Chapter Text
It was Hermione’s idea, the whole thing.
She was in through the fireplace for barely five minutes when she said, without preamble, “Harry, you have to go to Norway.”
They were sitting around his newly installed kitchen island. It was the latest in his neverending list of DIY projects that gave Grimmauld Place the distinct stench of sawdust and sweat. Across the hall, his new couch from John Lewis had been sitting in its plastic wrapping for over a month. He still couldn’t make his mind up whether to have it facing the patio doors, or facing away. It wasn’t as if the overgrown garden was anything to look at.
“Is this about Ron?” Harry asked.
Hermione tapped her blunt fingernails against the tacky green mug in her hands, an old chipped thing that was supposed to resemble a head of cabbage. Harry found it in a Muggle charity shop a few months ago and thought it was the ugliest thing he’d ever seen. Naturally, he had to have it.
“You said you’d visit over the summer,” she said softly. Her hair was pinned in a neat bun and there was a streak of Floo powder on the left shoulder of her smart blue blazer. Beside her on the worktop, her handbag bulged with papers. “Harry, it’s almost September.”
He stared at her. “Christ. Surely not?”
He twisted around to look at the calendar pinned to his fridge with a Wheezes magnet. Right enough, the little orange cat that moved from day to day was stuck somewhere in the middle of August, licking its paw and blinking placidly at them both.
How did that happen?
Harry muddled through his memory. This time two years ago, the summer they were all gearing up to head back to Hogwarts, Ron was in Romania with Charlie after he and Hermione unexpectedly called it quits mere months into their relationship. Like Ginny and Harry, once the dust settled, they realised the war perhaps had a bigger role to play in pushing them together than their genuine desire for a relationship. Hermione threw herself joyously into her studies and ambitions to make an impact in public service, and Ron, after spending time with his brother and the dragons, found a new passion to finally call his own, earned without Harry and Hermione at his side. Which meant he’d been in Vestland for—
“A year? He’s been in Norway for a year?” Harry asked, scratching the back of his head. Since leaving school, he’d had approximately one haircut, and his curls stuck out wildly from his scalp, dropping over his forehead and the back of his neck.
Hermione blew over the top of her tea. Her lips twisted in a moue and she carefully set down the hideous cabbage mug. It clicked against the marble, and she pulled in a steady, bracing breath that told Harry he was about to hear some home truths.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Harry, but—you dropping by my office unannounced really has to stop.”
He blinked. “What’s that got to do with anything?” Then, “You don’t like me coming to visit? I thought you liked me coming to visit? I thought that was—like, our thing?”
“It’s your thing, Harry,” she said, and the way it stung must have shown on his face, because a second later she was reaching out with both hands to cup his cheeks. Her palms were warm and a little moist from all the mug-holding. “I have to work. This year is very important. It’s probable I’m next in line for a mid-level position in the department, and then I’m a shoo-in for manager, then head, then—” Her eyes turned misty, her voice dreamy. “Minister.”
“Right,” Harry sulked. “I’m really happy for you.”
Hermione frowned, letting go of his face. “Harry,” she said, her voice stern. “What I’m trying to say is—you need to… find something. A hobby, a calling, a career. Something to occupy your days other than—skulking around this place. I think you need some outside perspective. I’m worried about you.”
She was mad, clearly. Harry laughed dryly and gestured around himself. At the countertops, the marble island. The random plank of wood on the floor and the toolbox overspilling with Muggle gadgets he didn’t really know how to use yet. “What do you call all this? I’m doing up Grimmauld. That’s what I’m doing with my days. I’m saving this place from ruin.”
Above the sink, a leak from the pipe upstairs dripped down from the brown, water-stained plaster, hitting the rusted ceramic basin with a pointed plop.
“Yes,” Hermione said slowly. “But you can’t do this forever, surely? And to be honest with you Harry, I’m not entirely sure it’s your calling. Either that, or it’s simply beyond repair.”
Harry frowned.
“Besides,” she cut in before he could argue. “Ron misses you.”
Harry traced a vein in the marble countertop with the tip of his finger. His stomach clenched uncomfortably. “It’s not as if he’s made the effort to come over here during his time off, though, has he?” he pointed out.
Hermione sighed. “Honestly? You’re both as bad as each other. But Harry,” she said, shifting in her stool, wrapping her fingers back around the mug. “You have more time off than Ron does, don’t you?”
“I suppose,” he admitted, though he’d argue saving Grimmauld from crumbling into its foundations counted as a full time job, even if it was rather thankless and paid in nothing more than sweat and swear words.
“I miss him too, you know,” he said, and it was the truth. He missed all his friends, who, two years ago, he’d been around every day. Many of them had returned to Hogwarts for Eighth Year: Hermione and Ron, of course. Neville. Dean. Seamus. Parvati and Padma. To foster a sense of fellowship—as McGonagall put it to them at the welcome feast—the entire Eighth Year cohort had been grouped together in a single dormitory with its own common room, its own identity, and a band of lost-looking eighteen-year-olds who at once felt too old for their bones and too young to be thrust out into the world N.E.W.T.-less. That year, surrounded by his friends, Harry had wandered the ruined halls of the castle with nothing to worry about other than his exam results and what was being served for dinner that particular day.
There was no great puzzle to figure out; no huddles with Ron and Hermione in the library, in the common room, out in Hagrid’s hut. There was no nefarious DADA professor to be suspicious of, no Dumbledore’s Army to round up.
Instead, there were parties. Weekends spent getting drunk in the village pubs. Bed swapping. Casual Quidditch games. Slytherins making friends with Hufflepuffs.
The year had been, in every sense and meaning of the word, ordinary. Just a group of teenagers shuffling through lessons, picking their spots, and navigating the painful and awkward world of dating, all while trying to get their heads around the fact they were still alive, that they’d survived, that the good side had won after all.
It had been brilliant, and strange, and too short lived.
And now Ron was in a completely different country. Harry could count the number of times they’d seen each other in the past twelve months on one hand.
He sighed and rubbed at his face, pushing his glasses up to his forehead.
“Right,” he said decisively, guilt gnawing his stomach. “I should book it, shouldn’t I?”
Hermione squeezed his arm. “I think it’d be good for you.”
He nodded and finally picked up his mug, taking a long sip. There was something else they weren’t talking about though, and he rolled his mug between his palms, holding back a sigh. “I wonder if Malfoy’s still there.”
Hermione groaned. “Harry. Come on. Don’t even think about him. It’s Ron you should be thinking about.”
It was last Christmas, when they all found out Malfoy was moving his research to the sanctuary. For how long, Ron wasn’t sure. He wasn’t too happy about it at the time.
Malfoy was one of the few Slytherins to return to Hogwarts. The Ministry’s orders, Harry knew, but to everyone’s surprise, Malfoy had been somewhat decent. He’d mostly kept to himself for the first couple of months, spending time alone with a book in the common room or upstairs in his bedroom doing Merlin knew what. But then November came around, and Harry started noticing more and more that Malfoy and Neville, of all people, were getting closer: chatting quietly in the common room, playing chess by the fire, walking to lessons with their heads bowed together. It was Hermione who told Harry about their project in the end, that they were working on some sort of advanced Herbology qualification with Sprout. It was bizarre, their whole thing, but Harry brushed it off, because it wasn’t as if Malfoy made any effort to talk to him, and Harry likewise. They saw each other at the pub, at parties when they had them, in shared classes, but there was an unspoken agreement between the two of them to keep their distance.
It hadn’t been easy.
The summer before school, Harry had testified at Malfoy’s trials. While he explained, short and without embellishment, that both he and his mother saved his life, Malfoy stood silent and tight-jawed, offering only a view of his sharp profile.
Walking through the throng at court after the gavel had fallen, Harry lost sight of them, and it wasn’t until Eighth Year that he saw Malfoy again, his seemingly pointed edges softened just a little. Enough to let Neville in, at least, and eventually Hermione, who started studying with him at the library, much to Harry and Ron’s initial derision and great confusion. Harry made peace with Malfoy keeping his head down and minding his own business, but that didn’t mean he’d forgiven him for all the nasty crap he put Harry and his friends through over the years. When Harry told him so, angrily and maybe spoiling for a fight when he spotted Malfoy and Neville emerging from the Great Hall together just before the Christmas holidays, Malfoy had just nodded shortly, his gaze skittering away as he said quietly, “I’m sorry. I’m trying.”
Hermione told Harry Malfoy had already apologised to her. That he told her how ashamed he was, of everything. That he even cried a little. Harry hadn’t cried since the war.
“Yeah, fine,” Harry said, pushing his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “Ron’ll probably be grateful for the distraction.”
Hermione rolled her eyes. She rummaged in her bag, producing a couple of scrolls of parchment she unrolled onto the countertop. International Portkey applications.
“I knew you’d give in,” she said smugly.
After tea and half a packet of custard creams, Hermione wiped the crumbs from her blouse and hopped down from the stool, extending onto the tiptoes of her black ballet flats as she braced Harry’s arms and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
“How’s your sleep?” she asked him as she picked up the pot of Floo powder from the mantel in the library.
He rubbed the back of his head. “Fine?” he said. “I only woke up three times last night, which I think is a win?”
She fixed him with the same look she used to give him and Ron whenever they admitted they hadn’t started their homework that was due for the next day. Harry shrugged helplessly.
“It’s better,” he said. “The Dreamless you sent helps.”
Harry slept terribly those first few months back at school. He used to strip the bedding from his mattress, leaving it in great big mounds at the foot of his bed while he tossed and turned and sweated through the thin material of his pyjamas, his heart racing, his hearing tunnelled and fuzzy. He’d curl into a ball on his side and imagine wind whistling between gaps in a tent, the scent of earth in his nose, the press of Ron’s warm, broad palm against his back, Hermione’s hair tickling his skin.
“I think you’ve got a fever,” Ginny told him one morning in the Great Hall after everyone shuffled out for first lessons. Her skin had been warm, her lips shiny with strawberry-flavoured lip balm. They hadn’t kissed since the summer.
They broke up that night. The air smelled of a looming snowstorm, iron-like and cold. They stood outside the pub in Hogsmeade while Ginny’s hardened expression melted when the words finally left Harry’s mouth. When he told Ginny in a shuddered whisper, “I think I might be—I think I’m—”
She opened the edges of her fleece and pulled him inside, wrapping it around him while he trembled against the cold and she whispered, “It’s okay, it’s okay Harry, you don’t have to say it until you’re ready, it’s okay.”
Later that night, Harry couldn’t sleep. He pressed his cheek to the cold window of his new and strange dormitory, the one he was now sharing with Dean and Zacharias Smith. He stared out at the grounds while Smith’s gentle, contented snores filled the silence of the room, and when Harry eventually crawled into bed he felt lighter, but he still stayed awake until dawn.
Hermione narrowed her eyes at Harry. “Okay,” she said slowly, then pressed one last kiss to his cheek. Her hair smelled of lavender and quill ink, and the scent lingered in the air for a few minutes after she disappeared through the fireplace with a pop and the crackle of flames.
Groaning, Harry dropped into the musty green sofa, crowded by shelves stuffed with expensive old volumes he hardly ever touched, and well-thumbed crime fiction he’d picked up in Oxfam for pennies. He closed his eyes, tired from another restless night spent staring at the shadows on his bedroom ceiling while he dozed, dreaming of nothing but static.
-
The thing about the dragon sanctuary in Vestland was that no one told Harry he had to hike up a literal mountain to get to it.
He stared at his walking trainers, which were, admittedly, a bit shit. They were a panic purchase last summer when Dean and Ginny organised a graduation trip to the Lake District, but that turned out to be more pub crawl than hillwalk. There, they served Harry just fine. They did their job of getting him from A to B, from one pint to the next.
In the heart of the rugged Norwegian countryside, crawling over massive boulders and tipping forward onto wobbly stones, Harry was at serious risk of rolling an ankle.
His thighs burned from the effort of scrambling from one stone to the next, and his legs were splattered with mud from ill-judged hops into gaps between boulders, where the earth was soft and squelchy. Sweat soaked through his top, gathering under his arms and across his back and chest where his rucksack was strapped on, weighed down heavily by his sleeping bag, his clothes, his water bottle.
In his Owl, Ron told Harry to follow the red dots. In typical Ron fashion, his letter had been lengthy and detailed, and he even included a hand-drawn map on the back of the parchment that reminded Harry of Teddy’s storybooks: craggy hills, clustered groups of trees, a tiny doodle of an elk.
It’s an easy enough trail, the note said in Ron’s blocky script. But you can’t Apparate. It’s a dead zone, magically speaking. You’ll either zip back and forth and wind up back where you started, or you’ll splinch yourself badly. No flying either, I’m afraid. You’ll spook the dragons. They’re a feisty bunch up here!
But don’t worry. It’s a really lovely walk.
Harry recognised the stretch of grassland beyond the uneven rocks from the map; it extended hugely between the mountains, and the stream cut through it like a thin, sparkling rope. Most of the valley was shrouded in shadow except for the furthest mountains in the distance, where the late afternoon sunshine bore down on the rocks, hazy and rich.
Harry felt tiny.
He stepped down from the rocks and onto the narrow wooden walkway stretching from one side of the valley to the other. It was littered with muddy boot prints. Signs of life.
The flat surface was a welcome respite. It gave a chance for the sting in his feet to calm, and he felt himself cooling down too, sweat slipping from the underside of his chin, which he wiped at with the collar of his sweatshirt.
When he made it to the other side of the valley, Harry spotted a boulder marked clearly with a red dot.
He hoisted himself up, swearing softly under his breath when he scraped his ankle against the rough stone. A stretch of boulders and rocks bordered the edge of the stream and after another half hour of walking, he was on new land encased in rich foliage: thick woodland overhead and flattened earth, mounds of soft mud, and gnarled roots underfoot. Sunlight filtered through the branches in pale yellow rods, glittering and brilliant.
He could hear music.
It was muffled. Strange, ghostly, tinny. A Wireless?
Beside him, Harry spotted a pile of rocks marked with a red dot. He wasn’t far from the summit; at least, Harry hoped he wasn’t.
He followed the music, twigs and fallen branches bending and crunching beneath the soles of his trainers. He passed his hands over trees for balance, carefully avoiding hooking his toes under hidden roots.
The scent of pine and dry earth was suddenly overtaken by something sharper, something distinctly floral. It reminded Harry of Neville’s gardens: fresh, sweet but not heavy. Natural and clean, like mint and citrus.
Harry moved closer and the music became louder. With it, an offkey hum.
Carefully, he stepped over another gnarled root, creeping around the solid trunk of an elm. On the other side of the copse of trees was a clearing, and nestled within it, by the flow of the stream, was a small yellow cabin on stilts. Outside of the cabin, planted in the earth, was an old and rusted copper clawfoot bathtub, shadowed by a tall trellis on a deck wound with wild, flowering vines and an outdoor shower.
Thick, sweet-smelling steam rose from the tub.
A fat bead of sweat trickled down Harry’s temple and slipped off his jaw. He held his breath.
The humming was coming from behind the half open cabin door, swelling in and out as whoever was inside moved around: footsteps clattering, things lightly banging together just out of sight.
When they finally stepped outside and into the open, Harry nearly lost his footing.
Walking out of the cabin and onto the weathered decking was Draco Malfoy. He was at once very tall, very blond, and very, very naked.
Harry’s eyes roved of their own accord over lean, long legs. They focused in on a narrow waist and broad, pointed shoulders; they darted over bony wrists and ankles, over the neat pair of dimples at the small of Malfoy’s back. The muscles of his buttocks, round and firm, flexed as he moved around the trellis and swished his wand in the air, his magic pulling vines to wrap around the showerhead. Water streamed from it, at first a gurgled splutter, then a steady spray, filling the air with a medicinal scent.
Malfoy tugged his hair free from its messy bun, and Harry, frozen in place, stared as it fell around his face, tapering off above his shoulders, bone-white under the dappled sunlight. Malfoy turned and tilted his head beneath the stream, and Harry’s eyes followed the flow of water from Malfoy’s head to his shoulders, from his shoulders to his chest, from his chest to his stomach, from his stomach to his—
Harry looked up the moment Malfoy cracked his eyes open, his thumbs pulling flattened hair back from his face and shaking it out.
Fucking hell.
With a lurch, Harry ducked behind the tree, his heart thudding so violently in his chest he thought he might throw up.
When Ron told them Malfoy was joining the sanctuary’s team, he and Harry had both scoffed about it over the ale and mince pies Molly kept ploughing them with. Ron had whinged that they’d have to eat dinner together, that they’d have to share the same cutlery. It was like the Malfoy from Eighth Year never existed and he’d reverted back to the viscous little brat with dastardly plans to murder Ron in his sleep, that somehow Malfoy wasn’t a respected, up-and-coming researcher who’d been hired to do an actual job, the details of which were a mystery to them both.
How ironic, they both said, that Malfoy was interested in working with wild things, with animals and creatures and nature. Harry never actually saw Malfoy work with Neville, but the concept still baffled him all the same. It was impossible to imagine those spoiled, pampered hands getting dirty, and yet—
Dirt streaked Malfoy’s chest. Harry closed his eyes and pressed his back against the rough bark behind him. He definitely didn’t picture Malfoy bending over to wash himself. He definitely didn’t imagine Malfoy’s long, graceful fingers moving over his body, that arse of his flexing, his cock gently swaying, heavy between his legs.
Harry wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. It came away wet. Among the sharp scent of Malfoy’s bathing, he could smell himself too: salty, sweaty. An irritated sort of smell.
A smell that said: you don’t belong here.
Harry listened to the splash of water as it hit the decking, muffling the music and Malfoy’s insistent, tuneless humming.
Since school, Harry had had exactly one interaction with Malfoy.
It happened in the Ministry atrium.
Malfoy was wearing a grey suit at the time, neat and pressed beneath a plain pair of black robes. He looked nervous. When they shuffled into the lift together, Malfoy did a panicked double-take, and when the doors closed and trapped them inside together, his expression shuttered.
“Malfoy,” Harry said, eyeing the rolled up piece of parchment in Malfoy’s fist. He smelled like spicy cologne; Harry remembered that clearly.
A stiff nod. “Potter.”
Harry held his hands behind his back, swaying slowly on the balls of his feet. He felt Malfoy’s sudden stare on him, and when he turned his head to meet it, Malfoy’s slack expression was quickly smothered with a bored frown.
“So, er,” Harry said, still swaying, unable to keep still. “What’re you doing here?”
Malfoy held up his scroll, his voice quiet. “Passport application.”
“Oh,” Harry said eloquently. “I’m here to meet Hermione for lunch. She works here now.”
“I’ve heard rumours,” Malfoy said flatly, the corner of his mouth twitching.
“Yeah. She’s doing really well,” Harry said. He wasn’t sure where he was going with that but he enjoyed watching Malfoy squirm nonetheless, his eyes on the flashing numbers as they crawled further through the building. “Ron, too. He’s just accepted a job in Norway. Did you know? He’s training to be a wrangler.”
“Okay,” Malfoy said, his plummy accent moving slowly over the word as he glanced sideways at Harry.
Harry shrugged. A bunched up sensation pulled and swirled through the pit of his stomach as he stood there, breathing in the strong scent of Malfoy’s cologne.
Harry didn’t know what else to say; what else was there to report? His own latest job offer gathering dust at home was, this time, from the Magpies. His palms were sweaty as he thought about it, as he wondered, if he were to accept it, how he’d tell his friends.
Hey guess what? I was thinking about playing Quidditch. Professionally, I mean. Is that weird? It feels weird. Anyway, I’ve got the offer and I suppose I should do something, shouldn’t I?
Only, he never had, and that offer went unanswered, just like the rest.
“Well,” Malfoy said, breaking the awkward silence and straightening his robes, a hand flying through his curtained hair as they screeched to a halt on his floor. “As enlightening as this has been—”
“Where are you going?” Harry blurted, looking at the scroll again. The doors pinged open.
Malfoy stared at Harry, nonplussed, his pale eyebrows knitted together. “To get my passport approved,” he said slowly, like Harry was a child.
“No,” Harry said, stretching forward and holding a hand out to stop the lift from moving. “In the world? You’re leaving the UK? Where are you going?”
Malfoy stepped outside and threw Harry a glance over his shoulder. A dimple appeared right by the left side of his mouth, and for a second, Harry forgot how to make his tongue work, how to arrange his face, how to breathe.
“Away,” Malfoy said cryptically. “Say hi to Hermione for me.”
“Oh,” Hermione said, twenty minutes later when Harry met her in the cafeteria. She had a pencil in her hair and was balancing a tray of soup and sandwiches in the air with her wand. “Yes! He’s having to jump through some awfully big hoops to get there but, I put a word in for him. With his permission, of course.”
“His permission for what?” Harry asked her, unfathomably irritated by the whole scenario. “He’s leaving the country?”
Hermione hummed. The tray floated onto the table next to the tills, and Harry dug out his wallet before she could. “For research purposes,” she said. “He’s writing a book about wild magic in Europe. Funded by Oxford and everything. You should talk to Neville. He knows more details than I do.”
Harry folded his arms over his chest. “Nah,” he said, and with a roll of her eyes, Hermione dropped the subject and they ate lunch together without bringing up Malfoy again.
Back in the woods, when Harry opened his eyes, the sound of splashing water ceased, but the music continued to drift.
Harry turned slowly and glanced around the tree. Malfoy was in the bath, arms extended along the lip of the tub. His left arm was covered in ink: fine, black lines from elbow to fingertips. Harry squinted, trying to get a better look, but he was too far away to see it clearly.
He slunk back and counted to ten, staring at the pile of marked stones on the other side of the clearing. The Wireless changed tracks, and Harry took his chances.
He tiptoed away, his head swimming, his feet dodging loose roots until the woodland became solid rock once more and the trees overhead thinned out.
He crested the edge of the mountain. Straight ahead, at the foot of the summit, he could see the crooked signpost pointing to the sanctuary, but his sigh of relief was short-lived when a gust of wind nearly knocked him onto his back.
Harry reached out blindly and clung to the nearest boulder, curling forward as a huge black and scaly wing appeared above his head, extending outward and blocking the sun.
A sharp, bone-rattling screech pierced the air. The wind rushed over Harry again, ruffling his hair into his eyes and knocking his glasses to the tip of his nose.
The wail ended with a deep grumble, with the shuffle of claws on rock and a satisfied huff of heat that radiated over Harry from his crouched position on the rock.
“Oi!”
Harry glanced up. Ron climbed down from the back of the Norwegian Ridgeback, his dusty combats hitting the stone with a heavy smack. He crouched down and held a hand out to Harry. His wrists and fingers were covered in worn leather wraps.
“What a sight for sore eyes,” Ron said, grinning broadly, his red hair whipping in the wind. “You look hungry, mate.”