Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The bed is too soft.

It's wrong, somehow, just like the air is wrong, just like the weight of his own body pressing down against the mattress is wrong. His skin buzzes where the sheets touch him. Every breath is a distraction, air dragging into his lungs too sharp, too much, the rasping sound in his ears unbearable.

Harry lies still, arms stretched out against the duvet, fingers twitching without his permission. They keep twitching, erratic, spastic little jerks that make the pain spike and roll, but he can’t stop. He doesn’t think he wants to.

It would be easier if it hurt more.

Pain, sharp and bright, is something he understands. But this- this isn’t pain. It’s static, it’s a cacophony of feeling he can’t escape, a thousand little things piling up and up and up. His fingers spasm again, and his wrist curls inward like a dead thing. He should care, he should try and force it flat, but his body isn’t his own anymore. It stopped being his when Bellatrix had smiled, all sharp yellow teeth and blood crimson lips, and had spoken, down at the Manor.

"Come now, little boy, let’s see what you’re really made of."

He isn’t really made of anything at all, it turns out.

The pain should have been worse, he thinks, but it wasn’t. Maybe it’s because he’s always known pain, always carried it somewhere beneath his ribs, stitched into his skin. The Cruciatus is a sharper knife, a rougher hand, but pain is pain, and Harry Potter has always been good at enduring. It’s everything else that overwhelms him.

He turns his head, pressing his cheek against the pillow. It’s damp, his own sweat cooling on his skin, and the sensation makes his stomach roll. He should shower, but the thought of peeling his clothes away, of water against his skin, of the roughness of a towel scraping him dry- no. He clenches his fists, fighting the urge to rip the fabric from his body.

The world is too much, and yet he feels nothing at all.

He’s supposed to be a hero. He’s supposed to have won. But lying here, his body wracked with tremors no one will notice, no one will care about- Harry doesn’t feel like he’s won anything.

He stares at the canopy above his bed, eyes tracing the grain of the wood, the dark scars of years past. The dormitory is quiet. Everyone else is celebrating. No one is here. No one is ever here when he needs them.

Maybe that’s a lie.

Maybe they were never there at all.

Eventually, the itch becomes unbearable.

Harry forces himself up, legs trembling as he swings them over the side of the bed. The floor is cold against his feet, and it shocks something back into his spine, enough to propel him forward, towards the showers. His clothes feel wrong, suffocating, pressing against his skin like another kind of torture. He rips them off as soon as the door closes behind him, steps into the shower before the water has even warmed.

It scalds, but he doesn’t move away. The sting is grounding, in a way nothing else is. He scrubs at his skin too hard, red blooming across pale flesh, but it isn’t enough. He drags his nails over his arms, his chest, scratching at every inch of himself as though he can strip away the wrongness layered beneath his skin.

It doesn’t work.

Nothing ever does.

He stands under the spray until his fingers wrinkle, until his knees wobble, until the trembling worsens and he has to brace himself against the wall. The water turns cold, and still, he doesn’t move. It’s only when his head starts to throb that he finally steps out, dripping onto the floor, breath shuddering in his chest.

His wand is waiting for him where he left it. He picks it up, rolling it between his fingers. It feels right. Comforting. Familiar.

But the Elder Wand-

It feels more than right.

It calls to him. A promise of power, of certainty, of control he’s never had. He was going to return it to Dumbledore’s tomb, he knows this, but-

His grip tightens. He lifts it, holds it between his fingers, studies the ancient wood, the history carved into every line.

Then, without a thought, he snaps it.

The crack echoes through the empty bathroom, louder than it should be. Harry stares down at the broken pieces, waiting for something to come. Regret, relief, anything.

Nothing does.

Just another thing shattered, another thing broken, and it doesn’t even matter.

Dumbledore made him a pawn. The war made him a weapon. And in the end, all of it was for nothing. He won, and nothing changed.

Harry exhales, long and slow. He should be angry. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn’t.

It doesn’t matter either way.

Harry walks through the wreckage of the Great Hall, the remnants of celebration pressing against his skin like an ill-fitting coat. The air is thick with the scent of blood and burning, charred wood and sweat, too many voices, too many people, too much of everything pressing in on him at once. The tremors in his hands worsen, his fingertips twitching at his sides, his body barely listening to him anymore.

He sees Ron and Hermione, surrounded by the Weasleys, a bubble of warmth and love that he cannot step into. He should. He wants to. But something stops him, an aching, blooming ache that spreads through his ribs and up his spine, worse than any Cruciatus, worse than anything Bellatrix ever did. It curls around his throat, tightens like an invisible noose. He looks away, and the ache vanishes, like it had never been there at all.

Harry exhales slowly. He keeps walking.

The Hall is filled with clusters of survivors, small groups pressed together, touching, murmuring, grounding each other in a way that makes something ugly rise in his chest. He sees the way some of them glance at him, brief flickers of recognition, of awe, of fear. He sees the way they whisper, the way their heads turn as he passes. He wants to point his wand at them. He wants to finish them off. He wants everyone to disappear.

Then he sees the Malfoys.

They sit together, quiet, untouched. Lucius looks shrunken, defeated, a man stripped of his dignity and power. Narcissa’s spine remains straight, her hand gripping Draco’s tightly. And Draco- Draco looks pale, drawn, his grey eyes wide and exhausted.

Harry doesn’t understand what pulls him towards them, but his feet move without permission, the itch in his skin turning into a slow-burning fire. His fingers brush against the wand in his pocket, the one that doesn’t belong to him.

Draco’s wand.

Harry pulls it free, the weight familiar but not his, and extends it forward.

Draco stares at it, at Harry’s outstretched hand. Fear flickers across his face, wariness, confusion. His fingers tremble as he reaches forward, taking it as if expecting it to burn him. 

"Th-thank you," he stammers.

Harry grins, a sharp, manic thing that stretches too far across his face. 

"Take it."

Draco grips the wand tightly, his knuckles going white. Harry looks him up and down once, his heart skipping a painful beat, something hot and wretched curling in his stomach before he wrenches his gaze away.

His eyes land on Narcissa. 

"You won this war," he whispers, "I owe you. You and Draco will be spared. I can’t promise more."

Narcissa’s breath catches, her carefully composed mask slipping just slightly. She nods, but then her fingers tighten on Draco’s hand. 

"And my husband?" she asks, voice quiet but firm, "Please."

Harry tilts his head, looking at Lucius, the man who once tried to stop Bellatrix, the man who was complicit in so much yet still held himself back. His mind flickers to the word carved into his collarbone- freak - and his stomach twists violently.

He nods once. 

"I’ll think of something," he murmurs, "I can make something up."

The burn spreads higher, curling up his throat, settling beneath his jaw. The ache returns, sickening and hollow, because the Malfoys still have each other. They still have something. And Harry-

Harry has nothing.

His body shakes. His fingers curl into fists at his sides. He doesn’t have a home, he doesn’t have love, he doesn’t have a family. He is nothing.

He turns away, stalking off, his steps unsteady, the tremors worsening.

"Potter."

Draco’s voice stops him. It’s quiet, hesitant. Harry doesn’t turn back.

"Are you- are you alright?" Draco asks. 

His voice is careful, unsure, like he doesn’t quite know why he’s asking.

Harry blinks, confusion flickering through him. He shakes his head slightly, dismissing the question with a shrug. He doesn’t answer.

He walks away, and the tremors consume him.

Harry walks around to where the bodies are covered by shrouds in the Great Hall, once again, a couple of hours later, after searching the entire school for any dead bodies. He has dragged back four already, his fingers numb, the weight of the dead pressing into his muscles, his bones, his soul. His stomach clenches, bile rising to his throat, but he swallows it down. The burn has reached his skull, pressing against it like something alive, something seething. Soon, he knows, it will seep into his brain, and then- then, maybe, he will finally stop feeling altogether.

He doesn’t complain. No one else does.

He pulls the shrouds over the bodies, his hands shaking, his breath uneven. His vision pulses at the edges, the world turning sharp, too bright and too dark all at once. He turns to go.

A voice cuts through the static. 

"Harry!"

Ron.

Harry ignores him, his feet moving forward. He clenches his jaw so tightly it aches, the pressure blooming up through his skull, behind his eyes, his hands twitching at his sides. He wants to use his wand. He wants silence. He wants nothing.

Someone grabs his shoulder. Harry wrenches their hand off violently, spinning, his breath coming out fast and sharp.

Hermione.

She flinches but stands firm, eyes searching his face. 

"Harry, we’re all heading back to the Burrow now."

Ginny rushes forward before he can react, arms wrapping around him, and Harry freezes. It’s too much- too warm, too close, her scent, her weight, her touch- it claws at his skin, makes the burning in his skull explode into something unbearable.

He shoves her off.

Her eyes widen in hurt, confusion. Her lips part like she wants to say something, but he can’t- he can’t breathe, his throat locking up, his mind spiraling in on itself. He’s going non-verbal. He’s on the verge of a breakdown, and he knows it, and he knows no one else sees it, no one else understands, no one ever has.

"Where are you going?" Ron demands as Harry turns away.

Harry hisses through his teeth. 

"Away."

Arthur steps forward, eyes full of something gentle, something patient, something unbearable. 

"Where, Harry?"

Harry grins, sharp and wild, something unhinged stretching across his face. 

"You don’t need to know."

Molly sniffles, grief written into every line of her face, her eyes red-rimmed. 

"Harry, please. Come to the Burrow."

"No." 

Cold. Simple. Final. He turns, every muscle in his body screaming to get away, to disappear.

Ginny’s fingers wrap around his arm, a desperate grip, and Harry’s breath stutters. It feels wrong, burning, a thousand needles piercing his skin, the weight of it unbearable.

"Let go," he says, voice flat.

She doesn’t. 

"Harry, please-"

His body moves before his mind does. He slaps her.

The sound cracks through the Hall like a curse. Ginny stumbles back, her hand flying to her cheek, her eyes wide, startled, disbelieving.

Harry’s chest heaves, air coming too fast, too ragged. The ache burrows into his skull, a firestorm consuming him, and he claws at his wrists, the sting grounding him, something tangible, something real.

"Harry!" Ron’s voice is sharp with fury, "What the HELL-"

"What’s wrong with you?" 

Hermione’s voice is tight, anxious, concerned.

"Leave me alone," Harry snarls.

Ron steps forward, grabbing his arm roughly. 

"You’re not going anywhere until you explain-"

Heat. The scent of smoke.

Ron screams, jerking away, clutching his arm. Red, blistering skin.

Harry stares, his breath steadying. He doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t even feel anything.

"I don’t want to be touched," he says, voice empty.

Hermione’s eyes are wet, pleading. 

"Harry, just- just calm down."

His lips curl, detached, distant. 

"Don’t write to me, Granger."

She flinches.

Harry turns, walking away, knowing all eyes are on him, knowing they don’t understand, knowing they never will. His wand feels solid in his grip, comforting.

He doesn’t know where he’s going.

He just knows he has to leave.

Harry reaches the clearing where he had died, where his body had lain still and waiting for the war to decide whether he was meant to be a martyr or just another corpse. The air feels thick here, damp with something unseen, pressing down on his skin until he wants to peel it off, until the itch turns to burn and the burn turns to fire and the fire turns to nothing at all.

The ache uncoils inside him, slithers up his spine like ivy creeping around a crumbling ruin, burrows into his ribs, gnaws at the marrow. It is a clawed hand, gripping his lungs, squeezing too tight, not enough to suffocate him but enough to remind him he is breathing. It is the sound of a howling wind trapped inside his skull, rattling his bones, scraping at his nerves like nails on stone. It is every Cruciatus curse still lingering in his skin, echoing through him, vibrating like the aftershock of a spell that should have ended long ago.

It is worse than the Cruciatus, worse than death. It is a ghost of every pain he has ever felt, every touch he has recoiled from, every unwanted embrace, every whisper of pity that made his skin crawl. It is the taste of blood in his mouth, metallic and thick, even though he is not bleeding. It is a scream that has been sitting at the base of his throat for years, tangled in barbed wire, too sharp to swallow, too jagged to force out.

It is drowning in ink, thick and black, filling his lungs, turning the world around him slow and slick and suffocating. It is a blade pressed against his ribs, cutting with every breath he takes. It is heat and cold at once, freezing his fingertips while his insides burn, as if the fire inside him is eating him alive. It is a thousand hands pulling him in different directions, stretching him too thin, unravelling him thread by thread, and he wants to be nothing, wants to be dust and silence and the void between stars.

It is too much. It is not enough.

He lets it in. He lets it take him. He gives himself over to it, and for the first time since the war ended, he stops trying to hold himself together. He lets himself come undone, lets the ache consume him, lets it sink into his bones and settle there like it belongs.

And then he screams.

It is a raw, guttural thing, torn from the very centre of him, a sound of something breaking that cannot be put back together. It is everything he has never said, everything he has never allowed himself to feel, everything he has buried beneath the weight of expectation and duty and survival. It is hopelessness, it is rage, it is grief so vast it swallows him whole. It is the sound of someone who has died and come back and does not know what to do with himself anymore.

When the scream finally dies, the ache does not. It settles in him like it has always been there, like it will never leave, and Harry knows, with certainty as sharp as a knife to the heart, that he will never be the same again.

Chapter Text

The summer passed like a fever dream- hot, stifling, suffocating. Time blurred, bent, and broke apart. He existed in between it, inside of it, never fully part of anything. The world kept moving, shifting, rebuilding, while Harry simply was.

Hogwarts stands whole again. The castle is new where it was once broken, fresh stone filling the cracks of history, erasing the scars that should have remained. A perfect replica, as if nothing had ever happened. The world wants to pretend nothing happened. The world wants him to play along. He doesn’t.

He steps onto the train without hesitation, slipping through the crowd like water through clenched fingers. There are hands reaching for him, eager, desperate. Voices call his name. Flashes of light from cameras leave phantoms on the backs of his eyelids.

He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t speak.

They want something from him. They always do. A signature. A handshake. A piece of his story, carved from his bones, bleeding into the pages of their newspapers, their books, their endless, insatiable hunger.

He finds an empty compartment. He seals it away.

Locking charms. Warding spells. Privacy enchantments layered thick like armour. The air hums with magic, presses close like the weight of deep water. No one can enter. Not unless they ask. Not unless he allows it.

He takes a slow breath and watches his hands tremble as he exhales. The potions help. But not enough. They steady the worst of it, keep him functional, but the tremors still creep through, insistent, like a ghost of something long dead and unwilling to be forgotten.

Harry unshrinks his trunk and flips it open. Books spill out- Advanced Defensive Theory, Arithmantic Strategies, Runic Constructs, Potions for the Mind and Body. He stacks them methodically, aligns them with precision, with purpose. He creates order where he can.

He rolls up his sleeves, ink-stained fingers skimming the pages, making lists, cataloging spells, calculating how much time he needs to master them. A study rota forms in his mind- hours of practice, theory, application. His eighth year is nothing more than a stepping stone. He will finish his N.E.W.T.s, and then he will leave. Disappear. Vanish from England, from the weight of expectation, from the suffocating hands reaching, reaching, reaching-

His jaw clenches. He presses his palm flat against the desk, grounding himself in the pressure, the solidity. The ache in his bones has dulled over the summer, but it is still there, an old wound buried deep. He lets it settle, lets it breathe inside him, lets it remind him that he is still here.

He hears footsteps in the corridor. Voices. Laughter. The world exists outside his compartment, but he does not acknowledge it. He exists here, in this space, in this moment. Alone.

There are hesitant knocks at the door. Someone testing his wards. A murmur of voices. 

A hopeful, “Maybe he’ll sign something-”

He ignores them. He pulls out a quill, dipping it in ink, sketching silent runes into the margins of his notes.

His hands shake. The ink smudges.

He stops.

Exhales.

The train moves, the soft lurch of motion shifting through his spine.

He does not think of Ron. He does not think of Hermione. He does not think of the Weasleys, of their invitations, of their hands on his arms, of the way they tried to pull him back into something warm, something that burned, something that scraped against his skin like sandpaper.

He does not think of Ginny.

He does not think of how her hands had pressed into his wrists, how her voice had cracked, how her eyes had begged.

He does not think of the way he had broken away, the way he had screamed, the way he had burned through their hands like wildfire.

He does not think.

He studies.

He waits for the train to reach its destination.

He waits for the next step in his plan, the next stone on the path, the next move in a game only he knows he’s playing.

Because Hogwarts is not his home.

Because he has no home.

Because he is moving forward, ever forward, towards an end that he cannot yet see.

And that is enough.

Harry is reading an ancient runes extract. The symbols shift under his gaze, familiar yet strange, carving their way into his mind with an ease that startles him. He understands them, almost intuitively now, the lines and strokes falling into place in a way that should take years of study. He traces the ink absently, his fingers ghosting over the parchment, and the darker aspects of the text catch his attention. Warding, protection, curses- no, bindings. Holding something in place, sealing something away. It isn’t cruel, not really. Just... a different kind of understanding. And maybe, just maybe, the dark isn’t so evil after all. Maybe it never was.

Dumbledore would be disappointed. Or maybe he wouldn’t be, and that’s the worst part. Harry exhales sharply through his nose, the itch creeping back under his skin, clawing at his scalp, the edges of his thoughts. It’s always there. Lurking. A creeping, crawling thing that slithers through his mind like ink spilled into water. But he won’t succumb. Not now. Not again. He clenches his fists and shifts his attention elsewhere, rubbing at the hem of his jumper instead.

It’s soft. Too soft. Warm in a way that makes his skin crawl, but he likes it. It’s his, new and untouched by anyone else, and he thinks if he sinks into it just right, he can disappear. Maybe fold himself into the fibers and dissolve, become something else entirely. The skyline drifts through his mind, endless and stretching, and for a moment, he imagines he’s weightless. The thought is fleeting, gone as quickly as it came.

His clothes are his own now. No seams, no tags, nothing that will itch and burn and press into his skin like a brand. He made sure of that. He burned the old ones- the Dursleys’ castoffs, the remnants of a life he refuses to acknowledge. He let them curl into ash and scatter in the wind, replaced by things that fit, that belong to him in a way nothing else ever has. He spent money. His money. And invested. Sleekeazy is his now, the papers signed and sealed, and the formula will improve. He’s already made sure of it, hired new potioneers, let them work and craft and perfect. He should be pleased. Should be smug, maybe. But all he feels is- 

Nothing.

His fingers still against the fabric, the thought settling heavy in his chest. The letters from Gringotts come back to him in flashes, unopened, unseen, kept from him by the man he once trusted beyond reason. His jaw tightens, and he shoves the rune book aside, the pages whispering as they fall shut. He reaches for the healing tome next, tracing the embossed title with a thumb. Auror work no longer interests him. The thought of mindless orders, of being a dog to the Ministry, is unbearable. But healing- it is a fight in its own way. A battle of precision, of instinct and skill and knowing that life is held in the balance of steady hands and quick thinking. He can do that. He can be that.

He looks down at his hands, at the way his fingers twitch with the remnants of tremors that never truly leave. His nails are too long again. He’ll have to cut them tonight, methodical, precise. It will be a task. Something tangible. Something that makes sense when everything else doesn’t.

With a sigh, he pushes the thought aside and turns his attention back to his work. The runes blur at the edges, but he forces himself to focus, to translate, to understand.

There is no other option.

Harry takes another bite of his tuna pasta, chewing slowly, mechanically. The taste spreads across his tongue- salt, the slight tang of mayonnaise, a hint of cracked black pepper. It’s cold now, congealed slightly at the edges, but he doesn’t care. It tastes like sustenance, like effort, like something he made for himself. He doesn’t think about hunger much, not really, but eating feels different now. He’s been experimenting with food, trying to understand what he likes, what feels right in his mouth, what doesn’t make his stomach churn with memory or disgust or something he can’t name.

Pasta is his favourite.

French food is decadent and complex, Mediterranean is bright and fresh, Indian is family. But pasta? Pasta is simple. 

Pasta is his.

The music in his ears plays on loop, Starman humming through the cheap little MP3 player he bought over the summer. He likes this song- doesn’t know why, just does. Something about the way Bowie sings about the stars, about the vastness of it all, about something coming that no one understands. It makes him think of Sirius. Of Remus. Of the way they both burned out too fast, too violently, too suddenly, and left nothing but silence in their wake. Starman isn’t real, but Harry wishes he were, wishes someone would come down from the stars and make sense of all this.

But no one will.

There’s a knock on the compartment door. Harry blinks, pulled from whatever spiral he’d been in, and watches as the door creaks open.

Draco Malfoy stands in the doorway.

Harry tilts his head slightly, pushing the music player down to rest against his chest. He doesn’t turn it off. The music still plays, buzzing against his ribs.

Draco shifts, looking- uncomfortable. Anxious. There are dark circles beneath his eyes, the sharpness of his face accentuated by the weight he’s lost. His hands are fidgeting with his sleeves, tugging at the cuffs, twisting the fabric.

“Can I come in?”

Harry stares for a long moment. No one’s asked him that before. He should say no. But he doesn’t.

He nods once, and Draco steps inside, closing the door behind him.

Draco sits across from him, carefully, as though the seat might vanish beneath him. Harry watches as his pale hands fold together in his lap, the way he taps his thumb against his wrist like he’s counting something only he understands.

“I have something to say.”

Harry raises an eyebrow. 

“Then say it.”

Draco exhales slowly, looking down at his hands. 

“I-” 

He pauses. 

“I wanted to apologise.”

Harry blinks.

“For what?” he asks, though he already knows the answer.

“For everything.” Draco swallows, “For bullying you. For making your life at Hogwarts hell. For treating Granger- Hermione- like filth. For the war. For- everything.” 

His fingers tighten. 

“I know I can’t undo it. I don’t expect you to forgive me. I don’t even expect you to care.”

Harry watches him carefully. Draco looks like he’s waiting for Harry to laugh at him, or hex him, or tell him to get out. But Harry doesn’t feel like doing any of those things. He just feels- blank. Like Draco’s words have landed somewhere deep inside him, somewhere he can’t reach yet.

Draco slowly, hesitantly, extends a hand. 

“I’d like to start over. We can be acquaintances. Strangers. Friends. Whatever you want.”

Harry stares at the hand.

No one has ever asked him what he wanted before.

His own hand shakes as he reaches out, trembling violently, but Draco doesn’t flinch. He takes Harry’s hand and squeezes- firm, but not hard. Not forceful. Just real.

Harry exhales sharply, pulling his hand back, and pushes his half-eaten pasta aside. 

“Do you know much about runes?”

Draco blinks. 

“What?”

“Runes,” Harry repeats, “I’ve been studying them. I’m going to take the Ancient Runes NEWT. I want to go into runic healing.”

Draco just stares at him. 

“You- what?”

Harry frowns. 

“Runic healing,” he says again, slower this time, “It’s fascinating. Runes aren’t just symbols, they hold power. They can be used in wards, enchantments, spell enhancements- healing. There’s a whole branch of magic dedicated to it, and no one in Britain even talks about it.”

Draco is still looking at him like he’s grown another head. Harry shifts. 

“What?”

Draco lets out a small laugh, shaking his head. 

“I just- I never would’ve thought you’d be interested in runes.”

Harry scowls. 

“I like runes.”

“I can tell,” Draco murmurs, smiling slightly, “Go on, then. Tell me more.”

Harry studies him for a moment, then nods. 

“Alright. What do you think about the Galdrastafir alphabets? I read this theory that they weren’t originally designed as alphabets at all, but as individual power sigils, each one resonating at different magical frequencies depending on how they’re layered. It makes sense, considering how they work in Norse stave magic, but most scholars don’t want to acknowledge it because it doesn’t fit into their neat little academic boxes-”

He stops, suddenly aware of how much he’s been talking, and glances at Draco.

Draco is watching him with something like amusement. 

“You really like runes.”

Harry glares at him. 

“I said that already.”

Draco shakes his head, still smiling. 

“It’s- nice. You actually sound like you care about something.”

Harry opens his mouth, then closes it. He doesn’t know what to say to that.

Draco leans back slightly, tilting his head. 

“You know, Potter… You don’t have to keep running.”

Harry stiffens.

Draco exhales, his gaze shifting slightly, looking distant. 

“I know what it feels like to want to disappear. To leave everything behind and pretend none of it ever happened. But it doesn’t work. You just end up carrying it with you.” 

He glances back at Harry. 

“So maybe- maybe it’s worth staying. If only to prove to everyone that you get to be something more than what they made you.”

Harry doesn’t know how to respond to that.

Instead, he picks up his book and flips it open. 

“Tell me what you think about bind runes in magical stabilisation.”

Draco gives him a long look, then nods. 

“Alright.”

And, just like that, they talk. And for the first time in a long time, Harry feels something almost like peace.

Harry traces his fingers along the margins of the book, feeling the rough indentations where the ink presses against the parchment. Runic healing- blood-bound magic, old magic, something deeper than light or dark. Magic that clings to the bones of the earth, written in lines older than words, humming with something almost alive.

“The sigil for purification needs a stabilising rune, or else it won’t bind properly,” Draco murmurs, tapping the page with a single gloved finger. 

Harry glances at him. He still wears gloves. Silk, expensive, a shield against the world. Harry wonders if Draco’s hands tremble underneath them like Harry’s do now.

“I’ve been thinking about blood magic,” Harry says idly. 

He watches how Draco stiffens, how his breath hitches ever so slightly before his expression smooths out again.

“Have you, now?” Draco asks, tilting his head.

“Mhm. Blood-binding amplifies the rune’s core properties,” Harry says, rubbing the side of his head where the itch crawls again, burrowing, waiting. 

He will not succumb. 

“If the rune is inscribed with intention, if it follows the proper sequences, it should-”

The compartment door slides open with a sharp bang.

Harry flinches violently, breath stuttering, muscles coiling as his hands shake against the pages of his book. He looks up-

And sees Ron and Hermione.

His stomach clenches. His jaw locks. He exhales sharply through his nose, forcing his hands flat against the book as if grounding himself to the words, to the ink, to something that isn’t them.

“What do you want?” he asks, voice sharp, clipped. 

Draco tenses beside him, gaze flickering between them.

Ron is silent, face tight with barely restrained anger, but it is Hermione who speaks first. 

“Why are you sitting here alone?” she demands, completely ignoring Draco’s presence.

Harry blinks. Then sighs. 

“I’m not alone.”

Hermione’s eyes flicker to Draco, and something curls behind them- distrust, unease. Harry feels something cold crawl up his spine. She still sees him as an enemy.

Ron is still glaring, fists clenched at his sides. 

“Ginny wants to see you.”

Harry barely stops himself from rolling his eyes. 

“I don’t wish to see Ginny Weasley.”

Ron’s ears burn red. 

“You didn’t respond to any of our letters,” he grinds out.

“I told you not to write,” Harry says simply, tilting his head slightly, “That sounds like a you problem. Not a me problem.”

Hermione’s voice is quieter now, tight. 

“We don’t know where you’ve been for the past month.”

Harry smiles, all teeth, all wrong. 

“Does it really matter?” he asks softly.

Hermione flinches.

“It does to us,” she whispers, but Harry has already dismissed it.

“If you’re not going to be polite, you can leave,” he says instead, standing, brushing a stray piece of lint from his jumper, focusing on the feeling of it beneath his fingers, grounding, grounding-

Ron’s face twists in fury. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” he explodes, “What- what happened to you?! You’re- you’re-”

Harry forces himself to breathe.

Draco stands, stepping between them slightly. His voice is calm, careful. 

“Leave. He doesn’t want you here.”

Ron scoffs, voice dripping with scorn. 

“And what, you think we’re just gonna leave him with a bloody Death Eater?”

Harry exhales sharply. 

“I pardoned the Malfoys myself,” he says, voice light, detached, like he is discussing the weather. 

Then he tilts his head, smile curling just so. 

“Unless you want to be burnt again, Ron, I suggest you get out of my sight.”

Ron freezes, something flickering behind his eyes- fear, disbelief, betrayal. Hermione looks horrified. But Harry doesn’t care. He doesn’t. He can’t.

He shuts the door in their faces.

Silence.

His hands shake as he sits down, shaking so hard his bones ache, his skin burns. The itch spreads, crawling up his arms, down his back, through his ribs, his lungs, his skull. He curls his hands into fists, pressing them hard against his thighs, rocking slightly, trying to force his breathing back into something even, something controlled-

Draco kneels in front of him.

Harry averts his gaze, staring at the floorboards instead, at the patterns in the wood, counting the lines, one, two, three-

“Are you alright?” Draco asks softly.

Harry swallows. His voice comes out rough. 

“I want to read.”

He reaches for his book, but his hands betray him, shaking so badly the book slips from his fingers, the pages fluttering, his careful order scattered. Harry sucks in a sharp breath, something raw and ugly bubbling up in his throat. The world is off-balance, wrong, wrong, wrong-

He lets out a painful cry, frantically trying to reorder the pages, hands trembling, unable to make them fit again, unable to put things right, unable-

“Harry,” Draco murmurs, voice steady, grounding.

Harry’s breathing hitches, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

“Let me,” Draco says gently.

He reaches forward, carefully, precisely, and reorders the pages exactly as they had been before. Perfect. Neat. Right.

Harry lets out a shuddering breath, staring at the book as if it has wronged him personally.

“Would you like me to read it to you?” Draco asks after a pause.

Harry hesitates. Then nods.

Draco sits beside him, close but not touching, and opens the book. His voice is smooth, careful, each word deliberate, and Harry lets himself press his hands against his thighs again, lets the rhythm of Draco’s voice settle against the sharp edges inside of him, lets himself breathe, lets himself rest, lets himself feel-

For just a moment.

Harry adjusts the Hogwarts crest pin on his tie, watching himself in the small, round mirror he purchased in Diagon Alley. His reflection stares back- orderly, controlled. His hair, tied back into a small ponytail, feels neat, structured, in place. It’s odd, seeing himself like this, as if the chaos has been stripped away from his body, leaving only what he allows to remain. He looks… proper. Smart. Acceptable. Almost like he belongs. Almost.

He flicks the mirror shut and tucks it away, methodically packing his books into his satchel. Every item has a place; each book, each scrap of parchment, each quill must be accounted for. He counts them- once, twice- just to be sure. His breath comes easier when they are in their rightful positions. The weight of the satchel against his shoulder is grounding, solid, something he can hold onto. Something real in a world that often doesn’t feel that way anymore.

Draco, sitting across from him, watches the process unfold with sharp, considering eyes. He’s always watching these days, like he’s trying to figure something out, some puzzle only he can see. When Harry finally finishes, closing the flap with a firm press, Draco speaks.

“Why do you like things in order?”

Harry cocks his head slightly, blinking at the question.

“Because order is one of the few things I can control,” he answers plainly, “So I must keep it so.”

Draco hums, tilting his head in consideration. 

“You were never orderly before.”

Harry exhales slowly, his fingers clenching momentarily in his robes before relaxing. 

“I didn’t know what control was back then.”

A pause. The train rumbles beneath them, a steady, predictable movement. Harry focuses on that, on the feeling of being carried forward, as if it means something.

He closes his satchel properly this time, slinging it over his shoulder. The conversation feels oddly intimate, but he doesn’t mind. He likes when things make sense. He likes that Draco asks questions that require thought, not just mindless chatter.

Draco breaks the silence. 

“I’ve been considering becoming a Curse Breaker. Or an accountant for Gringotts.”

Harry nods, filing the information away. 

“I’m going to be a Runic Healer. But I told you that already.”

Draco gives a small nod of approval. 

“You’ll be taking Runes, then.”

“Obviously.”

Draco’s lips curl slightly in amusement. 

“I will be, too.”

Harry smiles- just a little. A rare thing, fleeting. 

He whispers, almost to himself, “Runes are fascinating.”

Draco raises an eyebrow. 

“Your hyperfixation, I’m guessing?”

Harry’s face lights up slightly as he nods. 

“It is. I’ve also been studying potions, though.”

Draco leans back, crossing one leg over the other. 

“I saw in the Prophet that you bought back Sleekeazy.”

Harry nods, adjusting the strap of his satchel. 

“I can’t rely on my funds forever. I took initiative. Made investments. Diversified.”

Draco tilts his head, curious. 

“What else have you invested in?”

Harry smirks slightly, a glint of amusement flashing in his eyes. 

“I bought a Quidditch team.”

Draco blinks, processing, before whispering, “You bought a Quidditch team?!”

“The Appleby Arrows,” Harry confirms with a serious nod, “Invested heavily into them.”

Draco lets out an incredulous laugh. 

“That’s completely mad.”

Harry shrugs, smiling faintly. 

“Not that mad. It’s strategic. Investments, control, influence. It’s all connected.”

Draco studies him carefully. 

“You think about control a lot.”

Harry’s smile fades slightly. 

“It’s all I have.”

The train begins to slow, the familiar rhythm of movement fading. Draco glances out the window. 

“We’re here.”

He turns back to Harry, his expression oddly soft. 

“It’s time to go.”

Draco stands first and holds out a hand. Harry hesitates for a fraction of a second before accepting it, letting Draco pull him up. It’s strange- his touch is firm but not forceful. Just… there. Like he understands the importance of measured pressure. It isn’t an intrusion, it isn’t a demand. It’s steady.

Harry steadies himself, glancing at Draco. 

“I wish to talk to you again.”

Draco’s eyes widen slightly, as if surprised. 

“You do?”

Harry nods. 

“You’re a good intellectual.”

Draco blinks. 

“A… good intellectual?”

“And respectful of boundaries.”

Draco stares at him for a long moment, and Harry can see the way his fingers twitch slightly- a telltale sign of anxiety. He isn’t used to compliments. Harry understands that.

Finally, Harry turns, heading toward the train door. Behind him, Draco still stands frozen in place, looking utterly shell-shocked.

Harry frowns, glancing back. 

“Draco, are you coming or not?”

Draco snaps out of it, cheeks dusted a faint pink, grabbing his satchel hastily before rushing after him.

They leave the train together.

Harry walks into the Great Hall with Draco at his side, their steps synchronized in a way that feels strange- too natural, like they’ve been doing this for years instead of just… now. He doesn’t let himself think too much about that. Thinking leads to conclusions, and conclusions lead to expectations, and Harry has spent too long being crushed by the weight of expectations. He isn’t about to start again.

Draco turns to him at the entrance, his grey eyes flickering over Harry’s face like he wants to say something but doesn’t. Harry tilts his head slightly, waiting, but Draco only sighs, gripping the strap of his bag tighter.

“Well, this is where we part, then,” Draco says, his voice careful, like he’s navigating a delicate transaction.

“Mm.” 

Harry glances over the tables, ignoring the Gryffindor one for now.

“I suppose it is.”

For a moment, neither of them moves. Then, with a curt nod, Draco steps away toward the Slytherin table, and Harry makes his way to Gryffindor, his shoulders squared, his fingers curling in the fabric of his robes like it will anchor him.

The Great Hall is different now. Restored, rebuilt, fixed- and yet it doesn’t feel the same. The walls look the same, the floating candles still hang in the air, the tables are polished and shining, and yet- something is missing. Or maybe too much has been added. The ghosts still whisper in the walls, the air still carries the weight of the past, even if no one else seems to feel it.

Harry’s feet carry him toward the middle, where he has always sat, as though guided by some automatic response. He slides into the seat next to Neville, who turns to him with an easy, genuine smile.

“Hey, Harry.”

Harry blinks, takes a beat too long to respond. 

“Hello, Neville.” 

His voice is neutral- not cold, but distant in a way that isn’t new.

Neville doesn’t seem put off. 

“How was your summer?”

Harry considers the question. Considers the easy answer. 

“Good.”

Neville nods, accepting it, though there’s something knowing in his gaze. 

“I helped with the reconstruction.”

Harry taps his fingers once against the table. 

“I gave money towards it.” A pause. “I wasn’t ready to come back.”

Neville hums, understanding. 

“You’ve been busy, according to the Prophet.”

Harry tilts his head slightly. 

“I have.”

His eyes move to the front, to where the Sorting Hat sits, perched comically in Professor Flitwick’s tiny hands. It’s absurd, a visual contradiction, but Harry feels no inclination to laugh.

A sudden flurry of movement. Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Seamus, Dean, and Parvati all sit down, filling the space with noise, presence, expectation.

Parvati and Seamus are already whispering, gossip spilling between them. 

“Most of the Slytherins didn’t come back,” Seamus mutters, “Only Parkinson, Zabini, Goyle, and Malfoy.”

Harry ignores it. He ignores the way Ginny settles next to him, the way her presence presses into his space. He doesn’t react when she greets him.

Ron bristles instantly. 

“Oi, she just said hi to you.”

Harry blinks at him, slow. 

“Hello, Ginny.” 

His voice is flat, devoid of warmth, and he turns back to the Sorting Hat like the conversation has already ended.

Ginny hesitates. 

“Are you okay?”

Harry lets his gaze slide to hers, something unreadable flickering in the green. 

“Why do you care?”

Ginny stiffens. 

“Because I’m your girlfriend-”

“No,” Harry interrupts, “You’re not.”

Ron’s face twists in anger. 

“She cares about you even if you don’t!”

Harry sneers, something sharp and bitter curling his lips. 

“We broke up, Ronald. We never got back together.”

Hermione interjects, her voice strained. 

“You kissed her during the battle.”

Harry laughs, low and humourless. 

“That was a goodbye kiss, and you know why, Hermione.”

Hermione’s face twists, her hands clenching in her lap. 

“I don’t understand why you’re acting like this.”

Ron’s voice rises, snapping through the space between them. 

“Yeah? Well, I don’t get what the hell is wrong with you either. You’re being a right arse-”

“You should apologise,” Hermione says, her voice layered with something that feels like an order, “This isn’t you, Harry-”

The words blur together, overlapping, crashing into each other, accusations and demands pressing against his skull like a dull roar. Harry exhales sharply, his fingers tightening around his wand, and without a word, he flicks it, whispering under his breath-

Langlock.

Silence.

Ron’s mouth opens, but no sound comes out. Hermione’s eyes widen, her lips moving soundlessly.

Harry lets his wand drop back to his lap, exhaling through his nose. 

“I don’t appreciate being told what to do.” 

His voice is calm, indifferent. He turns back to the front, to the Sorting Hat, as if the conversation is finished.

Ginny lets out a choked sound, a sob breaking free from her throat.

Harry doesn’t look. He doesn’t flinch. 

He only says, his voice measured, “You shouldn’t cry over meaningless relationships.”

And then he watches as the sorting begins, letting the words fade into irrelevance, into nothing.

Harry looks at the food as soon as McGonagall finishes her speech. He hasn’t listened, not really, only catching fragments- words about war, about resilience, about moving forward. Empty words, hollow words, drifting in and out like the tide. He feels the weight of a hundred stares pressing against him, but they’re background noise, like the buzz of flies against a windowpane. It’s always like this, their gazes burning, expectant, wanting something from him that he doesn’t have to give. Not anymore.

The food appears on Harry’s plate in a neat arrangement, perfectly ordered, just the way he intends it. Order. Control. A balance of spices and textures, the richness of butter chicken against the sharp freshness of salad. A methodical thing, food, the way it can be broken apart and eaten in steps. The naan, warm and soft, folds between his fingers, absorbing the sauce. He takes a bite, and for the first time in a long while, he feels the faintest twinge of pleasure. A ghost of something he might have once called contentment, but now only registers as a flicker of warmth behind his ribs.

Neville leans in, watching him. 

“What’s that?”

Harry swallows, licking sauce off his lips. 

“Butter chicken. Aubergine and potato curry. Some lamb rice. Naan. Salad.” 

A pause. 

“Indian food.”

Neville raises his eyebrows. 

“Didn’t know you liked that.”

“Didn’t know I liked anything,” Harry replies, reaching for his water. 

The goblet is cold against his fingers, condensation pooling at the base. 

“When I was building my diet up, I decided to experiment. My grandfather owned a cookbook.” 

He tilts his head. 

“Potter vault.”

Neville nods, considering. 

“Can I try some?”

Harry stares at him. Blinks. Someone asking permission before taking something from him. Strange. He nods and shifts his plate slightly, pushing some of the rice and curry onto Neville’s. Neville takes a bite, and his eyes widen. 

“Harry- Harry, that’s really good.”

Harry nods, already back to his food. Neville’s opinion doesn’t matter, not really, but it’s nice to hear someone say something without expectation. Just an observation, a statement of fact. That is good. That is bad. No hidden meaning behind it. No obligation.

Across from him, Hermione and Ron glare. Harry glances up, feigning innocence. 

“What’s wrong?”

Neville clears his throat. 

“Er. You still have them Langlocked.”

Oh. Right. He flicks his wand, nonchalantly lifting the spell. He barely takes another bite before the shouting begins.

“WHAT THE BLOODY HELL, HARRY?” Ron roars, his face as red as his hair, “YOU’RE JUST- YOU’RE JUST- DOING ALL THIS WEIRD- AND THEN MALFOY- MALFOY-”

“Harry, you’ve been ignoring us,” Hermione cuts in, her voice shaking, “You didn’t write back, you won’t talk to us, and now you’re spending time with Malfoy? What’s wrong with you?!”

Harry hums, spearing a piece of aubergine. 

“Nothing.”

“You’re lying.”

He shrugs.

Hermione’s hands curl into fists. 

“You used to hate him.”

“I used to believe a lot of things.”

Ron sneers. 

“What, and now you suddenly think he’s good?”

“Don’t care if he’s good,” Harry says, chewing, “Just know he’s useful. Unlike you, he respected my boundaries today.”

Ron’s ears go pink. 

“So what, we don’t just roll over and do whatever you want and suddenly Malfoy’s your best mate?”

“No,” Harry says, dabbing at his lips with a napkin, “But you insulted me. You tried to push me down. You tried to control me. Draco did none of that. You did all three.”

Hermione leans forward, pleading now. 

“Harry, we’re just worried about you. You- you’ve changed, and we don’t know what’s going on. And now you’re defending Malfoy-”

Harry cocks his head. 

“And it’s because of his wand that Voldemort is no longer in our world, so I suggest you keep quiet.”

Ginny, silent until now, shifts beside him. 

“Why are you defending a Death Eater?”

Harry exhales sharply through his nose, patience thinning. 

“Ex-Death Eater. Who, by the way, only joined because if he didn’t, his mother would be killed. Also was brainwashed as a kid. Doesn’t excuse what he did, but I’ve gone through far worse at his family’s hand than any of you have, in case I need to mention Bellatrix Lestrange. So why do you care?”

Ron’s hands slam onto the table. 

“He’s still a Death Eater.”

Harry sighs. Puts his fork down. Takes out his wand.

Ron stiffens, staring at him as though seeing him for the first time. 

“Harry,” he says, voice thick with betrayal, “You- you’d pull your wand on me over him?”

“He actually respected me today,” Harry says, his voice eerily calm, “He didn’t insult me, he didn’t try to hurt me, and he didn’t push me down. Unlike you.”

Ron’s mouth opens, but Harry keeps going. 

“He apologized for what he did. I forgave him. He saved my life. He may not deserve forgiveness, but he deserves a second chance. I will give him that second chance, simply because he is an intellectual, and our society is lacking in intelligence.” 

He tilts his head. 

“He was pardoned. After people heard his story. You may not like him, but he made a good second impression on me, and I will not have his name ruined for something that is clearly in the past.”

His voice drops lower, colder. 

“And before you mention blood feuds, I don’t care about them. I care about people treating each other with respect.”

A heavy silence blankets the table. Then-

“I agree with Harry,” Neville says, his voice steady.

Parvati nods. 

“He has a point.”

Seamus exhales sharply. 

“I don’t like it, but… yeah. Fair.”

Dean, quiet all evening, finally speaks. 

“I was in Malfoy Manor,” he says softly, “Longer than you were, Ron. He made sure Luna and I were fed. Made sure we weren’t killed needlessly before we escaped.”

Ron snarls. 

“You’re all mad.”

Harry just stares at him, bored. 

“And you’re predictable.”

Ron pushes back from the table, shaking with fury. 

“You’re a traitor.”

Neville rests a firm hand on Harry’s wrist. 

“Ignore him.”

Harry does. He turns back to his plate, and suddenly, he’s starving.

The feast ends. Words spill from McGonagall’s mouth like water, rippling and pooling in places Harry cannot be bothered to reach. Follow me. Eighth-year common room. New rules. No one below sixth year. Curfew at midnight. Respect the younger students. No fights.

No fights.

Harry listens, because he was trained to listen, because he was built for listening, but nothing inside him reacts. He catalogues information like a collector of rare insects, pinning each rule to a corkboard inside his mind with the same detached curiosity. No sixth years. Midnight curfew. Be respectful. No fights. The words sit neatly, pressed flat and sterile. They do not mean anything.

He walks alone. He always walks alone. People watch him, but people always watch him. Draco does not walk alone. Draco walks with Zabini and Goyle and Parkinson. Parkinson’s sharp voice flickers through the air, something cruel in the way she gestures, the way her lips move, and Harry could listen- should listen- but he doesn’t. They all move like pieces on a chessboard he stopped caring about. McGonagall leads them up staircases and through corridors, and Harry’s fingers brush the banisters. Wood under his touch. Solid. Cold.

Inside the eighth-year common room, the air feels thick, warm, lived-in in a way that most of the castle isn’t. Firelight glows against old tapestries. The furniture is a mix of old and new, salvaged, stolen, restored. The chairs are deep and heavy, the walls lined with bookshelves, and the windows stretch wide, offering an endless sky Harry could fall into if he let himself. It’s tolerable. It’s better than he expected.

McGonagall reads out the dorm assignments. Harry stands still, hands clasped loosely behind his back, counting the heartbeats between each name. His name, eventually. His name with another name. Draco Malfoy.

Something inside him stirs, but he pushes it down.

McGonagall says something about getting rest. Tomorrow, timetables. Tomorrow, a new structure. Tomorrow, a plan. Harry looks at her and wonders how many times she has said the same thing to different students across the years, how many times she has stood in this castle and watched children try to stitch themselves back together. She leaves. The room hums with quiet conversations, shifting bodies.

Harry walks up to Draco, tilts his head just slightly, voice smooth. 

“Hello, Draco.”

Draco startles. Parkinson sneers before he can respond. 

“What is the Gryffindor Golden Boy doing here?”

Harry looks at her. Up, then down, then back up again. Calculating. Cold. He leans in, close enough that the air between them shivers. His voice is soft, almost affectionate. 

“Do not call me that again, unless you wish to end up on the wrong side of my wand.”

Parkinson stills. Her breath catches. She goes pale, her throat working around a response that never comes.

Draco exhales sharply and, to Harry’s mild amusement, says, “Ignore her. That was- unnecessary. Sorry.”

Shock flickers across Zabini’s face. Goyle tenses beside him.

Draco Malfoy, apologising to Harry Potter.

Interesting.

Draco clears his throat, shifts on his feet, eyes flicking to the side like he’s bracing for a hit. 

“Should we find our dorm?”

Harry studies him, head tilting the other way now, curious. 

“Yes,” he decides, “I’d like that.”

He turns before Draco can respond, walking away. Draco hesitates- just for a second- before following.

They move through the corridor lined with doors, names etched onto plaques. Not just initials, full names. Harry James Potter. Draco Lucius Malfoy. Harry’s fingers brush the engraving. He pushes the door open.

Inside, the room is vast. Deceptively so. Rich, deep purple walls. Heavy curtains. A sitting area, bookshelves, a desk against the far window. Plush carpets. Two beds, one on either side, with a space between them that is neither too much nor too little.

Draco exhales, low, barely above a whisper. 

“It’s… amazing.”

Harry nods once, setting his satchel down on his bed. 

“We have bathrooms to ourselves.”

Draco hums, still taking in the space, fingers skimming the back of one of the chairs like he isn’t sure he’s allowed to touch. 

“That’s- good.”

Harry watches him. Watches the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands twitch, the way his breathing is just slightly too controlled. Anxious. He files it away.

“I’m going to sleep,” Harry says finally.

Draco nods, stepping back, eyes flicking towards the door. 

“I’ll be in the common room. With the others. If you… need anything.”

Harry nods, but he won’t. Draco leaves.

Alone now, Harry moves through routine without thinking. Shoes off. Robes folded. Shirt unbuttoned just enough. He opens his trunk, fingers brushing against soft fabric, pulling out his weighted blanket- the blue one, his favorite. He lets it settle over him, pressing down, grounding.

Then, carefully, he reaches into his trunk again. Pulls out the dragon plushie. Small. Soft. Something he bought for himself because no one else ever had. He holds it against his chest, fingers curling around it, squeezing just slightly.

Something in him aches, but he ignores it.

He tucks himself in, places his wand beside him within easy reach. Breathes in. Breathes out.

Sleep takes him before he even realises it, dragging him under like the tide.

Chapter Text

Harry walks into the Great Hall and the noise is too much, a swell of sound like water rising, filling his ears, pressing against his skull. He walks as if through fog, or maybe not fog, maybe something thicker- ink, tar, something that clings. He finds a corner at the Gryffindor table, but it doesn’t feel like Gryffindor anymore. Just a place to sit. Just a place where the bench is hard against his spine and the table is real beneath his hands. Just a place where no one will touch him. He keeps his head down, his fingers steady as he reaches for a plate.

Food. He needs food. Needs order. Needs something to put into his mouth and chew, something to focus on so he doesn’t have to focus on the noise or the movement or the way people stare, stare, stare-

The platters are full of heavy food. Meats swimming in gravy, eggs slick with oil, toast gleaming with butter. No fruit. No granola. Nothing light. Harry freezes, a cold weight curling at the base of his ribs. He grips the edge of the table, forces his breath to stay even. He won’t panic. He doesn’t panic. But the weight is there, tight, clenching, curling like fingers around his lungs. It’s stupid. It’s just food. It’s just-

He whispers, barely audible. 

“Granola and fruit salad, please.”

The words slip between his teeth like something sacred. The magic hums. A bowl appears in front of him, clean and crisp and safe, and he releases the breath he wasn’t holding. Picks up his spoon. The first bite is steady. Orderly. He chews in exact movements. Feels the texture of granola against his teeth, the softness of fruit, the contrast. Everything controlled. Everything just so. The warmth in his stomach is something like comfort. Something like relief.

It’s quiet for a moment, the rest of the world peeling away as he eats. But it never lasts.

McGonagall is handing out timetables. He watches the process distantly, like it’s happening behind glass. She stops at his spot, the air shifting, and he glances up.

“Mr. Potter, I need to speak with you.”

Harry’s head tilts slightly. He sets his spoon down with precision. 

“What is this about, Professor?”

She studies him, and he wonders what she sees. A boy. A stranger. A puzzle. A problem.

“You requested to take both Ancient Runes and Arithmancy this year, as well as the healing apprenticeship Madame Pomfrey offers.”

He nods, waiting.

“We sent you the preliminary assessments to determine if you could catch up.” 

A pause. A strange, assessing look in her eyes. 

“You scored Os on all of them.”

The words hang, heavy, expectant. People want reactions. He’s learned this. People always want something from him. A smile, a frown, a flicker of surprise. He gives them nothing.

She continues, voice measured. 

“We checked for cheating, naturally. Your work was examined carefully. There was none. Your answers were- practically perfect.”

A flicker of amusement twists in his chest. Perfect. As if anything ever is.

“Then I can take them all?” he asks, voice light. Controlled. Nothing spilling over the edges.

McGonagall hesitates, but only for a moment. 

“Yes, you are cleared to take them all.”

Harry smiles. It feels odd on his face. 

“Brilliant.”

She hands him his timetable, and he scans it. Defence. Charms. Arithmancy. Herbology. Potions. Ancient Runes. Transfiguration. Set times for healing lessons with Pomfrey. Order. Structure. A path, neatly laid out. He likes that. He can follow paths. He can walk forward. He can do what needs to be done.

“You impressed both Professor Babbling and Professor Vector,” McGonagall tells him, “They were quite pleased with your performance.” 

A small pause. Then, softer, like something slipping through the cracks. 

“I’m proud of you, Potter.”

Something old and tired stirs in him. He crushes it before it can rise.

“Thank you, Professor.” 

His voice is polite. Even. A perfect response.

McGonagall nods, gives him a look- soft, searching, unreadable- before turning away, walking down the table to the next student. Harry watches her go. Watches the way she holds herself, the way she smiles at certain students, the way she speaks to them in a way that is different from how she speaks to him.

She smiles at him the way she always has. Something special, something rare. He doesn’t know what to do with it. Doesn’t know what it means.

So he does nothing at all.

He tucks his timetable away, picks up his book, and lets the world fade around him again.

Harry is early to Ancient Runes. He doesn’t mean to be, but he is. It happens sometimes. The hallways feel too full, the spaces between people too thin, the weight of their presence pressing, pressing, pressing against him like layers of suffocating fabric, and he needs to be somewhere quiet before his own skin stops fitting right. So he is here.

The classroom is still and cold, the scent of old parchment curling in the air like incense. He likes the smell. It smells like something forgotten, something waiting. He takes a seat at the front, methodical, movements measured. Pulls out his textbooks, lines them up. A ritual. Order in chaos. The bindings of the books are smooth under his fingertips, and he presses down, down, down against the edges just to feel the shape of something real.

Professor Babbling doesn’t see him at first. She moves about the room, arranging her materials, humming something quiet to herself. Her hair is in a loose bun, wisps of grey escaping in soft, wayward strands. He watches her silently, not expecting her to notice him. He is good at being unnoticed when he wants to be. A shadow at the edge of something greater.

Eventually, she turns, startled to find him there. 

“Potter! You’re early.”

He inclines his head. A slow movement. A non-answer. He waits.

Babbling smiles, shaking her head as she walks toward him. 

“I have a task for you, if you’re willing.”

Harry tilts his head, words rolling over him like water. A task. He nods. 

“What is it?”

She pulls out an old parchment, unrolling it with careful fingers. The runes sprawl across the page, delicate and complex, layers upon layers, twisting into something intricate and deep. A labyrinth of meaning. Something ancient, something true. 

“I want you to solve this,” she says, placing it in front of him, “Just to see where you’re standing. Apart from the test you did.”

Harry stares at it. The lines blur together, not with confusion, but familiarity. They make sense in a way that most things don’t. Like breathing. Like falling.

Three minutes pass. He hands it back.

His fingers tremble slightly, but he doesn’t think she notices. He wonders if he’s made a mistake. He thinks through each step, each thread of meaning, trying to find the place where he might have gone wrong. He prepares for the inevitable disappointment, for the inevitable not-good-enough.

Babbling doesn’t look disappointed.

She looks… shocked.

“You- you actually cracked it?” 

Her voice is hushed, almost reverent. She gapes at him, eyes scanning the parchment, double-checking, triple-checking, waiting for a flaw that isn’t there. Her voice drops lower. 

“Not even Granger could do that.”

Harry blinks. He is unsure how to respond to that. It does not feel real. He folds his hands in his lap, keeping himself small, pressing his nails into his palms. 

“I like runes,” he murmurs, “I want to go into runic healing.” 

The words come before he fully thinks them, slipping out like secrets. 

“It’s barely an aspect of healing that people talk about.”

Babbling exhales, leaning against her desk. 

“Runic healing isn’t for the faint of heart, Potter.”

Harry smiles, slow and sharp, a knife’s edge of a thing. 

“That’s why I want to do it.”

She studies him, something considering in her gaze, before she nods, motioning for him to follow. He does.

The backroom is lined with shelves, thick tomes resting in dusty stillness. The weight of history is heavy here, pressing against his bones. Babbling pulls out several books, flipping through pages with quick, precise movements. She sets them in his arms, one after the other, their spines worn with time.

“I want you to take a different aspect of the course,” she says, voice almost breathless with excitement.

Harry frowns slightly, looking down at the books. 

“Why?”

Babbling grins. 

“Because what you just completed was one of the most infamous questions on the Runes Mastery exam.”

Harry’s mind goes still.

He stares at her. 

“I only picked up runes this summer.”

Babbling’s eyes widen. Her mouth opens and closes before she finally breathes out: 

“Potter, you are a fucking genius.”

Harry blinks. He is unsure what to do with that.

She doesn’t give him time to figure it out. She is already pulling out more books, more materials, talking quickly, animatedly, her hands moving as she explains the intricacies of the work ahead of him. The workload is immense, daunting, but Harry finds he does not care. There is something here, something tangible, something he can sink his hands into and understand. Something without expectation. Without weight.

A feeling stirs in his chest, something unfamiliar, something he is not sure he wants to name.

Hope.

He crushes it before it can take root.

But he cannot deny-

Ancient Runes is about to become his most favourite subject ever.

Babbling is still talking, still shifting through books and scrolls, and Harry watches the way her fingers move, tracing the ink, tracing the paper, tracing meaning. He wonders if people see language the way he sees runes- each stroke, each line, something more than just what it is. Something deeper. A history, a secret, a scar.

He flexes his fingers. He wonders if his own magic will ever feel like this- controlled, directed, purposeful. Not reactive, not wild, not a storm waiting to shatter. Just steady. Real.

“You’re going to have to work harder than anyone,” Babbling warns, but there’s something in her voice, something eager, something that says she already knows he will, “Runic healing isn’t a well-charted field. It’s barely studied. You’ll have to invent as much as you learn.”

Harry nods, quiet. 

“I don’t mind.”

She considers him for a moment, then nods back. 

“Good. Then let’s get started.”

Harry exhales, pressing his hand against the weight of the books in his arms, grounding himself in their presence. He does not trust in much anymore- not in people, not in fate, not in stories told like truths. But this? This is something he can trust.

He lets himself believe, just for a second, that it might be enough.

Harry is already working when the others file in, the movement at the edges of his vision a ripple, a disruption. He doesn’t look up. He doesn’t need to. The weight of their presence shifts the air, the sounds of footsteps cutting into the silence like a series of uneven beats. He adjusts his headphones, twisting them just so, the faint buzz of white noise a shield between him and the world.

The problem in front of him is- off. Not wrong, exactly, but tangled, warped at the edges. He furrows his brow, recalibrating, tracing the sequence backward until he finds the break, the hairline fracture of logic that had sent him off course. He corrects it with a flick of his quill, his fingers smudged faintly with ink.

Someone sits next to him. He doesn’t need to look. Doesn’t need to hear.

“Hello, Draco.”

A pause. A shift. Then, a smile in a voice. 

“How did you know it was me, Harry?”

Harry takes off his headphones, setting them down neatly, parallel to the edge of the parchment. 

“Your footsteps.”

Draco huffs a small laugh. 

“Ah. Because that makes a lot of sense.”

Harry nods, fingers tapping lightly against his page. 

“Different people walk differently. You’re steady. You follow a beat. Like a heartbeat.”

Draco’s expression shifts, something caught between amusement and curiosity. 

“You just compared my footsteps to a heartbeat.”

Harry exhales. 

“Yes, Draco. Do keep up.”

Draco chuckles but gets his books out without argument. There’s something easy about this- this quiet, this rhythm. The sound of parchment shifting, quills scratching. Steady. Draco leans slightly toward him, eyes flicking over his work.

“What are you doing?”

Harry doesn’t look up. 

“I got here early. Babbling gave me one of her puzzles to see where I stood.”

Draco tilts his head. 

“And?”

“I cracked it.” 

Harry flips a page, expression unchanging.

Draco stares. 

“You cracked one of Babbling’s infamous problems?”

Harry nods, finishing his last note before turning to the next section.

Draco exhales, long and slow. 

“I’m not even surprised.” 

He scans Harry’s page, then frowns. 

“Harry, this question doesn’t make sense at all.”

Harry smiles, sharp at the edges. 

“Runic healing isn’t meant to make sense.”

Before Draco can respond, someone drops into the seat behind them with all the grace of a boulder crashing through ice. The sound lances through Harry’s skull like something jagged, sharp and wrong, and he flinches before he can stop himself.

Draco notices.

He turns, tone flat. 

“Granger, try a quieter entrance next time.”

Hermione bristles, expression already sharpening into something defensive. 

“Excuse me?”

Harry looks up briefly, catalogues the glare she’s aiming at Draco, then turns back to his work. Not his problem. Not his concern.

“What are you even doing here, Harry?” Hermione asks, tone edged.

Harry does not sigh, but he feels the shape of one in his ribs. 

“Taking Ancient Runes, like the rest of you.”

Hermione snorts. 

“You weren’t before.”

Harry taps his quill against his page, gaze fixed on the ink. 

“Well, before, I was trying to survive the genocidal maniac that was trying to kill me. Now, I have time to focus on my studies.” 

He tilts his head. 

“So, I decided to take Ancient Runes.”

Hermione folds her arms. 

“You’ve never even opened an Ancient Runes book before.”

Harry smiles, small and empty. 

“On the contrary, I opened one in Grimmauld Place on the fourth of May to find something to do with my time.”

Draco leans in slightly. 

“Harry’s ambitions extend beyond just this class. He’s going into runic healing.”

Hermione blinks. 

“What?”

Harry doesn’t look up. 

“I’m going to be Madam Pomfrey’s assistant.”

Hermione scoffs. 

“What marks did you even get in the preliminary tests, if you even took them?”

Harry doesn’t see the point in answering, but he does anyway. 

“O in Ancient Runes. O in the healing exam. O in Arithmancy, which I’m also taking.”

Hermione’s laugh is sharp, disbelieving. 

“That can’t be true-”

“On the contrary, Granger,” Babbling’s voice cuts through their conversation like a blade, sharp and amused, “You will find that it is true.”

Harry glances up. Babbling is watching them with her arms crossed, an exasperated fondness lurking beneath her words. 

“I know personally,” she continues, “since I was the one who marked Potter’s Ancient Runes exam, where he scored one hundred and twenty percent because he decided to answer some of his own bloody questions and add theories to the ones in the paper. It was the highest anyone has ever gotten, and I immediately made sure to add him to the class.”

Harry looks back down, flipping another page. The number makes no difference to him. Just a number. Just ink on parchment.

Babbling doesn’t stop. 

“I suggest you do not interrupt my student again.” 

She turns back to Harry. 

“Potter, put your bloody headphones back on and concentrate. You’ve already finished the pages I set for today, and I can tell because you’re currently on the first of twenty-three extension questions.”

Harry nods, slipping his headphones back on.

The sound returns to something softer. Fuzzier. Draco taps his foot against the floor, rhythmic, measured. Babbling mutters something about students with too much talent and too little self-preservation, then sighs, running a hand through her hair. 

“You know, Potter, you’re a pain in the arse. But you’ve got potential. Annoying, frustrating, absolute bloody genius potential. Try not to let it go to waste.”

Harry hums in acknowledgment, barely reacting. He is not used to praise. Not used to being called anything other than lucky. But Babbling doesn’t seem interested in luck. She is interested in what he does, what he can do, what he will do. And for the first time in a long time, something unfamiliar stirs in him- something like possibility.

Draco’s foot taps against the floor. Steady. Harry lets the sound settle into his bones, a beat beneath the white noise, beneath the static hum, beneath the nothing at all.

Harry walks into Potions with Draco, the dungeon air clinging damply to his skin, thick with the acrid bite of spilled ingredients and the slow burn of simmering cauldrons. His fingers twitch at his sides. He’s excited, which is strange, because excitement is foreign, something he doesn’t allow himself to feel, but Potions- Potions makes sense now. The world had never made sense, not really, not fully, but now Potions does, at least a little bit. Runic sequencing in brewing had made all the difference. He’s gotten better.

Slughorn sees him immediately, his walrus face splitting into a wide, pleased smile. 

"Harry, m’boy! You’re looking well! How’s business?" 

There’s a joviality to his tone, something crafted, something Harry would have once mistaken for genuine.

Harry steps forward, offering a careful nod, keeping his expression pleasant, even as the falseness of it grates. 

"I’m well, Professor. Business is going as expected. The acquisition went smoothly."

Slughorn chuckles, the sound like treacle pouring too thick from a bottle. 

"Ah, yes! Buying back Sleekeazy! Quite the business move, m’boy, quite the move indeed! But I must say, I never took you for the entrepreneurial sort! What’s next, hmm? Expanding into the apothecary trade?"

Harry tilts his head slightly, filing away the eagerness in Slughorn’s voice. He can use that. 

"I wish to become a runic healer," he says, letting the words fall flat, factual, watching the way Slughorn’s mustache twitches at the bluntness, "But finance and business are interesting. I’ve employed a few of the world’s best potioneers to update Sleekeazy’s formula. We’re also experimenting with Muggle plants."

"Muggle plants?" 

Slughorn’s brows shoot up, intrigue flickering through his features. 

"Now that is fascinating, Harry! You must tell me more! What have you chosen to incorporate?"

"Argan, coconut, rosemary, aloe vera, chamomile, ginseng, lavender, and hibiscus." 

Harry lists them off mechanically, watching Slughorn absorb the information like a sponge. He wonders if the man will attempt to replicate the formulas, if he’ll dig into the patents, try to weasel his way into the profits. It doesn’t matter. The contracts are airtight, and Harry has no intention of being careless.

"Merlin’s beard, what a selection!" Slughorn enthuses, clearly wanting to dig deeper. 

But Harry feels Draco at his side, patient, waiting, always waiting, and something in his chest tightens. He doesn’t want to make Draco wait for him. Slughorn, however, is still talking, still pushing. 

"Tell me, how do you plan to market this? Potion-based or more in line with the modern Muggle cosmetic industries? I dare say witches and wizards alike will be intrigued by such advancements-"

"I’ll tell you everything later, Professor," Harry interjects smoothly, his voice cutting clean through Slughorn’s momentum. 

The man blinks at him, but Harry is already stepping back, already moving toward Draco, away, away, away-

And then, suddenly, he’s falling.

His knees hit the stone with a sharp, dull crack. His palms catch him before his face does, before his skull can crack open like an egg on the edge of a cauldron. There’s laughter.

Laughter.

Harry looks up, and Zacharias Smith is standing there, grinning, and beside him-

Ron.

Ron, laughing. Like it’s funny. Like it’s anything but predictable.

Harry stands, slow and measured, dusting his hands off against his robes. His first instinct is to look toward Slughorn, to see if the man has noticed, if he’s going to say anything. But the professor is deep in conversation with Ernie Macmillan, oblivious. Useless.

Harry grins. It feels wrong on his face, too sharp, a mask too tight. 

"Smith," he says pleasantly. 

Then he raises his wand.

The Bat-Bogey Hex is fast. Efficient. Elegant.

Zacharias shrieks, flailing as the bats burst from his face, wings slapping wildly.

Harry skips- skips- towards Draco, light on his feet, satisfaction humming through him like an electric current. Zacharias is screaming. Ron is yelling. The entire room is shifting with movement, chaos unfolding like ink spilled across parchment.

Draco holds up his hand, barely moving, and Harry slaps his palm against it, quick and quiet. A high five. Barely there, but present.

They watch.

Hermione, across the room, glares at them, unimpressed. She’s speaking, but Harry isn’t listening. He isn’t interested in her opinion, her righteousness, her disapproval. He focuses on Slughorn instead as the professor finally turns, taking in the scene with a raised brow.

"Mr. Smith, to the hospital wing," he says, almost bored, "Now, now, no need to carry on so dramatically. Harry, to your seat. Let’s begin the lesson."

Harry moves, slides into his chair next to Draco as Zacharias stumbles toward the door, still shrieking.

Draco leans in slightly. 

"You could’ve been subtler," he murmurs.

Harry tilts his head. 

"Could’ve. Didn’t want to be."

Draco huffs a quiet laugh, shaking his head. 

"You’re ridiculous."

"And you’re late to that realisation," Harry murmurs back, setting up his cauldron.

Slughorn starts speaking. Harry listens. Sort of. He doesn’t like Slughorn, but Slughorn likes him, and that is what matters. There is always something to be gained, something to be extracted. Harry just has to play it right.

The dungeon hums with quiet movement, the scent of brewing ingredients curling into the cold air. Harry lets the world shrink down to measurements, to precision, to control. He works.

Harry sits under the oak tree, the booklet heavy in his hands, the weight of ink and paper grounding him in a way that nothing else does. The question before him is tangled, an ouroboros eating its own tail, an impossibility of logic that he has to unravel. His mind sinks into it, deep, deep, until it becomes the only thing in the world that matters. He mutters under his breath, fingers twitching as he draws a sequence in the dirt, trying to untangle the threads.

Draco is beside him, flipping pages uselessly, frowning as he tries to make sense of something he was never taught. He doesn’t complain. He never does. He listens, as Harry explains the problem, tracing out the logic in slow, deliberate words, and Draco watches, nods, offers suggestions that don’t quite fit but are still worth considering. It’s the closest thing to peace Harry has known in a long time.

Then the peace is shattered.

Hermione storms toward them, her steps too loud, too sharp. The sky presses down. Harry doesn’t look up, but he can feel the crackling frustration in her magic, the way her presence cuts through his careful concentration. Ron is with her, his footsteps heavy, weighty, as if he wants the world to notice his anger.

“Harry,” Hermione demands, breathless, furious, “why did you hex Smith like that?”

Harry finally looks up, blinking slowly, adjusting to the light beyond the pages. He tilts his head, the words slotting into place in his mind like puzzle pieces that don’t fit. 

“He tripped me,” he says, simply, “So I hexed him. That’s fair.”

Ron scoffs. “You’re pissing me off, mate.”

Harry exhales, the edges of his mind curling inward, like burnt parchment. 

“I fail to see how this is my problem.”

Hermione’s expression twists, something like grief hiding beneath the frustration. Her voice is quieter, but it doesn’t waver. 

“You’ve changed.”

Harry stands. The itch in his bones flares. He clenches his fists, flexes his fingers, breathes. He doesn’t want to be angry. He doesn’t want to feel at all.

“You see, Hermione,” he starts, voice calm, too calm, “that’s the thing when you go on the run for a year. When you get tortured for over thirty minutes by Lestrange. When you bury friends and get betrayed by others. When you find out you are the reason the man who destroyed everything you had is still alive. When you die in a forest, and you come back alive, with one mission.”

His hands burn with something volatile, something too big for his body to hold. He doesn’t let it show. 

“People change, Hermione. And I don’t know what you want me to do about it.”

Hermione takes a sharp breath, but Harry doesn’t stop. He can’t.

“I died. For people who backstabbed me over and over again. Denounced my name when I was at my worst. Used me as a weapon in a war that was never mine.” 

He smiles, thin and humourless. 

“I still died for them, though. And it changed me. For the better. I have control now, with Voldemort gone. I can finally figure out who I am. I can finally be whatever I wish to be.”

Draco shifts beside him, silent, watching. He’s tense, wary. He knows this is spiraling.

“But I needed space,” Harry continues, voice still polite, still empty, “I asked for it. Politely. And I apologised for the last time we saw each other.”

Hermione doesn’t look away. Neither does Ron. Their anger is sharp, bright, real. Harry wonders what it must be like to still feel things like that.

“But you all kept writing me letters,” he says, quieter now, “Didn’t wait for my response. Pushed my boundaries.”

His hands burn again. He doesn’t clench them this time. He just lets the heat settle under his skin.

“Hermione, I put those boundaries up to survive.”

She sniffles, something almost like regret flickering in her eyes. 

“You could have told me.”

Harry exhales sharply, throwing his hands up, the itch clawing at him. 

“I told you via letter, and this happened. If I had known you needed a verbal proclamation, you should have told me.”

Hermione bristles. 

“You have no right to make fun of this.”

Harry tilts his head. His voice is eerily quiet when he responds. 

“I was simply stating the truth.”

The panic creeps in, gnawing at the edges of his ribs. He can’t breathe here. He needs space. He starts collecting his books, his papers, his quill. His hands shake. Draco is already standing, already watching him carefully.

“We can continue this in the common room,” Harry mutters to Draco, tucking the booklet under his arm.

Then, to Hermione, he says, “Granger, you aren’t my best friend anymore. You haven’t been for a while. And while our friendship meant a lot to me, I do not wish to hurt you any longer. And so I must let you go.”

He turns and walks away. Fury rises in him like a storm, unnecessary, uncontainable, senseless. Draco follows, but not before throwing a glance back, his voice sharp as a knife.

“Well done, Granger,” he says, tone flat, “You really messed up. Both of you messed up.”

And then he jogs to catch up, matching his footsteps to Harry’s, steady, rhythmic, like a heartbeat.

Harry's quill stutters against the parchment, ink pooling in a place it shouldn't, seeping into the fibres like veins of blackness, spreading. He doesn't breathe. Doesn't move. Doesn't blink. Just watches the ink stretch, unfurl, corrupt the runes he’s so painstakingly etched out, the sequences disrupted, thrown out of balance. A mistake. A disruption. It ruins everything.

"Harry," Draco says, quiet but edged with something. 

The warning before the storm. The knowledge before the fall.

Harry barely hears him. Barely sees him. There's something crawling beneath his skin, whispering, shouting, writhing. He fumbles with the quill again, fingers tightening, but Draco moves, always watching, always seeing, plucking the quill from his fingers and setting it aside like it’s nothing. It’s everything. Harry needs it back.

“Time for a break,” Draco murmurs, but Harry shakes his head, because no. 

There’s no time for a break. If he stops now, he won’t start again. If he stops now, the silence will be too loud, and the weight of things left unfinished will consume him whole.

“I just need to concentrate,” Harry whispers, voice so soft it barely exists.

Draco doesn’t let go. Doesn’t return the quill. Instead, he exhales, slow and measured. 

“Usually I’d be proud, you know. Usually, I’d say, ‘Look at you, Potter, actually using that tragic excuse of a brain.’ But-” 

He holds up Harry’s hand, and Harry watches the way his fingers tremble, the violent tremors, the way his own body betrays him. 

“But this isn’t you concentrating. This is you unravelling.”

Harry wants to argue. Wants to say that Draco doesn’t understand. But Draco always understands. More than anyone else.

Harry swallows. His voice is a breath of air against the pages. 

“I can’t help it.”

Draco stills. Just a fraction. Just enough. 

“My aunt was the reason that happens, isn’t she?”

Something tightens in Harry’s chest. Something constricts. He doesn’t know what it is. Maybe grief. Maybe anger. Maybe nothing at all. He looks up at Draco, ready to snap, ready to shut it all down before the conversation can begin- but Draco has tears in his eyes, and Harry- Harry doesn’t know what to do with that.

He nods.

Draco’s breath hitches, and Harry isn’t sure if it’s anger or sorrow or something else entirely. Maybe all of it. Maybe none of it.

“Bellatrix,” he says, voice hollow, “wanted to teach me how a Cruciatus Curse was properly done.”

Draco’s hand tightens around his own. A silent fury, shaking. 

“Aunt Bella was always good at lessons.”

Harry lets out a breath. 

“Did she ever tell you the story? Of the first time I tried to Cruciate her?”

Draco’s lips part, slow, eyes wide. He shakes his head as he lets Harry’s hand drop. 

“No.”

Harry hums, barely a sound, barely real. He is sinking again, the memories dragging him under. Drowning beneath them like Poseidon wanted Odysseus to. 

“It was the Department of Mysteries. Sirius had just-” 

He doesn’t finish that sentence. He never finishes that sentence. 

“I chased her. Through the Ministry, up to the Atrium. I was blind with grief. Blinded by it. I screamed the curse for all to hear. It hit her, but it didn’t work. She laughed. Told me I had to mean it.”

Draco shudders.

“I meant it,” Harry continues, detached, lost in the past, “I was about to try again. I wanted to. But then Dumbledore arrived. And Voldemort.”

Draco flinches, ever so slightly, at the name.

Harry narrows his eyes. 

“What is it?”

Draco exhales sharply. 

“It’s not- it’s not the name. It’s- if someone says it, my Mark burns.”

Harry stills, then nods, slow, deliberate. 

“I apologise. I’ll call him Tom from now on.”

Draco blinks, stunned, before inclining his head.

Harry lets his mind wander back. 

“Two years later, I found myself in Malfoy Manor. Bellatrix was going to torture Hermione. I- persuaded her otherwise. Told her she was wasting her time. Told her I was worth more. That she could hand me to Tom and be rewarded for making me mindless and obedient. She was manic, delighted. She used it against me. Used spells. Crucio. A Diffindo that did this.”

He unbuttons the top of his shirt, revealing the jagged scar above his collarbone. The word. The wound. Freak.

Draco inhales sharply, horror flooding his face.

“She used Legilimency on me,” Harry murmurs, running his fingers over the letters, tracing the past in his skin, “She found out what my uncle called me. I think she wanted to get in my head. She started singing about it, and- I let her get to me. I let her win. I don’t think Ron and Hermione ever noticed how quiet I was after that.”

Draco’s grip on his hand tightens.

Harry glances at him. 

“After the war, after I'd killed Tom, I ran. I ran away and I came back as someone else. Someone I wanted to be.”

Draco’s breath is unsteady. He lets out a dry, broken sound. 

And then, barely above a whisper, “Can I hold your hand for a moment, please?”

Harry doesn’t understand. But he sees the way Draco trembles. Sees the way his breath catches in his throat, his whole body wound tight with something so deep, so raw, so shattering. So Harry nods. Allows it.

Draco grips his hand like a lifeline. And then he sobs, silent and wrecked.

Harry squeezes back. Because it’s the only thing he knows how to do.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is not a book. It is a mirror. A funhouse reflection stretched too long, bent out of shape, curling at the edges. Words mean nothing if they are only words, if they are only ink and paper. If they do not crawl beneath the skin and settle there, an infection, a parasite.

Harry turns a page. The candlelight flickers. The room around him exists, but only in the way that background noise exists- something distant, irrelevant, static. He does not look up when she storms over to him, heels clicking like thrown daggers, like she wants to make sure he hears her coming. He does. He doesn’t care.

“Potter, you absolute fucking arsehole. ”

Harry blinks at the page, tracing a line of text with his finger. He waits. Silence is a weapon when wielded correctly. She has to make the first move. That is the rule.

“Did you make Draco cry?”

Harry exhales, slow, measured. He looks up.

“I didn’t mean to.”

Pansy scoffs, arms crossed over her chest, a queen without a throne, a blade without a sheath. Harry tilts his head. He does not understand her outrage. Why does it matter? Draco asked. He answered. Words are words are words. Truth is a useless thing unless it is heard. Draco heard him. That should be enough.

“What did you say to him?”

Harry shrugs. 

“He asked about Bellatrix.”

The tension in Pansy’s shoulders settles into something different. Not quite anger. Something sharper, softer. She sighs, long and heavy, and then, with an air of resignation, sits beside him. She does not ask permission. He does not grant it. They exist in the same space without war. That is enough.

“I should warn you,” she murmurs, voice low, “if you’re going to spend a lot of time around Draco, you should know- he’s… sensitive.”

Harry frowns, something sour curling in his stomach. 

“Sensitive?”

Pansy stares at him for a long time, eyes dark, unreadable, measuring him like he is an equation with a solution she cannot yet find. Then she leans in, voice barely above a whisper.

“You know how the Death Eaters lived in Malfoy Manor, right?”

Harry nods. Of course he knows.

Pansy’s fingers twitch against her sleeve. 

“Then you should know that some of them… were horrendous perverts and paedophiles.”

Harry’s body stills. The candlelight flickers. Something deep within him, something buried, begins to wake.

“And some of them,” Pansy continues, voice tight, careful, “attempted to take advantage of Draco.”

The world shifts, tilts, breaks. Harry’s heartbeat is steady, slow, a drumbeat before war. His hands, his fingers, his bones- they are calm. His mind is calm.

His fury is an ocean, depthless and cold.

He lifts his chin, voice quiet, measured, controlled.

“Who?”

Pansy’s eyes widen, fear flashing across her face. 

“What are you going to do?”

Harry smiles. It is not a kind smile.

“That is not for you to know.”

Pansy swallows, shifting in her seat, hands curling against her lap. She looks away, then back. The pause stretches, snaps. She whispers the names like they are poison on her tongue.

“Dolohov. Mulciber. Rabastan Lestrange.”

Harry exhales, slow, deliberate, feeling the names slide over him like water. He memorizes them. Holds them close. Adds them to the list.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, “for being honest with me.”

Pansy straightens, a flicker of something unreadable in her gaze. She shakes her head.

“No, Potter. Thank you for making sure the Ministry pardoned Draco as you did.”

Harry watches her. Waits.

“And I’m… sorry.” 

Her voice is tight, controlled. She does not meet his eyes. 

“For trying to give you away.”

Harry shakes his head. The war is over. The war is over. The war is over.

“Pansy,” he says, voice quiet, steady, “I forgave all of you a long time ago. Even Voldemort. No one has an excuse, but I let go of the war. Probably the best decision I’ve ever made.”

Pansy stares at him, something unreadable in her expression, then exhales. The moment fractures, shifts, reshapes itself into something else.

“So,” she says, clearing her throat, “Do you like Arithmancy?”

Harry blinks. The shift is jarring, but welcome. 

“Yes. I’m taking my first lesson tomorrow.”

Pansy’s eyes widen. 

“You’re only just starting?”

Harry nods. 

“Arithmancy is interesting. But some of the theories are bullshit.”

Pansy scoffs. 

“Which ones?”

Harry tells her. Rants about the flaws in the methodology, the gaps in logic, the ridiculousness of it all. Words spill from him, fast, sharp, controlled. Pansy listens, eyes narrowing, lips parting, breath quickening.

“Wait,” she murmurs, leaning in, “That actually makes sense.”

Harry tilts his head. 

“Of course it does.”

Pansy’s gaze sharpens. 

“Potter… would you be interested in writing a paper with me?”

Harry grins, bright-eyed, something old and broken in him momentarily forgotten.

“Sure, Parkinson. I’m interested in seeing what you have to say.”

Harry’s quill scratches against the parchment, forming the last strokes of a rune that is utterly theoretical, utterly ridiculous, utterly brilliant. Pansy is muttering next to him, her own quill hovering over their shared page, revising, correcting, dissecting. The world exists only in calculations and scribbled margins, in the curl of ancient numbers, in the soft rasp of quill against paper- until it doesn’t.

Laughter, loud and careless, shatters the fragile stillness of the common room. Harry’s fingers still, and Pansy exhales sharply, as though she already knows that whatever comes next will not be good. The door swings open, and in spill the seventh and eighth-year Hufflepuff boys, Zacharias Smith at the helm, sneering, smug.

Harry lowers his gaze back to the parchment. He does not care. He does not care. He does not care. But then-

“Left that Slytherin firstie where he belongs,” someone crows, and the world halts, his thoughts snagging, unravelling, something snapping taut and terrible in the base of his spine.

He turns to Pansy, slow, deliberate. Her eyes mirror his alarm.

Harry stands. He moves. The motion is instinctive, like pulling a wand in a duel, like curling his fingers into a fist.

He approaches them, silent and steady, and the moment they see him, the laughter falters.

“What,” he says, voice silk-soft, “are you talking about?”

Smith smirks, shifting against the wall, arms crossing lazily. 

“What’s it to you, Potter? Thought you were too busy playing nice with the snakes.”

Harry does not respond. The vase beside Smith explodes.

Shards shower the Hufflepuffs, a rain of razor-sharp glass. Screams pierce the air.

Pansy takes a measured step back.

Harry doesn’t move.

“Where,” he says again, voice level, calm, cold, “Did. You. Leave. Him?”

One of the Hufflepuffs stammers, words tangled in fear.

“Owlery,” they manage, “We left him hanging- he’s fine-”

Pansy gasps. Susan Bones, watching from the periphery, surges forward, expression thunderous.

“You absolute pricks,” she snaps, before whirling to Anthony Goldstein, “Go get McGonagall.”

And then Harry is moving, striding from the room, the panic rising like bile in his throat. He hears Pansy fall into step beside him, Susan just behind. The castle blurs past.

The Owlery looms, dark and silent, and Harry takes the stairs three at a time, heart pounding. Then-

A limp body, dangling by the cloak from a window ledge.

Cuts marring pale skin, blood trailing down to the stone below.

Small. So small.

Harry snarls, the sound animalistic, raw.

“They took it too far,” he murmurs, and summons his broom. 

Susan is yelling something, telling him to stop, but the air is roaring in his ears, and he is already moving. Already vaulting onto the broom, already diving out into the open air.

The wind howls past him. The child whimpers.

Harry reaches, careful, steady.

Fingers catch fabric.

The boy trembles in his grasp, tiny fingers clutching at Harry’s robes, his face a mess of bruises and blood.

“It’s alright,” Harry whispers, “You’re alright.”

The child makes a noise, small and pained, and Harry gathers him close, arm locked tight around him as he soars back to the tower. Susan and Pansy are waiting, breathless, wide-eyed.

“Susan,” Harry says, “Find someone who can detect what spells were used here. Pansy, go to McGonagall. I’m taking him to the hospital wing.”

Pansy hesitates. 

Then, in a whisper, “Be careful, Potter.”

Harry nods, turns, and kicks off the ground.

He flies through the school, past startled students, past screams and exclamations. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.

The infirmary doors burst open at his arrival.

Pomfrey shrieks, dropping the salve she had been holding for a Ravenclaw fourth-year.

“Potter!” she barks, “What in Merlin’s-”

Then she sees the boy.

Her expression shifts instantly, her hands reaching, gestures sharp and efficient.

“Put him on the bed,” she orders.

Harry does, carefully, lowering the trembling child onto the crisp white sheets.

Something pricks at the edges of his mind.

Something is wrong.

His gaze flickers, tracing the boy’s features.

Black hair.

Pale skin.

Brown eyes.

Harry’s breath catches.

Not green. Not blue. Not hazel.

Brown.

The boy stares up at him, dazed, exhausted, in pain- but familiar. So familiar.

A name surfaces in his mind, unbidden, unwanted.

Tom Riddle.

The boy is Tom Riddle.

Chapter Text

Harry stares at the boy, his mind caught in the strange, shifting fog of disbelief. He is small, frail, too light against the infirmary bed’s stark white sheets. Not a monster, not yet. A child. A boy with wide brown eyes that don’t hold the weight of a name yet. Not his name.

The boy’s lips part. His voice is barely more than a whisper. 

“Who are you?”

Madam Pomfrey, standing rigid beside them, furrows her brows before sharply inhaling. 

“Why does he look like Tom Rid-”

Harry moves before he thinks, a hand clamping over her mouth as he tilts his head, observing, calculating, deciding. He answers the boy first.

“My name is Harry. What's your name?”

The boy hesitates. His brows pinch together, his fingers clenching weakly into the fabric of the bed. 

“I don’t remember,” he murmurs.

Harry’s breath stills in his lungs. Then he exhales, carefully filing away that information. Memory loss. Riddle with memory loss. A clean slate. A thing unshaped, unformed.

“That’s okay,” Harry says after a moment, voice measured, deliberate, “What’s the last thing you do remember?”

Another pause, then the boy’s lip trembles, and his eyes go glassy with unshed tears. 

“I don’t remember.”

There is something gutting about the raw honesty in his voice. A blade cutting through something that should have been stone inside Harry’s chest. He sits down at the edge of the bed, pulling his hand away from Pomfrey, who glares but says nothing.

Harry gives her a look. 

“Heal him. Then get McGonagall.”

She hesitates for only a moment before nodding, her professionalism overriding everything else. She turns to the boy, her voice softer now. 

“May I touch you?”

The boy nods slowly, and Pomfrey begins. Her fingers are efficient but gentle as she applies salve to the bruises marring his face. Harry watches, mind drifting, noting the way the salve glistens under the flickering infirmary lights. The way it soaks into skin, erasing evidence of pain but not the pain itself. Magic is cruel like that.

He should be disgusted. He should be furious. He should be afraid. But all Harry feels is the weight of too many possibilities. He is exhausted.

“I could help,” Harry offers, absently, when she moves on to the cuts, muttering soft healing incantations.

Pomfrey, still focused on her work, hums. 

“You can just watch for now. I was waiting for you to come for your healing lesson anyway.”

“I was discussing Arithmancy with Parkinson,” Harry replies, as though that explains something. Then, offhandedly, “Then it turned out a bunch of Hufflepuffs found him and tortured him.”

Pomfrey’s hands freeze over the boy’s arm. The air in the infirmary goes still.

Her head snaps up. 

“Was it Zacharias Smith?” she demands, “I let him out from the infirmary an hour ago. It fits within the time frame.”

Harry meets her gaze evenly. 

“Yes.”

Pomfrey’s lips press into a tight, thin line. She does not ask for details, not yet, because her work is not finished, but Harry can see the furious glint in her eyes. Instead, she simply asks, 

“Where did they leave Tom?”

Harry glances at the boy, then back at her. 

“Hanging out of the Owlery.”

Pomfrey gasps, the color draining from her face. The boy shifts uncomfortably but stays quiet. Then, soft, tentative-

“Who is Tom?”

Harry tilts his head at him, eyes dark, unreadable. He should lie. He doesn’t.

“That’s your name,” he says, “Tom Marvolo Riddle.”

Tom wrinkles his nose immediately, expression scrunching in distaste. 

“I don’t like it.”

Harry exhales sharply through his nose, something between amusement and exasperation curling at the edges of his mouth. 

“Yeah,” he mutters, “You never did.”

Tom studies him, small fingers twitching against the sheets. 

“Where are we?”

“Hogwarts,” Harry replies, easily, “It’s a wizarding school. For people with magic.”

Tom’s expression flickers, something unreadable in his too-big eyes. 

“Magic?” he repeats, uncertain.

Harry nods. 

“We’re wizards.”

Tom’s eyes widen further, lips parting slightly. He shifts, body going tense, alert. 

“How weird,” he breathes, almost to himself.

Harry watches him, thoughts drifting in disjointed spirals. The war, the prophecy, the way his entire childhood had been structured around what this boy- this child- was supposed to become. The way every adult he had ever known had made decisions about his life based on an image of a monster that had not yet been built.

“What do you remember, Tom?”

Tom’s fingers clench the sheets tighter. His voice is small when he speaks. 

“I can’t remember anything at all. Nothing about myself.”

Harry breathes out through his nose. 

“That’s fine.” 

It is, or it isn’t, or it should be. He isn’t sure. He looks to Pomfrey. 

“Go get McGonagall.”

Pomfrey hesitates, gaze flickering between him and the boy- Tom. Then she nods, turning on her heel and briskly walking out of the infirmary.

Harry stays where he is, letting the silence settle, waiting.

Tom watches him, small and tired and empty.

Harry tilts his head, something distant and cold unravelling in his mind. Then, slowly, a smile spreads across his lips.

“How about we talk about trains for a while?”

Tom blinks. 

“What are trains?”

Something flickers in Harry’s chest, something almost like anticipation. He grins, sharp and manic, settling in, ready to dive into his first-ever hyperfixation.

Harry talks, and the boy listens. That’s all there is to it. A closed loop of sound and meaning, words spilling from his lips in a constant stream, winding through the air like steam from an engine. Trains, he is explaining. Trains, because they are understandable, because they work in a way that makes sense, because they are all moving parts fitting together into a singular, unstoppable machine, and maybe if he talks long enough, something else will make sense too.

Tom watches him with wide eyes, utterly enraptured, soaking up every word. He is too small. He is too bright. Harry does not want to care.

But-

Curiosity. There is curiosity in his expression, in the tilt of his head, in the slight furrow of his brow, and Harry recognises it, cherishes it, because it is the only thing that has ever made conversations worth having. He has seen that look on Hermione, on Luna, on himself in the reflection of broken glass, caught somewhere between fascination and hunger, as if knowledge alone could make the world bearable.

Harry keeps talking.

He tells Tom about engines and wheels, about steam and speed, about the way tracks split and merge and wind their way through the countryside like veins in an open palm. Tom drinks it in, but then-

“You like trains,” Tom says, voice quiet, considering.

Harry nods, easily. 

“I do. I also like runes, and writing stories, and reading. I like dueling, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and I like order. I also like my Patronus.”

Tom blinks. 

“A Patronus?”

Harry inhales to explain, but the infirmary doors burst open, slamming against the walls with a force that rattles the medical cabinets. McGonagall storms in, followed closely by Susan, Pansy, Draco, and Madam Pomfrey. The weight of authority and exasperation follows her like a storm cloud.

“What,” McGonagall demands, her voice sharp as steel, “is the meaning of this?”

Harry looks at her. Then at the others. Then at Tom. Then back to her. He tilts his head, considering how to compress the entire situation into something digestible. 

“Hufflepuffs, their prejudices against Slytherins, the Owlery’s dangers, some sort of non-existential magic, and I deduce- time travel.”

Silence.

Then-

“What’s a Hufflepuff?” Tom asks, his voice small and confused.

Susan makes a noise. It is something between a gasp and a coo, and she looks about three seconds away from pulling Tom into a suffocating hug. 

“Oh, Merlin, he’s adorable.”

Harry tilts his head toward her. 

“That’s a Hufflepuff.”

Then, turning to her more fully, he adds, “Susan, you should probably know that’s the younger version of You-Know-Who. But don’t worry- he has memory loss. He can’t remember anything.”

Draco, Pansy, and Susan all inhale sharply, their expressions shifting through various shades of horror and disbelief. Tom blinks up at them, entirely unaware of the tension in the room, his brown eyes wide and round.

McGonagall pinches the bridge of her nose. She breathes in. Then out. 

Then, with the air of someone who has endured far too much, she asks, “Is this a situation where Kingsley Shacklebolt is needed, Mr. Potter?”

Harry nods. 

“And don’t forget to bring an Unspeakable.”

McGonagall lets out a sigh that carries the weight of several decades of nonsense, turns on her heel, and strides from the room, slamming the door behind her.

Draco, pale and visibly uneasy, slowly lowers himself into a chair beside Tom. He clears his throat. 

“This must be confusing for you.”

Tom nods solemnly. 

“Harry was explaining what a Patronum was.”

Pansy giggles. 

“It’s a Patronus, silly boy.” She leans in slightly, examining his face with a speculative gleam in her eye. “Draco, how can You-Know-Who be so adorable? I just want to pinch his cheeks.”

Draco gives her a scandalized look, but Harry- Harry just watches, waiting, measuring the weight of their reactions. There is something growing here, something shifting. He does not know what to do with it.

Susan sighs, dragging a chair closer to the bed. 

“Are we really just going to ignore the elephant in the room?”

Tom frowns, looking around. 

“Where’s the elephant?”

Harry whispers, “We have so much to explain to you, don’t we, Tom?”

Draco and Pansy exchange confused glances, and Draco eventually asks, “Well… where is the elephant?”

Susan buries her face in her hands.

Harry leans in slightly. 

“It’s a Muggle saying, Draco.”

Tom giggles, the sound soft and bright, and whispers, “Muggle.”

Pansy narrows her eyes at him, amused. 

“What’s so funny?”

Tom shakes his head. 

“It just sounds ridiculous.”

Harry nods. 

“Yeah. I thought the exact same thing when I first heard it.”

Tom tilts his head. 

“Harry, can we continue talking about trains?” 

His eyes are wide and pleading, his lips just barely curled into the ghost of a smile, and Harry-

Harry nods. Because in this moment, with a Dark Lord reborn and memory-wiped in front of him, with McGonagall fetching the Minister and an Unspeakable, with the world steadily unraveling-

Trains still make sense.

Harry is explaining airplanes, but he is distracted. His magic flickers at his fingertips, shaping the air itself, forcing it into something new, something whole. A tiny airplane, delicate and detailed, hums into existence, its miniature wings curved like a swan’s neck. He doesn’t use his wand. He doesn’t need to. The magic listens when he doesn’t fight it, when he doesn’t care. He lets it drip from him, coalesce into shape because it is easier than thinking about the room, the people in it, the sheer weight of their eyes on him.

Tom makes a delighted noise, soft and full of wonder, his small fingers reaching for the airplane as it hovers just above his hands. The excitement on his face, the open curiosity- it is not what Harry expected. This boy is supposed to be something else. Something sharp and cruel and wrong. Harry has seen him before, the version Dumbledore wanted him to see, the one who smiled as he spoke about hurting people, the one whose eyes glowed with possession and glee.

But this- this is different.

Tom plays with the airplane, guiding it through the air with little jerky movements, and Draco is watching him, the tension in his face softening into something almost fond. Pansy and Susan are still whispering, their voices hushed but quick, bouncing theories between them about Harry’s magic, about why he does it so easily, about why the air bends for him like an old friend. He is not listening to them. He is trying to remember how to breathe, how to exist in this space where people are talking, where they are looking at him like he is something worth thinking about.

Draco catches him staring into nothing and frowns. 

“Are you alright?”

Harry blinks, reality shifting into focus again. 

He nods, but then, because it is true, says, “Truths are overwhelming.”

And then he does something stupid. He leans his head against Pansy’s shoulder, because it is there and solid and real. He feels her tense beneath him, the sharp intake of breath. Harry flinches and sits up immediately.

“Sorry.”

Pansy stares at him, surprised, and then- something in her shifts. 

“You can, if you want,” she says, softer than he’s ever heard her before.

Harry hesitates, his fingers twitching at his sides, but then he leans back, stiff at first. Pansy sighs, exasperated, and reaches up to thread her fingers through his hair, combing gently, slowly. Harry exhales, the tension bleeding out of him in a way he did not expect, his body sinking into hers without permission.

Tom watches this, his head tilting like a bird’s. Then, experimentally, he scoots closer to Susan and awkwardly leans against her. Susan laughs, delighted, and wraps her arms around him. 

“I want to keep him,” she says immediately, and Tom blinks up at her, confused but pleased.

Pansy smirks. 

“We already decided. He’s ours.”

Draco sighs, long-suffering but resigned. 

“I suppose we’re keeping him, then.”

Harry does not argue.

Then, the doors slam open.

Harry jerks upright, Pansy gripping onto his arm as though to steady him, or herself, or both. The room tenses. Kingsley strides in, his presence cutting through the warmth like a blade. McGonagall follows, sharp-eyed and stiff, and behind her, an Unspeakable in black robes, their face obscured.

Kingsley’s wand is out before he even breathes. It is pointed at Tom, unwavering, ready.

Tom freezes, his little hands gripping Susan’s robes.

“Lose the wand,” Harry says, voice cold, sharp like glass as he stands up, and shields them from Kingsley’s gaze.

Kingsley does not lower it. 

“Voldemort is in the hospital wing, Harry. Do you understand that?”

“I do.”

“He has you all hoodwinked. He must have-”

Harry moves before he can think. He lifts his hand, fingers curling in the air, and without a word, a diagnostic spell shimmers into existence, floating beside him, proof of mind, proof of body. The text glows sharp and clear: Harry James Potter. Sound Mind. Nutrition Potion Active.

Kingsley falters, his grip tightening on his wand. 

“That doesn’t mean there aren’t unknown factors.”

Tom lets out a small, wet noise. It is a sob, barely restrained, and he buries his face into Susan’s shoulder, shaking. Susan reacts immediately, pulling him fully into her lap, whispering quiet reassurances, smoothing down his dark curls. Draco hesitates, but then reaches out, rubbing small, slow circles into Tom’s back.

Harry exhales slowly. 

“Calm down, Kingsley.”

The Unspeakable steps forward, voice smooth, even. 

“Perhaps we should check the boy instead. Clear the air.”

Harry studies them, weighs the words, and nods. 

“Fine. Kingsley, back off.”

McGonagall places a hand on Kingsley’s arm. 

“That is a reasonable course of action.”

Kingsley does not look pleased, but he lowers his wand, stepping back with a short nod. 

“Fine. But I want a full report.”

Harry ignores him, turning instead to Tom, who is still curled into Susan, wide eyes peeking up, wet and uncertain. He sits down next to Pansy, and leans into her again, and Pansy easily adjusts himself to hold him back. It feels nice.

The Unspeakable lifts their wand, slow, deliberate. They flick it, and a shimmering bubble forms in the air, soft and glowing. It drifts forward, spinning gently. Tom’s breath catches, and despite himself, he giggles, his hand reaching out, fascinated.

Susan presses a kiss to his forehead, protective and warm. Pansy strokes Harry’s hair once more, watching Tom carefully, as if willing the moment to stay peaceful. Draco, cautious but not unwilling, shifts closer to the boy who was supposed to be a monster.

McGonagall sighs, rubbing her temples. Pomfrey still looks bewildered, like she’s not sure what reality she’s found herself in. Kingsley is stiff, watching everything like a hawk, but he does not move.

And Harry watches Tom, his mind clicking through the facts, his body cold, his thoughts sluggish but certain. This is not the boy from the memory. This is something else. And Harry is starting to think he is not entirely opposed to whatever that something is.

Harry watches as the Unspeakable casts a diagnostic spell, and the results unfurl in glowing script, hovering in the air like a prophecy no one wanted to read. There is something on Tom, something ancient and unfamiliar, magic never seen before. It pulses, raw and potent, curling around him like a living thing, something older than time. And yet, despite its power, it does not smother him. It does not suffocate the boy playing on the hospital bed, laughing as Susan tosses a pillow at Draco, who barely dodges in time. Pansy, curled beside them, delivers a dramatically unhinged commentary, her hands flying in wild gesticulation.

Harry tunes out the Unspeakable’s clinical words, but some of them still reach him, crawling through the haze of his mind. Tom is eleven. His body is underfed, stunted from malnutrition. His past is written in his bones, in the defensive hunch of his shoulders, in the flinches that he cannot quite suppress when the Unspeakable’s hand moves too fast. Harry watches, unmoved but displeased. The assessment is logical, factual, indifferent. The truth laid bare, but cold. Tom is a human, not a specimen, and even though Harry likes order, control, precision- he does not like this. He does not like that Tom sobbed into Susan’s robes. He does not like that Tom flinches when a hand comes near, when a voice rises too loud.

McGonagall, her patience thinned to transparency, clears her throat. 

"What, exactly, are we going to do about arrangements?"

Kingsley barely hesitates. 

"The Ministry can take him in."

"No," Harry says, immediately, before he’s even thought it through. 

The word feels inevitable, as if it has existed before him, before all of this. 

"He’ll stay with me."

Kingsley lifts a skeptical eyebrow. 

"And why, exactly, do you think-"

"I hope you remember I was the one who managed to kill You-Know-Who, Kingsley," Harry says, voice mild but cutting. 

He tilts his head. 

"I think I can handle the eleven-year-old version."

A tense silence. Then Kingsley exhales, shakes his head, but does not argue further.

Harry rolls his sleeves down, tugging at the cuffs absently. 

"How did the Hufflepuffs find him?"

McGonagall’s expression darkens slightly. 

"Apparently, the boy was found hyperventilating in an empty classroom."

Harry’s fingers twitch. 

"I’m going to kill Smith."

"Harry." McGonagall’s voice is sharp, "Calm yourself. Do you need a Calming Draught?"

His jaw tightens. Anger slithers under his skin, too familiar, too close. He forces himself to breathe. Then, reluctantly, he nods.

Pomfrey appears at his side with a vial already in hand, and he takes it, fingers slightly unsteady. The potion slides down his throat, thick and cloying, and he catalogues the taste, tucks it away into the corners of his mind where things go to be forgotten.

He turns to Susan, Pansy, and Draco, who are still on the bed with Tom. 

"Are you all alright with looking after him while the Unspeakables figure out how to send him back?"

"Yes," they say, in perfect unison. 

Tom, oblivious to the gravity of the conversation, holds up a tiny paper crane. 

"Harry, look!"

Harry takes it, fingers ghosting over the delicate folds. He remembers- remembers another time, another place, paper cranes passed in quiet spite, insults hidden in the creases. He taps the crane twice, and it flutters to life, wings beating as it circles above Tom’s head. Tom giggles, wide-eyed with wonder.

McGonagall watches, something like reluctant fondness in her gaze. 

"It seems you lot are already doing a fine job."

Susan beams. 

"So we’re really going to look after him?"

McGonagall sighs. 

"You are all legal adults, responsible enough as far as I can tell, and none of you appear inclined to hex each other on sight anymore. I see no reason why not."

"Malfoy’s an ex-Death Eater," Kingsley argues, "And Parkinson-"

"-tried to give me to Voldemort," Harry finishes for him, "I remember. That was then. This is now."

McGonagall folds her arms. 

"I have my doubts about many things, Kingsley, but not about this group. They have their flaws, but I am exceedingly proud to see them setting aside their pasts for a child."

All four of them flush, and Pomfrey, watching with barely concealed amusement, whispers something to McGonagall before pressing a quick kiss to her cheek and sweeping away towards her stores.

Pansy’s jaw drops. 

"McGonagall and Pomfrey are dating?!"

McGonagall smirks, a rare thing. 

"Married, actually, Miss. Parkinson. Thirty-three years and counting."

Kingsley rubs his temples, exhaling. 

"Fine. But if you’re taking him in, you’ll need to sign some paperwork."

Harry smirks. 

"We’d be happy to."

Then-

A quiet grumble, and they all turn. Tom looks perplexed, hand pressed to his stomach, as Draco and Pansy burst into laughter.

"Dinner?" Harry suggests, and Susan nods, already reaching for Tom’s hand.

Draco slings an arm around Pansy, and as they leave, he mutters, "This is not how I expected my day to go."

Susan snorts. 

"You and me both."

Harry does not laugh, but he does allow himself to smile- just a little- as Tom beams up at him, wide-eyed, full of something that looks dangerously close to adoration.

Harry walks into the Great Hall, the vast space alive with chatter and the clinking of cutlery, but the noise feels distant, muffled, like he’s submerged underwater. Tom, small and fragile but oddly resilient, skips beside him, his small fingers curled around Susan’s hand. But as they reach the Hufflepuff table, he hesitates for a moment before switching, trading Susan’s hand for Harry’s. His grip is light, warm, trusting. Harry doesn’t flinch. He tells himself he doesn’t flinch. He tells himself it doesn’t matter.

The five of them- Susan, Harry, Draco, Pansy, and Tom- settle at the Hufflepuff table. Tom, instead of sliding onto the bench like a normal child, clambers onto Harry’s lap without hesitation. Harry allows it. Relents. He tells himself it’s logical: the boy must have gone through an ordeal to get here, and physical comfort is likely grounding. A strategic concession. But the truth curls in the back of his throat like smoke- Tom is light, so light, and his presence is oddly stabilizing. A weight that makes Harry feel real. Tangible.

Tom stares at the feast before him, eyes wide with something like reverence. He watches the older students, noting how they pick up their cutlery. Mimicking. Learning. He attempts to hold his knife and fork like Ernie Macmillan does, small fingers gripping awkwardly, movements clumsy but determined. Pansy, watching with an expression of exasperated amusement, leans over and gently adjusts his grip, her hands steady and certain. Tom glances up at her, absorbing the correction like a sponge, nodding seriously as if this is the most important lesson he’s ever learned.

Susan and Draco sit across from them, already falling into discussion about Transfiguration specifications, Susan gesturing absently with her fork as she serves herself shepherd’s pie. The normalcy of it all is almost jarring. Harry’s stomach twists as the scent of heavy food reaches him, the same way it did at breakfast. Too much, too thick, too rich. 

He exhales sharply through his nose and murmurs to the table, “Please may I have some tortellini? With sausage and mascarpone, if you can.”

Immediately, the plate appears. The comforting familiarity of it steadies him. A cup of cranberry juice follows, and Harry offers a small, fleeting smile to no one in particular before picking up his fork. The first bite is warm, the cheese soft and melting, the sausage rich but manageable. He catalogues the taste mechanically, like filing away an observation for later use.

Across from him, Tom struggles. The knife is unwieldy in his grip, the fork slipping from his fingers. Frustration flickers across his young face, and then-

His eyes well with tears.

Something in Harry twists violently.

He doesn’t think. He simply reaches out, taking the knife and fork from Tom’s hands with careful ease. 

“Breathe,” he says, voice low, almost instinctive, “Take a deep breath, Tom.”

Tom does. A shuddering inhale, a slow exhale. He blinks up at Harry, waiting. Trusting.

Harry studies him for a moment, then speaks, slow and deliberate. 

“I took your knife and fork away because I think it would be more helpful for you to use a spoon, Tom.”

A spoon appears. Tom takes it, tentative, before scooping up a bite of shepherd’s pie. He chews, thoughtful, then brightens. 

“This tastes so good,” he whispers, “What is it?”

“Shepherd’s pie,” Pansy answers, a small, indulgent smile curling at her lips.

“I love it,” Tom declares with absolute certainty, before shoveling another bite into his mouth.

Susan laughs, shaking her head. 

“Slow down before you choke, Tom.”

Tom freezes, looking briefly abashed, but swallows properly before nodding. Draco snickers, and Pansy smirks. 

“Well done, love. We know you’re hungry, but it’s good to keep up your manners, isn’t it?”

Tom nods again, resolute, and then turns to her, eyes serious. 

“Can you teach me manners, please, Pansy?”

Pansy blinks. Then, as if Tom has just handed her the crown jewels, she preens. 

“Of course, darling. I would be more than happy to give you etiquette lessons.”

Tom nods, solemn. Then, after a brief pause, he turns to Harry. 

“Harry, please may you explain to me what a Patronus is again?”

Harry stills.

The request is simple. Innocent. But the weight of it, the concept of happiness- true happiness- bears down on him like something foreign. He doesn’t know what to say, so he does what he always does. He explains. Mechanically, clinically, the way he knows how.

And as Tom listens, eyes wide, expression full of something close to wonder, Harry thinks- not for the first time- that he has no idea what he’s doing.

Draco carries Tom like he has always done it. Like the weight of a child in his arms is something natural, something that does not buckle his shoulders, something that does not press into old scars or hidden aches. He holds him carefully, as if he understands that Tom does not yet know what it is to be held gently. Harry watches this, and his heart stutters, a strange, unfamiliar beat, untrustworthy in its irregularity. Tom fits there, small hands clinging to Draco’s robes, and Harry does not understand why this should mean anything to him at all. 

But it does.

Draco is talking softly about dragons, his voice curling around descriptions of scales like molten gold and fire hotter than spells. Tom listens, his exhaustion making his blinks slow, his questions softer, words trailing off into half-whispers. Draco answers each one with steady patience, as though they are talking about something important, as though it matters whether or not Peruvian Vipertooths are the fastest fliers or whether Hungarian Horntails are the most aggressive. It shouldn’t matter, and yet it does. It is a strange thing, Harry thinks, how the shape of a conversation can be a lullaby.

They pass people in the corridors. People stare. Their little group is not supposed to exist. Harry catches their eyes and holds them like a snare, sharp and unblinking, and Susan does the same, her gaze the unspoken challenge of a Hufflepuff who has dug in her heels. People look away, because it is easier to pretend not to see than to acknowledge the things that break the shape of the expected world.

The common room door stands before them, the entrance to something that might become a home, if they let it. Susan says the password, and the door swings open like it knows something they do not. They step inside, warmth coiling around them, the fire already lit, waiting. Tom makes a small noise against Draco’s shoulder, some quiet sound of relief or recognition. Harry understands that. He feels the pull of it too, the whisper of something telling him he is allowed to stop bracing for impact.

Draco sits first, lowering Tom onto the sofa between him and Harry. Tom blinks up at them both, then leans ever so slightly against Harry’s side, as if he is testing something, as if he is waiting for the moment he will be pushed away. Harry does not move. Tom stays.

Susan sits on Harry’s other side, and Pansy takes the floor, stretching her legs out in front of her, back against the couch, as if she belongs here. Perhaps she does.

“We need a plan,” Susan says. 

She always gets to the point. 

“Some kind of timetable.”

Harry nods. Order is necessary. Chaos is an animal with its teeth in his bones, and he has spent too long being torn apart. 

“Fetch your schedules.”

They do. Pansy groans about having to move, but she does it anyway, and they spread their timetables out on the table before them. Harry scans them, watching the patterns form, the shapes of things lining up into something he can understand. He feels the tension in his shoulders ease.

“Draco and I have Ancient Runes together,” he says, tracing the lines of text with his finger, “When Susan and Pansy are free.”

Pansy makes a quiet, considering noise. 

“That could be useful. If we need to copy notes.”

“We all take Arithmancy except Draco,” Susan adds, tapping the subject on her timetable, “Harry doesn’t take Astronomy. The rest of us do.”

“Herbology, Transfiguration, Defence, all of us,” Draco murmurs, “Pansy’s the only one who doesn’t take Potions.”

“Pansy takes Divination,” Susan says, and her tone is diplomatic.

“I like to have options,” Pansy says airily, “Prophecies are just incredibly well-informed guesswork.”

They settle into the shape of the plan, and Harry breathes. The world is lined up, and it makes sense again. He does not like things that do not make sense. Things that do not make sense leave gaps, and gaps are dangerous.

Tom watches them, small hands pressing into his lap. 

“What are the subjects like?” he asks, voice quiet but steady.

Harry looks at him. He should not be so good at asking the right questions. Harry should not care that he does.

“Ancient Runes is structured magic,” Harry says, “It’s symbols and translations. Power written instead of spoken.”

Tom’s eyes are dark, deep wells of thought. 

“Like hieroglyphics?”

“Yes.” Harry exhales slowly, “But more. Runes can heal. There’s Runic Healing, inscriptions that can hold magic like a vessel, store it, reshape it. It’s…” 

He trails off, feeling something fray at the edges of his mind. 

“Precise. And old.”

Tom considers this, his fingers tracing invisible symbols on the fabric of his robes. Pansy watches him with something close to amusement. Draco watches him like he is assessing an unfamiliar variable in a potion. Susan watches him like he is a child in need of understanding.

“I think I would like it,” Tom says at last, “Runes.”

Harry studies him, the way his fingers still move in unseen patterns. 

“I think you would too.”

Silence settles, not uncomfortable, just present. The fire crackles, and their strange, impossible group breathes as one. Perhaps this is the beginning of something. Perhaps it is only another moment destined to unravel. But for now, Tom leans into Harry’s side, Draco speaks softly of things that fly, Susan threads logic into order, and Pansy spins meaning from things unseen. And for now, it is enough.

Harry's fingers card absently through Tom’s hair, the motion mechanical, repetitive, grounding in a way he cannot name. The strands are soft- fine, like baby’s breath, but a little tangled. He should get a brush. Or maybe he shouldn’t. The thought slips away before he can catch it, lost to the haze of words being spoken around him. Pansy is reading aloud from The Picture of Dorian Gray , voice lilting, amused, theatrical in the way that means she is enjoying herself. Tom is perched on his lap, small and warm and weighty in a way that Harry does not mind. He does not mind the boy’s weight, because it gives him something to balance against, a tangible thing in a world that often does not feel real.

Susan and Draco are beside him, sprawled in what might be considered comfortable positions. Draco is plaiting Pansy’s hair with careful, precise fingers, and Susan, ever sharp, is dissecting the text between bites of some stolen pastry. 

“Dorian is utterly self-destructive,” she says, biting into flaky layers of pastry, “That whole ‘chasing beauty at the cost of everything else’ -it’s madness.”

“He’s a metaphor,” Draco murmurs, tilting his head as he smooths down Pansy’s hair. 

His expression is thoughtful, poised. 

“He’s the consequence of self-indulgence without self-awareness.”

Harry listens without really listening, cataloguing their words into a corner of his mind he won’t examine unless he has to. He thinks about how he’s come to tolerate- no, like- each of them. 

Susan is resourceful. Practical. A little too blunt sometimes, a little too harsh, but honest in a way that Harry values. There’s no artifice to her, only quiet cunning, which makes sense when he considers that she’s Amelia Bones’ niece. Her world is black and white in the way of people who have lost too much to believe in grey, and Harry thinks it would be exhausting if she were not so efficient. So useful.

Pansy is different. Snarky, sarcastic, sharp-edged but not cruel. She says things that do not always make sense to Harry, but she is perceptive in a way that matters. She notices things others do not, and she never presses where she is not wanted. There is a carefulness in her mannerisms, an awareness of boundaries that Harry appreciates more than he can explain. And she has manners, which, if nothing else, makes her tolerable.

Then there’s Draco.

Harry’s fingers still briefly in Tom’s hair, but the child does not seem to notice, lulled by the steady rhythm. Draco is… Draco. Intelligent, composed, eloquent. He is everything Harry has never been and cannot be. But he is also anxious, too aware of himself, too aware of others, and there’s something fragile beneath his precision, something that makes Harry’s chest tighten in a way he does not know how to name. He has too-knowing eyes, and Harry feels raw under his gaze, too exposed. It makes him uneasy. It makes him feel-

He cuts the thought short. He doesn’t want to examine it. He doesn’t want to let it go.

Pansy’s voice drags him back to the present, words curling around the dim glow of the common room. Tom is listening intently, eyes wide, and when he laughs, Harry feels something twist in his chest, something foreign and unnameable. He stares down at the child in his lap, watches as his tiny hands clutch at the fabric of Harry’s robes. It is something like love, he thinks, but the classification feels insufficient. It is something softer, something unguarded. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t hate it. He doesn’t know what to do with it.

“I feel a little tired,” Tom murmurs suddenly, voice small but trusting, and Harry hums, running his fingers down the boy’s back. 

“We’ll go to bed soon.”

Tom sighs, small body going lax against him, and Harry allows it, does not think too hard about the way he tucks his chin over Tom’s head, the way he keeps stroking his hair. The others do not comment. Pansy continues reading, Draco continues plaiting, Susan continues analysing, and the world stays still.

Then the common room door bursts open, and the moment shatters.

Footsteps storm toward them, too loud, too fast, and Tom lets out a whimper, fingers twisting in Harry’s robes as he tries to disappear into the fabric. Susan stands immediately, body tense, voice even.

“Ron,” she greets, voice devoid of warmth, “Why are you making so much of a ruckus?”

Ron ignores Susan’s question, his face twisted in something halfway between frustration and poorly concealed rage. 

"What the hell did you do to Smith?" he demands Harry, voice sharp and grating, another noise in the endless din of the world, another useless vibration in the air that means nothing to Harry except a minor inconvenience.

Harry rolls his eyes, shifting Tom in his lap as the boy tenses, fingers tightening in the fabric of Harry's robes. 

"Accidental magic," he says, disinterested, adjusting his grip on Tom, running a hand through his hair in a repetitive motion. 

It is supposed to be soothing, grounding, but Tom remains tense, little shoulders drawn in, fists clenched. It isn't working. It isn't working, and Harry feels the odd, creeping sensation of pinpricks running up his arm, the familiar itch spiraling out of control, fraying at the edges of him. He ignores it. He is good at ignoring things, at compartmentalising, at shoving everything into a box and nailing it shut. He ignores it in favour of making sure Tom does not shake apart in his hold.

He does not care about Smith. He does not care about Ron.

"We can talk about how pathetic Smith is later, if you're truly that interested in your man-crush," Harry drawls instead, because Ron deserves nothing more than pettiness, and he cannot be bothered to feign politeness when the air is thick and his skin is crawling and Ron will not stop talking.

Ron bristles. 

"You-"

Then his gaze lands on Tom, still curled into Harry’s chest, watching him with wide, blank curiosity, and Ron stops, his mouth hanging slightly open like a caught fish. His forehead creases as though his brain is struggling to function, and Harry sighs, already weary.

"Why do you have a child?" Ron asks, slow and confused, as if the answer will suddenly materialise in front of him if he stares at Tom long enough.

"None of your business."

Pansy smirks, amused, and crosses her arms. 

"Get lost, Weasel."

Ron glares. 

"Shut up, Parkinson."

"Creative."

"Why does he have a child here?" Ron asks again, louder this time, like sheer volume will make the situation suddenly make sense. 

Tom flinches, clamping his hands over his ears with a soft whimper, and something in Harry tightens, sharp and defensive, and it is not emotion, not really, just instinct, just logic, because Tom is his, Tom is under his care, Tom is important in a way Harry cannot begin to untangle yet.

Harry exhales slowly, removes Tom’s hands, and puts his own over his ears instead, shielding him from the world. 

"Keep your voice down."

Hermione and Ginny arrive then, concern and irritation evident in their body language. Harry recognizes the shift in the air, the inevitable collision of perspectives that will soon spiral out of control, and quickly hisses at Susan, "Cover his face."

Susan moves instantly, subtly creating a barrier between Tom and the two newcomers. It is strategic, it is a move Harry appreciates, but it is not enough. He knows it will not be enough.

Hermione eyes him with suspicion. 

"Why do you have an underage student here, Harry?" she demands, already crossing her arms like she’s preparing for a fight, "McGonagall made it very clear that-"

"We have permission," Draco cuts in, tone clipped.

Hermione narrows her eyes. 

"I doubt that. As Head Girl, I’m telling you that he needs to leave. It’s past curfew."

Pansy, already on edge, snarls. 

"Are you deaf? We have permission from McGonagall. And the bloody Minister of Magic. So you and your minions can fuck off."

Ron turns red. 

"Don’t talk about Hermione like that!"

While Ron and Pansy continue hurling words at each other, Ginny steps forward, eyes locked on Susan, then at the small shape she is clearly shielding. 

"Move."

Susan remains still. 

"No. This is none of your business. Walk away."

Harry feels Tom trembling against him, trying so hard to disappear, and he grips him tighter, unwilling to let him go. But Ginny notices. She is always too perceptive at the worst of times, always watching him, always analysing, and Harry sees the exact moment realisation sparks in her eyes.

"If you won’t move," she says, "I’ll do it myself."

"No."

Chaos erupts all at once. Draco and Pansy surge forward to intercept, but Ginny is fast, too fast, and suddenly she is pulling, yanking, and Tom lets out a cry as he is wrenched from Harry’s arms. Harry is moving before he even registers it, hands reaching, grasping, dragging Tom back as panic threatens to sink claws into his chest.

Too loud. Too much. The common room is a cacophony of sound, voices layering over each other in meaningless noise, and Harry cannot make sense of it, cannot find the rhythm, the pattern, cannot breathe.

Ginny's eyes widen as she takes one proper look at Tom, at his pale skin and sharp features and ink-dark hair, at the way he clings to Harry like he is the only thing keeping him tethered to the ground. She inhales sharply, almost like a sob, almost like the world is caving in around her.

Then she screams.

"WHY DOES HE LOOK LIKE VOLDEMORT?!"

Draco cries out as his Dark Mark burns, a sickly kind of pain, a reminder of everything he is trying to claw his way out of, and Tom is sobbing, crumpling, hands over his ears again, curling in on himself as if he can escape it.

And Harry is frozen.

The room erupts into pandemonium. Voices, too many voices, people shouting, demanding, accusing, and Harry cannot pick out words, cannot decipher meaning, cannot think. He holds Tom tighter, shields him with his own body, and all he knows is that he must protect, must retreat, must silence the world before it drowns them both.

Ginny is still screaming. Ron is pushing forward. Hermione looks stricken. Susan is in front of them, arms spread wide, an immovable wall, and Pansy is snarling, wand drawn, and Draco is clutching his arm, teeth gritted against pain, and Tom, Tom, Tom is breaking apart in his hands, and Harry does not know what to do.

Too loud. Too much. Too fast.

Something inside him snaps.

And the world bends.

Harry sits in the chair, rocking an exhausted Tom, his hands trembling, his entire body wracked with the lingering aftershocks of the Cruciatus. It is muscle memory now- pain is muscle memory, pain is existence, pain is something he should feel but doesn’t, only the echoes of it, only the knowledge that he should be feeling something, but it has dulled into nothingness. His fingers card through Tom’s hair in slow, repetitive motions, grounding, if only because it is the only thing he can do. Tom is asleep, slack and warm in his arms, utterly unaware of the storm raging around him.

Draco stands beside him, rigid and silent, hand on his shoulder like a tether, grounding but not constricting. He looks ashen, lips pressed into a thin line, his other hand twitching like he wants to grab his wand, hex someone, burn the whole world down. Susan is on Draco’s other side, arms crossed, cold fury etched into every line of her posture as she glares at Ron, Hermione, and Ginny. Pansy is still shrieking, her voice sharp and cutting as she eviscerates them with words, ruthless, unrelenting.

Before Pansy can continue, McGonagall holds up a hand. 

"I hope that was sufficient enough evidence to you, Mr. and Miss Weasley, and Miss Granger, that Miss Parkinson was, in fact, not lying."

Hermione’s face is wet with silent tears. Ron is red-faced, fists clenched at his sides. Ginny is pale, lips pressed tight, shaking with barely contained rage.

"Why does he have to stay here?" she demands, voice sharp like a knife, a dangerous edge of something Harry doesn’t want to name lurking underneath, "He’s a monster! Why haven’t you just killed him yet?!"

Harry glares at her. Something inside him curdles, twists in an ugly way he can’t name. He is so tired. 

"He is not a monster," he says, and his voice is quiet, but it slices through the noise, through the chaos, "Don’t you dare call him a monster. He’s human. He’s always been human. And he’s had shit things happen to him, so don’t fucking call him a monster."

It’s the first time he’s sworn in forever, and it feels good. Feels like something real. Feels like something solid, like an anchor in the swirling emptiness of it all. Ron and Hermione’s expressions darken into something like disgust, like betrayal, like loathing, and something inside of Harry fractures, small and sharp, but he ignores it. He made his choice. He let them go for his own sanity, and he doesn’t regret it.

Draco hisses under his breath, shifting closer, protective and bristling. 

"Don’t even look at him," he snaps, voice low and furious.

McGonagall exhales, weary, and rubs at her temples. 

"We cannot simply kill him," she says, voice calm but firm, "One, because it is inhumane to kill a child who has done nothing, and two, because we do not know what magic brought him back."

"Thirdly," Susan interjects, sharp and unyielding, "he is not a threat. He acts like an eleven-year-old child with amnesia."

Kingsley nods, stepping forward, voice measured. 

"An Unspeakable has already done a full scan on Tom. He is not a threat."

McGonagall sighs. 

"I have his wand in my office. He will receive it when he has recuperated and is ready to begin school again."

Ron lets out a furious noise. 

"You’re letting him out to mingle with students?! After all he’s done?!"

Pansy scoffs, rolling her eyes. 

"He’s done nothing so far apart from being an absolute sweetheart, Weasley. Maybe you should learn some basic observation skills."

Harry sighs, shifting Tom in his arms before carefully passing him to Draco, who immediately adjusts his grip, cradling Tom with an ease that Harry finds both unsettling and fascinating. 

"Ron," he says, voice devoid of emotion, "shut up."

McGonagall pinches the bridge of her nose. 

"He stays here. Hogwarts is safest for him."

Ron glares at Harry for a long moment before whispering, "Fine. So be it." 

Then he storms out, Hermione following, shaking her head, disappointed, resigned.

Ginny is the last one left. She stands there, eyes burning into him, and there is something like heartbreak in them, something sharp and raw.

"I hate you, Harry Potter," she whispers, voice trembling, breaking, "You’re a fucking monster."

Something inside of Harry lurches. He can’t breathe. He can’t feel anything, except for the static in his veins, the pressure in his skull, the sheer weight of it all. He watches her go and does not stop her.

Susan places a gentle hand on his shoulder. 

"Are you okay?"

Harry inhales, exhales. He does not know how to answer that. He is not okay. He hasn’t been okay for a long time. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that Tom is safe. What matters is that they move forward.

So he takes a deep breath, and whispers, "I’m fine." 

Then he looks at Kingsley, voice neutral, detached. 

"Can we get onto the paperwork now?"

The room is still charged, still thick with unsaid words and the ghosts of things that might have been. Draco shifts, his grip on Tom tightening slightly, his other hand twitching like he wants to reach for Harry but doesn’t. Pansy is still watching the door, like she wants to go after Ginny and hex her into next week. Susan’s grip on Harry’s shoulder is firm, grounding, warm, like she is deciding, in this moment, that she is going to stay. That she is going to be here.

Kingsley exhales. 

"Yes, Harry. Let’s get started."

And so they do.

Harry tucks Tom into the cot that has appeared in their rooms, smoothing the blanket over his small frame with hands that still shake from the encounter. The tremors live beneath his skin now, embedded in his bones, something permanent and unshakable. Tom breathes softly, deeply, lost to sleep, and Harry watches the way his lashes flutter, the way his fingers twitch where they rest curled against his chest. He does not look like a monster. He looks like a child. He looks fragile.

Draco is quiet, standing near the door, arms folded, expression unreadable. The air between them is thick with unsaid things, things Harry doesn’t know how to put into words, doesn’t want to. Then, finally, a whisper: 

"I’m sorry for what Weasley said to you."

Harry lets out a long sigh, pressing his fingers into his temple, trying to exhale the weight of it all. 

"It’s okay, Draco. There’s nothing we can do. At least Susan got most of the eighth years to listen to sense."

Draco nods slowly, gaze flickering from Harry to the sleeping boy. There is something soft in the way he looks at Tom, something hesitant, something conflicted. Harry wonders if he sees himself in him, if he wonders what he could have been, under different circumstances, with a different hand dealt to him.

Then Harry straightens, shoulders stiff, and says, "I’m going out. Can you keep an eye on Tom?"

Draco tilts his head, mouth pulling slightly downward. 

"Where are you going?"

"Nowhere important."

Draco doesn’t look convinced, but he nods, stepping closer. 

"Alright, but- don’t do anything stupid, Potter."

Harry almost laughs, but it feels like a foreign concept, so he just gives Draco a fleeting glance, an approximation of something light, something teasing, and says, "What, worried about me, Malfoy?"

Draco doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. The silence says enough.

Then Harry leaves, and the castle swallows him whole.

The walk is long. Longer than it should be. The corridors stretch like tunnels, endless, spiralling, too big, too dark, too quiet. He doesn’t remember getting here, not really. He just keeps moving forward because he has to, because stopping means thinking, means feeling, and he doesn’t want to do either of those things.

The door to the Room of Requirement appears, shifting into view as though it has been waiting for him. He steps inside, and the room is ruined.

It is broken and torn apart, blackened walls and shattered stone, destruction bleeding into the floors, curling up the pillars, clawing at the ceilings. The very bones of the place feel scorched.

Something inside of him caves in, like the floor giving way beneath his feet, and he sinks to his knees.

His magic surges. It is wild, raw, untethered, slipping from his grasp like smoke, like liquid fire, like something alive. It spills from him in waves, thick and heavy, curling through the air, bending the very space around him. The torches flicker violently, then extinguish all at once, plunging the room into darkness save for the eerie, shifting glow of his magic, pulsing like veins of molten gold through cracks in the stone. The air hums, thrums, vibrates with energy, the sound of something unnatural, something wrong.

His magic cracks against the walls, licks at the debris, warps the air into something suffocating. The floor beneath him quakes, trembles, fractures, and Harry grips his head, digging his nails into his scalp, as if he can tear the thoughts from his skull.

He should not exist.

This world should not exist.

He should have died in that forest. He should have stayed dead. Why didn’t he stay dead?

He gasps, choking on the weight in his chest, on the static in his veins, and lets out a sob that doesn’t feel like his own. It shatters the silence, echoes off the ruined walls, folds into the darkness like something swallowed whole.

Then, the rage comes.

It erupts from him in a scream, ripped from the very centre of his being, full of fury and agony and something else, something broken, something that has been clawing at him for far too long. The force of it sends a wave of magic slamming into the walls, cracks splintering outwards like veins of ice, dust and debris raining down around him.

The walls groan under the weight of it, bow inward, as if about to collapse entirely. The air crackles with electric heat, the scent of ozone sharp in the ruined space.

His magic pulses outward again, a violent, living force that does not want to be contained. It coils through the destruction like a beast unchained, writhing, searching, hungry. The shadows stretch and shudder, twisting with something dark and half-formed, something ancient and knowing.

Harry’s breath heaves, his fingers twitching against the jagged stone. He is drowning in it, in himself, in the too-muchness of everything he has never let himself feel. He is fire and ruin, a storm that does not end, an abyss that does not fill.

And then, the silence returns. The magic stills, settling back into his skin like it never left, like it never raged and devoured. The walls remain cracked, the air still heavy, but the storm has passed.

The last thought in his mind, looping over and over, is Ginny’s voice, sharp and venomous and final:

I hate you, Harry Potter. You’re a fucking monster.

Chapter Text

Harry wakes up, tangled in his sheets, staring at the ceiling. It is Friday. Four days since Tom appeared, since everything twisted sideways and somehow settled into a rhythm that makes too much sense. He blinks at the ceiling, waiting for something to click into place, but nothing does. Just the stillness, the hum of magic beneath the castle, the knowledge that Friday is supposed to mean something.

Fridays are good.

They have to be good.

Fridays mean structure. Routine. Things he can hold onto. Fridays mean Ancient Runes, the first Arithmancy lesson, healing lessons with Pomfrey. Fridays mean movement, distraction, and distractions are the only thing that keep the static in his skull from swallowing him whole.

Harry turns his head. Tom is still curled up on his cot, small and soft in the morning light, breathing evenly. His hair is a mess, dark curls falling over his forehead, his fingers curled in the sheets. He looks young. He is young. But there’s something strange about it, about him , like looking at a story written out of order, paragraphs swapped around, words missing, ink smudged in all the wrong places.

Harry watches him for a long moment, mind blank and too full at the same time. Then he moves, quiet as he dresses, pulling on his uniform, fixing his tie, methodical in a way that makes the world feel steadier beneath his feet. He crosses the room and places a hand on Tom’s shoulder, shaking him gently.

“Time to wake up.”

Tom stirs, blinking up at him, slow and sleepy. Then he smiles- soft, bright, something fragile and warm- and Harry doesn’t know what to do with it. He never knows what to do with it.

“Good morning,” Tom says, voice thick with sleep.

“Morning.” 

Harry keeps his voice even, keeps everything in place. 

“You’ll be with Susan and Pansy this morning. I have a double period for Ancient Runes with Draco. Then Draco for the first half of the afternoon. You can do whatever you like after then.”

Tom frowns slightly, rubbing at his eyes. 

“When can I stay with you?”

Harry exhales through his nose, already anticipating the disappointment. 

“I’ll be busy all day since Pomfrey expects me straight after Arithmancy. But after dinner, we can go to the library.”

Tom tilts his head, considering. 

“Will I see you at lunch?”

A smile ghosts over Harry’s lips before he can stop it. 

“Yeah, you’ll see me at lunch.”

Tom beams. 

“Yay!” 

Then he wriggles free of his blankets and pads toward the bathroom, still half-dazed with sleep.

Harry watches him go, something twisting low in his gut. He doesn’t know what to do with Tom. Doesn’t know how to hold the pieces of this new reality in his hands without crushing them. Tom acts like a normal kid, mostly. A little younger than eleven, maybe, his memories jagged and disjointed. He knows things he shouldn’t, forgets things he should remember. He’s catching up quickly, though. By Monday, he’s supposed to be ready to start school properly.

It’s unsettling. The way Tom picks things up. The way he learns. The way he wants to learn. He’s bright- brilliant, even. A genius, really. He absorbs information like it’s oxygen, like it’s the only thing keeping him alive.

Harry feels something like pride curl in his chest. It’s strange. Unfamiliar. He doesn’t usually feel much of anything these days. But this- this is different.

If they can’t send Tom back to his own time, then he’s going to be here. In Harry’s life. A permanent fixture.

Harry thinks about it, turning it over in his mind, pressing against the weight of it.

He finds he doesn’t much mind.

Harry and Tom step into the Great Hall, the morning light slicing through the enchanted ceiling, golden rays spilling like molten metal across the long tables. The hum of chatter surrounds them, a thousand conversations layering over each other in a cacophony that should be overwhelming, but isn’t. It’s just noise. Just a part of the scenery, just another thing he has learned to ignore. Tom, however, drinks it in like he has never heard voices before, like the world is something new and bright and wonderful, skipping ahead with his book clutched tightly in his hands.

He veers straight towards Draco, who is seated with Blaise, and thrusts the book forward, eyes alight. 

“Did you know that Hungarian Horntails can breathe fire up to fifty feet? That’s so much fire! And they’re the most aggressive of all known dragons- except I think that’s because they get really nervous, and people don’t understand them properly.”

Blaise, ever the picture of composed amusement, raises an eyebrow but indulges him. 

“Oh? And what makes you think that, mostriciattolo?”

Harry slides into the seat opposite, barely looking at his food as he glances between them. He likes Blaise well enough. He’s got that effortless grace, that sense of control. Half-Italian, Half-Ivorian. Polished. Luxurious in a way that’s not quite arrogance but something else entirely. Something Harry respects but doesn’t trust. Not yet. He watches as Blaise meets his gaze and inclines his head politely. Harry nods back. He keeps his ‘good list’ short.

Tom, oblivious to any undercurrents, chatters on. 

“Because! Look-” 

He flips through the book and points at an illustration of a rearing Horntail, wings half-spread, eyes sharp and furious. 

“See how its tail is curled? That’s defensive. It’s not actually trying to attack, it’s trying to protect itself.”

Blaise hums in thought before smirking slightly. 

“You know, mostriciattolo , Harry once fought a Hungarian Horntail.”

Harry stills, hands tightening on his fork. His glare sharpens as it lands on Blaise, who simply looks back at him, unbothered, sipping his coffee like he hasn’t just derailed Harry’s entire morning.

Tom’s head snaps around so fast he nearly topples from his seat. His eyes go impossibly wide, reverent, disbelieving. 

“Harry, you fought a dragon?”

Harry exhales, tilting his head slightly. 

“I was only three years older than you are now.”

Tom gapes. His wonder is almost too much, too raw, too trusting. Harry has seen that look before, but never directed at him. Not like this. It makes something in his chest twist uncomfortably. 

“Why?” Tom demands, voice full of eager horror, “Why would you do that? How did you survive?”

Harry sighs. He doesn’t want to talk about it. Not today. Not now. 

“I think that’s a story for when you’re a bit older, Tom.”

Tom whines, clutching at Harry’s sleeve, tugging insistently. 

“But I wanna know! Please?”

Blaise, ever the opportunist, leans in and murmurs, “I’ll tell you the story.”

Tom’s head swivels back, delighted, and he immediately scurries to sit beside Blaise, eyes shining as he listens intently. 

“Tell it really dramatically.”

“Oh, obviously,” Blaise smirks, “Once upon a time, our dear Harry Potter was forced into mortal combat with a great and terrible beast…”

Harry rolls his eyes as Tom gasps, utterly enraptured, already stuffing his face with pancakes like he’s watching a theatre performance. His focus shifts, however, when Draco nudges him with an elbow. Harry looks him up and down, before asking the question that's at the forefront of his mind.

“How far did you get on the runes coursework?” Harry asks, voice low, private.

Harry blinks, already knowing the answer but making Draco say it anyway. 

“Barely started.”

Harry frowns, pushing his plate away. 

“I finished it already.”

Draco gapes. 

“It took you three days ?”

Harry shrugs. 

“It was easy.”

Draco groans dramatically, rubbing at his temples. 

“Of course it was. Of course you finished it in three days. Why am I even surprised?”

Harry tilts his head, considering. 

“Want me to help?”

Draco exhales sharply, like he wants to say no out of sheer principle but knows better. 

“Yes. Please. Icelandic runes are insufferable.”

Harry nods. 

“They’re not my favourite either, but there are some easier ways to revise them.”

Draco looks at him then, and there’s something odd in the way his gaze lingers, sharp and assessing, but also- something else. Something softer. Harry doesn’t know what to do with it, so he doesn’t acknowledge it at all.

He finishes the last sip of his pumpkin juice and rises to his feet. 

“You ready to go?”

Draco sighs, but stands as well. He turns to Blaise. 

“Make sure Tom stays with Susan and Pansy.”

Blaise gives a lazy wave in acknowledgment, too busy spinning his tale to a rapt audience of one.

Then, with their steps unconsciously synchronizing, Harry and Draco leave together, walking side by side, the distance between them growing smaller with each passing moment.

Harry and Draco sit at the front of Ancient Runes, the room humming faintly with the quiet scratch of quills against parchment, the shuffle of books being turned, the occasional murmur of conversation. Harry tunes it all out. His headphones sit snug in his ears, muting the world into white noise as he works through the twentieth extension question of the first booklet. This one actually makes him think. He enjoys it. The gears in his brain shift, click into place, moving in ways they don’t often get to, and it’s pleasant in the way stretching a stiff muscle is. The logic is clean, structured, unforgiving. Runic sequences do not care for morality or meaning. They simply exist.

Draco, next to him, is far less focused. He and Hermione have begun arguing- again. The sharp lilt of her voice cuts through the calm like the thin edge of a blade, and even through the muffling of his music, Harry hears the way her words drip with pointed irritation, the way Draco’s return is smoother, silkier, laced with something crueler. His fingers twitch.

They are arguing about him.

Harry breathes out slowly. He doesn’t sigh- sighing takes too much effort. Instead, he lifts his wand and casts Langlock with barely a flick of his fingers. Hermione’s voice stops mid-word. Silence snaps into place like a well-placed lock.

Draco blinks, startled, before his lips twitch upward. 

"Potter," he drawls, low and pleased, "I think I might be in love with you."

Harry hums absently, not really listening, eyes still on his work. He reaches over, presses a hand lightly against Draco’s hair- soft, fine, cool under his fingers- and pats once. 

"Take a deep breath."

Draco does.

Harry smiles. He whispers, "Good."

Then he returns to his booklet, spinning his quill between his fingers, the rune sequences sliding into place in his mind like a well-oiled machine. The logic of it makes sense in ways most things don’t. People are messy. They contradict themselves. They say one thing and mean another. Runic theory does not. Runes are solid, immovable, absolute. It is comfort in its purest form.

Out of the corner of his eye, Hermione glares, hands clenched in her lap. Her face is red with frustration, her jaw tight. He wonders if she thinks he’s being cruel. Maybe he is. He doesn’t particularly care.

He tilts his head, considers, then speaks for her benefit, voice smooth and detached. 

"I don’t like it when you intentionally try to make a problem, Hermione. I think leaving it on for the rest of the day should work, shouldn’t it? Hmm… yes, I think so too. Now just concentrate, please."

Draco exhales a soft laugh, amused. He leans in a little, voice a conspiratorial whisper. 

"That was the most attractive thing I’ve ever seen."

Harry doesn’t react. Not outwardly. His fingers twitch again. There is a warmth somewhere in his chest, something flickering, foreign. He shoves it down before it can make a home there.

Hermione makes a furious sound in the back of her throat and kicks his chair.

Harry smiles, sharp and empty, and keeps working.

Arithmancy is numbers and patterns and logic, things that make sense, things that do not move unless you tell them to. It is grounding, or at least it should be. But the air hums wrong today, thick with something oily, something crawling beneath Harry’s skin like a trapped insect. He sits between Susan and Pansy, legs crossed, quill tapping against the parchment, the rhythm mismatched, erratic, and he cannot quite convince himself to fix it.

The Ravenclaws behind them whisper. They think he cannot hear them. They think they are subtle.

"Warming up to the snakes, isn’t he?" one murmurs, voice coated in something light, something meant to be idle curiosity.

"Bit too close to them, don’t you think? Always with Malfoy. And Parkinson. And Bones, but she’s practically neutral, so that hardly counts."

"It’s weird, right? Harry Potter, Golden Boy, suddenly best mates with a bunch of Slytherins."

Harry’s fingers tighten around his quill. The numbers on his parchment blur. He does not move, does not blink, does not turn his head. The anger is familiar, steady, coiled inside his ribs like a living thing, breathing with him, waiting. He could take his wand out. He could hex them into silence. He could make them regret it. It would be easy. So easy.

But Susan is laughing, and Pansy is smirking, and they are talking about Tom.

"Honestly," Pansy says, flipping a page in her textbook without looking, "he’s a menace. Did you hear what he said to McGonagall?"

"Oh, Merlin, yes," Susan groans, "I thought she was going to combust."

"He’s too charming," Pansy declares, "It’s unfair. If I had tried that at his age, I’d have been hexed out of the classroom."

Harry exhales. The tension pulls back, just slightly, curling around the edges of his mind like a cat’s tail flicking in irritation. He focuses on the sound of their voices, lets the numbers come back into view, forces himself into the pattern of the moment. His hand itches. His wand is too far away.

"He is charming," Susan says, "And smart. He’s catching up so quickly."

"Brilliant," Pansy agrees, then pauses, shooting Harry a sidelong glance, "Wonder where he got that from."

Harry does not answer. He is not sure he could, if he tried.

The whispers do not stop. They press in at the edges of his mind, sharp little teeth gnawing at something raw and frayed inside him. Their words are meaningless, but their intent is not. It seeps under his skin, acidic and unwelcome, dragging at him, urging something dark and indulgent to the surface.

He could do it. Just one flick of his wand. Just one whispered word. Silence would fall like a guillotine. He wonders how long it would last. He wonders if it would be enough.

Pansy kicks his ankle. 

"You’re staring."

He blinks, tilting his head. 

"Am I?"

Susan frowns. 

"Are you alright?"

Harry doesn’t know how to answer that. Alright is relative. Alright is meaningless. He taps his quill against the parchment again, a hollow sound, rhythmic and unsettling.

Pansy rolls her eyes. 

"He’s fine. He’s just thinking about murder."

Susan snorts. 

"As usual."

The tension uncoils, the darkness shrinks back. He doesn’t laugh, but his lips twitch. His fingers stop twitching. He lets out a slow breath, the numbers reassembling themselves into something coherent, something tangible, something real.

"You know," Susan says, tilting her head, "I think he’s starting to grow on you."

"He is not," Pansy says flatly, "I am simply making observations."

"Mmm," Susan hums, clearly unconvinced, "Sure."

Harry tunes them out, just a little. He does not need to participate. They do not need him to. The Ravenclaws behind them whisper still, and the knowledge of it is an irritant, but not unbearable. Not yet.

The itch remains. But he ignores it. For now.

Susan walks Harry to his healing lesson with Pomfrey. The corridors stretch too long, the walls pressing in, the flickering torches casting shadows that shift and crawl at the edges of his vision. It is a Friday. Fridays are meant to be good. Fridays are meant to be safe. But there is an itch beneath his skin, lingering, insistent, and he is angry that it has ruined his Friday. Angry that he cares. Angry that he even notices.

Susan talks. She does that, sometimes, without expecting him to answer. It is easier that way.

"You’re thinking too much," she says lightly, eyes forward, steps sure beside him, "I can see it."

Harry hums, noncommittal.

"Instinct, Harry. Remember?" 

She nudges his arm, gentle. 

"Not just what you think. What you feel."

He does not want to think about what he feels. He is not sure he feels anything at all. He says nothing.

Susan sighs. 

"Are you alright?"

A simple question. One with an easy answer. 

"I’m fine."

She studies him, the way people do, as if he is something to be deciphered, something that must be made to make sense. It grates against his nerves, but Susan is different. He lets her look, lets her see whatever it is she is looking for.

"Your Friday’s ruined," she says eventually, softly, as if that is the thing that matters most.

Harry clenches his jaw and stares ahead. 

"Fridays are meant to be good days."

"They can still be good," Susan says, squeezing his hand, "I’ll take care of those gossips for you."

Harry glances at her, something unreadable passing through his expression. 

"Thank you."

She smiles, quick and sharp, before pulling him into a hug. He does not freeze. He makes sure of it. He lets himself sink into the warmth of her, just for a moment, just long enough to feel something other than the static in his head.

"I’ll see you later," Susan whispers, then releases him and runs off, disappearing around a corner.

Harry adjusts himself, exhales, lets the itch settle. He needs to focus. He needs to be steady. He needs to be empty.

He steps forward, opens the doors to the hospital wing, and walks inside.

Harry's hands are steady as he wraps the bandage around the third-year’s arm, each movement precise, practiced, methodical. The girl sniffles, her wide, tear-filled eyes darting from her injury to his face, searching for reassurance, for comfort. He doesn’t know how to give that, not in the way people seem to expect, so he speaks instead, filling the space with words that mean nothing but serve their function regardless.

"Nifflers are notorious for getting into trouble," he says, adjusting the wrapping, ensuring the pressure is even, "They’ll tear apart an entire house if they think there’s gold inside. Even the well-trained ones. Gringotts uses them sometimes, you know. To test for hidden compartments in vaults."

The girl’s breath hitches, but there’s a flicker of interest in her expression now, a distraction taking hold. Good. Distraction is useful. Necessary. He keeps going.

"They have these little pouches in their bellies," he continues, finishing the final knot on her bandage, "Can hold way more than should be physically possible. Kind of like an undetectable extension charm, but biological. They’re fascinating."

The girl nods slowly, rubbing at her eyes with her free hand. 

"I- I think I saw one once. At a shop in Diagon Alley. It tried to steal my mum’s bracelet."

"That sounds about right," Harry says, standing and giving her an approving nod, "You’re all set now. Be careful next time, yeah?"

Pomfrey, who has been observing from across the room, steps forward as the girl hops down from the hospital cot and scurries off. 

"You’re good at that," she says, voice warm but assessing, "Calm under pressure. Reassuring."

Harry shrugs, adjusting the cuffs of his sleeves. 

"It’s just talking."

Pomfrey hums, eyes sharp as she studies him, but she lets it go. 

"You had a question earlier. About human anatomy?"

Harry nods. 

"I want to know more about how different curses affect the body. The mechanics of it. The long-term damage. Recovery times. Things like that."

Pomfrey raises an eyebrow but doesn’t question it. She likes when students take an interest in healing. She assumes that’s what this is. He lets her assume.

"Well," she says, leading him toward her office, "that depends entirely on the type of curse. Some cause instant damage- Severing Charms, for example- while others work slowly, deteriorating tissue over time. Then there are ones that disrupt internal processes, throwing off the body's equilibrium in ways we don’t fully understand. Dark magic especially has a tendency to linger. Even when the initial wound heals, traces remain."

Harry listens carefully, storing the information away. He needs to be precise about this. If he’s going to kill, he needs to do it right. Quick deaths are messy. Obvious. Painful deaths are suspicious. But something that lingers, something subtle-

Yes. That would do.

"What about nerve damage?" he asks, tilting his head slightly, "Are there spells that specifically target the nervous system?"

Pomfrey nods, already moving toward a bookshelf, fingers tracing along the spines of medical texts. 

"There are. Some are illegal, of course, but their effects are well-documented. Permanent numbness, paralysis, even increased sensitivity to pain. The trick with nerve-based spells is that they’re unpredictable. No two cases react the same way, which makes treatment difficult."

Harry hums in understanding. Unpredictable could be useful. Or inconvenient. He’ll have to consider it carefully.

"And internal bleeding?" he asks, voice neutral, "Are there spells that can cause it without leaving external marks?"

Pomfrey glances at him, curious now, but not yet suspicious. 

"A few. Mostly variations of Bludgeoning Curses, though some blood-based hexes can do similar damage. If not treated quickly, internal injuries can be fatal. But most leave traces that a skilled healer can detect."

Harry absorbs the knowledge, filing it away with clinical detachment. He doesn’t plan to be sloppy. He won’t get caught. He just needs to refine the details. Find the perfect method.

Pomfrey hands him a book, thick and well-worn, the title embossed in fading gold. 

"This should help answer some of your questions," she says, "Though I do hope you’re not planning to test any of this knowledge outside of an academic setting."

Harry smiles, the expression practiced, hollow. 

"Of course not."

Pomfrey chuckles, shaking her head. 

"You remind me of another student I had years ago. Brilliant, but always asking the wrong kind of questions."

He doesn’t ask who she means. He doesn’t care. He takes the book, thanks her, and steps away.

His mind is already elsewhere, running through possibilities, perfecting plans. He has work to do.

The library hums, the air thick with dust and silence, the kind of silence that isn’t really silence at all. Pages turn. Quills scratch. Breaths are held in anticipation of something, of knowledge being absorbed, of secrets being deciphered. Harry sits in the farthest corner, curled into himself, the book Pomfrey gave him lying open on the wooden table, its spine cracked, its pages yellowing at the edges. He flips through them absently, scanning diagrams of muscle, sinew, nerve endings, joints locking and unlocking.

He wonders how much pressure it takes to sever a tendon. How precise the cut has to be before someone loses function in their hand, their leg. How deep before pain becomes unbearable.

He is not Voldemort. He knows that. He has no interest in horcruxes, in soul preservation, in stretching life out like a fraying thread, thin and brittle and desperate.

He wants something different.

He doesn’t want to be a god. He wants to be a force. Unseen. Unfelt until it is too late. A shifting shadow, a cold breath on the nape of the neck, something sharp slipping between ribs and pressing, pressing, pressing until it all spills out.

He turns another page.

Tom sits across from him, legs tucked beneath his chair, a book on ancient magical civilizations propped open in his lap. He’s reading in that way he does, head tilted slightly, fingers tracing the words, eyes too wide, too eager. There’s ink on his wrist, smudged where he’s been taking notes, and he bites his lip in concentration, frowning.

Harry watches him in between scanning medical illustrations, between taking mental notes on how organs shift when a body collapses, how quickly blood clots in different areas of the body. Tom is learning. He is learning too.

“You’re staring,” Tom says, not looking up from his book.

Harry doesn’t answer. He turns another page.

Tom shifts, adjusting his position, flipping his own page. 

“What are you reading?”

“Nothing.”

Tom snorts. 

“It’s obviously not nothing.”

Harry exhales through his nose, tapping a finger against the margin of his book. 

“It’s about pain.”

Tom finally looks up, tilting his head, interested now. He blinks, slow and deliberate, considering. 

“Pain?”

“The body. How it reacts to trauma.”

Tom watches him for a moment, assessing. He looks down at Harry’s book, then back up. There’s a gleam in his eyes, something sharp and knowing. He leans forward. 

“You know, there’s an ancient curse that targets nerve endings specifically.”

Harry stills.

Tom continues, voice low, like he’s sharing a secret, his eyes almost glazed. He knows that this is the Tom with his memories intact- not the Tom who Harry has come to know about. This is the boy who will turn into a monster, not the boy who wants to help people.

“It’s a forgotten magic, mostly. Not quite dark, not quite light. It doesn’t break bones, doesn’t leave marks. Just… sensation. Excruciating.”

Harry’s heartbeat doesn’t quicken, doesn’t shift. But there is something there, something clicking into place. He doesn’t speak, just watches as Tom flips through his own book, scanning pages, fingers moving fast, before he finds it.

He pushes the book toward Harry, tapping a paragraph near the bottom. 

“There. It was used by warlocks in the twelfth century. They called it-”

“I know what they called it,” Harry murmurs, eyes skimming the description. He feels something cold bloom inside him.

It’s perfect.

A spell that doesn’t kill but makes them wish it did. No evidence. No residue. No traceable signature. Just pain, sinking deep, gnawing at the edges of sanity, leaving nothing but a hollow scream where a person used to be.

Tom grins, sharp and bright. 

“Do you like it?”

Harry looks at him. Tom is young, but not. Innocent, but not. There’s a reason Dumbledore feared him. There’s a reason Harry should fear him. But he doesn’t.

He nods once. 

“Yes.”

Tom hums, satisfied, and leans back in his chair, returning to his reading. Harry glances back down at the spell, committing the words to memory, engraving them into his bones.

The library hums on.

Harry breathes.

Harry sits in the common room alone, though not truly alone. Pansy, Draco, Tom, and Susan play chess nearby. He keeps them in the corner of his eye, watches the way Tom’s little hands curl around the pieces, the way Draco’s brow furrows in concentration. Tom is winning. Harry knows this without looking at the board. He always is.

His fingers trace the edges of the parchment in his lap, the list of names written in ink that has long since dried, but the weight of them presses against his skin as if they are carved there instead. The ink has soaked into him. He lets it. He turns the parchment over, then back again. Reads the names, crosses one out, adds another. Adjustments. Planning. Precision.

Zacharias Smith. Cornelius Fudge. Antonin Dolohov. Dolores Umbridge. Gilderoy Lockhart. Corban Yaxley. Thorfinn Rowle. Amycus Carrow. Rabastan Lestrange. Mulciber. Rita Skeeter.

Some names are already crossed out. Barty Crouch Jr. Quirinus Quirrell. Voldemort. Peter Pettigrew. Alecto Carrow. Bellatrix Lestrange.

A muggle section. It is smaller, but not by much. His old primary school teachers. Vernon and Petunia. Piers Polkiss. Dudley’s other friends. 

Not Dudley. 

Never Dudley. Dudley apologised. Dudley does not matter. The house matters more than him. Privet Drive itself will burn. He wonders what fire feels like against skin. He wonders if he would feel it at all.

Mrs. Figg is there. A reminder. She will be spared. He owes her that much.

He runs his fingers over the list again, feeling the grooves of the ink, as if the pressure of the names alone is enough to leave scars against his skin. He wonders if they will. He wonders if he would like it. There are certain truths the body remembers, even when the mind does not. Pain is one of them. Maybe if it hurt enough, it would pull him back. Maybe he would feel something again.

But this is not about feeling. Not yet. That comes later. When the blood pools. When the silence stretches. When breath is stolen. He closes his eyes and imagines it. The stillness. The weightlessness. The way their bodies will fold in on themselves, slack and empty. There is something beautiful in that, he thinks. Something poetic. The finality of it. The precision.

He sets the list aside. Opens his sketchbook. The ink on this paper is darker. The lines are more precise. The curves and angles map out the lives he has decided will end, the careful calculations of how. There is no magic here. Not in the method. A spell, but done muggle. Precise. Efficient. Clean.

He does not want to be like Voldemort. Voldemort was careless. Loud. Sloppy. Magic leaves traces, and traces leave evidence, and evidence means being caught. Harry will not be caught. He will be something else entirely. Something better.

A blade, slid between the ribs at just the right angle. The point of entry small, nearly invisible, blood pooling inside the cavity of their body instead of spilling outward. The way their lungs would drown in it. A rope, tightened at just the right tension, at just the right height. The way the throat bruises from the inside before the outside ever shows a mark. Pills dissolved in wine, the slow drift of sleep before breath stops entirely. Harry knows how to be patient. He knows how to wait.

His lips twitch. He runs his tongue over them. Tastes something sharp, something electric. His fingers curl around the edge of the paper, pressing hard enough to crumple it slightly. He releases it before he does any damage. There is work to do still. But soon. Soon.

A laugh breaks through his thoughts. Draco, at something Tom said. Harry looks up. Watches them. Pansy nudges Draco’s shoulder. Susan rolls her eyes. Tom grins, the corners of his mouth curling like a cat stretching in sunlight.

Harry watches. Harry waits.

He whispers, "I cannot wait."

Harry continues to fantasize about murder as he heads to his room, his steps measured, his thoughts drifting, the world around him shifting like water. He places his books away, his movements mechanical, precise, his mind already elsewhere. He leaves a note for Draco and Tom, scrawled in ink, its message simple, vague. A promise of return. A distraction. Something to hold onto, though he doesn’t know if they should.

He undresses, peels fabric from skin, lets the layers fall to the floor in careless heaps. The black turtleneck is soft beneath his fingers, a second skin, a shadow wrapped tight around his form. The baggy cargo trousers are heavier, grounding, reassuring in their weight. The black combat boots lace tight against his feet, their familiarity settling in his bones. He ties the black neckerchief firm around his throat. A ward. A shield. A symbol.

His hair falls loose, spilling over his shoulders, a dark curtain that shadows his expression. He removes his glasses, sets them aside, replaces them with contacts. When he looks into the mirror, the reflection that stares back at him is different- sharper, colder, absent of hesitation. It is not a boy’s face. It is something else entirely. Something detached. Something inevitable.

Hogwarts breathes around him as he moves, its heartbeat steady, unchanged. Silent steps carry him through familiar corridors, shadows bending in his wake. He ascends to the hidden portrait, places a hand against the frame, waits. The passage opens, gaping dark and yawning deep. He does not pause. He does not hesitate. The tunnel is thick with dust and time, but it leads him where he needs to go- to the closed shop, the forgotten space between one world and the next.

Then-

He Apparates. The sensation barely registers.

Privet Drive materialises before him, sterile and still, a monument to a life that was never his. Nothing has changed. The street remains as suffocating as ever, wrapped in an artificial perfection that makes his skin itch. Arabella Figg is absent, just as expected. His informant was correct. They will need to be silenced, eventually. But not tonight. The hunt for them will be its own delight, a separate indulgence. For now, there is only this.

His fingers trace the edges of the matchbox, rolling the small wooden stick between his fingertips. Fire is an old thing, a hungry thing, a thing that does not care. A thing that destroys without bias. A thing that purifies. He holds the match, considering. Thoughts unfurl, abstract and jagged, the words of philosophers echoing at the edges of his mind. Morality. Ethics. Structures meant to cage, to control, to soften the sharp edges of truth. Interesting, perhaps, but ultimately meaningless. He has long since discarded the need for such things.

Because in the end, humans are creatures of blood. Of hunger. Of want. Harry is no different.

He strikes the match.

The flame flickers, small, fragile in its infancy. It dances in his palm, orange and gold, so deceptively weak. He cups it, breathes into it, whispers a word. Magic coils, raw and waiting, a silent promise of destruction. The fire shifts, twists, grows. Fiendfyre. It curls around his fingers like a lover’s caress, but it does not burn him. It cannot. The wards are set. The protections in place. The fire will stay contained, but Privet Drive will not survive this night.

He lets the match fall.

The fire catches instantly. Devours. Crawls up the pavement, slithers against brick and glass, kisses the rooftops with hungry, eager tongues. The air thickens with heat, the crackle of destruction filling the silence. Harry watches, expression blank, body still. He does not move as the flames spread, as the house he grew up in is reduced to ruin, as the ghosts of his childhood shriek and vanish into the night.

He wonders what fire feels like against skin. Wonders if he would feel it at all.

It is not vengeance that stirs in his chest, nor rage. It is something simpler. Purer.

Freedom.

His lips twitch. He runs his tongue over them, tasting something sharp, something electric. The heat licks at his back as he turns, his shadow stretching long against the burning street. He does not rush. He does not look back.

The flames reflect in his eyes, flickering like dying stars. He watches them for a moment longer, listens to the deep, guttural roar of destruction, the way the fire snarls as it consumes. There is beauty in this. In the way the world bends to his will. In the way something that once held power over him is reduced to nothing but smoke and ash.

He breathes deep, and for the first time in years, the air does not taste like a cage.

At the edge of the wards, just before he slips beyond them, he exhales slow, measured.

Then, he smiles.

Sharp. Wicked. Electric.

And he Apparates away, leaving the past to burn.

Harry returns to Hogwarts in a whisper of displaced air, the heat of the flames still licking at his skin in memory. The scent of smoke clings to him, invisible but there, seared into his clothes, his hair, his lungs. He inhales deep, lets it sit heavy in his chest. He thinks he should feel something more. Guilt. Regret. Anything. But there is only the ghost of laughter curled around his ribs, the aftershock of adrenaline like static beneath his skin. A hum. A song. A lullaby made of ruin.

He peels his clothes away slowly, methodically, movements fluid, detached. The black turtleneck slides over his head, the fabric catching for only a second before it pools at his feet. The cargo trousers are next, then the boots, then the neckerchief, unfurled from his throat like the shedding of a second skin. He feels lighter without it, but not exposed. Never exposed. Just- unburdened.

Barefoot, he moves through the dim-lit halls, silent as a shadow. The castle hums around him, ancient and knowing, its walls heavy with whispers. He wonders if it can tell. If the stones beneath his feet remember fire. If they, too, hunger for something more.

The dorm is quiet when he enters. The bed nearest to him is occupied- Draco, still awake, propped against pillows, a book loose in his hands. His gaze flickers up as Harry steps inside, and something in his posture shifts, something subtle. He does not ask where Harry has been. Does not demand answers. He only watches, eyes sharp, knowing, waiting.

In the cot beside him, Tom sleeps soundly, small fingers curled into the sheets, his breath steady and even. Draco had always insisted on keeping the cot close, even though Tom is old enough to have a bed of his own. 

"He likes the warmth," Draco had said, voice soft, private, like a secret never meant to be spoken aloud. 

And Harry had let him. Had never argued. Because warmth was a rare thing, fragile, fleeting. He would not be the one to take it away.

Harry changes into his pajamas, movements slow, unhurried. Draco sets his book aside, the pages rustling as they settle, and watches him still.

"Are you alright?" he asks at last, voice low, careful.

Harry nods. The adrenaline still sings in his veins, but his hands are steady. His breath measured. His heart a quiet, patient thing beneath his ribs.

Draco does not press. Instead, he leans back against the headboard, exhales slow. 

"Tom’s been attentive today," he says, his voice shifting, the faintest trace of something fond curling at the edges, "He watches everything. I think he’s learning more than he lets on."

Harry hums, glancing at the sleeping child. He understands. Tom watches the world the way Harry does. Calculating. Dissecting. Searching for the seams between reality and illusion. A child, and yet-

Not quite.

He shifts, stretching out the tension in his shoulders. 

"It’s been a good day today," he says, and the words taste right, feel right, settle into place like puzzle pieces. 

A truth, in its own way. He smiles, and it is sharp, electric. Draco watches him, unreadable, something like interest flickering behind his gaze.

Draco yawns then, rolling his shoulders, blinking slow. 

"I’ll be in the bathroom," he murmurs, voice weighted with sleep, and he pushes off the bed, vanishing into the adjoining room.

The door clicks shut behind him.

Harry chuckles to himself, quiet, breathless. The sound feels foreign in his throat, unfamiliar. But real.

The rush of the night still thrums through his bones, burning bright in the back of his skull. He flexes his fingers, feels the absence of flame, the weight of something unseen pressing at the edges of his mind.

For the first time in a long time-

He feels alive.

Chapter Text

Harry sits in the library, the weight of the runes book heavy in his lap, its pages thin and whispering against his fingers as he turns them. The candlelight flickers, shadows dancing, letters shifting. Isa. Gebo. Thurisaz. Runes of stillness, of sacrifice, of disruption. They hum beneath his touch, ancient and waiting, language carved into the bones of the world itself. He wonders what would happen if he carved them into his own skin. If he wove them into something deeper, something raw. He thinks of Nietzsche, of his laughter and his abyss, of how the world makes monsters and then recoils when they refuse to be anything else. Thinks of Kant, of duty, of the stifling order that he has never been able to follow. Thinks of Diogenes, spitting in the face of civility, rejecting the shackles of morality built for control rather than kindness.

It makes sense, but it doesn’t. Nothing makes sense, except for the weight of the book and the steady, measured cadence of Draco’s fingers combing absently through his hair.

Draco and Pansy gossip in the corner, their voices low and lilting, weaving through the quiet like music. Draco shifts slightly, just enough that Harry can feel the movement, and Harry presses closer, cheek against Draco’s shoulder, silent. Safe. Susan sits across from them, an orange highlighter in her hand as she underlines something in her Muggle notebook, eyes flicking over the text in concentration. The contrast of ink and bright neon catches Harry’s attention, but he doesn’t look too closely. Too much brightness. Too much order. He prefers the weight of the runes, the bite of ancient words against his fingertips.

Tom is beside him, small and serious, flipping through a first-year textbook with careful fingers, frowning in concentration. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s reading aloud, soft murmurs of incantations slipping past his lips. It’s comforting, in a way, being surrounded like this. Held in place by sound, by movement, by the grounding touch of Draco’s hand in his hair. It’s almost enough to keep him tethered. Almost.

Then-

A shift in the air. A presence unwanted. A footstep too sharp against the floor.

Harry doesn’t lift his head, but he knows. He knows before the voice comes, before the taunting lilt drags its way through the air like a blade drawn too slow across skin.

“Well, well,” Zacharias Smith sneers, “Looks like Potter’s gone full snake, then. What’s the matter, Harry? Too good for the Gryffindors now?”

Harry closes his eyes. Feels the slow, steady beat of his pulse behind his eyelids. Thinks about how many ways he could kill Smith before anyone could stop him. He thinks about gouging his eyes out, about runes carved into the flesh of his arms, about silence. He thinks, and he does not move.

“Leave him alone, Zacharias,” Susan snaps, voice sharp, “And you two-” 

Her attention shifts to Ron and Hermione, standing just behind Smith. 

“You’re Head Boy and Girl. Do your fucking job.”

“Harry’s the one who abandoned us,” Hermione says, voice tight, defensive. 

As if that justifies anything. As if it erases the fact that she never apologised. Never cared to.

Smith sneers. 

“Honestly, Susan, why are you hanging around a wog anyway?”

The word slithers through the air, rancid and vile, and Harry freezes. A single, crystalline moment of stillness. A flicker of something deep, deep inside him that turns sharp and bright and unbearably loud.

Draco’s wand is out in an instant, Langlock flying through the air before Smith can say another word. He gags, his mouth sealing shut, his eyes going wide with panic.

“Get lost,” Pansy hisses, eyes alight with fury.

Tom moves before anyone else, stepping in front of her, small and fierce. 

“You’re being mean,” he says, voice steady, too steady for a child, “Go away.”

Ron sneers. 

“We don’t take orders from little firstie Dark Lords.”

Tom doesn’t hesitate. He shoves Ron, hard, enough that he stumbles back, hitting the floor with an undignified yelp. The sound of Parseltongue follows, a furious, hissing warning that raises the hair on the back of Harry’s neck. It is beautiful.

Hermione glares at Harry, as if this is his fault, as if he should care. She doesn’t even try to apologise. She just turns and storms off, her robes snapping behind her.

Pansy leans close to Harry, voice a whisper. 

“I’m going to kill him.”

Harry smiles, slow and sharp, something dark curling in his chest. 

“I’ll beat you to it.”

Draco exhales through his nose, his fingers resuming their slow, methodical motion through Harry’s hair. 

“You’re insufferable,” he murmurs, but there’s something soft in the way he says it. 

Something dangerous. Something inevitable.

Harry closes his eyes. He doesn’t need to see to know that Draco is looking at him. That there is something heavy in the space between them, something waiting, something unfurling slow as smoke in the air.

He doesn’t know if it’s love. Doesn’t know if he’s capable of something so soft, so human.

But he knows Draco’s touch keeps him tethered. And, for now, that is enough.

Harry drifts through the castle, shadow-light and soundless, his presence tethered only by the gentle weight of Draco pressed against his side. They are inseparable now, a constant, a fixed point in the ever-shifting, meaningless flow of everything else. He should feel strange about it, the way he latches onto Draco, how he clings like ivy curling around stone, but he doesn’t. Because Draco hasn’t told him to stop. Because Draco seems to like it, actually, and that is enough.

Pansy walks a step ahead, her voice lilting, sharp with amusement and intellectual challenge as she prods Susan into a debate about transfiguration laws. Susan, ever methodical, meets her with the calm of someone who enjoys the structure of rules, of logic, of things that have purpose. She speaks of legal precedent, of ethical boundaries, of controlled magic and its proper place. Draco listens, absorbed, nodding at her points and adding his own, and Tom- small, inquisitive, human- tilts his head up at Susan, eyes bright as he drinks in her words. He is fascinated.

They reach the Great Hall, but of course, peace is temporary. It always is.

Smith, Ron, Hermione, and a small gang of their followers block their way, their presence an irritation, a smear of unwanted noise against the fabric of Harry’s momentary calm. Ron steps forward first, all bluster and demand, voice grating in Harry’s ears. 

"Remove the Langlock, Malfoy."

Draco, casual as a knife at the throat, tilts his head and hums. 

"If he apologises for what he called Harry, then I’ll consider it."

There is a pause. Then, with great reluctance, Draco lifts the spell, and Smith’s voice returns in a sputtering mess of half-swallowed syllables. 

He glares, teeth bared, but he mumbles, "I’m sorry."

Harry stares at him, expression blank, and lets the silence stretch long and thin until it snaps like brittle glass. His voice, when it finally comes, is rough from disuse, sharp with something colder than anger. 

"I don’t forgive you."

Smith snarls, eyes flashing with irritation, and then he spits out: 

"What, you’re too busy clinging to the ferret to care? Is that it? Merlin, just admit you’re a pathetic little faggot-"

Ron laughs, low and cruel, and Hermione, as always, says nothing.

Pansy bristles, her voice a whip crack as she snaps. 

"Shut your bloody mouth, Smith, before I hex it shut permanently."

Harry tilts his head, lets the words slither through him, and does the only thing that makes sense. He lets his expression crumple. He lets his breath hitch. He lets false tears well at the edges of his eyes and spill, slow and quiet, down his cheeks. A sob rattles free, soft and weak, and he folds himself into Draco’s chest, tucking his face against the steady, reassuring warmth of him. And the rage- it coils, it festers, it waits, gluttonous and eager for release.

The effect is immediate. Smith and Ron freeze, stunned, and then there is chaos.

Susan’s voice is sharp and furious as she rounds on them, eyes blazing. 

"What the fuck is wrong with you two? He’s crying! Do you think that’s funny? Do you think harassing him is some kind of game?" 

Her words hit like hexes, relentless and brutal, and Pansy, of course, joins in, spitting venom, voice shrill with righteous fury.

The scene grows, a crowd gathering, whispers rising. The air turns electric with tension, thick with unspoken threats, with the promise of a fight about to break loose.

And then-

Professor Maverick appears, cutting through the chaos with the kind of presence that demands obedience. His voice is steel, his authority unquestionable as he dishes out punishments without hesitation. Smith, Ron, and Hermione are reprimanded, their protests ignored. Hermione, for once, is not excused by her usual self-righteousness. Pansy is smug. Harry is content. The world shifts again, and he lets himself be led away, a smirk curling unseen against Draco’s robes as Tom hisses something furious in Parseltongue at Ron, his small body vibrating with indignant rage.

At the Hufflepuff table, Draco wipes the dampness from Harry’s cheeks, his touch oddly gentle. His voice is barely above a whisper, low and knowing. 

"You’re faking."

Harry smirks, slow and ugly, and murmurs back, "How did you know?"

Draco grins, sharp and bright. 

"You don’t let out your rage through tears."

Harry doesn’t reply, just buries himself deeper into Draco’s embrace, feeling the quiet amusement in the way Draco holds him. 

And then, softly, in a voice meant only for him, Draco says, "I’ll help you keep up the act."

And Harry-

Harry smiles.

There is warmth in the way Draco doesn’t let go. The way Pansy sits with one arm draped over the back of his chair, all sharp angles and unspoken loyalty. The way Susan, lips pressed thin, watches him carefully, as though she is measuring his heartbeat through sheer force of will. And Tom- small, brilliant, human- leans against Harry’s side, his tiny fingers curling in the fabric of Harry’s sleeve as though anchoring himself there.

The world is cold, but here, for now, there is something like heat. Like the whisper of something not quite family but not quite nothing either.

And that, for now, is enough.

Harry walks alone through the corridors, on his way to the infirmary to apprentice for Madam Pomfrey, when Zacharias and Ron corner him. There are more of them, Smith’s cronies, shadows cast too long in the flickering torchlight. Hermione is nowhere to be seen.

Smith steps forward, voice a whisper, words curled and sharp. 

"You’re going to pay for what you did, you little fag."

Harry laughs, unhinged. 

"What- three months of detention for a homophobic assault? I’d consider that lenient."

Ron snarls.

"We know you were faking."

Harry claps, slow and mocking, barely restraining the hum of magic under his skin. 

"Well done. You’ve officially decided I have no feelings. Woohoo."

One of the boys sneers.

"Maybe you only saved us all because you wanted to shag that snake."

Harry sniggers, leans in, voice a hushed conspiratorial whisper. 

"Mate, I’m pretty sure I want him to shag me. Have you seen that boy’s abs? He’s hot, and I wouldn’t say no to a good fucking."

Ron recoils. 

"You’re gay?"

Harry chuckles. 

"I swing both ways."

Smith’s face twists in fury before he lashes out, wand moving in vicious arcs, curses slicing through the air like poisoned knives. Harry recognizes them- old magic, the kind that lingers too long in the bones. A cutting hex rips through his robes and bites deep into his side, the pain flaring hot and sharp. A burning curse follows, latching onto his skin like oil-fed fire. Harry doesn’t fight back. His magic writhes inside him, furious and unwilling to obey, but he clenches his jaw, forces it down. He needs this. He needs them to think they’ve won.

Another spell cracks against his ribs, and he chokes, blood surging up his throat, thick and hot as it spills past his lips. He collapses to his knees.

"Where’s the great Harry Potter now?" Smith taunts.

Harry smirks, blood staining his lips. And then he screams. Loud. Unhinged. 

"HELP! HELP ME! AAAAAUUUUGGGGHHH!!!"

The air splits with the sound, his magic reacting instinctively, twisting and writhing like a living thing. He can feel it unraveling, pulling at the edges of reality, hungry, desperate to lash out. The torches flicker violently, casting jagged shadows against the stone.

Footsteps thunder toward him. A gasp. A sharp intake of breath.

Susan.

And Tom- small, fierce, trembling with barely contained panic.

A crowd forms, voices rising, confusion and horror tangled together.

Susan disarms them, her voice shaking with fury. 

"HAVE YOU ALL GONE FUCKING MAD TODAY?!"

Smith stumbles back, his wand ripped from his hand, but it’s too late. The damage is done. Harry’s magic is rebelling, his blood rejecting the curses as they fight to root deeper into him. He can feel it shifting, warping, pushing against the constraints of his body, clawing its way out through his skin, through his mouth-

He coughs, the motion wrenching through him like broken glass, and more blood spills onto the floor, pooling dark and viscous. His limbs tremble, but he forces himself upright, just enough to look at Tom. The boy is pale, wide-eyed, his little hands shaking as he wraps them around Harry, shielding him with his small frame as though he can physically block out the world.

"It’s okay," Harry rasps, but his voice is weak, his body too slow, too sluggish to keep up with him.

Tom lets out a soft, heartbroken whimper, fingers threading through Harry’s hair, desperate, seeking comfort. 

"It’s not your fault," he whispers, over and over, like a mantra, like he can make it true.

Smith snarls, "He’s pretending!"

Tom snaps, his voice trembling with rage. 

"YOU CALL THE BLOOD PRETENDING?!"

Susan is still screaming, hexes at the tip of her tongue, pure wrath pouring from every inch of her as she turns on them like a storm incarnate.

And then-

Footsteps. Sharp. Purposeful.

The crowd parts like the sea.

Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey appear, their expressions carved from ice, their fury something tangible, something real and terrible in its weight.

McGonagall kneels beside him, her hands hovering over his wounds, her lips pressed into a thin, unrelenting line. 

"What in Merlin’s name-" she breathes, but it’s not a question. It’s a promise of judgment.

Harry shakes, no longer pretending, his body wracked with pain as two seventh years carefully lift him onto a stretcher. He barely has time to breathe before his magic revolts, a violent shudder running through him as the curses are expelled, his body forcing them out in raw, agonizing waves.

He screams again, his vision going white-hot at the edges, and McGonagall’s voice cuts through the chaos like a blade.

"MY OFFICE- NOW!"

The weight of her fury is a living thing, pressing against the air, suffocating in its authority.

Harry smirks, even as his body writhes, even as pain fractures through him like a thousand jagged cracks.

They’re in big trouble now.

Harry is on the bed, shaking, magic snapping against his skin like a fraying wire, barely held together under Pomfrey’s hands. He is woozy, drowning in exhaustion, but his eyes remain locked on the air above him, trying to read the runes from the diagnostic spell floating in the space between wakefulness and oblivion. His body hurts- of course, it does, it always does- but he is more interested in the way the runes shift, the symbols unfamiliar in their flickering light, twisting just beyond comprehension. He blinks, eyes fluttering, and the shapes dissolve into something else. Something ancient. Something hungry.

There are voices. Footsteps. The swish of robes. Something grips his chin, tilts his head.

Draco’s eyes are too bright, too full, a storm gathering behind pale lashes. Harry stares into the depths, tilting his head, examining the way grief pools in them like ink spilled over paper. He wonders if he looks the same when he cries.

Probably not. He doesn’t cry like that. He doesn’t cry at all.

A smile curls on his lips, sharp, bloody. 

"I’m okay," he says, though he doesn’t know if it’s true. 

The words don’t feel like his own.

Draco inhales sharply. His hands are cold where they press against Harry’s cheek, trembling. 

"You had a seizure," he whispers, voice breaking, accusation buried under worry, "You- you stopped breathing, Harry. You were convulsing. You-"

"Still okay." Harry interrupts, voice light. 

He means it. He doesn’t see the problem. He is here. His blood is still in his body, mostly. His magic will fix itself, mostly. He’s not dead, even if he sometimes wonders if that would be preferable.

Draco makes a sound, something wrecked, something quiet. His grip tightens. 

"I was scared. I was so scared."

Harry moves without thinking, lifting a shaky hand, catching Draco’s wrist, turning it, pressing his lips against Draco’s knuckles, leaving blood behind like a promise, like a brand, like something soft and deadly in equal measure. 

"I’ll kill him if you want me to," he murmurs, voice slipping between reality and fever dreams, "I can."

Draco exhales, a shudder, a sigh. He doesn’t look disturbed. His hands stroke absently through Harry’s hair. 

"Darling, you’re not in your right mind right now."

Harry grins, all teeth, all madness. 

"I want to. I really do."

Draco doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t recoil. Doesn’t act as though the idea of Harry killing someone is incomprehensible. He only smooths a hand down the back of Harry’s head, presses his palm there like he’s holding him together, like he’s keeping Harry from unraveling into nothingness.

"Pomfrey wants you sitting up," Draco murmurs after a long pause, as though nothing has just happened, as though Harry hasn’t whispered murder against his skin. 

He moves, shifting, pulling Harry against him, holding him close, so close, letting Harry settle against his shoulder, nose pressing against Draco’s throat, breath warm against his pulse. Harry doesn’t resist. Doesn’t fight it. 

He just burrows in and whispers, "Okay."

Draco exhales slowly, his chest rising and falling under Harry’s cheek, his fingers still carding through his hair, slow, deliberate. There is a pause, heavy, stretched, filled with something too fragile to name.

Then, finally, Draco speaks, voice breaking apart at the edges. 

"Why would they do this to the boy who saved them?"

Harry doesn’t move. Doesn’t lift his head. Just presses himself closer, words slipping from his lips like smoke, like something already burned away. 

"Because heroes never have their happy endings, Draco."

Draco’s breath hitches.

His hands tighten their hold.

Neither of them say anything else.

Harry is weightless, drifting somewhere between exhaustion and something softer, something that doesn’t hurt. There is warmth pressed against him, solid and unmoving, fingers threading through his hair in a rhythm that is almost hypnotic. Draco. His body knows before his mind does.

He is sitting on Draco’s lap, his head tucked against Draco’s shoulder, the slow drag of fingers over his scalp making him shiver in a way that is good, in a way that means he doesn’t have to think, doesn’t have to exist beyond the narrow space Draco has carved out for him. Madam Pomfrey has allowed Draco to stay- of course, she has; Harry made sure of it, had let his voice shake and his eyes go glassy with unshed tears, had whispered, “I don’t want to be alone,” and watched her fold like parchment.

Now, Draco whispers to him, voice low, reverent. 

“You’re being so good for me, love. So calm. So good for Madam Pomfrey.”

Harry shivers, and Draco tightens his grip around him, arms a vice, pain-precise and perfect. His body obeys Draco before his mind does, muscle memory built into something as easy as breathing. He tilts his head back, and Draco’s fingers curl into his hair, tugging, forcing his throat bare. The sharp heat of it makes Harry whimper, and Draco hushes him immediately, voice like a blade’s edge.

“Be a good boy now. Ssh.”

Harry smiles, slow and lazy, letting the world melt into the space between Draco’s hands. The fingers never still, weaving through his hair as if they could pull something out of him, as if Draco could find whatever is left of Harry and keep it safe.

Footsteps. The door opens.

Draco doesn’t stop touching him, doesn’t shift him away, just says, voice harder, sharper, “What are you doing here, Granger?”

Hermione.

Harry doesn’t need to see her to feel the crackle of her irritation, doesn’t need to hear her sneer to know it’s there.

“I’m here to see Harry,” she says, and her voice is too even, too forced.

Draco snorts, unimpressed. 

“It’s past visiting hours, Granger. You shouldn’t be here.”

“You shouldn’t be here either, Draco. And I have permission as Head Girl.”

Draco hums, unimpressed. 

“I have permission from Pomfrey, and since she’s the healthcare professional, you can simply fuck off.”

Hermione’s sharp inhale is almost funny. Harry lets the sound bounce around in his skull, tries to see if it fits anywhere, but his brain is slow, syrup-thick, and nothing clicks.

“What happened?” she asks instead, voice tight.

Draco’s fingers stay tangled in Harry’s hair, soothing even as his voice turns to ice. 

“Smith and Weasley took it too far. You’ll be pleased to know that Weasley didn’t cast any spells, but Smith did. He’s been expelled. Weasley’s had his Head Boy title stripped, lost all his privileges, and has detention for the rest of the year.”

“That’s not fair,” Hermione hisses, and Harry’s blood hums, something dark curling in his stomach, sharp and wanting.

Draco snarls. 

“Oh, it’s fair. It’s very much fair, Granger. They almost killed your fucking saviour. You know- the one who saved you all from the big bad lord that wanted to kill Muggleborns?”

Hermione sneers. 

“He didn’t do it alone.”

Draco’s grip tightens in his hair.

Harry barely feels it.

Draco whispers, lethal, “He died for you all, and you’ve shown that all you are is an ungrateful little brat.”

“You were a Death Eater!” Hermione whisper-shouts, and Harry watches the words drift in the air, useless, empty.

Draco hisses, “I was a Death Eater because I needed to save my fucking mother. And yes, I was on the wrong side of the war. And I already apologized for it that day in Diagon Alley. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but he did, so why are you torturing him?”

“He abandoned us,” Hermione snaps, voice wet with something ugly.

Harry feels something splinter in his chest.

Draco seethes. 

“He asked for space. For boundaries. He killed a genocidal tyrant, had a mental breakdown, accidentally injured the Weasleys, wrote a letter grovelling for forgiveness, and despite the fact that he died and probably has PTSD and a whole other variety of disorders, he managed to turn his life around. He survived. He might be different now, but he’s still Harry. He might be a control freak, he might be obsessed with runes, biology, trains, and healing, he might act less emotional and hold in all his anger, and he might be doing better than any of us in classes now, and dress himself in clothes that fit him, but he’s still Harry. He’s himself now, not the personality Dumbledore moulded him to be, and you should be glad for him, not being a horrible friend!”

Hermione lets out a ragged sob, shaking with the force of it. 

“He’s different. He’s acting wrong.”

Draco spits, “You, Hermione Granger, are an utter fool. People change, you stupid cow. You out of all people should know that.”

“I’ll never forgive you, Draco Malfoy. And I’ll never forgive him either.”

Draco laughs, sharp and vicious, leaning in like he’s pressing a blade to her throat. 

“He’ll never forgive you either, you utter bitch. And I don’t think he’d do it even if he wanted to.”

Hermione storms out.

Harry watches her leave, slow-blinking, detached, a thought curling at the edges of his mind like blood swirling in water.

She deserves worse.

Draco shifts, tilts his head down, brushes his fingers over Harry’s cheek. Harry lets his eyes flutter shut, drifts deeper into the warmth that Draco gives him.

Draco smiles, soft and knowing. 

“There you are, my darling. Rest now, Harry.”

Harry lets himself go.

The world tilts when Harry walks, but Draco steadies him, hands firm at his elbow, leading him through the castle as though Harry is fragile. He isn’t. He is something sharp and hollowed out, full of edges that only Draco has learned to navigate. He doesn’t mind being weak if it’s Draco who carries him.

He pulls at the sleeve of his robes, twisting the fabric around his fingers as they enter the Great Hall, the noise pressing against his skull like an unwanted intrusion. 

He shivers, but Draco presses a hand against the small of his back, murmuring, “Almost there, darling.”

Harry thinks Draco might be his only tether to reality, because reality feels absurd. If he could, he would fold himself into a smaller shape, a less conspicuous one, but Draco keeps him here, keeps him steady.

The Hufflepuff table is loud. It is warm. It is bright. It is everything Harry does not know how to hold in his hands. But there is a flash of pale hair, a blur of soft blue robes, and then-

Luna.

She launches herself at him, arms twining around his ribs, and Harry lets out a soft noise, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. Luna is one of the only people who has ever held him like this. Like he is real. Like he is something worth holding.

Her hair tickles his cheek, and Harry fights the rising itch beneath his skin. It doesn’t matter. He lets her hold him. He lets her breathe against him. He lets himself exist within her embrace, and when she finally pulls back, her silver eyes are full of something soft.

“I missed you, Harry,” she says, pressing her hands against his cheeks, peering at him like she’s searching for something beneath his skin.

“I’m still here,” Harry says, though he isn’t sure how much of that is true.

Luna smiles. It’s a knowing thing. She sits beside him, still holding his hand, as Draco takes his place at Harry’s other side. Harry watches as they exchange glances, as they acknowledge each other in that quiet way Draco does when he respects someone.

“Cousin,” Draco greets, and Luna dips her head.

Harry blinks. 

“You’re cousins?”

Luna hums, twisting a strand of her hair around her fingers. 

“Our fathers are half-brothers.”

“Figures,” Harry mutters, brushing a few strands of Luna’s hair back behind her ear, “You both have that aristocratic thing.”

Draco scoffs, but Luna only beams.

There is a burst of movement, a flash of dark curls, and then- Tom.

“Harry! You’re back!”

Harry barely has time to react before Tom is practically vibrating beside him, eyes bright and alight with something dangerously close to relief. Then, Tom notices Luna still holding onto Harry, and he tilts his head curiously.

“Hello! I’m Tom Riddle- who are you?”

Luna does not let go of Harry’s hand as she introduces herself. 

“Luna Lovegood. It’s very nice to meet you.”

Tom studies her for a long moment before he nods. 

“You have the same eyes as Draco.”

Luna smiles. 

“I think Draco and I are very alike.”

Draco snorts into his pumpkin juice. Harry just hums. Maybe that’s why he’s always loved Luna. Maybe that’s why she has always felt like home.

Susan and Pansy slide onto the benches opposite them, and Susan immediately begins serving Harry food before he can protest. He watches as she carefully portions things onto his plate, ignoring his weak attempts to bat her hands away.

“How are you feeling?” Susan asks, pushing a goblet of pumpkin juice toward him.

Harry exhales. He is tired. He is untethered. He is something that should have unravelled by now. 

But he says, “Better.”

Susan doesn’t look convinced, but she lets it go, turning her attention to Draco. 

“Justin got the Head Boy position.”

Draco hums, swirling his juice absently. 

“About time. At least we have someone competent now.”

Susan nods. 

“Ron’s got detention for the rest of the year. McGonagall was furious.”

Harry takes a slow sip of his drink, feeling the warmth slide down his throat. It is easy to fall into the cadence of conversation, to let himself be lulled by the back and forth of familiar voices.

Draco turns to him, gaze sharp but affectionate. 

“Darling, eat.”

Harry rolls his eyes but takes a bite anyway. The food tastes like nothing.

Draco watches him for a long moment before reaching up to tuck a stray curl behind Harry’s ear. His fingers linger at the nape of Harry’s neck, tracing idle patterns against his skin. It should make him flinch, but it doesn’t. It only makes him want to lean into the touch, to press himself against Draco until all the sharp edges of himself become dull.

Pansy smirks, chin resting in her hand. 

“You two are insufferable.”

Draco merely raises an eyebrow. 

“And yet, you still choose to sit with us.”

Pansy laughs, and Harry feels it reverberate through the air like something tangible. Something real.

Luna is still curled against his side. Tom is still watching him like he is something precious. Draco is still touching him like he belongs.

And for the first time in a long time, Harry thinks maybe he does.

The fire crackles in the eighth-year common room, an easy warmth stretching into the bones of those gathered. Harry sits, his body lax against Draco’s, the blonde’s arm a casual weight against his own. Tom’s head rests in his lap, a solid and real thing, and Harry lets his fingers tangle absently into dark curls. Pansy sits across from them, humming as she carefully plaits Luna’s long, silvery hair, while Susan sits beside her, occasionally reaching forward to hand Pansy a hair tie.

Across from them, Draco and Susan are in the middle of what can only be called a spirited argument.

“You’re delusional if you think the current first-past-the-post system is an effective means of governance, Bones,” Draco is saying, arms folded, chin tilted upward like a noble surveying a battlefield, “It effectively silences third parties entirely. The entire system is built on stagnation.”

Susan rolls her eyes, flicking a glance at Harry, as if looking for an ally, but Harry merely blinks back at her, his fingers still idly petting Tom’s hair.

“Draco, the alternative is a coalition government, which means constant compromise. You say stagnation- I say stability.”

“Stability is just a prettier way of saying ‘unmoving relic,’” Draco counters, rolling his eyes, “It’s archaic. If a candidate wins 40% of the vote, it means 60% of people didn’t want them in office. Hardly fair, is it?”

Susan huffs.

“But proportional representation means fragmented government. Look at Italy- they’ve had over sixty governments in fifty years.”

Draco scoffs.

“Yes, and the UK has had twelve Prime Ministers since the Second World War. Change isn’t inherently bad, Bones.”

“Wouldn’t the Wizengamot be considered worse?” Luna pipes up, voice dreamy, “No elections at all. Just bloodlines.”

Draco pauses.

“I’ll give you that one, Lovegood.”

Harry exhales softly. Draco arguing politics is… nice. Interesting. The sharp edge of his mind flashes, not with cruelty but with something calculated, honed, purposeful. It makes Harry feel- something. Warm, maybe. He’s not sure. He doesn’t know what things feel like anymore. He’s detached, floating, an observer of a world that spins on without him. He could sit here forever, listening to them argue, watching Draco’s hands move as he speaks, watching Tom’s chest rise and fall as he dozes in Harry’s lap, watching Luna tilt her head like she’s listening to something no one else can hear. He could exist here, not feeling, just- being.

Then-

A tap on his shoulder. Seamus stands before him, holding out an envelope with a wary expression.

“It’s from Ron,” Seamus says, voice low, “I’d be careful, mate.”

Harry tilts his head, considering. He reaches for it, but his fingers tremble, the telltale quiver that never quite leaves. Susan, seeing it, sighs and takes it from his hands.

“I’ll open it.”

She rips the envelope. There’s a split second of silence before a thick, oozing substance spills onto her fingers. Bubotuber pus. Her skin swells grotesquely in an instant, red and inflamed. Susan gasps, a sharp, pained noise, then lets out a sob.

The room erupts.

“Hospital wing. Now,” Draco orders, already standing, his voice sharp, cutting through the chaos like a blade.

“I’ve had enough of this,” Harry whispers, a slow, creeping fury curling in his gut.

His voice is quiet, but the air around him feels charged, thick with something unspoken, something dark. From the corner of his eye, he sees Pansy’s gaze snap toward the far wall, where Ron and Hermione lurk. Her lips curl.

“You absolute bastard,” she snarls, stalking forward, “What in Merlin’s name is wrong with YOU?!”

Luna is murmuring softly to Seamus, who looks stricken.

“It’s not your fault,” she’s saying, hands cupped over his, “You didn’t know.”

Susan whimpers, staring at her hands.

“I want to punch him,” she hisses, tears in her eyes, “I want to hex his stupid, miserable face.”

Draco exhales sharply, tugging her toward the door.

“Come on. We’ll get you healed. I’ll make sure he’s reported.”

Harry is still watching Ron. A slow, cold fury seeps into his marrow. He raises his hand, magic humming, and sends something dark and quiet through the air. A curse. Slow-acting, untraceable. A string of misfortune- small, insidious, building into disaster. Ron will suffer.

Then-

A sharp intake of breath. Tom is shaking, his small body curled inward, his hands clenched into fists. Harry blinks, then moves, gathering him close.

“Why?” Tom whispers, “Why are people so mean?”

Harry sighs, carding his fingers through Tom’s curls.

“There’s a philosopher,” he murmurs, voice distant, like he’s reading from a book buried in his mind, “Hobbes. He said life is ‘nasty, brutish, and short.’ That people are selfish, cruel, that without rules and control, we destroy each other.”

Tom sniffs.

“And you believe that?”

Harry hums.

“I don’t know. Maybe. People are kind, sometimes. But kindness is conditional, isn’t it? I was a hero once. Now, I’m a villain. Same person. Different narrative.”

Tom bites his lip.

“But I won’t be like that. I won’t be cruel.”

Harry’s lips curl, something fond but bitter.

“I know, kid,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to Tom’s curls, “You’ll be better.”

Draco returns then, silent but close. The warmth of him, the solidness of him, is grounding. He meets Harry’s eyes, and there’s something in them- something understanding. Not judgment, not hesitation. Just- acceptance.

Harry breathes.

And as Ron slinks away, as Susan’s pain fades under Madam Pomfrey’s care, Harry sits with Tom curled against him, with Draco at his side, and thinks-

Maybe Hobbes is right. Maybe life is cruel.

But he’ll make sure it’s crueler to those who deserve it.

Harry sits by the Black Lake, book balanced on his knee, fingers tracing the words- Machiavelli, The Prince , power as an end, power as a means. He doesn’t know if he’s one, a Machiavellian, but the words make sense, in a way most things don’t. Pragmatism. A world not of what should be, but what is. There’s comfort in that. A lack of sentimentality. A lack of useless, aching hope. Just truth, stripped of all its illusions.

Draco finds him, as he always does, lowering himself to sit beside him, fingers slipping into Harry’s hair without permission, without expectation. He combs through it, slow, methodical, like he’s grounding himself in the strands, like the act is as much for his benefit as Harry’s. Harry lets him. It doesn’t matter. Nothing does, not really, but this is- something. A weight that doesn’t press down, but settles. A feeling that is neither warm nor cold, neither wanted nor rejected. Just- there.

“You’re not watching the sunset,” Draco murmurs, his fingers still moving, dragging lightly over Harry’s scalp.

Harry shuts the book, turns fully to Draco, the golden light painting him sharp, soft, otherworldly. The way light catches in his pale lashes, the angles of his cheekbones- Harry takes it in absently, cataloguing, not quite understanding why. “I don’t see why people like them so much.”

Draco hums. 

“Because they end the day. Because they remind us the world moves forward, whether we want it to or not.”

Harry tilts his head. 

“That sounds like an argument against them.”

Draco huffs a quiet laugh, shaking his head. 

“I suppose it does. But it’s not. There’s beauty in something that ends. Things that go on forever lose their meaning. Sunsets are beautiful because they don’t last.”

Harry considers that. Considers endings, considers fleeting things. He’s never thought beauty comes from transience- he’s spent so long trying to hold onto things, only to watch them slip through his fingers. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe Draco’s right.

“I still don’t see the point,” Harry admits.

Draco turns his head to look at him, eyes unreadable. He doesn’t speak for a long moment, just studies him, as if trying to pick apart the mess of Harry’s mind with nothing but his gaze. Then, softly, “The sun is beautiful, you know. Just like you.”

Something in Harry’s chest stills, stutters. He looks at Draco. Looks at his lips. A thought comes, unbidden, something inevitable, something inescapable. Like gravity, like the moment before a fall, like the space between lightning and thunder.

The kiss is quiet. A shift, a lean, a breath caught between them before their lips meet, warm and firm. Harry doesn’t think about it- it just happens, like all things that are meant to happen. Draco tastes like mint, like the remnants of tea, like something sharp-edged and soft all at once. Harry barely knows how to kiss- has done it before but never quite like this. This isn’t an act, isn’t a motion. It’s something else.

He feels- something. He doesn’t know what to name it. It curls through him, slow and strange, something victorious, something right. A feeling he might love, if he lets himself.

When they part, Harry whispers, “Can we keep this to ourselves?”

Draco smiles, soft, knowing. 

“Of course.”

Harry hesitates. He hasn’t planned to say it, but the words come anyway, quiet and even. 

“I have a list of people I want to kill.”

Draco doesn’t even blink. He simply raises an eyebrow. 

“You’re telling me the truth, aren’t you?”

Harry nods. 

“I don’t do things the ethical way. But they deserve it.”

Draco exhales through his nose, gaze sharp, calculating. Then, after a moment, he smirks. 

“Show me.”

Harry does. Draco takes the list, eyes scanning over it, unreadable. When he reaches a name, he frowns slightly. 

“Smith. Can you put him off for now? I already got him expelled.”

Harry smiles, just a little. 

“Sure.”

Draco’s breath ghosts over his skin as he leans in, voice dropping to something almost gentle, almost teasing. 

“You’re going to be a good boy for me, aren’t you, Harry?”

Harry shivers. It’s not fear, not apprehension. It’s something else, something unknown, something he doesn’t want to name but likes the feel of anyway. He exhales, slow. 

“I will, Draco. I promise.”

And when they kiss again, Harry thinks- maybe he understands sunsets now.

Chapter Text

The library smells like dust and ink, the weight of old knowledge pressing down on the silence. Harry likes it here. He likes the way the candlelight flickers against the ancient tomes, the way the books hum softly if he listens closely enough. Everything in the world feels too loud, too much, but here, in between the aisles of endless words, things are quieter. Things make more sense.

Draco holds his hand, fingers threaded through his own, a steady weight against the drifting tide of Harry’s thoughts. He isn’t sure when Draco started doing that- holding his hand when they walk together, when they sit too close on the same side of the table, when Draco finds him absentmindedly tapping his fingers against his own wrist and replaces the motion with the slow rub of his thumb over Harry’s knuckles. Harry supposes it doesn’t matter. It has become a fact of existence, like gravity, like the inevitability of endings.

“I don’t know if wizarding cancers are the same as Muggle ones,” Harry murmurs, scanning the spines of the books lined neatly before him, “They should be, biologically speaking. But magic complicates things. Makes things better, sometimes. Makes things worse, sometimes.”

Draco makes a noise of acknowledgement, the kind that means he is listening, the kind that means he is watching Harry instead of the books.

“I mean, they don’t really know the root causes yet,” Harry continues, reaching up to pull a heavy volume from the shelf, “It’s not just a single spell that causes them, it’s not a single potion or a single curse. It’s more like… the body eating itself wrong. It starts with something small, something barely noticeable, but then it spreads and spreads and spreads, like rot, like a curse you can’t lift. It’s kind of beautiful. In a horrific way. The body turning against itself, making something new, something unwanted, something inevitable.”

Draco hums thoughtfully. 

“So, you want to stop it.”

Harry turns a page, running his fingers over the delicate script. 

“If I can.” 

A pause. 

“But if I can’t, then I’d like to know how to use it. Not just as a study of suffering, but as a way to direct it.”

“Direct it?” Draco prompts, tilting his head.

Harry nods absently. 

“If we can control the conditions that cause it, we can control its application. Use it as a means, not just an end. Torture is inefficient, usually. People get sloppy, they get emotional, they leave evidence. But this-” Harry taps the book lightly. “-this wouldn’t be like that. If you could pinpoint the cause, you could direct the result. A slow death. A painless one, if you wanted. Or not. Either way, it would be clean. No one would be able to trace it.”

Draco makes a pleased sound in the back of his throat. 

“Do you think it would be a good method of murder, Harry?”

Harry considers. The ethics don’t matter. They never have. 

“It wouldn’t be bad,” he admits, “Better than a knife, better than a curse. People would assume it was natural. A tragedy, of course, but not a crime.”

Draco smirks, squeezing his hand lightly. 

“How lovely, my little murderer.”

Harry blinks at him. Something in his chest moves, shifts, clicks into place. My little murderer. He likes that. It suits him. Draco says it like a term of endearment, like a promise, like he doesn’t mind what Harry is, what Harry has become. Maybe he doesn’t.

The book in Harry’s hands feels heavy. The words blur together, shifting in and out of focus. He doesn’t really feel things anymore. Not like he used to. He is cold, mostly. Apathy coats his bones, numbs everything that should have mattered. He floats through the days, detached, untethered, a body without a pulse, a mind without a conscience. But Draco’s voice-

Draco’s voice cuts through the fog.

“You like that, don’t you?” Draco muses, eyes flickering down to where their hands remain entwined. 

His grip tightens slightly. A fraction of pressure. A test.

Harry exhales, slow, measured. He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t pull away either.

Draco leans in, breath warm against his ear. 

“You’re sweet to me, aren’t you, Harry?”

A shiver runs down Harry’s spine. His grip tightens around Draco’s hand. 

“I try to be.”

Draco smirks, brushing his lips against Harry’s temple, lingering for a moment before pulling away. 

“I know.”

Harry swallows, turning his attention back to the book, but the words make even less sense than before. It isn’t the book’s fault. It isn’t Draco’s either.

Maybe, Harry thinks, he is starting to understand why people hold hands. Maybe, he thinks, he is starting to understand why people don’t like feeling nothing at all.

The fire in the common room flickers, casting elongated shadows that stretch and curl over the stone walls, shapes that shift like thoughts Harry can’t quite hold on to. The warmth doesn’t touch him. It never really does.

Draco’s fingers are in his hair, slow and methodical, weaving strands together, undoing them, starting over. Harry leans against Draco’s legs, boneless, letting himself be handled, letting the world blur at the edges.

“You know,” he says, voice quiet, “I don’t think we’ve properly studied wizarding cancers. The different types. The ways they grow. Breast, brain, prostate.”

Draco hums above him, his hands never stopping. 

“Prostate?”

Harry nods, tracing lazy shapes against the fabric of his robes. 

“It’s a gland. Muggles know about it. Wizards don’t bother much. Magic heals most things, but sometimes… sometimes it doesn’t.”

“Why?”

Harry blinks at the fire, as if it might give him an answer. 

“Because magic doesn’t fix what’s built wrong. It only delays it. Cells go wrong. Sometimes magic can push them back into place. Sometimes it just makes them grow faster.”

Draco exhales softly, tugging at a lock of Harry’s hair. 

“Morbid.”

Harry tilts his head. 

“Fascinating.”

The moment stretches, the quiet settling, filling the empty spaces between them. There is something comforting about it, the weight of Draco’s hands, the steady rhythm of his breathing. Harry doesn’t have to think too much when they’re like this. He doesn’t have to feel much either.

Then- a body drops onto his lap.

Harry tenses for half a second, then recognises the weight, the smallness, the familiar scent of parchment and something warm, something human. He looks down and meets wide, red-rimmed eyes.

“Tom,” he murmurs, a small smile ghosting across his lips. 

The boy buries his face in Harry’s chest.

Harry shifts, adjusting so Tom is cradled more securely against him, and rubs slow circles against his back. The boy is small for his age. Sharp angles, but soft too, clinging to him like he’s something safe, something solid.

“Are you okay, kid?”

Tom’s fingers curl into his robes. A moment passes, then another. 

“School was good.”

A lie. Harry can hear it in the way his voice shakes, in the way his grip tightens. He hums, dragging a hand through Tom’s hair, something soothing, something absent. 

“You had Transfiguration, Potions, and double History of Magic, right?”

Tom nods against his chest. 

“Mhm.”

“You’re usually happy after school.” 

Harry tilts his head, watching the fire again, watching the way the embers crack and pop, a quiet violence, contained but never gone. 

“I wonder why you’re upset today.”

Tom makes a small noise, muffled against fabric. 

“Some of the kids were mean to me.”

Harry stills. Draco does too.

Harry’s fingers pause against Tom’s back, then resume their slow, rhythmic movement. 

“What houses?”

Tom sniffs. 

“Ravenclaws.”

Something cold creeps along Harry’s spine, something dark and steady and quiet. 

“Why?”

Tom shakes his head. 

“They didn’t like that ‘the freaky Dark Lord’ got better marks than them in our History of Magic baseline paper.”

Draco clicks his tongue. 

“Fucking predictable.”

Harry glances down. 

“What did you get?”

Tom hesitates, then murmurs, “One hundred percent.”

Harry sighs. He can feel Tom trembling now, the small, stuttered breaths against his chest.

“Do you know any of their names?”

Tom shakes his head again, his voice cracking as he whispers, “They were so mean, Harry! And I don’t even know why!”

Something twists in Harry’s gut, something he can’t name, something old and buried and half-decayed. He presses his lips together, listens as Tom’s voice grows more frantic, more desperate.

“I even tried to help them,” Tom chokes out, “but they shoved me into a desk, and everyone just stared, and no one did anything, not even Professor Binns, who just ignored me the entire lesson!”

Harry bites the inside of his cheek. He knows this. He knows this story. Different names, different faces, but it never really changes.

“It’s okay,” he says finally, voice steady, voice calm. 

He holds Tom a little tighter, lets him curl into the warmth of his body, lets the weight of his presence do what words never can. Draco shifts behind him, fingers still tangled in Harry’s hair. He doesn’t say anything, just watches, just waits. Harry exhales, slow and measured, then turns his head slightly. 

“Just keep braiding my hair, Draco.”

Draco smirks. 

“I assume you’re going to deal with them later?”

Harry tilts his chin up, lips twitching, something close to amusement. 

“Of course.”

Draco hums, the sound rich and pleased. His fingers move again, smooth and practiced, gathering and twisting, shaping order out of disorder. Tom sniffles against Harry’s chest, breath slowing, body growing heavier with exhaustion. He doesn’t let go. Harry doesn’t either.

Draco tugs at the finished braid, a small, quiet gesture, something grounding. 

“You’ll handle it cleanly, I hope?”

Harry closes his eyes for a brief moment. 

“I always do.”

Draco hums again, satisfied.

Harry listens to the crackle of the fire, to the steady sound of Draco’s breathing, to the way Tom’s hands are curled so tightly into his robes, like he’s afraid Harry will disappear.

He won’t.

Not yet.

Harry doesn’t believe in much anymore. But he believes in this.

Draco’s fingers, steady and sure. Tom’s heartbeat, small and fragile but still fighting.

He believes in the way the world is. Not the way it should be.

And he believes in retribution.

The door to the Ravenclaw common room isn’t as hard to open as people think. Riddles are just puzzles, and puzzles are just problems waiting to be solved. Everything in life can be solved, eventually, if you look at it the right way. That’s what people don’t understand. They get caught up in their own rules, their own sense of logic, their own tiny universes where actions have consequences and morality exists in neat little categories. But Harry has never been particularly good at playing by their rules.

Tonight is no different.

The door swings open, and he steps inside. The common room is too bright, all blue and bronze and flickering candlelight, the scent of ink and old parchment thick in the air. A few students look up, surprised, confused, before their eyes widen in recognition.

It takes them a moment to react. A moment too long.

“Hello,” Harry says, softly, almost gently, stepping further into the room. 

The firelight casts his shadow long against the floor. 

“I believe we need to have a conversation.”

No one moves.

He waits.

Patience is something he’s had to cultivate, over the years. He doesn’t mind waiting. It gives people a chance to realize things. It gives people a chance to come to the correct conclusions on their own. And when they don’t-

Well.

They start shifting. Eyes dart toward the exit, toward each other. Someone swallows. He can hear it. He can always hear it.

He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Just lets the silence stretch, taut and thin, like an overworked thread on the verge of snapping.

Then, finally, one of them, a first-year, lifts their chin and glares at him. 

“You can’t be here,” they say, trying for authority, trying for courage. 

It would almost be admirable, if it weren’t so stupid. 

“This is the Ravenclaw common room.”

Harry smiles. 

“It is.”

The first-year hesitates. 

“Then- then you need to leave.”

“Do I?”

Another first-year shifts behind them, the flickering light catching on their anxious frown. 

“We- we didn’t do anything.”

“Oh,” Harry murmurs, tilting his head slightly, like he’s thinking about it, “I think you did.”

A silence falls.

He steps forward, slow and deliberate. They don’t move, but he can see the way their hands twitch, the way their breathing picks up, the way their shoulders go stiff like they’re bracing for something. Good. They should be.

“You put your hands on my brother.”

The word slips out without him meaning it to. Brother. The realisation settles somewhere deep in his chest, curling tight and strange against his ribs. But it makes sense, doesn’t it? Of course, Tom is his brother. What else could he be? And that means-

Harry’s gaze darkens.

“I should be kind about this,” he says, conversationally, “I should give you a chance to explain yourselves. I should give you the benefit of the doubt.”

He exhales slowly, tilting his head. 

“But I don’t think I will.”

Someone shifts in their seat, uneasy. The first-year tries to rally. 

“We didn’t mean-”

“You shoved him into a desk.” 

His voice is quiet. 

“You called him names. You mocked him for being better than you.” 

A pause. 

“You were cruel.”

The first-year swallows hard. 

“We-”

“I don’t care.”

And he doesn’t. He truly doesn’t. Whatever excuses they try to give him won’t matter, won’t change anything, won’t undo what they did. Words are empty, flimsy, meaningless things. Actions are what matter. And Harry is so very good at acting.

A sixth-year stands abruptly. 

“You need to leave,” they say, more confident than the first-years. 

More stupid, too. 

“You can’t come in here and threaten students.”

Harry looks at them.

And then he smiles.

“Oh,” he breathes, “But I can.”

He steps closer, slow, deliberate, until he’s just within arm’s reach. The sixth-year doesn’t move away, but they go stiff, their jaw clenching.

“Listen to me,” Harry murmurs, soft and sharp as a knife’s edge, “If you ever raise a hand to my brother again, if you ever so much as look at Tom wrong, I will carve your eyes out with a letter opener and string your entrails from the Astronomy Tower.”

The sixth-year freezes.

Harry tilts his head slightly, watching them, measuring. 

“Do you understand?”

They don’t respond.

Harry reaches out, slowly, and brushes a strand of hair back from their face. They flinch. His smile widens. 

“I asked you a question.”

A beat of silence.

Then-

“Yes,” the sixth-year whispers.

Harry hums, satisfied, and takes a step back. His gaze flickers back to the first-years. 

“And you?”

Nods. Trembling, shaky, terrified little nods.

He exhales, rolling his shoulders slightly. 

“Good.”

Then, without another word, he turns and walks away.

The door swings shut behind him with a soft click. The hallway outside is cold and quiet, the air sharp against his skin. He inhales, exhales, feeling the tension bleed from his muscles.

The itch inside of him- the restless, gnawing thing that always lingers just beneath his skin- is quiet tonight. Complacent. Soothed, almost.

Harry smiles slightly.

He still has a murder to plan. But for tonight-

Tonight, things are quiet.

And for the first time in a long time, that feels almost nice.

The fire crackles in the common room, sending shadows sprawling across the stone walls. The room is quiet, save for the occasional murmur from Susan and Pansy as they busy themselves with cheering Tom up. Tom, who clutches a warm mug of cocoa like it’s the last lifeline to something soft, something kind.

Harry should feel something about that. He doesn’t.

Instead, he has eyes for Draco, who is watching him from his usual spot on the sofa, legs crossed, posture poised. Something about him looks expectant, waiting. The corner of his mouth tilts upward when Harry approaches. It’s not a smile. Not quite. But it’s enough.

Harry skips the last step, letting himself drop beside Draco, their bodies slotting into a familiar proximity. Draco reaches for his hand, so subtle it’s almost an afterthought, his fingers brushing over Harry’s wrist before pressing a kiss to his knuckles. The touch is fleeting. The warmth lingers.

“Well?” Draco asks, voice low, smooth as silk, “Have the first years been dealt with?”

Harry hums, tilting his head as if considering. He could tell Draco about the trembling hands, the way they shrank back against their bookshelves when he leaned in, voice quiet but unwavering. He could tell Draco about the sixth-year who tried to intervene, how he pressed close and whispered in their ear about eyes gouged from sockets, about intestines strung up like tinsel, about the certainty of retribution if they ever so much as breathed wrong in Tom’s direction again.

But Draco doesn’t need to know the details. Draco trusts him.

Harry nods once. 

“They have.”

Draco hums, pleased, reaching out to brush a braid from Harry’s shoulder. His fingers linger, ghosting over the strands before falling away. 

“And?”

It’s a quiet question, but Harry knows what he’s asking.

Who’s next?

Harry exhales, tilts his head back against the couch, lets his gaze wander over the ceiling like the answer is hidden in the stonework. The list is long. Names carved into his ribs like tally marks. But the answer is simple. The answer has always been simple.

“The Dursleys,” he says.

Draco hums again, a melody under his breath, something lilting, something sweet. His fingers tighten around Harry’s. He doesn’t question it. Doesn’t ask for justifications or reasoning or morality.

Instead, he says, “I won’t involve myself in this one. This is yours.” 

A pause. A breath. A moment of consideration. 

“But tell me- will it be painful?”

Harry looks at him then. Really looks. Draco’s expression is smooth, unreadable to most, but Harry sees the flickers underneath. The shadow of something darker. The satisfaction of knowing justice is not left to fate, but to Harry’s hands.

Harry nods. 

“Yes.”

Draco smiles. Small. Soft. 

“Good.”

There is no blood on his hands yet, but the promise is there, lingering between them like the ghost of a touch, like the breath of something inevitable. Draco reaches for the decanter on the table, pouring a glass of juice without asking, sliding it into Harry’s hands.

Apple.

Harry lifts the glass to his lips, taking a slow sip. Apple and cranberry are the only juices he likes, and Draco knows. He doesn’t comment on it. Doesn’t need to.

Draco shifts, turning slightly, angling himself toward Harry as he picks up the book in his lap. 

“What do you think,” he muses, “of this absolute garbage they’re trying to pass off as literature?”

Harry lets himself settle, the weight of Draco beside him, the taste of apple on his tongue, the quiet knowledge that tonight, for once, the itch inside him is complacent. The fire crackles. The world spins. And Harry Potter plans a murder.

The cranberry juice is tart on his tongue, sharp and cold. It seeps into the cracks between his teeth, the way blood would. The sausages are warm, greasy, bursting with salt and spice when he bites into them. The toasties are crisp but yielding, the cheese oozing out onto his fingers, the tomato slightly acidic but sweet, a counterbalance. There’s salad, too, which makes little sense beside everything else, but he likes the way it crunches, the way the dressing clings. Everything is in its right place. Everything is ordered, and Harry likes that.

Pansy is explaining something about how the French take their pastries so seriously that even the butter is special, something about laminated dough and layers so thin they turn translucent. Susan hums in agreement, adding something about escargot and truffle butter, and Tom is listening with a fascinated look, nodding at all the right moments. Harry listens, too, but distantly. Like he is underwater, hearing the echoes of a conversation meant for someone else.

Then there’s a tap on his shoulder.

Harry turns, chewing slowly, methodically, his gaze sliding up to meet Professor McGonagall’s stern expression. Her lips are pressed thin, and her hands are folded neatly in front of her, which means she is irritated but trying not to show it.

"Mr. Potter," she says, voice crisp but not unkind, "When you have finished your breakfast, please accompany me to my office."

Harry swallows. The food slides down his throat like lead. He licks the grease from his fingers, watching her carefully. 

"Of course, Professor."

Her eyes narrow slightly, as if searching for something in his expression. Maybe she finds it. Maybe she doesn’t. Either way, she nods, her gaze flicking briefly to Tom, who is watching with wide, curious eyes, and then she turns, sweeping away towards the staff table.

Harry takes another bite of his toastie. The cheese stretches, then snaps. Pansy is watching him now, the conversation about French cuisine momentarily abandoned.

"What did you do?" she asks, sounding more amused than concerned.

"Nothing," Harry says, because technically, he didn’t.

Draco hums beside him, dragging his fork through his eggs. 

"Nothing yet, or nothing at all?"

Harry smiles, small and sharp, and takes another sip of cranberry juice.

McGonagall’s office is warm, the fire in the hearth crackling gently. Harry stands before her desk, hands in his pockets, shifting his weight slightly from foot to foot. She watches him for a moment before she speaks.

"Mr. Potter, do you recall where you were last night?"

Harry tilts his head, thoughtful. 

"In the common room, mostly. With Draco. And Tom."

McGonagall exhales slowly through her nose. 

"And before that?"

Harry taps his fingers against his leg. 

"The library. I had some reading to do."

Her gaze sharpens. 

"And before that?"

Harry blinks. 

"The corridors."

She gives him a look.

Harry smiles, bland and harmless.

She sighs, removing her glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose. 

"Mr. Potter, I have received several complaints from first-year Ravenclaws. They seem to be under the impression that you threatened them."

Harry’s expression doesn’t change. 

"Oh?"

"Yes. Something about..." She glances at a parchment on her desk. "-gouging out eyes and entrails."

Harry hums. 

"That does sound like something I’d say."

McGonagall closes her eyes briefly, as if summoning patience. 

"Harry-"

"Professor," he interrupts, polite and measured, "They shoved Tom. He’s eleven. They called him a freak. He tried to help them, and they hurt him. They didn’t pay attention to the fact that he is a first year, from a completely different time period, from a war, learning how to live again, and has severe amnesia- so severe, that we had to teach him how to hold a knife and fork. I simply took initiative in the way I could."

Her mouth tightens, but she does not look surprised. She looks... resigned. 

"That does not mean you should have handled it in the way you did."

Harry shrugs, his hands still tucked in his pockets. 

"I was perfectly civil."

"Civil is not the word I would use."

Harry smiles again. 

"I was polite."

McGonagall exhales. "Harry."

He tilts his head. "Professor."

They stare at each other for a long moment, and then McGonagall leans back in her chair. 

"This cannot happen again."

"Understood."

She gives him a long, searching look. 

"You must let the staff handle these things. You cannot take them into your own hands."

Harry does not answer immediately. He thinks of Tom, red-rimmed eyes and quiet little sniffles. He thinks of the way the Ravenclaws sneered, the way they shoved and turned away. He thinks of his own childhood, the bruises hidden beneath oversized clothes, the whispered jeers, the locked doors.

McGonagall is still watching him. Waiting.

Harry blinks slowly, then says, "I will try."

McGonagall studies him for a moment longer, then nods, though she does not look convinced. 

"You are dismissed, Mr. Potter."

Harry dips his head slightly and turns to leave. The door closes behind him with a soft click.

He will try.

He never said he would succeed.

The soil is damp beneath his fingertips, dark and rich, the smell of earth thick in the air. It clings to his skin, the way everything does, the way thoughts do, the way memories do. His hands move with careful precision, fingers pressing into the soil as he coaxes the roots into place. This is fine work. This is work that requires focus. He doesn’t have to think about anything else when he is doing this. Just the plant, the dirt, the way life clings to something so fragile, desperate to grow even when it is constrained, buried, pushed into the dark.

There’s a shuffle of movement beside him, and he doesn’t look up, doesn’t care, assumes it will be Susan. She is predictable in a way he likes. Warmth and softness, but sharp edges when it matters. But the weight of the presence is different, stiffer, more restrained.

“Harry.”

His hands still for a moment. A beat. A blink. Then he resumes pressing the soil around the base of the plant, evening it out, fingers deliberate, precise. He doesn’t acknowledge her, doesn’t need to.

“You threatened a group of first-years last night.”

He hums.

“I could report you.”

He glances up then, barely, just enough to see the tight line of her mouth, the way she is sitting too straight, too stiff. The moral weight of the world pressing down on her, making her bones brittle. He wonders when she’ll snap.

“Then do it.” 

His voice is even. Neutral. Just a statement of fact.

She exhales sharply, clearly thrown off by his disinterest. That’s the thing about Granger. She expects people to care. To react. To argue. He doesn’t. Not about things like this. She hasn’t realized yet that threats mean nothing to him. That consequences mean nothing to him.

“I don’t know what’s happened to you,” she continues, voice lower now, like she thinks if she speaks softly he will hear her differently, “But I know the people around you aren’t helping. They encourage this. They-”

His hand stills on the edge of the pot, and he turns to her, finally really looking at her. She is braced for something, but not for what she gets.

“I could cut your tongue out,” he muses, tilting his head, “It wouldn’t take long. It’s not a very complex organ, not really. Did you know the tongue has eight different muscles, all intertwining? You can’t actually paralyse it fully, not in the way people think. Even if you sever a nerve, some function remains. But if you slice it just right-”

Granger’s face goes pale, and for the first time, she looks truly unnerved. He watches her throat work as she swallows, her fingers curling into the fabric of her robes.

“You’re sick,” she whispers, voice thin, stretched, “You need help, Potter.”

He cocks his head to the side. His hands return to the plant, pressing the soil gently into place, securing the roots. 

“Maybe I should poison you instead.”

The silence that follows is brittle, sharp. Then she stands abruptly, chair scraping back against the stone floor, and storms away. He exhales, lets his fingers sink into the dirt again, lets the damp earth ground him. 

It is better this way. It is always better this way. 

The plant doesn’t mind his thoughts. It only cares for the care he gives it, for the way his hands move with purpose, with understanding. It doesn’t judge. It doesn’t speak. It only grows.

Harry sits in McGonagall’s office for the second time today, and the weight of the moment should press against his skin, but it doesn’t. He is numb, as he always is, as he has been for a long time now. He stares at McGonagall, who stares right back, and the itch inside him crawls beneath his skin, sharp, insistent, crawling up his throat like something alive. He resents it. He resents her, for making him hold eye contact when it is unnatural, when he only does it with Draco and Tom, and sometimes Pansy and Susan, when it is safe. This is not safe. This is a game of wills.

She is oddly calm when she whispers, “I can do this all day, Potter.”

Harry nods, because he could, too. He could stare at her until the ceiling collapses and the world ends, and he would still be sitting here, staring at her blankly, unblinking, unfeeling, like the statues of Hogwarts.

And yet, the door opens. A shift in the air. Harry hears it before he turns his head, and there she is- Granger. Predictable.

He shifts his gaze back to McGonagall and asks, polite and smooth, “What is she doing here?”

McGonagall folds her hands atop her desk and regards him with something unreadable. 

“What do you think she’s here for?”

Harry hums, tilts his head, pretends to think about it, even though he already knows. He pretends because it makes Granger irritated, and he likes that. 

“What do you think I’m here for?” he counters, and the corner of his mouth twitches up just a little.

McGonagall, exasperated but unsurprised, sighs. 

“You threatened to cut out Miss Granger’s tongue.”

Harry nods. 

“I won’t lie, I did.”

Granger looks triumphant for a moment before he continues, “I tried not to threaten her, though.”

McGonagall leans forward slightly. 

“And why, pray tell, did you do it anyway?”

“Because she brought up my friends,” Harry says simply.

McGonagall looks like a tired parent, like an old cat with too many kittens. Harry smiles at her, all innocence, and she sighs again, rubbing her temples. 

“Even if you are a war veteran, you cannot issue death threats, Potter.”

Harry blinks. 

“It wasn’t a death threat.”

McGonagall levels him with a look. 

“Then what, exactly, was it?”

Harry tilts his head, considering. 

“A threat to cut out Granger’s tongue.”

McGonagall turns her gaze to Granger, who is now sputtering, indignant. 

“It’s still a threat!”

McGonagall’s expression remains impassive. 

“Miss Granger, you informed me it was a death threat, made out of nowhere.”

Granger opens her mouth, then closes it. Her victory dulls, fades into something else. Harry is pleased.

McGonagall exhales sharply. 

“Begrudgingly, Potter, I must ask you to apologise.”

Granger, triumphant once more, crosses her arms and smirks at him. Harry holds back a sigh.

He raises his hands, smooth and fluid, and signs an apology to her, then immediately takes it back with a flick of his fingers. He does it because he knows she doesn’t know he’s taken it back. He lets the moment stretch, then looks at McGonagall. 

“There. Done.”

McGonagall gives him a look of pure weariness. 

“Out loud, Potter.”

Harry sighs dramatically. 

“Je suis désolé, Granger.”

Granger hisses. “English.”

Harry grins, wide and sharp and unhinged, and says in broken, stilted English, “I not know Engleesh.”

McGonagall’s eye twitches. Granger looks furious.

Harry’s grin widens as he gets to his feet, bows slightly to McGonagall, and says, “Je vous souhaite une bonne journée.”

Then he skips out of the office, feeling lighter than he has all morning.

Harry walks, and they stare.

A group of Ravenclaws- sixth years, seventh years, first years- doesn’t matter, their faces blur together like oil on water, like shadows on a too-bright day. They look at him like he is something lesser, something wretched, something foul. Their eyes weigh him, strip him, devalue him like currency that’s long gone out of circulation. The scum under their shoe, the dirt caught beneath their fingernails, the whisper of rot in a too-warm summer breeze.

It reminds him, quite suddenly, of his second year. The way people stepped back, the way whispers followed him like a specter, the way even those who should have known better let the words sit in their mouths like spoiled milk: Heir of Slytherin.

The words are old and dead, dust on a book left untouched for decades. He was never the heir of Slytherin. No, that line is gone. Harry made sure of it. A knife, a spell, a single moment stretched out into eternity- Tom Marvolo Riddle’s name carved into something more permanent than stone, more fragile than human skin. No more Slytherin line. No more Horcruxes. No more Voldemort.

So why does he still feel like a fraud?

The itch in his hands curls in like a cat stretching its spine, clawing at the soft flesh of his palms. It is hungry. It is always hungry.

He wants to hurt something. Someone. The nearest Ravenclaw, the one who sneered just a second too long, the one who looked at him and saw something wrong . His hands twitch at his sides, and he imagines them around a throat- squeezing, squeezing, squeezing- until the sneer disappears and the eyes go glassy and they stop looking at him like that.

The thought passes through him like a shiver, like a cold wind slipping through a crack in the window. He doesn’t act on it. He never does. Not yet.

Instead, he exhales. Takes a slow, measured breath in. Counts three, four, five. Reminds himself that he is not a child anymore. Reminds himself that this feeling is nothing, that it will pass, that he doesn’t have to do anything about it.

He remembers his Tom, eleven years old and impossibly fragile, remembers Draco, pressing a braid from his shoulder the night before, remembers McGonagall’s eyes crinkled in exhaustion and fondness. Remembers Pansy and Susan and the sound of laughter over breakfast. Remembers that these people exist, and they are real, and they are his.

He will not let something as insignificant as a cluster of Ravenclaws ruin his day.

So he steps forward. He walks past them like they do not exist. Like they are the dirt under his shoe. He will not give them the satisfaction of seeing his fists curl, of seeing his breath stutter, of seeing his mind stutter, collapse inward on itself like a dying star.

Harry Potter is not the Heir of Slytherin.

Harry Potter is not the scum beneath anyone’s shoe.

Harry Potter is above them.

So he walks. And he does not look back.

Lunch is loud. The Great Hall hums with conversation, forks scraping against plates, the shuffle of robes, the rise and fall of voices that blur together into something too much. Too much noise, too much space, too much everything.

Harry stares at his plate. The food looks good, he thinks, or at least it looks like food, which is the same thing these days. His stomach feels empty, and he tries to ignore the feeling, focusing on the sensation of his fingers against the table, cool and steady, something real. He takes a bite of his lasagna. Cheese, tomato, warm, good. He takes another bite. His jaw moves, mechanical.

And then-

"Oi, Potter!"

It comes like a crack of thunder, and Harry knows, knows without looking, that it's Weasley. The itch is back, curling under his skin, but he doesn’t look up. Not yet. He chews slower, bites too hard, nearly bites his tongue. The taste of cranberry juice lingers on his lips.

"Don't ignore me, Harry. I know you heard me."

Harry sighs through his nose. Lifts his eyes, but only halfway, enough to see red hair, furrowed brows, something stormy in the way Weasley holds himself. A hurricane waiting to happen. Harry considers leaving, but it’s too late.

"What do you want, Weasley?"

"I want to know why the hell you threatened Hermione."

Harry hums, taking another bite. Chews. Swallows. Doesn't answer.

Weasley bristles. 

"She told me what you said, you absolute- what the fuck, Harry? Cutting out her tongue? Poisoning her? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I never said poison." Harry tilts his head, voice even, slow, "That was an afterthought."

"Are you even listening to yourself?" Weasley leans in, hands braced against the table, furious and righteous and so, so predictable, "You’re un -fucking- believable."

"Mm. I try."

Weasley scoffs, but Harry can see the flash of something like unease in his eyes. Good. He lets the silence stretch, takes another bite. His lasagna is cooling. This irritates him more than Weasley ever could.

"You’re out of your mind," Weasley says, quieter now, like he’s realising something, "This isn’t just about Hermione. It’s them, isn’t it? Malfoy and his little fan club. They’ve got you wrapped around their fingers."

The itch crawls higher. Harry tilts his head the other way. 

"Say what you mean."

"They're a bad influence on you."

"Oh, Weasley," Harry says, soft, lilting, "you have no idea how bad I am on my own."

Weasley straightens, jaw tight. His ears are red. 

"You know what? Maybe it’s not them. Maybe it’s just you. Maybe you’re the problem. You treat everyone like dirt, and you don’t even care. Maybe you were always like this. Maybe you were just waiting for an excuse."

Something inside Harry snaps, quiet and sharp and final. The itch breaks free, and he sees red, a rush of something dark and cold and endless, and it is everything.

"Say that again," Harry says, voice deathly still.

Weasley doesn’t.

"Say that again," Harry repeats, "and I'll rip your throat out with my teeth."

There is a breath of silence.

Then- a hand on his shoulder. Cool, familiar. He knows the grip before he looks.

"That’s enough, Harry," Draco says, voice smooth, unbothered. Harry feels himself ground slightly at the sound.

Weasley scoffs. 

"Oh, of course. Here comes Malfoy, ready to sweep you away before you have to face any real consequences."

Draco hums, tilts his head, something amused and dangerous in the way he looks at Weasley. 

"Or perhaps I’m just keeping him from staining the floor with your blood."

Weasley bristles. 

"Fuck off, Malfoy."

Draco smiles, slow and lazy. 

"Oh, Weasley. But I love it when you talk dirty."

Harry makes a noise, something startled and sharp, and it takes him a second to realize it’s a laugh. It feels unfamiliar in his throat.

Draco tugs at his sleeve. 

"Come on, love."

Weasley looks between them, incredulous. 

"Love?"

Draco smirks. 

"You’re welcome to be jealous, Weasley, but let’s not be bitter about it."

Weasley turns red. 

"Oh, you’re such a-"

But Harry doesn’t hear the rest. Draco is already pulling him away, guiding him with that steady, easy confidence, and Harry lets himself be led.

His hands are still shaking. The itch isn’t quite gone. But Draco is here, and that makes it easier to breathe.

Draco does not say a word as he pulls Harry through the dimly lit corridors, their footsteps muffled by the thick carpet. His grip is firm but not restraining, and Harry allows himself to be led, his body tense and coiled like a wire ready to snap. His nails dig into his palms, blunt crescents of pressure, not quite enough to break skin but enough to make the itch pulse and writhe beneath the surface. He breathes through his teeth, sharp and measured, as though controlling the rhythm will keep the storm from overtaking him.

The dormitory door clicks shut behind them, and it is only then that Draco releases his wrist. Harry sways, his balance thrown off by the sudden lack of anchor, and his hands twitch at his sides, fingers curling and uncurling against the hem of his robe. The itch climbs higher, clawing at his throat, demanding release. The room is too small. The walls are too close. The silence is too loud.

Draco watches him. He always watches him. It should be unnerving, but it isn’t. It is the only thing keeping Harry grounded.

“Breathe,” Draco says, smooth as silk and just as cutting, “Or don’t. Your choice, but if you pass out, I’m not carrying you.”

Harry exhales sharply through his nose, something between a laugh and a snarl. His head is full of static, white-hot and relentless, thoughts folding in on themselves in loops that never end. He can still hear Weasley’s voice, shrill and grating, still feel the condescension, the judgment, the reminder that he will never be more than the sum of his worst parts. His hands won’t stop shaking. The itch won’t stop.

Draco tilts his head, considering. 

“You need to get it out.”

Harry glares. 

“No shit.”

“Then get it out.”

The rage rises, quick and suffocating, and Harry wants to scream, wants to claw at his own skin, wants to rip the world apart piece by piece until there is nothing left but ruin. He clenches his fists, grinding his teeth, swallowing back the bile in his throat.

Draco hums, thoughtful. 

“Imagine them.”

Harry stiffens.

“Go on,” Draco urges, voice coaxing, careful, “The Dursleys. Imagine them.”

The static flickers, the rage sharpening into something tangible, something Harry can sink his teeth into. He closes his eyes, and there they are. Vernon, bloated and red-faced, spittle flying from his lips as he bellows. Petunia, skeletal and pinched, her mouth pursed like she’s sucked on a lemon, eyes full of something that is not quite disgust and not quite fear but something vile all the same.

Harry lets the itch consume him.

He imagines Vernon’s trachea crushed beneath his grip, the cartilage giving way with a sickening crunch. The thyroid cartilage- the Adam’s apple- splintering like brittle glass, shards digging into the oesophagus. He pictures the panic, the way Vernon would claw at his hands, at his arms, desperate for air. The way his face would turn from red to purple to blue before he finally- finally- went still.

His breathing is unsteady now, erratic, his heart pounding against his ribs. He sees Petunia, hears the shrill pitch of her shriek, the hysteria in her eyes. He imagines taking a scalpel- neat, precise, efficient- and pressing it just beneath the sternocleidomastoid muscle, severing the carotid artery in a single clean slice. The blood would spurt in rhythmic pulses, bright and wet and warm, soaking into the pristine cream-colored carpet she adored so much. He wonders how long it would take her to fall. To go silent.

The static in his head dims, just a little. His fingers twitch, but the itch is quieter now, soothed by the vivid clarity of destruction.

Draco steps closer, a slow, deliberate movement. 

“Better?”

Harry exhales, shuddering, his shoulders slumping forward. He blinks, dragging himself back into the present, back into the dimly lit dormitory where Draco stands before him, utterly calm, utterly unaffected.

“Yeah,” Harry murmurs. He feels wrung out, exhausted, but the storm has passed, “Better.”

Draco nods, seemingly satisfied, and then, without a word, he steps into Harry’s space, pressing against him in a way that is neither forceful nor hesitant. His arms loop around Harry’s shoulders, and Harry, for reasons beyond his own comprehension, allows himself to collapse into him.

It is not warmth. It is not comfort. It is just presence. Solid and unwavering.

Draco does not say anything. He does not offer platitudes or reassurances. He simply holds him, and Harry thinks-

Perhaps this is enough.

Harry lies curled into Draco’s chest, his back pressed against Draco’s front, the warmth of his boyfriend’s- though neither of them have said it aloud- body seeping into his own. It’s grounding. The itch, the static, the hum in his bones- it lessens, just a fraction, but enough that he can breathe properly for the first time all day. He exhales, long and slow, and Draco shifts, tightening his hold around him, tucking his face into the nape of Harry’s neck. Harry doesn’t flinch. He lets him. He lets him breathe him in, lets him press soft lips to the delicate curve where shoulder meets throat, lets him draw lazy circles into the jut of his hipbone. Draco is shaking. So is Harry.

A leftover curse. A mark of war. A wound that never healed right. His hands tremble with the weight of something he cannot name, but Draco’s fingers dance across his hip like he is reading Harry’s bones, his skin, his very existence, and it makes something settle inside him.

“I want to get a custom wand.” Harry’s voice is barely above a whisper. 

He feels Draco’s fingers still for a fraction of a second before they continue their silent mapping.

Draco hums against his skin. 

“Knockturn?”

“Of course.”

Draco doesn’t scold him. He doesn’t tell him to be careful, to consider Diagon Alley, to reconsider entirely. He simply noses against the back of his ear and murmurs, “What are you thinking?”

Harry closes his eyes and lets himself sink into thought, into the sensation of Draco’s hand over his own, of his fingers tangled with his, both their hands unsteady but steady enough together.

“Cores first,” he mutters. “Phoenix feather is out. It’s fickle. I hate fickle things. And I already have one. I don’t want to be bonded to another.”

Draco hums again. His breath is warm against Harry’s skin. 

“Dragon heartstring?”

Harry shakes his head. 

“Powerful, but it bonds too easily. I want something that chooses me because it wants me. Not because it’s desperate.” He pauses. “Thestral tail hair. Unyielding. Can only be mastered by those who have faced death and embraced it.”

Draco lets out a breath that ghosts over his shoulder. 

“You are rather fond of dancing with death.”

Harry smirks. “He and I are old friends.”

Draco squeezes his fingers. “And wood?”

Harry exhales slowly, considering. “Yew is out. Too predictable. Too on the nose. Elder is impractical. Vine… no, not again. Ash, maybe. Unyielding, loyal. Good for warriors. But I don’t know if I’m a warrior anymore.”

Draco presses his lips together in thought. “Blackthorn?”

Harry considers. “Battle wand. Requires hardship to master. Temperamental.” He turns his head slightly, his lips brushing against Draco’s wrist. “You think I haven’t suffered enough?”

Draco lets out something like a laugh, something dry and sharp. “Oh, you’ve suffered, Potter. But it’s not about suffering. It’s about survival.”

Harry turns back into Draco’s hold, lets him curl around him like armor, like protection. “Ebony,” he says, finally. “For those who are not swayed by others’ opinions.”

Draco lets out a pleased hum. “Sounds about right.”

Harry exhales through his nose. “Or perhaps alder. Unyielding. Best suited for the confident.”

Draco snorts. “You are not confident, love.”

Harry ignores the slip of the tongue, even as something warm pools in his stomach. “Then black walnut. For the insightful. For those who demand purpose.”

Draco nuzzles into his neck, pressing a kiss to his pulse point. “Do you have one?”

Harry lets his fingers curl over Draco’s own, presses them against his ribs, against the steady, dull beat of his heart. “I have you.”

Draco stills. Harry can hear his heartbeat, the way it picks up slightly, erratic beneath his ribs. Then, quietly, so quietly Harry almost doesn’t catch it, Draco whispers, “That’s enough then.”

Harry lets himself close his eyes. He lets himself believe it.

Night stretches over Diagon Alley like a shroud, but Knockturn Alley is alive. It pulses, thrums, breathes like a thing that should not exist and yet does, wedged between the known and the forgotten. The cobbled streets seem darker here, the air thicker, steeped in something more than shadow. It clings to Harry’s skin like a second layer, like blood dried under his fingernails.

Draco walks beside him, easy, practiced, like he belongs here. And he does. But so does Harry. He never did before, but he does now, and he wonders if he always had. If something in him, the same something that lets him taste the air before a storm, had always known this was where he would end up.

“We’re here,” Draco murmurs, his voice a low thing against the hum of the alley.

The shop is old, unassuming in the way that only something truly dangerous can be. No sign, no name, just a dark wooden door set into the stone, with an iron handle that burns cold under Harry’s fingers when he pushes it open.

Inside, the scent of aged parchment and something deeper- bone dust, maybe, or ground resin- wraps around him. The shelves stretch high, impossibly so, filled not with neat boxes but with jars of things that gleam in the low light, twisted roots and cores of creatures long since dead.

“I was wondering when you’d come,” a voice rasps, somewhere between silk and steel. 

The wandmaker is ancient, not in years but in presence, in the way time bends around them like it does around magic too strong to be contained. They study Harry with eyes that don’t blink enough.

Harry tilts his head. “Were you?”

The wandmaker smiles, thin and sharp. 

“Yes.”

Draco shifts beside him, rolling his shoulders like a cat that wants to sink its claws into something.

“Well,” Harry says, rocking back on his heels, “I’m here now.”

The wandmaker nods, turning, moving with the slow grace of inevitability. 

“You want something different,” they say, fingers trailing over the jars, murmuring to themselves, “Something not bound to you by accident or fate. Something yours. Entirely.”

“Yes,” Harry breathes, and it feels like something clicking into place.

The wandmaker begins to pull things from the shelves. A sliver of rowan, blackened at the edges. A shard of heartwood from a tree that no longer grows in this world. A whisper of obsidian, powdered so fine it clings to the air like mist. They mix them, not with spells but with hands that know more than magic, binding them together with something unseen, something felt.

The core is stranger still. A single scale from a basilisk, taken before its death. A heartstring from a thestral, nearly invisible under the light. And- the wandmaker pauses, looking at Harry with something like curiosity- “a drop of your blood.”

Harry does not hesitate. He takes the offered blade and presses it against his palm, watches the red bloom bright and thick. It drips, a slow descent, hitting the core with a sound that is almost a whisper, almost a sigh.

Draco watches him with something unreadable in his eyes, but Harry does not look too closely. He might see something he isn’t ready to name.

“It will be ready on Saturday,” the wandmaker says, hands steady as they bind the wand in cloth, setting it aside as though it is already a living thing, waiting to wake.

Saturday.

The day the Dursleys will die.

Harry hums, nods. 

“I can make that time.” 

He turns, stepping away, out, into the cool dark of the alley.

The itch is gone, for now. But it lingers, whispering against his bones, reminding him of what is coming.

Draco follows, silent, until they step back onto the main street, until the shadows are softer and the weight of the alley is behind them. Then, and only then, does he speak.

“You’re smiling.”

Harry tilts his head, surprised to find that he is. It stretches slow and sharp across his face, foreign but familiar.

“I suppose I am,” he says, and he does not stop.

Harry steps into the dimly lit wand shop, the heavy scent of burning resin and old parchment thick in the air. The walls breathe with the weight of forgotten relics, wands twisted and gnarled like arthritic fingers reaching for something unseen. The itch is quiet, slumbering for now, but he knows it will wake soon, demanding. He curls his fingers, nails biting into his palm. Just a little longer. Just until he holds it.

The wandmaker, a hunched man with ink-stained hands and cataract-clouded eyes, places a slim black box onto the counter. 

“It’s ready.” 

His voice is gravel against stone.

Harry hums, tracing the edge of the box before lifting the lid. His new wand sits nestled in velvet, and it is nothing like he expected. Holly is sentimental. Yew is predictable. But this- this is something else. Rowan wood, deep and rich, smooth under his fingertips, resistant to the dark but sharp-edged, cunning. And inside- he can feel it before he even asks. Basilisk scale and thestral heartstring, humming like an old song he’s heard in a dream. A core of something monstrous, something that should not live but does. Just like him.

He exhales, pleased, and when he tests it- the room seems to shudder, the candle flames bending toward him, as if drawn to the gravity of his magic. 

Yes. Yes, this will do nicely.

The wandmaker watches him too closely, but Harry does not mind. He tucks his wand into his sleeve, and when the man tells him to “Take care with that one,” Harry only smiles.

“I always do.”

Draco is waiting outside, pale hair silver in the glow of Knockturn Alley’s flickering lanterns. He looks at Harry’s face, then his hands, then back up to his face. He doesn’t need to ask.

“Done?”

Harry nods. Draco doesn’t question where he will be later tonight. He never does.

The Dursleys live in a house that does not belong to them. It is new, empty of the ghosts of Privet Drive, and yet Harry can still see them there- sitting in their ugly floral living room, laughing about their ungrateful freak of a nephew. The walls do not smell of old cigarettes and burnt bacon. The carpets are unstained by Dudley’s discarded sweets. The door hinges do not squeak when he steps inside.

They don’t hear him when he enters. The wards he dismantled were pathetic, barely a whisper against his magic. Vernon is in the armchair, bloated and red-faced, a glass of scotch sweating in his hand, its amber dregs sloshing against the sides as he swirls it. Petunia is at the window, staring out at nothing, her fingers tightening and loosening against the lace curtains in a restless, twitching rhythm. They do not hear him, not even when he closes the door behind him.

“You moved.” 

His voice is a needle, slipping into their skin, precise, invasive.

Vernon chokes on his drink. Petunia goes stiff. She turns slowly, horror etched into every fragile line of her face.

“H-Harry?”

He smiles. 

“Did you miss me?”

Vernon lumbers to his feet, his face already mottling with anger, but there is fear behind his piggy eyes. Good.

“Get out of my house, boy, before I call the-”

“No.”

Harry flicks his wand. Vernon’s knees buckle as his femurs snap like dry twigs. He crashes down with a strangled scream, clutching at his legs, eyes bulging as the jagged ends of splintered bone pierce through the meat of his thighs. Petunia shrieks, a high, reedy sound, and takes a step back.

Harry tilts his head, studying Vernon’s face, the sweat beading along his brow, the veins standing out in his thick neck. The crimson blossoms seeping through his trousers, the scent of blood thickening the air. It’s different from the coppery tang of battle, of war. It’s domestic. It suits him.

“I wonder,” Harry says softly, stepping closer, watching Petunia flinch, “what it feels like. To have your nerves burned, one by one, until your body forgets how to function properly.” 

He points his wand at Vernon. 

“Let’s find out.”

He doesn’t use the Cruciatus. That would be too simple. Instead, he casts a spell that severs the sensory neurons first, so Vernon can feel the pain, but his brain cannot understand where it’s coming from. His fingers spasm, curling in unnatural directions, his toes jerking, his face contorting in agony. Harry watches as the pain receptors misfire, sending electrical impulses to the wrong places- Vernon’s left arm twitches violently while his right remains limp, and his heart rate skyrockets, his body thrashing against the floor as it struggles to keep up.

The screams are exquisite. Harry closes his eyes, basking in them, feeling the itch settle, the satisfaction curling in his bones. He describes, in great detail, exactly what he is doing- how the spell is targeting Vernon’s central nervous system, how his pain receptors are firing faster than his brain can process, how his muscles are seizing because they don’t understand what’s happening.

“See, the beauty of this,” Harry muses, crouching beside Vernon, “is that your body is attacking itself. The pain is so overwhelming that your nerves are misfiring, confusing signals, overstimulating your brain.” 

He hums, watching as Vernon jerks like a puppet with its strings cut. 

“Your diaphragm is locking up now. That means- ah, there it is.” 

Vernon lets out a strangled gasp, his lungs spasming. 

“You can’t breathe properly anymore.”

Petunia collapses to the floor, hands clasped in prayer, as if that ever did anything for anyone.

“Please,” she whimpers.

Harry leans in, so close he can see every line of age on her pinched face, the tear tracks cutting through her powdery foundation.

“You let it happen,” he whispers, “Every day. Every night. You watched, and you did nothing.”

She sobs, rocking back and forth, whispering something under her breath. A plea to God, maybe. Harry doesn’t care.

He lifts his wand.

“Begging doesn’t suit you, Aunt Petunia.”

The Killing Curse is easy. He thought it would be difficult, heavy, something he would feel, but it is just like exhaling. The green light fills the room, and then Vernon is gone. His body slumps back, mouth open, eyes vacant, blood still pooling under him.

Petunia doesn’t even have time to scream before she follows.

Her body hits the floor with a sound softer than Harry expects. A thud, a whisper of fabric against carpet, the finality of silence.

He breathes in. The itch is gone.

And for the first time in years, he feels clean.

Hogwarts is the same. It always is. The halls are too loud, the walls are too close, and everything is moving, moving, moving, even when he wants it to stop. But Draco is there, pressing a warm palm against his back as they slip into the library. Susan and Pansy are waiting, Tom between them, already deep in discussion over an ancient runes translation.

Harry sits. He listens. The itch is gone, sated for now. He is lighter. He is breathing. He traces the curve of a rune with his finger, ink smudging against his skin, and when Draco’s knee knocks into his under the table, he doesn’t move away.

He thinks he is smiling.

And the best part? No one even notices they are gone.

Chapter Text

The lake is blue today. It should always be blue, but it isn't. Some days, it's grey, green, murky, swallowing reflections like a mouth with too many teeth. But today, it is blue, stretching endlessly under the sky like an imitation of something real. Harry watches the water shift, lets his mind slide into the ripples, into the way the light bends and twists upon the surface.

Draco holds his hand. Their fingers fit together too easily. The skin is warm, dry. Harry does not know if he likes it or if he simply does not mind it.

“Encore,” Draco instructs, his voice smooth, like silk over steel, “Répète après moi. Tu es un idiot.”

Harry blinks up at him, skipping once to match Draco’s longer stride. 

“Tu es un idiot.”

Draco hums, amusement curling at the edges of his mouth. 

“Bien. At least you’re honest.”

Harry rolls his shoulders, watches his shadow flicker beside Draco’s on the ground. 

“I think I like French,” he says, letting the words settle on his tongue, “But I think I’ll like Greek better.”

Draco glances at him, curiosity flickering through pale grey.  

“Pourquoi?”

Harry shrugs. 

“Greek is older. Heavier. French feels like a lie. It’s too smooth. Too... deliberate.”

Draco’s fingers tighten slightly around his. 

“And yet you speak French beautifully.”

Harry tilts his head, considering. 

“And when I am fluent, I will teach you Greek.”

Draco breathes out through his nose, a laugh or something close to it. 

“And why would I need to know Greek?”

Harry considers. 

“Maybe because I want you to.”

Draco’s expression is unreadable for a moment. Then, “D’accord.”

They walk, hands still linked, the world shrinking to the rhythm of their steps. Harry doesn’t know how long. Time doesn’t work right anymore. It stretches and folds in on itself like origami, sharp at the edges, too fragile in the middle.

Then- he feels it before he sees it. The eyes. The stillness. The shift in air, like a storm before lightning.

He turns.

Hermione. Ron. Seamus. Dean. Neville. Five statues, frozen in the grass, faces turned towards them like sunflowers seeking something they do not understand.

Draco inhales sharply, hand twitching, fingers loosening. Harry doesn’t let go.

Draco watches him, careful, precise. Waiting.

Harry curls his fingers tighter around Draco’s. He does not mind if people know. But he does not want them to talk about it. To let his name bleed through the pages of their newspapers again, a carcass for the vultures to pick at.

Draco’s lips press together, a flicker of tension before smoothing away. He doesn’t speak, but Harry hears him anyway.

Harry asks, in French, “Veux-tu rester ici ou devrions-nous demander aux elfes de nous préparer des pâtes avec de la feta?”

Draco hums, thoughtful, before answering, “Tu aimes la feta, n'est-ce pas, mon amour?”

Draco and Harry both still. Colour rises, pale pink over sharp cheekbones on Draco, and Harry smiles hesitantly, liking the shade of pink on Draco’s face. It is pretty, and it makes his heart race.

“C'est trop tôt?” Draco asks, voice quiet.

Harry thinks. 

“J’aime ça encore plus que ‘mon petit meurtrier.’”

Draco’s laugh is low, hidden, curling at the edges of something unspoken. Then- soft. A press of lips against Harry’s forehead. Draco tastes like summer and something distant, something just out of reach.

Harry blinks. Turns back to the others.

Hermione looks like she’s been Petrified. Ron looks like he’s about to combust. Neville is blinking rapidly, trying very hard to look anywhere else.

Seamus, however, is grinning.

Dean sighs and hands him a couple of Galleons.

Harry raises an eyebrow.

Seamus shrugs, flashing them both a thumbs-up from behind Hermione and Ron’s rigid backs. Dean, still looking faintly disgruntled, follows suit.

Harry exhales, long and slow. 

“Hello,” he says, polite, precise.

No one speaks for a moment. Then:

“What-what-” Ron starts, voice strangled, “What-?”

Harry tilts his head. 

“Yes?”

Ron gapes like a fish. His ears are red, blotchy. Hermione still has not blinked.

Harry looks at Draco. 

“Let’s go.”

Draco hums, leading him forward. 

As they walk past, he says, in French, “Devrait-on te prendre ces pâtes?”

Harry glances at him, at the way Draco’s thumb brushes over the ridge of his knuckles.

In English now, Draco murmurs, “What do you think, mon petit meurtrier?”

Harry thinks. 

“I think we should.”

The pasta is good.

That is the only thing that makes sense.

Everything else is strange, stretched thin, held together by something more fragile than skin. The air feels too thick in his lungs, like breathing through wool. The eighth-year common room flickers around him, warm and golden, too bright, too much. But the pasta is good.

“No, you absolute plebeian,” Draco is saying, fork poised in mid-air, eyes narrowed with something that isn’t quite irritation, “Pasta should always have truffle oil. That is not a debate.”

“That’s disgusting,” Harry replies. 

He doesn’t actually care, not really, but it’s something to say, something to argue about that doesn’t matter. It is grounding, the way Draco bristles, the way he leans in, exasperated and focused and utterly present in the moment.

“It’s refined, you simpleton,” Draco snaps, spearing a piece of pasta with surgical precision, “Unlike whatever atrocity you’re eating.”

“It’s just garlic and butter,” Harry says, taking another bite. 

The pasta is warm. The warmth spreads through his fingers where he grips the bowl. His fingers are cold. They are always cold. Pansy sighs from where she is sprawled across the arm of Draco’s chair, a single manicured hand waving dramatically. 

“You’re both wrong. Pasta should be drowning in cream. Otherwise, what is the point?”

“You lot have no taste,” Susan mutters, rubbing her temples, “Proper pasta is made with fresh tomatoes. Everything else is a crime.”

“Your existence is a crime,” Pansy counters, sweetly.

Susan sighs.

Harry takes another bite. He doesn’t taste anything anymore. He chews mechanically, swallows, looks up-

And then stops.

Tom is watching them.

Not unusual. Tom is always watching.

But something is different now. Something is off, a ripple in the stillness. His hands are empty. There is no plate in front of him.

Harry frowns. 

“You’re not eating.”

Tom tilts his head, slow, birdlike. 

“I don’t see the appeal.”

Draco snorts. 

“He’s just being dramatic, ignore him.”

“No,” Tom says, unblinking, “I have never eaten pasta.”

Harry stops breathing.

The words slot into place wrong. A jigsaw piece hammered where it does not belong. A crack in the foundation of something already unstable. He stares at Tom, at the stillness of him, at the way his hands remain folded, composed, untouched by hunger.

“What do you mean?” he asks, too sharp, too sudden. 

The words taste strange.

Tom shrugs. 

“I have never eaten pasta,” he repeats, calm.

Harry cannot comprehend it.

He turns to Draco, seeking confirmation. He does not know what he expects- maybe for Draco to scoff, to wave a dismissive hand, to say something cutting about orphans and inadequate childhoods. But Draco is watching, and his mouth is slightly open, and there is a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes.

“We have to fix this,” Harry says, standing up so suddenly that his chair scrapes against the floor. 

His heartbeat is too fast. He does not know why.

Tom blinks. 

“I fail to see the urgency, Harry.”

“You’ve never had pasta, little brother.”

“Yes.”

“We have to fix this.”

Tom barely has time to react before Harry seizes his wrist, pulling him up. His grip is firm, solid, grounding. Tom makes a soft noise of protest, but Harry is already moving, already heading for the door, already setting the world into motion.

Draco makes an incredulous noise before following. 

“Harry-”

Pansy cackles. 

“Oh, this is rich. Come along, Susan, let’s witness history.”

Susan groans but stands. 

“I hate all of you.”

The castle stretches before them, cold and quiet. The halls echo with their footsteps, their laughter, the oddity of it all. Harry does not stop, does not slow, does not let go of Tom’s wrist until they are in the kitchens, until the elves turn towards them with bright, eager eyes.

“We need pasta,” Harry declares, “We need it for taste testing.”

The elves spring into action, bustling, moving, hands conjuring and chopping and stirring.

Tom watches them, expression unreadable. 

“You didn’t have to do this,” he says, voice low.

Harry looks at him. The kitchen is warm. He does not feel it.

“Yes, I did,” he says, and he does not know why.

Harry arrives twenty minutes early to the Ancient Runes classroom, slipping in through the door without a sound, the white noise in his headphones filling the spaces where the world might otherwise creep in. It is always too loud, always too bright, but this- this is a moment suspended outside of time, where he is allowed to exist unbothered. He hums absently under his breath as he sets down his bag and makes his way to the shelves where Professor Babbling has stacked books haphazardly, their spines jutting out like broken bones.

“You’re early as always,” Babbling calls over her shoulder, not bothering to turn around. She knows it is him, just as she always does.

“You always let me in,” Harry says, plucking up a stack of books and beginning to reorder them. 

He enjoys the patterns, the way things fit together. There is an order to things if one is willing to look for it.

Babbling hums. 

“I’m trying to disprove a theory someone published last week. It's absolute nonsense, but I can’t quite poke enough holes in it to watch it collapse.”

Harry tilts his head, waits.

“You’ll like this,” Babbling continues, “This particular scholar argues that runic inscriptions are imbued with intent at the moment of writing, which determines their permanence. Essentially, if a rune carver believes strongly enough in the intended outcome, the rune will anchor itself more effectively into the magic of the surrounding environment. Weak belief, weak rune. Strong belief, strong rune. He even suggests that a rune written in doubt would dissipate faster than one carved with absolute certainty.”

Harry snorts. The books in his hands shift slightly, and he rights them, fingers trailing over the faded gold lettering. 

“That’s stupid.”

“Glad you think so. Tell me why.”

Harry places the books down carefully, thinking. He does not like speaking unless he has something to say.

“Runes are constructs of magic independent of their caster,” he says finally, “It is the language itself that holds weight, not the intention behind it. If intent dictated power, there would be inconsistencies in every ancient inscription we’ve found. No two people believe exactly the same way, no two hands carve with identical certainty. If intent mattered, we wouldn’t be able to reconstruct ancient spells at all because there would be no universal baseline. Everything would be subjective.”

Babbling stops what she is doing. Stares at him. Her hands are on her hips, and there is an expression on her face that he cannot quite place but reminds him faintly of McGonagall when she sees a particularly clever bit of Transfiguration.

“Harry Potter,” she says, voice slow with realisation, “you have just become my favourite student.”

Harry hums, picking up another stack of books. 

“It’s not fair to have favourites.”

Babbling snorts. 

“I’m not fair.”

Harry nods, accepting this. 

“Neither am I.”

She grins, shaking her head. 

“So, top three professors, then. If you had to rank them.”

Harry thinks about it. 

“McGonagall, you, Flitwick.”

Babbling gasps in mock offence. 

“You put me in your own top three? That’s not fair either.”

“You’re biased.”

“And you’re not?”

Harry shrugs. 

“I think bias is inevitable. But it should be acknowledged. That’s where people go wrong, pretending it doesn’t exist.”

Babbling sighs dramatically, shaking her head. 

“I should just set you extra homework for this conversation alone.”

Harry perks up. 

“You should.”

Babbling pauses, staring at him again before laughing. 

“Merlin’s sake, you’re worse than any Ravenclaw I’ve ever had. Alright, Potter. Philosophical essays, then. Something to entertain me while I suffer through third years not understanding the fundamentals.”

Harry nods, satisfied. 

“That would be fun.”

She taps a finger against her chin before moving to one of the higher shelves and pulling down a set of dusty books. They are not about runes at all, but rather Muggle philosophy- Kant, Nietzsche, Plato. She drops them into Harry’s arms, ignoring the way his eyes widen slightly in interest.

“Essays,” she says, “One for each.”

Harry grins. 

“Should I start now?”

“Yes, you should.”

Harry sits down, pulling the first book open with reverence, and begins reading. His hands do not shake. His mind does not wander. The white noise in his ears hums like an old, familiar song, and the world outside of this moment does not exist.

The ink flows, a steady, uninterrupted movement of quill to parchment, gliding. Harry does not stop, does not hesitate, does not second-guess the words that fall from his mind, from the spaces in between thought and nothingness, from the cold absence where feeling should be. His essay on Kant is coming along nicely.

The immortality of the soul, Kant insists, is necessary because moral law demands an ultimate justice, an equilibrium that human life cannot provide. But Harry wonders- what if moral law is just another construct? Another fragile piece of glass, held up by the desperate hands of those who refuse to see the world for what it is? He writes:

Kant argues that the rational being is subject to moral law, and thus, for justice to be fulfilled, the soul must persist beyond death to receive its due. But is justice not arbitrary? Is it not the same justice that condemned Socrates, that burned Hypatia, that let the guilty go free in the face of the greater ‘good’? If immortality is the promise of balance, then perhaps the scales have been broken for centuries. Perhaps there are no scales at all.

He hums, tilting his head. That makes sense. It is detached, distant, logical. It doesn’t matter whether it is true. What is truth? Something malleable, something changeable, something written in ink that can be burned, forgotten. It means nothing.

Draco drops into the seat next to him, his presence sliding into Harry’s periphery like he belongs there. He always sits next to Harry now. No one questions it.

“What are you doing?” Draco asks, peering over, voice low and amused. 

His fingers curl against the edge of Harry’s chair, close but not quite touching.

“Homework,” Harry answers, shifting slightly, angling the parchment toward Draco so he can see. 

It is instinctive. He doesn’t quite understand why.

Draco leans in, scanning the paragraph. 

“Muggle philosophy?”

Harry nods, humming again. Draco is tracing spirals on his thigh, absent-mindedly, with the feather of his quill. The motion loops and loops, over and over, gentle, but it anchors Harry in a way nothing else does. He likes that. It makes the noise of the world shrink a little.

Draco lifts a brow, smirks a little. 

“It’s a decent argument. Grim, but decent.”

“I don’t believe in justice,” Harry says, “It doesn’t exist.”

Draco makes a thoughtful sound, tilting his head. 

“It exists. Just not in the way people think it does. It’s not righteous. It’s a currency, traded by those who can afford it.”

Harry looks at him. 

“You think like me.”

Draco’s lips twitch. 

“Obviously.”

He keeps tracing the spirals, and Harry lets him. It feels like being drawn on, like being marked. It is calming in the same way the white noise is, the same way the runes classroom smells like ink and dust and nothingness. It is something to hold onto in the hollow.

A sharp tap on his shoulder. Harry turns, blinking, slow, dragging himself out of his own mind to find Terry Boot standing there. Behind him, Hermione- no, Granger- is glaring, arms crossed, eyes sharp. She has that look on her face again, the one she always gets when she thinks she knows better.

“Harry, do you have the answer to question six?” Terry asks.

Harry blinks again, pulling his mind back into the present. He nods and flips open his Ancient Runes book, pointing to the translation he worked on earlier. 

“This. It’s a misinterpretation of the Elder Futhark. That’s why it looks wrong.”

Terry’s face lights up. 

“That makes sense, actually-”

“You’re wrong,” Granger cuts in, loud, sharp, final.

Harry does not react. He watches her, quiet, unblinking, as she flips open her own book and rattles off her argument. But she’s incorrect. He knows this. He points it out, calm, detached. He is right, and she is wrong, and she hates that. She hates that he is better than her at something.

Babbling appears before Granger can continue, a frown on her face. 

“Miss Granger, I don’t recall asking you to argue with your classmates.”

Granger gapes at her. 

“But- but he-”

“He is correct,” Babbling says simply. Then, “Please leave the classroom. I won’t tolerate disruptions.”

Granger looks at Harry, furious, but Harry only tilts his head. She leaves in a storm of indignation.

Harry hums, turning back to his work, and Draco’s hand slides onto the nape of his neck. A grounding touch, a reminder not to react. It is warm.

“Good boy,” Draco murmurs, voice too low for anyone else to hear, and Harry’s fingers tighten around his quill as something flickers, something small and distant and incomprehensible. Draco’s hand slides back down to his thigh, and the spirals begin again.

Harry does not acknowledge the feeling. He lets it settle, lets it nestle in the numb spaces, lets it grow quietly in the dark. He returns to his work.

The ink flows.

Harry is reading.

He likes the weight of the book in his hands, the crispness of the parchment, the scent of ink and old pages. He likes the way words are static, unmoving, locked in place- unchanging, unyielding. Unlike the rest of the world. Unlike himself.

He leans back, pressing his spine against Draco’s, feeling the warmth of him like an anchor. Draco is silent as Harry reads aloud, his voice lilting, detached, lost in the philosophy.

“‘Values,’” Harry murmurs, “‘are neither inherent nor objective, but are instead constructs formed by perception, circumstance, and necessity. They exist because we must believe they do.’”

Draco hums behind him, his hands loose but steady around Harry’s wrists, an idle weight that pins Harry in place. 

“That’s just dressed-up nihilism,” he says, “Dressed-up in robes and curled parchment and a title like ‘The Contemplation of Meaning.’”

Harry smiles, shifting just enough that he can feel the ghost of Draco’s breath against his shoulder. 

“All philosophy is dressed-up nihilism. People don’t like to admit it, though.”

Pansy makes a disgusted noise, stroking Tom’s hair where he’s curled against her side like something delicate and breakable. He isn’t, of course. Tom is sharper than the knives in the Great Hall, keener than the edge of a well-honed curse.

“Stop talking like that,” Pansy says, “Some of us don’t have the patience for your little existential crises.”

Tom’s eyes are bright, eager. He’s listening, absorbing, like Harry once did when he was young and hadn’t yet learned that knowing things doesn’t change them. 

“I think it’s interesting,” he says. 

His voice is soft, polite. A thin, calculated layer of honey over steel. 

Harry loves him fiercely.

Draco’s fingers tighten around Harry’s wrist, and Harry lets his head tip back onto Draco’s shoulder, tilting his chin to the sky.

Then the spell comes.

A crack of magic, sharp like splintering glass. Harry barely has time to process it before he’s moving, wandlessly snarling “Protego” on instinct, a half-second from summoning his wands.

The spell rebounds, lancing across the courtyard. It slams into a fifth-year Hufflepuff, and she starts coughing up blood.

Harry watches, frozen, as chaos erupts. The courtyard becomes a mess of screams, of students scrambling back, of friends kneeling beside the girl as she convulses. The noise is a wall, pressing against his ears, unbearable.

He shouldn’t care.

He moves anyway.

His hands press against the Hufflepuff’s chest, feeling the blood slick under his fingers. His breathing is even, detached. This is nothing. Just another puzzle to solve, another thing to fix. He ignores the way the noise makes his skull pound, the way the world feels too bright, too fast, too much.

He needs to know the curse. He needs to know the damage.

“Tell me what she cast,” he snaps, his voice cold, precise. 

The girl's friends hesitate, and something in him snarls at the delay, at the inefficiency, at their idiocy.

Pansy’s voice cracks like a whip. 

“Tell him!”

They do.

Harry moves fast, pulling out his holly wand and incanting the counter-curse with the ease of someone who has lived inside the mechanics of magic for too long. The coughing slows. The girl stills. Her lips are wet with blood. She’s choking. Harry tilts her, thumping her back, forcing her to spit out the rest. Her body convulses once, then stills.

Madam Pomfrey rushes over, her hands quick and efficient as she checks vitals, assessing. 

“You saved her,” she whispers, low enough that only Harry hears.

Harry exhales. His hands shake. 

“I know.”

Tom is suddenly there, small fingers grasping at Harry’s sleeve, holding on like Harry is the only real thing in the world. Harry pulls him in, clutching him tightly, the warmth of him seeping through the cracks in his mind. Draco is talking to Pomfrey, explaining, his voice steady. Reliable. Safe.

Then McGonagall is there.

She takes one look at him, at the blood, at the wide-eyed way he’s staring, and says, “Come with me, Harry.”

She never calls him by his first name unless they're alone.

She places a hand on his back, guiding him gently, and he follows. He grips her robes like an anchor, lets her lead. Draco, Pansy, and Tom come too, surrounding him.

Draco’s hand finds the nape of Harry’s neck, grounding him. Harry lets his eyes flutter shut, lets himself be led away, the weight of their presence around him a shield against the too-loud, too-much world.

Harry sits in McGonagall’s office, hands still stained with drying blood. He should have cleaned them. He should have stopped at the sinks just outside the Great Hall, let the scalding water run over his knuckles until the red swirled away into nothing, but he hadn’t. He had walked, numb and silent, through the stone halls, each step carrying him toward this room with a kind of inevitability that felt almost laughable. Because of course. Of course he’s here. Of course he’s being spoken to. Of course his hands are bloody.

McGonagall sighs, a deep, weary thing. She sits down across from him, her sharp gaze scanning him, but she doesn’t look angry. She looks- she looks-

“Mr. Potter,” she says, and her voice is softer than usual, like a whisper of parchment, “Would you care to explain what happened?”

He exhales slowly. Thinks of Tom. Thinks of Draco’s hands, sure and steady, gripping him. Thinks of the fifth-year Hufflepuff, bloodied and choking, eyes wide with something like terror, something like regret. Thinks of how easy it would have been to let her die.

“She cast a spell meant for my brother,” he says, voice detached, as though the words are being read aloud from a book he isn't invested in, “I stopped it.”

McGonagall waits, not interrupting, and he wonders if she is trying to be gentle with him. If she sees something in him worth handling with care.

“I healed her,” he continues, because that’s what he’s supposed to say, “I figured out the counter-curse. I saved her.”

His voice is hollow. He doesn’t say, ‘I considered not saving her.’ He doesn’t say, ‘I watched her choke and wondered if this is what she deserved.’ He doesn’t say, ‘For a moment, I felt nothing, and it felt good.’

McGonagall is still watching him. He wonders if she knows. She’s always been perceptive, and Harry- Harry has always been bad at hiding the worst parts of himself.

“You did well,” she says finally, “She would have died if not for you.”

He shrugs. What does that matter? People die all the time. It is a fact, not a tragedy.

McGonagall sighs again, long and tired, and it makes something curl, tight and uncertain, in his stomach. He does not know what she sees when she looks at him. He is a puzzle with missing pieces. He is a war relic too young to be rusted but too broken to be anything else.

He doesn’t realize he’s shaking until she moves. It’s not a full embrace. It’s not anything so sentimental, so motherly. But she stands, walks around the desk, and rests a firm hand on his shoulder. Squeezes, once. It is not a hug, not really. But it is something close to it.

“Harry,” she says, and the sound of his name- his name- feels heavier than any spell.

He lets himself lean into the touch for just a second. It is grounding. It is real. And for the first time since he walked into this room, he feels something solid beneath him.

But he doesn’t need comfort. He doesn’t deserve it. He pulls away, straightening his shoulders, and McGonagall lets him go.

He looks at her then, and she is still watching him, still assessing, still trying to solve the puzzle. She has always been fair. She has always been just. She will not say empty things like, ‘You are good.’ She will not lie to him. And for that, he is grateful.

“I will not ask if you are alright,” she says finally, “But I will ask if you want a cup of tea.”

He huffs a quiet laugh, something brittle. 

“You’re bribing me with tea?”

Her lips twitch. 

“Perhaps.”

He looks down at his hands again, at the blood he still hasn’t wiped away. At the way his fingers tremble, just slightly.

“Alright,” he says, voice barely more than a whisper, “Tea sounds good.”

The blood washes away easily. It swirls down the sink in spirals of rust and water, disappearing like it was never there. Harry watches it go, the motion hypnotic, like the way Draco's fingers trace patterns on his wrists, spirals and circles and something close to ownership. He scrubs at the skin until it's red, until the water runs clear, until there's nothing left but memory. He tries to let that go too.

McGonagall waits for him just outside the lavatory, her hands folded behind her back, her expression schooled into neutrality. He follows her through the halls, his feet light against the stone, barely there, a ghost moving beside her. The Great Hall looms ahead, the sound of hundreds of voices spilling out into the corridor, loud and grating, filling the air like static. He wants to turn around. He does not.

McGonagall does not clear her throat before she speaks. She does not ask for silence. She simply steps forward, lifts her chin, and begins.

“If any student is caught casting dark magic at another again,” her voice is sharp, unyielding, “I will personally see to their expulsion.”

Silence ripples through the hall, a tide of held breaths and widened eyes. Harry looks at her, and she meets his gaze, something unreadable passing between them.

She is fond of him, he realizes. It is a strange thought, foreign and ill-fitting, but he tucks it away anyway. Another thing to examine later, when the world is quieter.

Draco’s hand is at his back, pressing him forward. He does not let go.

The Slytherin table is warm, a pocket of something solid in the noise and the shifting, restless movement of the hall. Draco’s fingers do not leave him, a constant presence against his spine, as if he is afraid Harry might disappear.

Harry takes food. He does not think about it. He takes more than usual, piling his plate high with toad in the hole, with roasted potatoes, with whatever he can reach. The weight of it is grounding. He catalogues every bite. The crispness of the batter, the salt of the sausage, the way the flavours layer and settle on his tongue. He chews slowly, deliberately, forces himself to keep eating, to focus on the mundane mechanics of it rather than the phantom taste of blood at the back of his throat.

Susan speaks to him. Her voice is pleasant, rhythmic, the cadence of someone trying to soothe a wounded animal without making it obvious. He does not remember what she says. He does not think it matters. He nods at the right moments, hums in response, lets her words wash over him like the tide.

Draco strokes his hair. The motion is lazy, thoughtless, fingers dragging through the strands like it is something he does without thinking, like it is something he has always done.

Harry leans into it. He does not question it.

Across the table, Tom watches him with dark, thoughtful eyes, small hands wrapped around his goblet like he is absorbing the warmth from it. He smiles, soft and secret, and Harry feels something unclench in his chest.

Pansy nudges Tom’s shoulder, murmurs something to him that makes the boy laugh, a quiet thing, hushed but bright. Harry watches them for a moment, a thread of something sharp pulling tight beneath his ribs. He wonders if it is jealousy, if it is longing, if it is anything at all.

Susan says his name. He blinks at her.

“You’re humming,” she says, not unkindly.

Harry tilts his head. 

“Oh.”

She smiles, faint and fleeting, before returning to her conversation with Hannah.

He hums again, just to see what happens.

Nothing does.

Draco’s fingers trail down to the back of his neck, pressing there, grounding. Harry exhales, long and slow, and keeps eating, and keeps listening, and keeps himself here, in this moment, where things are still and quiet and something close to safe.

The dorm is quiet, wrapped in the heavy weight of the afternoon. The world outside exists in muffled tones, in whispers through the castle walls, but here, in this small space, it is just Harry and Draco.

Harry sits on the edge of the bed, spine rigid, shoulders too tight. The remnants of the day cling to him, the taste of iron at the back of his throat, the feeling of phantom blood beneath his nails. He is clean now, meticulously so- soap and water and scrubbing until his skin was raw, but the sensation lingers, like something wedged between the seams of his mind. He feels stretched too thin, fraying at the edges.

Draco watches him, head tilted slightly, eyes calculating. But not cold. Never cold. 

“Do me a favour,” Draco says, voice steady. Harry turns to look at him.

“What?”

Draco gestures loosely. 

“Take off your robes. And your tie.”

Harry blinks, disoriented by the request but nods. It is an easy enough thing to do. He moves slowly, methodically, unbuttoning and slipping out of layers, folding them with careful precision before tucking them away. When he turns back, Draco’s eyes are on him, watching, assessing.

“Turn around,” Draco instructs, and Harry does without question. 

There is the faintest sensation of fingers ghosting over his plait, then the unraveling, strands of hair falling free in soft waves.

“Face me.”

Harry does.

Draco exhales. 

“I want to test something.”

Harry nods, slow. 

“I wouldn’t mind.”

Draco’s lips curve up at the corners. He pats the bed beside him, and Harry hesitates only for a moment before sitting down. The silence stretches between them, comfortable in its weight. Then, Draco speaks again, quieter this time. 

“Kneel for me.”

Harry tilts his head, considering, watching Draco watch him. Draco is careful, his voice even, steady. 

“Darling, it is your choice completely,” Draco says, “I just wish to conduct an experiment to see how I can calm you down. You’re on edge, Harry, and as your partner, I only wish to help.”

Partner.

The word lingers.

Not friends. Not quite lovers. But something in between. A choice. A decision made quietly, without need for declaration.

Harry nods, and kneels. His head hovers just before Draco’s knee before he allows himself to lean, pressing his cheek against Draco’s thigh. The fabric is smooth beneath his skin, warm. Draco’s hand finds his hair again, stroking through it, gentle, steady.

“Close your eyes,” Draco murmurs.

Harry does.

And he drifts.

The world pulls away, like something peeling apart, layer by layer. He can hear Draco’s voice, feel the steady movement of fingers carding through his hair, but it feels distant, like echoes in a cavern. He lets it happen, lets himself go. The thoughts that claw at the back of his mind, the weight of everything- blood, curses, the weight of a life spent in constant motion- it all falls away.

There is only this. The quiet. The warmth. The feeling of Draco’s hand, moving gently against him.

Draco’s voice comes again, breaking through the fog, soft and deliberate. 

“There you are, my darling.”

Harry hums, the sound barely audible. He doesn’t quite know where he is anymore. Just here. Just existing.

“You’re safe,” Draco tells him, and Harry, for once, believes him.

Harry breathes in. Draco smells like firewood, something rich and old, like the inside of a grand library or the air after a storm. It anchors him, a tether through the static haze in his skull. He is folded small, curled in Draco’s lap, tucked inside the warmth of his arms, and the weight is good. He pretends to sleep because it is easier that way, easier than speaking, easier than existing.

The dorm is quiet except for Draco’s slow breathing and the faint crackle of magic in the air, a hum only Harry seems to hear. There is a space between thought and action, and Harry exists in it. Drifting. He does not feel like a person. He does not feel real. He is pretending to be something tangible because Draco holds him like he is, like he is something that can be touched and known, and it is easier to pretend than to argue.

The door creaks open. Soft footsteps. Tom enters the dorm, and Harry knows because Tom has a presence, something weighty despite his size. He is eleven and fragile and sharper than anyone gives him credit for. Harry does not move, does not acknowledge him, just listens as Draco shifts slightly, not letting go.

Tom’s voice is quiet, careful. 

“Is he asleep?”

Draco exhales slowly, his fingers moving in slow, absentminded strokes through Harry’s hair.

“No. He’s just resting.”

A pause. Harry can feel Tom’s eyes on him, assessing, thinking.

“He does that a lot now,” Tom says, and it is not a question.

Draco hums. 

“Yes.”

“Is he okay?”

Another slow stroke through his hair, a faint press of fingers against his back. Draco doesn’t answer immediately.

“I don’t think ‘okay’ is a word that applies to Harry,” Draco finally says, voice calm, almost clinical, “But he’s here.”

Tom is quiet for a long time, and Harry wonders what he is thinking.

“I don’t want him to disappear,” Tom says eventually, and there is something raw there, something vulnerable that makes Harry’s chest ache in a way he does not have the energy to acknowledge.

Draco’s grip tightens around him. 

“He won’t.”

“How do you know?”

Draco does not answer. Harry listens to the silence, to the way the air hums with something unsaid, something delicate and dangerous. It is not an assurance. It is not a promise.

Tom steps closer, hesitant, and then Harry feels his small, careful hand brush against his shoulder. He does not move, but he is aware of it, aware of Tom’s warmth, of the careful, uncertain way he touches him.

“He needs you,” Tom says, and Harry knows he is speaking to Draco.

Draco does not answer immediately. Then: “I know.”

Harry closes his eyes. Pretends he is sleeping. Pretends he is something that can be held without disappearing. He listens to Draco’s heartbeat, slow and steady, and for now, it is enough.

Does he wish to be a murderer?

The question drips, oozes, pools in his mind like ink on old parchment, soaking into the edges until everything is blackened. The answer should be simple. The answer should be a no. The answer should be a no because that's what people expect, because murder is a great and terrible thing, a thing that changes a person, a thing that solidifies a moment into the bones of history and makes a person unchangeable, irredeemable.

But the answer is yes.

Yes, he thinks. Yes, he would like to be a murderer. Yes, he would like to see blood on his hands and know it is there because of him, because of his will, because of his power, because he made a choice and followed through. Yes, he would like to see what it feels like to take, to remove, to erase. To choose.

It isn’t rage. Rage is bright and furious and hot like dragon’s fire, but Harry is not burning. He is cold, his mind like the surface of a frozen lake, endless and untouchable beneath the sheen of ice. He thinks about the act, about the precision it would take, about the aftermath, about the weight of it. He wonders if he would feel anything at all. He wonders if he would still feel this same nothingness, this vast and hollow void stretching in his chest where something should be. He wonders if it would make him real. If it would anchor him to the earth instead of drifting untethered through a world that does not make sense.

He was told, once, that taking a life is the greatest crime. That it is unnatural, a transgression against something divine. But Harry has never cared much for divinity. Has never been one for gods or for fate or for the brittle morality of those who have never had to fight to survive. Morality is nothing but a collection of rules made by the powerful to keep themselves safe. To make sure no one like him rises. To ensure that no one who has been broken can ever learn to wield the pieces as a weapon.

Murder is easy, he thinks. Murder is simple. Murder is as natural as breathing. As the body knowing to flinch away from flame, as the heart knowing to beat. As a predator knowing to strike when it sees an opening.

The thought should horrify him, should make him feel sick, should make him recoil, but it does not. The thought settles inside of him, sits in the space where his heart used to be, roots itself in the cracks of his ribs and grows. He lets it. He wants it. He wants to see what he would become if he let go of the chains people have wrapped around his wrists, the expectations they have pressed into his skin like bruises.

He thinks about death. Not his own, because that has never scared him, because his own death is a welcome guest in the corridors of his mind, always lingering at the edges of his thoughts. But he thinks about the weight of someone else’s. Thinks about what it would be like to stand over someone and know they are gone because of him. That they will never speak again, never laugh again, never take another breath, and that it was his doing. That it was his hands, his power, his will, his choice.

He wonders if he would smile.

He wonders if he would finally, finally feel full.

Chapter Text

The castle is silent when Harry returns. The halls stretch out before him, stone swallowing sound, the weight of the night pressing against him. His hands are stained, fingers stiff, skin tight where it dried. He should wash them. He doesn’t.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been walking, only that he is here now, and the door swings open without resistance when he pushes. The dorm is dimly lit. Draco sits on his bed, a book open in his lap, eyes lifting lazily. And then he sees Harry.

Draco looks at him like he already knows. Maybe he does.

He doesn’t speak right away. Just stands, movements fluid, practiced. The book slides from his fingers, lands with a soft thud against the mattress. His gaze tracks downward, takes in the knife in Harry’s grip, the way he is shaking without meaning to. The tension in his shoulders, the stiffness in his jaw.

Draco crosses the space between them, careful but unhesitating. His hands come up, slow and deliberate, and when he speaks, his voice is even, like they are discussing something as mundane as the weather. 

“Who was it this time?”

Harry’s breath stutters in his chest, barely a whisper when he finally answers. 

“Dudley’s best friend. Piers Polkiss. I gutted him, and pulled out each of his organs. Used a spell too, to make sure he was watching until I cut out his heart. It was… delicious to watch.”

Draco hums, acknowledging. Doesn’t ask why, doesn’t press, doesn’t judge. He just nods, expression unreadable, and gently takes the knife from Harry’s grip. Harry lets him. He watches as Draco sets it aside, movements meticulous, careful. There’s something grounding in it. Draco always knows what to do.

Harry feels like he is floating- too light, too heavy, all at once. His limbs are detached from him, moving without thought. He sways. Draco catches him.

“Come on,” Draco says, voice calm, steady. 

He guides Harry towards the bathroom, his grip firm but never harsh. The marble tiles are cold beneath Harry’s feet. He feels it in the abstract, like something happening to someone else. Draco keeps one hand on his wrist as he turns the taps, filling the tub with warm water, steam curling in the dim light.

Harry doesn’t move until Draco tugs lightly at his sleeve. 

“Let’s get this off you.”

Harry blinks down at himself, at the dark fabric clinging to his skin, at the stiff, cracked places where the blood dried. It doesn’t feel real. None of it does. He nods and lets Draco undress him, methodical, patient. Draco doesn’t flinch at the mess. Just works in silence, peeling away the layers until Harry is left in nothing but his boxers.

Draco steps back, assessing. Then, without a word, he strips off his own shirt and slides into the tub, motioning for Harry to follow.

Harry hesitates. Not because he’s uncomfortable- he isn’t- but because he doesn’t know what this is. Not really. But then Draco lifts a brow, gestures again, and it’s so easy to listen.

So he steps in.

The water is warm, wrapping around him, and Harry exhales. Draco shifts, pulling him closer, arranging him like something fragile but unbreakable. Harry lets him, curling into Draco’s chest, letting the steady rise and fall of his breathing press against his skin.

“What distraction do you want?” Draco murmurs against his temple.

Harry swallows. His throat is dry. He doesn’t know what he wants. He doesn’t want to think. Doesn’t want to be.

He whispers, “Hold me.”

Draco doesn’t hesitate. His arms tighten, securing Harry against him, one hand tangling in his damp hair. His grip is firm, grounding. Harry melts into it, lets his mind quiet, lets himself forget for a moment.

Neither of them speak. The water laps against the porcelain. The world outside doesn’t exist.

Draco’s fingers card through his hair, slow and rhythmic, and Harry breathes in the scent of him, crisp and sharp like green apples and something distinctly Draco. He catalogues it, the way he catalogues everything, the way he needs to catalogue things, something to anchor himself.

Draco doesn’t ask him if he regrets it. Draco doesn’t tell him it was wrong. Draco doesn’t try to change him, fix him, scold him. Draco just holds him, like he belongs there, like he is something meant to be kept.

Harry breathes. He listens to the sound of his own heartbeat, listens to Draco’s breathing. The weight in his chest is still there, but it is easier to carry.

Maybe this is enough.

Harry wakes up in Draco’s arms, disoriented. There is a weight over his chest, the kind that feels like pressure rather than comfort, but he doesn’t move. His skin is too tight, too hot, his veins buzzing with something that feels like leftover electricity. His hands curl into the fabric draped over his body- it’s soft, too big, smells like Draco. Apples and musk and something clean, like crisp parchment, like frostbitten air. Not like blood. Not like iron and copper and the rot of wet earth.

Draco is moving. Humming, slow and low, almost melodic, almost soothing. The room is dim, flickering candlelight warping shadows along the stone walls. Harry barely registers the presence at the desk until Tom turns to look at him, eyes sharp and assessing, but not unkind.

“Morning,” Tom says, voice smooth like polished glass. 

Too sharp for right now.

Draco tuts. 

“Quiet,” he murmurs, as if Harry is made of glass, as if he could crack down the middle and splinter into something jagged.

Tom watches. Tom always watches. He is still watching when he steps forward, presses the softest of kisses to Harry’s cheek. He smells like ink and something darker, something that makes Harry’s thoughts flicker and glitch. Then he leaves.

Draco turns to him. Harry raises his hands, and Draco pulls him up, folds him into his arms as if it is natural, as if it is inevitable. Harry exhales against Draco’s neck, takes in the scent, absorbs it into the marrow of his bones.

He whispers, “Apples and musk.”

Draco hums, tilting his head as Harry breathes him in. 

“Clever boy,” Draco muses, shifting Harry to sit on his lap properly. 

His hands find Harry’s back, rubbing slow, methodical circles that Harry barely feels through the numbness.

He doesn’t know why he does it, but he licks. Just a slow press of his tongue against Draco’s pulse, an idle curiosity to know if Draco tastes like he smells. Draco huffs a laugh, warm and indulgent, and his fingers thread through Harry’s hair. Harry purrs, though he doesn’t mean to, but Draco just rocks him slightly, his grip steady.

“Today, mon cher, we are going to the library with Pansy, Susan, and Tom,” Draco tells him, his tone light, conversational. 

Harry doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. Draco continues, as if Harry has agreed. 

“You and I are going to do some of the Runes homework we’ve neglected.”

Harry sighs, curling his fingers into Draco’s back, letting his nails dig in just slightly. Draco doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t complain. He never does. Instead, he runs a palm up Harry’s spine, dragging just enough to send a shiver through him. Draco’s lips ghost over Harry’s shoulder before his teeth press down, a soft, quick bite.

Harry gasps, a small, surprised sound. He feels warm. Heavy. Like Draco is an anchor and Harry is tethered, just barely.

Draco smiles against his skin, then presses a chaste kiss to the spot before pulling back to look at him. 

“I don’t think we’re up for talking, are we, mon amour?”

Harry shakes his head. He doesn’t want to talk. He wants- he doesn’t know what he wants, but Draco always knows.

Draco stands, still holding Harry, and his voice drops to something softer. 

“Alors, je vais juste parler pour nous deux.”

Harry doesn’t mind. He rests his head against Draco’s shoulder, listening as Draco speaks, not really taking in the words but the tone, the cadence, the way Draco wraps language around him like a cloak.

“Tu es tellement fatigué, n'est-ce pas?” Draco murmurs as he carries Harry into the bathroom. 

Harry doesn’t answer. He lets himself be placed down, lets Draco guide him, undress him, lower him into the water. His body is cold, but he doesn’t feel it. He doesn’t feel much of anything anymore.

Draco slides in behind him, pulling Harry against his chest, arms strong and sure around his waist. The water laps at their skin, but Harry only notices the warmth of Draco.

Draco keeps talking. About the homework. About how Pansy is probably already in the library, grumbling about how much work she has to do. About how Susan is likely making a list, ensuring they have a plan. About how Tom is- Tom. Unpredictable. Observant.

Harry listens. He doesn’t need to respond. Draco will talk until Harry is grounded, until the world makes sense again, even if only for a moment.

He is tired. But this is okay. This is enough.

Harry follows Draco through the corridors, his steps automatic, his body moving because it must. He is dressed well enough- Draco makes sure of that. Something soft, loose around his wrists, nothing that will make his skin crawl. His sweater is Draco’s, and he pulls at the sleeves, feeling the fabric press between his fingers. It is grounding, though grounding means nothing to him now. He is moving through the castle as though it is only a dream, though he is not asleep. He can’t tell the difference anymore. He is so tired.

Draco’s voice is a low hum beside him, speaking in that rolling French, weaving words into the air like silk. It’s about his book, something Dickens. Harry doesn’t listen to the details, only the sound. The vowels curl warmly, consonants sharp but not cruel. Draco’s voice is something safe, something familiar.

“Je pense que Dickens est trop dramatique,” Draco muses, “Tout le monde souffre. Personne n’est heureux.”

Harry barely acknowledges the words. He does not care for Dickens, or for suffering, or for happiness. Happiness is a foreign thing, something he has read about but never touched. He wants to say that suffering is only what people call it when they still believe there is something better on the other side. But Draco doesn’t like when he talks like that, so he says nothing at all.

They reach the library, a tucked-away corner where Susan, Pansy, and Tom are waiting. Susan sits with her legs curled beneath her, a careful, observant look in her eyes. Pansy is draped lazily over her chair, twirling her wand between her fingers. Tom is perched upright, too composed, too perfect, but there is a warmth to him, an earnest attempt at being human. Harry likes him best when he is like this.

Draco sits first, pulling another chair close before guiding Harry down beside him. Harry folds into the seat, presses his shoulder against Draco’s. He wants to be closer.

Susan watches him carefully. 

“Are you okay?”

Draco answers before Harry can. 

“Just tired.”

Harry feels Susan’s eyes on him, but she says nothing more. 

He mumbles instead, “I want to do the runes homework.”

Draco nods, switching back to French. 

“C’est une bonne idée.”

He pulls out the runes textbook, flicking through the pages with ease, settling on the assigned passage. His fingers ghost along the words, tracing their meaning. Harry watches, not reading, not comprehending. Just watching Draco’s fingers as they move, long and elegant. Hands that are steady. Hands that hold him together.

Tom leans forward, feigning intense interest. 

“What does this one mean?”

Draco smirks, indulging him. 

“That depends. Are you asking for the academic translation or the poetic one?”

Tom grins. 

“The one that will get me the best marks.”

Susan snorts, shaking her head, but Draco humours him, explaining in a voice smooth and lilting. He speaks easily, filling the silence so Harry does not have to. It is another reason why Harry stays. Draco understands.

Harry rests his head against Draco’s shoulder, presses into him. Pansy notices, of course she does. She smirks. 

“You two are disgustingly attached.”

Draco’s gaze snaps to her, sharp, possessive. His fingers tighten subtly around Harry’s knee. Pansy holds her hands up in mock surrender, but Harry is grateful. His head is not ready for the simple things today.

Tom watches them all with quiet amusement. He is so very human when he wants to be. Harry has grown fond of him. Tom is like a shadow that refuses to be dark, always there, always warm when he shouldn’t be. He makes a choice every day to be soft, to be kind. He doesn’t have to, but he does. Harry wonders if he could ever do the same. He doesn’t think so.

Draco shifts, pressing a kiss to Harry’s hair. 

“Mon cher, tu es bien?”

Harry blinks slowly. He does not know the answer. Instead, he mumbles, “You smell like roses now, thanks to your shampoo.”

Draco chuckles, soft, indulgent. 

“Tu me sens souvent.”

Harry does. He always does. He says nothing, only curls further into Draco, listens to the steady rhythm of his voice as he explains another rune to Tom, as he soothes Susan’s quiet concerns, as he glares at Pansy when she teases. Draco is warm and safe and something very nearly like home.

Harry thinks maybe he is not meant to love, but if he were, this is what it would feel like.

The hallway is dimly lit, torches flickering against damp stone. Harry walks in the centre of their little group, close enough that he can feel Draco’s warmth at his side, but not touching. Tom’s fingers curl around his, small and trusting. Pansy and Tom squabble playfully ahead, and Susan is humming some tune under her breath, too faint for Harry to parse. His mind is distant, foggy. He feels wrapped in wool, in air, in something not-quite-there. It’s better like this. Better than feeling.

Tom’s hand is warm in his. Soft, like something delicate. Harry knows better. Tom is stubborn, a spoiled thing, all big dark eyes and sharper-than-necessary observations, a younger sibling who could get away with murder because he is sweet, because he tilts his head at the right angle and lets himself be doted on. Pansy feeds him chocolate frogs. Susan transfigures him little toys when he pouts. Draco lets him curl up beside him and call him ‘Dray’ in the way he never lets anyone else.

Harry lets him hold his hand. Because Tom is his. Because Tom is warm. Because, even through the numbness, through the fog, Harry can feel him.

Then he’s falling.

Hard shove, stone scraping skin, the sound of Tom’s surprised yelp. A thud as he hits the ground. A sharper sound as Tom follows.

His head snaps up. Weasley. Granger. Girl Weasley.

His chest tightens, his fingers curling instinctively. The thing inside him that was calm, floating, empties into something else. Protective, possessive. Dark.

Tom is on the ground, wide eyes and a blooming trickle of red on his face. Harry reaches for him immediately, shields him from view. He heals the nose with barely a thought, pressing his sleeve to Tom’s face to wipe away the blood.

Draco is furious. 

“Apologise.” 

His voice is cool, steady. Dangerous.

“No,” Weasley snaps.

Pansy bristles. Susan steps forward. Harry can’t stop staring at Girl Weasley, who is staring right at him. Eyes sharp, searching. She knows something. She doesn’t know enough. Tom hides further into Harry’s sweater, small fingers clutching at the fabric, and Harry wants to smile at her in the way that makes people uneasy, the way that makes people wonder if something is broken in him.

Susan doesn’t give Weasley a choice. She speaks sharply, calmly, and with the unwavering patience of someone who won’t let them get away with anything. Eventually, grudgingly, Weasley mutters something that sounds enough like an apology. Harry only hears it because he was waiting for it.

Draco steps between them. Protective, cool, something sharp in his posture. He picks Harry up with ease, steady hands settling on Harry’s waist, pulling him against him. Harry lets him.

"Viens ici, mon amour," Draco murmurs.

 Come here, my love. 

The words are too easy, too natural. Harry presses his face into Draco’s shoulder, inhaling. Draco smells like apples, musk, roses, the faintest scent of ink and parchment. Safe.

Draco strokes a hand over his back, firm, steady. 

"Je suis ici. Tu es en sécurité."

 I am here. You are safe.

Harry lets his fingers dig into Draco’s robes, grounding himself in the weight of him, in the warmth. His mind is still fogged, still numb, but the world feels sharper, clearer, with Draco’s presence anchoring him. Draco, who doesn’t flinch when Harry’s thoughts turn dark. Draco, who doesn’t try to fix him.

Draco, who holds him, and lets him be.

Tom peeks up from the folds of his sweater, watching them with wide, curious eyes. Susan and Pansy flank them like sentries, unshaken, unimpressed, protective in their own way. The trio- Granger, Weasley, Girl Weasley- linger for a second too long before turning away, disappearing into the hall.

Harry feels Draco’s fingers trace gentle patterns into his spine. He exhales, curling further into Draco’s arms.

Draco presses his lips to Harry’s temple, soft, fleeting.

"Allons-y, mon cher. Nous avons une chambre qui nous attend."  

Let’s go, my dear. We have a room waiting for us.

Harry nods. Closes his eyes. Lets Draco lead him away.

Harry waits outside the bathroom, pressing his fingers into his wrist, feeling the skin give slightly under his nails. The itch is there, under his skull, in his bones, crawling beneath his skin like a parasite. It whispers, it hisses, it gnaws at the base of his thoughts. He resists the urge to press his palm to his head and scream. He just wants Draco. Just wants to be held. Just wants to dissolve into the quiet hush of French murmurs against his ear and let himself cease to exist for a while.

But Draco is inside, finishing up whatever he needs to, and Harry is here.

Alone.

The floor feels like it's tilting. He adjusts his stance. Stares at a crack in the stone. Breathes in and out through his nose. Feels the weight of his own body press against itself. The universe is too heavy. His skull is too full. His mouth tastes like metal.

Then- footsteps.

They echo sharply against the stone walls, ricocheting inside his brain. Harry stiffens before he sees them. Before he hears their voices.

Granger and Girl Weasley.

His stomach churns with something indistinct and ugly. He doesn’t care, not really, not truly. They are ghosts from a life that no longer exists, echoes of something he has scrubbed clean from his bones. But they won’t let him be forgotten. They won’t let him disappear into the spaces between the cracks like he so desperately wants to.

Ginny reaches him first, all fire and fury.

"Are you and Malfoy together?" she demands, as if the question is a weapon, a challenge, a burning piece of truth she is trying to wrench from his hands, "You’re always with him. Following him around like some lovesick puppy."

Harry doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.

The itch inside his skull claws deeper, sinking hooks into his thoughts. He wants to laugh. He wants to scream. He wants to wrap his hands around her throat and press, press, press until her lips turn blue and her eyes pop out of her head like a cartoon.

Instead, he hums. A song. A lullaby Luna sang to him once, the melody curling around his tongue like a distant dream. He lets it soothe him, lets it pull him away from the rage festering in his ribs.

"Answer her, Harry," Granger cuts in sharply, stepping closer, her eyes sharp, calculating, "You can’t ignore us forever. This is ridiculous. You can’t seriously be with Malfoy!"

Harry hums louder, rocking slightly on his heels.

Ginny’s eyes blaze. 

"Are you really going to stand there and act like this? What is wrong with you? You used to be better than this! You used to care! We’re trying to help you!"

Help. The word scrapes against his mind like glass.

He doesn’t need help. He doesn’t need them. He doesn’t need anyone except Draco.

Ginny reaches for him, her fingers outstretched, and the moment they graze his skin, something inside Harry shatters.

A snap. A spark. A surge of something violent and primal and all-consuming.

His breath seizes. His heart lurches.

Pain explodes behind his eyes like fireworks.

His skull is a cacophony of shrieking nerves, his senses flooded with raw, undiluted agony, like someone has taken a scalpel to his brain and carved out every rational thought, leaving only the raw, frayed edges of instinct.

It is too much. It is too much. It is too much.

He roars, the sound ripped from the deepest part of him, and shoves her back, his body moving before he can think.

"Leave me alone!" he snarls, his voice hoarse, broken, trembling with something fragile and desperate, "Just leave me alone! I don’t care! I don’t care about you, I don’t care about this, I don’t care about anything! Just let me live my LIFE!"

Silence.

Then- Granger moves. Too fast. Too sudden.

A shove.

Hard. Unforgiving.

Harry stumbles back, his foot catching on the uneven stone floor, and then he is falling, falling, falling-

His head cracks against the ground.

Pain. Bright and sharp and red.

The world tips sideways.

Sounds become muffled, distant, warped beyond comprehension.

Draco’s voice cuts through the static, raw and vicious, like a blade slicing through flesh.

"What the fuck did you DO, GRANGER?!"

There is movement. Chaos. The sound of bodies colliding. The sharp smack of someone being shoved against the wall. Harry blinks up at the ceiling, his vision swimming, his mind floating somewhere far beyond his body.

Draco is there. Draco is always there.

His face is pale, his eyes wide with something close to terror. He drops to his knees beside Harry, his hands bloody as he presses against the wound at the back of Harry’s head.

"Harry, mon amour, reste avec moi," Draco pleads, voice cracking, desperate, "Ne ferme pas les yeux. S’il te plaît, je t’en supplie. Tu es en sécurité. Je suis là."

Harry makes a soft noise, something between a whimper and a sigh, his body sagging under the weight of exhaustion.

Footsteps. More voices. More chaos.

Seamus and Anthony.

Seamus disarms Granger with a flick of his wand, his expression thunderous. Anthony kneels beside Draco, his hands steady as he presses against Harry’s skull.

"We need to get him to the hospital wing," Anthony says firmly.

Draco’s hands tighten. 

"I know. Help me."

Together, they lift him.

Harry is weightless. Floating. The world tilts, blurs, shifts.

Anthony is saying something, his voice urgent, desperate. 

"Harry, stay awake. Stay with us."

But Harry is tired. So tired.

The itch is gone now. The noise is gone.

Finally, he lets go.

Harry wakes up, and the world is too much.

Too loud, too bright, too much pressure against his skull. His brain- if he can call it his anymore- feels like it's been cracked over and over again, like eggshells beneath careless fingers. He tries to move and finds himself unable to, as if something is pressing him down, crushing him into the mattress, into the air, into nothing. He wonders, briefly, if this is what death feels like.

There is a voice. Not a sharp one, not a demanding one, not a cruel one. A familiar one. A tether.

Draco.

Harry blinks, and the world shifts, sliding out of focus before snapping back in with violent force. The hospital wing. The scratchy sheets. The sterile scent of magic and antiseptic. The weight against him isn't a curse, isn't an attack. It is Draco, curled around him, arms wrapped tight as if to keep Harry from slipping away.

Draco looks-

Draco looks-

Harry can't put a word to it. Hollow, maybe. Haunted. His usually pristine face is cracked, a marble statue left in the rain too long. His hands are shaking. Harry sees that first. Then his eyes, bloodshot. He is holding Harry so tightly, his grip desperate, white-knuckled.

"Tu as pleuré," Harry murmurs, voice hoarse.

Draco's hands tighten. 

"Repose-toi, mon coeur," he whispers back. 

His heart. 

Harry lets that sit in his chest for a moment. He isn't sure what to do with it.

He can hear McGonagall yelling, shrill and furious, but it's far away. Like an echo from another world. There is sobbing, louder than anything else. Girl Weasley. Harry doesn't bother looking in her direction. He already knows the scene. Granger, head bowed, but too proud to cry. Girl Weasley, rubbing her hands against her skirt like she can scrub her sins away.

None of it matters. Nothing matters.

Except-

Draco's hands are still shaking.

Harry frowns. He reaches for them, taking them in his own, which are trembling even worse. Violent. Spasming. He doesn't know if it’s because of the pain in his skull or something else entirely. Either way, he presses Draco’s hands to his chest and nuzzles against his neck. There is a place, right at Draco’s collarbone, that feels like it was made for him.

"Harry-"

"Shh."

He doesn't care how he feels. That has never mattered. But Draco is trembling. And Draco never trembles.

Draco presses his lips against Harry’s hair. Again. And again. Soft, barely-there kisses, as if he is reassuring himself Harry is still breathing. It is sweet. It is unbearable.

So Harry distracts himself the way he always does- with blood.

"Do you know my favourite animal?" he murmurs, lips brushing against Draco’s throat.

Draco exhales sharply, a small laugh slipping free. "Je suppose que tu ne vas pas dire un lapin?" 

I suppose you're not going to say a rabbit?

Harry smiles against his skin. 

"Mantis shrimp. They can punch so fast the water boils around them."

Draco huffs out a soft laugh, still shaken, still fragile. 

"Of course you like an animal that can kill with its fists."

"Mm. I also like Komodo dragons. Their saliva is so venomous that all they have to do is bite their prey once and wait for it to die. Efficient."

Draco pulls back slightly, giving him a dry look. 

"Why am I not surprised?"

Harry shrugs, closing his eyes. 

"Also, the blue-ringed octopus. Small but deadly. Their venom can kill a human in minutes, and there's no cure."

Draco shakes his head but cups Harry’s face, thumb stroking gently over his cheek. 

"If anyone but you told me they liked only the most violent creatures in existence, I'd be worried."

Harry hums. 

"So you’re not worried?"

Draco smirks, though there’s something softer beneath it. 

"I never said that."

Harry lets himself smile, just slightly. Draco is still holding him, and he lets himself melt into it, just a little.

Movement in the corner catches his eye. McGonagall is standing before Granger, expression pure fury. She holds out her hand, and Granger- after a long moment, after glancing toward Harry and Draco, after swallowing hard- drops her Head Girl badge into it.

Harry watches.

And then, despite the sharp ache in his skull, despite the exhaustion in his bones, despite everything-

He smiles.

Harry steps back into the eighth-year common room a full day later, after being discharged, Susan’s firm grip on his arm steadying him as Draco presses in close on his other side. The common room is alight with tension, voices sharp and cutting through the air like hexes. He barely has a moment to register the scene before him- Tom, tiny, furious, screaming in the middle of the room while Pansy practically jumps up and down behind him, egging him on. Every other eighth-year stands frozen, watching the spectacle with varying degrees of horror, intrigue, or quiet amusement.

"YOU ABSOLUTE DUNDERHEADED TROGLODYTE!" Tom is shrieking at Granger, his face twisted into something near-feral. 

His little fists are clenched at his sides, and the sharp, hissing edge of Parseltongue coils around his words like venom, dripping, twisting, spitting. Pansy is cackling behind him, delighted, clapping her hands together in wicked glee.

Harry blinks, leans into Draco. Susan’s arms tighten around his waist from behind, keeping him upright. He should stop Tom. Probably. But it is entertaining, watching Granger try to stammer her way through a response while an eleven-year-old rips into her with the fury of a basilisk denied its meal.

"Do you even THINK before you act, or do you simply operate on some rudimentary animal instinct, devoid of any rationality or higher cognitive function?!" Tom continues, voice high and shrill. 

His hands shake with rage. 

"I have MET RATS with more dignity than you, and that is saying something because most of them reside in Knockturn Alley and subsist entirely on decayed human flesh!"

Pansy gasps dramatically. 

"Oh, brilliant one, darling," she sighs, eyes practically glittering, "Poetry!"

Granger opens her mouth, but Tom barrels over her.

"You think you’re so clever, don’t you? So noble? You sit atop your pile of books, pretending your intellect places you above everyone else, but you know nothing! NOTHING! Because if you had even the BAREST understanding of human DECENCY, you would not have laid a FINGER on MY FUCKING BROTHER!"

Harry feels something warm unfurl in his chest at that. Tom, calling him brother. He blinks slowly, letting the word settle in his bones, warm, grounding. Draco’s hand presses against his back, firm, reassuring.

"Enough, Tom," Harry finally murmurs, voice just loud enough to cut through the air.

Harry’s voice barely makes it past the haze of his own thoughts. He watches as Tom’s chest rises and falls, his hands curling into tight, white-knuckled fists. His baby brother shouldn’t look like this. Shouldn’t be corrupted by Pansy’s cursing. He feels a swell of something protective- distant, muted- but still there.

Tom looks at him, wide-eyed, then beams. 

“Harry!” 

He darts forward, wrapping his arms around Harry’s waist, small fingers digging into his ribs.

“Hey,” Harry murmurs, running a hand through Tom’s hair, ignoring how his limbs feel disconnected from his body, “You alright?”

Tom shakes his head violently against Harry’s chest. 

“Draco came back covered in blood, Harry. Covered. He wouldn’t tell me what happened. I- I was scared.”

Harry blinks. He doesn’t understand why it matters. Blood is blood. He’s seen so much of it that it barely registers. But Tom is shaking, and so Harry grips him tighter, presses his chin to the top of his head. 

“I’m okay,” he says, not sure if it’s a lie, or simply a half-true reassurance, “I’m here.”

Granger steps forward, clearing her throat, her hands shaking at her sides. 

“Harry, I-”

Harry cuts her off without looking at her. 

“I’ll never forgive you.”

She flinches.

His voice is dead. Hollow. There is nothing inside him anymore, nothing to give her, nothing to care about. 

“I’ll never be your friend again, Granger. You don’t deserve it. I don’t care if you cry about it, if you feel guilty. You don’t deserve me.”

Granger’s face twists. 

“You’re being unfair-”

“Unfair?” Harry laughs, sharp and bitter, “You pushed me. You cracked my skull. You harassed me like I was some sort of experiment, like I owed you answers. I owe you nothing.”

“I didn’t mean-”

“Didn’t mean to what?” he snaps, “Didn’t mean to slam my head into the ground? Didn’t mean to treat me like your little project? Like something you could control?”

“I just-”

“Enough,” Harry says, “Just stop.”

She stares at him, and then, just like before, she shoves him. It’s not enough to hurt, but it’s enough to push him back, enough to show the sheer desperation in her face. And then she’s gone, running out of the common room, sobbing.

The silence left behind is heavy.

Draco exhales sharply beside him. 

“Elle est une putain d’imbécile.”

Harry closes his eyes. 

“Mhm.”

Draco shifts closer, speaking softer now, like he’s drawing Harry back into the world, back into himself. 

“Tu vas bien, mon coeur?”

Harry doesn’t answer, just lets himself lean into Draco’s warmth, into the presence that is both sharp and comforting all at once.

“Take me to bed?” Harry asks instead, voice thin, exhausted.

Draco nods, a soft smile twitching at his lips, something fond despite the carnage. 

"Bien sûr, mon chéri. Tu es fatigué."  

He glances at Tom, at Susan, at Pansy, then back to Harry. 

“Come on.”

Harry lets himself be led, lets himself be touched, be held. He thinks he should feel something about it- thinks that maybe, once, he would have- but he doesn’t. He just lets Draco guide him away, lets Tom cling to his side, lets Pansy smirk in victory behind him.

For the first time in a long time, he feels like he belongs somewhere.

And he doesn’t mind that it’s here, in the grey, in the quiet, where the world finally makes sense.

Harry lies in bed, curled around Tom, the warmth of his little brother pressed against his chest. The common room beyond their dormitory hums with voices- sharp, irritated, biting. He listens with detached interest as Pansy spits a furious string of curses, her voice sharp as shattered glass. Susan, ever the diplomat, is trying to calm her down, but it’s useless; Pansy’s on a warpath, and no one stops her when she’s like this. Draco, smooth as silk, offers quiet, cutting interjections between them, his voice curling around syllables like a blade dipped in honey.

Tom shifts in Harry’s arms, small fingers curling into the fabric of his sleeve. He’s warm, so warm. Too warm. It anchors Harry to something, reminds him to keep breathing, reminds him to exist. He focuses on the heat, the little hands, the way Tom’s breath ghosts against his collarbone. He’s innocent. Harry is not.

The argument continues, ebbing and flowing like a tide of ire and exasperation. Pansy, never one to keep her opinions to herself, growls, “I say we hex the Mudblood into oblivion. She deserves it.”

Susan huffs. 

“You can’t just hex her, Pans, that’s not how this works-”

“Like hell I can’t! She cornered him! That little bitch wouldn’t leave him alone! She deserved McGonagall tearing into her, she deserves worse than losing a stupid badge! That Mudblood-”

“I don’t disagree,” Draco interjects smoothly, and Harry can almost hear the smirk in his voice, “But hexing her would be inefficient. She’s already broken. And Pans, don’t say that word please. It’s rather uncouth of you.”

A pause. Pansy hums, considering.

Tom shifts again. 

“Harry?” 

His voice is soft, hesitant. It’s the kind of voice that makes something sharp twist in Harry’s chest, something he ignores. 

“Why do people do bad things?”

Harry stills. The words echo strangely in his mind, bouncing against the walls of his skull like moths battering a glass jar. He should not be the one to answer this. He should tell Tom to ask someone else. But Tom is looking at him with those impossibly large eyes, trusting and sweet, and something in Harry aches.

He shifts, pulling Tom in closer, running a hand absently through his hair. 

“People are selfish,” he says finally, “They want things, and they don’t care what they have to do to get them.”

Tom frowns. 

“Even when they hurt others?”

“Especially then.”

Tom goes quiet, thinking. He does that a lot- so much thinking for someone so young. Harry almost wants to tell him to stop. To be a child, to be naive. But that would be hypocritical. He never had that luxury. Why should Tom?

Susan’s voice filters through the door, exasperated. 

“You lot need to stop treating this like a game.”

“Life is a game,” Draco muses lazily, the drawl in his voice like silk slipping through fingers, “And if you don’t play it right, you lose.”

“And we don’t lose,” Pansy adds smugly, “Unlike Granger.”

Harry shuts his eyes. Hermione. He feels nothing. Not guilt, not anger. Just the simple understanding that she is no longer part of his life. She made her choice, and he made his. He should care. He doesn’t.

Tom nuzzles closer, voice small. 

“Harry?”

“Mm?”

“Are you a bad person?”

Harry breathes. He should lie. He should say no. He should be the hero, the shining light, the perfect symbol of everything good in the world. But he isn’t.

“Yes.”

Tom shifts, looking up at him. 

“You don’t feel bad about it.”

“No.”

Tom watches him, eyes searching, and Harry wonders what he sees. After a long moment, Tom sighs and presses his face into Harry’s chest, his little hands curling tighter into his robes. 

“I don’t care,” he mumbles, “You’re my brother.”

Harry’s throat tightens. He says nothing. He just holds Tom closer.

Draco slips into the room then, his presence smooth and effortless, like he belongs there. Because he does. His eyes flicker to Harry and Tom, something unreadable passing over his face. He says nothing about it. Instead, he crosses the room and perches on the edge of the bed, gaze lazy, fingers twitching against his thigh. 

“Ils ne se taisent jamais, n'est-ce pas?”

“They never shut up,” Harry translates dryly, lips quirking.

Draco smirks. 

“At least you’re still alive.”

“Debatable.”

Draco’s smirk fades into something softer, something unreadable. He reaches out and, to Harry’s surprise, brushes a hand through his hair. It’s gentle, barely there, but it still makes Harry’s breath hitch.  

“Arrête de parler comme ça,” Draco murmurs, “Je suis ici.”

Stop talking like that. I’m here.

Harry swallows. He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t know how. Instead, he lets himself lean into Draco’s touch, just a little. Not enough to mean anything. Not enough to acknowledge it. But enough.

Pansy barges in then, Susan trailing after her with an exhausted expression. 

“Alright, plans are in motion, Granger’s officially being excommunicated, and I need a drink,” Pansy announces, flopping onto Harry’s bed like she owns it. 

Tom squeaks but doesn’t move, and Harry strokes his hair absently. Pansy glances at him. 

“You good, Potter?”

He thinks about it. He thinks about the numbness, the apathy, the fact that he is so irrevocably detached from everything. And then he looks at Tom, safe in his arms. At Draco, beside him. At Pansy, at Susan.

He exhales. “Yeah.”

Pansy raises a brow. “Liar.”

Harry smirks. 

“Always.”

Harry walks with Tom to dinner, though "walks" is an inaccurate word. Tom skips ahead, practically floating with excitement, his fingers curled tightly around the spine of a book, freshly borrowed from the library. Harry recognizes the look- insatiable hunger, not for food, but for knowledge. It is the look of someone desperate to understand, to own the world through understanding. Harry watches, detached, as the small boy eagerly chatters to Susan, whose arm is looped through Pansy’s. His little brother. Strange. How that phrase feels both distant and grounding.

“Honestly, Tom, I don’t understand why you’re not a Ravenclaw,” Susan muses, watching the way Tom practically vibrates with excitement, “Look at you, you’re literally beaming over a book.”

Tom pouts. 

“And?”

“And that’s a Ravenclaw trait, darling,” Pansy says, a smirk playing on her lips, “You’re just like them. Tiny and nerdy.”

Harry listens, their words swimming through his ears like muffled sound through water. He doesn’t care about Houses, about labels. None of it has ever mattered. Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw- it’s all meaningless. They are just people, and people do whatever they want, regardless of the title some dusty hat spat at them when they were children.

But Tom looks genuinely affronted. He halts in his steps, squaring his little shoulders and staring at the three of them with all the defiance a small eleven-year-old can muster. 

“I am not a Ravenclaw, Pans,” he insists, with the same sharp authority that Harry himself has when he gets particularly... focused.

Pansy grins. 

“Convince us, then.”

Tom scowls. 

“I don’t want knowledge just to have it. I want to do something with it. I want to build something out of it. Ravenclaws just want to hoard it like a dragon with gold. I don’t.”

Susan tilts her head. 

“Alright, fair point.”

“But that could be ambition,” Pansy teases, elbowing him lightly, “That doesn’t mean you’re not a closet Ravenclaw.”

Draco, who has been silently observing the conversation with that small, knowing smile of his, decides to speak. 

“You’re a Slytherin,” he says easily, adjusting the cuff of his sleeve, “because you don’t want knowledge for its own sake. You want to wield it.”

Tom blinks up at him, curious, wide-eyed. 

“That’s different?”

Draco nods. 

“Ravenclaws admire knowledge because they see beauty in understanding. But you-” 

Draco gives a small, amused smirk, tilting his head at the boy. 

“You see power in understanding.”

Tom frowns. 

“Is that bad?”

Harry, silent up until now, speaks before Draco can. 

“No. I don’t believe it is.”

Tom turns to him fully, studying his face as if searching for an answer, for something deeper. Harry holds his gaze, and something in Tom relaxes. Like a cat satisfied that its territory is secure.

Pansy hums, pleased. 

“Well, at least we have that settled, then.”

They continue on to the Great Hall. Harry feels Tom’s fingers brush against his. A quiet request, not quite seeking comfort but anchoring himself. Harry, without thinking, takes Tom’s hand in his. A quiet acknowledgment. A promise. He wonders if he should care more about moments like this, if he should feel anything more than a dim, absent fondness. But he doesn’t. He never does.

Draco catches his eye. Something about his expression is unreadable. 

“Tu as l’air fatigué.”

Harry exhales. 

“Toujours.”

Draco’s lips twitch, and without thinking, he reaches out and adjusts Harry’s collar, brushing fingers along his throat before stepping back. The touch lingers like the ghost of something neither of them acknowledge.

Harry does not move away.

Pansy and Susan are talking about something inconsequential, Tom is still practically glowing from the discussion, and Draco walks beside him, easy and certain, the same way he always does. And for the first time in a long time, Harry feels something close to content.

Not happiness. But something like it.

Minced meat pie and mash. Gravy, thick and cloying, pooling in golden craters of mashed potato. A taste like warmth, like something that should remind him of home, but doesn’t. It’s fine, he thinks. Fine in a way that exists outside of him, because everything is fine, objectively, but also nothing is fine because he is here, eating, breathing, thinking. It is a detached sort of observation, like he is watching himself from the outside. He chews slowly, methodically, and tries to focus on the texture of the meat, the soft crumble of the crust, the way the gravy thickens on his tongue.

Across from him, Susan is mid-rant about her recent Arithmancy coursework, voice edged with frustration but light enough that the irritation is more for show than actual grievance. 

“Vector’s a menace,” she declares, stabbing her fork into her own food with the kind of righteous fury Harry vaguely envies, “I swear she docks points just for the hell of it. My calculations were flawless. And yet- ‘interesting approach, but lacks comprehensive breakdown.’ What does that even mean?”

“It means you’re wrong,” Pansy singsongs, looking positively delighted as she swirls her goblet of pumpkin juice like it’s the finest French wine, “Or, rather, that you failed to make your brilliance comprehensible to the tragically inferior minds grading your work.”

“I was not wrong!” Susan huffs. “The numbers worked out! The theoretical implications were solid! You’ve read it, Pans, you know it makes sense.”

Draco, lounging beside Harry with an almost feline grace, smirks. 

“Oh, give it up, Bones. You’re brilliant, but even you must admit that precision is key in Arithmancy. Vector thrives on details, and you… well, you are more of a big-picture thinker.”

Susan makes an affronted noise. 

“Oh, so that’s it? I’m just too grand in my vision, too ambitious?”

“Exactly,” Draco says smoothly, reaching for his goblet, “If you wanted perfect scores, you’d write in painstaking detail, explaining every little derivation. But you’re not interested in that, are you?” 

He tilts his head, thoughtful. 

“You enjoy the challenge, but you also like knowing you’re right without having to prove it to anyone.”

Pansy snickers. 

“Merlin, he’s got you pegged, love.”

Susan groans, but doesn’t deny it, instead shoveling another forkful of food into her mouth with a pointed glare at Draco. Tom, sitting beside Harry, is clutching a book as he eats, flipping through pages with a single-minded intensity. Harry watches him absently, the way his little brother’s fingers flick at the parchment edges, the soft furrow between his brows. He remembers being eleven and desperate for knowledge, desperate for answers. Tom is similar in that way, and yet-

And yet.

Why do people do cruel things? Tom had asked him that, curled against his side in bed, small and breakable and human. Harry had answered, but he hadn’t really answered, not in a way that satisfied either of them. He thinks about it now, as conversation hums around him, as he slices methodically through his pie.

Aaron Burr.

A duel at dawn. Pistols raised. One shot that split history in half.

He knows the details, the way history tried to stitch itself around the wound of it. Burr, measured, deliberate, standing across from Alexander Hamilton as the world held its breath. Hamilton, writing letters the night before, knowing he wouldn’t walk away from that field. Harry imagines the sharp intake of air, the trigger squeezing down, the moment where the choice had already been made before the bullet left the barrel.

Hamilton had fired into the air. He had never intended to kill.

But Burr- Burr had made his choice. And history had judged him for it.

Harry wonders if Burr had regretted it, afterward. If he had lain awake and felt the weight of it, the way guilt settles like iron against bone. Or if he had simply accepted it, because that was what the world demanded, because history had already written his role and he had merely stepped into it.

Hamilton had always believed in something greater. Burr had believed in himself.

Harry is not Hamilton.

He swallows his food. Listens as Susan and Pansy continue to bicker, as Draco interjects with a sardonic quip, as Tom hums in quiet agreement to something Susan says.

The common room is dim, golden firelight flickering against deep green tapestries. It is late, far too late, but none of them have any plans to sleep.

Harry is pressed against Draco, who holds onto him like he might vanish. It’s a loose but insistent grip, a sleepy possessiveness that Harry finds amusing. Draco mumbles in French against his ear, words slurring as exhaustion curls around him.

“Tu es adorable comme ça...” Draco murmurs, voice thick, breath warm against Harry’s skin, "Tellement à moi."

Harry huffs a laugh. Draco is drunk on insomnia, which is somehow worse than when he’s actually drunk. When sleep deprivation gets its claws in him, he becomes affectionate in a way that should be embarrassing but isn’t. Not for him, at least. For Harry, maybe. Not that Harry minds. He’s warm. He’s here. That’s enough.

Pansy is in the middle of an impassioned argument about Wrackspurts, hands moving wildly.

“They invade your mind when you’re too serious,” she insists, “but what if they don’t just make you all foggy? What if they implant thoughts? What if every dumb decision you’ve ever made was because of Wrackspurts?”

Susan snorts. 

“That sounds like a convenient excuse for your life choices, Pans.”

“Shut up, Bones.”

Luna hums thoughtfully. 

“That would explain a lot. Maybe Wrackspurts don't cloud your thoughts so much as redirect them. What if they move memories around? Make you misremember things?”

Tom, who has been lounging with a book, perks up at that. 

“That would imply that Wrackspurts are sentient,” he muse, “Why would they do that? What would be the evolutionary advantage?”

“I’m not sure Wrackspurts are bound by evolutionary principles,” Luna replies dreamily.

Before the conversation can spiral further into theories of psychic parasites, Girl Weasley appears, hesitating at the edge of their group. Harry knows she’s been hovering for a while, working up the courage.

“I-” 

She exhales sharply. 

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry, Harry. For what Granger did. I should’ve stopped her.”

Pansy tenses, already winding up for a verbal flaying. Tom, too, straightens, something dark flickering in his expression. His fingers twitch like he wants to reach for his wand. He looks personally offended on Harry’s behalf, and it’s oddly endearing.

Harry beats them to it. 

“It’s fine,” he says, and the words don’t quite feel real, but they’re close enough.

Ginny frowns. “It’s not fine.”

“It is,” he repeats, “I don’t care enough to be angry.”

Something flickers in her eyes. Understanding, maybe. Or regret. She nods slowly, then smiles, bittersweet and small.

“I hope you’re happy, Harry. I wish you the best.”

Harry stares at her for a long moment before allowing himself a soft smile. He lets the words settle, lets himself feel them. 

“I hope you’re happy too, Gin. All the best.”

She nods, waves, and walks away. Harry watches as she sits beside Neville and Dean, and something settles in his chest.

“I’m glad she’s finally decided to move on,” he murmurs.

Susan hums knowingly. 

“I always knew she had sense.”

Draco makes a quiet, pleased noise and kisses the back of Harry’s neck. His lips linger just long enough to make something in Harry go still. 

“Tu es à moi maintenant,” he murmurs, voice low and possessive, “Et je ne te laisserai jamais partir.”

Harry shivers, tilting his head slightly, as if inviting the touch. Draco’s hold tightens.

Tom, having apparently moved on from his brief fury at Ginny, flops down and rests his head on Harry’s knee.

“I don’t get Divination,” he announces.

Harry blinks. 

“It’s not that complicated.”

“It’s nonsense,” Tom argues, “No one can predict the future with any real accuracy. It’s all vague metaphors and coincidence.”

Harry grins, feeling something sharp and fond in his chest. 

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

Susan immediately groans. 

“Oh no.”

Luna, surprisingly, tilts her head. 

“I agree with Harry.”

Tom sits up in outrage, eyes narrowing. 

“Excuse me?”

Draco sighs into Harry’s shoulder, exasperated but indulgent. 

“Here we go.”

And so the argument begins, voices overlapping, theories flying, with Tom and Harry throwing the most cutting points at each other, Susan trying to mediate, Pansy occasionally throwing in a sarcastic remark, and Luna just smiling knowingly, as though she already knows exactly how this will end.

Draco, meanwhile, just holds Harry tighter and lets the world blur away.