Chapter Text
Draco races through the hallway with his heart in his throat, the pounding of several sets of footsteps trailing after him as he flees through the Manor’s halls in a desperate attempt to escape the fate the Dark Lord has planned for him. The moment he pushes through the door to his room, he slams it shut behind him and hastily wards it to hold the Death Eaters out, long enough for him to cast the spell his mother taught him in case an emergency escape route became necessary. Draco struggles to steady his breathing and focus as he traces the mirror’s edge with his wand in a rhythmic pattern and murmurs the incantation, ignoring the violent banging against the door behind him.
“Draco!” Bellatrix sings, but Draco knows she’s anything but pleased. He flinches, but he doesn’t stop casting, even as the cacophony of spells begin to rain down on his wards.
“I told you the boy’s only a waste of time!” Greyback snarls, and Draco’s heart pounds and his throat closes against the fear of Grayback getting inside and finally making good on his threats. “I’m going to enjoy ripping him apart!”
The hand holding Draco’s wand trembles harder, but the spell must be working because as he watches, the words begin to write themselves in glowing cursive script, following the path of his wand along the mirror’s golden edge. The air grows thick with powerful magic, and not for the first time, Draco wonders where his mother learned of this surely illegal spell, but at least it’s no longer a mystery as to why she told him of its existence a few short weeks ago. She’d made him promise to learn it as quickly as possible, and with a shot of panic—as the end of glowing lettering has nearly reached the beginning—Draco remembers he’s supposed to imagine where he wants to go while he casts.
Safe, Draco thinks frantically. Take me somewhere safe!
His wards shatter against the onslaught of curses at the same moment as the spell completes itself, leaving behind a shimmering ripple effect like the surface of water where his reflection stares fearfully back at him. The door bursts open in a violent explosion, and with a shaky inhale, Draco squeezes his eyes shut and steps through the glass, his vision twisting and spinning in a nauseating echo of vertigo. His stomach lurches violently and then there’s solid ground beneath his feet, so suddenly that his knees give out and he’s sent stumbling forward into another body and the panic is right back, stronger than ever. Mother was wrong, he didn’t make it, he’s been caught and the Dark Lord will torture and kill them all—
There’s a sharp, alarmed inhale from the body in front of him as arms far too small to belong to a Death Eater wind themselves instinctually around his waist to keep the both of them from toppling over with the force of the collision. Draco shoves his hands between them and shoves, stumbling back until his spine hits what he glances down to realize is a bathroom sink, and when he takes in his surroundings, he can’t bring himself to feel anything but soul-crushing relief to find Harry Potter standing across from him, looking more perplexed than Draco’s ever seen him.
“Malfoy? What—“ The confusion quickly shifts to alarm as he takes in Draco’s disastrous appearance. “Malfoy, you’re shaking. Is that blood?”
“I need your help,” Draco bursts desperately. Merlin, the Draco from a week ago would have been disgusted by his current behavior, but after the events of the last few hours, he can’t really bring himself to care if it means he’s away from that nightmare. “Please, Potter. I can’t—I can’t go back there.”
Potter grips his shoulders and hastily urges him to sit down on the lid of the loo, taking his own seat on the edge of the tub. “What’s going on, Malfoy? How did you even find this place? It’s supposed to be protected.”
Draco hesitates, but he knows Potter will only consider helping him if he tells him the truth. “To punish my father for his failure, the Dark Lord had a plan.” He swallows hard. “When the new year starts, he wants me to—to kill the Headmaster, and find a way for the Death Eaters to infiltrate the school. He wanted me to take the Dark Mark tonight.”
Potter sucks in a sharp breath, his hands gripping the edge of the tub in a white-knuckled grip, but he doesn’t speak.
Draco’s hands tremble on his thighs, so he curls them into fists in an attempt to quell the involuntary movement. “I couldn't do it, so I—I ran away right before the ceremony. I used a spell Mother taught me in case of an emergency to take me somewhere safe, but I didn’t know it would spit me out here.” Draco puts his head in his hands, the corner of his eyes stinging with the mortifying urge to cry. “What am I supposed to do? If I go back now, they’ll either force me to complete his tasks or kill me for refusing. I’ll never be able to go home.” The thought of running away and leaving Mother there alone sends him into a new kind of panic, and his head snaps up in alarm as his heart threatens to burst from his rib cage. “Mother!” he gasps. “No, no, I have to go back! If he figures out I’ve left, he’ll—“
Potter catches Draco’s shoulders again before he can leap to his feet and pushes him carefully back down. He doesn’t let go until the tension in Draco’s shoulders from the burning urge to run begins to ease. “We’ll worry about your mother later,” he assures. “Right now, we need to figure out what to do about you, alright?” At Draco’s hesitant nod, Potter lets his hands fall and sits back down. “Did you have any sort of plan before using the spell?”
“I wasn’t even sure where the mirror would take me when I stepped through it,” Draco admits, shaking his head. “I certainly wasn’t expecting to see you on the other side.”
“Is there somewhere you could go where Voldemort can’t find you?” Potter presses.
Draco’s shoulders slump with the weight of what he’s done. He curls his hands together in his lap as he answers gravely, “The only places I would think to go are in the family, and Bellatrix would certainly find me there.”
Potter’s brows pin together and he stares vacantly, as if lost in deep thought, but Draco knows it’s no use. He’s made a grave mistake, and now he’ll have no choice but to return to the Manor and suffer the consequences of his actions, or live out his days on the streets like a common rat, begging for food and shelter. His breath catches and jerks unsteadily as his blood begins to rush through his ears with the realization. What was he thinking? He should have stayed, taken the Mark tonight as the Dark Lord wished. At least that way, Draco would know that his mother hadn’t suffered for his cowardice.
“He won’t find you here.”
Everything goes silent and still in Draco’s mind as he looks up in astonishment to find Potter’s green eyes already staring steadily back at him. It’s the same look he used to get when defending his friends from Draco and Crabbe and Goyle’s antagonizing, but this time in Draco’s defense against his family and the Dark Lord himself, and he isn’t sure what to do with that. When he goes too long without saying anything, Potter’s determined expression cracks with uncertainty. “Only if you want to, I mean. I know we don’t really get along much, and I’m not exaggerating when I say the Dursleys are an absolute nightmare—“
“Okay,” Draco says.
Potter snaps his mouth shut and repeats incredulously, “Okay?” An embarrassed flush rises to his cheeks, and he swallows. “Right, okay. I’ll take you to my room, then. Be quiet, though; the Dursleys can’t know you’re here until I figure out how to convince them to let you stay.”
Draco’s chest clenches anxiously at the ominous sound of that statement, but Potter casts him a lopsided, reassuring smile that makes his shoulders relax slightly. He follows as Potter leads them down a narrow hallway filled with family photos, none of which include Potter himself. When they finally stop at a door, Draco stills, unable to tear his eyes away from the various locks climbing the edge above the doorknob. A glance toward Potter shows him seemingly unbothered by the bolts and locks as he opens the door, and Draco notices immediately how empty the room looks, aside from the bare minimum of basic human necessities—a bed far too small for a fifteen year-old of Potter's size, a simple wooden desk, a small wardrobe pushed against one wall, and a cage with a blanket covering what Draco can only assume is home to Potter’s snowy owl, resting on top of a dresser. Draco’s stomach turns and his mouth dries when he catches sight of the metal bars on the lone window above the desk; the image he’s gathering of Potter’s home life is beginning to look very different from what Draco had thought all these years of spoiled, famous Harry Potter, and the result is extremely unsettling. “Potter—“ Draco croaks, guilt squeezing his chest like a vice grip when he remembers all the times he bullied him for the death of his parents. How he must have yearned for them instead of this suffocating cruelty. The Dursleys are a nightmare, he’d said, and Draco wonders belatedly how much worse it might get. This is merely Potter’s bedroom.
Potter must see the burning question in his eyes because his expression closes off, and he gives a sharp jerk of his head in dismissal. “It’s fine, Malfoy.”
And Draco owes Potter, so no matter how heavy the questions sit in his throat, waiting to be addressed, Draco obediently drops the subject. No matter what Potter’s home is like, it can’t be worse than living with the Dark Lord himself.