“I don’t know.” He raises his hands, realizes that might draw attention, and then lies them flat on the table. “I never got the chance to choose, you know? None of us did. We just got thrust into the fight.”
Ron didn’t get it. He was all anger, now. This was the only thing he knew. “So?”
“So, maybe I don’t want to fight.”
“What do you want to do instead?”
Ron isn’t angry. He looks resigned, a bit, like he knew that this was only a matter of time. It validates Harry’s decision like nothing else could, that Ron did not seem to think that this was a bad idea. “Nothing. I don’t want to be anything right now. I spent so long being the Chosen One, that I never got to figure out what I would have wanted to do, given the choice. It was fight or die.” He swallowed, hard, because this was bringing up memories that he would rather not think about. About a basilisk, about Quirrel’s screams, about the first time he ever cruicio’d someone. He was a warrior, and he was a good one, but now the fight was done. “I just want to rest.”
“I get that.” They’re food has gone cold. neither of them has eaten, and it is already time for Ron to start heading back to the office. “I do, Harry. And I’m glad that you’re trying to make yourself happy.” A pause. “But I’m not quitting. This really is what I want to do.”
Harry knew that. But he had to ask, to put the option out there. “Don’t you ever get tired of the fight?”
Ron laughs, shakes his head, and then makes a fist, and his own set of scarred letters shines up at Harry, bright under the lighting of the diner. I will not resist.
“It’s all I’ve ever known.” That was true, too. Harry had dragged him along, and sometimes he thinks that ruined him. “I’ll keep going until the end.”
Draco
Harry had came back from his meeting with Ron with a smile on his face. Draco took it as a good sign.
“Everything go okay?” He cannot help the concern that wells up in him, because he knows how much of this decision relied on Ron’s approval.
“It went fantastic. So great, in fact,” Harry’s grabs him by the arms, spins him around, and then let go just as fast. “I’m buying us dinner. Leaky Cauldron, the good stuff. I’ll be ready in fifteen.”
Draco felt one side of his mouth quirk up in a smile. “Fancy.”
Harry’s laugh floats down the hallway, and Draco knows in that moment that this is it for him, he will spend the rest of his life trying to find a place as happy as he is with Harry. “Only the best for you.”
It does end up being mildly…special.
Not special in the sense of linen tablecloths and fine china, but maybe in the idea that no one is bothering them, and they are tucked into a corner booth where its quiet, and the two of them have gotten to enjoy a meal in peace, for once, with the two of them stealing forks full of food off each other’s plate. If Draco didn’t know better, he could almost believe that Harry meant this as a date.
But he does know better, so it is just two mates hanging out in a bar.
(Or, a guy and his court ordered mentor-like person, if he’s getting technical.)
Harry reaches across the table and covers Draco’s hand with his own. It stops Draco in his tracks like a deer in the headlights, and he waits for Harry to make the next move, wide eyed and barely breathing, because it’s really getting hard to think that Harry doesn’t have feeling for him.
“Thank you.” Harry’s eyes are earnest, searching Draco’s face for something. “I wanted you to know how much I mean that.”
“It’s no problem.” Draco is trying to be nonchalant. He does not know why. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism. “You mean a lot to me.”
Stupid.
It’s a stupid thing to say, but Harry’s voice gets even softer, if that was possible. “You mean a lot to me, too.”
“I would hope so.” Beneath the table, Draco digs his nails into his thigh, tries to push through the ache that had suddenly sprung into his chest. “I don’t climb into bath tubs with just any man, you know.”
It was, admittedly, a very unsubtle way of feeling out where they stand from last night, but it works. The tension (and the look in Harry’s eyes, whatever it meant) disappears, and suddenly Harry is laughing harder than Draco had ever heard him, and Draco can’t help it, he starts laughing, too. “That was so bloody weird.” Harry agrees, finally, and the moment should be over but he is still staring at Draco with that fond expression and he still has his hand on Draco’s arm. “Drunk people, huh?”
Draco smiles, relieved, and then pulls his hand away, trying hard to chase off the feeling that he was missing something. “Drunk people.”
Harry
He’s gone for all of three minutes.
It’s all Harry’s fault, really. He left his scarf at the table, and when Draco told him to go back and get it, that he’d be fine waiting outside in the alley, he believed him. And then when he came back out, Draco was gone, but there was the unmistakable sound of a fight coming from around the corner.
There’s three of them, and then there’s Draco. It’s not even a fight, really, just a beat down, with two of the boys holding him in place and the other just wailing on him, sending punch after punch. There’s blood streaming from Draco’s nose, and a cut above his eyes, and more dribbling from lip. His coat is gone and shirt sleeve is ripped, and when they finally give him a break, Draco coughs and splutters through the pain until he can breathe again.
“What’s the matter?” The one asks, grabbing Draco by the hair and wrenching his head up, forcing him to look at him. Draco spits in his face, and the guy backhands him, making him fall to the ground. “No daddy here to save you now. Where’s your daddy, huh Draco? Tell us where he went.”
Harry doesn’t know if Draco was going to keep fighting, or if he was really going to give in, stay on the ground. He doesn’t find out, just runs down the alleyway until he gets to them, wand held out and ready to fight.
“Get away from him.” His voice is steady, but more frantic than Harry had ever heard it. He wasn’t even this panicked facing down Voldemort. (Tom Riddle.) (Damn it.) (He was just a man, treat him like one.) “You’ve got three seconds.”
“Oh yeah?” The one who was doing the punching turned around to face him, obviously expecting someone who was more easily scared. “And who’s going to make us?”
There’s not many occasions in which Harry is grateful that he is who he is. This time, though, he illuminates his wand so they could see his face, and smiles when their eyes dart up to see his scar. “Harry bloody Potter, that’s who,” He says, and steps forward to give Draco a hand up, wishing he had come up with something better. “And you’re messing with my friend.”
“Your friend’s a death eater?” Harry recognized the voice. It was someone from Hogwarts, someone he probably ate lunch with, played a game of pick up Quidditch with. That’s the worst thing about all this hate, how it divides them. “Thought better of you, Potter. Thought you fought against people like him.”
“You’re wrong.” He says, not knowing what he is saying, just that Draco is bleeding and hurt and scared and Harry did not stop it. “I fought for my friends. For the people I loved. And now he’s one of them. So you should get going.”
It works, finally. Two on three are odds they are not willing to face, especially if one of those two had killed the dark lord less then six months ago. “Fine.” The guy spits at Harry’s feet. He’s just glad it isn’t his face. “But next time it’s a duel.”
Harry snorts. “Looking forward to it.”
They leave, and Draco makes a sound that Harry takes for a sob but is actually just a laugh. He’s in hysterics, right there in this dirty alley with his broken nose, and Harry doesn’t really know what to do with that, so he crouches on the ground beside him to get a better look at his face.
He clicks his tongue, because that’s what Hermione always did when they were hurt, and then uses the end of his shirt sleeve to clear away some of the blood. “It’s alright, Draco.” He wraps an arm around his shoulder and then pulls him to his feet. “We’ll get you sorted out.”
Draco
Getting beat up sucks.
It’s happening more and more often, lately, but none as bad as this one. It took Harry a half hour to patch him up, but even that wasn’t as bad as the idea that Harry had seen that, had had to rescue him from that, like some sort of damsel in distress. And even worse was the fact that Draco hadn’t even fought.
(That, he thinks, is the biggest difference between him and Harry. Harry would never stop fighting.)
“Maybe I should be an auror, after all.” Harry’s laugh is a little dry for it to be funny, but Draco still snaps his head up when he says it. “Was good at it.”
He was. He’d be a great one. “Don’t become one on my account.”
He’s only half joking, but Harry isn’t when he reaches out and cups Draco’s face in his hand, his thump brushing over where Draco’s lip had split. “Who’s going to look out for you if I don’t?”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Draco knows that he doesn’t mean him, specifically. He means anyone who ever had been discriminated against, who had felt what it was like to be dragged to the end of a dark alley and not know if you are coming out again. The common people. Still, it makes him angry and sad all at once. “I don’t deserve it.”
