An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 20/20
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Characters: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Voldemort, Lucius Malfoy, Peter Pettigrew, Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape
Additional Tags: Adventure, Slow Build, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Dark Magic, Slash, Plotty, Male Bonding
"You're dead, Potter... I'm going to make you pay..."
Draco swore his revenge on Harry for Lucius's imprisonment, and Harry all but laughed at him. But Draco is planning more than schoolyard pranks this time. The old rivalry turns deadly when Draco abducts Harry for Voldemort. It's the perfect plan, guaranteeing revenge, power, and prestige, all in one blow. But when Draco's world turns upside down, the fight to save himself and Harry begins, and the battle will take them both through hell and back. If they come back.
Harry had flown by means of magic many times. Whether by broomstick, or illegal flying Ford Anglia, the air had been his domain. This, however, was totally different. He wasn't relying on something physically present to carry him aloft from beneath him. Instead, he felt an odd lightness wash over his body, and with a lurch, his feet left the ground.
The earth retreated from his feet. Draco was looking up at him, wand held steady, jaw set with the concentration of a man walking a tightrope. Without a net. Harry tried not to shudder at the thought, and quickly looked up. The branch was approaching him rapidly. Just a couple more feet...
Harry reached out and grasped the branch. Through his body, he felt the levitation charm falter, but it held steady. Trying to work within the charm, Harry carefully maneuvered himself onto the branch and straddled it. Once he had his balance, he swallowed, and finally let out the breath he'd been holding. "Okay, Draco. I'm all set."
An instant later, he felt the charm disappear, and he turned his attention to the peculiar parasitic plant on the branch in front of him. "Draco, how much of this stuff do we need?"
"Well," came the response from below, "the potion calls for seven large leaves, and seven berries, but I'd say it's always good to have extra. It looks like there's a lot of it up there, so we might as well get at least twice as much, you know, in case something happens."
"Okay," Harry said, not taking his eyes from the branch in front of him. He reached into the tuft of plant matter, found a stem, and quickly drew it across the blade. He repeated the action two more times, which gave him a large pile of loose foliage. "Okay, I'm going to drop it down." He glanced over the edge of the branch, where he could see Draco looking up at him intently from below. "You ready to catch it?"
Draco nodded, then shook his head. He reached into the travel sack, pulled out the cloak, quickly enlarged it, and spread it on the ground below Harry. "Now, drop it. That way, we won't loose any of the berries."
"Good idea." Gently, so as not to damage the plant any more than necessary, Harry untangled his stems from the rest of the mistletoe, held it out over Draco's cloak, and dropped it. It was pushed a bit by the breeze as it fell, but it landed softly amongst the blue folds of cloth. Harry smiled, and looked from the mistletoe to Draco's face.
Draco was smiling just as broadly. "Ready to come down, you funny looking squirrel, you?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "Actually, I was thinking of taking permanent residence in this tree. You know, begin gathering nuts for the winter. YES, I'm ready to come down!"
Draco laughed, but quickly set his face in a look of strict concentration. Seconds later, Harry felt the levitation charm permeate his body again. He released his grip on the branch, and the branch fell away beneath him. Draco lifted him up, to the side, and then slowly, he began to descend. It seemed to take forever for his feet to touch the earth, but it was such a relief to feel solid ground beneath him again as he set down in front of Draco. Again, he felt the charm rapidly fade away.
The stern set of Draco's jaw relaxed, and he breathed a visible sigh of relief.
Harry smiled at him. "And who says your levitation charms aren't the best?"
"Well, the ministry man who graded my Charms OWL, for one," Draco grumbled, "but I had a reason for that."
Draco actually looked rather chagrined. "I believe I told you... just not in so many words. I was too busy paying attention to you. I... er... had a bad habit of doing that."
"Really, now?" Harry asked, taking a step closer.
Draco was rapidly going red in the face. "Come on, Harry... I haven't been able to ignore you since the first day of school, five years ago."
"Because," Draco said deliberately, "you were an annoying prat who made my life miserable at every turn. Everywhere I looked, there you were, doing some new amazing thing to charm the professors, impress the other students, and make me look like a fool. I couldn't avoid you even if I tried. And then, you walked into the middle of my Charms OWL, where I had actually been performing the best levitation charm I ever had – I'd had that wineglass dancing only seconds before you came in – and I turned to smirk at you, and bam! There goes my Charms OWL."
Although Draco's tone was serious, Harry had come to know him well enough to tell by the look in his eyes that he was being sarcastic. Quickly adopting the same frame of mind, Harry cocked his head and pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Don't you mean 'crash! There goes my Charms OWL'?"
Harry laughed. "Well, I haven't really been able to avoid you either, you know. You challenged me to duels and never showed up –"
"Only one duel," Draco mumbled.
"– you became the Slytherin Seeker, and sometimes, I swear you did it just so you could best me –"
"Yeah, worked like a charm, that did." Draco seemed even less impressed.
"– and best of all, you went to all the trouble of arranging this lovely camping trip for the both of us."
For a moment, it seemed that Draco wasn't sure whether or not Harry was serious. He must have decided quickly, because his grin suddenly matched Harry's. He sent a deliberate glance up at the tree branch where Harry had been perched just a minute before. "We make a pretty good team, don't we?"
Harry's gaze followed Draco's. The branch didn't seem any closer than it had when he'd first looked up, even though he'd already been up there. If Draco's charm had failed... well... he really didn't care to think about that. The point was that the charm had worked. "Yeah," Harry said. He looked back down and met Draco's eyes. "Yeah, we do. It's kinda funny, but we couldn't have done it without each other. Actually, I don't think either of us could have made it this far alone."
Draco's mouth suddenly fell open, as if he'd just realized something. "Merlin, that's what –" His mouth snapped shut again.
Draco shook his head. "Just something I was thinking about last night."
"Oh?" Harry folded his arms across his stomach. "Care to enlighten me?"
"I... well... I just noticed how much we rely on each other. You've done things I can't do, I've done things you can't do. And we've each saved each other's lives. It's a weird sort of thing." Draco hesitated for a moment. "I'm... not used to relying on someone like that... but we really do make a good team."
Harry couldn't stop himself from smiling. "I've got to admit, I'm surprised, but yeah, we really do." He took a small step closer to Draco. "And you know what?"
"What?" Draco's reply was barely above a whisper.
"No matter how tonight turns out... these last two weeks have been... something really special." Harry's smile wavered, and he started to feel a bit depressed. It felt like he was saying things now, just in case he didn't have a chance later. He was also feeling just a bit warm under his woolen jumper, and wished that he'd taken it off earlier. Still, he had to say this, and now seemed like the right time. "I want you to know... I'm glad I finally got to know Draco. Not just 'Malfoy'. And I'm grateful for that."
Draco must have sensed the note of finality, because he frowned, despite his own words of reply. "I'm glad I got to know you, too, Harry. And we'll have plenty more time to get to know each other better, of course."
This time Harry's smile faded. "We will," he said, just as a new fear hit him.
In that moment, he realized that he really did want to get to know Draco better. The sum of the past two weeks swirled through his mind, and he realized that in that time, he'd come to know Draco in a way he'd never known anyone else. Sure, he'd gone through life-threatening situations with Ron and Hermione, but this was different. Very different. Their two weeks of isolation, traveling together, sharing secrets, sleeping back-to-back, and even rescuing each other had created a sort of friendship that he knew could never be duplicated; it was something rare and precious, and he needed to keep it. They'd come to the point where they could anticipate each other's words and actions, they knew how to push each other's buttons, and how to read each other's senses of humour. Like adjacent puzzle pieces, something just fit. If he didn't make it through tonight, he'd lose so much – his fight with Voldemort, his chance to protect the wizarding world from the fate of his parents, and his new friendship with Draco. It seemed that now, one of the things driving his will to live was his need not to leave Draco behind. He couldn't.
"We got through everything else together," Harry said, "and we'll get through this."
Draco took a tiny step closer. They were barely a foot apart now, and from there, Harry could almost feel Draco's shaking. Nerves, emotions, fear, worry... whatever it was that was causing such a reaction from Draco, it was starting to affect Harry too.
"We will," Draco said. Even his voice was shaking. "You-Know- er... V-Voldemort isn't so tough. The two of us against him... easy stuff, right?"
The false bravado felt good, and Harry gave a tight laugh. "Easy. Hell, he lost to a baby, right?" he joked, although he didn't actually believe a word he was saying.
The corner of Draco's mouth twitched in something resembling a smile. "Must have been one hell of a baby."
Harry shrugged. "The kid wasn't anything special," he said, feeling a bit more honest this time. "He just... he just was lucky enough to have someone there who... who... cared about him. A lot."
Draco shivered, but he looked into Harry's eyes with blazing sincerity. Although he was just a foot away, he didn't back up. "I care."
There were no qualifiers to follow; just a heartfelt statement, and Harry felt it to the pit of his stomach. "I know you do. That's why this is going to work." He forced a half-smile back onto his face. "But for now... we found the mistletoe..." He pointedly eyed the branch above him. "I think I'd suggested that you show me what to do with mistletoe, once we found it."
In a heartbeat, Draco's face went from pure sincerity to a look of utter incredulity. He blinked twice. "Wha-what?"
