An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter/Ron Weasley
Characters: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood, Lucius Malfoy, Rubeus Hagrid, Newt Scamander, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson
Additional Tags: Arthurian, The Matter of Britain - Freeform, Time Magic, Fealty, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, love potions, Political Marriage, Goblins, Fantastic Beasts
Series: Part 11 of Harry Potter works
Hermione frowned. “The real question is why the magic of Britain would be failing now, in fact.”
“That is not the real question!” Ron said loudly; he’d woken up fully by now, and Harry had too; it was starting to sink in that they’d found the problem. “The real question is, how do we fix it?”
The church bells started ringing across the park: seven o’clock. It was already full dark, and the air was cold, a first taste of winter on the wind. Harry stood up. After a moment, he Apparated to the Manor gates and slowly walked down the drive to the house. The windows were shining with golden light against the night, and everyone was already at table in the Great Hall when he came inside. It wasn’t only the Slytherins from the king’s guard, either; a handful of the more junior Aurors were there, too, the ones who’d been too young for Dumbledore’s Army. They gave Harry vaguely defiant looks like they thought he’d be angry that they were there.
He didn’t really pay attention to any of them. He couldn’t. Draco was at the head, with his mother at his left hand, and the chair on his right was empty. His eyes followed Harry intently as he came in, and Harry went slowly down the room, and pulled out the chair, and sat down next to him. He took a deep breath. “Sorry I’m late,” he said.
It was the only thing he could think of to do. If he was in here, locked away with Draco, then Ron and Hermione wouldn’t let the imprisonment go on forever, no matter what Shacklebolt or the Wizengamot wanted. And when the chance came, when the window opened—then maybe Draco would listen to him, because he’d stayed. It was the only middle road Harry had been able to come up with.
He didn’t expect to do anything but eat mechanically, and get through it all, and lie down on a sofa somewhere until the clock struck midnight. But the food that appeared on their plates tasted like—the memory of his first meal at Hogwarts, or maybe something earlier that he couldn’t even place. There was music playing from somewhere, soft and beautiful, and the whole hall was full of light. Everyone at the table talked and laughed: Blaise told half a dozen hilarious and only gently malicious stories; Evelyn Westminer sang; Harry even found himself talking to Pansy, who was on his other side, about how they’d got through the goblin forces, and she had a good suggestion for using Knockback Jinxes instead of Stunning Spells to clear a bit more room, if he ever had to do something like it again. It wasn’t that he suddenly liked them, but they all felt palpably—connected; like some odd enormously extended family.
Afterwards they went into one of the walled gardens, and there were gleaming fairies darting all over among the retamed hedges in the moonlight, humming songs to themselves and coaxing improbable pale-blue flowers to open from the old vines. Harry was bemusedly watching a couple of them skating over the surface of a fountain when the heavy thunderstorm-chill crawled up his back, and he straightened as Draco joined him.
“Tell me something, Potter, I’ve been wondering,” Draco said, leaning over to touch a ripple to the surface of the water. “Why did you come tonight?”
Harry swallowed. He could have confessed everything to Draco about the whole plot, and it still wouldn’t have answered the question. It wouldn’t explain why he’d walked away from everyone he loved to come here, to be at Draco’s side even if it meant being dragged out of time and standing against his friends. “I thought you wanted me to,” he said, desperately, but it was just an excuse.
Draco didn’t let him get away with it. He turned towards him, his eyes glittering. “I did.” He stepped in closer and reached up and caught Harry around the back of the head and said softly, insistently, “Why did you come?” Harry shuddered all over, the current flowing through him, and he grabbed Draco by the shoulders and kissed him.
