InsaneJournal

“Ow!”

“Look - I’ve got to clean the wounds before I close them - stop being such a fucking baby and let me.”

Clean the wounds, yes - not scrub at them… Draco seemed determined not to meet Harry’s eyes; his attention was fixed on Harry’s forehead, and the damp piece of cloth he was using to ‘clean’ the cut there. The corner of his mouth twitched as Harry flinched again.

“You’re enjoying this too much.”

That got a smile - a warm flash of amusement that vanished the second Draco realised he was showing it. “My whole reason for existing is to cause you pain, Potter,” he said, carefully flippant. “Haven’t you realised that yet?”

“Oh, I don’t know - you’re doing quite a good job of keeping me alive, as well.”

“You‘d be no fun dead.” But the retort was automatic, with no real venom behind it. Draco bit his lip as he moved the tip of his wand to Harry’s forehead. The fingers of his free hand brushed against Harry’s skin. He knew Draco was just moving his hair clear of the cut, but he shivered anyway, and was rather glad of the sharp sting of pain as the wound closed. “You know, you could have had these dealt with before we set off - by a competent healer.”

“I didn’t want to stay there any longer than I had to.” It was the truth. The broomstick clearing the trees, soaring up into air that was clean and sweet, leaving the Schoolhouse and its dead behind, had almost been one of the best moments of Harry’s life. Yes, it had felt like running away - but in a good way…one moment of total freedom. He could even admit to himself that Draco’s company had made the moment even sweeter - even when the other boy had fallen asleep, the warmth of his body pressed up against Harry’s back more than making up for the drool on his shoulder.

“We could’ve gone with the others,” Draco said. “’The Grand Hotel’ - it doesn’t sound like a very subtle hideout, but it does sound like the kind of place I’d like to be right now. Hotels have beds.” Harry blinked and stared at him, but he just continued plaintively, “I’ve forgotten what sleep feels like.”

Harry brought his breathing back under his control. Right, sleep, yes - whatever else would you use a bed for? He was suddenly very glad that Draco was choosing to avoid his gaze; he could feel the heat in his cheeks, and he was sure what he’d been thinking was written all over his face in big, lust-fuelled letters.

“You can sort out the cuts on your arms yourself.” Draco pointed his wand at the stump of a fallen tree. It turned into a heap of cushions. Harry politely ignored the fact that their fabric still retained the colour and texture of tree bark. Draco collapsed on them with a sigh.

“You can’t sleep now!”

“Watch me.”

And Harry did.

He couldn’t sleep himself. He told himself that one of them had to stay awake and alert, even in this peaceful clearing, seemingly cut off from the rest of humanity by steep hills and thick woodland. It had nothing to do with the fact that he was afraid of what he’d see if he closed his eyes. Nothing at all.

So he rested his back against a tree and watched Draco sleep, sprawled on his back amongst the cushions, limbs all loose and relaxed. The sunlight seemed to sink into him, making his pale flesh glow like the quartz of a Dowsing pendulum. The silken spread of his hair looked like a halo.

Harry looked away. He watched a dragonfly dart over the little stream that flowed through the clearing, its jewelled body sparkling as much in the sunlight as the water did below it. He looked at the wild flowers clustered beneath the trees, bright purple and blue and white, and tried to see if he recognised any of them from Herbology. Then, slowly but inevitably, his gaze drifted back to Draco.

If you don’t know you want something until it’s right up there in your face, how do you know you really want it, or if it’s just, well, opportunism? It was a good kiss - god, an amazing kiss - but -

Harry felt his neck and cheeks grow hot again as he remembered. It had almost felt as if a switch had been flicked in his head. One minute he had been frozen, refusing to believe what was happening, then this great rushing tide of hunger and excitement and sheer need had torn through him from god-knows-where, and he’d been lost. Or mostly lost - ‘truly lost’ happened when Draco…responded.

Harry drew his knees up against his chest. His face burned, maybe in response to the heat flooding through him, pooling in his head and his crotch. His head pounded, he had the biggest hard-on of his life, and he was shaking.

Harry had known Draco wasn’t as cold as he liked to appear, but a few little glimpses of warmth underneath all the bullshit were hardly enough preparation for that.

And that wasn’t him trying to mess with my head, was it? It wasn’t teasing, it was real.

Jesus Christ…

Draco made a little sound - a sigh in his sleep, Harry realised just as he was about to panic. Perhaps in another world, he would have gone over and kissed him awake - just for the hell of it, just to see what would happen…but in this one he’d rather die than have Draco see him like this…

Draco moved, stretching, his sprawled legs falling into a new position - undignified in a way he would never willingly be awake. His t-shirt rode up, the too-large jeans slipped down over his hips…

Harry scrambled to his feet and retreated into the woods.

*

Draco woke with a shock, droplets of water cold on his bared skin. He blinked up at branches silhouetted against a sky the colour of bruised skin, and had a moment of complete disorientation.

Then he forced himself to sit up, saw the broomstick propped up against a tree and a dejected-looking Potter sitting by the stream, and remembered everything. “So - were you going to wake me up or just let me drown?”

Potter didn‘t look up. He stared at the water as if he could see the future in the ripples. “It’s only a bit of rain. We both needed a wash.”

“A cold shower, anyway.” The words slipped out before Draco could stop them; perhaps his system wasn’t as clear of the Veritaserum as he’d thought. He watched the colour spread across the back of Potter’s neck, and decided it would be fun if he wasn’t so completely humiliated by the situation himself.

The kiss itself had had a certain panic-of-the-moment logic to it. His reaction, on the other hand…that had no logic. Harry fucking Potter… He supposed he should be grateful that Potter had had some self-control. Because I would have done anything…let him do anything…

He stood up. “Are we going to get going, then? Because a wet afternoon in the Pennines is not my idea of a good time. Of course, neither is sneaking into my family home when it’s probably crawling with my former colleagues, but y’know -”

“What is?” Potter said, still not looking at him.

“What is what?”

“Your idea of a good time.”

“Music, flying, travel, beautiful things, alcohol, beautiful people,” - and that wasn’t a thought he should be having, with Potter now staring up at him, leaves in his hair and expression full of genuine curiosity and eyes full of…something else - “games of chance and intellect, more alcohol…” And I could really do with a drink right now. “Funnily enough, ‘fighting the forces of evil’ isn’t even on the list. I expect it’s right at the top of yours.”

Potter smiled. “Not right at the top,” he said. “I prefer Quidditch.” His tone was serious, but his eyes glinted, and Draco found himself smiling back before he could stop himself.

“Right,” he said as Potter got to his feet. “How could I forget?” Potter reached out for the broomstick, but Draco got there first. “My turn,” he said. “You like flying? I’ll show you flying.”

*

Draco’s idea of flying seemed to be to try every manoeuvre possible to dislodge Harry from the back of the broom. He hung on tight, wind whipping at his hair and rain driving in his face, flying so close to the treetops that twigs caught in the rips in his jeans and leaves were torn free at their passing - and enjoyed every minute.

A particularly sudden dive lifted Harry right off the broom - he grabbed Draco around the waist, almost taking him with him, and his wild whoop of laughter was swept away by the wind.

He leaned forward to shout in Draco‘s ear. “You’ll need to try harder than that if you want to impress me!”

“Impress you?” They levelled out over a river, shooting under the arch of a little stone bridge. “Who says I’m not just trying to get rid of you?”

Taking the broomstick had been Draco’s idea. His reasoning was that he didn’t want to Apparate blind to the front doors, or into the walled garden, both places where there were likely to be guards or new defences, but he also didn’t fancy a long hike from the boundaries of the wards. Harry agreed with him, but that didn’t mean they had to fly all the way from Yorkshire. There could be only one reason for that - he just wanted to fly.

He briefly tightened his arms around Draco in a hug that the other boy could easily dismiss as Harry hanging on for dear life - if he wanted to.

“I’m not that easy to get rid of, either!”

“I’ve noticed!”

*

About a hundred miles and well over an hour later, the buzz still hadn’t worn off. The broom was a rather knackered old thing - its cushioning charm seemed to have decayed with age and its top speed was nothing to what Draco was used to - but they’d come out of the rain clouds, the late-afternoon sun was still warm enough to dry their clothes (impervious had turned out not to be so useful when you were wet already) and they were flying. The world might not be whipping by with quite the speed he would have liked, but it was far below him, Muggle towns and roads turned into abstract patterns amongst a landscape that looked almost flat after the hills they’d flown through earlier.

Home. Draco spotted a familiar landmark and let the broomstick slow and drop. The exposed chalk glowed in the sunlight, and the White Horse seemed almost alive, poised to leap gracefully off its grassy hillside. He could feel Potter shifting on the broom behind him, leaning forward for a better look.

“Never seen one of those before?” he asked. “There’s a lot of them around here.” But only this one marks the Northern boundary of our estate. Draco pulled out his wand and concentrated. It’s probably paranoia to expect new defences this far out, but -

Ghostly colours flared up in the air in front of him, rising from the chalk horse like an escaping soul. More colour appeared above the track-ways leading from either end of it, and it brought back memories. Draco had been taken to walk the wards at the Manor with his father long before he’d been allowed near the ones at the Castle; raised in a less violent age, they were less dangerous, set up to trap intruders rather than kill them in vicious and inventive ways.

He looked at the patterns in the colours and could see nothing out of the ordinary. Generations of tampering had left the Manor’s wards as full of holes as Swiss cheese, but they were still the most formidable wards ever raised around a family home. Because one thing our family has always excelled in is making formidable enemies. Those words had been spoken over a decade before, but Draco could hear his father’s voice as clearly as if he was floating in the air beside him.

“Are you all right?”

Draco didn’t respond. The world had twisted so badly - here he was, about to take through the wards someone he’d always thought of as his personal contribution to that list of enemies, just another of the actions that seemed to be making him an enemy out of his own father…

“Touch me,” he said eventually.

“What?”

“The wards need a gesture of…well, not friendship as such, more like alliance, to let you through with me. We should clasp hands, but I want to be able to use my wand. Take hold of my arm or something.” Potter’s fingers closed around Draco’s wrist, doing no more than he’d been told to - and every muscle in Draco’s body chose to tense up. “And if you’ve put any spells on me - anything from Imperius to a love potion, now would really be the time to own up.”

“Love potion?” Potter sounded amused; Draco’s fingers tightened around his wand. He tried to satisfy himself by simply imagining the hexes he could use on Potter - it didn’t work.

“That was just an example!” And a suspicion… “Didn’t you see what I was doing there - going from the Unforgivable Curse to the silly little thing that might seem harmless but is still a form of control?” And there’s no way of saying this that won’t be humiliating, but - “If you’ve got even the tiniest bit of magical control over me, the wards will fuck you over - royally.”

“Do you think I have?”

Yes…it’s the only rational explanation for the way you’re making me feel… “One way to find out.”

Draco felt the little tug on his body as they passed through the wards. Potter’s fingers tightened on his wrist as he felt it too, but he wasn’t torn away from Draco. So no magical control, then…damn…

“You can let go of me now.”

“Oh, right.” But his fingers lingered for just a second more than they had to, and as they left the White Horse behind, Draco wasn’t thinking about what might be waiting for them at the Manor, or why Potter was so determined to go there. All he could think about was that touch.

What the hell is happening to me..?

*

So much for the blazing fight he’d expected. The grounds of the Manor seemed deserted, landscaped park and ornamental gardens alike dozing in the hot, heavy air; if Draco ignored the heat of Potter’s body and the weight of the invisibility cloak, he could almost imagine himself returning home after a day out exploring the Downs on his broom.

Almost. The quiet didn’t relax him, but seemed to make him tenser - he scrutinised every shadow, flinched at every birdcall. A magpie startled out of its lethargy by the sound of their feet hitting the roof became, in Draco’s imagination, an Animagus sounding the alarm and cursing them with every squawk.

He scrambled and slipped over the tiles. The cloak fell off him as he pulled away from Potter, but he didn’t care. Even covered by it he’d felt exposed and vulnerable; he just wanted to get inside.

“Over here!” Only one of the attic windows was murky with dust and cobwebs. Draco opened it with a quick muttered “Alohomora,” and reached up to grab the window ledge. “This is the one room guaranteed to be deserted.”

Famous last words… As Draco clambered in, he saw that it wasn’t deserted at all. A little boy in dirty, homespun robes was sitting on the bed, Draco’s precious books strewn around him in various stages of ruin, holding up a torn page to his face as if he didn’t quite know what the words were but would figure it out through sheer willpower alone.

He leapt to his feet and bolted for the door. Draco looked at the desecrated books and hit him with a hex so powerful it sent him flying.

Grubby little shit!

Those books were supposed to be Draco’s secret. Each had arrived in mysterious circumstances, from an unknown benefactor, in a clandestine game that, as a child, had thrilled him almost as much as the wondrous, alien worlds revealed in their pages. Even after their contents had ceased to interest him, and he’d guessed the nature of their authors, he’d kept them safe.

His father in particular would have had a heart attack if he found the little stash, but that just added a sinful edge to the secret that made it all the more delicious.

And now they’ve been destroyed. Not even for any ideological reason, but just because this little fucker wanted a plaything…

The kid shrank back. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong - just looking at the pictures! Please don’t hurt me! If you do you’ll regret it! My mum will gut you, and the Leader will piss on your bones!”

Draco’s wand went back, and he heard himself make a sound that was almost a growl. Then he was grabbed from behind, strong fingers closing around his wrist.

“He’s just a kid!”

More like a demon brat from Hell… But Draco’s rage was already ebbing - the natural result of trying to divide itself between two targets. He pulled himself free of Potter’s grip. The kid’s terrified eyes followed his every movement, fixed not on his face, but his arm - and the Dark Mark.

“My family will kill you both!”

“And piss on us too - I think I caught that bit. Nice.”

“I thought you said this room was always deserted?” Potter snapped.

“Always deserted by adults. Kids don’t have any problems with it - but what the fuck a kid’s doing here anyway -” But Potter’s gaze was suddenly fixed on the bed. His mouth dropped open.

Guess he’s just found out why adults avoid this room.

Draco didn’t need to look at the bed to know what Potter was seeing. The magic that Draco’s great-grandfather and his lover had raised in that room had left its mark. The forms writhing on the bed, almost-white hair mingling with jet-black, ivory skin up against olive, weren’t sentient beings like ghosts, but mere echoes from the past. Not that that made them any less disturbing, especially to a fourteen-year-old boy wanting some private time with his girlfriend.

And Pansy just had to decide that it was Father and Professor Snape. That flattened the entertainment factor completely. Every dinner that holiday had been a nightmare, with Pansy trying not to snigger and Lucius convinced she was mad or insolent or both. No wonder my parents never really took to her…

Potter took a ragged breath. “That’s not physically possible…” he muttered, and Draco found fascination replacing the anger. He had no desire to look at the bed, especially with images of his father and Snape floating in his head, but the real show was happening on Potter’s face.

“Come on - bet you and Weasley were doing that every night.” Potter blinked; Draco had never seen him so flustered.

“What’re you lookin’ at?” Draco heard the kid’s question, but ignored him. He could almost smell Potter’s arousal.

“Well, you said you hadn’t done anything with the Weasleyette - you must have lost your virginity to someone, to be able to see this. The innocent can’t. That’s how I could sit up here all day as a kid, but when I came up here with Pansy - well, let’s just say we both got a bit of a shock.” Potter’s gaze found its way to Draco. His eyes were wide and bright as he shook his head slowly. “No? You must have done something to someone - what the hell did you do? Wank over him while he slept?”

Potter flushed and looked away. Draco realised that he could smell him. The throbbing of Potter’s pulse was a faint sound, but he could hear it, a counterpoint to his own racing heart. The chattering call of the magpies outside on the roof suddenly seemed painfully loud.

So did the creak of the floorboards as the kid took a sneaky step towards the wall. One more step and he’d be through the false panel, into whichever part of the house it was connected to that day.

“You don’t need to run,” Potter said, “we won’t hurt you.” The kid’s gaze flicked to the wand that was suddenly in his hand.

I wouldn’t believe him either. Watch out, kid - he’s crazy.

“Who are you? Are you alone?”

“I’m Pack,” the boy snarled. “We’re never alone.”

“Pack?”

“Werewolves,” Draco said slowly. “Looks like the Dark Lord is still finding new ways to humiliate my family.”

The kid glared at him, and said “this is our new home!” as if daring Draco to contradict him. “It’s our place - where we can be free and build up our forces until we’re strong enough to make wizards pay for thousands of years of persecution! And you will pay. We‘re strong - bound up in the heartbeat of Nature - the time has come for us to stop buying into the shame wizards force on us and make them fear and respect us!”

The room suddenly seemed very cold and small. The kid’s anti-wizard rhetoric was as parroted as Draco’s own anti-Muggles views had been at that age, and should have been comical. But I know who’s been teaching him it… A sick thought crossed his mind - it was a real wonder the kid couldn’t see the echoes, given who he was hanging with.

*

Harry listened to the boy’s rant with a sick feeling growing in his stomach. He couldn’t be more than nine, and surely couldn’t understand all of what he was saying, but his eyes burned with hatred, and the venom in his voice was very real.

That werewolves should be treated better seemed like a no-brainer to Harry. He been outraged at the way Lupin was being forced to live. He was no monster, but a kind, intelligent man with an illness. They need sympathy, not hate. But then he thought of Fenrir Greyback, and his use of infection as a weapon, and felt fear and disgust twist together inside him. Harry knew what Greyback’s way of ’making wizards pay’ would be, and all the sympathy in the world couldn’t stop his skin crawling at the thought of it.

“’Bound up in the heartbeat of nature’?” Draco said scornfully “When did old blood-and-guts Fenrir start channelling a bleeding-heart Half-breed Rights activist? Or did he just eat one?”

“Don’t talk about the Leader like that!” The kid flew at Draco, and was hit by a binding spell in mid-charge. “And we’re not ‘Half-breeds’ - we’re wolves.”

“No,” Draco said as he caught hold of the binding ropes and hauled the kid to his feet. “Wolves are good-natured, social creatures who only kill for food. Do you really think that describes you and your kind? I don‘t.”

“Do you think Greyback’s here - in the house?” Harry asked.

“I fucking hope not,” Draco said, quietly but with feeling. “But Wolf-boy here can be a hostage if we run into any other members of his ‘pack’.” He jerked the ropes and the kid swore at him. “Do you kiss your mother with that potty mouth?”

“Do you?” Harry said. Draco glared at him; he shrugged and grinned. “And I don’t think we need a hostage.”

“I’ve got a lot to swear about,” Draco muttered. He let go of the rope and the little boy cursed some more as he hit the floor. “Does taking a hostage offend your delicate sensibilities, Potter?”

It did, actually, but Harry decided not to raise to the bait. They’d wasted enough time already - anyone would think he doesn’t want to leave this room.

Though the delay hadn’t entirely been down to Draco… Harry glanced back at the bed. Ghostly and flickering as the men were, he could pick out strands of pale hair stuck to the blond man’s face and neck and chest, see his mouth open in silent ecstasy and his body jerking in time to his lover’s rather violent thrusts… Harry looked away, still not sure if he should be horrified or fascinated.

“The cloak fits over two people easier than three, and I think he’d be more trouble than he’s worth.” He stepped up close to Draco and slung the Invisibility cloak around them both.

To his surprise, Draco didn’t argue. He just leaned closer and whispered, “do you think they look like Father and Professor Snape?”

Harry shut his eyes, and grimly fought against the image that had just been slipped into his head. “I didn’t,” he said. “Thanks for just scarring me for life.”

“You‘re welcome.”

*

The Long Gallery was not quite how Harry remembered it. Strips of canvas crunched beneath his feet, torn from the paintings on the walls. Several of the windows were broken, and the sunlight shining through the remnants of their pretty lead tracery painted the room with shadows like clutching skeletal fingers. The air was foul with a smell Harry was trying his best not to think of as stale urine. And the doors of the mahogany cabinet hung open, the trinkets it had held scattered and broken on the floor. The little portrait was nowhere to be seen.

Draco was quiet and tense beside him. Harry tried to imagine what he was thinking and feeling, and decided that he couldn’t. Imagining Number Four, Privet Drive wrecked and looted didn’t bring up any comparable feelings - but then, that had never really been Harry’s home in the first place, just somewhere he’d been grudgingly allowed to sleep.

He tentatively touched Draco’s arm, and the other boy turned his head to look at him, lips twisting into a bitter smile. “Go on, Potter, tell me how they’ll all get what’s coming to them. I actually believe it when you say it.”

“I can’t promise you revenge.” Draco gave a little snort, as if Harry was living up to all his - very low - expectations, and looked away. Harry’s fingers on his jaw forced him to look back. “But I will promise you something. We will survive this. The Wizarding World will survive this. Voldemort can throw whatever he likes at us, but he will be defeated, and the world will go back to normal.”

“That’s quite a promise,” Draco said - without a hint of sarcasm, for which Harry was very grateful. He’d meant every word, but there’d always been the chance that Draco would see it as ridiculous, just another example of Harry ’Chosen One’ Potter and his delusions of grandeur. Some part of Harry could see it that way himself. Draco’s eyes glinted. “That kind of promise should be written out in your own blood.”

I don’t need to - the Universe heard me. It was a ridiculous thought, but his words had felt as binding as an Unbreakable Vow. Harry swallowed, suddenly unsure of himself. He felt the skin move under his fingertips as Draco grinned.

“What - no snappy comeback, Potter? Don’t tell me you’re seriously considering it? Remember, Hubris is the sin most frowned upon by the go-” Harry cut off the stream of words with his mouth.

Draco resisted for all of two seconds, then he was kissing back with a ferocity that was almost as frightening as it was exhilarating. It wasn’t the right time, and it certainly wasn’t the right place, and there probably wasn’t anything ‘right’ about it, but that passion was irresistible, as was his heat, his scent, his taste…and Harry was discovering just how many nerve endings his skin possessed as Draco slid his hands under his t-shirt.

“Invisible boy, is that you?”

The plaintive little voice barely registered with Harry. He pushed Draco against the cabinet - and got a shock when Draco shoved him back, frantically untangling himself from the folds of the cloak.

“Cassiopeia?”

Harry watched him drop to his knees and reach behind the cabinet.

“This is filthy,” Draco muttered. “Mother should have those house-elves whipped more often…” That sentence was the perfect passion-killer - until he glanced over his shoulder at Harry and grinned. “Just joking. After all - whipping wouldn’t make the little bastards any less lazy.”

“Who is that? Where‘s Invisible Boy? I heard him -”

“I’m here,” Harry said, as Draco pulled the little portrait out from behind the cabinet. He carefully wiped the dust from it and beamed down at the little girl, who was peering up at him suspiciously.

“I thought Father had had all your portraits destroyed,” he said. “Mother must have saved one.”

“Draco?” The hope in her voice was painful to hear; Harry felt like he was intruding on a private moment. Draco nodded, still grinning, and she let out a squeal of delight that was painful in a different way.

Draco pretended to rub at his ears. “Calm down, Cass - you’re going to burst my ear-drums.”

“You’re all grown up!”

“It happens.”

“Not to me, it seems,” Cassiopeia said calmly. “Why haven’t I got any other portraits?”

“You’re dead.”

“Oh.” She digested that for a moment. Harry was expecting hysterics, but she just nodded, bottom lip trembling. “Right. That makes sense. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“You’re a portrait,” Draco said. “You don’t think.”

“Then what am I doing now?”

“What you’re supposed to do - being an echo of my big sister for me.” He sighed. “In every irritating detail.”

Harry aimed his wand at the doors and locked them before he sank down on the floor next to Draco. As he shrugged off the cloak, Cassiopeia’s insulted pout turned into a smirk, and Harry wondered why he hadn’t realised before. The resemblance went far beyond shared colouring. “Ah - the burglar - nice of you to finally show yourself.”

“I told you - I’m not a burglar.”

“Of course - you’ve just got really bad manners. I remember.” Draco was starting to grin again, and Harry made a point of ignoring him.

“I need to ask you about the cup - and the man you said took it. Did you know him?” Harry looked up. Draco’s amusement had shifted into out-and-out curiosity, and Harry realised just how much trust he was placing in him. I don’t believe he’s a spy, whatever everyone else says.

“Not really. I think he was a friend of Father’s, but he didn’t come around very often. I didn’t like him much - he was old and grumpy and greasy and had a big nose. And he looked at me like I was a misbehaved house-elf. Draco used to hide from him.”

Draco burst out laughing. “That’s almost word-for-word what Pansy said when we were Sorted!” Harry waited for an explanation. Still shaking with laughter, Draco pulled out his wand. The dust on the floor whirled up into the air, forming a face. “Of course, it didn’t take long for her to decide that actually he was a complete god.”

Cassiopeia bounced up and down against her backdrop of summer flowers, all that unnatural Malfoy composure lost, looking for once like a normal little girl as she clapped her hands together in excitement. “Yes! That’s him! That’s a brilliant likeness! You’re brilliant!”

“You didn’t always think that,” Draco said with a grin.

Harry stared at the face of Severus Snape in the dust.

*

Draco’s mind was whirling as they made their way back to the secret room. He wasn’t worried about Potter trying to kiss him again - he had Cassiopeia’s portrait under his arm, and that heavy gold frame would make an excellent bludgeon - but he was curious as to what the hell was going on.

All the travelling, all the sneaking about - it was all just so Potter could ask a portrait some questions about a cup? What’s so important about a cup?

Maybe it’s some ancient and terrible weapon that Potter can use to defeat the Dark Lord…a very well-disguised one… Or a cup he can drink from to boost his power so he can defeat the Dark Lord… Or maybe drinking from it will make him immortal - I’ve heard legends about goblets like that…

“What did this cup look like, then?” he whispered to Cassiopeia as they passed through the false panel. Potter started to untangle himself from the cloak, and Draco was glad to finally get some distance between them. The moody bastard had been scowling away to himself ever since he’d seen Snape’s picture, and he glared at the echoes on the bed as if they were doing it to personally offend him.

“Big and gold with the cutest little badger crest,” Cassiopeia said.

Draco’s feet knocked against something. He looked down.

The ropes he’d used to bind Wolf-boy were laying in so many stretched and snapped pieces on the floor.

This isn’t good…