“Not on purpose,” Draco says, and then adds, “Not for that purpose.”
“What do you mean?” Harry had known what it’s like to hurt yourself because others hurt you, because here is pain in this world that you cannot fix and you want to control all of that, somehow. He’d seen that reflected at himself in the mirror and when Hermione works himself to death and when Ron gets so angry he punches a wall, seen it in all of them, raging at the injustices of life.
“I tried to get rid of it.” Miserable, defeated, humiliated. “And then I just kept trying.”
“I don’t want you to hurt.” Harry curls into Draco, into his shoulder, and then bends to press his lips on the cuts, like that might make it better. Like if he could want to fix this bad enough, everything would heal. “I don’t want you to have to hide.”
“I don’t want that either.” Draco says, and he is crying, sniffling through tears that are welling up over his eyes. “I just didn’t want you to be reminded of what I had done every time you looked at me.”
“You did nothing wrong.” Harry says, slipping to kneel on the floor at Draco’s feet. The words aren’t true but the feeling behind it is. He does not know how to express that everything that happened was done for a need to survive, because he was a boy, because he got brought up on one side and Harry had been brought up on the other. That the things they both did were decisions born from circumstance. “You did what you had to. That’s all any of us were doing.”
“I don’t want you to hate me.”
Harry almost laughs. He remembered when they threw that word around like it meant nothing, like they knew the feeling that should have gone into it, but they hadn’t. Being able to hate means being able to want to hurt, by looking at someone and only thinking that they were vile and disgusting and worthless, of wanting them to born and being the one to light the match.
“I won’t.” He is still on the floor, still holding Draco’s arms, still tracing the edges of the mark, like if he did it enough it would just wash away, slipping from the skin like water. “Never.”
“Promise?’
Promise that I won’t hate you? That I forgive you and I love you and that there’s never going to be a moment where I’ll turn away from you? That’s a done deal, Draco. I made that decision long before I caught sight of what was hiding on your arm.
“Promise.”
Chapter 28
Draco
They’ve reached a truce, he and the Weasley family.
Draco’s not going to kid himself. Most of it is because of Harry and all he had gone through, Harry and how much they love him. They do not want to see him hurting, and for whatever reason, Draco’s presence in his life has seemed to soothe the ache that was always waiting right underneath Harry’s skin, shave away his broken edges until they were soft again. Even Ron has admitted how it was good for him, however reluctantly and however gruff his voice was when he said it. There was simply no denying it—Harry was eating again (first because he felt bad when the food Draco cooked went untouched and now because he has remembered what it means to be hungry), was sleeping, could even leave a window open a crack to let in fresh air without constantly having to watch for intruders.
But some of it—a small part of it, a part he doesn’t want to examine too closely because he is half afraid that it might disappear, like the way a pot never boils when you watch it—is because of him. Because friendship with Hermione has turned into a truce with Ron, because a night spent drinking in the storage room of George’s shop turned into a real sort of friendship, where they can sit through Quidditch games together and be drinking buddies, because Bill has swallowed his resentment and Ginny has taken the knowledge of his friendship with Harry like she has so many other things that she found hard to swallow, with a blazing heart and straightened shoulders and the knowledge that should something go wrong, she would just hex him into oblivion.
It’s comforting, even when it isn’t.
It’s comforting, and when Percy extends an invitation (an invitation meant for Draco exclusively, independent of his friendship with Harry) to his casual dinner party on fancy paper, Draco doesn’t hesitate to accept. There had never been an ounce of judgement from Percy, no faltering offers of friendship. Maybe he understood what it was like to make the wrong choices. Or more likely, he harbored no resentment for the way Draco used to act, because he had always been so sure that he would rise up to be better, greater even than the Malfoys.
“You got one, too?” Harry’s digging through old court records, trying to find some treasure mine buried in the minutes of trial proceedings. The slanted script always gives him a headache, but even when Draco offers to help, Harry waves him away, claiming he wouldn’t be able to spot what they were looking for. And maybe that was true, but it didn’t change the fact that Harry found the work so tedious he would latch onto any excuse for a break that he could find. “Wonder what it’s about.”
“I think its Sunday dinner. Just like normal.” Draco had sat through a lot of Sunday dinners. Sometimes, he even goes over early so Harry can go out and play Quidditch in the apple orchards with the other boys and he can help Mrs. Weasley in the kitchen. Theory that the family would warm up to him faster if he was the one putting the food on the table. “Only this time Percy is running it.”
“Good God.” Harry had been nicer about Percy ever since he was the first one to volunteer to join him in restarting the fight against the remaining Dark Lord supporters, but that doesn’t stop him from finding some of Percy’s tendencies to be a control freak a bit annoying. Draco didn’t mind, but then again, Draco hadn’t spent summers sharing bathrooms and kitchen tables with him. He supposes you get the right to find someone annoying, when you spend all that time together. It doesn’t mean you don’t care. “We’re going to have to figure out what fork to use, aren’t we?”
There’s sort of a disconnect sometimes, in the things that Harry knows and Draco doesn’t, or vice versa. Like Draco, for example, wouldn’t blink if he was sat at a table with a full set of silver ware and have to choose which piece went with which course. It was second nature to him. It’s helpful, sometimes, but Draco would still trade it for everything that Harry knew.
“Don’t worry.” Harry wasn’t worried. These people were his family. Draco was the one that got stuck on the outside looking in. “We’ll figure it out together.”
That was five hours ago. Now they were arm in arm on Percy’s doorstep for the first time, Harry trying to smooth down his wind tussled hair and Draco balancing a bottle of wine as he rung the doorbell. It takes all of three seconds for the door to swing open, revealing a frazzled Percy, his glasses knocked askew.
“Come on in.” He’s more relaxed than Draoc had ever seen him, like here, at least, he wasn’t going to put on a show when he didn’t need to. “You can throw that wherever you want, coats can go on the coat rack, horrible hosting, I know, but mum always made this look easy and I’m afraid it really isn’t.”
“Do you need help?” Harry is shrugging off Draco’s coat and yelling hello to the others at the same time, and it’s one of those moments that make something inside Draco pull tight, because it’s a reminder of how easy this thing could be. How it would be like breathing, like knowing the lyrics to a song that you used to love but hadn’t heard in news, like knowing all the steps on a path you’ve walked every day for a year. “I can do it.”
“No, no.” Percy waves him off with a chuckle, but Draco can see how he wavers. “Penny and I have got it. Go. Relax. Enjoy yourselves.”
Draco’s never quite sure if enjoyment is the right word.
Like, sure, it’s fun. Normally, the nights pass by without anything completely horrible happening, and if it did, he could always retreat to hide behind Harry, anyways. Still, he doesn’t like the balancing act, where he’s taking part in the conversation while still excepting it to be taken away.
“Horrid, isn’t it?” George had dressed up for the occasion, in a button down with actual cuffs on the sleeves. It’s a change from the old jeans and wash warn t-shirt that he normally shows up in when dinner is at his parents’ house, but Draco supposes there are different rules when you go to Percy’s. “Having to sit here and pretend to be fine.”
His voice is bitter, but he doesn’t look like he’s upset. Just separate somehow. Other. Not like the rest of his family, who have fallen into their places without question and picked up where they had left off the last time they had seen each other, pulling a board game off the shelves and sitting cross legged around the coffee table without Percy inviting them to do so.
(Maybe he can’t do that anymore, Draco thinks, watching him settle back into the leather couch cushions and stare past the rim of his beer bottle. Maybe there’s no way to find your place, when you only occupy one half of what it used to be. Maybe all the good parts, the parts that belong, got cut away with the part that left and now he’s left with this.)
“It’s not terrible.” There’s a particularly loud burst of laughter from the floor, and Draco watched as Ginny bent double over with laughter, leaning into Harry for support. Her hair is thrown over his shoulder, like their edges have blurred so they become one person instead of two. He’s surprised to find that he wasn’t jealous. “We just need time to ease our way into things.”
It was the best description. Draco liked to think of when he was little and just started wading into the pool, how, even when all the other kids could jump off the edge into the deep end or dive head first into the lakes and ponds and rivers, he took his time, standing on the edge, whatever it might be. He would wait on that sand or stones or steps as the water lapped up over his ankles, his shins, his knees, because as small as he was, he could not stand the feeling of all that cold washing over him at once. He would have to wade in step by step, moment by moment, breath by breath, until he could no longer pinpoint which parts of him were water and which parts were skin.
These dinners were kind of like that.
Beside him, George snorts and then stands up, patting at the pocket of his jeans until he locates his cigarettes. He pauses long enough to bend down and tap his bottle against Draco’s. “Cheers, mate.” He’s undoing his cuffs, and Draco knows that this is one of the times where he cannot take it. Where he has to leave. “But I was always able to dive right in.”
Dinner is stifling. At the Burrow, dinner is bowls spilling over with food and old stains on tablecloths, elbows knocking into each other and extra servings you didn’t want being heaped onto your plate without asking you first, Molly’s admonishments and Arthur’s questions and Ginny’s never ending laughter. It is always out in the garden, too, with umbrella charms cast over their heads when it was raining, because with all the extra guests, they no longer fit in the kitchen. It was not the kind of meal he had grown up with (that was a long table with only three seats taken, his father at the head and his mother picking at her food, pinching off tiny portions, his hands tense at the thought of what might happen if he were to spill something, this was not a house meant for messes and mistakes), but it was one that he had gotten used to.
This—here at Percy’s, with his dull-colored decorations and fancy plates and girlfriend who was trying too hard to play the hostess—was something that clearly none of them were ready for. In a strange twist of events, it was Draco who was carrying on the conversation, peppering each guest in turn with small talk when the talking died down, complimenting Penelope on anything he could think of, even starting a debate on Quidditch in the lag between dinner and dessert. Everyone shoots him grateful looks, especially when he pulls Percy away from the topic of the ministry and when the meal was done, Penelope took a break from clearing the table to stand beside him.
“Thank you so much.” Now that it’s just them, she has relaxed—her smile is not so wide and her voice is not so loud, like she has stopped using her stage persona. “I’ve only ever had the one sibling, and I’m still not used to all of them. And it isn’t, well,” She inclines her head towards Percy, who is desperately trying to interject himself in Bill and Charlie’s conversation but is clearly failing, like every time he thinks of something clever to say, the topic has already moved on. “It’s never been easy for him, and especially not after last year.”
Last year. The war. The Battle. Draco’s heard it called a lot of names, but it all boils down to the same thing, like they are stretching out their arms to the invisible carnage and saying: look at us. Look at this past still written on our skin. this is the thing that ruined us.
“It wasn’t a problem. It’ll get easier. First dinner party is always the hardest.” He pats her on the shoulder, tries to toe the line between comforting and snobbish. Sometimes, he doesn’t know when to stop. “You did fine.”
He means to tell her other things—that her pork roast was cooked just the right amount, where it practically fell apart on her fork, that there was a place that rents out house elves, a full staff of them where she could pick one to hold on retainer for nights like this, that the wine didn’t really match with what she was serving but that her choice in art work was impeccable, all these lessons he had learned without meaning too—but then Percy stood up, clearing his throat and tapping a fork against his glass, like this was some Jane Austen novel and he was their lead man.
“If I could have your attention.” He says it like he’s conducting an orchestra, but maybe that’s what it took, to make a family of nine pay attention to you. And Luna. It was hard to grab Luna’s attention. “I didn’t just call you here for a family get together. I call you here because I have an announcement.”
Draco wonders how long he’d waited to have a moment like this, where everyone was hanging onto his last word, waiting to hear what wonderful thing he had done now. Too long, probably.
“You’re all familiar with the archiving assignment I have undertaken. Many of you played instrumental roles in the process. And now it’s completed.” There’s a cheer, led by Ginny, and instead of getting upset at being interrupted like Draco had expected, Percy just smiles, riding the wave and waiting until it died down again. “The ministry has elected to open the records up to the public. There’s going to be a ceremony, and the people who shared their stories are to be invited.” He beams down at all of them. “Hermione will be opening the ceremony. I’ll be there too, of course.”
There’s another cheer, this one led by Ron, who grabs Hermione by the waist and spins her around despite her protests. When he sets her down, they all converge on Percy, hugging him, burying him in the midst of family.
George isn’t a part of it.
Neither is Penelope. She’s standing on the sidelines with Draco, watching them all.
“This is all he ever wanted. To be loved by them like this.” Penelope does not look like the epitome of grace now—there is a slouch to her shoulders and a stain on her skirt and a strand of hair coming loose, but now, Draco can see why Percy has been taken with her so long. “I just wish that they had figured out how to do it sooner.”
