry could have guessed from the complex magic woven into her weaponry. She was in the middle of a long-winded explanation of the history of snake-and-horse sabotage, or something—Harry felt a desperate urge to pick her brain about her magic, how she used it, how the King used her.

He couldn’t, of course.

Harry looked up when he heard the low murmur of Malfoy’s voice, thanking Molly for her kindness. She brushed it off and gave him a roll of fresh bread, and Harry endured a bit of petty envy as Malfoy gave her a genuine smile in return. Malfoy didn’t smile like that at Harry—of course, what reason would he have to do so? Harry was just some annoying bloke making it difficult for Malfoy to acquire a proper sword.

Harry wondered if he could make a sword good enough to earn a smile like that, then scoffed quietly at himself. What nonsense.

“Thank you, gentlemen.”

Malfoy stood in front of Harry, gaining Ron’s reluctant attention as well. His expression had lost the warmth and gratitude it had for Molly, and returned to its usual carved-marble aloofness. Harry nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Malfoy held out his hand.

Harry stared at it for a second, before taking it and giving it a firm shake. He felt cold, empty, wrong, as he endured the effects of Malfoy’s cuff, but he didn’t let it show on his face. Malfoy seemed to be waiting for one, those clever grey eyes searching his expression as his hand lingered. But Harry kept still, and shook his hand like a normal person, until Malfoy let go and turned to Ron.

Ron looked a little starstruck—from which Knight, Harry couldn’t really tell—and took Malfoy’s hand without hesitation. He, unfortunately, was not able to hide his unpleasant reaction, his brows drawing down and his mouth opening to ask, say something, but unable to find the words for exactly what was wrong in the first place, and not wanting to be a complete arsehole to a Knight’s face.

The corner of Malfoy’s mouth turned down, and he let go quickly. Lady Granger gave her goodbyes, curious eyes lingering on Ron a bit longer than was polite, and before Harry could think of anything to say, they were both gone.

And Molly looked furious.

“Molly—”

“Don’t even start with me, Harry James,” she interrupted, her voice low and dangerous. Ron looked as confused as ever. “You of all people should know better than to bring any of the King’s Knights into my home.”

Harry winced, at his own foolishness, and at the way his heart twinged at the words my home—not our home, though Harry didn’t live here, he wasn’t a part of this family, he knew that. He just forgot, sometimes.

“He’s not—” Harry began, but stopped himself, because he had no idea how to finish that sentence.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Molly snapped, eyes darting to her perplexed son. “I can’t believe I’m grateful it was that Knight, and not any of the other ones,” she continued, lowering her voice even further. “But even then, Harry, you don’t know anything about him, and no matter where his loyalties lie, he’s a danger to us, do you understand?”

Ron was suspiciously silent—Harry had expected him to say something by now, to ask what on earth they were talking about, to ask if there was something odd about that Malfoy bloke, but he kept his mouth shut. His silence filled Harry with dread. It only meant Ron was biding his time, saving his questions for when he knew he’d get real answers.

So Harry nodded at Molly, hanging his head in shame, and apologized, promising it wouldn’t happen again. And she wrapped up some sweet rolls for him and gave him a pat on the cheek and sent him on his way, her brown eyes a familiar, motherly mixture of worried and vexed. Ron went with him, of course he did, because Harry wasn’t getting out of it that easy.

In preparation for what he knew Ron was holding in, Harry steered them away from his house, toward the perimeter walls of the city, where the dwellings were sparse and the listeners few and far between. Most of the livestock was kept out here; Harry felt a little safer around animals, anyway. Animals were very straightforward. Animals didn’t have ulterior motives.

“Alright, mate,” Ron grumbled, “you’ve got some bloody explaining to do.”

Harry shrugged, and decided on the least dishonest cover story. “He’s fit,” he said. “So, I get a bit stupid around him. So what?”

“Bullshit,” Ron growled under his breath. Without warning, he grabbed Harry’s arm and dragged him into a small shed, ignoring his spluttering protests.

“Ron, what—”

Ron let go and closed the door behind them, shrouding them both in darkness. Until Harry saw his hand wave, and a small ball of light grow from the center of Ron’s palm. Harry’s stomach dropped.

“Explain, Harry. Everything.” Ron waved his not-glowing hand at the door; Harry heard the lock click. “And I mean everything—starting with why I can do this. I’m not letting you out of here until you do.” He paused, a flash of sheepishness across his freckled face, before adding, “I’m your best mate, Harry. Just tell me what’s going on. Please.”

Harry swallowed hard. He could tell Ron meant it, by the determined line of his mouth, dimly lit by the ball of magical light in his hand. He hadn’t realized that Ron was aware of his own magic, despite Molly’s intentions, let alone that he knew how to use it.

He took a deep breath. “If you tell Molly I told you anything, I’m telling her you want to go to war for a crush.”

Chapter Text

Draco stared at the door of the dark, silent forge, berating himself for his foolishness.

He shouldn’t be here. He should have gone back to the castle after his patrol. He should have been resting his fractured rib, as the kind baker had suggested. He should have been staying as far away from this troublesome blacksmith as possible. What would the King say?

Well, Draco didn’t know. He didn’t know what sort of history existed between Mr. Potter and the King, though he had a feeling it was… something. Potter may have been in the King’s service—the faint tingle of magic around his swords, before Draco laid a hand on them, made that much obvious—but he wasn’t there by choice.

Like me, Draco thought, before pushing it resolutely away.

Potter had seemed surprised enough to learn about the surveillance on his home, however. Had he thought the King trusted him?

As if the King trusted anybody.

It was too early for anyone to be roaming the streets, too early for even the birds to awaken. The sky was a deep blue-black, the cobbled street quiet enough that Draco could hear nothing but his own careful breaths, his own rushing pulse in his ears, the occasional shift of his boot on the ground. He held himself as still as he could, vigilant. Waiting.

Because now that he knew where Potter lived, it didn’t make any sense that Potter would be returning to his forge from the opposite direction every day, in the wee hours of the morning. And Draco could claim he was suspicious, which was true. If questioned, by anyone other than Potter, he would say he was investigating suspicious activity that could threaten the crown.

He would never admit—especially to Potter—that it was uncharacteristically reckless curiosity that had drawn him back here. Something, or everything about the blacksmith prickled inside his mind, refusing to leave him be.

The heat of the forge, the glow of the metal, the sound of the hammer. The well-muscled arm that wielded it, warm brown skin against cool black leather. The concentrated fury in bright green eyes, full of more life and—and magic—than Draco had ever seen.

“It’s nicer on the inside, believe it or not.”

Draco did not jump. He was startled, that was all, and he shouldn’t have been surprised that Potter could sneak up on him like this.

Potter had full use of his magic, after all.

Draco turned to face him.

Potter’s brows were furrowed in suspicion and confusion, his eyes searching Draco’s face for answers. Draco couldn’t use the excuse of the sword, not at this hour. He hadn’t prepared a single excuse for Potter, he realized. Potter’s mouth twisted in a way that told Draco he could see right through him, and Draco fought to keep his expression blank.

Potter drew in a deep, slow breath, as if bracing himself for bad news, and adjusted the strap of the satchel on his shoulder. Without another word, he turned and walked away. Draco stood there, silent and stoic, ignoring his own inner turmoil as he watched Potter leave.

Potter paused, looked back over his shoulder, and jerked his head, in what could only be interpreted as an invitation.

Draco pressed his lips together, then strode after him without any further hesitation.

They walked in silence, side by side, through the dark, deserted streets. Potter occasionally glanced over at him, but otherwise kept his gaze firmly in front of him, following a path his feet seemed to know innately. Draco’s nerves sharpened by the time they reached the city walls, and he froze as Potter ducked behind a few tall bushes that appeared to conceal a sort of entrance.

He hadn’t been outside of the city in… would the cuff even allow him? Were there wards? Would he immediately go up in flames? Was this some sort of trick? Or test?

Potter’s head reappeared around the bushes, raising an expectant eyebrow. Draco swore under his breath, but followed him into a dark tunnel within the wall.

He kept his hands out in front of him, not wanting to run face-first into Potter or a booby trap or another wall. But soon enough he heard a faint click of a latch opening, and the tunnel was flooded with light as Potter opened a door to the outside. Outside.

Draco breathed it in indulgently the second he stepped out of the tunnel. Potter’s lips quirked in the briefest flicker of a smile, before leading the way once more, across the open fields, in the direction of the Forest.

Draco had come too far to back out, now.

Their silence continued until they reached the forbidding treeline. Draco luxuriated in the scents of fresh grass and damp earth, old wood and latent magic. The air was thick and damp with the hovering night, the same way it was in the woods behind Draco’s childhood home, when his mother would take him out before dawn to gather potion ingredients. Draco couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in nature, like this. He felt wrong, being here without his magic—as if the earth wouldn’t recognize him, anymore. He shivered as he followed Potter into the darkness.

Potter’s feet didn’t make a sound, his steps still following a predetermined, memorized path. Draco felt clumsy, snapping twigs and crushing old leaves and undergrowth beneath his boots; he was a weapon of the city, now, used to flat surfaces and shadowy stone walls. But Potter didn’t seem to mind. In fact, Potter started making noise of his own: low, trilling whistles through his lips, every few steps.

Draco froze again, when Potter’s call was answered by a much lower trill, followed by quiet, unhurried hooves.

The winged horses were massive, with leathery black skin and wings, white, milky eyes, and sharp, beak-like mouths. A shudder ran through Draco’s body at the sight of them, and of Potter, who smiled warmly at them, reaching into his satchel for meat.

“You can see them, then?” Potter asked. Draco hadn’t expected him to speak.

“Yes,” he rasped, his gaze glued to the Thestral eating happily out of Harry’s hand.

“So you’ve seen Death,” Potter said. “You’ve watched someone die.”

“Yes.” Draco swallowed hard. His mouth felt too dry, his throat tight. “A man—a soldier. Of Dumbledore’s Army. He was sent into our camp to scout, I think—and I think…”

Potter looked back at him over his shoulder, brows furrowed slightly in concern.

“He might have been my family,” Draco forced out. He’d never said it aloud. But the quiet pressure of the Forest, the ominous, otherworldly presence of the Thestrals, creatures of Death themselves…

He felt like a boy, transfixed by magic and the mysteries of the universe, wanting to offer his own secrets in return.

“Your family?” Potter probed, gentle and curious. He patted the bony snout of another eager Thestral, but didn’t take his eyes off of Draco.

“Yes… it was my aunt, who killed him. She called him ‘cousin.’” Draco couldn’t suppress the shudder. “It was—horrible. I panicked, I—I ran. I just ran,” he admitted in a whisper, and it was ten times harder now, to admit his cowardice, with years of grueling Knight training under his belt, with years of suppressing every single ounce of himself in order to survive.

“Was that when you were captured?” Potter asked. Draco took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, to remember where he was and who he was with.

“Yes. I ran right into the waiting scouts. They tried to hold me for ransom, which was laughable—they thought they’d capture my father, too, when he came for me. Which he didn’t, of course. But I’d seen too much by then for them to let me go.”

Potter was quiet, turning his attention to the Thestrals, who were now gathering around him, nosing at him, obviously familiar with him. Did he really do this every single day?

“Why are we here, Potter?”

“Harry.” Potter glanced over his shoulder, green eyes unreadable in the dim light. “Call me Harry.”

Draco swallowed. “Harry,” he corrected. “Why are we here?”

“Because you followed me here,” Harry answered simply, like a prat.

“You invited me,” Draco countered, glaring at his back.

“You were waiting for me.” Harry looked over his shoulder again, the hint of a smirk on his lips. “Sir.”

Draco rolled his eyes, wondering how this man could be so infuriating and so disarming at the same damn time.

Harry turned and walked towards him, reaching into his satchel. The Thestrals followed eagerly, making Draco take a cautious step back.

“They won’t hurt you,” Harry said.

“I know that,” Draco snapped. “I’m—I don’t want to make them… uncomfortable.” His hands twitched at his sides, as he took another step back.

Harry raised an eyebrow. Draco tsked at him, pulling his sleeve further down over his cuffed wrist. Harry’s eyes dropped.

“Oh,” he said. “Hm. They don’t seem to mind. Their—their magic is different…” His brows knit in thought for a moment, before he pulled his fist out of the bag and thrust a bloody, meat-filled hand out to Draco. “Come on, you’re already here. May as well give it a go.”

Draco scowled, but took the meat gingerly. He wasn’t sure how to explain that most animals couldn’t stand him, sensing the evil nature of the cuff. He’d worked hard on his relationship with Vega, both of them suspicious, distrustful outcasts among the Knights. He avoided animals as often as he could, and animals of magic—he already made magical people feel horrible, he didn’t want to endure the disappointment if these magnificent creatures were as appalled by him as other magical beings—

The nearest Thestral followed the meat with its nose, approaching Draco without hesitation. Draco held his hand out, watching in disbelief as the creature began devouring the steak. He let out a shocked little laugh, unreasonably overjoyed.

Harry smiled so brightly it could have quickened the impending dawn.

“Death Magic,” Harry said, eyes torn between Draco’s face and his herd of Thestrals, “is different from our own. A separate kind of power, one humans aren’t meant to wield.” His smile was falling slowly into a thoughtful expression, to Draco’s dismay. The Thestral finished eating, nosing at Draco’s empty hand for more.

Draco startled as Harry unexpectedly grabbed his cuffed wrist, dangling limp at Draco’s side. Harry’s expression soured further, his thumb brushing over Draco’s pulse, then over the awful cast iron; rough, dark metal that never warmed, never let him forget who he was, what he had lost. Draco held his breath.

“I hate this thing,” Harry said, lifting Draco’s wrist to examine it. Draco wanted to pull away, embarrassed and ashamed—but no one had touched him like this, knowingly, willingly, in so, so long—

“I’m sorry,” Draco muttered flatly, his face warm. “I lost the privilege of my magic long ago.”

Harry’s eyes snapped up to his, grim with a simmering rage.

“Whoever did this to you should have lost the privilege,” he growled.

“I dare you to say that to His Majesty’s face,” Draco countered blankly.

“How does it come off?”

“It doesn’t,” Draco said, finally pulling his wrist free and cradling it with his other hand, then grimacing—he’d forgotten about all the meat bits and Thestral slobber. He shook his head at himself. “Not unless I want to cut off my hand.”

“Is that what he said?” Harry prodded, and when had he gotten closer? Or was it just the Thestrals closing in around them?

“‘It is the price you must pay, Draco, until Death, unless you wish to sever the hand entirely.’” Draco recited the King’s words verbatim. Harry’s lip curled.

“Sounds like him.”

Draco tried to step back, to give himself space, but Harry simply followed, backing Draco right into the powerful flank of a placid Thestral.

“I—”

“He’s a monster, Draco,” Harry said calmly, as if that wouldn’t get him killed were they a bit closer to the city walls. As if he hadn’t just called a Knight by his first name unprompted. Draco was too shocked to be indignant about it. It was too hard to pretend he was even a real, proper Knight, out here in the otherworldly Forest, surrounded by beautiful beasts of Death and magic, with a mysterious, fearless, magical blacksmith staring him down.

“I’ve known real monsters,” Draco argued, shaking his head. “He doesn’t even come close.”

“I’ve known real monsters, too,” Harry said. His expression wasn’t changing. “Our beloved King is just a bit more subtle.”

“Potter, I’m not interested in whatever bloody coup—”

“Oh, I’m not—” Harry clicked his tongue in annoyance, rolling his eyes. “No, Draco. I’m tired. And you—you shouldn’t have to go to the sodding warfront, and you shouldn’t have this horrid thing on your wrist, and you shouldn’t have had to watch your aunt—Bellatrix, was it?—murder her own…”

Harry trailed off, his eyes widening in realization, mirroring the shocked expression on Draco’s own face.

“I never told you her name,” Draco said slowly.

“She called him ‘cousin’,” Harry mumbled, somehow ignoring him with his eyes still pinning Draco down. “You, Draco Malfoy, your mother, Narcissa Malfoy, née Black, her sisters, Andromeda, fled and disowned, and Bellatrix, married Rodolphus Lestrange, killed thirteen non-magical—not big on killing, she prefers torturing—her cousins are dead—”

“Now, they are,” Draco growled. It sounded like Harry was reciting something painstakingly memorized, his mind far away from their little corner of the Forest. “How the hell do you know this, Harry?”

“Sirius,” Harry croaked. Draco froze. “His name was Sirius. He was…”

Harry rubbed a shaking hand over his face. Draco couldn’t help but stare at him, aghast, his feet rooted to the Forest floor, his back pressed to the Thestral’s flank, his mind digging through old memories, things he’d tried to forget—

“Fuck,” Draco exhaled. “Harry Potter.”

Harry dropped his hand to his side. Draco blinked once, then again, unsure why the image in front of him wasn’t changing, with the full realization that this was the man who had thwarted Tom Riddle as a baby—but he was just a man. A handsome one, a magical one, a talented metalworker. But just a man; Harry looked the same as ever.

“It’s wrong, what was done to us,” Harry said quietly. Even the Thestrals seemed to have stilled, surrounding them like deathly guardians, blocking out everything but the sky.

“I don’t…” Draco shook his head helplessly. He didn’t even know what he was arguing.

“I see you, Draco,” Harry continued, and Draco didn’t argue that, because he could feel it. He felt Harry’s eyes on every inch of his skin and through it, peering into his heart as if Draco hadn’t spent the last several years locking it away. As if it’d been right in front of him, the whole time, out in the open. “I know what he’s like, what he can make you do. I don’t want you to go, I don’t…” he didn’t finish the sentence, his mouth twisting around words he couldn’t or wouldn’t say.

Then Harry was shoved forward by a meddlesome mare, thrown against Draco’s chest. Draco winced and gasped as his rib throbbed, but grabbed Harry’s waist automatically, overwhelmed by the proximity, by the smoke-and-leather smell of him, by those bright eyes, even more vibrant up close, by Harry’s touch, on Draco’s shoulders, fingers gripping the fabric of Draco’s tunic—

“I don’t want you to die,” Harry breathed, the words hitting Draco’s chin in soft puffs of warm air, so bloody warm—Draco hadn’t known how cold he’d been, all these years, but now he worried that the second Harry pulled away, he might start shivering; he might never stop.

“I don’t have a choice,” Draco rasped, gripping Harry’s waist like a lifeline. “I die there, or I die here for disobeying, deserting. Besides, you don’t know—I might even survive—”

“Not if he doesn’t want you to.” Harry’s voice hardened, his hand flattened against Draco’s chest, over his racing heart. “He wants to make an example of you, Draco. He wants to make a spectacle of you. He wants you to die with a beautiful sword, to make your family look even more heartless than they already are. To make himself look benevolent. To make you look devoted.”

“You think you know so much,” Draco mumbled. Harry’s eyes flashed.

“You don’t really think King Albus the First would allow a child like me to be a child, do you?”

Draco swallowed hard.

No. A child who’d survived a Killing Curse—a child whom even Tom Riddle was afraid of, though he’d never admit it…

Such a child was the perfect candidate for a prized weapon. A secret treasure, to hide away and keep a close, watchful eye on.

Harry’s eyes dropped to Draco’s lips. Draco was amazed Harry had been touching him this long, without a single flicker of discomfort on his face. As if touching Draco was worth being cut off from his magic.

Draco dropped his hands to his sides.

Harry reluctantly stepped back, and the Thestrals dispersed. Above them, the sky was lightening into a purple-tinted blue, through the dark, scraggly branches of ancient trees.

Gingerly, Draco pulled off his tunic, wiped his dirty hands with it, then handed it to Harry, who took it with an endearing blush on his confused, conflicted face.

“Clean it,” Draco said flatly, trying not to cover his bare, bandaged chest with his arms. “Please.”

Harry did, with magic so swift and lovely Draco’s mouth watered for wanting it.

The walk back to the city was completely silent.

***

It was probably Harry, saying the words aloud, that had finally driven the truth home for Draco: he was going to die.

Soon.

“He wants you to die with a beautiful sword…”

Draco had thought, after all the work he’d put into surviving, he’d be a bit more upset about the whole thing. But his mind was torn between relief: it would finally be over, and despair: there was so much he would miss out on.

He’d miss out on seeing if Hermione ever did something about her crush on the baker’s son—something that wasn’t freezing him out in terror. He’d miss out on the chance of ever seeing the Thestrals again, ever seeing Harry’s sunrise smile again, ever feeling Harry’s rough hands on him again. And wasn’t that something, that all a man had to do to get on a first name basis with Draco was pronounce his impending doom, the same way a sailor would predict an oncoming storm, and remind him of his mortality.

He tried not to think about his mother. If she’d miss him. If he’d miss out on ever seeing her again, or if her life would go on undeterred. If it had been, this whole time.

Three days after his experience with Harry in the Forest, he skipped a patrol, for the first time in his life. Instead, he sat in the forge and watched Harry work, in companionable silence, the quiet only broken by the harsh, rhythmic clang of the hammer on glowing steel, and the sharp scrape of metal against stone, lighting Harry’s concentrated face with mad little sparks.

Harry looked exhausted.

Harry didn’t ask, and Draco didn’t explain himself, and Hermione didn’t chastise him even once upon his untimely return. Even when the baker’s son—Ron—showed up at the forge unannounced with a lunch for Harry, he didn’t question Draco’s presence. He simply nodded, grim and polite, and moved on, chatting with Harry about mundane things, as if Draco wasn’t even there.

There was a tightness in Draco’s chest, one he didn’t think could be attributed to the healing rib. It squeezed him whenever Harry’s focus honed in on the sword, on the repetitive motions of his work. Whenever Harry stared down at the steel heating beneath the glowing coals, and Draco stared at him, at the way his sweaty face lit up in glimmering red and gold, the way the shadows of firelight fell on the curves of muscle in his arms.

What did it matter if he stared, if he was going to die either way? Why shouldn’t he stare, if this was all he was ever going to get, no matter how hard he’d worked?

He skipped more patrols. He got dirty looks for it from the Knights, but no more than usual. He spent more and more time sitting in the forge, watching Harry work like a fly on the wall, and no one stopped him. Harry didn’t even look surprised to see him anymore. Only… relieved.

Draco sat across from him at a short, scarred wooden bench, with the gorgeous, engraved sword with its hilt freshly attached, and a pile of tools, even an assortment of what looked like—like emeralds, even though the Knights were only ever adorned in red, King Albus’ colour—

“Harry, your hand,” Draco said, frowning at Harry’s dirty, bandaged palm. The cloth bandage was covered in soot and soiled with crimson, covering what must have been a considerable gash. Harry looked up at him in surprise; Draco hadn’t really spoken, since that day in the Forest.

“Ah,” Harry said after a moment, looking down at his own hand. “Nicked myself. Part of the job.”

“Looks like much more than a nick,” Draco muttered. He reached his hand across the table without thinking, then froze, and started to withdraw it.

Harry grabbed his hand before he could pull it back into his lap, meeting Draco’s gaze intently, pushing the sword out of his way.

“It’s a sharp sword,” Harry said, almost smiling, green eyes glittering with something Draco couldn’t read. He splayed both his hands out on the surface of the bench, palm up, his fingertips brushing the thin skin on Draco’s wrist. Draco stared down at them; broad, strong, and scarred, held out on the wood between them like an offering, like they had nothing to hide.

Draco’s fingers skated helplessly over Harry’s hands, tracing the lines of the unbandaged palm, mapping out tiny scars and marks like the constellations he knew from his childhood. The skin was rough and chapped, calloused where the palm met the fingers, and where the fingers gripped the hammer. Draco brushed his fingertips over Harry’s, taking it all in; the whorls of his fingerprints, colours of embedded ash and metal dust bringing contrast to the swirling patterns, charcoal and steel on copper and bronze. Hands that wielded such power, that touched with such tenderness, that shaped metal and magic and potential into beautiful things—beautiful, wonderful, even when created with the sole purpose of violence.

Harry should have been able to heal that wound with magic. Draco didn’t understand why he wouldn’t.

Harry held himself still, letting Draco explore as much as he wanted. Briefly, Draco’s mind flitted through a potion recipe that could be used on a wound like that, something he’d thought he’d forgotten, or forced himself to forget. He slowly slid a hand up Harry’s wrist, surprised at the softness of the warm skin on his forearm, watching the way the muscles and tendons moved and tensed beneath it.

Without warning, Harry trapped Draco’s wandering hand in both of his, and brought it carefully to his face. He held Draco’s hand as if it were something precious, fragile, and the kiss he placed on Draco’s knuckles was just as soft, just as gentle. Draco stopped breathing.

Harry looked up at him through thick, dark lashes, a wayward curl falling into his face, his warm breath fanning over the back of Draco’s hand. Draco’s throat felt too tight, his eyes hot and blurry, his chest squeezing with what felt like all of Harry’s strength.

Why did Harry have to make dying so much harder?

Harry lowered his hand to the table and released him, like one would a butterfly. Draco’s hand clenched into a fist, trying to hold onto the leftover warmth as he drew it back into his lap, retreating into silence. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

He watched Harry carve and embed and polish for what must have been hours, but felt like minutes, before finally forcing himself to get up and make his way to the door. Harry stood as well, and opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. He just watched Draco turn and walk away from him, his gaze burning into the back of Draco’s head.

Draco laid a hand on the door, his sleeve slipping and revealing that horrific cuff on his wrist, making his stomach twist even more, with something like shame, or fear, or guilt; whatever it was, it made him feel like something wretched, awful.

His hand shook, and balled into a white-knuckled fist against the heavy door, trying to make himself open it. Leave. Leave. Die here, die there. Die a coward, die a hero. Even a false one.

“Draco,” Harry said, hushed and hesitant, and Draco cracked, right down the middle. He turned around and marched toward Harry, who watched him approach with wide green eyes and parted lips and those gorgeous hands already reaching out to receive him—

Draco collided with him hard enough to send him stumbling backwards a couple steps and make his own rib throb painfully, but Harry’s face was between his hands and Harry’s arms were around him and Draco leaned in and kissed him like it was the last thing he would ever do.

It was clumsy and rough and perfect. Harry tempered Draco’s urgency, smoothed the barbs of his frenzy, but matched his passion completely—Harry kissed him thoroughly, with his whole being. Draco had never known a person with so much force, but not like violence; like the embrace of a god, a force capable of soothing a storm, of kissing a wildfire quiet. Harry’s fingers dug into Draco’s bruised back, until Harry felt the bandages under the tunic and cursed an apology into Draco’s lips, but Draco only laughed through the pain—a breathy, incredulous giggle he’d never thought he’d hear out of his own mouth. He kissed Harry again, and again, thinking he might never stop now that he’d started, pushing him up against the bench just to hear the little hitch in his breath.

Harry’s hands found Draco’s hair, the bandage on his palm scraping against Draco’s ear, and a small whimper left Draco’s throat. Harry tugged gently, and Draco’s mouth opened for him instantly, the brush of his tongue making him weak in the knees. Draco let his hand slide down Harry’s firm chest, luxuriating in the feel of him, the taste of him, kissing him as deeply as he wanted, his fingers drifting back into the thick, soft curls on the back of Harry’s head.

Draco hadn’t kissed anyone since before his capture, and certainly never like this, like it was of the utmost importance, caught somewhere between giddy and anguished, relieved and hopeless; I’m going to lose you, but at least I have you, right now.

When Harry finally pulled away for air, his lips were shiny and deep pink, his eyes wet and bright with the dying glow of the forge.

“Draco,” he breathed again, rough fingers combing through Draco’s hair. He planted small, soft kisses on Draco’s chin, his cheek, his nose, bringing back that horrible lump in Draco’s throat. “Draco. Don’t go.”

Draco swallowed, resting his forehead against Harry’s. He took a deep breath, trying to compose himself, and probably failing.

“I don’t want Hermione to worry.” It wasn’t a lie. Hermione would be waiting up for him, to make sure he was safe, since he hadn’t shown up for patrol. The only Knight who gave a shit whether he lived or died. His only friend in the world—and it was more of a distant, academic colleagueship than anything. The only one willing to partner with Draco on patrols and drills. And some partner he was being, now. Off snogging the blacksmith, leaving her to work alone—

“I don’t just mean tonight,” Harry said. Draco’s heart clenched; he buried his face in Harry’s neck, to hide whatever expression he was making. Harry kissed his ear, his jawbone, anything he could reach.

Draco waited until he felt he could hold himself upright, then peeled himself off of Harry, and made himself take a step back.

Harry’s expression was open and wanting, fearful, determined. His jaw was tense, his eyes shiny with tears he refused to shed, and Draco was faced with the unavoidable truth that not only had he made dying harder for himself—he’d made it Harry’s burden, too.

Harry was trying not to cry, because he’d just kissed a dying man, opening his heart to an inevitable pain. And Draco had put him in this position, had let his own selfishness rule him, had followed him and sat in his forge, had watched Harry and spent invaluable time with him, when they both knew the time was limited. Because Draco would die, either way, so what did it matter if he stared, if he indulged?

Apparently, it mattered very much, to Harry. Draco had no idea how to make it matter less, make it hurt less.

He straightened his shoulders, rearranged his expression into something hopefully less bloody desperate.

“Send a messenger when the sword is finished,” Draco said, his voice hoarser than he’d hoped. “I thank you for your time.”

Harry blinked, a long, agonizing second of deafening silence as the words hovered in the air between them.

Draco watched with mild horror as Harry straightened his spine, his shoulders, standing perfectly upright, simultaneously bigger and so much smaller than he usually was. His expression smoothed into one of blank, impressionable indifference—no longer Harry, but a lifeless tool to be wielded as needed. He tipped his head down in deference, and Draco hated himself.

“No need, sir,” Harry said, the words flat and emotionless and utterly heartbreaking in their emptiness. He magically summoned a sheath from a rack on the wall, catching it deftly in his fist, and turned around, fitting the sword into it smoothly.

He faced Draco again, and held it out between them. Draco was dumbfounded, shaking his head slightly.

“But—”

“Your sword has been finished for days, sir,” Harry said, colder than the steel itself.

Draco took the sword in both of his hands, staring down at its simple, precise sheath in wonder and despair. The hilt shone with its final polish, tiny emeralds set in an odd, seemingly random pattern gleaming in the dim light of the dying forge. The handle was wrapped in smooth, black leather and coils of tightly-braided silver wire; when Draco wrapped a hand around it, his grip was strong, immovable. And of course, magicless—but perfect, made just for him, with Harry’s talented hands. His thumb brushed over a small, carved lion at the crux—the symbol of the King—but with an emerald for an eye. Subversive, quietly so. Draco’s.

He hadn’t been paying attention to its progress, or really anything about what Harry had been doing—he’d been far too busy watching Harry, his expressions, his arms, his hands, the way his thighs looked straddling a bench or a stool, the way his hair curled tighter with heat and sweat, the way his magic flowed out of him, effortless and devastating. That Harry was gone, now, locked away, deep, deep down inside the man in front of him, the same way Draco had been since he was sixteen.

“I see you,” Harry had said, surrounded by his Thestrals in the Forest.

“You don’t really think King Albus the First would allow a child like me to be a child, do you?”

Draco looked up at him, willing him to come back, to let Draco try again—but what could he possibly say? What did Harry expect him to do? “I don’t want you to go,” he’d said, but he must have understood Draco would die if he stayed, too, if Albus wanted him dead. He was magicless and shackled and despised by so many. Did Harry expect him to sit here in the forge until Death came for him? Or fight his way out—fight the whole bloody city, and the King himself, for the chance to do—what? Run, and keep running, until they inevitably found him and finished the job?

Harry didn’t honestly believe they would ever leave people like him, like Harry, alone, did he?

Harry wouldn’t meet his gaze, dull green eyes trained passively on Draco’s chest, hands clasped behind his back like the soldier he was, had apparently always been.

Perhaps Albus had succeeded in Draco, where he’d failed in Harry: by smothering any scrap of hope, any will Draco might have had to fight, to change his own circumstances. Draco only hoped that wherever it still existed in Harry, it would continue to burn, bright and unrelenting, even after Draco was gone.

Draco stared at him a moment more, taking one long, last look.

“Beautiful,” he said, lifting the hilt slightly in emphasis, but his eyes never left Harry’s face. “Thank you, Harry.”

He turned and walked away without another word, before he could make an even bigger mess.

The air outside was warm, humid and sweet. The clap of the heavy door shutting behind him echoed a bit through the deserted street, the dwellings dark and dozing, and Draco didn’t bother to wonder how late it was. He tried not to wonder about anything, anything at all.

The only thought his mind would produce was the memory of Harry’s face, desperate and wanting and broken, then closed off and blank, cold. The fire, the hammer, the sword. The sword.

Draco’s thumb brushed over the carved lion, the small bumps of the emeralds, back and forth. Traced the paths between them, over and over, as he strode purposefully down the street in the direction of the castle.

He paused when the path of his thumb became familiar.

He stopped next to a lantern by a pub, holding the sword to the light, and sure enough, the pattern of emeralds wasn’t random at all—a long, winding curve, with a small cluster just under the lion’s mouth. A constellation.

The Draco constellation. Draco’s vision blurred as he stared at it, frozen in place in the orange glow of the pub lantern.

A fitting memorial, he thought. His stars, under Albus’ eye, under Harry’s hands.

“It’s finally finished, I see.”

Draco’s whole body tensed, snapping to attention as he turned to face the familiar voice.

The King’s hands were clasped leisurely in front of him, the light from the lantern glimmering on the silken embroideries on his deep red robes; robes he wore for triumphs, Draco knew. The sight of them always made Draco’s blood run cold with fear. His long, silver beard was tied with a delicate gold chain, his blue eyes more threatening than ever in their feigned kindness. He was every inch a man who had already won.

Albus held out his hands for the sword. Draco wanted to run it through him.

But he handed it over, letting the King handle what felt like his own heart made metal. Albus pulled it halfway out of its sheath, examining the detailed, ornamental engraving on the shining blade.

“Brilliant,” he mused, tracing the same path of emeralds Draco just had. “He’s a talented man, isn’t he? Our beloved smith.”

He looked back up at Draco, raising an eyebrow, and in an instant, Draco realized Albus knew everything. Albus had eyes all over this city, and all over Harry, especially. Draco hadn’t thought he could feel any worse, but now he felt ill. Slimy and used and violated, and maybe he should have been feeling this way the whole time, but it was only when he had to feel it on Harry’s behalf, too, that it actually made his skin crawl.

Albus sheathed the sword with a harsh fwip, then held it out to Draco. Draco tried to control his expression as he gripped it once more in his hands, but Albus took the opportunity to grab his cuffed wrist and squeeze.

A strangled sound escaped Draco’s throat, his face twisted as pain shot through him like lightning.

“There’s been a change of plans, Sir Malfoy,” Albus said coolly, his bony, ring-adorned hand locked in a vice-grip on Draco’s wrist, the cuff burning red-hot beneath his palm. Draco’s legs shook as he struggled to keep himself upright, feeling weaker than he’d ever been. “The infantry regiment, set to deploy tomorrow, is in need of a qualified scout or two to ride ahead of them. Yourself and Lady Granger will leave for the warfront, and fulfill your duty. Tonight.”

He turned Draco’s wrist curiously, ignoring Draco’s harsh, laboured breathing. Draco’s eyes squeezed shut in agony as what felt like pure fire surged through him. He hadn’t thought Albus would dirty his hands with killing Draco himself, but he was utterly powerless, his body useless against this excruciating subjugation.

“I have a gift for you, as well,” the King muttered, then in a horrible yanking motion, tore his hand away from Draco’s wrist. The pain subsided immediately, to be replaced by a faint buzzing in his core, growing more and more intense.

Draco panted, trying to catch his breath, and looked down at his wrist: blistering and burned, naked but for his slightly singed sleeve.

The cuff was gone.

“You’ve earned it, young man,” Albus said. Draco’s hands started to shake violently, rattling the buckles of the sheath, but not from pain. “After all, you can’t fight magic without magic.”

Albus turned and walked in the direction of the castle, oozing smugness. Draco was frozen in his shock, his hands sweating in their white knuckled grip on the sword, as his body started heating up too fast, too much, too much, his long-lost magic flooding into him and overwhelming everything in its path, a dam suddenly broken. He was finally free—as free as Harry—and he couldn’t fucking breathe.

“Come along, Draco,” Albus called, while Draco shook and shook, trying to remember how to put one foot in front of the other, sweat dripping down his face. “Victory awaits.”

Chapter Text

Harry woke at his usual time, only because his body refused to let him sleep in anymore. He knew the herd would be alright without him—they took care of themselves just fine, and he really only spent time with them because he adored them, he adored the peace and escape of the Forest. He was completely and totally himself, surrounded by the soothing, otherworldly presence of the Thestrals. And he was pretty sure they loved him, too.

But getting out of bed was the last thing he wanted to do, right now.

He hadn’t gotten more than an hour of sleep. He’d spent the whole night tossing and turning, flitting between rage and hurt and grief and determination too quickly to process any one thought. The past couple weeks had been some of the best of Harry’s life, and he and Draco had hardly spoken—hardly touched. Just existed, in the same room, the same life, wrapped in a shared understanding.

Or at least, Harry had thought it was a shared understanding.

He climbed out of bed, rubbing his eyes and feeling generally sorry for himself. Of course, his first kiss—and what a kiss it was—had to end with Harry making a complete arse of himself.

He gathered the meat and supplies absently, going through the motions in the darkness, locking his home behind him and setting off for the Forest.

He replayed that kiss over and over in his head, wondering if it was the only one he would ever get.

He had to figure out another way to get Draco out, if Draco was that ensnared, if Draco was that determined to let Albus have his way. Granted, Harry didn’t have much of a plan. He had an end goal, which was to get Draco beyond the Forest, and maybe himself while he was at it, since he’d gone and gotten so bloody attached to the stony, sullen, handsome git.

His mind provided the image of Draco’s shocked smile, his breathy laugh of disbelief as a Thestral ate from his hand. His shining, incredulous eyes as Harry kissed his knuckles. The breathless little giggle as Harry fumbled their first kiss and accidentally grabbed his fractured rib in his eagerness.

Harry paused when he got to the wall, taking a deep breath to calm himself. He felt horrible and twitchy and all wrong, but he didn’t want to upset the Thestrals.

When he made it through the tunnel, he had the beginnings of a better plan in his head.

He’d originally hoped to have Draco’s help with such a plan, and his willingness to stay alive, but that was clearly out of the question. He needed to go to the Knights’ quarters, he needed to find Draco; he could probably make it there before the next patrol switch and before sunrise, if he hurried. Harry was kicking himself for just handing off Draco’s sword—he hadn’t even shown him how to use it, its Thestral tail hair core was undetectable through normal means, made with Death magic, not normal magic, it was the only way Harry was able to bypass the cuff—

Eyes, watching. Magic, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. Harry’s body dropped to the ground on pure instinct, just as a jet of bright red, lethal magic sailed over his head from behind.

He swore as he rolled to his feet in the grass, hands out to face his attacker, eyes wide as concealment charms dropped to reveal a child—

“Stop!” Harry yelled, casting a quick shield to deflect the child’s next attack, a curse Harry recognized as something that would definitely put his insides on his outside. The child, no older than eleven, was undeterred, a blurry, quick-moving figure in the dark swathe of open field. Their magic, fierce and precise and violent, lit up the murky grass in flashes of red, green, purple. A familiar combination.

But Harry didn’t have time to ponder it, because it was now obvious this child intended to kill him, as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Harry’s hands were starting to glow yellow and blue with the outpouring of defensive magic, a bit sloppy from years of disuse and nothing but his bare hands to cast with. He hadn’t fought like this, hadn’t needed to fight like this, for his life, since his own childhood. Even then, only when missions went wrong, when his cover was blown.

Had he really been that small?

Harry broke out in a sweat as he lunged and dodged, deflecting the curses he could shield and skirting the ones he couldn’t. They were evenly matched, despite their ages; Harry tried to get closer, to see their face, to talk, but the child fended him off just as hard, determined to remain anonymous, and there was no doubt in Harry’s mind this was another one of King Albus’ secret weapons, circling him in an open field in the dark, when Harry was at his most vulnerable. He ducked and shielded and tried again and again to close the distance, his words drowned out by the impacts of curses and shields.

He still couldn’t find it in him to attack a child with offensive magic. He might have been able to overpower them, but he didn’t want to hurt them—because if they were in the magical force, they were under orders—

A flash and a twist of the child’s wrist, launching a burst of unfamiliar spells toward Harry, he couldn’t tell what they were, didn’t know—

His shield deflected most of them, but something busted through it and hit him square in the shoulder with a sharp sting, knocking him off balance. Another flick and Harry’s legs were yanked out from under him, and he grunted as he was jerked into the air, suspended by his ankles.

He put up another shield anyway, though his arm was shaking terribly from whatever had hit him. The child stepped closer, small hands held up in front of them, holding the magic that kept Harry dangling uselessly upside-down.

The boy didn’t look triumphant; he looked terrified, panting and shaking with physical and magical exertion. Harry saw the reflecting bluish glow of his own shield in wide, brown eyes, half-covered by dark, sweaty hair that had fallen into the boy’s face in the fight.

“It’s alright,” Harry said, trying to catch his breath, his blood rushing to his head. The boy’s brows furrowed, eyes still wide, confused and afraid.

“You’re powerful,” the kid rasped, almost absently, maybe to himself. “He said you would be.”

“Okay,” Harry replied, voice strained. “Let me down, and we can talk about the other things he told you.”

The boy shook his head vigorously. “Have to kill you.”

“You don’t,” Harry said. “You don’t have to do anything he tells you to do—”

“He sent me!” the boy snapped. “He doesn’t trust anyone else to do this. I’m his favourite.”

Harry’s heart hurt, and not just from the blood rush. The boy’s shaking hadn’t subsided, and Harry could only guess, based on his obvious reluctance, the kid had never actually killed before. He had to wonder if Albus had been stupid enough to think Harry wouldn’t take advantage of the hesitation of an inexperienced weapon, or if he was just running low on options. Where were his seasoned killers, his unbeatable magical assassins?

“C’mon,” Harry bit out, head swimming. “You won’t kill me. It’s alright. I can help—”

He was cut off as big, pale arms wrapped around the boy out of nowhere, pinning his arms to his sides, breaking the spell holding Harry aloft. The boy yelped in alarm, kicking and wriggling as he was lifted up; Harry tucked his head in just in time for his shoulders to hit the ground. He rolled and scrambled to his feet again to face yet another attacker—

“Ron?”

“Harry, how the fuck—sorry, kid—” Ron’s voice was more of a growl as he tried to hold the flailing child assassin. “—How do you subdue a magical child?!”

“Ron, drop him!”

Ron did, and Harry cast just as the kid whirled around to attack. Ropes sprung up from the ground and wrapped around the child’s entire body, immobilizing him. He struggled and growled in frustration, falling onto his back.

“I can burn through these, you know!” he spat, and Harry sighed, and Ron bent over with his hands on his knees, catching his breath. The sky was getting lighter. Harry’d have to leave soon if he was going to make it to the Knight’s quarters, but if Albus was out to kill him, and Ron was—

“Why are you here?” Harry asked, turning to Ron, who clicked his tongue in annoyance.

“‘Thank you for saving me from a mysterious wizard child assassin, Ron.’ ‘You’re very welcome, Harry, anything for my dearest friend.’” Ron raised an eyebrow. Harry rolled his eyes at him. He could smell the sharp burning scent of the kid trying to break through his bonds. “I was—coming back from the Knight’s quarters. I saw you leaving, and it’s a weird time to be wandering about, mate, so I followed you, alright? Thank the gods I did, too—”

“Knight’s quarters,” Harry repeated distractedly.

“Yeah, I had a—an appointment.” Ron glanced awkwardly at the squirming kid, whose hands were nearly free of Harry’s ropes. “Didn’t work out, anyway.”

The boy’s hands broke free of his bonds, and he rolled to his knees; Harry lazily cast another set, which made him groan in vexation.

“Uhm.” Harry rubbed his hand over his mouth, trying to catch up, trying to prioritize. “What didn’t work out?”

Ron glanced between Harry and the kid again, probably questioning his priorities. “I was supposed to meet… someone. This someone wasn’t there when I arrived.”

Ron raised his eyebrows again, as if he wasn’t being completely, pitifully obvious. Even the kid looked unimpressed.

“Where were they?” Harry asked. Ron shrugged.

“Beats me. H—someone, and someone’s partner, were gone. Patrol, maybe.”

“Draco skipped his patrol,” Harry said, and Ron gestured wildly to the still unimpressed child. “So Granger probably patrolled alone. She’d have been back by now.”

“They’re not on patrol,” the kid finally spoke up, somewhere between afraid and annoyed. Harry blinked, surprised, then knelt down in front of him, trying to ignore the dread settling in his gut.

“What’s your name?”

“Can’t tell you,” the boy said, shaking his head. Ron scoffed behind him.

“Okay,” Harry replied, because he understood that, at least. “Why does he want you to kill me?”

The boy pressed his lips together, shaking his head again. Harry took a deep breath.

“Right. Where are Sir Malfoy and Lady Granger?”

The boy looked most confused by this. “Deployed. Scouting.”

“What?” Ron cut in, eyes wide. “They weren’t scheduled to leave for another two weeks!”

“You’re sure?” Harry said, though it was more of a squeak. The boy nodded, his hair falling in his face again. “Fuck, fuck—”

Harry stood, feeling frantic. “Scouting—shit—”

“Harry, mate.” Ron grabbed his arm, his face full of alarm. “What—”

“Scouts, scouts don’t live, Ron, Draco’s not supposed to live, Albus wants him dead, I thought I had time—”

“Harry, what?” Ron took a shocked step back. “But—Hermione’s with him—”

“Ron, if he knows they’re gone…” Harry jerked a thumb at the boy, who looked insulted, like he wanted to bite it. Ron’s eyes widened in comprehension.

“There’s more of him?”

“Yes, Ron,” Harry said, before kneeling down in front of the boy again.

“Come on, you—” the boy gritted, struggling against his bonds. “Let me go. I have to kill you. I have to. Just—fight me, you—you’re a coward—”

“Here are your options,” Harry interrupted, because the boy’s lip was quivering and his brown eyes were dangerously wet and it was almost dawn and they were in the middle of a field right outside the city walls. “You can give up this life. You can swear to never hurt another soul, and you can go back with Ron—” Ron made a strangled sound at this, “—and Mrs. Weasley will hide you until we figure out how to get you out of here. She’ll take care of you. You’ll help her in the bakery. Or,” Harry glanced back at Ron apologetically, “you can go back to the King, and lie, and tell him you killed me. You’ll follow his orders for the rest of your days. He’ll be proud that you killed, you know. He’ll send you out to kill more. And when you’re finally caught, or killed, no one will come for you. No one will remember you. And he will not grieve for you.”

The boy’s face crumpled. “I don’t have anyone else.”

“Or so you think,” Harry said. “He didn’t tell me I had a godfather until I tried to run.”

The kid’s head snapped up, eyes wide in disbelief. Harry held his gaze, willing him to understand.

“Choose.” Harry held his hand up, ready to cast the counterspell and free him.

The kid peeked at Ron, over Harry’s shoulder. He looked so damn young. Harry couldn’t believe he himself had ever been that small, that well-trained in the gritty underbelly of war. This child should have been asleep, should have woken to the voice of his mother, should have spent his days learning and playing and laughing with his friends.

He should have been allowed to use his magic, for no one but himself.

“Okay,” the boy finally croaked, hanging his head in defeat. “I won’t hurt anyone. I swear. I swear.”

Harry released the incarceration spell. The boy cradled his wrists to his chest, rubbing the soreness from them, looking up at Harry and Ron warily. Ron’s face was more grim than Harry had ever seen it.

“My mum’s the most fearsome witch you’ll ever meet,” Ron threatened in a low voice. “Don’t try anything.”

The boy nodded, head tipped down in deference and spine unnaturally straight—of course, he didn’t know any other way of recognizing authority. Ron looked suspicious. Harry sighed.

“I need to go,” Harry said, standing. He held out a hand to help the boy up, which he took with some reluctance, but thankfully didn’t try to curse Harry again. Harry turned to face Ron.

“Go on, then,” Ron said, trying to affect some composure, and failing. “You’d better find them, Harry. Find them, and—and—”

“Run,” Harry finished, his voice tight. Ron nodded shortly. “There’s no way we can fight our way out of this city. Ron—”

But Ron only pulled him into a crushing hug. “Fucking hell, this is mad.”

Harry returned the embrace, his face smushed into Ron’s shoulder. “It is,” he said, but the words were muffled against Ron’s tunic.

Ron let him go, beckoning to the boy as he hurried away. The boy only hesitated for a second, glancing between him and Harry, apparently waiting for Harry to shoo him along. Harry’s throat hurt, already missing his friend, overcoming the shock, coming down from the adrenaline rush, only to bounce back into another one.

Draco.

Harry turned away from their retreating backs, facing the treeline of the Forest. He brought his fingers to his mouth, and blew a long, loud whistle.

***

Buzzing. Draco’s body was vibrating. His skin was numb. He was lightheaded and feverish and sweaty, and the rising sun was beating down on him in his armour, reflecting brightly against his eyes. He tried desperately to even his breathing, but his magic, his magic, his magic.

It was everywhere. It was too much. It was a welcome-home embrace that was crushing the life out of him. He missed it, he wanted it, but he couldn’t think, he was going to explode.

Which was certainly part of King Albus’ plan.

Whatever was going to happen to him, Albus wanted it to be magical. And the cuff wouldn’t let anything magical touch him—Draco hadn’t particularly thought about how that meant curses, too, but it made sense. And now he was in the middle of nowhere, riding through the valley to the south, with Hogwarts hours behind him and the warfront days in front of him, and Hermione on her horse, Bathilda, beside him.

“Something’s wrong,” Hermione said quietly, frowning at the trees around them. “This isn’t right.”

“I’m sorry,” Draco rasped. Her face snapped toward him; Draco couldn’t see her, staring straight ahead, but he could feel the weight of her gaze.

“What for?”

“It should just be me,” Draco said. “I thought it was just me he wanted to…”

“Wanted to what, Draco—”

She trailed off as the horses huffed restlessly, pausing in their tracks. She drew her sword, just as hooded figures started appearing from the shadows of the trees, surrounding them both.

Draco placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, but his magic gathered irrepressible and unstable in his shoulder, his arm, his hand; he recoiled as if the hilt had burned him.

“Draco, they’re—”

“Wearing my family’s colours,” Draco finished for her, catching flashes of green and silver among the black hoods. “Those are wands, they’re holding,” he added, though Hermione would have known that. His vision wasn’t steady enough to make out how many there were, but he knew they were outnumbered. Five? Ten? Vega nervously sidestepped beneath him; he tried to soothe her with gentle pats to her neck.

Hermione swung her sword above her head and cast a shield with it, around the two of them.

“Draco, what do you know?” she asked in a low voice, her brown eyes wide and furious, sweeping around them at their interlopers.

“I believe the King wants me dead,” Draco said.

“These aren’t the King’s—”

“Yes, they are.” Draco dismounted his horse, his legs shaking. He could see the attackers moving outside the shield, making quick, vague hand signals to each other, wands held aloft. “Harry said they would be.”

“And how does Harry know—”

“Because he knows Albus,” Draco interrupted again, coming to her side. She dismounted her horse as well, graceful and efficient, sword at the ready. “He was—I think the King used him. As a child. In the war.”

Hermione’s lips pressed together, her face grim. She didn’t take her eyes off the unrecognizable faces outside the shield.

“He was in the magical force, then,” she muttered. “A secret wizard. A child spy.”

“What? How do you—”

“Because he wanted to make me one, too,” she said, not taking her eyes off their attackers. “I didn’t want—he told me I could be a Knight, instead—”

A burst of magic hit the shield, cracking it. Hermione tightened the grip on her sword, her knees bent as she readied herself for a fight. Draco tried to grab his sword again, and hissed with something like pain. Something wasn’t right about it, something was too much—

Another jet of light from an unfriendly wand, and the shield splintered down the middle, bits of glowing blue remnants floating to the ground and dissolving like embers in the dirt. Draco dropped into a fighting stance and raised his fists in front of him, before he remembered that he could use magic now, if he tried.

The shield fell torturously slow, until Draco could make out the colours of the wands aimed at him, oak and birchwood and mahogany. He opened his hands, feeling the hurricane of magic thrashing under his skin, desperate for an outlet after being locked away for so, so long.

“Draco,” Hermione said fiercely. “We will survive this. I refuse to allow this to be what ends us.”

A jet of purple light flew at Draco from his left, and his magic rushed out to meet it, sending it ricocheting back to its caster, who yelped in alarm and leapt out of the way. The surge recoiled in Draco’s own shoulder, throwing him back into Vega’s flank with a heavy grunt. She whinnied in distress and bolted into the trees, with Bathilda hot on her tail.

“Shit,” he breathed, righting himself. He heard Hermione shouting, but the fight had begun for real, and he couldn’t make out her words over the roaring in his ears as his body and his eager magic took over the fighting for him, but something was blocking out the sunlight, diverting the assassins’ attention as their wands aimed up—

“Fucking hell…” Draco shielded his eyes as a massive black shape flew over them, circling lower and lower. The assassins were shouting in alarm, casting curses that bounced uselessly off the creature’s leathery wings. Some didn’t even land—likely because some couldn’t see what it was they were casting at.

The Thestral tucked in its wings and dove, straight for Draco. Draco could only watch, open-mouthed, as the creature landed right next to him, kicking up dirt in its haste. Harry slid gracefully from its back, his hair windswept and gorgeous, his eyes wild and furious.

“Draco,” he said, “use the fucking sword—” he stopped to throw up a shield, but the Thestral circled in front of him, shrieking in fury, extending a wing and batting away the incoming curses like insects.

Draco was speechless, and Hermione was still fighting on his other side, lighting up the trees with flashes of defensive magic. Harry scanned him quickly with his eyes, his gaze pausing on Draco’s bare wrist. He sucked in a quick breath, then reached over to Draco’s hip and pulled the sword out of its sheath himself.

Draco opened his mouth to say something, do something, but Harry gripped the sword in both hands and slashed it through the air with an incendiary shout.

A pulse of heady, lightless magic lashed out like a whip towards the three nearest assassins, whose bodies froze, then toppled to the ground like stone. Harry pivoted, thrusting the sword out as if to block, just as counterattacks came shooting in from the others, deflecting off the shining blade. Draco could barely hold himself upright, his own magic sizzling in his fingertips, desperate to fulfill his intentions.

“Harry—”

Harry didn’t answer, busy fighting and parrying with a sword he had painstakingly crafted with his perfect hands, with shadowy, powerful magic unlike anything Draco had ever seen. He was beautiful, devastatingly so, and Draco wanted everything to stop, to freeze, to let Draco get closer, to let Draco apologize and hold him and tell him how badly he wanted to keep him, he wanted him so much he could barely breathe, he couldn’t stand—

“Harry, I can’t—” Draco stumbled to his knees, his chest tightening ferociously, sparks erupting from his fingertips.

“It’s alright,” Harry urged, swinging the sword with another dark blue shield in its wake, “just hold on, Draco—”

“Harry.” Draco struggled to reach him, grabbing onto his tunic and using it to pull himself to his feet. “I need—I want them to—”

Harry slashed the sword down in a burst of dark, iridescent defensive magic, which brought the sword within reach of Draco’s sweaty, shaking, sparking hands. Draco snatched it out of Harry’s grip; the blade hit the dirt as he struggled to hold its weight while his own magic flooded his arms for the outlet, but he needed this, he needed him, he lifted it to the sky, gritting his teeth against the burning rush—

“Draco, what—” Harry lifted his hands to fend off the attacks on his own, which was not nearly as effective, he couldn’t hold them off for long—

“I want you,” Draco said.

“I want you, too, but—”

“I want them—” the sword shook above Draco’s head, vibrating with power, with his own magic that had been building inside the cage of his body for a decade, “to leave us alone—”

“I know, Draco—”

“—to forget!” Draco cried out as magic shot through his arms, into his weapon, bursting out of the pointed tip of the blade and into the sky in a flash of blinding white light, and then everything went dark.

Chapter Text

When Draco opened his eyes again, he was laying on the ground, cool in the shade of the massive oak trees. His armour had been removed, and his tunic clung to his skin with sweat.

He blinked a few times as the world came into focus, followed by Harry’s handsome face. His ears were ringing, but he saw Harry say something, then beckon to someone nearby, then Hermione’s face came into view, haloed by her loose, curly hair.

“Draco,” she said, relieved, as Draco’s hearing slowly returned. “Thank the bloody fucking gods, you absolute stress nightmare of a person—”

Harry chuckled faintly at her, but his eyes didn’t leave Draco’s face, green and bright like the sun through the thick leaves above them.

“W’happened?” Draco slurred; his mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton.

“You happened,” Harry answered, and Draco rolled his eyes, then squeezed them shut tight through a wave of nausea.

“You performed an—accidental?—mass Obliviate,” Hermione said.

“I—what?”

“Your magic—you knocked out every one of them, Draco. Eleven people. When they got up, they couldn’t remember why they were here, and they didn’t know who we were. They’re gone.”

Draco took a slow, deep breath. He took inventory of his body, flexing his fingers and toes; he no longer felt overloaded and numb with magical vibrations, but he did feel utterly exhausted.

Almost normal.

They helped to slowly pull him into a sitting position, allowing him to take in his surroundings. Harry kept a steadying hand on his shoulder, and Draco never wanted it to leave, so he placed his own hand on top of it, and held it there. When he felt less dizzy, he turned his face to meet Harry’s eyes.

“You put magic in my sword,” Draco said simply. Harry’s lips twitched.

“Yes.”

“But—”

“I told you, in the Forest,” Harry interrupted. “Death Magic works differently. The sword has a core of Thestral tail hair, and was made with some—sacrificial magic. Nothing dire—but it can’t be detected like normal magic, and it can’t be contained by it either.” He squeezed Draco’s shoulder, then took his hand, holding it tight on top of his knee. “I made it strong enough to bypass the cuff. But I didn’t think—I should have considered the possibility that he’d remove it, it’s too much to wield without being accustomed to it, especially if your magic hasn’t—”

Draco shut him up with a kiss. Harry made a soft, surprised sound, but grabbed the back of Draco’s neck and kissed him back, passionately enough to make Draco dizzy all over again. Draco could hardly keep up with his racing thoughts, but the most prominent of them was that Harry had made him a sword that could access Draco’s magic, and he’d added Draco’s constellation to it in precious jewels, and he’d spent days fiddling uselessly with the finished product just to spend more time with Draco. And then he’d chased after Draco on a Thestral and fought for him—

“As touching as this is,” Hermione drawled, making them break apart with shamefully red faces, “I need to…”

Draco turned to her, holding tight to Harry’s hand. “What do you need, ‘Mione?”

Hermione’s mouth twisted. She looked back at the waiting horses and Thestral grazing nearby, then steeled herself.

“I had an… appointment.”

For some reason, this made Harry burst into loud, uninhibited laughter. Draco and Hermione stared at him in shock until he got himself under control.

“Gods,” Harry giggled, “just call it a date, what is the matter with you two…”

“Oh, like you would call the last week of making Draco skip patrols just to gawk at you a date,” she retorted, but there was a tentative smile in her eyes. Draco’s cheeks got even warmer.

“Fair point,” Harry said, rising gracefully to his feet, pulling Draco up with him. “Alright. Let’s go see how Ron’s doing with the child assassin I left him with.”

“What?!”

“He’s fine,” Harry assured them, his smile falling gradually. “But, Draco… we don’t know how far your spell reached, or whom—I can’t…” He stumbled over his words, his brows furrowing in determination. “We can’t stay there, do you understand?”

Draco frowned, trying to find answers in his expression, which was nervous and wary and hopeful and a little hurt all at once, and his lips were shiny and reddened from kissing Draco, and there was a slash on the sleeve of his tunic, over a recently healed wound but stained with blood, and he smelled like smoke and magic and wilderness and Draco couldn’t really think.

“What are you saying?” he asked, trying to concentrate on anything other than how badly he wanted to kiss Harry again. Harry drew in a deep breath through his nose, meeting Draco’s eyes intently. Draco noticed his hand was shaking, where it stubbornly held on to Draco’s.

“I’m asking you to run away with me,” Harry said.

Draco’s first instinct was to argue the preposterousness of such an idea. The inconceivability. But he squashed it before the words could leave his mouth, because Harry looked so vulnerable, as if he was just waiting for Draco to reject him, again, but holding tight to any thread of a chance that he wouldn’t.

And they were already outcast—they were already outside of the city walls. They were out from under Albus’ nose. They were together, too.

“The Weasleys—” Draco tried.

“—Will probably join us as soon as they’re able,” Harry finished for him, glancing at Hermione for confirmation. She nodded shortly. “They’ve been thinking about it for a while.”

Draco felt speared by his gaze. How was this a harder choice to make than following one of Albus’ orders? Why was it so much easier to face his death on the orders of his captor, than to face this unbelievable man and take the wonderful opportunity being offered?

Was this the first time Draco had ever been presented with a choice about his future?

Harry exchanged a look with Hermione, who sighed, sending Harry a mildly threatening glare as she walked away towards the horses.

Harry pulled Draco closer, placing his hands on either side of Draco’s face. His palm was still bandaged, the fabric rough on Draco’s skin. Sacrificial magic, he’d said. Nothing dire. What Draco heard now was, I’ll bleed for you, to keep you safe. He couldn’t believe he’d ever walked away from someone like Harry.

“Draco,” Harry said, meeting his eyes again. “I’m sorry.”

Draco’s hand rose to hold Harry’s wrist. “Whatever for?”

“I never told you, how much I wanted you.” Harry tucked a piece of dirty hair behind Draco’s ear. “I never offered you a way out—I just expected you to want one enough—”

“I did want it,” Draco interrupted hoarsely. “I wanted you, but I didn’t know how—it seemed impossible, they were always going to come after us, and I just wanted you to live, Harry, and to not be hurt by your proximity to me.”

Harry gently stroked Draco’s cheek with his thumb, bringing their foreheads together, clearly unafraid of his nearness to someone with a target on his back. Draco held Harry’s hand to his face, his other hand clutching Harry’s stained tunic.

“We could do this. You and me,” Harry said. He licked his lips and closed his eyes, his dark lashes fanning over his cheek. “We can run, we can get as far away from here as possible. We can go to the seaside, farther than Riddle or the King could ever reach. I don’t care where, Draco, as long as you’re with me.”

Draco’s breath shuddered out of him. “Harry—”

“I’ll be good to you, I’ll be so good to you, I know I’m inexperienced but I’m a quick learner and honestly, I would kill to hear your laugh again,” Harry said in a rush, and Draco couldn’t help but chuckle through the fluttering in his stomach. “Yes, that, Draco, anything, I’ll do anything to be the one that gets to witness your happiness. I want to know you, at your fullest. I want to see who you are when you can just… be you.” He paused, taking a quick, fortifying breath. “I want to love you. All of you. I’m already halfway there.”

Draco swallowed over the painful lump in his throat. “Why me, though?” he asked. “What makes you so sure you could be happy with someone like me? I’m not easy, or nice. You deserve the world, Harry, you deserve someone—good. Someone less… complicated.”

“I deserve someone who knows the importance of freedom,” Harry replied easily. “Someone who won’t shy away from… the whole of me. The hard parts. I’m not nice, either, and I don’t want easy, I want you, Draco, and I should have told you, I should never have let you walk away.”

Draco squeezed his wrist, then slid his arms around Harry’s waist, holding him close. Harry opened his eyes, pulling back a little to see Draco properly.

Draco took in his intense, vibrant eyes, his hopeful expression, feeling his strong hands on either side of Draco’s face, and let himself imagine it, for a moment. Waking up to this face, every day. Running away, starting anew, making a real home for himself, alongside this man, this bright, beautiful soul. It would be hard—they’d be running for a long time, sleeping with one eye open, surviving however they could. Draco had a temper, one he’d had to quell forcefully under Albus’ rule. He could be acerbic and arrogant, dramatic and moody, and a ‘brooding, stone-cold arse,’ sometimes, according to Hermione.

But Harry probably knew that, at least a little, because Draco knew that Harry was stubborn, and a bullheaded brute and occasionally, a reckless idiot when it came to helping people. And he was also unfailingly kind, brave and passionate, and gentle. And Draco could be gentle with him, too.

Draco was already half in love with him, too.

“You really think we could do it?” Draco whispered. Harry smiled.

“We can do anything, Draco.” He sounded so sure, there was no way Draco could disagree.

So Draco embraced him fully, letting Harry’s arms wrap around his neck, nosing at a spot just under Harry’s ear. He tightened his arms around Harry’s waist, breathing in the wonderful, sooty-earthy smell of him, and made his choice.

“Then I’m yours, Harry,” he said. “I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth.”

Harry gasped a little before pulling back with a shocked, elated laugh, and then he was kissing Draco hard enough to knock him back a step. Draco squeezed him tight enough to lift him off his feet, eliciting another joyful laugh against Draco’s lips, and Draco didn’t think he’d ever been happier.

“Boys!” Hermione called, but Draco could hear her smile, her laughter poorly suppressed. “Let’s go!”

Draco reluctantly released Harry, who then handed him his sheathed sword and tugged him over to the horses, still smiling that earth-shattering smile of his, like he’d never known happiness like this, either.

***

Draco’s stomach roiled as the walled city loomed before them, the torches on its high stone walls flickering like beacons in the night. They kept to the shadows, circling the perimeter to the east, where Harry’s secret entrance lay hidden in the wall.

Ron was waiting there for them, with a child at his side, no older than eleven. His face was grim, but when he saw them, he smiled brightly, triumphantly, and something in Draco’s chest settled. Hermione leapt from her horse and ran to him, the most indecorous thing Draco had ever seen from her, and Ron caught her in his arms and spun her around as if they weren’t on the edge of a kingdom that wanted them all dead. The kid looked uncomfortable, but curious, his wary dark eyes darting between the four adults.

“You’ll never believe it,” Ron said, muffled in Hermione’s cloud of hair. He set her down and beamed at them all. “I thought we were goners—the King was waiting for us, to see if Teddy here had fulfilled his task—” the kid made a strangled sound at this, “—I had to grab him and run, and then all these Knights were chasing us, and we were cornered in the marketplace and mum was stuck inside the warded bakery with the others, and I was…”

Ron shook his head, then reached over and squeezed the kid’s—Teddy’s—shoulder. “And then they just… forgot. Walked away, scratching their heads. As if nothing had happened at all.”

Hermione and Harry both turned to stare at Draco, their eyes wide with shock.

“I guess that answers that, then,” Harry mumbled, his full lips spreading in a smile. Hermione knelt down in front of the boy, introducing herself, conjuring a tiny blue, magical flame in the palm of her hand. Teddy looked utterly starstruck. Draco wasn’t sure he believed what he was hearing.

“I reached…?”

“Looks like it,” Hermione said over her shoulder. She stood and took Ron’s hand.

“Reached what?” Ron asked, looking confused.

“Later,” she said, grinning up at him, before turning back to Draco and Harry, who sat waiting on their mounts, anxious. “I think, if you’re going to run… you won’t be followed.” She winked. “Yet.”

Draco huffed a disbelieving laugh. It made Harry smile even wider, brighter than the torches above them, than the magical blue flame that the boy now cradled in his palms.

“You ready?” Harry asked softly. He was holding gently onto the Thestral’s mane, his feet tucked against the joints of its massive wings, lit by distant, flickering fire. He looked like an angel of Death. Like the promise of a sunrise.

“I’m ready if you are,” Draco replied, smiling back at him. Ron tossed Harry a satchel that smelled like fresh bread, and Harry chuckled, nodding gratefully, steering his Thestral towards the Forest.

“Race you home,” Harry said, then nudged the Thestral into a full gallop. Draco laughed, loud and bright, looking back at Hermione. She grinned, giving him a single reassuring nod, tucking herself into Ron’s arm.

Draco returned it, his throat tight with emotion. He then turned Vega toward the Forest and gave her reins full slack, enough to urge her into a gallop, racing across the field toward Harry’s gleeful face, his graceful Thestral. Harry looked back over his shoulder, his curls whipping about his head, his smile bright with mischief and promise.

With the comforting weight of Harry’s sword strapped to his hip, Draco followed that promise, as fast as his faithful horse could carry him.

Chapter Text

Harry swung open the door of their cabin, grumbling under his breath as he shook the snow out of his hair. The room was blissfully warm, well-heated by the large fire in the hearth, and smelled of stewed meat and spices from the massive pot simmering on the grate. He heard the clinking of glass, and looked up to see Draco putting the last of the vials of his home-brewed arthritis potion in the basket by his cauldron, ready to be delivered to the village apothecary in the morning.

He was wrapped in a shawl Harry had knit out of yarn he’d bartered for with a sheep farmer. It was forest green, and rather lumpy; Harry’s first attempt at knitting without Molly there to help him. But Draco wore it almost constantly, at home, threading his fingers through the larger holes when he was deep in thought, or falling asleep with it on his shoulders, in his chair in front of the hearth.

Draco wore winter well.

It was one more thing Harry was adding to the ever-growing list of things he knew about Draco. Like the fact that his silver eyes looked even brighter when he was surrounded by falling snow, and he was a surprisingly excellent hunter and gatherer, and he knew quite a lot about magical construction. And he snored, but only at certain hours of the night, usually around the time Harry had to get up to feed the animals. And he was always so warm—Harry was never cold, lying next to him, even when they’d only had the clothes on their backs and Vega’s saddle blanket as coverings.

Draco looked up at him, wearing a fond, tentative smile, as if he still couldn’t believe this was real. Harry was probably mirroring it, endeared as he was, watching a piece of pearlescent hair fall out of Draco’s short plait, to be swiftly tucked behind his ear. This was Harry’s favourite part of the day: coming home to this man, even though his new forge was only a short walk from their cabin, even though he saw Draco all the time. The coming home.

Draco stood and approached him, grinning at the snow in Harry’s hair as Harry shrugged out of his overcoat and laid it over the back of the chair. He shivered as Harry pulled him in and snuck his freezing hands under Draco’s tunic, craving the warmth of his skin. Harry kept expecting him to complain about it—Draco could complain about just about anything, Harry’d learned—but he never complained about Harry’s touch, no matter how annoying.

Because, as Harry had quickly discovered, Draco loved to be touched. By Harry, especially. Which was perfect, because Harry loved touching him.

Draco kissed him, gentle and sweet, while Harry’s cold hands slid up the soft skin of his back, then slowly back down over the goosebumps he’d caused, fingers teasing under the waistband of Draco’s breeches.

“So, you don’t like winter, I gather?” Draco murmured, softly sarcastic, running his fingers through Harry’s hair, releasing more damp snow.

“No, I don’t like being cold,” Harry answered, a contented smile on his face. “I like winter on you, though.”

“Winter seems to like you well enough,” Draco said, shaking out his wet fingers. Harry laughed, then reached into his pocket, pulling out a small fabric parcel.

“I’ve made you something,” Harry said. Draco clicked his tongue, failing to stifle the fond smile.

“Again?”

“Yes,” Harry laughed. “I get to make as many pretty things as I want, now, don’t I?”

“What will I do now?” Harry asks. “The forge is what I know. Villagers don’t need swords and daggers.”

“No, they don’t,” Draco answers. “They need hinges, and tools, and who knows what else. But it doesn’t matter what anyone else wants from you. You can make whatever you like, just because you like it—you can make beautiful things, just to make beautiful things.” He turns Harry’s hand over in his, tracing the lines of his chapped palm. His cheeks are pink, and he won’t meet Harry’s eyes, as if he’s admitted more than he meant to.

Harry instantly imagines a hundred different beautiful things, delicate things; imagines adorning Draco’s gorgeous body with pretty things, just because he can.

 

Harry held up his hands between them, unfolding the fabric around his latest creation.

A shining silver snake glinted up at them, its body curved in loops over itself. The firelight flickered on intricate engravings, giving the illusion of movement—a bit of subtle magic Harry was rather proud of. A silver pin fit perfectly through the winding loops, in the shape of a small longsword.

“Harry,” Draco breathed. “It’s beautiful.” He took it carefully in his hands; Harry was mesmerized by the way it shimmered against his pale, slender fingers, as he’d known it would. “But—and I know I may sound like an idiot—”

Harry chuckled, taking it back from him before he could finish. He removed the pin, then pulled the lumpy shawl tighter over Draco’s broad shoulders, crossing it over his chest. With the snake held over the fabric, he slid the pin back through it, securing the edges together.

“Oh,” Draco said, delightfully surprised, making something in Harry’s chest squeeze wonderfully.

Harry loved this, loved all the new pieces of Draco he was allowed to see, every day. Loved that Draco encouraged him to bloom, in every way; loved the protective, nurturing side of Draco that had come alive the day they’d left Hogwarts behind, the moment they’d laid down to rest, after running, running, running—how Draco had pulled him close and covered him in kisses, reverent enough to bring Harry to tears.

Harry had nearly lost him, that day, thinking Draco didn’t want him enough to follow him. Until Draco had thrust his sword into the air, and the force of his want had exploded from him, brighter than the sun and powerful enough to fulfill and cement his desire—for peace, for himself, and for Harry. It was intoxicating, being the center of Draco’s attention, the sole object of his devotion. Draco was Harry’s, unabashedly so, and Harry was his, and he loved the way they were discovering each other, and themselves, in this extraordinary life they were creating together.

“I’ll knit you a better shawl, one of these days,” Harry said. Draco snorted.

“You’re too distractible for knitting.”

“Am not. You’re just distracting.” Harry squeezed Draco’s sharp, enticing hipbones, pulling him closer. “It was easier to do with Molly around to keep me on track,” he mumbled, with a self-deprecating chuckle.

“Well, fortunately for you,” Draco said, his tone suspiciously light, “she may be around much sooner than you think.”

Harry pulled back at once. “What?”

Draco magically summoned a piece of parchment from his potions counter, holding it in his fingers like a prize, a triumphant smirk on his face. Harry hadn’t even noticed the bloody owl, dozing on the windowsill. He still wasn’t used to having wild birds around, delivering post between them and the Weasleys, but that one was tiny—

“They’ve managed it,” Draco said.

“What?” Harry repeated. “They’ve—a real Portkey?” Draco nodded, his face alight with victory, as if Harry’s happiness was the real prize. Harry laughed, incredulous and delighted, just as a shocking blue flash lit up their faces through the window.

Harry grabbed Draco’s hand and ran outside, and sure enough, eight redheads and one Hermione Granger were crowded around an old boot—the twins on their backs in the snow, laughing, Ron doubled over, trying not to be sick, Molly and Hermione casually dusting snow off their clothes, relatively unruffled. Ron’s older brothers were looking around curiously, and his younger sister was waving frantically, and his father was patting Ron’s back reassuringly, which was probably not helping with the nausea, and Harry didn’t know what to do with himself.

Draco gave him a gentle push forward, and then Harry was running into the excited, exuberant arms of his family.

“Oh, look at you, Harry!” Molly clucked. “And you, Draco, what a lovely shawl—” she hurried over to enfold Draco in a crushing embrace, to Draco’s surprise and Harry’s amusement. “What a wonderful place you’ve found!”

Harry didn’t bother to correct her that it was a house they had made, something he and Draco had built together, with their hands and their magic. Because the village of Ottery St. Catchpole was indeed a place they had found, a semi-magical town that had welcomed them with open arms, after weeks of exhausting travel.

Draco only laughed, returning her embrace, smiling at Harry over her shoulder. He winked, then pulled away and gestured to their new home.

“It’s better on the inside, believe it or not.”