Harry was extremely startled when he emerged from the shower and Malfoy bolted up from the sofa and stared at him, transfixed.
It was even weirder since Malfoy had not really risen from the sofa for days, except when absolutely necessary. He seemed to have decided that lying with his arm over his eyes and delivering a monologue to Harry on his eternal misery was a completely reasonable lifestyle choice. Harry was kind of wondering if he needed to go grocery shopping for smelling salts.
Aside from the smelling salts issue, it was—not bad. Not that he liked seeing Malfoy unhappy, but years of partnership had convinced Harry that once Malfoy was talking about it, which he always needed to do whether it was to Harry or to his friends or to ghosts with secret peeping agendas, things were on their way to being all right.
Besides, and Harry felt bad even thinking this, but weekends without cases were always—hard to get through. Ron and Pansy and Malfoy and Katie were always doing couple things and Hermione was always working and sometimes Harry felt trapped in that empty silent apartment, so restless it felt like the walls were closing in, closing down into a cupboard.
It was worse since the stupid Veela thing. Now every time he left the flat for a walk he had to deal with protestations of undying love and, in extreme cases, duck flying underwear.
With Malfoy here the apartment didn’t seem empty, and it certainly wasn’t silent. It was almost okay that he wasn’t at work, though Shacklebolt was becoming extremely suspicious about the Owls claiming that Malfoy had a wasting illness and even more suspicious about Harry leaving the office on time and taking work home. Harry wondered if he should be offended by that.
Things were almost okay, and now Malfoy was giving him a funny look.
Harry’s back hit the bathroom door hard. He thought several things at once, oh, no and what do I do now? and very carefully did not think several other things which lingered at the back of his mind anyway: temptation, speculation and almost panic at how little he might be able to trust himself if…
“Potter,” Malfoy said slowly, that strange intent look in his eyes. “What have you done to your hair?”
Harry blinked. “What?”
Malfoy’s tone had become distinctly ominous, though he still looked shell-shocked for no reason Harry could see. “You’ve been using my shampoo, haven’t you?”
“Er—maybe?” Harry said. “Sorry. I didn’t really look. Does it matter?”
Malfoy made a helpless gesture, then subsided onto the sofa with his head in his hands. “Go look in the mirror,” he said in a resigned tone.
Cautiously Harry went over to the little mirror in the passage between his living room and his bedroom. His face looked back at him, frowning and perplexed under a damp shock of hair that looked a little—
“Malfoy,” Harry said. “I realise I’ve been under some strain recently, but—enough to turn my hair grey overnight?”
Malfoy had raised his head a little, but he seemed far more interested in studying his own hands than looking at Harry.
“I thought you were a natural blond,” Harry went on.
At that Malfoy did look at him, and he looked amazed and offended. “I am! The shampoo merely enhances and adds subtle silvery tones to my natural hair colour.”
“Uh-huh,” said Harry.
“Proper hair care is extremely important,” Malfoy muttered. “Especially if one carries bad genes.”
“Malfoy, you’re not going to go bald,” said Harry, who had heard this one before. “Your dad was a lot of things, but bald wasn’t one of them.”
Malfoy looked grim. “My Great-Aunt Jemima went bald. You never know.”
“I know that my hair now has not-so-subtle silvery tones. What am I supposed to do about that?”
“It should wash out,” Malfoy said, his eyes shifty. “After a few tries.”
Harry looked at his reflection again, frowned at himself some more, and came to a decision. “You know what? This is fine.”
He looked back in time to see Malfoy blink. “What?”
“It’s fine,” Harry repeated. “Might even be a good thing. Like the Weasley jumpers. Stop people—leaping.”
“Oh God, you can’t, don’t do it,” Malfoy said, wringing his hands. “It is not like the jumpers. It is your hair. Has your hair not inflicted enough pain on the world already?”
“Don’t carry on, Malfoy, it makes sense,” Harry said, and went into his room.
Behind a closed door and as he struggled into a Weasley jumper, he heard Malfoy say darkly that nothing about his hair made sense.
Malfoy still looked martyred by Harry’s hair when Harry came out, but he seemed to have accepted his dreadful fate. He was up again, which pleased Harry, and seemed to be giving serious thought to the toaster.
“Doesn’t it strike you that this could work more efficiently?”
“Sorry?” said Harry.
“Nothing,” Malfoy decided, turning a brilliant and therefore untrustworthy smile on him. “Off to work with you. Don’t you dare do any paperwork without my supervision. You’re having lunch with Blaise Zabini. I will be alone here with my endless pain as usual. Can we have Chinese food?”
“Why am I having lunch with Blaise Zabini?” Harry asked.
“He’ll help you with Veela things,” Malfoy said firmly. “You need coping tips. I’ve been trying to sort some things out while you were at work. You’re having lunch with Fleur Delacour the day after tomorrow.”
“Oh,” Harry said, and weighed his vague distaste about lunch with Zabini against the fact Malfoy had bothered. “Okay. Thanks.”
Malfoy sneered. “It’s just because I get bored being cooped up. It’s not because I care.”
Harry raised his eyebrows. Malfoy was tapping a fork against his palm and giving the toaster a meaningful look, and did not see.
When he went into the office Lisa the receptionist gave him a strange look and Harry, pleased that the hair was working, gave her a smile. Lisa sighed heavily.
“Um,” Harry said. “Something wrong?”
“No,” said Lisa. “It’s just—you look so distinguished today, Harry.”
Harry sighed a bit himself, and passed on.
Zabini arrived late for lunch in the stupid fancy restaurant he’d chosen, and when he did arrive he didn’t come straight over to the table where Harry was looking darkly at the fancy silverware and the crystal glasses.
He paused and lounged beautifully against a pillar first. His sleek black hair fell across his face like elegant shadows, the lamplight sparked amber glints from his hooded eyes and everyone in the restaurant looked terribly distracted by his leather trousers.
Harry was overcome by what a complete pillock he’d gone to school with.
Eventually Zabini stopped posing against his pillar, and walked beautifully up to their table. The other customers in the restaurant gave collective sighs at every roll of his hips, so it sounded like the tide was coming in with each step he took.
Harry was embarrassed even to be in his company.
“Hello there,” Zabini said, rolling the words under his tongue as if they were delicious and he was inappropriately delighted to be speaking each one. “How’re you doing?”
Harry gave him an appalled look, and Zabini glared at him and subsided into a chair.
“I see you’re just as charming as ever, Potter.”
“Oh, what?” Harry demanded. “How would you know? I don’t think I’ve ever even had a conversation with you before.”
“That,” Zabini said, opening his menu with a snap, “is more or less exactly what I mean. God, the things I do for that fool Malfoy.”
Harry scowled. “Don’t talk about him that way.”
Zabini winced and then said: “Sorry, I think the sudden excruciating pain I just experienced was the memory of my school years hitting me in the back of my head with a big ironic thunk.”
Harry and Zabini glared at each other until the waiter came and said: “I hate to interrupt while you’re smouldering—I mean, busy!—but is there any chance I can take either of you in the cloakroom? I mean, take your order!”
Zabini tipped his chair back to give the waiter a slow smile. “My order’s just dying to be… taken.”
The waiter went an alarming blotchy mauve colour.
“Oh my God,” Harry exclaimed. “What is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with your hair?” Zabini demanded. “Why is it that horrible dishwater colour? Just looking at it makes me want to die! I’ll have a Greek salad, please.”
“Of course,” said the waiter. “Your sophisticated glamour is almost as overwhelming as your friend’s wild beauty. Um, I mean—do you want bread with your salad?”
“No, I feel that exposing my perfect body to unnecessary carbohydrates would be a crime against humanity,” Zabini said absently. “What d’you mean, almost?”
“Can I have a club sandwich?” Harry asked in a quiet voice. “And, er, if you come any closer to me I’ll hurt you.”
To his horror, the waiter looked intrigued. Zabini looked toweringly indignant when the waiter slipped Harry his phone number and wandered off.
“You know, Malfoy was right in school, even for a Gryffindor you are especially annoying,” Zabini remarked, watching narrow-eyed as Harry burned the number with the candle on their table. He made a visible effort to shake off his irritation, and then said: “All right, so—I’m part Veela, ask me how!”
Harry stared at him. Zabini nodded thoughtfully.
“I suppose we can start slower. Of course, I’ve known you had Veela blood since I first saw you. Two Veela in close quarters can lead to nasty territorial issues, which is why I always avoided you at Hogwarts.”
“Did you,” Harry said vaguely. “I didn’t really notice.”
“Also none of us liked you!” snapped Zabini, which Harry felt was needlessly rude. Zabini closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Right. Okay. Well, now that you’ve discovered your Veela heritage, the first thing you need to do is quit your job.”
“I will not!” Harry snarled. “I can still do it, I can—”
Zabini opened his eyes and regarded Harry with a look of wonder. “I’m sure you can,” he said. “But why would you want to? You clearly have no idea what a drain emerging as one of the most beautiful men in England and seducing thousands will be on your time.”
“I don’t want to be one of the—or—I don’t want any of that,” Harry said between gritted teeth.
Zabini paused. “I don’t think I understand.”
“I just want to do my job and not have to deal with all this. Can you tell me how to make it go away?”
“Why would you want to do that?”
Their food came in. Zabini looked too distressed by the workings of Harry’s mind to do anything but stab at his salad with languidly lovely motions.
“Well, I suppose you could try—not exuding an air of raw sexuality?” Zabini offered, sounding lost and rather forlorn.
“I’m not!”
Zabini squinted. “Wow, that’s not on purpose?”
Harry resisted the urge to clutch at his napkin like a Victorian lady snatching the sheets up to her neck.
“Are there any—meditation techniques or anything to control this?” Harry asked in the gruff tones of the almost terminally mortified.
Zabini shook his head. “No. It’s pretty much down to the sex.”
He would really have rather had lunch with a resurrected Voldemort. It had never occurred to Harry to be appreciative of the fact that his dead nemesis had not once tried to have any humiliating sex conversations with him.
“What kind of system is that?”
“Uh, I don’t know, a really good one?” Zabini suggested. “Most people enjoy sex, you know.”
“I do,” the waiter interposed fervently. “Sorry to interrupt again, but this arrived for you.”
He dumped a large chocolate cake beside Zabini’s salad. On top of the cake was a candy heart and swirly pink frosting which read You Are A Dark Chocolate Love God.
Zabini regarded it fondly. “Ah, Hortense,” he said. “I do enjoy these small tokens of her appreciation. But back to you, Potter. All right. I understand. Malfoy is going to owe me so big for this one, but I suppose we could have sex.”
“I don’t want to have sex with you!”
“I wish you would stop saying all these things I don’t understand!” Zabini wailed. “I don’t know why Malfoy couldn’t come to this lunch he set up and interpret for you. He should have known that you would make no sense!”
It was Zabini who made no sense, but Harry wished Malfoy was there too. He would’ve been able to pry useful advice out of Zabini if Zabini did in fact possess any, and he would’ve thought that Zabini’s carry-on was hilarious and maybe would have done an impression. If things were normal and he was here, like Harry was used to.
“Malfoy hasn’t really left the house since he and Katie broke up,” Harry said moodily.
And then Zabini stopped his stupid posing in his chair, leaned forward and said: “What? That girl dumped him?”
He was frowning in a terribly unflattering way. It made Harry like him slightly more. “Yeah.”
Zabini frowned even more intensely. “You know, I never liked her. I always knew she was going to do something that’d make him crazier, and another thing like his Godforsaken father will kill him and—do you think I should have sex with him?”
“No I don’t,” Harry said, his voice all ice.
Zabini looked woeful. “Maybe you’re right, he has weird monogamy ideas anyway.”
He pushed away his salad and started eating his cake. Then he looked up through long lashes and artistically falling locks to Harry, and pushed the cake slightly towards him.
“You’re always with him,” he said after a couple of forkfuls. “Is he going to be okay?”
Harry thought for a while about what to say, because clearly Blaise Zabini knew far too much about sex and Harry did not want to be pathetically obvious about anything. He discarded the idea of saying that he would take care of Malfoy or that Malfoy was his partner, or that if Zabini tried to sleep with Malfoy Harry would kill him.
“Yeah,” he said eventually.
He picked up a fork and started to eat. The cake wasn’t so bad.
“All right then,” Zabini said. “You did save the world that one time: ensuring even Malfoy‘s mental health won’t be much harder.” He paused, stole the candy heart from off his cake and added: “I don’t have many friends. I mean, people I see and don’t sleep with.”
“Wow, Zabini, you make being a Veela sound so great.”
“It has its ups and downs,” Zabini admitted, trying to balance the entire chunk of cake with ‘GOD’ scrawled across it on his fork. “For one thing, the grooming schedule is punishing.” He eyed Harry’s hair. “Not that you’d know much about that, obviously.”
“Shut up,” Harry said, amicably enough.
“I’m—sorry I couldn’t be more help,” Zabini said. “I’ve never tried to control it: I work with it, it’s part of who I am, I couldn’t do without it. Tell Malfoy I tried.”
The waiter was lurking, trying to catch the eye of either one of them. The candle was making a tiny whispering sound and Harry was mostly staring at a smear of chocolate on the white tablecloth. He didn’t want to go back to the office, where Malfoy wasn’t and where things were getting worse.
“Yeah,” Harry told him. “I will. Thanks.”
When he got home Malfoy was playing a country song about heartbreak. He’d run through all the songs which were even slightly appropriate a week ago and now he was playing something about a woman whose man was apparently slow-dancin’ with a bleach blonde tramp.
He was also standing up against the kitchen counter, reading his horrible Veela book and tapping along to the song with a fork against the toaster.
“Evening, Potter,” he said, looking elaborately indifferent. “Hard day? Fancy a piece of toast?”
“Zabini’s leather trousers actually almost made me lose the will to live,” said Harry.
“Feeling a bit down, are we? I hear toast is good for that.”
Harry grinned and played along. “The toaster isn’t even plugged in.”
“No?” Malfoy was smiling as he hadn’t for almost two weeks, the simple crooked smile that flashed out and told Harry he had an insane thought he was going to share: a smile that said, this is for you. “Perhaps because it’s a magical toaster now.”
“I’m so happy,” Harry said dryly, “that you have decided to invade my flat and spend all your time making magical toasters. I hope you realise that tomorrow I will expect a magical kettle.”
The toaster looked very peculiar now. Its plug seemed to have been twisted up into a weird kind of antenna and Harry had a dark suspicion that the new bulging metallic extras were the sad remains of his sieve and his cheese grater. He reached up and took the bread down from the cupboard, popping a slice in.
“Hello Potter,” said the toaster in what Harry felt was an understandably tinny voice. “I am an advanced piece of magical technology created by a very great genius!”
“Oh really,” said Harry, leaning his arms on the sideboard and watching the toaster as he pulled his shirtsleeves up and felt relaxed, at home. Malfoy leaned on the sideboard across from him and smirked delightedly all over his pointed face.
“No more of this fiddling with dials like a muggle! How do you want your toast? We offer it in several exciting varieties: lightly done, a manly vigorous brown, or full of delicious cindery flavour! Which do you prefer?”
“Um—brown?” said Harry.
“Okay!” said the toaster. “And a spread? Butter? Strawberry, raspberry or rose-petal jam? Or that spread of the gods, jam full of glorious golden heaven, marmalade?”
“Uh—butter?”
“Not marmalade?”
“No,” said Harry. “Sorry. Oh God, now you have me apologising to toasters.”
“I call him Cyril,” Malfoy said proudly.
Harry snorted. “Of course you do.”
The toast popped out, brown with the butter melting on it. Harry ate it: it was very good toast, and seeing how little bread they had left made him steel himself and come to a decision.
“I need to go grocery shopping,” he said. “Want to come with me?”
At least he could floo to the office and wear his Invisibility Cloak when he was out for a walk. People got freaked out by invisible beings, even ones who just wanted to buy toilet paper.
Malfoy glanced over and though Harry tried to make his face betray nothing, Malfoy must’ve seen something in the set of his shoulders that made him simply nod and get his cloak, as if this wasn’t the first time he’d left the flat for almost two weeks.
It helped that it was dark already, streetlights white on the black waters running under Blackfriars bridge. Once they got to the brightly lit shop Harry had to put up the collar of his coat and keep a sharp eye out. Malfoy was rather quiet, though he did take advantage of Harry’s distraction to add a lot of sugary cereal with brightly coloured cartons to the trolley.
He also shoved the trolley sharply into people’s knees when they started to stare, so Harry was prepared to forgive him for the cereal.
Once they were outside with their shopping bags, Malfoy said in a tone of command: “Put those down, we’re not going to be so plebeian as to carry our shopping all the way home.”
“If you’re planning to eat coffee beans in the street, Malfoy, then all I can say is—I knew this day would come.”
“Hush,” said Malfoy, jostling Harry’s shoulder with his own, and then he knelt down and began whispering to the shopping bags. Harry put his hands in his pockets and resigned himself to being pointed at as that guy with the crazy man.
Malfoy straightened and the bags began to move until they were all lined up behind him like white plastic ducklings. Malfoy looked over his shoulder at them with pride.
“Now go! Your mission is not to be seen,” Malfoy instructed the bags, and they peeled off in different directions, flying down dark alleyways. He smirked over at Harry. “And now we no longer have to be beasts of burden. So—this isn’t going away, is it, and Zabini was no help.”
“He tried,” Harry said.
Malfoy seemed to turn this over in his head for a while as they walked down by the bridge. Shadows and the light striking off the water fell across his face in strips, making him look like a black and white drawing. What Harry could see of his expression was tense and unhappy.
“Let’s all go to Rick’s and go dancing tomorrow night,” he offered at last. “I mean, all this will be solved if you just meet someone you like, right? Let’s do the simple thing.”
Harry opened his mouth to protest and Malfoy held up a hand.
“I’m on your side,” he said. “But you can’t keep acting like the most obvious spy in the world every time you go shopping. Let’s try it, and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Anyway, I could use a drink and Crabbe and Goyle need somewhere to practise their waltzing.”
“That sounds so incredibly tempting, I can’t tell you,” Harry said, and Malfoy threw back his head and laughed.
When they got back Malfoy opened a window and one by one all the plastic bags found their way back home. Malfoy collected them all in a heap and began rooting through them to check their contents.
“Someone stole our Rich Tea biscuits,” he announced darkly. “I realise that some losses are sustained in every mission, but I wish it wasn’t always my biscuits.”
Harry snorted at him because he was crazy and saw him go still for a moment.
“Sorry,” Malfoy said, so carefully it made Harry think of someone moving very gently because they were hurt, and swallowed. “I know this is a bit much for—some people. I can stop.”
Harry thought about Malfoy asking him to stay for a tiny and specific amount of time, the grip he’d had on Harry’s wrist in a coffee shop a fortnight ago, and looked around at the flat: at the pile of books and the stupid Veela one on the counter, at his mutant talking toaster and the last plastic bag creeping triumphantly through his window. Then he thought about Katie’s flat and her rose-patterned bed.
Anyone who saw Harry’s flat now would know Malfoy lived here.
He picked up a bag off the floor and began putting things away, and asked as lightly as he could: “Who wants you to stop?”
“Oh,” said Malfoy. “No, don’t put the marmalade in the fridge, Potter, what can you be thinking?”
“One thing I’m thinking is that my own toaster calls me by my last name,” Harry said. “That’s weird. Isn’t that weird?”
“I don’t see why,” Malfoy said, reaching up to put away all his bright boxes of cereal. “I’ve known you for twelve years, and I still call you by your last name. I think Cyril just has nice manners.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Nice manners come so naturally to me,” Malfoy remarked in a placid tone. “My mother used to call me her perfect little gentleman.”
Since Malfoy had in fact unwittingly taught Harry several obscene gestures, in that he’d made them from the Slytherin table and Harry had turned to Ron and demanded to know what they meant, Harry thought this was a bit rich. He let it go and concentrated on the important point.
“I meant you don’t have to call me by my last name. If you don’t want.”
“Ah,” Malfoy said, the left corner of his mouth going up uncertainly. “I should call you Harry, d’you mean?” His airy manner failed him at the crucial point, when his voice wavered on the name. “Sounds a little weird. I think I’ll stick with what I know. Plus if we get any less professional Shacklebolt really will have a coronary and die, and that would be sad. He’s earned his retirement.”
Malfoy leaned down and took the marmalade out of the fridge, placing it high on a shelf. After they’d unpacked the groceries Malfoy found some of the clothes he’d asked Harry to pick up and declared his intention to go running.
“Don’t you run?”
“Er, no,” said Harry. “I suppose I could.”
“Well, you could go and lift weights or whatever,” Malfoy called from behind the bathroom door, where he was changing. “You don’t need to babysit me, I must be ruining your workout schedule—”
“I don’t really work out,” Harry said. “Well, I punch people sometimes. Does that count?”
“It should, it’s usually poor innocent me,” Malfoy said, emerging. “But if you don’t—then the sparring, and the amount you eat, and your stupid shoulders—wait a minute.”
He dived for his accursed Veela book and leaned against the counter and flipped busily through the pages, then tilted up his face to Harry’s, suddenly grinning.
“You cheater.”
“I beg your pardon?” Harry asked.
“Oh, nothing. Just that Veela blood insures better chest and shoulder muscles to better support the transformation to a winged creature. Not to mention that the whole winged creature deal means greater comfort in the air, which would explain Our Little Flying Prodigy, and another thing. The reason Veela evolved the supernatural attractiveness is because they used to eat live prey.”
“Eurgh,” said Harry.
Malfoy waved a hand dismissively. “Human prey!” he said, as if he thought this was a brilliant and fascinating idea. “Veela would first seduce and then eat live humans, which means their metabolism had to be excellent to deal with such large meals and to remain svelte in order to attract the next meal. Which is why you can eat such an enormous amount and never exercise and oh my God, I really can’t believe I took up running and practised and spent all this time trying to compete with you.”
“So…” Harry said. “So—what? You’re going to stop trying?”
Malfoy looked at him for a minute, and then headed for the door. He opened it and the fluorescent lights of the hall flooded in, and Malfoy looked over his shoulder and smiled.
“Nah,” he said. “You wish, Potter.”
Harry relaxed. “All I wish is that you would stop telling me distressing facts about my ancestry.”
“I can’t talk now, Potter. I have to go running. I maintain a valiant struggle, you see. Against my partner’s many and totally unfair advantages.”
“Whiner,” said Harry.
“Cheater,” said Malfoy, with immense and terribly smug satisfaction, and closed the door quickly so he’d have the last word.
Harrry smiled and put on some more toast. He felt fine until he looked at Malfoy’s still-open book, and saw a picture of a Veela half-way through changing. He remembered the winged and clawed Veela at the Quidditch World Cup, how many savage worlds away from beauty they’d been, and thought about live prey.
He slammed the book shut and made himself a cup of tea. He just wasn’t used to the flat being this quiet anymore.
He sat down with the tea and some files, and started comparing notes on all the disappearances of part-goblins in the last year with the details of the Murimble case. He saw that Malfoy had written out some notes on a part-merman teenager who’d disappeared eight months ago.
He’d just reached out for another file when it occurred to him Malfoy had been gone for an awfully long time.
He looked out the window and went outside. Malfoy was sitting on the pavement under the window of Harry’s flat, his head bowed. It was real night now, dark and terribly cold: the pavement crunched under Harry’s feet with a sound that suggested frost, and Malfoy was shivering in his light shirt. He looked up at the sound of Harry approaching, and the blank look on his face made Harry think for a moment that he didn’t recognise him.
Then he realised that Malfoy was just bleakly miserable.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi,” Malfoy answered. Even his voice sounded shivery. “I was just—I was coming back and I just started thinking.”
“Come think where it’s warm,” said Harry.
Harry offered him a hand and Malfoy took it at once, climbing to his feet and pushing at Harry’s shoulder with his own, as he did when a case started to look dangerous. He stayed leaning in. Since he was clearly absolutely freezing, it was probably for the body heat.
He didn’t really talk as they went upstairs, stumbled a little on the top step, and Harry thought of him grinning and surrounded by his stupid plastic bag army and felt sick at how quickly things could change, how he’d only been thinking of keeping this when… Malfoy was only here because he was destroyed. He wasn’t going to stay.
He wasn’t going to stay and it was really wrong to be glad he was there, glad that his heart was broken and he could barely leave the house.
Harry lay awake that night and thought about it, about Malfoy smiling and leaving and the walls closing in, and that stupid book.
When he finally closed his eyes he dreamed about a dark wood, and wings, and blood.
Even in the dream he knew it wasn’t real, that the wood was made up of bits and pieces of the Forbidden Forest, that the wings looked more like Hippogriff wings than anything else, but he knew about blood and he knew about longing. He wished it was as simple as hunger, as dark wings in the night and wanting, taking, having.
He wished it was wind rushing through feathers and leaves in the dark, and blood pounding in his ears. He thought he could smell blood on the wind, and see movement—a shape—he just wanted—
He brought the prey down hard, got a strong grip on his shoulders and twisted so the prey was pinned underneath him and wasn’t even struggling. Harry opened his eyes, blinking, and Malfoy wasn’t struggling, even though Harry knew he could have done a ruthlessly efficient job of it. He was simply lying there, hair mussed against Harry’s pillow and eyes wide in the low light. He’d gone down easy, trusting Harry.
Harry had one fist clenched in Malfoy’s shirt, he realised. Malfoy’s heart was beating rapidly under the thin material, but he didn’t look scared. He wasn’t scared. He was all right, trusting and warm and lovely and right here. Harry could keep him exactly where he was.
Harry leaned down and whispered, low, his voice thick with snakes hissing and wild with bird call: “Don’t move.”
“Potter,” Malfoy said, sounding faintly exasperated. “It’s me. Wake up.”
Harry threw him into a wall.
Malfoy landed gracelessly, his head hitting the window sill and his eyes narrowing with pain as well as fury. “Ow,” he said portentously. “My back. What is wrong with you, Potter?”
Harry knelt panting on the bed, fist still clenched. That distorted voice had left his mouth dry, with a terrible taste lingering. “Something,” he rasped.
Malfoy’s look of annoyance softened: he climbed to his feet, wincing. “Bad dream?”
“Why do you stay with me?” Harry said. “I mean, it’s not that—aren’t you scared?”
“Scared?” Malfoy repeated. He looked as if he was going to laugh. “Scared of what?”
“I was dreaming about,” Harry said, and swallowed. “Being a Veela.”
“Oh,” said Malfoy. “Oh my God. I’m an idiot. You’re an idiot too, of course,” he added, as if to reassure himself, and then he came and sat on the bed. Harry actually felt himself shying away like an animal. “Hey,” Malfoy continued, his voice soft and suddenly almost sweet. “Hey, I’m sorry. I should have remembered you were raised Muggle. To you, it must’ve been like I was showing you pictures of monsters and telling you that you’d become one. But you can’t, Potter, don’t be an idiot, I’d be very surprised if you had more than an eighth of Veela blood in you. You’re not going to grow wings and you’re going to continue to be your insane self and responsible for your usually insane actions. It was just a stupid dream.”
Malfoy reached out and touched Harry’s hair as if Harry was a child having nightmares. Harry shivered at the first touch of Malfoy’s fingers at the nape of his neck and then felt himself relaxing, almost against his will. It was nice. Malfoy was always so easily, physically affectionate, and it always felt strange and simple and so nice.
“And of course you’re not going to turn into a monster and eat anyone, Potter. For heaven’s sake.”
Malfoy sounded like he was smiling. Harry shut his eyes.
“I cannot believe that you’ve decided to make being the most attractive man in England an epic tragedy,” Malfoy said gently. “You’re such an attention-seeker, Potter.”
He stood up, his hand falling away from Harry’s hair, and made for the door. He stopped once he’d opened it, leaning against it and not quite looking back at Harry. He looked pale and rumpled by moonlight, his face sharp and tired but not bleak just now.
“Go to sleep,” he said eventually, and shut the door.
The next day Shacklebolt called a general meeting. Harry always enjoyed those because it meant that everyone got told off, not just him and Malfoy. Even the fact that half the room was crunching peppermint and he’d left Malfoy sleeping on the sofa again didn’t manage to spoil this.
“Mr Dawlish, it was a perfectly simple singing teapot problem, may I ask you how exactly you made such a mess of it?” Shacklebolt demanded.
He was marching up and down the room, eyeing everyone grimly. He looked supremely unimpressed by his entire department.
Harry had a suspicion that Shacklebolt enjoyed general meetings as well.
Dawlish rubbed the rising bruise on his forehead. “That candlestick came out of nowhere, sir.”
“I shall be so glad to report to Scrimgeour that my trained Aurors can be eliminated by common household goods,” Shacklebolt said flatly. “And Miss Bell, can you imagine that the fact you are sneaking out of work early every day is going unnoticed?”
Katie winced. “Not anymore, sir.”
“As for you, Mr Thomas, may I ask if it was your intention to write me a little love note and if so, may I say that I would have preferred to receive your report on exploding Scottish mud fairies?”
Dean looked horrorstruck. “Oh my God, don’t tell me I Owled the wrong parchment to Ginny! Some of those fairies got stuck in my robes, sir, they really stung when they exploded. She’ll never let me hear the end of this.”
Shacklebolt raised his eyebrows. “Do you mean to say that you have sent a confidential report from this office to a civilian in France?”
“Um,” said Dean.
“May I ask Mr Malfoy where he is? Oh no, I can’t, can I, because he is once again not here despite the fact that he and Mr Potter are scheduled to give a demonstration of synchronised Apparition for the department next week. Mr Potter, can I ask how you plan to synchronise Apparition with yourself?”
“I’m still sort of working on that, sir,” said Harry, sinking a little in his chair.
“Marvellous,” said Shacklebolt. He stopped right beside Harry’s chair, singling him out. Harry felt this was completely unfair. “And much though I hate, and I do mean loathe with all my being, having to ask this—there is the Veela issue.” Shacklebolt winced, ever so briefly, and then intoned: “Mr Potter, how are you handling the problem of your sexual frustration?”
Harry closed his eyes and wished for death.
“I sort of,” he mumbled. “I sort of—handle it on my own?”
He opened his eyes a bit and was horribly traumatised to see Dawlish looking at him with speculation in his eyes.
“In the shower?” he asked dreamily.
Harry felt his whole face go red. “That’s not what I,” he squawked. “It’s none of your business!”
“Indeed, Mr Dawlish, I ask the questions here!” Shacklebolt said sternly. “And I have another one for Mr Potter.”
Harry looked up at him apprehensively. To his undying horror, he found Shacklebolt’s face far too close to his, and realised that his boss was about to climb into his lap.
“You look very distinguished today, Mr Potter,” said Shacklebolt, his voice still completely flat. “May I ask—do you work out?”
“Augh,” said Harry, and shoved at the man’s massive chest as Shacklebolt made his move and tried to leap for Harry’s lap.
Three seconds of the most nightmarish shoving session imaginable ensued, during which the only options Harry could see were strangling his boss or letting him get to third base. A few other people were shrieking in dismay, which Harry totally understood. Dawlish was yelling encouragement, because he was a sick man.
Then Malfoy grasped the back of Shacklebolt’s collar in one fist and pressed his wand underneath his chin.
“Sir,” he said, eyes glittering. “Have a mint.”
He spun Shacklebolt and sprayed his can of mint spray directly in Shacklebolt’s face. Shacklebolt spluttered and staggered, and Malfoy, because there was a devil of mischief in him, sprayed him again.
“I just have to make sure,” Malfoy told him cheerfully. “You’ll thank me later!”
“Okay,” Harry said. “That’s enough. Stop.”
Malfoy looked disappointed, but he slid the can into his pocket anyway. Shacklebolt blinked minty liquid frantically out of his eyes.
“Mr Malfoy,” he said in the loudest monotone Harry had ever heard—“thank you very much. You have saved me from an utterly horrifying fate.” He straightened his clothes and said: “Now may I suggest you catch up with your work?”
Even Malfoy looked a bit taken aback at that. Shacklebolt looked around at the amazed ring of Aurors and clapped his hands once, decisively.
“Witnessing a sexual encounter between your head of department and his most rampantly insubordinate Auror is no excuse for slackness. Return to your desks immediately!”
The mass stampede for their desks took all of four seconds. Harry never wanted to be in that room again. He kind of wanted a shower, but with Dawlish on the premises that would obviously be madness.
“I think I’d like a cup of tea,” he said once they were at their desk. “Maybe something stronger.”
“Why, you rampantly insubordinate devil,” Malfoy remarked, tilted back in his chair. He was smiling and at ease, obviously in high good humour about assaulting his boss and getting away with it, and then everything went away like a door closing when he saw Katie Bell walk by without a look in his direction.
Then he was still: his face got that grey look about it and Harry moved his chair slightly, so he was between Malfoy and the whole room, glaring at anyone who might even think about speaking to him. He’d learned this at bad cases early on, that Malfoy could always talk except for these times, when he needed just a few minutes to construct some gleaming chattering front for the world so people couldn’t see anything behind it.
“D’you want to know why I came in?” Malfoy asked after a bit, his voice tired. “I was—I was bored. It feels stupid that I was bored. I was—I’m really unhappy, and—the guy Katie wanted, the right guy, he wouldn’t have been bored as well as unhappy but I was and I wrote all those Owls and made a magic toaster and I still wanted to come in and do my freaking job. That’s wrong, isn’t it?”
“I don’t care,” Harry said. “I’m glad you’re here.” He cleared his throat and changed the subject to work. “When were you planning to tell me that you think the person who killed the Murimble children go after other mixed bloods as well? Someone part-merman vanished.
You think this wasn’t an isolated incident. You think there’s a group going after halfbreeds.”
“Maybe,” Malfoy said.
“And you didn’t tell me because?”
“Maybe,” Malfoy said, “I don’t want you risking your stupid neck.”
That shocked Harry silent, not because Malfoy was worried and certainly not because he was scared. It just—it hadn’t occurred to him that this group Malfoy thought existed, a group of the Muggleborn, might have heard this new fact about him, this fact that didn’t even sit comfortably with him yet, and hate him as an alien interloper.
“What d’you suggest we do?”
“I am acquiring more information through vaguely illicit sources,” Malfoy admitted brightly. “After I’ve done that, then we can make a plan. It might even involve risking your stupid neck—but don’t get your hopes up.”
He slanted a grin over his shoulder at Harry, and Harry smiled in return, slow and pleased.
It was good to have him back.
It was considerably more fun at work than it was at Rick’s. The whole place was crowded and there were funny flashing lights, and there was no room on the table for the drinks idiots kept sending Harry’s way. Ron seemed to appreciate them, since his look of vague heterosexual alarm had melted into a fuzzy happiness.
“There are a lot of blokes here,” he observed. “I think there should be more girls snogging each other.”
Harry had hoped Ron would be slightly more use as moral support.
“How’re you doing with Malfoy?” Goyle asked in what he clearly imagined was a discreet whisper. “Has it been awful? Has he done that thing where he talks through the night and won’t let you go to sleep and wakes you at four in the morning to show you his best impression yet?”
He looked around apprehensively for Malfoy, but Malfoy was on the dance floor with Crabbe, twisting Crabbe’s tie around his finger and flirting outrageously because he thought that kind of carry-on was hilarious.
“Well—yeah,” Harry said. “But I didn’t mind.”
Goyle crunched on his ice. “I wish you’d been Sorted into Slytherin,” he remarked, blissfully disregarding the faces that Ron and Harry made at the idea. “The rest of us could’ve had so much more sleep.”
“Well, well, well, Harry Potter,” said a voice from behind them, and Harry froze like a hunted deer.
When he turned around he saw tiny Malcolm Baddock in a sparkly t-shirt that read I’m Bad—Send Me To Your Room! and felt extremely embarrassed.
“Go away and don’t try to sleep with me.”
Baddock rolled his eyes. “Yeah, been there, thanks,” he said, stirring his cocktail with his umbrella. “Not that I’d object to going again, but I’ve had my Veela shot.” He leered atrociously. “Twice, as I recall.”
Not for the first time that day, Harry wished for death.
“You are a very sparkly little man,” Ron told Baddock gravely. “Why is that?”
“Because I am so fabulous,” Baddock replied. Ron nodded as if he found this comment deep and meaningful, and Baddock said: “Sooo, what are you guys doing here sulking in the corner with fifty-eight drinks?”
“Malfoy broke up with Katie Bell and wanted to get drunk about it,” said Goyle, and Harry was grateful to him for not mentioning the whole horrible bring Harry to a club so he could sleep with a stranger idea, until Baddock’s face lit up.
“Oh really,” Baddock drawled. “How is Malfoy?”
“You know how he gets,” Goyle said. “He’s all insane and talky and high-pitched like a crazy consumptive squirrel.”
“Hey,” Malfoy said, coming back to the table with Crabbe behind him.
“Our crazy consumptive squirrel leader,” Goyle corrected himself.
“And don’t you forget it,” said Malfoy.
He looked loose and pleased from dancing and from enough alcohol to numb him a little, rub the sharp edges off his voice. Baddock gave him a predatory smile and he smiled back, lazy and sweet.
“Malfoy,” Baddock said, sparkling in his direction. “Do you want to dance?”
“I suppose,” Malfoy answered slowly, and let Baddock tug him onto the dance floor.
Harry didn’t care at first, aside from vague resentment at Baddock for occupying Malfoy’s time, but Baddock was smaller and sort of fragile, and Harry didn’t like the way Malfoy danced with him. It looked like real dancing, the dancing he’d done with Katie. He looked around a bit anxiously to make sure Baddock wasn’t jostled and he had his hand in the small of Baddock’s back. He leaned in to hear whatever Baddock was whispering to him, and his hair fell into Baddock’s face, shock white in the changing lights.
The way Baddock was looking at him made Harry suddenly and completely furious.
“Little Baddock is so sweet with his crush,” Goyle said indulgently.
Then Baddock tried to kiss Malfoy, just like that, as if it was the most natural thing in the world and he had a perfect right, and Harry thought about—about his flat and the toaster and thinking that since Katie was out of the picture he could have this, but of course there was always going to be someone trying and eventually there would be someone succeeding and Baddock really had to stop looking at Malfoy right now.
Malfoy laughed and pushed Baddock gently away, then came back to the table shaking his head and rubbing the back of his neck.
“Push over, Potter,” he said, and eased in and onto the bench. “Which of these twenty million drinks can be mine?”
“Whichever one you want,” Harry answered, skin still prickling with the desire to hit Baddock, to do—something.
Malfoy reached for a drink and swallowed its contents in one go, and Harry was looking at the faint sheen of sweat on his upper lip and the smooth movement of his throat. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was worried about how much Malfoy was drinking, but all he could really focus on was the lean shape of Malfoy and the warmth of his body resting against Harry’s side. Malfoy turned his head and spoke to Harry, his breath hot against Harry’s ear and his drawl slower and more deliberate than usual, choosing his words carefully.
“You’re hopeless, Potter. Why don’t you dance with someone?”
Harry reached out and slid his fingers around Malfoy’s wrist and held on. He felt blind except for the curve of Malfoy’s throat and mouth, numb except for the urge to have this.
“Fine,” he said, and didn’t care about how his voice sounded. “Dance with me.”
Malfoy started and then laughed, affectionate and light. “That’s cheating, Potter. I don’t count, and nor does Weasley and nor does Crabbe or Goyle, the whole point of coming here is so you can meet someone.”
He seemed pleased to be asked all the same, his hand curling briefly around Harry’s arm before he reached for another drink. The music was too loud in Harry’s ears: he just wanted to go home, and for Malfoy not to move, and for Baddock not to look at him.
“Uh, you two,” Crabbe said. “Could we have some of that famous constant Auror vigilance about now?”
“Everyone is looking at you really funny, Harry,” Ron said brightly.
Harry looked away and realised with a sinking feeling that the club had become not so much a club as a ring of people closing in with their eyes glazed. Baddock wasn’t looking at Malfoy anymore, that was for sure.
Malfoy swore comprehensively, reached under the table and threw Harry his Cloak. “You go,” he commanded. “Weasley, go with him. Crabbe, Goyle! Got mint?”
Ron, looking slightly sobered, kept close by Harry as they made their way out through the gathering riot. Harry kept bumping into people who looked around, dazed and searching, and he kept a death grip on his wand. The room was stifling all of a sudden, the sounds rising were horrible, and he’d done it.
God, this had to stop.
They got out into the alley beside Rick’s and Harry sank, still invisible, onto the cold cobblestones.
“You know,” Ron said, in the voice of one making a huge revelation, “I think that Malcolm Baddock tried to kiss Malfoy!”
Harry’s mood was not improved by the fact that Malfoy ushered out Baddock with Crabbe and Goyle.
“Thank you, Malfoy,” Baddock said, eyes shining up at him.
“It is no part of a prefect’s duty to allow his charges to be stampeded in the rush for Veela charms,” Malfoy told him, but he looked gratified. “Besides, it is my duty as an Auror to protect the public. The bits of the public who haven’t annoyed me or looked at me funny or done something indecent like be in Hufflepuff, that is.”
“You are my hero,” Baddock assured him. “Can I buy you a drink sometime? Just to thank you. And to cheer you up, you look like you might need cheering up!”
Malfoy seemed amused. “Yeah,” he said. “I suppose I could do with some cheering up.”
Harry met Fleur for lunch in a courtyard. She fed the pigeons with the crumbs from her plate and occasionally Muggles stopped and took pictures of her, and Fleur waved at them graciously and thus showed off her wedding ring.
“Of course you shouldn’t behave anything like Blaise Zabini,” she said, pursing her beautiful lips. “That poor boy needs to settle down. He has a good heart, even if he does wear terrible trousers. I think it’s all down to his mother not giving him enough affection when he was a child: eet has left him unable to distinguish between good attention and the kind of attention that gives you a nasty rash. All you need to do is find someone who can handle ze occasional vicissitudes of being a Veela’s companion, and someone who can, ah, help to regulate your behaviour.” She smiled a discreet smile. “Bill, ‘e is very vigorous about regulating my behaviour. The Weasley family breeds strong men.”
“Um,” Harry said. “That’s nice. But, I mean, before you met Bill, things weren’t, you didn’t have people going crazy—”
“Au contraire,” Fleur said, looking a little offended. “People fought duels over me, you know. And I received a great deal of poetry written by boys who could not possibly have been in their right minds.”
“Yes, fine, I’m sure the poetry was loony,” Harry said desperately. “But there weren’t riots.”
“There could ‘ave been riots.”
“I mean,” Harry said, absolutely refusing to play Veela Seduction Death Match. “When you were single, you were able to go outside without being assaulted!”
“Well, yes, because I released my energy in acceptable amounts, and when things became overwhelming there was always someone to drag into the shrubbery. So to speak,” Fleur said delicately. “I, unlike some people, did not indulge myself by having fits of reckless chastity.”
The idea of reckless chastity left Harry opening and closing his mouth a bit.
Fleur’s severe expression softened, giving her a Madonna-like air that made several cameras go off in their direction. “There, there.” She reached over and patted his hand. “I understand it can be very overwhelming when you’re trying to court someone. Unfortunately the people around are adversely affected. I remember it was quite tricky when I first met Bill, we really couldn’t go out in public much. Not that thees was much of a drawback,” she added, reminiscently smiling. “Being a Veela ‘as many advantages, ‘Arry, all you need is control and self-awareness.”
Harry felt enormously and unspeakably doomed.
“Courting someone?” he repeated.
“Is it not going well?” Fleur inquired. “Sometimes that happens. I remember poor Cedric Diggory, I tried for him, but I had to stop because others were being caught up and he wanted someone else. Even Veela can’t get what they want all the time, Harry.”
“I know that,” Harry said, his mouth dry. “It’s just—courting someone—I’m not—”
“You shouldn’t be embarrassed, Harry,” Fleur said serenely. “It is perfectly common for a Veela to heighten their allure in order to attract a desirable partner. I do think the levels you’re going to are a little excessive, but—”
“Excessive?” Harry almost shouted. “I’m not doing anything!”
Fleur, who was lifting a cup of tea to her lips, put the cup back down. She looked down at her lap and spent a moment more perfectly pleating her napkin. Harry had known Fleur a long time, and he knew when she concentrated on the tiny details of her appearance she was either thinking hard or very worried.
“You’re not doing it on purpose?” she asked, her charming there-and-gone-again accent becoming more pronounced. “Oh dear. Zen… I think we may ‘ave a problem.”