Chapter Text
Draco never saw the face of the wizard who hurt him. He wasn’t allowed to see the face of the wizard who hurt him.
He only knew that someone had snatched him from his seat in a Diagon Alley pub, where he rested with his head on his arms, more than half-pissed and sobbing over the unfairness of the Wizengamot decision that he wouldn’t be allowed to possess a wand for two years. No one could have known his plans, when his own parents didn’t know, so they must have followed him. But anyone could have done that; it didn’t rule any suspects out.
Then there was a Side-Along Apparition that squeezed Draco through endless heartbeats of darkness, and came as close to a Sobering Charm as anything non-magical could. He came out shivering and crying and certain that the Apparition had been just at the legal limit of distance. And then he spun on his heel and tried to run.
A heavy hand knocked him to the ground, and then his captor crouched down in front of him. Draco lifted his head, panting dryly, but saw nothing; the other man wore a cloak with a deep hood, and a bonfire flared behind him, wherever they were, throwing his face into further shadow.
His voice was unfamiliar when he whispered a few words about vengeance that Draco didn’t listen to—the threats from people disappointed at a Death Eater’s survival all sounded the same after a while—and incanted a spell that slashed open a burning hole in his right cheek. Draco screamed and tried to lift a hand to touch the wound, but the pain had made him light-headed.
“There,” the wizard breathed, sounding much too rational for someone who had just hurt Draco that badly. “That gives you a scar you can’t hide like you can that Mark. And to make sure that you don’t cover it up with a glamour, even when you get your magic back—“ He swung his wand down and incanted again.
Draco passed out then, from agony and fear, and woke on the doorstep of the Manor, with a house-elf hopping around him and squeaking in worry. Draco hauled himself to his feet without speaking to the creature and stumbled towards the gardens. He had to confirm before he saw his parents, he had to—
And there it was. He hung over the shallow pool between two hedges in silence and stared at his own reflection. He only had half a presentable face left. The right cheek was marred with a long, jagged black scar that crackled outwards from a gaping center in all directions, reaching towards his eye and ear. Draco shuddered and shut his eyes, already seeing, in his mind, the pitying stares he would receive if he went out in public.
And what was that last spell his enemy had cast? A Permanence Charm? Yes, to be sure that any glamour he cast on his cheek, even if he was allowed to cast one, would simply wear away in a short time and expose the scar to public view.
One thing was certain on that gray, cold morning, as Draco stood among the ashes of his ambitions and his old self:
The life he had planned, if it would even be worth anything after two years of living like a Squib, was over.
*
Harry drew carefully back from the snapdragons, watching them with narrowed eyes. Two of the tall crimson flowers stood still, but the third swayed slowly after him, at least until it reached the limit of its roots. Then it thrashed in indignation, coiling its leaves up and straining as if it could yank itself out of the earth and walk by sheer willpower.
Harry laughed and extended his hand until his fingers touched the outermost petals. The snapdragon stopped moving and wrapped the edges of its flowers around his palm like a nursing baby. Harry let it taste his skin for a few more minutes, then hissed at the flower in Parseltongue. The snake-shaped flowers retracted reluctantly.
And Neville told me that I wouldn’t be able to breed flowers that responded like snakes in only two years. Of course, he was right about the roses and the sunflowers. I should have started with snapdragons from the beginning.
Satisfied, Harry turned and strode down the garden pathways, between the twisting, curving beds of flowers. He tended and raised them for sale and for use in experimental potions, but he also delighted in them for their own sakes. Roses, sunflowers, snapdragons, daisies, violets, kingcups, even flowers like dandelions that other people thought of as weeds…so long as they bloomed, he wanted to keep them.
He had gone through a bad period shortly after the war, when the mere thought of being around death was enough to drive him into a deep depression. That had been the reason he gave up his ambitions to become an Auror. He wouldn’t have been able to kill if he had to, or, more to the point, deal with murder victims. Being in the garden, surrounding himself with life endlessly budding and blooming and flourishing, was what he liked best.
He ducked under a hanging arch of trained hollyhocks and came to the one perch he kept for owls. To his delight, Pig, whom he was taking care of while Ron and Hermione went on a Continental training trip with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, had returned. He whirred excitedly in a circle around Harry’s head, making Harry wish he could use Parseltongue to coax the owl to him, but at last Harry got the letter away from him.
The letter was short enough. Harry really hadn’t expected anything else, given whom he’d owled.
Potter:
Your offer to return my wand is much appreciated. As I assume you know since you referred to it in your letter to me, my probation ended the twenty-seventh day of May. I am now free to possess a wand.
You may bring it to me at the following address, between the hours of nine and noon tomorrow.
Harry frowned at the address that followed, and ransacked his brains for a moment. He’d come to know the neighborhood of wizarding London fairly well in the last two years, as that was where he took a good portion of the flowers sold to apothecaries, homeowners, and shopkeepers who wanted to improve the look of their plain windows. He didn’t remember any street like the one Malfoy listed near the area, though.
That left Muggle London.
The mere thought of Malfoy deigning to breathe the same air as Muggles, let alone coexist with them for however long he’d been living there, made Harry shake his head. He felt like owling Malfoy’s neighbors before he arrived. Yes, excuse me, have you noticed a general chill in the air whenever a certain blond bloke walks by?
And there was the question of why Malfoy hadn’t wanted to meet Harry in the exact center of Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade, so that as many people as possible would see him get his wand back and know he was no longer fair prey for their hexes.
But maybe Malfoy had changed—
Unlikely.
And maybe he didn’t want his enemies to know that he would have the ability to do magic again—
That’s much more likely.
And anyway, it wasn’t as though it would cause Harry to go much out of his way. He was also curious to see how Malfoy might have changed in the last two years, when he had all but vanished from public sight; the last rumors Harry had heard, months old now, said that Malfoy saw no one but his parents and the Auror assigned to monitor his probation.
Indulge your curiosity, then.
One thing flowers had taught Harry was honesty with himself. It was no good pretending to be stoic when a variety he was hoping for failed to meet expectations; the flower would hardly care if he only nodded or if he threw a full-fledged tantrum. He would indulge his curiosity and Malfoy’s skittishness both.
And you never know, the optimism that seemed to have become part of his life since he started gardening chirped in his head. You’ve changed. Maybe he did, too.
*
“Malfoy?”
Harry knocked on the door a moment after he spoke the name, though he was sure that wards and monitoring spells must have told Malfoy who was approaching. Then he remembered that Malfoy hadn’t been allowed to do magic for the past two years and rolled his eyes at himself.
That, of course, was the moment Malfoy put his head around the door. He had a politely frozen expression on his face, but he stiffened at once and tossed back his head when he caught sight of Harry. “I’ve done something to displease you already, Potter?” he muttered.
“I’m sorry,” Harry said, and took some pleasure in the way that Malfoy’s mouth fell slightly open before he could help himself. “Just thinking of a stupid mistake I’ve made.” He waved a hand. “Can I come in?” The corridor outside Malfoy’s flat seemed to have been decorated by someone who assumed that gray was the height of any and all color schemes.
“Why should you need to?” Malfoy demanded, lowering his voice. “Give me the wand and be on your way.”
“Your neighbors are Muggles,” Harry said. “I’d like to give you the wand in private.” He glanced down the corridor, certain he’d heard a door open and seen the corner of a sharp nose appear. “Besides, I find myself curious to see where you live.” He looked back at Malfoy and tried to paint the most honest expression he could on his face. He wasn’t afraid that he would look dishonest; he was just afraid that Malfoy would have trouble recognizing it.
“Pull the other one, Potter.”
“No, really.” Harry shook his head. “Look, two years with no contact should be enough to mellow some of the bitterness, shouldn’t it?”
“No.”
Harry pushed ahead, ignoring the storm gathering in Malfoy’s eyes. “I really am just curious. Not a spy for the Ministry, not a reporter for the Daily Prophet, not someone who wants vengeance on your family and is out to get it.” Malfoy’s expression changed again, displaying such pain that Harry found his voice gentling, the way it did when he spoke to young seedlings straining for the light. “I promise, I won’t stay long. And I’ll even invite you to come to my home in return, if you’d like to.”
Malfoy stared at him in silent hostility for some moments more. Harry didn’t think he could make a more eloquent appeal than he had, so he stood and waited patiently for his rival’s decision.
Former rival. And that was not, Harry told himself, just because Malfoy’s liveliness and latent magic shone like a beacon in the midst of all this depressing gray. Two years should have cured the bitterness.
“All right,” Malfoy said at last, with a distinctly ungracious tone to his voice that Harry was sure his mother would have disapproved of. He tugged the door open and stepped out of the way. “Come and laugh, then.”
Harry was very far from laughing when he moved into the flat. Doubtless Malfoy had had someone else, probably one of his parents, come in and cast spells for him since he hadn’t been able to. But the overall effect was one of comfort, not overwhelming luxury as Harry had seen in the interior of Malfoy Manor. The walls were a soft, dusky yellow that pressed close to the color of lamplight. Polished dark wooden furniture, every chair leg ending in a dragon’s claw or a phoenix’s foot—not that a Muggle would recognize the latter—occupied every corner, and cushions occupied their seats; Harry thought he could sink into the largest armchair and never come up for air again. Beyond the drawing room was a kitchen that certainly looked big enough for heavy-duty cooking, and a narrow corridor that hid any sight of what the doors down it opened onto.
“This is nice, Malfoy,” Harry said, turning around. He briefly thought it strange that Malfoy had arranged himself so that only his left profile was turned towards Harry, but he reckoned it was Malfoy’s right to act strangely in his own home.
“You’ve seen it, Potter. Give me back my wand.”
Harry took the hawthorn wand out of the waistband of his jeans and tossed it underhanded to Malfoy. Malfoy caught it and held it for long moments, staring at it, moving his fingers delicately over the wood that Harry had so often felt thrumming warmly in response to him.
And his face transformed.
Harry caught his breath. Malfoy had been attractive enough before; he was willing to admit that. But it was an attractiveness soured and baked by too much heat and pain into a clay mask. Now his features were moving again, and suddenly the potential was brought to life. It was the difference between considering the statue of a living man and seeing the model walk into a room.
Malfoy lifted the wand in a hand that trembled and intoned a quiet spell, so much beneath his breath that Harry couldn’t make it out. And then he rolled his head forwards so he was staring straight on at Harry, and his lips worked up into a smirk with sharper edges than any he’d worn at school.
“My, my, Potter,” he drawled. “You’re staring as if my younger and much more handsome cousin just walked into the room.”
Harry grinned at him, not caring that he probably looked like an idiot. This was too new for him to be worried what Malfoy thought. So far as he was concerned, at least, things were different. And that meant he would start out on a new footing, and see if he couldn’t draw Malfoy along with him. “Care to introduce me?”
The other man’s face went flat.
“To your younger and more handsome cousin, I meant,” Harry elaborated.
He watched, entertained, as Malfoy scrambled for knowledge as to how to deal with a Potter who could banter, and then drew himself up with a haughty sniff. “It was a simile,” he said. “Surely you’re familiar with them?”
“Well, I’ll content myself with you, then.” Harry cocked his head. “Care to have dinner?”
“In Diagon Alley?” Malfoy looked rather as though Harry had announced to him that the moon was made of green cheese. Probably because of the person doing the asking, Harry thought. Surely he’s not short of dinner invitations.
“Or Hogsmeade,” he said. “Or even Knockturn Alley, if you want to be adventurous. I’m not particular.” He smiled.
Malfoy shook his head. “You don’t invite me to dinner,” he said. “That’s not how it’s done.”
“Oh, you want to be the aggressor?”
“Potter—“ Malfoy drew one hand over his face. That seemed to give him the necessary balance, because when he lowered it again, his look was cold, closed, haughty. “I meant that I would never consent to spend time with you, willingly. You must have known that I only asked you here to return my wand.”
“This time, yes.” Harry thought “baffled” was a good look on Malfoy. “That doesn’t mean it can’t be dinner next time. If you don’t want to go out in public, and I suppose I can understand that, I’d like to invite you to dinner at my house. I only make a few meals well, but I’m damn good at them. At everything I do, actually,” he said, and winked.
What are you doing? the more cautious part of him demanded.
Having fun, Harry answered, which was the signal for the more cautious part of him to fuck off, at least since the war. He gazed at Malfoy peaceably and awaited his answer.
*
Draco wanted to order Potter out of his flat. He wanted to scream at him that he had a scar on his cheek, under the glamour he’d cast the moment he had his wand back, and that it would wear through the illusion in just a few hours, which meant he couldn’t go out in public. He wanted to do something that would knock that intrigued, compelling expression off Potter’s face and force him to realize that Draco was a victim.
Except…
Why had Draco cast the glamour, if he didn’t care what Potter thought? Why did he want Potter to leave him alone?
Like it or not, this was the most attention he’d had in two years. He had moved to a Muggle flat when the constant tears in his mother’s eyes and his father’s cold stares grew to be too much, and he’d insisted on a vow of secrecy when he found out an Auror had to visit and question him every month. He’d been alone for two years now. Nosy Muggle neighbors didn’t count.
And Potter was gazing at him with something like admiration in those green eyes.
Only because he can’t see how ugly you really are, whispered the hateful voice Draco had grown used to hearing every time he glanced into a mirror or into his assigned Auror’s eyes. He imagined it was his captor’s voice, sometimes.
But Potter didn’t know how ugly he really was. And if Draco was half the Slytherin he’d thought he could be in school, he never would. It might be fun to string the Boy-Who-Lived along for a little while.
Even if he did have hair that went every which way but the proper one, and dirt crusted under his fingernails.
“Say that I accept this invitation, Potter,” he began, and stopped when Potter gave him an excited grin. God, that makes him look about thirteen years old. “What dreadful poisons would you lace the food with?”
Potter laughed, apparently mistaking his acidic tone for flirtation. Draco was doubly glad he hadn’t been put in Gryffindor, if this was the quality of brainpower one got out of six years in the House. “Nothing, Malfoy! I can’t promise to cook just what you want, because I only make a few things really well—“
“You said that already,” Draco felt compelled to point out.
“I know.” Potter was smiling anyway. Perhaps he had hit his head on the wall in despair one day over being a half-blood, Draco speculated, and forgotten how to frown as a consequence. “But I can tell you what I make, and you can choose from among them.”
“Tell me.” Draco had to admit he was enjoying this; it was like being back at the Manor and having one of the house-elves attending on him.
“Poached eggs,” said Potter at once. “Fish and chips. Gazpacho. And certain desserts that I’m certain you wouldn’t want to hear about. Just hearing about them might cause you to put on weight, and why would you want to ruin perfection?”
Draco thought that being in the same room with a flirtatious Potter was rather like being strapped to a cart in Gringotts with no goblin to control the mechanism. He coughed and managed to sound sufficiently like himself when he spoke again. Or, at least, he hoped he sounded like the suave and reserved Draco Malfoy Harry Potter had always known. “I—the gazpacho, then.” He rallied when Potter just went on smiling. Hit his head on a wall, definitely. “Where did you learn to make that, in any case?”
Potter’s smile shaded into reminiscence for just a moment. “A friend.”
“Please do not tell me that the Weasel decided to take a cooking class.” Draco shuddered theatrically. He would refuse to eat any food the Weasel had taught Potter to make on principle, no matter how good it might be.
“A different kind of friend.” Potter gave him a frank once-over, ignoring Draco’s stare. Then his eyes returned to Draco’s face, and he smiled like a child again. “Anyway. What night would you like to come over?”
“I—tomorrow,” said Draco, deciding that he might as well get it over with, and not wanting to give Potter any extra time to impress him. “At six. And I can only stay for an hour, mind.” That was the shortest limit of the glamours he had found that would conceal the scar. Possibly he could remain in company three hours before the illusion would really start to tatter, but Draco was taking no chances.
Potter laughed. “I’ll see you at six, then. Nice chatting with you, Malfoy.” He swept a bow that left Draco unable to tell, for the life of him, whether it was mocking or not, and then trotted out the door.
Leaving Draco to wonder exactly when and how Potter had managed to persuade him into dinner, let alone dinner in a house that was probably a rathole.
But he shook his head and told himself to cheer up. He needed to get used to being around people again, now that he would be able to make short forays into public. Potter was the perfect place to start. And if news of Draco’s visit to his home just happened to find its way into the Daily Prophet…
Well, that would not be Draco’s fault. It would be Potter’s, for not thinking of the consequences of inviting a Slytherin over.
*
Harry stepped back from the bowl and considered the blending of the ingredients in the gazpacho one more time, then nodded, satisfied. He wondered for a moment what would happen if Malfoy complained that it was cold, and snickered. But no, surely Malfoy was cultured enough to know how gazpacho was supposed to be served and would like it.
Unless he complains just to complain.
Harry hummed under his breath as he waved his wand and sent cutlery flying to set the table in his small dining room for two. It was always seating either two, three, or four, depending on whether Ron and Hermione felt like cooking for themselves or not, and sometimes Ginny made the fourth. She’d become a good friend since she fell madly in love with a Muggle and Harry discovered he was gay in the same week. Occasionally she brought her boyfriend with her, but he’d shown distinct uneasiness in the presence of a gay wizard—one difference at a time seemed to be all Paul could tolerate—and so he usually stayed home.
And, of course, Raphael was sometimes a guest. But he wouldn’t be tonight.
It seemed that Raphael didn’t know that, though, because the wards around Harry’s garden had picked up his approach. The snapdragons Harry had altered to be sensitive to the sound of Parseltongue had oriented on him, in particular, and Harry could almost feel the flowers plotting to bite him if he didn’t intervene. He rolled his eyes and wondered for a moment if they would like Malfoy.
Probably. Snakes have an affinity for each other, don’t they?
Harry stepped out through the large, folding panels, half-windows and half-doors, that led from the dining room into the garden, and then Apparated. He landed neatly in front of Raphael on the path that wound through a maze of sunflowers towards the house. Raphael jerked to a stop at the sight of him, startled. He had never got used to the speed of Harry’s magic.
“Harry,” he said a moment later. While he wasn’t used to Harry’s magic, he never allowed himself to be startled for long, either. His eyes traveled a slow, admiring path along Harry’s shoulders where they were pressed against the robe and up over his face. “Care to have company for dinner?”
“I’m expecting company, actually,” Harry said. “Just not you,” he added, as Raphael opened his mouth.
Raphael laughed and shrugged. “You can’t blame me for trying, can you?”
Harry stared back in silence, keeping a faint smile on his face for courtesy’s sake. Raphael Morgan was one of Ron’s friends at the Ministry, but several years older and already out of the Auror training program. Ron had recommended him to Harry as a gay wizard who wasn’t impressed by the mystique surrounding the Savior of the Wizarding World, and he had certainly been a good boyfriend, a skilled lover, and a wonderful teacher in the matter of making gazpacho. And he was handsome enough, even resembling Malfoy in some ways, though his brilliant blond hair and blue eyes had depths of color Malfoy’s would never reach. But in the end, he hadn’t been what Harry wanted—just a little too ambiguous, a little too impressed by celebrity in spite of himself, a little too slow to take a hint.
And here he is again, not taking the hint I gave him the other day about enjoying my solitude while Ron and Hermione are gone. Harry folded his arms and dropped the smile altogether, because Raphael was just lingering, looking at him expectantly.
“I’m hurt, Harry,” Raphael said after a moment, and placed his hand over his heart with a dramatic sigh. “I might almost think you’d broken your vow to me about spending the week alone, and that you’re inviting some other young wizard around to shag behind my back.”
“There is no ‘behind your back,’ since you and I broke up,” Harry pointed out. “And it’s none of your affair whom I invite over and whom I don’t.”
Raphael blinked. Harry felt like blinking himself. He hadn’t ever spoken that coldly to Raphael, since their breakup had been nearly as amicable as his and Ginny’s.
But damn it, Harry was interested in Malfoy, and he wanted to be inside adding the final touches to the dinner, such as a wine that he was sure would actually impress Malfoy, not standing outside in flower-scented twilight and arguing with an old lover who couldn’t believe Harry had moved on.
Now, though, Raphael studied him with narrowed eyes and a kind of cool respect on his face, as though he hadn’t appreciated Harry’s ability to make a point before. Harry took a step nearer, forcing Raphael to back up or come uncomfortably close.
Raphael, being his infuriating self, chose the latter option. And his eyes had started to sparkle with laughter again. Harry rolled his own. What does it say about me, that I’m attracted by smarmy blond blokes with superiority complexes?
Except that it was more than just a superiority complex Harry had seen in Malfoy’s face the other day, and more than a smarmy blond he was interested in pursuing. If Malfoy was agreeable, of course. If he would stay for more than an hour, someday.
If he didn’t arrive, see Harry standing with Raphael, assume he’d been invited for some kinky sex act, and Apparate back home.
“Have I ever told you how much you turn me on?” Raphael murmured, and lifted a hand to stroke Harry’s cheek.
“Constantly,” Harry snapped, recalling entire conversations that consisted solely of that, and cast a nonverbal spell. The arch of hollyhocks above them promptly released a shower of water from their roots, drenching Raphael thoroughly enough to make his hair lie flat on his skull and get his fine robes all wet.
Raphael took a step away with a cry of shock and fanned ineffectually at himself with both hands. Then he drew his wand and cast a drying charm—which did nothing for the stain on his robes or just how disordered his hair was, of course. Harry just raised an eyebrow at his glare, unimpressed.
“Leave, Raphael,” he told him. “You don’t want to see what my marigolds can do.”
Raphael just shook his head and took a step backwards, an expression somewhere between a sneer and a true smile playing on his mouth. “I told you, Harry, I’d be quite ready to accommodate you if you just decided what you wanted.”
“I told you what I wanted.”
“And I told you, no real gay man wants that. For fuck’s sake, Potter, you’re acting like a girl.” Raphael rolled his eyes and Disapparated.
Harry took several deep, calming breaths. He wouldn’t feel bad that Raphael had got the last word. He was firm in his position, and what he had asked for was only reasonable, not silly and not stupid, not childish and not girlish. He wanted more than sex. That was all, and yet Raphael hadn’t even been willing to talk about living together.
And he had a dinner to finish.
Five minutes later, he was back in the dining room, chewing his lip and pondering whether candlelight would be too intimate.