Chapter Text

as if the world had paused for a moment

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The scent of freshly baked tart clung thick in the air, heavy with cinnamon and caramelized sugar. It was the kind of scent that reminded Draco of childhood winters at the Manor, when the house-elves would bake delicate pastries, filling the halls with warmth. But those days were long gone. The treacle tarts in front of him weren’t served on fine china or arranged on a silver tray. They were stacked inside a small glass case, smudged with fingerprints, at a tiny bakery tucked away in the dimmest corner of Knockturn Alley.

Draco reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of sickles, sliding them across the counter without a word. The witch behind the counter, a gaunt woman with sharp eyes and ink-stained fingers, swept them up swiftly. She barely looked at him as she wrapped the pastries in parchment, but he could feel her gaze flicker over him in brief, knowing scrutiny. He had seen it too many times before — the momentary hesitation, followed by recognition, and then the way witches and wizards tried to decide whether he was worth acknowledging or simply ignoring.

He met her eyes briefly, daring her to say something, to sneer, or to whisper behind his back. But she did none of that. She simply handed over the wrapped tarts and moved on to the next customer without a second glance. Draco exhaled slowly as he tucked the warm pastries into his satchel. It was a simple thing, buying sweets for the children, but it made something in his chest tighten.

Not long ago, he wouldn’t have spared a thought about such a trivial purchase. Once upon a time, he had the luxury of never thinking about money… of never wondering whether a few extra sickles would make a difference later in the week. Now, he counted every coin, planned every expense, and weighed the worth of everything before handing over what little he had.

Pushing open the bakery door, he stepped back into the cold. A sharp wind sliced through the alley, biting against his skin, and slipping through the gaps in his threadbare coat. The wool was worn, frayed at the edges, and patched in places where he had mended it himself. It was a far cry from the fine, enchanted cloaks he had once owned, the ones that repelled the cold with barely a whisper of magic. Now, he relied on layers and some luck.

With a practiced motion, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of parchment, smoothing it open with half-numb fingers. The ink was slightly smudged from how many times he had read it, but the words were still clear. They were staring back at him as if taunting him.

Mr. Malfoy,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted as an intern at St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Please report to the Healer-in-Charge at precisely eight o’clock on Monday morning.

He traced the words with his eyes, as if reading them again would somehow make them feel more real. He had been waiting for this — for something, anything — to give him purpose again. And yet, now that it had arrived, he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

St. Mungo’s. A proper job. A second chance.

Draco let out a quiet laugh, but there was no humor in it. The idea of Draco Malfoy, an intern at St. Mungo’s, was almost laughable. He wondered how many people had protested his acceptance or how many had scoffed at the notion of him working among the sick and injured. A Malfoy, tending to the wounded. The irony was almost poetic. But it didn’t matter. It was happening. He folded the letter carefully and tucked it away. He buried it deep in his coat pocket as if that would anchor it to reality.

Knockturn Alley was quieter than usual today. The few witches and wizards that lurked in the shadows were keeping their heads low, wrapped in layers of dark robes. The world was changing, but places like this never did. This alley, with its hidden shops and unspoken dealings, would always exist outside the laws that governed the rest of the Wizarding World.

Draco took a left, slipping into a side street where a small, unassuming building stood between two boarded-up shop fronts. The library was old, its wooden door carved with faded runes, the windows clouded with dust. To most, it was invisible, blending into the decay of Knockturn Alley. But he had come here often enough to know its true worth.

Inside, the scent of parchment and aged ink filled the air. It was a comforting contrast to the chill outside. Shelves lined the walls, stuffed with books that looked as though they might crumble at the slightest touch. It was quiet, save for the occasional rustle of a turning page. At the front desk sat Mister Archibald, hunched over a massive tome, his thin fingers tracing the words on the page with careful precision. His robes were as ancient as the books he tended to, and his beard was stained with tea and ink. They were testaments to decades of absentminded sipping and scribbling.

He approached the desk, setting one of the wrapped treacle tarts on top of a precarious stack of books. "Brought you something," he murmured, keeping his voice low out of habit.

Mister Archibald didn’t look up immediately, merely flipping a page with a slow, deliberate motion. "Hmph. ‘Bout time," the old man muttered, but he caught the faintest twitch of his lips. It almost felt like a rare, imperceptible sign of approval. 

Draco didn’t linger. There was no need. This was the quiet understanding they had developed over the past two years. No words of gratitude and no unnecessary conversation. Just a shared space, a silent acknowledgment of existence. With a small nod, he turned and left, stepping back out into the cold. The walk home was short, too short, and for a fleeting moment, he wished it were longer.

Home. The word felt foreign now. Once, it had meant a grand estate, sprawling gardens, luxurious peacocks, and corridors that echoed with his footsteps. Now, it was a cramped space above an abandoned apothecary. Its windows were cracked and its walls were thin enough that he could hear the wind through the gaps. It wasn’t much, but it was what he had. 

He hesitated for the briefest of moments before pushing the door open. Inside, four small faces turned toward him immediately.

"You got them?" Finn was the first to speak, his bright green eyes darting toward his satchel with barely contained excitement.

He let out a slow breath, rolling his eyes in mock exasperation. "No, I thought I’d buy something vile instead."

Percy folded his arms, tilting his head. "Wouldn’t be the first time," he remarked dryly.

Before he could fire back a response, Ales darted forward, practically bouncing on her toes. "Tarts! You got tarts!" she squealed, her small hands reaching out impatiently.

The youngest, Daelan, didn’t say anything. He simply stepped forward and clutched onto Draco’s robes, his tiny fingers fisting into the fabric as if letting go wasn’t an option. Something in his chest tightened.

These four children never asked for much. Never demanded anything. They simply existed in this grim space, clinging to the little they had with a quiet, heartbreaking resilience that Draco didn’t know how to handle. They never whined about the cold seeping through the cracks in the walls, never complained when dinner was nothing more than a reheated bowl of soup stretched thin to feed all five of them.

They never looked at him with expectations he couldn’t meet nor made him feel like less of a person for the things he could not give them. It was as if they had already learned, far too young, that asking for too much led only to disappointment. That the world did not give freely to children with cursed last names. That love, warmth, security — things that should have been their right — were luxuries they had no claim to.

And yet, despite all of it, they still found ways to be happy. Ales still twirled around the room when she thought no one was watching. Finn still recited ridiculous stories with all the exaggerated dramatics of a born performer, making them laugh even when the day had been cruel. Percy still argued with stubborn pride over the rules of wizard’s chess, pretending he didn’t care when he lost but secretly grinning whenever he won. And Daelan… little Daelan… still reached for Draco’s hand when he was afraid and still burrowed against his side when nightmares pulled him from sleep. He still believed in the simple truth that Draco would always come back home.

He reached into his satchel, pulling out the tarts and handing them over one by one. "Go on, then. Eat," he said, his voice brighter than before. 

As they tore into their treats with delighted murmurs, he leaned back against the wall, exhaling slowly. His hands were shaking. He hadn’t even realized it until now. This was his life now. No vaults of gold. No grand inheritance. No name that carried power. Just a hovel, a job he wasn’t sure he deserved, and four children who looked at him as if he was something more than the Death Eater scum he felt he had become.

The small hovel was filled with the sweet, rich aroma of treacle tarts as the children dug into their treats. The crumbs of the sticky pastries dotted their faces, but it didn’t seem to bother them in the least. It was rare for him to be able to treat them to something so simple yet so indulgent, and he just watched. The atmosphere felt lighter than usual. It was full of innocent chatter, as though the world outside couldn’t touch them in this tiny bubble of their own.

“Do you think we’ll ever be able to go to a real zoo?” Finn asked suddenly as he wiped a smear of syrup from his cheek. “Like the one in Diagon Alley? With all the creatures? I’ve only ever seen a hippogriff once, but I bet there are more cool animals inside.”

Finnley Graysford, age 12, was the eldest of the four children, and while he wasn't related to the others by blood, he often acted as though he were the older brother… the protector. He was the only child of two low-ranking Death Eaters who had been executed alongside the others, and it was clear that the loss of his parents had shaped him. His mind always seemed to be somewhere else, as if he could see beyond the small, cluttered world they inhabited.

While the others were preoccupied with simple pleasures or mischief, Finn’s thoughts were always a step ahead. There was something in his gaze — a calculating, mature look that made him appear older than he was, as though he could see life for what it truly was, not just what it appeared to be. He was also serious beyond his years, often acting as though the weight of responsibility rested on his shoulders, and not on Draco’s.

Percy, bouncing on his heels, joined the conversation, his dark brown eyes lighting up at the mention of the zoo. “A hippogriff? You saw one? That’s amazing!” he exclaimed, completely forgetting the treacle tart in his hand as he gestured excitedly. “I’ve read about them in a book. Did you know they have the most amazing feathers? They’re really soft… so soft, it’s like they’re made out of clouds! Do you think they’ll let us pet them if we ever go?” 

Percival Kingswell, only a year younger than Finn, was also the only child of a Death Eater couple. Draco could still remember the Kingswells’ association with the likes of Fenrir Greyback, working with the more vicious and volatile parts of the Dark Lord’s forces. The boy had an uncontainable energy, and his imagination seemed to always be running a mile a minute. It was producing ideas and plans faster than anyone could keep up with. Whether it was something as simple as a game of pretend or as wild as “flying” on a broomstick made from old twigs, Percy could always find a way to turn even the dullest moments into an adventure.

However, that same enthusiasm often led Percy to act without thinking. His impulsive nature made him prone to getting into trouble, especially when his curiosity drove him to explore things better left alone. He trusted too easily and often found himself in situations that only Finn or Draco could help him out of. His good intentions, though, never faltered, and he always believed he was doing the right thing, even if his actions didn’t always turn out as planned.

Ales, who had been quiet since she began eating, glanced up from her tart. Her dark brown eyes were narrowed in contemplation. “What if we could bring a creature home?” she asked in a soft, almost distant voice. Her words were always measured, as though she thought deeply before speaking. “A little dragon, maybe. One that fits in a box. You could carry it around with you, Draco. No one would expect it, and it could be our secret.”

Alessana "Ales" Lindenbrook, age 8, was their princess. The daughter of the late Aliana Lindenbrook, once feared for her cunning and fierce loyalty to the Dark Lord, Ales had inherited a grace that seemed to come from another world. Her mother’s untimely death during the war had left a gap in Ales’ life that could never be filled, but Draco had become the constant presence she leaned on in a world that was anything but stable. Ales wasn’t like the others. Where Finn and Percy were outgoing and energetic, Ales was somewhat reserved, almost invisible in a room full of noise. But her dark brown eyes, always watchful, missed nothing. She observed everything with a depth that belied her age, noticing the smallest shifts in mood, in tone, in the way people held themselves.

Though she kept to herself most of the time, Ales had a gift for understanding and for reading the room in ways others couldn’t. She was highly intuitive, often picking up on emotions others thought they had masked. She surprised Draco, too, with her understanding of situations and of things he hadn’t even realized she had noticed. Above all, Ales was his calming presence. She was a silent anchor in their chaotic lives. She also depended on Draco, not just for protection, but for reassurance.

Daelan, always quick to latch onto any new idea, jumped to his feet, nearly knocking over his plate in the process. “A dragon? I want a big one!” he declared, his small face lit up with excitement. “It’ll fly around and burn everything in sight!” He paused dramatically. “But only the bad people. Not me. I’ll be the dragon’s best friend!”

Daelan Bramley, the youngest of the lot at age 7, was always the spark in their otherwise quiet lives. As the baby of the group, his presence often commanded attention, whether it was from his constant chatter, his never-ending stream of antics, or the infectious laughter he left in his wake. While Finn was the responsible one, and Percy often found himself caught up in the whirlwind of his own imagination, Daelan had a more subtle chaos about him. He wasn’t reckless like Percy could be; no, Daelan was clever, scheming in the way only a child could be. Mischief followed him wherever he went, but it was always a well-planned mischief — well, most of the time.

He loved to imitate the adults around him, particularly Draco, with exaggerated gestures and mock seriousness. Watching Daelan was like watching a tiny version of him, complete with the cocked eyebrow and dramatic flair. Sometimes, he even took to mimicking their old neighbors' stiff, posh voices or the way Finn would scold the others when they weren't behaving. His ability to start a little drama into everyday life was uncanny, making the others laugh, even Draco, who couldn’t help but find some comfort in their youngest’s antics.

But beneath all of this mischief was a surprising depth of understanding. Just like Ales, Daelan had a way of knowing when things weren’t right, even when no one else did. He had an uncanny sensitivity to his siblings' moods, often knowing just when to give them an exaggerated hug or say something silly to break the tension. When Draco’s temper flared or when the days were particularly hard, Daelan would climb onto his lap and simply lay his tiny head against his chest, as if reminding him that no matter how heavy the world got, the weight was easier to bear when you had someone to share it with.

His mind wandered to his new job as an intern at St. Mungo’s. He didn’t know what had pushed him to start self-training as a healer exactly a year ago, but he supposed it all began with the children. It started small… Finn catching a fever in the dead of winter, Percy scraping his knee after tripping on the cobbled streets, Ales shivering under too-thin blankets, Daelan crying over a stomach ache he couldn’t explain.

Each time, he had felt helpless, watching them suffer without the means to do anything beyond cooling a forehead with a damp rag or whispering hollow reassurances that they would be fine. And he hated it. He hated powerlessness, the sharp reminder that he had nothing. He had no gold, no connections, not even a single proper healing spell at his disposal. But he had determination, and that had to count for something.

So, he learned. He scoured every old bookshop in Knockturn and Diagon Alley for discarded medical texts, poring over brittle pages by candlelight long after the children had gone to sleep. He memorized the properties of herbs, bartered for worn-out potions manuals, and practiced wandless healing charms on himself when he was certain no one was watching. What started as a desperate attempt to avoid losing the only family he had left soon became something more.

There was a strange satisfaction in seeing the results of his work. Finn’s fever breaking under his careful ministrations, Percy grinning as he tested his freshly healed knee, Ales sleeping soundly without chills wracking her small body, and Daelan’s pained sobs turning into relieved sniffles. Healing, he realized, gave him a sense of purpose. For the first time in years, he felt like he was actually doing something worthwhile.

That was also how he met Mister Archibald and discovered the small, hidden library located between two derelict shops. He had stumbled upon it one evening while searching for a secondhand potions guide and had been surprised to find not only an impressive collection of rare texts but also an old man who seemed to know far more than he let on.

Mister Archibald, with his ink-stained fingers and perpetually arched brow, had watched him pick through the shelves with an amused sort of interest before pushing a thick tome into his hands. He muttered something about “a young man with sharp eyes should have sharp knowledge to match.” Draco had returned the next day, and the next, and the next after that. In time, the library became his refuge, the dimly lit aisles filled with the scent of parchment and dust offering him a kind of solace he hadn’t realized he needed.

Mister Archibald never pried. He never asked about his past, or why a young man with a Malfoy face spent his nights buried in medical texts. He simply let Draco be, offering quiet guidance when necessary, challenging his understanding with questions he wasn’t always prepared to answer. In a way, he supposed, the old man had become the closest thing he had to a mentor.

And now, after months of scraping by, St. Mungo’s had finally accepted him. It wasn’t much — it was an internship, not a permanent position — but it was a start. A chance. And Merlin knew he wouldn’t waste it.

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He was wasting it.

Draco barely suppressed the scowl threatening to form on his face as he hurried down the pristine white halls of St. Mungo’s, clutching a clipboard that had been shoved into his hands not five minutes ago. Madam Montmorency, his supervisor, had made it painfully clear that she had little faith in his capabilities. Instead of assisting with actual medical procedures or even shadowing experienced Healers, he was being sent on menial errands like fetching supplies, delivering messages, and, worst of all, dealing with the hospital’s most irate patients. He had lost count of how many times he’d been forced to endure the complaints of distressed parents, their voices rising in anger the moment they saw his face.

He had expected resentment. It would have been naïve to assume otherwise. But what he hadn’t anticipated was how strategic it all felt. It was as if the hospital administration had deliberately placed him in situations designed to humiliate him. His name was called louder than necessary, drawing attention whenever he entered a room. His tasks were often just enough to be degrading but never significant enough to let him prove himself. They wanted him visible. They wanted him scorned. And from the pointed glares of the staff to the distrustful glances from patients, Draco knew it was working.

He inhaled sharply, steadying himself as he pushed open the door to the waiting area where his next task awaited him. The room was bustling with noise and movement, the sharp scent of antiseptic clashing with the lingering traces of burning incense. It was a futile attempt to mask the distinct sterility of St. Mungo’s. The waiting area, much like every other part of the hospital, was packed with patients and their families.

The air itself felt thick, heavy with worry, anger, and exhaustion. Among the chaos, there stood a woman gripping a small, red-faced boy, her arms wrapped around him as though shielding him from some unseen threat. Draco had dealt with many difficult patients since starting, but something about the rigid line of her shoulders, the barely contained fury in her posture, told him this was going to be particularly unpleasant.

The child, who couldn't have been older than Daelan, whimpered softly, his small hands clenched around his mother’s robes as he burrowed his face into her shoulder. His little frame shook with the occasional hiccupping sob, though his cries had mostly subsided into sniffles. Even from a distance, he could see the angry, jagged gash running down his knee and the torn fabric of his trousers clinging to the drying blood. It wasn’t a life-threatening injury. It was nothing he hadn’t seen before, but to the boy and his mother, it was clearly a serious matter. The woman’s eyes burned with outrage, her grip tightening possessively around her son, and Draco barely had time to open his mouth before she turned her fury onto him.

"You?" she spat, her voice thick with disdain the moment her gaze locked onto him. "You’re the one they sent?" Her lip curled as if the very sight of him was offensive.

He barely managed to stop himself from sighing. He had seen this reaction before. He had expected it. And yet, the force of her hostility still hit like a curse to the chest. Keeping his posture carefully composed, he offered a professional nod. "I’m a Healer-in-training, Ma’am. If you’ll allow me, I can—"

"I don’t need help from your kind," she snapped, her voice cutting through the murmurs of the room. It was sharp enough to draw glances from other waiting patients. Her arms curled even more protectively around her child, as if shielding him from something vile. "Merlin’s beard, what is this hospital thinking? Hiring a Malfoy! As if we’d all just forget what your family did!"

Draco’s spine went rigid. Ah. There it was.

The accusation, the disgust, and the deep-seated resentment. He had spent years preparing for moments like these. He even rehearsed every possible response in his mind. But no matter how many times it happened and no matter how much he told himself he didn’t care, the words still stung like an open wound.

"First, your lot tears the world apart, and now we’re supposed to just sit back while you come waltzing in, acting like you’re one of us?" Her voice trembled with a mixture of rage and disbelief. "What, is this some kind of sick joke? Letting a Death Eater scum play Healer, letting you anywhere near our children? Do they honestly expect us to trust you?"

He forced himself to remain still. He wouldn’t flinch. He wouldn’t let her see that her words cut deeper than he’d ever admit. He had long accepted that to some people, it didn’t matter what he did, how much he changed, or how hard he tried. To them, he would always be his father’s son.

"I assure you, Ma’am," he said carefully, keeping his voice even, "my only concern is your son’s well-being. If you’ll allow me, I can have his wound treated in mere seconds. However, if you prefer to wait for another Healer, I’m sure they’ll be available shortly—"

"Oh, so now you’re offering to walk away?" she barked out a sharp, humorless laugh. "Just like your lot did when the war was lost? Pretending none of it happened, pretending you weren’t part of it. How convenient!" Her glare was scorching, her entire body thrumming with indignation. "You think—" she seethed, voice growing louder, angrier with each breath, "you think you can just throw on a Healer’s robes, patch up a few people, and that erases everything?"

Draco’s grip tightened around his clipboard, his nails pressing into the parchment. He knew this dance too well. He had lived it over and over again since the war ended. If he argued, she would call him arrogant, unrepentant. If he stayed silent, she would take it as an admission of guilt. There was no winning.

"Mum… it hurts."

The little boy peeked up at her with watery eyes, his face scrunched up in discomfort. His tiny hands fisted in her robes, seeking comfort as he sniffled. His mother hesitated, her anger faltering for just a second as she looked down at him, concern flashing across her face. Draco seized the moment.

"Let me heal him," he said softly, the sharp edge of his previous words replaced with quiet resolve. "That’s all I want."

For a long, painful moment, she stared at him. Her jaw was clenched so tight he thought she might shatter her own teeth and her whole body coiled with the tension of someone who desperately didn’t want to give in. He could see the battle raging inside her.

Finally, her shoulders jerked in a stiff nod. With barely concealed resentment, she all but shoved the child forward. "Fine. But if anything happens to him—"

"It won’t," he interrupted, his tone steady. Kneeling down, he carefully examined the injury. The boy flinched and his small frame trembled, but when Draco murmured, "It’s alright, I promise," he hesitated, then gave a timid nod.

He lifted the wand that the hospital let him borrow, moving it with practiced precision. The swelling faded instantly. The jagged tear in his skin knitted itself back together and the dried blood disappeared as if it had never been there. The child’s eyes widened in fascination, watching as the magic worked through him.

"Does it still hurt?" he asked.

The boy stretched his leg out, testing it. After a moment, he shook his head. "No… it’s all better."

"Good."

The woman grabbed her child roughly, pulling him close as though Draco had done something vile.

"Don’t think this means anything," she said coldly, her voice dripping with contempt. "Fixing a scraped knee doesn’t erase what you are, Malfoy."

He said nothing. He simply watched as she stormed off. Her son glanced back at him with wide eyes before the two of them disappeared into the door. But before he could write something on the clipboard, his eyes caught a very familiar face.

There, standing across the waiting area, clad in dark Auror robes that carried the unmistakable golden crest of the Ministry, was none other than Harry bloody Potter.

Chapter Text

as if time itself had stopped in its tracks

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It was impossible not to notice him. Even without the infamous scar cutting through his forehead or the unmistakable mess of dark hair, Potter was imposing. Clad in heavy Auror robes that carried the golden crest of the Ministry upon his chest, he looked every bit the war hero the world still revered him as. The robes were sleek and fitted and their enchanted fabric was shifting slightly with his every movement. He looked authoritative. He looked untouchable.

And he was staring straight at Draco.

No, not staring. He was glaring.

It wasn’t just a glance or a passing look of recognition. It was a deliberate, harsh stare that pinned him in place as though the man had cast Petrificus Totalus without a wand. His jaw was set and his brows were furrowed in something that wasn’t quite anger but carried all the weight of it. His green eyes… Merlin, those infuriating green eyes… were sharp and filled with something really heavy. Accusation. Probably suspicion. As if he were trying to work out a puzzle that shouldn’t exist, one that left him deeply unsettled.

Draco swallowed. It was a familiar discomfort twisting in his gut. He had seen that look before. He had seen it on the faces of strangers who whispered behind his back. He had seen it on the Ministry officials who passed judgment upon his family. And he had seen it on the patrons of the hospital who sneered at him as though he were something less than human. He had learned to endure it and to let it pass over him like water against stone, but Potter’s glare… Potter’s glare was different. It wasn’t just disgust or hatred. It was something closer to disbelief. It was like a question hanging in the air between them.

For a brief moment, he considered looking away and pretended he hadn’t noticed. But that would be cowardly. And Draco Malfoy had never been a coward, or at least that was what his mother made him believe. Not when he was eleven years old and raised his chin at the world, not when he was sixteen and bore the weight of an impossible task, and certainly not now, when he was trying (truly trying) to rebuild a life that had crumbled beneath him.

So Draco did what he always did when faced with scrutiny: he met it head-on. He squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and arched a single, unimpressed brow.

Potter didn’t react immediately. He simply stood there, as though debating whether or not to approach. His fingers flexed slightly at his sides, betraying a flicker of what looked like hesitation beneath all that Auror professionalism. And then, as if reaching a decision, he took a step forward. Draco barely had time to brace himself before the Gryffindor git was closing the distance between them. His strides were long and purposeful and his presence was suffocating. Even after all these years and after all the time and distance that should have dulled their past, Potter still carried an aura of inevitability. As if no matter how much he tried to outrun the title of the Chosen One, Harry Potter would always find his way back.

When the man finally stopped, standing close enough that Draco could see the tension in his clenched jaw, he spoke.

"What," Potter said, his voice low and tight, controlled in a way that suggested it was taking great effort to keep it so, "are you doing here?"

He exhaled slowly through his nose, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. The sheer audacity. As if Potter had any right to question him or to demand answers as though Draco owed him an explanation. He had expected something like this, of course — suspicions, accusations, and sideways glances that cut deeper than words ever could. But he had hoped, really hoped, that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t have to deal with this today.

"Working," he replied, his tone clipped but controlled. "Not that it’s any of your concern."

Potter’s lips pressed into a thin line, his expression hard. "You work here?"

He tilted his head slightly, feigning curiosity, letting a ghost of a smirk curl at the corner of his mouth. "Is that so hard to believe?"

The silence that followed was more damning than any words Potter could have spoken. His jaw clenched, his nostrils flared slightly, and for the briefest of moments, something flickered across his face. It was something doubtful or maybe something uncertain. It was quick, barely a breath of hesitation, but he caught it. And that single hesitation told him everything.

Potter hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t expected to find Draco here, dressed in the pale robes of a St. Mungo’s intern, and standing in the middle of the sterile white walls of a hospital instead of slinking through the darkened alleys of Knockturn. And Potter didn’t like it.

"You—" Potter started, his voice carrying that familiar, frustrated exasperation that Draco had grown so accustomed to over the years. "You actually work… Merlin, Malfoy, what game are you playing?"

"Right. Because obviously, this is all just an elaborate ruse, isn’t it? Me, in a hospital, healing sick children. The horror." He crossed his arms over his chest, lifting his chin slightly in defiance. "You’ve caught me, Potter. My master plan is to spend my days drowning in patient files and being yelled at by distraught parents. How villainous of me."

Potter didn’t take the bait. He didn’t scoff, sneer, or throw back a sharp retort like he once might have. He simply stared, long and hard, and his expression was unreadable in a way that sent a twist through Draco’s gut. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Potter exhaled sharply through his nose and shook his head, as if trying to make sense of something that refused to settle in his mind. "This doesn’t make any sense," he muttered, more to himself than to Draco.

"What doesn’t make sense, exactly?" he asked, his voice cooling to a sharp edge. "That I decided to do something useful with my life? That I’m not rotting away in some dark corner like you probably assumed I would be?" Draco took a step forward, his gaze burning now, all pretense of nonchalance gone. "Or is it just that you don’t like the idea of a Malfoy being something other than the villain of your story?"

The words struck home. He saw it. He saw the way Potter’s eyes flickered, the slight shift in his stance, the way his fingers twitched at his sides as though he wanted to grab his wand but knew he had no reason to.

"Touched a nerve, did I?"

Potter’s expression darkened, but before he could say anything… before he could throw another accusation his way, a sharp voice cut through the tension like a blade.

"Intern Malfoy!"

Draco tensed.

Madam Montmorency.

And just like that, Potter was momentarily forgotten as he turned, already bracing himself for whatever humiliating task awaited him next.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

Draco barely had time to register the sharp call of his name before he felt a firm grip wrap around his arm. Madam Montmorency was not a physically imposing witch, but she carried herself with the authority of someone who had spent decades commanding respect. Her presence alone was enough to make the corridors of St. Mungo’s seem narrower. She didn’t yank him roughly. No, she was too composed for that. But her grip was firm enough that there was no question about who was in control here. Draco didn’t resist. He didn’t even glance at her. He simply walked alongside her, back straight, chin slightly lifted, and his expression unreadable.

Trailing behind them, he could hear Potter’s heavier footsteps, following in their path like an unwanted shadow. He could practically feel the weight of the other man’s glare boring into the back of his skull. To be honest, the presence of the great Harry Potter only made this whole thing worse.

The trip to her office felt excruciatingly long despite the fact that they were only passing through a few hallways. Around them, the hospital carried on as normal. Healers were moving with practiced efficiency, mediwitches were whispering over patient charts, and a child was wailing somewhere in the distance. But to him, everything felt muted. Distant. The clicking of Madam Montmorency’s heels and Potter’s measured steps behind him were the only things ringing loudly in his ears.

When they reached the witch’s office, she wasted no time. A sharp flick of her wand sent the door swinging open, and she marched inside without breaking stride. The moment he stepped in, the door snapped shut behind him with a decisive thud, sealing him inside.

A heartbeat later, Potter entered as well. Draco resisted the urge to sigh. Of course, he’d follow. Of course, he couldn’t just let this go.

"Sit," Montmorency ordered, her tone clipped and leaving no room for argument.

He obeyed without hesitation, lowering himself into the chair across from her desk. He sat with his hands neatly folded in his lap, his posture straight and his expression giving nothing away. Potter, however, remained standing, arms crossed over his chest. He was lingering near the wall like some kind of sentry. His eyes, sharp and assessing, remained locked on Draco.

Montmorency leaned forward, her fingers steepled beneath her chin, her gaze piercing. "Do you know why you’re here, Intern Malfoy?"

Draco met her stare without flinching. "Because you ordered me to be here, Madam."

A muscle in her jaw twitched. "Spare me the wit, Malfoy. You know exactly why."

"If this is about the mother earlier, I—"

Montmorency scoffed, cutting him off before he could finish. "This is about much more than just one angry mother," she said, voice cold and biting. She leaned forward slightly. "Do you have any idea how many complaints we’ve already received about you? And you are just in your first week!"

He felt something twist unpleasantly in his gut. He didn’t respond immediately, instead keeping his fingers laced together in his lap. Of course. He should have known. He had known, deep down, that this would happen. That it had only been a matter of time before he was called in like some misbehaving schoolboy. It didn’t matter what he did. It didn’t matter if he worked harder than the other interns, if he kept his head down, or if he followed orders exactly as instructed. The moment someone saw the name Malfoy on a hospital badge, their minds were already made up.

Still, when he finally spoke, his voice was even. "I’m here to learn, Madam. I haven’t mistreated a single patient."

"That doesn’t change the fact that the very sight of you puts people on edge, Malfoy. We are a hospital, not a political battleground. Patients need to feel safe here, and whether you like it or not, your presence is causing issues."

"Then why accept me at all?" he asked, and despite his best efforts, a trace of bitterness slipped into his voice.

Before the Head Healer could reply, Potter’s voice cut through the room like a knife. "That’s exactly what I want to know.”

He turned to face him at last, meeting his green-eyed glare with an impassive stare of his own. "If you’re expecting some grand conspiracy, Potter, you’ll be sorely disappointed. I applied, I was interviewed, and I was accepted. I earned my position here."

"Earned?" Potter let out a short, humorless laugh, shaking his head. "Forgive me if I find that hard to believe."

His hands curled into fists in his lap, but he forced himself to remain still. He would not take the bait. Not here.

Madam Montmorency exhaled sharply and tapped her nails against the desk. "As much as I’d love to sit here and listen to whatever history you two have, we have more pressing concerns." She turned her gaze back to Draco, eyes dark and unreadable. "Do you know why Auror Potter is here today?"

He didn’t answer immediately. He already had a suspicion, but he refused to give her (or Potter) the satisfaction of admitting it.

"He leads investigations here," she stated, her voice crisp and precise. "He’s the Auror tasked with identifying signs of intentional harm or neglect among our patients, whether from their companions or hospital staff.”

Something cold slithered down his spine.

She continued, enunciating each word as if she wanted them to sink into him. "Which means if any patient under your care… or any patient in this hospital… shows signs of abuse, Auror Potter will be the one investigating." Her eyes sharpened. "And as you might imagine, your name makes you a rather convenient suspect."

They weren’t just warning him. They were making sure he understood. This wasn’t about rules. This wasn’t even about protocol. This was about control. They wanted to remind him that he was being watched. And that everyone knew he was being watched.

He swallowed against the dryness in his throat. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet but firm. "I have never laid a harmful hand on anyone."

"That doesn’t matter," Montomorency said. "What matters is perception. What matters is that people are looking for a reason to believe otherwise. One wrong move, Malfoy. One wrong move and you’re out."

The weight of inevitability settled over him. No matter how hard he worked, no matter how well he performed, he would always be the first suspect if something went wrong. And Potter — bloody Potter — would be leading the charge.

Montmorency sighed, rubbing her temple. "Do I make myself clear, Malfoy?"

"Crystal."

"Good. Now, get out of my office."

He didn’t hesitate. He rose smoothly and made his way toward the door. Behind him, Potter’s voice rang out, low and sharp.

"This isn’t over, Malfoy."

Draco didn’t stop. Didn’t acknowledge him.

Of course it wasn’t.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

Draco inhaled deeply, letting the scent of old parchment and ink settle in his lungs as he stepped inside the dimly lit library. The air was thick with the comforting scent of old books, candle wax, and the faint trace of herbal tea that Mister Archibald always seemed to have brewing. It was the kind of scent that wrapped around him like a familiar cloak, grounding him in a way that few places could.

The moment he stepped over the threshold, the weight on his chest eased just a little. It was remarkable, really, how this place could make everything else seem distant… almost unreal. The sharp words of Madam Montmorency, the ever-watchful glare of Potter, and the humiliation of being paraded around St. Mungo’s like a cautionary tale… it all felt like something from another life. Here, in the quiet sanctuary of the library, he was not Draco Malfoy, the former Death Eater and the intern under scrutiny. Here, he was simply Draco, guardian to four impossibly loud children who had somehow wormed their way into his life.

And, of course, an unwilling protégé to Mister Archibald.

The old man was already waiting for them near the counter, hunched slightly over a steaming cup of tea. His wrinkled face, usually impassive, was drawn into something resembling amusement as he watched the four children burst through the door in a flurry of movement and noise.

Percy was the first to dart off. His small frame just disappeared between the towering shelves almost instantly, undoubtedly on a mission to find the most obscure and complicated book he could get his hands on. Ales followed close behind, her smaller steps trying to keep pace with her older brother as she called out suggestions for books they could read together. Finn, ever the responsible one, slowed his pace just enough to murmur a polite "Good morning, sir," to Archibald before setting off after them. Daelan, on the other hand, was already trying to climb onto the largest table, his wide grin full of mischief.

Draco sighed, shaking his head as he made his way toward the old man.

"Long week?" Mister Archibald asked, his voice gravelly with age but laced with dry amusement. He lifted his teacup to his lips, watching Draco over the rim with knowing eyes.

He huffed as he leaned against the counter. "You have no idea."

Archibald let out a quiet chuckle, reaching for his cane as he slowly got to his feet. "Oh, I might have some idea," he mused, his gaze sharp despite the exhaustion lining his features. He gestured toward the corner of the library where their usual seating area lay waiting, the chairs well-worn and slightly lumpy but as comfortable as anything he had known. "Come, let’s sit."

Draco followed without question, sinking into the armchair with a sigh. The old leather creaked beneath him, but the moment he settled, he felt something in him truly exhale. The weight of the past week, the suffocating expectations, the feeling of constantly being watched, it all melted away, at least for now.

Finn and Ales had already claimed the nearby table, whispering in hushed voices as they flipped through a large book on magical creatures. Percy, as expected, had buried himself in something undoubtedly far too advanced for his age, while Daelan, who had long since given up on the pretense of reading, was now trying to balance a quill on his nose.

Mister Archibald, however, wasn’t focused on the children. His eyes were fixed on Draco, sharp with a quiet intensity. "Tell me about the hospital," he said suddenly.

He  blinked, caught off guard. "What?"

"Your internship," the old man clarified, his tone unreadable. "How is it going?"

He hesitated. It wasn’t like the old man to pry. Mister Archibald had always been the kind of person who let him figure things out on his own, offering advice only when asked. But today, there was something different about the way he spoke.

Still, he answered. "It’s… exhausting," he admitted, rubbing at his temple. "I spend half my time running errands and the other half being glared at. But at least I’m learning."

"You are learning, then?" Mister Archibald pressed, his gaze never wavering.

"Of course. I wouldn’t waste my time otherwise."

"Good," he said, nodding to himself. "That’s good."

Before he could question the odd intensity in the old man’s voice, Daelan suddenly leaned over the arm of his chair, his small face alight with curiosity.

"Did you get to see any gross injuries this week?" he asked eagerly, his eyes practically sparkling with excitement.

"That’s what you want to know? Really, Daelan?"

"Obviously!" Daelan grinned, bouncing slightly. "Tell us something cool."

Ales sighed, crossing her arms. "I’d hardly call hospital injuries cool."

"Says you," Daelan muttered under his breath, earning a look from his sister.

Draco rolled his eyes but indulged his siblings nonetheless, recounting a particularly ridiculous case involving a wizard who had accidentally hexed himself with an engorgement charm on only one foot. The children listened with rapt attention, giggling at the absurdity of it. Even Finn, usually the most serious of them, allowed himself a quiet chuckle.

But through it all, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was… off about Mister Archibald. The old man, usually content to listen in silence, kept steering the conversation back to St. Mungo’s. Asking if he had faced any trouble. If he had noticed anyone acting suspiciously toward him. The questions, though phrased casually, carried an undertone that Draco couldn’t quite place.

It wasn’t until the children had tired themselves out and wandered back to their books that Archibald finally exhaled deeply, the sound heavy with something unspoken.

"There’s something you should know," he murmured.

Draco, who had been absentmindedly flipping through a book, immediately straightened. "What is it?"

Mister Archibald hesitated for only a moment before reaching into his robes and pulling out a folded letter. "I received this yesterday."

He took it carefully, his fingers brushing against the aged parchment as he unfolded it. His eyes skimmed over the words, and as he read, a cold, sinking feeling settled in his stomach.

It has come to our attention that you may be harboring known affiliates of the late Dark Lord. We urge you to comply with the Ministry’s ongoing investigations…

Draco clenched his jaw, gripping the letter tighter. "They’re accusing you of housing Death Eaters," he said, his voice quieter than before.

"I suspect I know who they mean." The old man nodded slowly. His gaze flickered briefly toward the children, who remained blissfully unaware of the conversation. "And I suspect you do, too."

He swallowed, feeling his throat tighten. He had spent so much time at St. Mungo’s worrying about proving himself. Worrying about whether or not he would be allowed to keep his internship. 

But this?

This was far worse.

Chapter Text

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

It was supposed to be another day at the office.

Draco's hands moved automatically, reaching for vials and bandages with the smooth efficiency of someone who had repeated the same motions hundreds of times. His fingers found the right ingredients, his mind recognized the names and their uses, but the connection between thought and action felt hollow. He wasn’t truly present. His body was here, yes. He was standing in the cold, sterile halls of St. Mungo’s, surrounded by the low hum of healers and patients. But his mind was elsewhere. His thoughts drifted back to a dimly lit library and the sight of Mister Archibald’s wrinkled hands trembling ever so slightly as he handed Draco that damned letter.

That letter.

He could still feel the texture of the parchment beneath his fingertips. It had been sealed with the Ministry’s insignia, its words sharp and impersonal, a cold warning rather than a direct accusation. It has come to our attention that you may be harboring known affiliates of the late Dark Lord. We urge you to comply with the Ministry’s ongoing investigations… The message had been brief, yet it had been enough to set his nerves alight with unease.

The Ministry hadn’t acted yet. They hadn’t stormed into Archibald’s library, hadn’t turned the old man’s life upside down, hadn’t done anything at all. Yet.

And that was what unsettled Draco the most.

They were waiting. Watching. Letting the library owner believe that perhaps it would all blow over, that he had nothing to fear until the moment they decided to strike. Until they caught him off guard. He knew their tactics well enough. After all, he had once been the subject of their scrutiny, their interrogations, and their relentless judgment.

A sharp voice cut through the fog in his mind.

"Malfoy!"

He barely had time to process the sound of his own name before he felt a sharp crack against his palm. He flinched as the sudden sting snapped him back to reality. Looking down, he realized that in his distraction, he had clenched his fist too tightly around a delicate glass vial, shattering it between his fingers. Tiny shards dug into his skin, and crimson beads of blood welled from the cuts, dripping onto the counter in small, blooming circles.

"Bloody hell," he muttered under his breath, more out of irritation at himself than the pain.

A senior healer, an older man with graying hair and a perpetually stern expression, turned at the sound and shot him a withering look. With a flick of his wand, the mess vanished instantly, the blood, glass, and potion remnants disappearing as though they had never existed. His expression, however, remained unimpressed.

"Mind yourself, intern," he said coldly, his voice laced with thinly veiled disdain. "We don’t need careless hands here. Mistakes cost lives."

He swallowed down the sharp retort that rose to his lips, resisting the urge to snap back. He knew better than to argue. He knew that any excuse would only make things worse. So he merely nodded stiffly, keeping his expression carefully neutral, before turning away.

Pull yourself together, Draco.

But focus was slipping through his fingers like grains of sand. Every task felt sluggish and every motion was slightly off. When he was sent to retrieve a vial of calming draught for a patient suffering from severe anxiety, he nearly handed them a Blood-Replenishing Potion instead. It was an amateur mistake, one that could have caused a serious reaction if the patient had taken it. When he was asked to prepare a set of bandages for a burn victim, he wrapped them too loosely, forcing the healer beside him to redo his work with an exasperated sigh.

And it certainly didn’t help that Potter was here.

Again.

For the fourth time that week.

Draco could feel his gaze. It was like an oppressive weight against the back of his neck. Every time he moved, every time he made even the smallest mistake, he was certain Harry Potter was watching. Judging. Waiting for him to slip. What was he even doing here? It wasn’t as if the Auror was openly interrogating him, wasn’t marching up and demanding answers, but his presence alone was enough to unsettle him. Was it just a coincidence? Or had he somehow caught wind of the Ministry’s letter?

The thought sent a cold shiver down Draco’s spine.

The last thing he needed was the bloody Savior of the Wizarding World breathing down his neck and sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. If Potter suspected anything… If he even so much as hinted to the Ministry that Mister Archibald’s library was worth investigating… it wouldn’t just be the old man in danger. Draco himself would be in the crosshairs. And worse… the children.

"Malfoy, honestly!"

The sharp voice snapped him back to the present just in time to see Madam Montmorency storming toward him, her face twisted in irritation. In her hands was a tray of vials, one of which was visibly leaking a thick, sticky purple liquid onto the sleeves of her robes.

"You didn’t seal this properly!" she snapped, thrusting the tray toward him. "I don’t have time to clean up after your incompetence!"

He stared at the mess for half a second before forcing himself into motion. He took the tray from her, careful this time, and with a murmured Reparo, the cracked vial sealed itself shut. But he could still feel her eyes burning into him. He could still hear the barely concealed contempt in her voice.

"I’m sorry, Madam Montmorency," he said stiffly, keeping his tone neutral. "It won’t happen again."

Montmorency huffed, clearly unimpressed. "See that it doesn’t," she muttered before turning on her heel and storming off, her robes billowing behind her.

Draco let out a slow breath, pressing a hand to his temple. He needed to pull himself together. Now. He couldn’t afford to be distracted. He couldn’t afford to let his emotions get the better of him. Not here. Not when he had spent months clawing his way into this position and proving himself over and over again. If he kept making mistakes like this, it wouldn’t matter how hard he had worked, Madam Montmorency would have him tossed out of St. Mungo’s faster than he could blink.

But just as he turned to return to his station, his steps faltered. Because standing across the hall, watching him with an unreadable expression, was Potter. Draco’s breath caught in his throat.

Potter wasn’t just looking at him. He was glaring. There was something accusing in the tightness of his jaw, something almost calculating in the way his green eyes flickered across Draco’s face, taking in every detail.

He held the stare for a single heartbeat before looking away first. Because the truth was, he didn’t trust himself to hold Potter’s gaze. Not today. Not when his mind was a storm of worry, anxiety, and exhaustion. Not when he already felt like he was standing on a knife’s edge, dangerously close to slipping.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

It continued to be a very exhausting day. 

Draco exhaled slowly as he approached the small, cluttered station near the exit of the hospital ward, where the custodian-in-charge sat behind a battered wooden desk. The middle-aged witch was half-buried in parchment and what appeared to be an untouched cup of lukewarm tea. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic potions and parchment dust.

The woman barely acknowledged his presence, sparing him only a brief, disinterested glance before returning to her paperwork. The moment was so routine, so mundane, that he should have found comfort in it. It was, after all, another day done and another shift survived. He carefully placed the hospital-issued wand onto the tray in front of her, watching as she flicked her own wand with a practiced motion, sending the tool vanishing into whatever storage system St. Mungo’s used for its collection of temporary-use magical implements.

His shift was over. Finally.

His shoulders sagged, the exhaustion of the day catching up to him all at once. He had survived another round of Madam Montmorency’s sharp tongue, the ever-present stares of the hospital staff, and the suffocating tension that had settled in his bones from the moment he stepped into the building that morning. His hands ached from the delicate, repetitive work, his temples throbbed with an insistent headache, and all he wanted was to leave.

Maybe he’d stop by the library on his way home and reassure Mister Archibald that everything would be fine. Or maybe he’d go straight to the cramped hovel he shared with the children, collapse onto the couch, and let Finn nag him about dinner while Ales, Percy, and Daelan curled up beside him, chattering about whatever story they had invented that day.

But before he could even take a single step toward the exit… before he could let himself relish the relief of finishing the day, a voice cut through the air, stopping him dead in his tracks.

“Five mistakes in a single shift.”

Draco stiffened.

The voice was unmistakable. Low, familiar, and carrying that infuriating edge of amusement, as if its owner was enjoying every second of this. He closed his eyes briefly, inhaling slowly, willing himself to remain composed before turning on his heel.

And, of course, it was Harry Potter.

The man stood behind him with his arms crossed over his chest and his posture infuriatingly casual, as if he were merely commenting on the weather. He wasn’t wearing his official Auror robes. Just a dark shirt and trousers that did little to soften the intensity of his presence. But the badge on his belt gleamed under the flickering light.

Draco arched a brow, masking his irritation with an expression of cool indifference. “I didn’t realize you were counting,” he said, voice smooth as silk. “How flattering.”

Potter, predictably, didn’t rise to the bait. He merely tilted his head slightly, his green eyes sharp. “Five mistakes,” he repeated, deliberately slow, as if he hadn’t heard him the first time. “You nearly gave a patient the wrong potion. You bandaged a burn wound improperly. You broke a vial at your station and took too long to clean it up. You failed to seal another, which meant Madam Montmorency had to step in. And you hesitated when a patient asked for assistance.”

Of course he noticed. Of course he saw everything.

A muscle in his jaw tightened, but he didn’t dignify Potter with a response. Instead, he turned sharply on his heel and strode toward the small staff room at the end of the hall. His movements were stiff with barely restrained irritation.

Unfortunately, Potter followed. And he didn’t stop talking.

“Not quite up to the standards of a St. Mungo’s healer, is it?” the Auror mused, his voice deliberately light, almost as if he were contemplating rather than outright mocking. “Sloppy work. Dangerous, even.”

His fingers curled into a fist at his side, but he forced himself to keep walking. He refused to give the other man the satisfaction of a reaction.

Ignore him, he told himself. Ignore him and he’ll get bored.

But Potter didn’t get bored.

“Odd, really,” he continued, tone almost thoughtful. “You were doing fine before today. I’d even go so far as to say you were competent. But now? It’s like you’re not even trying.”

He let out a slow, controlled breath through his nose, pushing open the door to the staff room and stepping inside. He fully expected Potter to leave him be now that there was nothing left to say. He’d delivered his little speech, surely that was enough?

Apparently not.

The Auror followed him in, leaning casually against the doorframe, like he belonged there. Like he had every right to trail behind him, listing his failures one by one as if Draco wasn’t already painfully aware of them.

“Do you need something, Auror Potter?” he drawled, reaching for his satchel with slow, deliberate movements.

The man didn’t seem the least bit deterred by his tone. Instead, he simply leaned in slightly, eyes glinting with something he couldn’t quite place. “Just wondering what’s gotten into you,” he said, voice deceptively casual. “You’ve been distracted all day. Messy. Reckless. Not exactly what I expected from the great Draco Malfoy.”

Draco rolled his eyes, biting down the urge to snap something truly unprofessional. Instead, he focused on unfastening the buttons of his medical robes, peeling the heavy material off his shoulders with controlled movements. His fingers were tense and his breathing was measured. He knew exactly what Potter was doing. Pushing. Needling. Prodding at every weak spot to see where he’ll crack first.

“Your concern is touching,” he said, voice clipped as he folded his robes carefully, methodically. “But I don’t remember asking for a performance review from the Auror Department.”

“Maybe you should,” Potter let out a quiet hum as if genuinely considering the idea. “Wouldn’t want to get sacked after working so hard to get here, would you?”

He knew Potter was baiting him. He knew that engaging any further would only make this worse. But something about his tone and the infuriating way he leaned there, so casual in his scrutiny, made his blood boil. Still, he forced himself to remain composed. He placed his neatly folded robes into his satchel, then turned back to Potter with a tight, polite smile that barely concealed his irritation.

“I appreciate your concern,” he said coolly, “but I don’t need your advice, or your observations. My shift is over, and I would very much like to leave. So unless you plan on deducting imaginary house points, I suggest you find someone else to interrogate.”

For a moment, Potter simply looked at him, his expression unreadable. Then finally he exhaled through his nose, shaking his head slightly, as if Draco were some particularly frustrating puzzle he couldn’t quite solve.

“Whatever you say, Malfoy,” he murmured, pushing off the doorframe. But just as he turned to leave, he glanced back, his expression unreadable. “But you should be more careful.” And with that, he strode out of the room, leaving Draco standing there, fists clenched, breath unsteady.

Be more careful.

The words echoed in his mind. He wasn’t sure whether Harry Potter had meant them as a warning, or something else entirely. But whatever it was, he hated the way they settled in his chest, heavy and suffocating. And he hated even more that — despite himself — he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that Potter had a point.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

The night was thick with a quiet stillness, the kind that settled heavily over the worn wooden floors of their cramped little home. Outside, the distant hum of the city was muffled by the wind, the occasional rattle of a passing cart or the hushed chatter of late-night wanderers drifting through the air. It wasn't much. It was barely enough. But it was theirs, and for now, that was all that mattered.

Ales and Daelan had been relentless about having a hammock ever since they had seen one outside the newly built primary school several blocks away. Their excitement had been infectious and their voices were overlapping as they tried to describe it to him over dinner. How it swayed gently, how the other children had taken turns climbing into it, and how it looked so comfortable that it must have felt like floating.

Draco had tried, he really had, to be practical, and to explain in patient, logical terms that their poor excuse of a ceiling wasn’t particularly well-suited for things like hammocks. That their home was already small enough without him attempting to string up unnecessary furniture. That he barely had time to sleep as it was, let alone take on another tedious project.

But it had been futile. Because Ales had looked up at him with those bright, hopeful eyes, and Daelan, though louder, had clung to the edge of his robes. And Draco, for all his supposed resolve, was utterly incapable of saying no when it mattered. He supposed, in some ways, that was his greatest weakness: his inability to deny them even the simplest of things when they asked for them so earnestly.

So here he was, exhausted, yet sitting cross-legged on the floor with a pile of borrowed tools beside him, trying to make sense of the materials they had scrounged together.

Finn sat across from him, watching in amusement as he worked. He wasn’t much for talking, but he stayed awake anyway, occasionally handing him a tool before he even had to ask for it. His dark eyes were sharp, always assessing, and always a step ahead in ways that made him seem far older than twelve. Draco had never told him so, but he saw it. He saw the way Finn observed everything with the quiet calculation of someone who had long since learned not to expect kindness from the world.

He exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over his tired eyes. “You know,” he murmured, voice low in the hush of the night, “you don’t have to stay up for this.”

Finn shrugged, picking up a loose screw and rolling it between his fingers. “You don’t have to build it.”

“Touché.” He adjusted the length of the rope, testing the knot’s strength with a firm tug before glancing up at Finn. “Did you see the one at the school?”

Finn gave a short nod, still fidgeting with the screw. “Yeah. It looked nice.” A brief pause. “Daelan and Ales liked it more.”

He hummed, unsurprised. Daelan and Ales had always been drawn to things that felt new — things that offered the smallest taste of a world beyond their own. He had seen it before, countless times, when they pressed their noses against every building’s windows, staring at various objects they could see. He had wanted better for them. Still wanted better for them.

Which was why, as he worked the rope through the wooden frame, another thought surfaced in his mind. A thought he had meant to bring up for weeks now, though he had never quite found the right moment.

“Have you thought about it?” He spoke carefully, keeping his tone neutral.

“Thought about what?”

Draco didn’t look at Finn this time, focusing instead on securing the frame. “School,” he said simply. “Your supposed second year at Hogwarts.”

There was a beat of silence. Finn’s fingers stilled around the screw, his grip tightening just slightly. His face remained neutral but he knew the kid well enough to recognize the subtle shifts. The tension in his shoulders. The way his lips pressed into a thin, almost defensive line.

When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet. “What’s the point?”

Draco sighed, setting down the rope as he leaned back against the wall. He stretched his legs out in front of him, his gaze steady as he studied Finn’s expression. The boy had always been guarded, but there was something more in his tone now. Something bitter.

“The point,” Draco said carefully, “is that you could have a different life.”

Finn snorted, shaking his head. “Hogwarts doesn’t want people like me.”

“What do you mean, people like you?”

“Kids like me don’t get letters, Draco,” he muttered. “Doesn’t matter that I have magic. I didn’t get one last year. I won't get one this year.”

Draco felt something cold settle in his chest. Because Finn was right. His Hogwarts letter had never arrived. And while he knew why, it still filled him with something sharp and burning. It wasn’t fair.

“That’s not your fault,” he said, calm but firm. “And it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have an education.”

“Yeah? And where exactly am I supposed to get one?” Finn scoffed.

Draco hesitated. He had spent months considering this exact question. He had scoured books, written letters, and tried to find some way around it. But the reality was, they had few options. Still, he wasn’t going to let this be the end of it.

“We’ll find something,” he said, more determined than before. “You’re not just going to sit here and do nothing for the rest of your life, Finn.”

The boy cast him a skeptical look. “And if I do?”

“Then I’ll personally drag you to the nearest school and throw you into a classroom by myself.”

There was a beat of silence. Then — reluctantly — the kid let out a short chuckle, shaking his head. “You’re ridiculous.”

 “And you’re too bloody smart for your own good.”

Finn didn’t respond right away. His fingers traced absent patterns against the wooden planks, his face unreadable. Then, after a long pause, he muttered, “…I’ll think about it.”

“Good.”

And with that, they returned to their work, the weight of the conversation settling between them. It was not heavy, but present. He focused on securing the last of the knots, making sure they were sturdy enough to hold. Finn continued handing him tools without prompting, and together, in the quiet of the night, they built something small but significant.

A hammock. A conversation. A possibility.

He couldn't care less if he only got an hour or two of sleep that night. It was a good bonding time with one of his siblings, and Draco was more than satisfied.

Chapter Text

as if the stars had dimmed in the sky

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

Draco had hoped that today would be one of those rare, uneventful days. Perhaps one of the fleeting moments when everything would feel almost normal. It was almost as if he had nothing to worry about. 

However, he had learned too soon in his life to never expect too much, not after everything he had gone through. So when he entered St. Mungo’s early that morning, the usual stares followed him. The whispers were barely loud enough to reach his ears, and yet, they still managed to sting. It was almost routine by now. He walked past the hospital staff who would occasionally offer him a cold glance or a smirk, each of them probably wondering just how long he could last before he messed up. Even the parents of the children, who were often distressed and difficult, seemed to have a disdainful edge when it came to him. It wasn’t outright hostility, not in the sense that people would shout at him, but there was always an unspoken judgment.

Madam Montmorency hadn’t spared him a second’s peace either. She greeted him with her usual, disapproving glare, and immediately handed him a list of duties for the day. “Don’t screw up, Malfoy,” she muttered, though it wasn’t so much an order as it was a way of reinforcing the very reason he had been assigned to her. It was no secret that Madam Montmorency had never been particularly fond of him, and she was always eager to find something he could be reprimanded for.

Draco didn’t mind much anymore. He had long ago accepted that this was his role in society. A former Death Eater with a reputation that followed him everywhere. His days at St. Mungo’s felt like a penance he had to endure in order to rebuild his life and find some sort of redemption for the things he had done. He focused on his tasks, staying quiet, obeying instructions, and doing his best to keep his head down and avoid making any more waves than necessary.

But then, without warning, everything changed.

The door to the hospital suddenly burst open with a deafening crash. His head snapped up, his heart stopping as his eyes fell on the sight before him. Four very, extremely, familiar faces stood in the emergency room doorway — Finn, Percy, Ales, and Daelan.

Their thin clothes were torn. Their little faces were streaked with tears. And their eyes were wide with panic. But it was Finn and Percy who caught his attention the most. Finn’s lanky yet strong arms were wrapped around Percy’s limp body, the younger boy’s head lolling to one side. His face was pale and his clothes were stained with crimson. Blood. His breath hitched as his eyes locked on the horrific sight. His heart hammered in his chest, each beat deafening in his ears. 

Percy, his young brother, his precious little boy… bleeding. And from the way Finn was holding him, so carefully, but with the obvious strain of someone struggling to keep it together, Draco could already sense the gravity of the situation.

The noise in the room seemed to fade into nothing as he rushed toward them. His mind screamed at him to do something, anything, to fix this, but all he could hear was the panicked wail of Ales, who was clutching onto Daelan for support, her tiny voice cracking with fear. The little girl had tears streaming down her face, and Daelan, too, was sniffling, his big brown eyes wide with confusion.

“What happened?” His voice was strained, barely above a whisper, his chest tightening as he reached Finn and Percy.

Finn glanced up at him, his face was pale but determined, and it made his heart ache. His eyes were fierce. They were filled with a protective rage that only someone like Finn could have. “An old witch,” the kid spat, his voice thick with emotion, “she thought Percy was stealing apples. She hexed him. I tried to stop her, but…” His voice faltered for a moment, but then his jaw set firmly. “She hit him with something. He… he’s hurt, Draco.”

Draco’s heart sank as he reached out, gently taking Percy from Finn’s arms. The boy was so small, so fragile, and yet the weight of him felt heavier than ever. There was blood… so much blood… and he could see the marks of the hex: deep, painful burns that marred the boy’s delicate skin, an angry red seeping into his flesh. His fingers trembled as he carefully pressed a hand to Percy’s side. His mind was spinning as he tried to assess the damage. He couldn’t think. His breath was ragged in his chest as his gaze flicked between Finn and the others, his mind struggling to focus.

“She hexed him, Draco,” Finn repeated, his voice quivering. “I couldn’t stop her. She… she thought Percy was stealing, but he wasn’t! He just… he just wanted to look at the apples…”

He looked back down at Percy, his throat tightening as he tried to steady himself. The damage wasn’t something a simple flick of the wand could heal. The boy was so small, so innocent. How could someone do this to him? He gently lifted Percy’s chin, his fingers brushing the boy’s cheek, and tried to rouse him. “Percy, can you hear me?” he asked softly, but the boy remained unresponsive, his breathing shallow. Panic surged in his chest, and for a moment, he froze, unsure of what to do next.

“Please,” Finn pleaded, his voice cracking as he placed a hand on Draco’s arm, “help him.”

He blinked rapidly, trying to clear the tears that threatened to fall. He couldn’t let them see him break. Not in front of them. He had to be strong for them. He had to keep it together.

“Alright,” Draco whispered, his voice steady despite the chaos in his chest. “We’re going to fix this. We’re going to get him help.”

With one final glance at the others, he turned to the nearest nurse and barked out an order. He knew he had no right to do that but this was an emergency. “Help me get him into a treatment room, now. Please also call Madam Montmorency, and prepare a Blood-Replenishing Potion, quickly.”

He knew Finn’s eyes were following his every movement. The boy was so brave, so strong, and yet Draco could see how deeply this had affected him. It wasn’t just the blood; it was the fact that someone had hurt Percy — someone had done this to his little brother, and Finn had been powerless to stop it. He couldn’t imagine what it must have felt like for him to watch that.

“Finn, I need you to stay here with Ales and Daelan,” he said, his voice gentle but firm. “I’m going to take care of Percy. I promise.”

Finn hesitated for only a moment, then nodded, though his lips pressed into a tight line. “After this, we should find that old witch. Don’t let her get away with it, Draco. Don’t let her.”

Sounded like a true Slytherin.

“I won’t,” he interrupted, his voice low with a promise. “I won’t let her get away with this.”

As he carefully carried Percy into the treatment room, his mind raced. He would make sure that the woman paid for what she had done. No one — not even an old witch in a small market stall — had the right to hurt a child, especially not in the way she had. And no matter what it took, he would make sure she was held accountable.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

The Threshold Ward was one of the most magically fortified rooms in St. Mungo’s. It was designed to handle only the most severe, life-threatening cases. The walls shimmered faintly with enchantments meant to stabilize a patient’s vitals the moment they crossed the threshold. There were no windows, only rows of sterile white cots, and a lingering scent of disinfectant mingled with the acrid burn of healing potions. Healers moved swiftly between patients, their robes billowing, and wands flashing with carefully controlled spells.

But none of that mattered right now. None of it mattered because no one was moving. No one was doing anything.

Draco stood in the middle of the room, his breath coming in harsh, uneven gasps, and his hands clenched into trembling fists at his sides. His chest ached not from exhaustion, not from frustration, but from something much worse. Terror. Sheer, unrelenting terror.

On the nearest cot lay his brother, Percy. Small. Fragile. Bleeding. His once-bright eyes were dull with pain and his face was far too pale. The hex had done its damage. His little chest rose and fell in quick, shallow bursts, and there were dark smudges under his eyes. The sight of him like this made his stomach twist into knots. His mind screamed at him to do something, to grab the nearest wand and cast the healing spells himself. But he wasn’t a certified healer. He was an intern. A nobody.

And St. Mungo’s had already decided.

They weren’t going to help him.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN’T HEAL HIM?!”

His voice ripped through the air, sharp and raw. The force of it startled even the other healers, who had been trying and failing to pretend they weren’t watching. His voice was also ragged, filled with something wild… something desperate.

“AND YOU WANT TO KICK HIM OUT OF THE HOSPITAL? HE IS A CHILD!”

His words felt too loud as it sliced through the heavy silence like a blade. It didn’t make sense. None of everything that had happened made sense. St. Mungo’s was supposed to heal people. That was the very foundation of their purpose and the reason behind their existence. And yet here they were, standing around, unmoving, watching a child suffer.

Madam Montmorency’s cold, indifferent expression didn’t waver. She stood with her arms folded neatly over her chest, her deep purple healer’s robes pristine, not a single crease in sight. Her gaze met his as if she were speaking to an unruly child rather than a desperate guardian.

“This hospital has policies, Malfoy,” she said, her voice as clipped and professional as ever. Each syllable was laced with unspoken judgment. Her tone was also carrying the weight of someone who had already decided this conversation was a waste of her time. “We do not prioritize treating children of former Death Eaters. There are others in line before him—”

He felt the world tilt. His breath caught in his throat.

“You’re lying.” His voice was lower this time, quieter. His entire body was thrumming with fury and his pulse was pounding in his ears. “You’re not putting him in a queue. You’re refusing him. Say it. Say it out loud.”

Madam Montmorency let out a slow, deliberate sigh, as though he was nothing more than a nuisance, a minor inconvenience in her otherwise orderly day.

“As I’ve said, there are regulations, Intern Malfoy. It’s best if you—”

Draco slammed his hand onto the nearest desk, sending a tray of vials crashing to the floor. The glass shattered as the potion splattered across the white tiles like spilled ink. The sudden noise made everyone in the room flinch. He could barely see past the blinding rage.

“You’re letting him die,” he snarled, his voice thick with something dangerous. “Because of who his parents were.”

Madam Montmorency said nothing and the silence was a confirmation. Draco’s breath was coming in quick, ragged bursts now. His chest was aching, his entire body taut like a string pulled too tight, ready to snap. His throat felt tight, unbearably tight, and before he could stop himself, he knelt to the floor. Pleading.

“Please, Madam.” His voice came out quieter now, unsteady, raw. His hands shook as he turned them upward, palms open, fingers trembling. He wasn’t proud. He had long since abandoned pride when it came to these children. There was no room for pride in desperation.

“Just heal him,” he whispered. He was begging now. He didn’t care if the entire hospital saw. “I… I will quit. I won’t show myself to anyone again. Take my job. Me and the kids will leave. We’ll go somewhere far away. You’ll never have to see me again. Just please… please heal him this one time.”

Silence.

For a moment, just a brief moment, Draco thought she might reconsider. But then she exhaled sharply, shaking her head. 

“You’re already on thin ice, Intern Malfoy. Auror Potter has been reporting that you are negligent and always distracted. I can’t afford…”

Potter.

Draco felt the breath leave his lungs. His head snapped up, his body going rigid. Of course. Of course. It was him. Harry Potter had been circling him like a vulture since the moment he set foot in this hospital. Watching. Waiting. He had wanted this, hadn’t he? He had been searching for a reason to finally get rid of Draco. To ruin him.

He could feel Potter’s presence behind him. The weight of his gaze was suffocating. It was burning into his back like a brand. He was always there.

Draco’s throat tightened. His vision blurred. His voice cracked, barely above a whisper. “Please. He is my brother.”

The words felt foreign on his tongue but they were true. Percy wasn’t his blood. None of them were. But that didn’t matter. It had never mattered. He had spent so much of his life running from attachments, from emotions, and from caring. But these children — Percy, Finn, Ales, Daelan — they had become his family. And now he was watching one of them die, and he was powerless.

Madam Montmorency didn’t react. She simply exhaled, shaking her head. Then, with a cold, final look, she turned away.

“We’re done here.”

“NO, WE’RE NOT!”

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

“NO, WE’RE NOT!”

The words left Harry’s mouth before he even had time to think. They came out sharp and raw. It was carrying the full weight of his frustration and disbelief. The walls of the Threshold Ward seemed to reverberate with the force of his outburst. Every pair of eyes in the room — healers, mediwitches, even a few lingering patients — swung toward him, their expressions a mixture of shock and wary hesitation. But he didn’t care. None of them mattered.

Because in front of him, lying still and bleeding on a hospital cot, was a child.

For some reason, the sight reminded him of Sixth Year. Of the time it was Draco Malfoy on the floor… bleeding like hell and on the verge of dying.

His stomach churned at the sight of the boy (Percy, Malfoy had called him), his tiny frame barely making an impression against the thin mattress. The fabric of his shirt was dark with blood, an ugly crimson stain spreading from his side, and his breathing was erratic and shallow. The rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, uneven and weak, sent a bolt of dread straight through his spine. He had seen wounds like this before. He had seen people die from them. He had seen enough blood spilled in his lifetime to know that if they didn’t act now, the kid wouldn’t last much longer.

Yet, despite all of this… despite the gravity of the situation, despite the fact that a bleeding child lay before them… Madam Montmorency stood there, her arms crossed and her expression cold and impassive. Her lips were pursed in that ever-present disapproving frown, the kind she always wore whenever she thought something (or someone) was beneath her attention. When she finally spoke, her voice was sharp and clinical, devoid of any trace of concern.

“This hospital does not provide care for their kind, Auror Potter,” she said, her tone eerily composed, as if she were merely turning away a patient who had come in with a minor scrape instead of a child who was actively dying before her. “We are done here.”

Something inside Harry snapped. Their kind. The words rang in his ears, sinking into his skin like needles, and suddenly, he wasn’t standing in St. Mungo’s anymore. Suddenly, he was sixteen years old again, standing in the middle of the Great Hall, watching as pure-blooded students whispered behind their hands. He knew what it was like to be singled out and to be labeled something less than human. He had seen it in the way people had spoken about werewolves, about Muggle-borns, about half-bloods. And now, about children.

Harry took a step forward as he forced himself to unclench his fists. This wasn’t just some nameless bureaucrat in the Ministry or some purist holding onto the last vestiges of the old ways. This was a Healer. This was someone who had taken an oath to save lives, not pick and choose who deserved to live based on their last name.

“This hospital has saved my life before,” he said, and his voice, though quieter than before, was no less fierce. “I’ve come through these doors with injuries worse than this, half-dead and barely standing. And you didn’t turn me away. You didn’t ask what I had done to deserve care. You just helped.” He took another step, his gaze locked onto Montmorency’s. “Tell me, Madam, what makes this child so different from me?”

Montmorency exhaled sharply as if he was burdening her with his words. “Harry, this is—”

“How?” He cut her off, his voice rising again. “How is this different?”

Her silence was deafening.

He turned, his eyes landing on the three small figures standing near the entrance of the ward. They were huddled together and their hands were gripping onto each other as if letting go would make them disappear. Their faces were pale, their eyes rimmed red from crying, and the fear on their expressions was the kind of fear no child should ever have to know.

And then there was Draco Malfoy.

He had seen the posh git break before. He had seen him stand pale and shaking on the floor of the Great Hall, surrounded by the wreckage of a war neither of them had chosen. But this was different. This was desperation. His normally pristine intern robes were crumpled, his hair falling messily over his forehead, and his hands trembling at his sides. When he finally lifted his head, his silver eyes were glassy and his lips parted as if he wanted to speak but couldn’t.

Then, he did.

“Please,” Malfoy said, and it wasn’t a command. It wasn’t a demand. It was a plea. A quiet, broken whisper of a man who had nothing left to give. “He’s my brother.”

The words hit him like a Bludger straight to the gut.

Brother.

Malfoy had called the child his brother.

Harry’s eyes darted back to the children. He remembered how they arrived at the doorstep of St. Mungo’s earlier and how they immediately gravitated toward Malfoy as if he was their anchor. And suddenly, it made sense. The way the blonde had dropped to his knees the moment they entered the hospital. The way he had checked them over, touching their faces, gripping their hands, and murmuring reassurances. The way he had cradled Percy’s head, whispering promises Harry doubted he could keep. They were his family.

Harry turned back to Madam Montmorency. His voice, when he spoke again, was no longer pleading. It was steel.

“This hospital was supposed to be better than this,” he said, each word slow and deliberate. “YOU were supposed to be better than this.” The room was so silent he could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears.

Madam Montmorency’s face was unreadable, but her fingers twitched at her sides. For the first time, doubt flickered in her expression. And then, after what felt like an eternity, she let out a slow, measured sigh.

“Get me a vial of Essence of Dittany,” she said to the nearest healer.

Everything in the room seemed to move at once. Healers rushed forward, hands steady, voices calling for potions and bandages. Malfoy collapsed forward, his hands bracing against the cot as a choked, ragged sob tore from his throat. The children gasped, clinging to each other, their bodies trembling from relief.

Harry took a deep breath, watching as the hospital finally did what it was meant to do. And as he stood there, watching Malfoy fall apart, and watching those children hold onto each other like their lives depended on it, Harry felt something deep in his chest shift.

And he knew, he knew, it was never going to shift back.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

The staff room was dimly lit. The flickering lights were casting elongated shadows across the stone walls. It also smelled faintly of antiseptic potions and worn parchment. Harry hadn’t planned to be here. He hadn’t planned for any of this. Yet, somehow, he found himself seated stiffly in a creaky wooden chair. Only the quiet breathing of two sleeping children filled the space between himself and the oldest boy, who sat across from him with guarded eyes. 

Malfoy had all but shoved him and the three children inside before stepping back into the corridor. His gaze was fixed on the closed doors of the Threshold Ward, where the injured child lay behind an array of diagnostic spells and hurriedly working Healers.

He exhaled, dragging a tired hand through his hair. His mind was reeling from everything that had happened in the past hour. Honestly, he should have left. He should have let Malfoy deal with the mess himself. But something about the way the blonde had looked — desperate, resigned, yet fiercely unwilling to leave the ward — had made Harry stay. So now, here he was, sitting awkwardly in the staff room of St. Mungo’s, with three children who were clearly tied to Malfoy in some way he didn’t yet understand.

A deep, steady breathing sound caught his attention. Two of the children had fallen asleep, their tiny heads resting on the lap of the tallest boy who remained awake. The way he sat — rigid, with arms crossed tightly over his chest — told Harry that he wasn’t going to relax anytime soon. He had sharp, intelligent eyes, and they flickered with something that made him uncomfortable. He knew it wasn’t fear. It was wariness.

The silence stretched between them, broken only by the distant murmur of hospital staff moving beyond the door. Finally, the boy spoke.

"You're Harry Potter, right?" His voice was steady, but his fingers twitched slightly as if he were debating whether or not to say more. "The Hero? The one who defeated the Bad Guy. The reason why our parents were killed by the Dementors…”

He stilled. The words cut through him like a cold knife. Of course. Of course, they were children of Death Eaters. Of course, their parents had been among the ones who had been executed after the war. Suddenly, guilt settled deep in his chest. It was a sensation he had long grown accustomed to, but this felt different. This wasn’t the guilt of making a wrong decision in the heat of battle or the guilt of failing to save someone. This was the guilt of being a victor in a war where children were left to suffer the consequences of a battle they had no say in.

"That was me," he admitted after a moment. His voice was quieter than he expected it to be. "I'm sorry."

The boy… so young yet carrying so much weight in his expression… studied him for a long moment. Then, after what felt like an eternity, he spoke again.

"Don’t be. Draco said it was the right thing to do…" Harry's breath caught slightly at the name. "...That we shouldn’t be angry at the people who fought the war and won."

He wasn’t sure what to say to that. He had spent years wondering if what he had done… the choices he had made, the people he had fought, and the lives that had been lost… had really been the right thing. He had never expected Draco Malfoy, of all people, to tell children like them that they shouldn’t hold anger in their hearts.

For the first time since stepping into this room, he really looked at the boy in front of him. He wasn’t just another war orphan. He was more than just the son of a Death Eater. He was someone Malfoy had taken in and someone Malfoy had cared for. And that made him realize something else… Malfoy wasn’t just looking after them. They trusted him. They listened to him. And that was perhaps the most unexpected revelation of all.

Harry shifted in his seat, finally finding his voice again. "And what do you think?" he asked, watching as the boy's fingers tensed slightly against the fabric of his trousers. "Do you agree with him?"

The boy didn’t answer right away. His gaze flickered down to the two children resting in his lap, then back to Harry. When he spoke, his voice was softer, more hesitant. "I don’t know," he admitted. "But... Draco takes care of us. He wouldn't lie to us."

He felt something in his chest twist. Draco takes care of us.

How had things changed so much? How had Malfoy gone from the arrogant boy who sneered at the less fortunate to a man who fought tooth and nail to protect four war orphans?

"What's your name?" Harry found himself asking, his voice quieter now, less an interrogation and more an olive branch.

The boy hesitated for only a moment before he finally answered.

"Finn."

He nodded slowly, letting the name settle between them. "And them?" he asked, nodding toward the two sleeping children.

Finn glanced down at them, his fingers brushing lightly against the younger boy’s messy curls as if checking to make sure they were still sound asleep. "This one is Daelan," he murmured. "And this princess here is Ales."

Harry nodded again, committing the names to memory.

Chapter Text

as if the silence had swallowed all sound

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

The small hospital room was silent, save for the faint, rhythmic beeping of diagnostic charms that hovered above the bed. The walls, an uncomfortable shade of white, seemed to stretch on endlessly, enclosing the space in a kind of stillness that made Draco’s skin itch. The air smelled of antiseptic potions and clean linens, but beneath those scents was something colder… something clinical and detached, as if the room itself refused to acknowledge the child lying motionless beneath the sheets.

Percy, his brother, was too pale. His dark hair, normally a wild mess, was limp against the pillow, and his small hands were resting atop the blankets. There was a time, just days ago, when those hands would tug at Draco’s sleeve, clutch at his robes when he wanted attention, or fist around a stolen quill as he pretended to do “serious paperwork” like Draco. But now? There was nothing. No fidgeting. No soft hums under his breath when he was bored. No shifting around, unable to stay still for more than a minute. Just stillness. Just an unbearable quiet that clawed at Draco’s nerves and made it hard to breathe.

He exhaled slowly, pressing his fingers against his temples before dropping his hands to his lap. The exhaustion was bone-deep. His muscles ached, his head felt heavy, and his eyes burned from too many sleepless nights. It had been a week. An entire week of waiting, hoping, and then dreading as the hours stretched on with no change. Percy remained unconscious. He was trapped in whatever haze the hex had thrown him into, and there was nothing he could do but sit here, watching, waiting, and hoping for something that would prove he hadn’t made all these sacrifices for nothing.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His hands were clasped tightly together as if holding on to something invisible. As if they were holding on to something that kept slipping through his fingers no matter how hard he tried to keep it in his grasp. His mind was also a mess of conflicting thoughts, all tangled together in a storm of frustration, fear, and helplessness. Every hour that passed only solidified the panic in his chest.

"You know, Percy," he murmured, "I used to think hospitals were the most useless places in the world. Just somewhere people went to either get better or… not. No real in-between." He huffed out a humorless chuckle, shaking his head as he let his gaze settle on the boy’s face. "Ironic, isn’t it? That I ended up working here."

He ran a hand down his face, fingers pressing into the sharp angles of his cheekbones, trying to ground himself. He felt stretched thin… like he was barely keeping himself together. He had spent years building himself back up, clawing his way out of the mess left behind by the war and trying to find something that felt like stability. And for a while, he thought he had managed. But now? Now he was losing everything all over again.

"You’re missing out on a lot, you know," he continued, his voice softer now, almost hesitant. "Finn’s been sulking more than usual. Daelan keeps pestering Potter with questions whenever he sees him. Merlin help me, I don’t even know what he’s been asking but he seems to find it amusing. And Ales…" He swallowed, his throat tightening. "Ales still asks when you’re going to wake up." He clenched his jaw, his hands tightening into fists.

"You need to wake up, Percy."

The words felt heavier than they should have. He knew it was irrational, but a part of him expected the boy’s eyes to flicker open, for him to stir at the sound of his name, and for everything to go back to how it was. But still… there was no response. Just the quiet hum of the diagnostic spells and the occasional flicker of light against the walls.

His breathing hitched.

"I can’t keep doing this."

He didn’t mean to say it out loud, but the words slipped out before he could stop them. He felt like he was drowning, barely keeping his head above water and grasping for something solid but finding nothing but open air. His job at St. Mungo’s was gone… he knew that. Even if they hadn’t officially dismissed him yet, it was only a matter of time. Madam Montmorency had made it clear that his presence was tolerated at best and that his continued employment was an inconvenience they were eager to be rid of. And he had given her the perfect excuse.

"Heal him, and I will quit."

He had meant it when he said it. He still meant it. Draco had been desperate. He was willing to give up whatever was necessary if it meant Percy got a chance to live. But he hadn’t thought about what would happen afterward. He hadn’t thought about how he was going to provide for the children without a steady job. He hadn’t considered how quickly his savings would dry up. He hadn’t realized just how utterly poor they would be once he walked away from St. Mungo’s for good.

Worse, he was running out of options. Between trying to find another job, caring for Percy, and keeping the other three children from realizing just how dire their situation was, he felt like he was being pulled in too many directions at once. It was only a matter of time before something snapped. He let out a slow, unsteady breath, reaching out with trembling fingers to brush a strand of dark hair from Percy’s forehead. The boy didn’t stir.

"You’re stronger than this," he whispered. "I know you are." His voice cracked slightly, and he immediately cleared his throat, blinking away the burning sensation behind his eyes. He couldn’t break now. Not when Percy still needed him. Not when they all still needed him.

He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his hands over his face as the exhaustion pressed down on him like a crushing weight. He let his head fall back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling, and feeling every inch of his body protest against the sheer weariness dragging him down.

The exhaustion was creeping up on him, honestly. His eyelids fluttered shut for just a moment. Just a second. He wasn’t planning to sleep, but the stillness of the room, the faint hum of diagnostic charms, and the rhythmic rise and fall of Percy’s chest, they all were lulling him into a state that teetered between awareness and unconsciousness.

He didn’t realize he had fully started to drift until the door slammed open.

The noise cut through the quiet space like a curse. The sharp bang of wood against the wall made him jerk upright, every muscle in his body tensing on instinct. His stomach twisted as his mind caught up with what was happening… because of course it had to be her.

"Malfoy!"

Madam Montmorency’s voice cut through the air like a whip. It was sharp and seething with the kind of authority that made his spine lock into place, even as exhaustion begged him to sink back into his seat. She strode into the room with the force of an incoming storm. Her robes were billowing and her mouth was already twisted into something tight and unyielding.

And behind her, just as silent and unpredictable as ever, was Harry Potter.

Draco swallowed the sharp taste of anxiety. His eyes flicked to Percy first, as if making sure the boy was still breathing, still here, before shifting his gaze to Madam Montmorency. He knew that look. That particular glint in her eye. It was the same one that always preceded a verbal beating so sharp it could flay the skin right off his bones.

"I do not remember giving you permission to abandon your post."

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. Didn’t react in any way she would consider gratifying. He just sat there, staring, his hands clasped tightly in his lap to stop them from trembling. He was too exhausted to argue. Too exhausted to defend himself.

"Do you think this hospital exists to cater to you? Do you think St. Mungo’s is some kind of charity? That we take in patients for free out of the kindness of our hearts?" She didn’t give him a chance to answer, not that he had one. "You are wasting space, Malfoy. And worse, you’re wasting my time."

He took a slow, deliberate breath through his nose, exhaling silently through his mouth. He was so goddamn tired. The words washed over him like a tide he had no strength left to resist. He had heard them all before, over and over, until they no longer stung but simply existed. They were cold facts spoken aloud to remind him of how little he had to his name.

"Do you have any idea how much that procedure cost? How much the potions and charms keeping this child alive are worth?" 

Madam Montmorency’s voice was dripping with contempt. Her eyes were gleaming with barely veiled fury.

"I don’t see a single sickle coming from you, Malfoy. Not one. And yet you’re here, lounging about, as if you have the luxury to sit and do nothing."

Draco clenched his jaw so tightly it ached. Because she was right. She was always right.

"You made a deal, did you not?" she continued, crossing her arms. "You swore that if I healed this child, you would walk away from this hospital for good. Have you forgotten your promise already?"

"I haven’t forgotten," he murmured, voice steady despite the way his hands curled into his robes, fingernails digging into fabric.

"Then why are you still here?"

It was a cruel question. One with no answer that would satisfy her. He shouldn’t be here. He should be gone already, out of St. Mungo’s, out of their way, out of sight like the worthless stain they all thought he was. But how could he leave when Percy, his dear brother, hadn’t woken up? When every breath the boy took still seemed so fragile and so uncertain? When the three other children still needed someone to keep them from spiraling into fear?

Draco swallowed against the dryness in his throat, refusing to speak. Madam Montmorency scoffed.

"Stop looking miserable! If you think sentimentality is going to get you out of this, you are sorely mistaken. This is a hospital, not a home for lost causes. You are not a Healer. You are not even an intern anymore. You are a liability, Malfoy. You are taking up resources we cannot afford to waste." Each word landed like a physical blow, striking the softest, most vulnerable parts of him. "If I find you here again when you should be packing up and leaving with that child, I will have security remove the two of you by force. Do you understand me?"

He nodded once. The witch then turned sharply to Potter.

"And you."

Draco tiredly watched as Potter finally moved, shifting his weight slightly, but he remained silent.

"Why are you here? Why did you follow me?" she asked, narrowing her eyes. "You are an Auror. Your jurisdiction is outside, not inside these walls. Or have you taken to loitering alongside Malfoy now?"

There was a long pause.

He stared at Potter then, exhausted and unimpressed, waiting to see if the so-called Chosen One had anything to say. Potter’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. For once, he found himself agreeing with the Gryffindor git. Silence was easier. Silence didn’t demand explanations or justifications. Silence was a shield.

Madam Montmorency let out a sharp breath through her nose, clearly unimpressed. "I expect this room to be empty the next time I check. We are done here."

With that, she turned on her heel and swept out of the room, her robes flaring behind her. Draco didn’t move. He didn’t say a word. Potter remained standing near the door, watching him with that unreadable expression of his, but Draco refused to meet his gaze anymore. 

The moment the wooden door closed behind his former superior, the room was silent again. He exhaled, long and slow, rubbing a hand over his face. He wanted to say something. To snap at Potter for watching him like he was a goddamn puzzle to be solved. To tell him to get out, to leave him alone, to stop looking at him like that.

But he was too tired. So instead, he sat there. And Potter said nothing.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Harry left the hospital room without another word, but the moment he stepped outside, he felt something coil tight in his chest. It was something suffocating and thick, like he had just swallowed fire. He was angry. No, furious. But he didn’t know at whom. At Madam Montmorency for being heartless? At Malfoy for just sitting there and taking it? Or at himself, for watching it happen and doing absolutely nothing?

His feet carried him forward before he even realized where he was going. His vision tunneled, his hands clenched at his sides, and by the time his surroundings sharpened back into focus, he was standing directly in front of Madam Montmorency. She was speaking to a Healer at the nurses’ station. Her expression was poised and unbothered and her posture was betraying not an ounce of guilt over what she had just done. She looked as if she had already moved on from the conversation with Malfoy. It was as if tearing into someone who had spent every waking moment worrying over an unconscious child was nothing more than routine.

"A word," he bit out, his voice sharp as steel. He didn’t raise his tone, but it still cut through the air, drawing the attention of a few nearby Healers.

Madam Montmorency arched an unimpressed brow, but after a moment, she sighed and dismissed the Healer she had been speaking to. "Make it quick, Auror Potter. Some of us actually have work to do."

He took a slow step forward, lowering his voice but hardening his tone. "You can’t seriously expect him to leave."

The Head Healer scoffed, folding her arms across her chest. "I don’t expect anything, Potter. I simply enforce the rules."

"Rules? Rules that tell a grown man to abandon his family when one of them is still unconscious? Rules that tell a Healer to punish someone for being worried sick?"

"Spare me the melodrama," Madam Montmorency snapped, her composed demeanor finally showing cracks. "A deal is a deal. Malfoy agreed to leave once the boy was treated. That was the condition. And yet, a week later, here he still is… squatting in a hospital that does not want him, taking up space and resources that he has no right to."

He felt something burn in his chest, hot and molten. "You talk about resources like he’s stealing from you, but we both know that’s not true. This hospital was built to help people. You can’t pick and choose who deserves treatment based on their name."

"Oh, you’re one to talk about names, son.” Her lips curled into something sharp and cruel.

Harry stiffened.

"Yes, you have contributed so much to this place, but you don’t run St. Mungo’s. You don’t make the decisions here. And if you had actually read the hospital policies instead of storming into my office every other day, you’d know that Draco Malfoy is here on borrowed time. He was never meant to last this long."

He opened his mouth to argue, to shout, but she was faster.

"And you of all people should understand that," she said. "You were the one who spent months telling us that he was untrustworthy. That he didn’t belong here. Or have you forgotten, Harry?"

The words landed like a physical blow. For a moment, Harry had forgotten. Or maybe he had forced himself to forget. But her words ripped open something in his mind, and suddenly, all the memories he had pushed to the side came rushing back in full force.

September 12th – Subject: Draco Malfoy, St. Mungo’s Intern

Draco Malfoy has been accepted into St. Mungo’s as an intern. Given his history, I believe this decision is questionable at best and dangerous at worst. There are still former Death Eaters who remain unaccounted for, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he were in contact with them. Malfoy has always been a follower. It would be foolish to assume he won’t fall back into old habits.

September 20th – Suspicious Behavior Report

Draco Malfoy has been seen speaking in hushed voices with several high-ranking Healers. I don’t have evidence yet, but I have reason to believe he’s attempting to manipulate his way up the ranks. It’s only a matter of time before he uses his name to secure a permanent position here.

September 27th – Request for Reevaluation of Internship

Draco Malfoy is too focused on matters that don’t really concern him. I’ve seen him lingering around restricted patient records and speaking to children who shouldn’t even be here alone. If there’s a way to reconsider his placement, I highly suggest doing so. He is not suited for this environment.

October 14th – Final Recommendation

At this point, I see no reason for Draco Malfoy to remain at St. Mungo’s. His presence is more of a risk than a benefit. Given his family’s past and his own questionable activities, it is in the hospital’s best interest to terminate his internship before something irreversible happens.

The reports slammed into his mind, each one a damning reminder of how deeply he had distrusted Malfoy. From the moment the pointy git had set foot in St. Mungo’s, Harry had been watching him and scrutinizing his every move. He was tracking his interactions, his conversations, and his presence. He had spent weeks waiting for Malfoy to mess up and for something to prove that his instincts were right… that Draco Malfoy was, once again, up to something.

But now…

Now, the man he had sworn was a self-serving liar, a man who had every reason to use his name to his advantage, was sitting at the bedside of an unconscious child, looking more exhausted than Harry had ever seen him.

A week after the deal was made, he was still there. A week of working under the scrutiny of a hospital that wanted him gone. A week of paying off the cost of an operation that should have never been questioned in the first place. And not once had Draco Malfoy fought back. Not when Madam Montmorency berated him. Not when he was accused of being a waste of resources. Not even when Harry himself had stood there, silent, complicit in the punishment.

"Have you forgotten, Harry?"

Madam Montmorency’s voice was steady, cold.

"You want him out more than the rest of us."

For the first time in months, Harry wasn’t so sure that was true.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

After his confrontation with the Head Healer, Harry spent the day pushing against walls that refused to budge. He was an Auror, a war hero, the Chosen One, but for the first time in a long time, none of that mattered. Every office he entered, every conversation he started, was met with polite smiles, thinly veiled condescension, and the same rehearsed apologies that might as well have been scripted.

He had walked into this impromptu fight knowing it wouldn’t be easy — bureaucracy never was — but he hadn’t expected to feel this powerless, this small. Each rejection chipped away at the urgency burning inside him, leaving behind nothing but frustration and a sinking sense of inevitability. But he had spent too long being the boy who refused to accept fate, and he wasn't about to stop now.

His first stop was one of the Senior Healers, Argus Wilkes. Wilkes was an elderly wizard whose years of experience had turned him into the kind of man who spoke in measured tones and rarely made direct eye contact. His office was cluttered with old case files and half-empty potion vials. He was the first person Harry had chosen to approach, hoping that, at the very least, Wilkes would be reasonable. 

But as soon as he explained why he was there, he saw the carefully neutral mask slip into place.

"Auror Potter," the Senior Healer began, his fingers lacing together atop his desk. His tone was mild, but his eyes were wary. "I understand that you have concerns regarding Mr. Malfoy’s employment, but we cannot make exceptions. He agreed to the terms. The hospital upheld its end of the bargain. The child was healed."

He leaned forward, his hands pressing against the armrests of his chair. "The bargain was made under duress," he countered, his voice tight with barely contained frustration. "He didn’t have a choice. The kid would have died otherwise."

"It is not my place to alter agreements that were already finalized. I am truly sorry, but my hands are tied."

"Are they, though? Or is it easier to let an unwanted name disappear?" His jaw clenched as his patience wore dangerously thin. 

The question hung between them, heavy and unspoken. Wilkes didn’t answer. And that, more than anything, told Harry exactly where he stood.

His second stop was a quickly-scheduled meeting with a few members of St. Mungo’s Board of Governors.

The boardroom was suffocating. It was a vast expanse of polished wood and high-backed chairs filled with several people who looked at him as though he was an inconvenience rather than a hero. They were old, all of them, and their faces were set in practiced neutrality. Harry had dealt with politicians before, but this was different. This wasn’t a battle of right and wrong. This was a battle of power, and he had walked in already outnumbered.

"This isn’t a matter of sentimentality, Mr. Potter," said Edgar Greaves, the head of the board, his deep voice carrying the weight of finality. "We have to think of the hospital’s reputation."

"What part of the hospital’s reputation is so fragile that it can’t withstand a single intern?"

A woman to Greaves’ right — thin, sharp-eyed, and dressed in robes that probably cost more than most Healers made in a year — sighed, as though this entire conversation was a waste of time. "You clearly misunderstand, Auror Potter. The problem isn’t simply Mr. Malfoy. It’s what his continued presence would imply. There are donors, sponsors, and patients who still remember what his family stood for. We cannot afford unnecessary risks."

"So you’d rather punish him for his name than acknowledge his work?" His voice was sharp now, cutting through the formal atmosphere like a blade. “Because you can’t deny it. Draco Malfoy did his part of the work and he did them well.”

Another pause. Another tired, dismissive sigh.

"I am truly sorry," Greaves said, tone as hollow as the rest. "But this is not your position, Mr. Potter. Nor is it your battle to fight."

Harry stormed out before he could say something he’d regret.

His third stop was the Wizengamot Liaison Office. The office was small. It was lined with bookshelves that had probably never been touched, and the wizard sitting across from him looked barely older than thirty. His name was Reginald Peverell, and he had the kind of polished demeanor that screamed Ministry upbringing. When he spoke, it was with the clipped precision of someone who spent his life dictating rules rather than questioning them.

"Mr. Potter, while your concerns are noted, I can see that there is nothing illegal about Mr. Malfoy’s termination. St. Mungo’s has every right to dictate their hiring policies. If you wish to escalate this, I would advise seeking out an employment solicitor rather than the Wizengamot."

He exhaled through his nose, irritation simmering beneath his skin. "And how long would that take?"

Peverell pursed his lips, clearly unimpressed by Harry’s persistence. "Cases like these take months, sometimes years. And even then, there are no guarantees."

"So there’s nothing I can do."

Peverell gave him a pitying look, the kind Harry had come to despise. "I am truly sorry, Mr. Potter."

Harry walked out without another word.

His final stop was with someone extremely familiar. Unlike the others, Shacklebolt didn’t hide behind formalities. His office was simple. It was just a desk, a few swivel chairs, and a ceiling-to-floor window that overlooked the Ministry’s atrium. 

As expected, the Minister listened to everything he had to say without interruption. His expression was unreadable and his fingers were steepled beneath his chin. And when Harry finally finished, Shacklebolt leaned back in his chair and exhaled slowly.

"You’re asking me to interfere in a private institution’s decision," he said, not unkindly.

"I’m asking you to do what’s right."

Shacklebolt studied him for a long moment before nodding slightly. "I will look into it."

Harry felt the tightness in his chest loosen, just a fraction.

"That’s all I can promise for now," the Minister continued. "But be prepared, son. Not everyone will see this the way you do."

Harry nodded, knowing full well what that meant.

By the time he returned to St. Mungo’s, exhaustion was a weight in his bones, but he ignored it as he strode through the halls. He had spent the entire day pushing against an immovable force and had spoken to people who pretended to care but ultimately did nothing. Shacklebolt was the only silver lining, the only one who didn’t dismiss him outright. But even then, looking into it wasn’t a solution. It wasn’t immediate. It wasn’t enough.

He reached the room where Malfoy’s brother had been staying. He was already rehearsing what he was going to say to Malfoy and anticipating the argument about how the bastard should have at least fought back. But when he pushed open the door, he froze.

The bed was empty. The room was empty. No Malfoy. No Percy. No sign that they had ever been there at all. His pulse spiked as a cold dread creeped down his spine. He turned on his heel and nearly crashed into a passing Healer.

"Where is he?" Harry demanded, barely aware of how sharp his voice had become. "Where is Malfoy?"

The Healer blinked, startled. "I… I don’t know, Sir. I believe he was discharged."

"Discharged? By who?"

"I… I think Madam Montmorency oversaw the process."

Montmorency. Of course it was Montmorency. Harry’s jaw clenched so hard it ached. He had spent the entire day fighting the system. And in the meantime, Madam Montmorency had won.

Malfoy was gone.

And Harry had no idea where to find him.

Chapter Text

as if the sky had cracked open with emotions

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

It had been a week since Draco exited (more like was unceremoniously kicked out of) St. Mungo’s, his arms wrapped around Percy’s frail, fevered body and his pride ground into the dirt. That specific night still haunted him, to be honest. Madam Montmorency’s sharp voice slicing through the stale hospital air and the glares from the staff as he staggered out the door were too much to be forgotten just like that. He had known it was coming. He had agreed to it. But part of him… the foolish part that still clung to hope, had believed that he, himself, could stop it, or at least delay it. That he would manage to twist fate just enough to buy himself more time.

But he should have known better. He was a coward. Yes, he knew. He was aware. Saying things like he was brave and such was just a lie he told himself to sleep at night. It was simply a mask he wore to stop the shame from eating him alive. Because bravery wasn’t running away when things got hard. It wasn’t turning his back and pretending he didn’t care. No, bravery was staying, facing the storm, and admitting the truth… even when it hurt. And he hadn’t done that. Not once.

Seven days had passed since then, and reality had sunk its claws into his skin. He had no job. No stable income. No clear plan beyond simply making it through the next day. The knowledge that four children… his siblings… depended on him for everything suffocated him more than he cared to admit. And the worst part? He was running out of options.

Mister Archibald, ever the kindhearted wizard, had generously offered them shelter in the cramped back room of his library. It was a space barely big enough to fit five people but far better than the alternative of sleeping on dark alleyways. The offer was granted after Draco had been forced to surrender the keys to their previous small hovel as the weight of unpaid rent finally caught up to him.

But Draco knew they were living on borrowed time and were relying on borrowed kindness. Mister Archibald never said it outright, but he could see the concern in his aged, weary eyes… the silent question lingering in the air every time their gazes met. What will you do now, Draco?

Draco didn’t have an answer.

During the day, he worked in Mister Archibald’s library, stacking shelves, dusting books, and handling clients who barely glanced at him twice. Some Knockturn residents, however, would always take time off their busy schedules to chat with him and the children. What he was doing was mind-numbing work, but it was something. And in the dim-lit corners of the ancient library, away from the eyes of the world, he was teaching the children.

Finn, Ales, Daelan, and now Percy — who was healing and recovering well, still weak but stubborn as ever — sat in a loose circle on the floor as he flipped through battered textbooks, explaining charms, potion theory, and even a bit of history. Their eyes were always wide with curiosity. Draco found himself envying them for it. He had once loved learning. Back when things had been simpler, when his biggest concerns were outscoring Granger in literally all subjects or proving himself worthy of his father’s approval. Now, learning was a necessity. A way to arm these children against a world that was so cruel it put him to shame.

But when the sun dipped below the horizon and the children were safely tucked away in the backroom, he left the warmth of the library and ventured back into the streets of Knockturn Alley. He had knocked on every door, swallowed every last scrap of his pride, but the result was always the same. No one wanted to hire a Malfoy. Not for honest work, anyway. The offers he did receive were whispered under breath or exchanged in shadowed halls… illegal potion brewing, artifact smuggling, and document forgery. Things that would have been all too easy to accept.

And yet, every time he so much as considered it, Finn’s wary eyes flashed through his mind. Ales and Daelan’s laughter echoed in his ears. Percy’s still weak voice calling his name grounded him. So he refused. Again and again. Instead, he took whatever scraps of work he could find. Cleaning potion cauldrons in dingy apothecaries that reeked of burnt ingredients and mold, sweeping the floors of shops that should have been condemned years ago, and running deliveries that made his stomach churn with suspicion. The pay was insultingly low, barely enough to afford a stale loaf of bread, but it was something.

And right now, something was better than nothing.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

The library was quiet, save for the occasional rustling of parchment as Mister Archibald sorted through a pile of letters. The scent of old books, ink, and melting wax wrapped around Draco like a suffocating reminder of the life he had before. A life where he could afford the luxury of education, of ambition, and of believing he had a future. Now, the only thing he could afford was survival, and even that was slipping away slowly.

He leaned against the wooden counter, arms folded tightly across his chest as his entire body thrummed with exhaustion. The day had been long, filled with the usual blend of monotonous work at the library and pitifully paid odd jobs that barely made a dent in their growing expenses. His body ached from hours of standing, from carrying heavy books and from running errands through the filth-ridden streets of Knockturn Alley. But more than that, it was his mind that felt unbearably heavy.

“How was today?” Mister Archibald’s voice cut through the silence, gentle but laced with something he can’t quite name. Pity, maybe. Concern.

He exhaled slowly, rubbing at his temples. “Same as yesterday. And the day before that,” he muttered. “Still no luck.”

No luck finding a job. No luck finding a way out of this mess. No luck proving that he could provide for these children in a way that wasn’t scraping by on the bare minimum.

Mister Archibald hummed in acknowledgment, his fingers idly tapping against a thick envelope in his hands. He wasn’t looking at Draco, not directly, and that was enough to set his nerves on edge.

“What?” He asked sharply, straightening up. His tone was more defensive than he intended, but he was tired… tired of waiting for more bad news to drop like an anvil on his head. He was tired of feeling like he was constantly on the edge of losing everything.

The old wizard let out a quiet sigh and, with deliberate slowness, slid the envelope across the counter toward him. “I received another letter from the Ministry.” Draco stared at it, his stomach twisting into knots. The parchment was thick and official. The wax seal was still intact and the imprint of the Ministry’s insignia pressed into the deep red wax like a brand. He didn’t have to open it to know what it said.

“And?” he asked, trying to sound unaffected, but his voice came out a little too tight, a little too controlled.

Mister Archibald studied him before answering. “Another notice. A reminder that you were meant to resign from your position at St. Mungo’s, which you already did… and an inquiry as to why your case hasn’t been formally closed yet. It seems like someone has been interfering with the case.” He hesitated for a moment before adding, “It also mentions the children.”

Draco’s breath stilled in his chest. The children. Of course it does. His heart clenched, not in fear for himself but for them. Finn, Percy, Ales, and Daelan. They had already lost too much. He couldn’t let the Ministry sink its claws into them, not after everything.

Ever since his departure from St. Mungo’s, the Ministry had been disturbingly vigilant in tracking his every move. He knew it. They were well aware that he was living with the children, that all five of them had abandoned their small apartment, and that an elderly wizard named Mister Archibald — who had already received a prior warning from them — had taken them under his wing. It was as if they were waiting for him to slip up.

His hands curled into fists. “Let me guess,” he said bitterly. “They’re ‘concerned’ about them, aren’t they? Concerned about where they’re staying, about who’s looking after them… about whether I’m fit to look after them.”

The wizard didn’t respond right away, but the silence was answer enough. He let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “They didn’t care when these children were left to rot on their own. They didn’t care when people slammed doors in their faces just for existing. But now that they think I might be involved, they suddenly give a shite?”

“Draco—”

“No.” He shook his head, jaw clenched tight. “I know how this works. If they can’t get rid of me totally through St. Mungo’s, they’ll find another way. And what better way than using the children as an excuse? What else do they want from me?!”

His voice shook with barely restrained anger, but beneath it, there was something else. Fear. Real, gut-wrenching fear. Because he knew exactly how this could end.

If the Ministry wouldn’t stop digging their nose into Draco’s life, they could take the children away. They could separate them, send them to different homes… if they were even lucky enough to find proper homes. More likely, they’d be thrown into the system. Finn would fight it. He would fight tooth and nail to keep them together, but he was just a child. He wouldn’t stand a chance against the Ministry. And Draco? Draco would be powerless to stop it. He swallowed hard, pushing down the bile that rose in his throat.

Mister Archibald’s gaze softened. “Draco, I know you don’t trust the Ministry. You have every reason not to. But this doesn’t have to be a battle. There might be a way to—”

“To what?” He snapped. “To cooperate? To sit back and hope they don’t rip my remaining family apart?” He let out a sharp breath, running a hand through his hair. He needed a plan. He needed to think. He needed to find a way to protect them before things spiraled out of his control once again.

“You’re not alone in this, son,” the elderly wizard reached out and placed a firm, grounding hand on Draco’s shoulder. “Whatever happens, you have people who care. Me, the children... the Chosen One.”

Draco stiffened at the mention of him. Potter. The Chosen One. He wanted to scoff and to reject the notion outright, but the thought gnawed at him. As much as he hated to admit it, Harry Potter saved Percy’s life. He had been the one to convince Montmorency to heal the young child.

Potter had stepped in. Not with grandeur or some self-righteous speech. No, he’d been solid and steady. He’d looked the Head Healer in the eye when Draco couldn’t do as much as lift his head. He literally owed Potter an unpayable debt.

But Harry Potter was still an Auror. Did Potter even realize that the very institution he was serving — the Ministry he had sworn to uphold — was actively working to wear Draco down? And if Harry Potter did know, then the question became far more unsettling. Did he even care?

Maybe there was a part of the Chosen One that did care. He fought for his brother’s right to be treated, had shouted at Madam Montmorency, and had looked at Draco with something other than disdain for the first time in years. But a single moment of decency didn’t erase months (and years) of suspicion and of Potter watching him like a predator waiting for the moment he would slip.

And now, with the Ministry breathing down his neck, with yet another letter in Mister Archibald’s trembling hands, Draco had to wonder if Harry Potter’s so-called righteousness would extend beyond a hospital room.

Will Potter help if Draco asked?  He wasn’t sure. And right now, he couldn’t afford to gamble on something as fragile as hope.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

How hard could it be to find a grown man and four children in Wizarding London?

Apparently, really hard.

Harry had spent the past month exhausting every possible lead, turning over every stone, and combing through every corner of Diagon Alley. He had called in favors from old colleagues, questioned shopkeepers, and even ventured into places he had never dared set foot in before. But no matter how much he searched, no matter how many late nights he spent trying to track them down, Draco Malfoy and the four children had seemingly vanished into thin air.

At first, he thought it would be extremely easy. How many wizards with Malfoy’s distinctive pale hair and aristocratic features could blend into a world that had once thrived on his family name? And four children — children, for Merlin’s sake, plural! — surely, someone would have noticed them. Someone would have seen them, heard them, known something. But every time he thought he had a solid lead, it crumbled before he could act on it.

A clerk at a secondhand robe shop in Diagon Alley swore she saw a man fitting Malfoy’s description buying children’s clothes, but when he arrived, the trail was already cold. A healer at a free clinic in the back alleys of Soho mentioned treating a young boy, but the boy and his guardian had disappeared by the next morning. It was like they were ghosts, slipping through the cracks before he could even reach them.

It was frustrating. Infuriating, even. He wasn’t just chasing an old school rival anymore. He wasn’t just trying to soothe the guilt that had settled deep in his bones since the day Malfoy was forced out of St. Mungo’s. This was about something bigger and something that tugged at his conscience every time he closed his eyes at night.

The children.

He barely knew them. He had only met them once but their faces haunted him. The way Finn had looked at him, cautious yet defiant. The way Ales and Daelan had fallen asleep with their heads on their brother’s lap. And Percy… The boy who had been unconscious when he first saw him.

And then there was Malfoy himself.

He didn’t know when his determination had stopped being about simple justice and started becoming something personal. Maybe it had been from the very beginning. Maybe it had been the moment he watched Draco Malfoy sit there, silent and defeated, while Madam Montmorency hurled words at him like knives. Maybe it had been the second he realized that Malfoy had sacrificed everything… his pride, his career, and his future… just to keep a promise to a dying child. A promise that had cost him everything.

Harry scrubbed a hand down his face, exhaling sharply as he leaned back in his chair. His office was a mess. Papers scattered across his desk, maps pinned to the walls, and notes scrawled in his handwriting detailing every possible lead that had gone nowhere. He had even drawn up a list of people Draco Malfoy might have turned to for help, but it was painfully short. Pansy Parkinson? No sign of her. Blaise Zabini? Off in Italy, last he heard. Theodore Nott? Under close watch by the Ministry.

And then there was Mister Archibald.

Harry had come across the name in his search. He was a reclusive old wizard who ran a small, obscure library tucked away in Knockturn Alley. Some of the vendors near the alley had mentioned seeing Malfoy around the area, though none of them had been willing to say much more than that. He had been hesitant to follow that thread at first, but after an entire month of dead ends, he was running out of options.

Hermione and Ron were reluctant at first to support what he was doing. They thought that he was simply obsessing again.

Hermione had said it with careful diplomacy, the way she always did when she was worried about him. “Harry, are you sure this isn’t just another crusade? Another… fixation?” She had chosen her words carefully, but the concern in her voice had been unmistakable. Ron had been more direct because, of course, he was. “Mate, I get it. What happened to Malfoy and the kids was rotten, but you’ve done everything you could. If they don’t want to be found and rescued, whatever, what makes you think you should be the one to do it?”

And Harry didn’t have a good answer for them. Not at first. Because maybe they were right. Maybe it was an obsession. Maybe it was another misplaced mission to fix something broken or to atone for something that had gone wrong. Just like when he had thrown himself into capturing rogue Death Eaters after the war, or when he had spent months tracking down every last fragment of Voldemort’s influence in the Wizarding World. But this wasn’t about revenge or unfinished battles. It wasn’t about fulfilling some hero’s duty.

This was about a man (an old rival) and four children who had been cast out, punished for crimes they hadn’t committed, abandoned by a world that refused to see them as anything but remnants of a war everyone wanted to forget. And it made him furious.

He hadn’t been there for them when it mattered. He had been too busy making reports against Malfoy. He was too blinded by old grudges to see what was really happening. Honestly, he had played a part in Malfoy’s downfall, and now… now, when he was trying to make it right… his hands were tied. No one wanted to help. No one cared. Not even his friends. That realization stung.

However, something shifted a week later.

It started with Hermione. She didn’t say anything outright, but he noticed the way she stayed late in the Ministry archives, her desk covered in records of wizarding shelters, known hideouts, and places where the displaced might go. One night, she had casually slid a folder across the table during dinner, not looking up from her soup as she muttered, “There’s a library in Knockturn Alley that doesn’t keep a public ledger of its employees. Might be worth checking out.”

Ron had been less subtle. He had shown up at the Grimmauld Place one evening, hands stuffed into his pockets, looking equal parts irritated and resigned. “Just so you know,” he had said gruffly, “I put out a few feelers. Nothing much, just asked around the blokes at the Auror office if they’d heard anything about a group of kids and a blond git skulking around the alleyways.” He had shot Harry a glare as if daring him to comment on the sudden shift in attitude. “So don’t go thinking you’re the only one who gives a shite, alright?”

Harry didn’t know what to say to that. So he had just nodded, a quiet thank you hanging between them. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

The air in Knockturn Alley was thick with the stench of damp stone, old spell residue, and the ever-present scent of something rotting. Harry pulled his cloak tighter around himself, though it wasn’t the cold that sent a chill down his spine. He had been in this place too many times before, each visit a reminder of how deep the rot in the Wizarding World could go. 

Knockturn Alley had always been a breeding ground for desperation… desperate people, desperate deals, and desperate magic. But tonight, he wasn’t here for criminals or smugglers. He was here because the Ministry demanded it.

The case he and Ron had been assigned was relatively straightforward, or at least, that’s what it seemed like on paper.

St. Mungo’s had been experiencing thefts. Not the small, daily pilfering that happened when desperate witches and wizards slipped a bottle of pain relief potion under their robes, but something far more calculated. Whole crates of rare ingredients had gone missing. Bundles of dittany leaves. Flasks of phoenix tears. Doses of Blood-Replenishing Potion that could only be brewed in limited quantities each year. And these weren’t turning up on the usual black-market shelves of Knockturn Alley. No, these were being used. Someone… an unlicensed healer, most likely… had been treating patients outside the jurisdiction of the hospital.

Harry hadn’t questioned why he was the one assigned to the case. He already knew. For the past month, he had been arguing against Draco Malfoy’s dismissal from St. Mungo’s, pushing appeals, questioning policies, even going as far as contacting Kingsley Shacklebolt himself. And while he hadn’t lost favor with the Ministry, he had certainly irritated a great number of people. The general consensus seemed to be that he was wasting his energy on something unimportant. Malfoy made his bed. Let him lie in it.

So when this case came up, one involving stolen hospital supplies and a healer operating in the shadows, he had been handed the assignment with a quiet warning: If you’re so determined to fix things, then start by doing your actual job. Here he was, standing in the damp, dimly lit alleyway, watching as cloaked figures moved in and out of Knockturn’s hidden doorways, his fingers twitching near his wand.

Ron, standing beside him, let out an exaggerated sigh. “I hate this place. Always makes my skin crawl.”

He hummed in quick agreement, but his mind was elsewhere. They had been waiting outside an old shop for the past half hour, watching the usual crowd move through the street. Every now and then, a shifty-eyed wizard would glance around before disappearing into an unmarked door. Hags peered out from shadowed archways, their long, claw-like fingers twitching as if calculating whether any passersby were worth the effort of cursing. Shopkeepers were also whispering hushed deals and exchanging vials of who-knew-what in quick, practiced movements.

Harry was about to tell Ron that they should call it a day when he saw… them.

A small group of children was walking ahead of them, moving quickly through the alley. Harry’s breath caught in his throat. At first, he thought his mind was playing tricks on him, that maybe he was just seeing what he wanted to see. But then, the little girl with brown curls let out a laugh.

It was a quiet sound, barely more than a breath, but it stood out in a place like this, a strange contrast to the heavy silence of Knockturn Alley.

Harry’s heartbeat slammed into his ribs. It’s them. Three boys, one girl.

The same four children who had barged into St. Mungo’s, their faces streaked with tears and panic. The same children who had hovered near Malfoy’s hospital room, wary and watchful. The same children who had vanished along with Malfoy, slipping through Harry’s fingers before he could figure out what exactly had been going on.

Ron had noticed the shift in his posture. “What?” he muttered. “What is it?”

Harry didn’t answer. He took a step forward, eyes locked on the small group. The children were moving fast. They weren’t lost nor hesitating. They knew their way around.

“Harry, what’s going on?” Ron’s voice was sharper now, but he barely heard him. He was already moving, following the children as they slipped into a narrower passageway between two shops. The shadows swallowed them up instantly and their small figures were nearly blending into the darkness.

But Harry wasn’t going to let them disappear again. Not this time. He picked up his pace.

Ron groaned but followed. “Brilliant. We’re chasing kids now.”

He ignored him, his focus narrowing to the sight of them just a few steps ahead. The tallest of the boys — Finn, Harry’s mind supplied — had a protective hand on the youngest boy’s shoulder. Percy, Malfoy’s injured brother, was walking just behind them, his expression alert. They were tense, moving quickly, as if they had somewhere to be, as if they knew they were being watched.

Harry’s pulse quickened.

They turned a corner, disappearing from sight. Harry lengthened his strides, pushing forward and nearly jogging now. The alley opened into a slightly wider street, a row of dilapidated buildings stretching before them. There were no shops here, just boarded-up doors and cracked windows.

The children were gone.

Vanished, just like that.

Chapter Text

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Harry skidded to a stop, boots scraping against the uneven cobblestones. His breath was coming fast and sharp. His eyes darted from one side of the narrow alley to the other, searching, scanning, desperate for any movement or any shadow that didn’t belong. The dim lanterns lining the alley barely cut through the darkness and were casting more shadows than light. They distorted everything into strange shapes that shifted in the corner of his vision.

His heart pounded against his ribs as he took another step forward, turning in a slow, measured circle. There had to be something. They had been right there. Just a second ago, he had seen them moving. And then… gone. How?

Ron caught up a second later, skidding to a halt beside him, slightly out of breath. The redhead’s frustration was evident in the way he ran a hand through his hair. “Bloody hell, mate,” he wheezed, bending slightly with his hands on his knees. “Care to tell me why we’re suddenly hunting down a bunch of kids?”

His mind was still racing, dissecting every possibility. A hidden door? A side entrance leading into one of these old, decrepit buildings? A passageway beneath the street, concealed by illusion or magic? He turned again as his eyes flickered over every possible escape route. Some of the buildings had broken windows, the glass long since shattered, the edges worn smooth by time. Could they have climbed through one of them? The doors were old, some reinforced with heavy iron locks. But not all. Some had been left slightly ajar, their frames leaning inward as if just waiting to be pushed open.

His fingers curled into fists at his sides. They had just been here. He had seen them. Heard them. They had been right here.

“Harry,” Ron said again, his voice no longer impatient but quieter now, more serious. More concerned.

Harry let out a slow, controlled breath, forcing himself to loosen his hands before he crushed his own palms with how hard he was clenching his fists.

“Who were they, mate?”

“The kids,” he murmured, voice rougher than he intended. “The ones from St. Mungo’s. The ones Malfoy was with.”

His best friend and Auror partner brows shot up, surprise flashing across his freckled face. “You’re kidding.” He shook his head, jaw tightening.

Ron let out a long, heavy breath, rubbing a hand down his face. “Alright,” he said, straightening, his voice carrying a new edge of determination. “We’ll find them. We just have to figure out where they went.”

Harry nodded, but his mind was already running ahead.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

Draco sat at the worn wooden table, a book open in front of him, though his eyes weren’t focused on the words. His fingers traced the faded ink absently, skimming over the brittle pages, but the letters blurred together into nothingness. It wasn’t that he couldn’t concentrate… he had long since learned how to force his mind into stillness when needed. But tonight, something was gnawing at the edge of his thoughts.

The candle beside him flickered weakly, its feeble glow barely lighting the cramped space they had been calling home for the past month. It wasn’t much, not by any means, but it was theirs. Still, the security of their little hideaway didn’t ease the tension settling into Draco’s bones. He knew better than to think they could hide forever. Hell, he wasn’t naive enough to believe that they had managed to disappear entirely. Eventually, someone would come looking… whether it was the Ministry, some enemy of his, or something far worse.

The sound of hurried footsteps broke through his thoughts, and before he could even fully process the movement, the door swung open with a sharp noise. The four children spilled in all at once, their faces flushed from the cold and their chests rising and falling with quick, shallow breaths.

Finn was the first through the door, his sharp eyes scanning the room before stepping aside to let Percy, Daelan, and Ales inside. There was something about the way they moved… hurried and cautious… that made him sit up a little straighter.

“You’re late,” he said, keeping his voice straight as his gaze swept over them, searching for any sign of injury. His fingers curled slightly against the surface of the table. “Where have you been?”

Finn hesitated for a split second before closing the door behind them. “We had to take a longer way home,” he admitted, but there was something off about his tone. It wasn’t just an excuse… it was a warning.

Draco’s eyes turned toward Percy, who nodded in agreement, his usual energy subdued. He narrowed his gaze. “Why?”

The briefest flicker of hesitation crossed Finn’s face before he straightened his posture. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, as if debating how much he should say, before finally exhaling through his nose. “Because there were people following us.”

The air in the small room seemed to grow heavier. His grip tightened against the wooden table’s edge, his expression darkening. He was on his feet in an instant, stepping closer to the children. “What kind of people?” he asked, his voice deceptively calm, though the sharpness beneath it was unmistakable.

“Uniformed,” Finn answered, running a hand through his hair. His movements were restless now, agitated. “One of them had red hair. The other had messy dark hair, glasses, and this really intense stare.”

Draco stilled. A cold feeling curled in his gut. His mind instantly supplied an image to match the description. It was one he knew far too well, one that had haunted his every waking moment at St. Mungo’s for months. Messy dark hair. Glasses. And that infuriating, penetrating stare.

Harry bloody Potter. Of course it would be him.

“We didn’t stop,” Percy added, stepping forward. “We just kept walking. Fast. But not too fast, you know? We didn’t want to make it obvious.” His voice was controlled, but Draco wasn’t fooled. He could see the way Percy’s fingers curled into the hem of his sweater.

He inhaled slowly through his nose, willing himself to think clearly. He shut the book in front of him with a thump. “How do you know they were actually following you?”

“We tested it,” Finn admitted. “Took a few unnecessary turns, went in and out of a couple of places. They kept showing up.”

Percy nodded. “They were trying to be subtle about it at first, but we noticed.”

“We tried to lose them,” Finn continued.

“And?”

Daelan, who had remained silent up until now, finally spoke. His voice was softer than usual. “We hid inside an old diner,” he said, his fingers twitching slightly. “It was abandoned, but we could see them through the cracks in the boarded-up window.”

“And what exactly did they do?”

“They just stood there for a while,” Percy said. “Talking. We couldn’t hear much, but they seemed… frustrated. Like they lost something.”

Ales, their princess, who had also been uncharacteristically quiet throughout the conversation, finally spoke up. Her small hands fidgeted with the sleeve of her oversized jumper. She hesitated before she lifted her head and met Draco’s gaze directly. “I heard one of them say your name,” she said softly, but her voice carried through the room with startling clarity. “Your last name.”

Malfoy. He felt something tighten in his chest, something raw and familiar.

It didn’t surprise him. Not really. He knew Potter. He had known the man was relentless, always chasing after something, even when it wasn’t his business to. The war had ended, but Potter had always needed something to fixate on.

Finn took a step closer, his expression shifting into something unreadable. “I know who one of them was,” he said, his voice quieter now, more controlled, but there was something else there too. “The man with the glasses.”

He exhaled through his nose, already anticipating the answer. “Let me guess,” he said dryly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Harry Potter. The Hero of the Wizarding World.”

“Yeah,” his brother said, voice clipped. “Him. I remembered talking to him at the hospital.”

Draco let the silence settle between them for a long moment. So. Potter was still looking for them. The question was why? Was there unfinished business between them? Was it guilt? Some misguided sense of justice? Harry Potter had always been infuriatingly persistent when it came to things he deemed his responsibility, and Draco had no doubt that his abrupt exit from St. Mungo’s had left something unresolved in that annoyingly noble mind of his. Perhaps Potter believed he had failed to save him… because that was what he did, wasn’t it? The Savior Complex, the Chosen One Syndrome. He had spent his whole life rescuing people, and maybe, just maybe, Draco and his siblings had unknowingly become names on his ever-growing list of lost causes. The thought made his stomach twist. They didn’t need rescuing.

But then, there was another, far more unsettling possibility. What if Potter was still convinced that he was guilty of something? That he was scheming, up to no good, still playing the role of the untrustworthy Malfoy heir? Draco had seen the way Potter had looked at him during those last few months at St. Mungo’s… suspicious, scrutinizing, always waiting for him to slip up. Had he finally decided that Draco had simply gone underground to continue some imagined dark plot? Was he hunting him down, not out of concern, but out of duty to make sure he wasn’t a threat? The idea sent a cold, simmering anger through his veins. As if he had the time to be plotting anything. As if his days weren’t spent worrying about keeping four children alive, fed, and safe.

Or maybe… and this was the thought Draco hated the most… maybe Potter just couldn’t let him go. Maybe, despite everything, despite the war being over, despite the years that had passed, Potter still needed him to be someone. A rival, an enemy, an old ghost that refused to fade. Maybe Potter didn’t know how to exist without someone to chase, and Draco Malfoy had simply become his fixation. The idea was ridiculous — childish, even — but he knew what it was like to be defined by someone else. He knew what it was like to have your identity entangled with another’s, so much so that you weren’t really sure where their presence ended and yours began. Was that what this was?

Draco pushed himself away from the table with a frustrated sigh, raking a hand through his hair. It didn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. Whatever Potter’s reasons were, they weren’t his concern. His only priority was the children, ensuring their safety and keeping them away from prying eyes and the reach of the Ministry. If Harry Potter was looking for him, then that only meant one thing: he needed to be even more careful. They had done well staying hidden, but now the game had changed. He would not let them be found. Not by Potter. Not by anyone.

"Come on, you lot have had a long day. Go wash up and get ready for bed."

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

The air still carried traces of the evening meal: roasted potatoes, buttered bread, and a faint hint of chocolate from the small treats Mister Archibald had managed to scrounge up for the four children. Now, though, the scent was stale, lingering only as a reminder that another long day had passed. 

Draco sat at the worn wooden table outside their room. His fingers were idly tracing the rim of a chipped teacup, its ceramic surface smooth under his touch. The tea inside had long since cooled as the peppermint scent curled faintly in the air. He should have drunk it while it was warm, but he'd been too lost in thought for the past hour.

Across from him, Mister Archibald watched, his old yet sharp eyes taking in every movement, every slight twitch of Draco’s fingers, and every barely perceptible shift in his expression. He had a habit of doing that… of observing him so intently it made him feel as though he were a specimen under a magnifying glass. The older man didn’t pry or push, but his silence always held an unspoken invitation. It was like an expectation that he would eventually break and spill whatever was clawing at his mind.

"You seem troubled," Mister Archibald finally said, his voice steady, as if he had all the time in the world to wait for an answer.

He huffed, exhaling sharply through his nose. His grip tightened around the cup for a brief moment before he forced his fingers to relax. "When am I not troubled?" he muttered, lifting the cup to his lips, only to grimace when the cold liquid met his tongue. He set it down with a quiet clink.

Mister Archibald hummed, a knowing sound that somehow managed to be both frustrating and oddly reassuring. "More than usual, I’d wager."

"You always think I’m more troubled than usual." He rolled his eyes, though there was little to no heat behind it. 

"That’s because you always are," the old wizard countered easily.

He let out a short, humorless laugh. The man had a point. His mind wouldn’t quiet though. It wouldn’t let go of the conversation he’d had with the children.

Harry bloody Potter.

"Potter is looking for us," he admitted, the words tasting foreign on his tongue. It felt wrong to say it aloud or to even acknowledge that the Chosen One had once again managed to wedge himself into his life, uninvited and definitely unwanted.

Mister Archibald didn’t react with surprise. If anything, his expression remained unchanged, as if he had expected this revelation. Perhaps he had. The man had an uncanny ability to predict things before Draco could even wrap his mind around them. "And this unsettles you?"

Draco scoffed, shaking his head as he leaned back in his chair. "Of course it bloody unsettles me," he snapped, but his voice lacked real anger. It was laced with something else… something he refused to name. "Why wouldn’t it? We’ve spent the past month making sure we’re invisible, and yet, somehow, he’s now sniffing us out like a damn bloodhound."

"And why do you think that is?"

He clenched his jaw, irritation prickling under his skin. "Because he’s Potter," he bit out, as if that explained everything. And in his mind, it did. "It’s what he does. He fixates on things… on people… and he doesn’t stop until he gets what he wants."

The old wizard tilted his head slightly. "And what exactly do you think he wants?"

That was the question, wasn’t it? The question that had been gnawing at him since Ales mentioned hearing his surname, since Potter had appeared in Knockturn Alley, and since the children had hidden in an abandoned diner, watching him from the shadows. The question that made his stomach churn and his pulse quicken in a way he didn’t like.

"I don’t know," he admitted, his voice quieter now, more uncertain. He hated it. He hated the lack of control, the not knowing. "And that’s the problem."

Mister Archibald regarded him carefully before speaking again, his voice as calm as ever. "Perhaps," he said, "he’s simply changed his mind about what he wants from you."

"That’s not reassuring."

"It wasn’t meant to be."

Draco let out a sharp, humorless laugh, raking a hand through his hair. "You’re a real beacon of wisdom, old man."

"On the contrary, I believe I am helping. You just don’t like the answer."

He scoffed once again but didn’t argue. Because the truth was, Mister Archibald was right. He didn’t like the answer. He didn’t like the idea that Harry Potter had changed and that maybe he wasn’t the same reckless, stubborn idiot who had spent years seeing Draco as nothing more than an adversary. He didn’t like the idea that maybe, just maybe, Harry Potter was not looking for him to tear him down.

Because if Potter wasn’t his enemy… then what was he?

"I don’t have the time or energy to deal with whatever crisis of conscience Potter is having."

"Then don’t," Mister Archibald said simply, his gaze steady. "You have a choice, Draco. You always have."

"A choice? That’s rich. What choice do I have, exactly?"

"You could stay here, continue hiding, and hope he or the world never finds you. Or—" He paused. "—you could face him and find out what he truly wants."

Draco tensed, every instinct screaming at him to reject the idea outright. Face Potter? March up to him and demand answers? It was ridiculous. Absurd. But then… wasn’t it just as absurd to keep running? To keep waiting for the inevitable?

"He won’t stop," he murmured, mostly to himself.

"No," the old wizard agreed. "He won’t."

He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. The very idea of confronting Harry Potter made his chest tighten and made his mind race with too many what-ifs. But deep down, he knew Mister Archibald was right. Harry Potter wouldn’t stop. And sooner or later, he would have to decide whether to keep running… or finally turn around and see what happened when their paths collided once more.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

The night was thick with tension, the kind that settled deep into Harry’s bones as he stood before the crumbling, half-abandoned building in Knockturn Alley. The air was damp and heavy with the scent of mildew and something acrid… something foul that clung to the back of his throat. The dilapidated structure before them looked like it had been abandoned for decades. Windows were shattered, wood rotting, and its foundation sagging under the weight of time. But he knew better. Beneath its disguise of decay, this same building was alive with activity.

For days, he and Ron had been watching, waiting, and gathering every scrap of evidence they could until they had enough to make their move. The stolen instruments, the black-market potions, and the smuggled dark objects that had started slipping into the hands of Knockturn’s most dangerous figures… it all led back to this place. They had staked out every alley, traced every shipment, and listened in on whispered conversations until their lead became undeniable. And tonight, finally, Robards had given them the go-ahead to take the operation down.

Harry exhaled slowly, gripping his wand tighter as he turned to the younger Aurors gathered around him and Ron. Their faces were grim and their expressions were hard with focus. Despite their ages, he knew some of them were seasoned and had seen countless raids like this before. But even so, Knockturn Alley was never predictable. It had a way of twisting things and turning simple arrests into bloodbaths. The criminals they were dealing with weren’t just thieves; they were the type who would rather die fighting than be hauled off to Azkaban.

Beside him, Ron shifted, rolling his shoulders as he shot him a sideways glance. “I don’t like this,” he muttered, voice low so only he could hear. “Something feels off.”

Harry understood the unease. There was always a risk and always a chance that something would go wrong. But they couldn’t afford hesitation. “We don’t have a choice,” he replied, keeping his voice steady. “We take them in before they slip away again.”

Ron sighed but nodded, gripping his wand a little tighter. “Alright, then. Let’s get this over with.”

Harry turned back to the door. Then, without another word, he raised his wand.

And sent the first blast forward.

Chapter Text

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

"Let me get this straight," Harry said, voice low but firm as he stared across the desk at Robards, Head Auror. "You want us to raid the library?"

Robards, a grizzled man with sharp eyes that had seen more than their fair share of darkness, nodded once. "It’s a rumored hub for illicit activity, Potter. There have been whispers, and we’ve had informants—"

"We’ve had whispers about half of Knockturn Alley," Ron cut in, irritation flickering in his blue eyes. He leaned forward, bracing both hands on the desk. "But we don’t act on whispers. We act on proof. And we’ve submitted the report. There are no malicious or suspicious incidents happening inside or outside the library."

Harry shot him a quick glance, grateful for the backup. He turned his attention back to Robards. "We’ve also given you the address to what we believe is the main hideout. It’s the place where the stolen goods are actually being moved. That should be our priority. Why the library all of a sudden?"

Robards' expression hardened. "Because orders come from above, and I don’t get to question them."

Harry clenched his jaw. There it was… the ever-present, suffocating weight of politics. Someone higher up had made this call. And if that were the case, then there was little room for argument. But thanks to Hermione’s research and Ron’s help, Harry knew the library. It wasn’t some book-ridden cover for a crime syndicate. He hadn’t had the time to fully scout the place, but he knew it was harmless.

And more than that, Harry had reasons to believe that it was the place where Malfoy and the kids resided at the moment. And he couldn’t let anyone — not even the Aurors — destroy the place like it was nothing.

"Sir," he said, carefully controlling his tone, "if we raid that library, and there’s nothing there, it will send the wrong message. It will warn every real criminal in Knockturn that we don’t have a solid lead, that we’re just guessing. And they’ll scatter."

Robards exhaled sharply. "And what if it’s not a guess? What if you’re wrong, Potter?"

Harry held his gaze. "Then I'll take full responsibility." Ron looked at him sharply but didn’t interrupt.

Robards studied him for a long moment, his fingers drumming lightly on the wooden desk. Then, finally, he let out a slow breath. "Fine. You think you know better? Prove it. Go to the address on your report instead of the library. But if this goes sideways, don’t expect the higher-ups to take it lightly."

"We won’t let it go sideways."

Robards leaned back in his chair, looking unimpressed. "Then get to work. And Potter—"

Harry paused on his way out, turning back.

"You better be damn sure about this."

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

The door exploded inward with a deafening crash, sending wood splinters flying in all directions. The sound reverberated through the old building and shattered the tense silence like glass. Instantly, chaos erupted. Inside, figures scrambled, chairs overturned, shouts filled the air, and voices overlapped in alarm and confusion. The room was a mess of wooden crates, scattered papers, and cauldrons filled with half-brewed potions. Their foul-smelling contents were also sloshed over the sides as people lunged for their wands.

“Ministry Aurors!” one of the Aurors barked, stepping forward. “Nobody moves!”

But of course, they moved. Nobody ever believed that anyway.

A streak of red light shot through the dimly lit room, barely missing Harry as he ducked to the side. Spells flew in rapid succession, bodies twisting, diving, dodging. A man with a jagged scar across his cheek aimed at him, eyes filled with venomous intent.

“Petrificus Totalus!”

Harry barely had time to react before he flicked his own wand up in defense. “Protego!” The shield flared to life just in time, the spell bouncing harmlessly off and slamming into the ceiling, sending dust and debris raining down. Without hesitation, he retaliated.

“Stupefy!” The stunning spell hit its mark, the man crumpling instantly and his body hitting the floor with a dull thud. But there was no time to stop and no time to process. More figures emerged from the shadows, their wands flashing and their movements desperate and aggressive.

Ron was at his side in an instant, throwing curses left and right, his face set in grim determination. “We have to push forward!” he shouted, his voice barely audible over the din of combat.

Harry didn’t need to be told twice.

Dodging another oncoming curse, he surged forward, weaving between overturned furniture and collapsed figures. His eyes were locked on the rickety staircase leading to the second floor. They had spent too much time gathering intelligence not to know that the real masterminds of this operation weren’t down here… they were upstairs, hidden away in whatever room they considered their sanctuary. That was where they needed to be.

With a sharp gesture, he signaled to Ron, and together they charged toward the stairs, moving in tandem. The steps groaned under their weight as they took them two at a time, their breath coming fast and adrenaline was coursing through their veins.

Then, at the top of the stairs, Harry heard it.

Voices. They were low, urgent, and just beyond a closed door at the end of the narrow hallway. He stilled as his heart was hammering and sweat gathering at the nape of his neck. He glanced at Ron, who nodded once, his wand steady in his grip. There was no time to hesitate. In one swift motion, he raised his wand and kicked the door open.

The room was dim, just like what he had expected. But it was the kind of darkness that felt alive and not dead. Shadows stretched long and jagged across the warped wooden floor. They were distorting the shapes of the three figures standing around the cauldron at the center of the room. The air was thick, suffocating, and heavy with the scent of burning herbs and something metallic. It clung to Harry’s skin, settling deep into his lungs, as if the room itself was rejecting him. Like it was warning him away.

And yet, despite the stench and the oppressive heat radiating from the cauldron’s bubbling contents, his entire body had gone cold.

There were three people in the room.

The first was a massive, brutish man, built like a mountain. His sheer size was making the already cramped space feel suffocating. His arms were thick with muscle and crisscrossed with faded scars. Those were the kind of marks that told stories of old fights and hard-won battles. His almost bald head gleamed under the dim light, sweat beading along his temple, but there was no nervousness in the way he stood. His feet were planted firmly, solid as a boulder, and his arms were slightly tensed… not in aggression, but in a way that spoke of readiness and of quiet control. His face, though rough and intimidating, held something unreadable. Something neither entirely hostile nor entirely welcoming.

The second man was the opposite. He was old, thin and wiry and his sharp features made him look almost birdlike. His hooked nose and sunken eyes added to the vulture-like impression. His robes were tattered at the edges, the fabric dark and musty, hanging off his frame as though he had lost too much weight in too little time. There was also a twitchiness to him, like a subtle, restless energy in the way his fingers hovered near his wand. His dark eyes darted between Harry and Ron like he was assessing them, determining whether they were worth the fight or if he should run while he had the chance. Harry squinted his eyes a bit as he recognized him from the files that Hermione sent his way. He was whom people call Mister Archibald, owner of a library.

And then…

Harry’s breath hitched. His pulse slammed against his ribs. The third figure was someone he hadn’t expected to see.

Draco Malfoy.

For a long, stretched-out moment, the world around him seemed to fade into the background. The distant shouts of Aurors fighting downstairs, the sound of spells colliding, of furniture breaking under the force of hexes, all of it became nothing but white noise.

Malfoy stood at the far end of the room, just slightly in front of the brutish man. He was not behind him like a subordinate and not beside him like an equal, but in a position that made Harry’s stomach twist. It was a stance of quiet defense, of shielding, as if Malfoy wasn’t just standing there — he was protecting the man behind him.

It was wrong.

Malfoy’s posture had always been proud, sharp, and deliberate. Even as a student, when he had been nothing but an arrogant thorn in Harry’s side, there had been something calculated about the way he carried himself. He always ensured he was above everyone else and that he commanded attention. But now… now there was something different in the set of his shoulders, in the way his fingers curled ever so slightly, and in the way his jaw tightened just a fraction too much. He wasn’t just standing his ground. He was bracing for something.

He also wasn’t surprised to see Harry like he had been expecting this moment.

“Potter,” Malfoy said at last, his voice quiet, hoarse, rough in a way that made it sound like he hadn’t spoken in hours. The single word sent a pulse of something sharp and electric through his chest.

His grip on his wand tightened. The room felt too small and the air too thick, pressing against his skin like a physical weight. Beside him, Ron shifted, his stance tensing and his wand lifting just a fraction higher in response. He didn’t have to look at him to know what he was thinking — What the fuck was Malfoy doing here?

Harry swallowed hard as he forced his voice to remain steady, even as his mind raced to make sense of what he was seeing. “Malfoy.” He let the name sit in the air between them, heavy with the weight of all the years of animosity and misunderstandings. His sharp gaze flickered downward, toward the cauldron between them. The thick, viscous liquid inside was bubbling sluggishly. Its surface was shifting between deep, unnatural shades of green and black, shimmering in a way that made his instincts scream wrong, wrong, and wrong.

His eyes snapped back to Malfoy, narrowing. “What the hell is this?”

The git didn’t answer. His lips pressed into a thin line, his expression unreadable. But his gaze twitched… just for a second, just for the briefest moment… toward the cauldron and then toward the brutish man standing behind him.

The brutish man scoffed suddenly, the sound sharp and grating, like nails on a chalkboard. “We could ask you the same thing, Auror,” he sneered, his tone dripping with condescension. “Barging in here, throwing spells around like you own the place. How very… Gryffindor of you.”

Harry’s jaw clenched. He turned his glare toward the man as his patience was already wearing thin. “We’ve been tracking your operation for weeks,” he bit out, voice flat, cold, and devoid of any pretense of civility. “We know about the stolen items. We know about the illegal potions. And we know—” his gaze flickered back to Malfoy, lingering and searching, “—that you’re maybe working with someone we didn’t expect.”

Malfoy flinched. It was small, barely noticeable, but Harry saw it.

Ron took a step forward then, his voice sharper and harsher. “What the fuck are you doing here, Malfoy?”

Before the blonde could answer, the brutish man beside him moved. It wasn’t a threatening movement. It wasn’t aggressive. But it was deliberate. He stepped forward, just enough to place himself slightly in front of Malfoy, his broad frame partially blocking him from view. The message was clear. He was protecting him. No, they were protecting each other.

“Mind your tongue,” the man said, voice low, gruff, and heavy with warning.

Harry blinked. His mind scrambled to reconcile the image before him — Draco Malfoy, former Death Eater, the boy who had been raised to believe he was superior to nearly everyone, now being protected by a man who looked like he had spent his life fighting for survival.

Why?

Before he could voice the question, the older wizard coughed. “Enough of this.” His fingers twitched too fast—

“Expulso!”

The blast was instant.

The explosion rocked the room, sending a shockwave through the floorboards and shaking the walls. The force of it hit him like a freight train, knocking the breath from his lungs, and sending him staggering backward. His ears rang. The acrid scent of burning wood also filled his nostrils as debris flew.

Somewhere in the chaos, spells began to fire. Sharp bursts of red and blue cut through the smoke. Voices shouted, spells collided, and the battle erupted once more. Harry’s head snapped up just in time to see Ron engaging the older wizard, the two locked in a vicious duel. The brutish man had stepped forward as well, his massive frame shielding Malfoy as he fired a powerful hex at one of the Aurors who had arrived for backup.

Harry’s gaze snapped back to Malfoy.

He wasn’t running.

Instead, he raised a wand not at Harry, not at Ron, but toward the Aurors storming in behind them.

“STUPEFY!”

A spell hit Malfoy square in the chest before he could even open his mouth. His lithe body jerked, the wand slipped from his fingers, and he collapsed onto the hard floor. The brutish man snarled, lunging forward to shield him, but another Stunning Spell hit him next. The older wizard barely had time to turn before Ron’s Stunner took him out too.

And just like that it was over. Harry’s grip on his wand loosened as he took a slow, deliberate step forward, his eyes locked onto Malfoy’s unconscious form.

He had found him.

But now, for the first time since this whole thing had started, he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

Pain. That was the first thing Draco registered before he even fully clawed his way back to consciousness. A deep ache at the base of his skull, spreading outward in dull pulses. Each one was making his temples pound as if his head had been caught between a vise. His body felt sluggish, every limb heavy and unresponsive, as though he had been submerged underwater. His mouth was dry, his tongue thick like cotton, and there was a sharp tang on his lips… blood, he immediately realized, though he couldn’t instantly recall how he had gotten it.

His wrists and shoulders ached, and he half expected to feel the cold bite of shackles binding his hands together. But as he flexed his fingers experimentally, they moved freely. No restraints. No tight cords digging into his skin.

That was unexpected.

He let out a slow, measured breath through his nose, willing himself to stay still as he took stock of his situation. His memories were fragmented, coming back to him in disconnected flashes… Knockturn Alley, the Aurors, the fight, the explosion… then nothing. A void of blackness where his mind simply refused to fill in the gaps. He had been hit, that much he was certain of. A Stunning Spell perhaps, maybe more than one, considering the way his entire body felt wrung out and sluggish. Someone had taken him down, and whoever it was, they had been thorough about it.

With great effort, he pried his eyelids open, blinking rapidly as the dim artificial glow from above assaulted his vision. His surroundings came into focus in slow, incremental details… the dull gray walls, the smooth concrete floor, and the metal table sitting a few feet in front of him. It was a small, windowless room, barren and sterile. It was the kind of place meant to unnerve a person before an interrogation even began.

Draco exhaled sharply. A holding room. Not a prison cell. Not Azkaban. That distinction alone told him more than his captors likely intended. If they had wanted to charge him outright, he would already be sitting in a magically reinforced cell deep within the Ministry, or worse, en route to Azkaban. Instead, he was here. Which meant there were questions and uncertainties. They didn’t know what to do with him yet. But none of that mattered. Not really. Because the first thought that truly settled in his mind, sharper and more urgent than the pain in his skull, had nothing to do with himself. It was the children.

Finn. Percy. Daelan. Ales. Their names rang like alarm bells in his head, looping over and over. Each repetition was sending a jolt of anxiety straight through his gut. They had been waiting for him. Expecting him to come home. What had happened to them after he had been taken?

His jaw clenched as his mind spun through every possibility. If Finn had sensed something was wrong, would he have kept the others together? Would Percy have taken charge, done what needed to be done despite his fear? Ales… had she heard something? Had she put the pieces together? And little Daelan… was he okay?  The questions sent ice through his veins. Draco had promised them safety. Promised them stability. And now he was here. Captured. Detained. And he had no way of knowing if they were safe. If the Aurors had raided the library. If someone else had. If, at this very moment, they were out there alone, waiting for him to return to them.

His hands curled into tight fists against his lap, nails pressing into his palms hard enough to sting. He could not afford this. He could not afford to sit here, waiting, and wondering. He needed to get out. He needed to know what the Ministry knew and what they wanted from him. He needed to figure out what to say and how to maneuver this so that it never, not even once, led back to the kids.

A sudden noise broke through his thoughts. It was a loud, metallic click, the unmistakable sound of a door unlocking. His posture stiffened instantly as his entire body went rigid. The door swung open, and he forced his expression into one of mild disinterest.

And then Harry Potter stepped inside.

Draco inhaled slowly, controlled. Of course. Because of course it would be him. He had known, somewhere deep in the back of his mind, that it was inevitable. That if he had been captured by Aurors, it would be Harry Potter who would nail him down. But that didn’t make it any less irritating.

Potter looked… tired. Not just in the way that came from a fight, but in the way that suggested exhaustion had settled deep in his bones. Like it was lingering there long past what should have been reasonable. His face was taut, his jaw tight, and his green eyes sharp with something searching… something probing. His movements were deliberate as he pulled out the chair across from Draco and sat down. He watched him, silent and assessing. Potter didn’t speak right away. For a long moment, neither of them did. The silence stretched between them.

Draco arched a brow, breaking the silence first. “Let me guess,” he drawled, voice still rough from disuse, but sharp enough to cut through the tension. “I’m not under arrest. Yet.”

Potter’s lips pressed into a thin line. He didn’t answer.

He let out a low hum, leaning back slightly in his chair, feigning ease he did not feel. His entire body was still coiled tight. “What’s the matter, Potter?” he continued. “Not sure what to do with me now that I’m sitting here in front of you instead of rotting away in Azkaban?”

Something flickered in those green eyes. It was something quick and unreadable, but it was gone before he could place it.

“You tell me,” Potter said, his voice steady. “What were you doing there, Malfoy?”

“I imagine you already have your theories. Why don’t you go ahead and share them? Save us both some time.” His lips curled at the edges. It looked like a smirk, but there was no real amusement behind it.

“We found you in a building filled with stolen magical instruments, illegal potion ingredients, and individuals with highly questionable backgrounds. And yet—” he paused, his green eyes narrowing slightly as if trying to read something in Draco’s face, “—you didn’t run.”

“You weren’t trying to escape,” Potter continued. “You weren’t hiding. And you weren’t afraid.” He leaned forward slightly, his elbows resting on the table. “Why is that, Malfoy?”

Draco’s fingers twitched against his thigh. He could lie. He could spin something, deflect, or evade. But Potter wasn’t an idiot. And Draco… Draco had more important things to worry about than playing word games. So instead, he met the Auror’s gaze, leveled his voice, and said, “Because I wasn’t your enemy, Potter. Neither were the two people with me.”

Potter’s jaw tightened. “Then what were you?”

He inhaled slowly. Someone who has people waiting for him. People who need him. People I can’t afford to fail.

But he didn’t say that. Instead, he met Potter’s gaze and asked, “Is that Veritaserum for me?”

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Harry knew from the moment he saw Malfoy being dragged out of that building that capturing him and the rest of his lot wasn’t the end of this mission. If anything, it was just the beginning.

The members of the criminal ring were bound in enchanted restraints and lined up for transport, but his mind was already racing ahead to what would come next. Because this wasn’t just a routine raid. It wasn’t just about recovering stolen magical instruments or shutting down yet another underground operation in Knockturn Alley. There was something else lurking beneath the surface. It was something deeper and something wrong. And at the center of it all stood Draco Malfoy.

Malfoy, who hadn’t fled when given the chance. Malfoy, who hadn’t fought back the way the others had. Honestly, he only cast a spell when the other Aurors began entering the room. Malfoy, who had stood his ground in that room, side by side with the very people the Aurors had been sent to arrest. Malfoy, who had looked Harry straight in the eye. Harry let out a slow breath, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose as that memory replayed itself over and over in his mind.

It would have been easier if Malfoy had fought back. Like actually fought back. If he had resisted or if he had cursed and spat and snarled like the arrogant Slytherin Harry had once known. Then maybe he wouldn’t be questioning everything right now. But Malfoy hadn’t done any of that. And that left him with only more questions… questions that no one else seemed interested in answering.

Because as far as Robards was concerned, the case was closed.

The moment the last suspect had been subdued and the moment the Aurors had secured the evidence and cleared the building, their superior had made the call… Azkaban. No trials, no extended interrogations, and no weighing the circumstances. The captured ones were to be transferred immediately to the prison, where they would await sentencing alongside the rest of Knockturn Alley’s worst.

Harry had shut that idea down before Robards could even finish giving the order.

“You’re being soft, Potter,” Robards had said, his voice sharp with frustration as he crossed his arms. “We caught them red-handed. They were there. What more do you need?”

“The truth,” he had countered, his voice calm but unyielding. “We don’t know why they were there. We don’t know who else is involved. We don’t know how far this whole operation spreads. If we throw them into Azkaban now, we lose any chance of uncovering the full picture.”

Robards had let out an impatient scoff, shaking his head. “And what, you think Malfoy is going to just tell you if you ask nicely?”

“I think there’s more to this than we understand. And I think if we don’t handle this carefully, we’re going to miss something important.” He had paused then, before adding, “You can’t tell me this doesn’t feel off to you.”

There had been a brief silence between them. Then, finally, Robards had exhaled sharply, muttering something under his breath before waving a dismissive hand.

“Fine,” he had relented, though his tone made it clear that he thought this was a mistake. “They go to holding cells at the Ministry. You have twenty-four hours, Potter. If you don’t get something useful out of them by then, they’re all on the next transport to Azkaban. No more arguments.”

Harry had taken that win and held onto it tightly. But that didn’t mean the fight was over.

Even as the captured suspects were processed, even as they were led one by one into the Ministry’s holding cells for questioning, he could feel the tension in the air. The quiet murmurs among the Aurors, the wary glances exchanged when an unconscious Malfoy was escorted through the doors, the barely concealed whispers of Why was he there? and Has Potter gone soft? He knew what they were thinking. Malfoy wasn’t supposed to be involved in something like this. Malfoy had spent the last few years keeping his head down and staying out of trouble. The only mishap that happened to him was his internship at St. Mungo’s, but that, too, was forgotten. And yet, there he was, standing amongst criminals.

Harry didn’t care what the others thought. Let them talk. Let them make their assumptions. Because he had fought tooth and nail to make sure Malfoy wasn’t tossed into a cell with the worst of the worst. He had seen to it personally that Malfoy wasn’t locked away in some filthy, overcrowded room, surrounded by hardened criminals and violent offenders. Instead, he had ensured that Draco Malfoy was placed in a clean, monitored interrogation room, a place where he could think, where he could talk, and where Harry could finally question him properly.

But that hadn’t come without consequences.

After everything was settled, Shacklebolt had called him into his office, fixing him with that steady, knowing gaze of his before saying, “You understand that this puts you in a precarious position, Harry.”

Harry had nodded, shoulders squared and voice even. “I do.”

“Then I hope you have a plan,” the Minister continued. “Because people will start asking questions.”

“I already have questions myself.”

Shacklebolt had studied him for a long moment before nodding once. “Then I hope you get the right answers.” That was exactly what he intended to do. 

Now, sitting in front of Draco Malfoy, holding a vial of Veritaserum in hand, he found himself staring at the other man. He was searching the other’s face for something that might give him an idea of what he was about to step into.

Malfoy, for his part, didn’t look nearly as rattled as a man in his position should. His wrists were now bound loosely in front of him with enchanted restraints, a security measure more than anything, though Harry had ensured they weren’t too tight when he did it. His posture was relaxed — or at least as relaxed as it could be under the circumstances — leaning slightly back against the chair. His grey eyes, sharp and clear, flicked from the vial in Harry’s hand to Harry himself.

The silence between them stretched. He had expected Malfoy to break first, perhaps to make some snide comment about his predicament or to throw a barbed insult his way just to prove that he still could. But he didn’t. He simply watched, like he was waiting.

He let out a slow breath, rolling the vial between his fingers before setting it down on the table between them with a quiet clink. “You know what this is,” he said evenly.

The blonde’s lips twitched, but it wasn’t quite a smirk. “Wouldn’t be much of a former Potions apprentice if I didn’t.”

“Three drops,” Harry continued. “That’s all it takes. You wouldn’t be able to lie, but you would be able to resist answering if you really want to.”

“And if I refuse altogether?”

“Then I’ll have to take this up with Robards. And I doubt he’ll be as patient as I am.”

That got a reaction. Malfoy’s jaw tensed, just slightly, and his fingers twitched against his restraints before he settled again.

“Ah, yes,” the blonde murmured, voice light, almost amused. “Auror Robards. Not exactly known for his... gentle approach to matters like these, is he?”

Harry didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. They both knew the truth. If Robards had his way, Malfoy would already be on a secured transport to Azkaban with the rest of the captured lot. For a long moment, Malfoy simply sat there, staring at the vial between them. Then, with a quiet exhale, he leaned forward slightly, eyes flicking back up to meet Harry’s.

“You’re really going through with this, then?” he asked, voice quieter now, lacking the usual sharp edges.

He nodded. “I need answers, Malfoy. And you’re going to give them to me.”

Another pause.

Then, to his surprise, Malfoy huffed a quiet laugh. It was not bitter, not mocking, just… tired.

“Of course I am,” he murmured, more to himself than anything. Then, before he could question it, Malfoy reached forward, fingers brushing against the cool glass of the vial as he picked it up and studied it in the dim light.

Harry watched as Malfoy slowly, deliberately, uncorked the bottle and tilted it over his tongue. One drop. Then two. Then three. He set the empty vial back onto the table with a small clink and sat back again, exhaling through his nose as he closed his eyes for a brief moment. When he opened them again, they were still sharp. Still alert. But he could see it… the faintest shift and the subtle pull of magic in the air around them.

The truth serum had taken hold.

He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table, and let the silence settle for a beat before speaking.

“Let’s start with something simple,” he said, voice low but firm. “Why were you there, Malfoy?”

Chapter Text

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Harry exhaled slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on Malfoy as the interrogation room settled into a silence so complete that the only sound was the faint sound of the Veritaserum in the air, its magic already seeping into Malfoy’s system. The enchanted lights above flickered now and then, throwing shifting shadows across the sharp lines of Malfoy’s face.

Though the blonde leaned back in his chair with an air that suggested indifference, Harry knew it was nothing more than a carefully chosen act meant to give the impression of control, even while the potion worked through his bloodstream and dragged the truth from him whether he wished it or not. He noticed the tiny betrayals that broke through the act: the subtle twitch of Malfoy’s fingers against the table, the momentary stiffness in his shoulders before he forced them to relax, and the look in his eyes that spoke not of fear but of careful calculation, the kind made by someone cornered but not ready to give in.

Harry could almost respect it, though only almost.

He ran a hand down his face, reminding himself to push aside the thoughts that threatened to blur the line between past and present, because this moment was not about the war they had survived or the bitterness that still hung between them. It was about the truth, and he knew well enough that truth was never simple.

Harry leaned forward, his voice low but steady as he repeated the question, firm enough to leave no room for evasion. “Let me ask again. Why were you there, Draco Malfoy?”

For a brief moment Malfoy appeared to hesitate, though he recognized it for what it was, not true hesitation but resistance. It was the natural instinct to fight against the pull of Veritaserum. The potion, however, was merciless, dragging the truth to the surface and shaping it into words that broke free whether Malfoy willed it or not.

“I was brewing Wolfsbane,” he said at last.

Harry’s brow furrowed, the answer colliding with the expectations he had carried into this room. He had prepared himself to hear something sinister, something that would validate the months of surveillance, the Aurors’ intervention, the force that had been deemed necessary to corner Malfoy and drag him here. He had anticipated whispers of dark magic, black-market trade, smuggled artifacts, or curses meant to spread harm through the shadows of the wizarding world. Instead, the words given to him were plain, almost absurd in their simplicity.

“Wolfsbane?” Harry pressed, his eyes narrowing as if repetition alone might make the explanation unravel into something that finally made sense.

Malfoy gave a slow nod, as though he had already prepared himself for his doubt. “Apothecaries in Diagon wouldn’t sell it to the people,” he said, his tone carrying the tired frustration of someone who had argued this point too many times to count, “and Wolfsbane isn’t just costly, it’s notoriously difficult to brew. The people in Knockturn don’t have the luxury of walking into St. Mungo’s and requesting a prescription, do they?”

His frown deepened, because he knew Malfoy was right. Wolfsbane was one of the hardest potions to secure, and even under the best conditions it was a nightmare to produce, the ingredients alone costing more than most witches or wizards could hope to spare. On top of that, professional brewers rarely accepted commissions, too wary of the legal risks tied to its use. But even so, the explanation didn’t sit easily with him.

“Why would they need it?” he asked, though the unease twisting in his stomach told him he already knew the answer.

Malfoy’s fingers twitched against the table, the movement so slight it was easy to miss, before he spoke again. “Because before he died, Greyback made his way to Knockturn.”

The words landed with the weight of a curse, and the silence that followed pressed hard against Harry’s chest as his pulse quickened, his mind racing to process what Malfoy had just revealed.

Fenrir Greyback.

Of course.

Of course Greyback’s destruction hadn’t ended with his death; Harry had always known the werewolf’s reign of terror had left scars that ran deep through the wizarding world, but no one had ever told them just how wide the damage spread, no one had said how many had been bitten, turned, or left with lives that could never return to what they once were.

“How many?” he asked, his voice dropping lower than he intended.

Malfoy’s throat moved as he swallowed, his eyes flickering downward for the first time since the interrogation had begun. “Too many,” he said quietly. “Most of them are children.” He paused, then added, “One of them was Knoxx’s son.”

Harry felt his stomach twist as the pieces began to fit. The files had identified Knoxx as the large man found with Malfoy. He was the same man who had stepped in front of the blonde when the Aurors closed in, not in some vague show of solidarity but in an instinctive act of protection. He understood now why Knoxx had done it: if Malfoy was harmed, the chance of getting the potion again would collapse entirely.

He let out a slow breath, trying to fit this truth against the simple, orderly narrative the Ministry always pressed on him, a narrative that left no room for shades of grey. “So you… brewed Wolfsbane for them? That’s why you were there?”

“I was their only option.”

The words lingered in the silence, and Harry found himself staring at Malfoy as though he were seeing him with new eyes. This was a Draco Malfoy who had grown up with wealth, privilege, and the untouchable status of a pure-blood heir, now spending his nights brewing one of the most complicated potions in a hidden corner of Knockturn Alley for werewolves, outcasts, and criminals the rest of society had long since abandoned. It should have been impossible to believe, yet the more he thought about it, the more it made sense.

“You knew it was illegal.”

Malfoy gave a short, humorless laugh and shook his head. “Of course I did.” His grey eyes lit with something sharp, edged with bitterness, as he added, “But tell me, Potter… What would you have done? Would you have stood by and watched them suffer? Watched them transform every full moon without a drop of control? Because that’s exactly what’s been happening.”

Harry’s jaw tightened, because he knew Malfoy wasn’t exaggerating. He had seen what it meant when a werewolf had no Wolfsbane to dull the transformation. He had seen it in Remus, in the way the full moon tore through him, leaving behind only pain and exhaustion that lingered long after the night had passed.

And if there were children among them, children infected and left without Wolfsbane, children forced to endure the unbearable pain of transformation month after month without even the faintest reprieve, Harry could barely bring himself to picture it, his throat tightening as he swallowed hard against the thought.

“That still doesn’t explain why you got involved,” he said at last, his voice low but edged with frustration that cut sharper than he intended. “You’re not a licensed potions maker, Malfoy. You’re not a charity worker, and you’re certainly not some self-sacrificing war hero. So why in Merlin’s name would you risk everything for a group of people the Ministry refuses to see as anything other than criminals?”

Across from him, Malfoy’s expression remained impassive, his features held in the kind of careful stillness Harry had seen countless times before. When he finally answered, his voice was like fire banked but still burning. “Because we protect our own, Potter.”

The words cut through the room and settled heavily between them, not framed as an appeal for understanding or offered as justification but delivered as a declaration that allowed no argument. He opened his mouth, ready to press, to push, to demand more, but nothing came, because for all the conversations he had rehearsed in his head, for all the ways he had expected this interrogation to unfold, this was not it. Draco Malfoy wasn’t denying, wasn’t deflecting, wasn’t twisting the truth into something easier to swallow. He sat firm in his chair, chin lifted ever so slightly, his blank expression daring Harry to find fault with what had just been said.

But it wasn’t only the words themselves that struck him; it was the manner in which Malfoy delivered them, with no hesitation, no trace of doubt, only the quiet certainty of someone who had long ago decided where he stood and would not be moved from it. His voice carried the firmness of steel, every word controlled and deliberate yet edged with a fierceness that could not be mistaken, his grey eyes steady and burning with conviction as he spoke again, this time slower, as though he wanted Harry to absorb every syllable. 

“Those people in Knockturn… the very ones your Ministry brands as criminals… showed me and my siblings more humanity than the rest of the wizarding world ever thought us worthy of.”

And in that moment something in Harry shifted, his grip on the table loosening as his breath caught, the air between them heavy enough to make the room feel smaller, as though the walls themselves had drawn closer. Because this wasn’t just about Knockturn Alley, and it wasn’t only about werewolves or the nameless people surviving in the shadows; it was about something larger, something Harry had never expected Malfoy to admit so openly.

This was about Malfoy, about the children Harry had barely given a second thought to, the ones Malfoy had taken in and chosen to protect when no one else would. It was about the years that followed the war, years in which Malfoy had lived as an outcast, branded with a name spoken in whispers and sharpened by judgment, years in which the Ministry had stripped away everything his family once held and left him to carry the weight of it alone. And when the rest of the wizarding world had turned its back, when those who called themselves good had looked away, it hadn’t been them who gave him a place to belong.

It had been the criminals, the forgotten, the ones who had nothing left but each other.

For the first time since he and his team had stormed that building with wands drawn and spells ready to fly, Harry felt the creeping suspicion that they might have made a mistake. He exhaled slowly, forcing the doubt down as he spoke, his voice quieter than before but no less firm. “Malfoy… this doesn’t change the fact that you broke the law. You were working with people the Ministry has been monitoring for months.”

Malfoy gave a sharp, humorless laugh and shook his head, the corner of his mouth curling into something that resembled a smirk but carried no real trace of amusement. His eyes were cold and threaded with bitterness as he leaned forward just slightly, holding Harry’s gaze with a look that was both cutting and defiant. “The law?” he repeated. “You mean your law?”

Harry felt something cold settle in his stomach as Malfoy’s words cut through the room.

“The same laws that left every one of us to rot because we weren’t important enough to save? Because we weren’t your people?” Malfoy’s lips curled as he let out a scoff. “Do you think I care about what’s legal, Potter? I care about what’s right.”

Harry had nothing to say to that, because deep down he knew Malfoy wasn’t wrong. The world had never been as simple as the Ministry wanted it to be, and the truth had never been cleanly divided into black and white. It wasn’t then, and it wouldn’t be now, and faced with that reality Harry was left with the question of what he was going to do about it.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

Draco had no idea how much time had passed since Potter had begun questioning him under Veritaserum; in this cold room, time seemed to stretch and twist until minutes felt like hours and hours felt like nothing at all, leaving him unable to tell the difference anymore. The only thing he knew for certain was the suffocating weight pressing against his chest, a constant, gnawing dread that refused to ease no matter how hard he tried to force it away.

The room was too quiet, too still, nothing like the home he had fought to build. There was no soft hum of morning voices, no faint rustle of pages as Finn lost himself in one of the books Mister Archibald had lent him, no sound of Percy and Daelan bickering over something ridiculous, and no sleepy murmur from Ales as she tried to climb into his lap in search of warmth. 

Here there was only the cold, the silence, and the steady ticking of the clock on the far wall, a rhythm that reminded him too much of the Manor, too much of nights spent locked in his own head with nothing but the echoes of thoughts he had never dared to speak aloud.

But he wasn’t a child anymore, and he wasn’t alone.

The children… his chest tightened sharply at the thought of them. Where were they now? Were they safe? Were they frightened? Did they understand what had happened, or were they left in the dark, waiting for him to return?

He had prepared them for this. He had spent night after night making sure they understood that the Ministry might one day come for him, sitting them down and telling them exactly what to do if he didn’t come home, repeating the same steps until he was certain they could follow them without hesitation.

But they were still children. 

Even Finn and Percy, who carried themselves with the weight of people much older than their years, were only boys. They were boys who had already lost too much and who should never have had to learn how to hold themselves together when the world wanted to tear them apart. He knew they would protect their siblings and fight to keep the four of them safe, but who would protect them? Who would remind them that they didn’t have to be strong every single moment?

And Ales. Sweet Ales, who still curled up beside him when the nights grew too cold and who still reached for his hand whenever she was nervous. She had not yet learned the full cruelty of the world. She had not yet understood that people like them, people with names marked by the past, would never be given the same mercy as others.

And Daelan… Merlin, Daelan. He was still small, still fragile, and still the child who woke crying after nightmares and who hid behind his older siblings whenever strangers came too close. He would be terrified, Draco thought, his throat tightening. He would be waiting for him, calling for him, looking to the door for him to come home, and he—

His breathing hitched, breaking the thought before it could finish. He pressed both palms against the table, fingers digging into the cold metal, and grounding himself against the pull of panic. Panic would help nothing. He had to stay in control, he had to think, but the effort felt useless, because all he could see in his mind were their faces, scared and searching for him.

Draco swallowed hard, his throat tight, and when he finally spoke, his voice came out rough and uneven. “What about the children?” His eyes snapped to Potter, searching, pleading, because no matter the anger and resentment simmering under his skin, no matter how little trust he had in the Ministry, Potter was still Potter. He was the hero, the one who always stepped in when no one else would. He couldn’t let them suffer. He couldn’t let them be cast aside like burdens no one wanted.

“Potter, they are alone.” His voice cracked as his fists curled tight in his lap, knuckles white with the effort to hold himself together. “Finn and Percy will manage somehow, they always do, but Ales and Daelan… Merlin, my babies—” His breath stuttered. “They will be worried. They’ll be looking for me. Not with Mister Archibald and me locked in here.”

“Where are the children, Malfoy?”

He barely noticed the change in Potter’s tone at first, how it had lost its sharp edges, how the usual authority was tempered now by something gentler, almost careful.

“Tell me where they are,” Potter went on as though he were afraid to press too hard. “We’ll pick them up—”

Draco’s head jerked up so fast a bolt of pain shot down his neck, but he didn’t care. The word left him before he could even think. “NO!” His voice cracked like a whip in the still air, harsh and absolute, his whole body going rigid as a surge of instinctive panic tore through him so violently it made his chest ache.

His pulse roared in his ears, blotting out everything else, and the only thought that held steady was that Potter’s lot would take them, would look at his siblings not as children but as liabilities, names tied to too much blood and too much history to ever be redeemed. The Ministry had stripped him of everything once already — his title, his inheritance, his future — and he could not, would not, let them strip away the only family he had left.

His hands curled into fists so tight that his nails bit hard into his palms, but he hardly felt the sting. “Your lot will take them away from me,” he spat. “You’ll—” He stopped himself before the words could escape, because to say it aloud would make it more real. He could already see it happening in his mind, the Ministry barging into Mister Archibald’s library as though it were their right, tearing through shelves and papers, and then pulling the children out one by one. He could hear the way they would call it rescue while splitting them apart like cattle, shipping them off to strangers under the excuse of “suitable homes.”

He had seen it before. He had watched other war orphans dragged away, placed in households that didn’t want them, where they were treated as reminders of battles and scars no one wished to confront. He had seen them left to rot in silence. And no one had cared then, just as no one would care now.

Potter leaned forward, bracing both hands on the table, his voice low, steady, almost too careful. “Malfoy…”

Draco shook his head sharply, refusing to be caught by the softness in his tone. “No. You don’t understand, Potter. You can’t. The Ministry doesn’t care about what’s best for them. They never did. They’ll see a problem to be fixed, a name to erase, not children who deserve to stay together. That’s all they’ll ever see.”

For a long stretch of silence, Potter only studied him, his green eyes sharp and unreadable, cutting through him in a way Draco hated. Then, something shifted in his expression, and with a quiet exhale, he straightened his shoulders. “If it will make you feel better,” he said slowly, carefully, as though laying each word down like a fragile card, “I’ll have Ron and Hermione get them. No Aurors. No Ministry officials. Just the two of them.”

Draco blinked at him, thrown off balance, because he had braced for a fight. He had been ready for Potter to dismiss his fear, to tell him he was being paranoid, to claim the Ministry wasn’t as cruel as he painted it. But the words never came. Instead, Potter kept his gaze fixed on him.

“They can stay with Ron and Hermione until we sort this out in here,” Potter continued, and then, almost reluctantly, as if he wasn’t sure he should say it, he added, “Your siblings will be safe. They’ll be in good hands.”

Draco’s breath shuddered out of him, uneven, his chest rising and falling too fast as his pulse hammered through his ribs. He didn’t want to trust this, didn’t want to believe that Harry Potter of all people would keep such a promise. But what other choice did he have?

Silence stretched between them, heavy and unyielding, until Draco finally forced the words out. “Fine,” he said, his voice rough and edged with exhaustion. “But I want a letter from Finn.”

Potter’s brows drew together as confusion flickered across his face, and then suspicion followed close behind. “A letter?” he asked, his head tilting slightly as if to measure the weight of the request. “What’s the catch? Some kind of code? A message that would tell him to run or disappear?”

Draco let out a low, tired laugh that carried no amusement, only weariness. “No, idiot,” he murmured, quieter now. “It’s not a trick. Me asking for a letter means I’m safe, that I’m coming back. Him sending one means they’re safe, and that they’ll wait for me.” He swallowed hard, the words dragging against his throat like stones. “It’s not about escape. It’s about knowing we’ll see each other again.”

Potter didn’t answer right away. He just studied him, silent in a way that made the air between them feel even heavier, and then, at last, he gave a small nod. “Alright,” he said quietly, with none of his usual sharpness. “I’ll make sure it happens.”

Draco’s breath came shallow and uneven, each inhale thin and careful, as though his chest no longer trusted itself to hold steady. There was more he could have said, words pressing insistently against the back of his tongue, heavy with everything he couldn’t allow himself to spill. But he kept them locked inside, because he didn’t yet know how much of this moment belonged to him and how much was only another illusion of control.

His gaze drifted to the glass of the two-way mirror, a hard, unbroken surface that marked a clear line between him and whatever waited beyond it, and for a long moment he only saw the faint reflections of himself and Potter, the room beyond appearing still and empty of movement. Still, he knew better than to trust what he could see; years of being watched and judged had taught him the feeling of scrutiny like a pressure on the skin, the memory of the Wizengamot’s eyes and the quiet contempt of a world that had reduced him to a name. This felt the same: the knowledge that he was being observed, catalogued, and treated like something on display, even if there were no visible figures shifting behind the glass.

Potter, meanwhile, sat calm enough to make Draco’s jaw tighten, as if he were unaware of the watching presence or simply choosing to ignore it, and that casualness only added to Draco’s unease, locking his shoulders and narrowing his breath until it came in shallow pulls. He wanted to demand answers, to accuse someone of spying, and to tear back whatever veil separated them from the observers on the other side, but the words froze in his chest.

“Malfoy.”

Potter’s voice cut through the noise in his head and dragged his attention back, forcing Draco to turn from the glass and meet those green eyes that seemed determined to pin him in place, and though he searched them for answers, what he found was an expression too guarded to read, which only tightened the knot in his stomach.

“It’s just us,” Potter said, his voice low but steady, carrying the kind of certainty that dared him to argue. “There’s no one there.”

Draco’s jaw clenched as instinct told him to scoff, to roll his eyes, to bite out something sharp that would put distance between them, because what sort of fool would believe that? After years of being scrutinized, did Potter truly think he would swallow such a line without question, or that his Gryffindor confidence could smooth over a lifetime of suspicion?

But as quickly as the defiance rose, a colder thought settled inside him, and with it came the realization that the truth hardly mattered; whether Potter was lying through his teeth or speaking plainly, whether Aurors lurked behind the glass or the wall was truly empty, none of it changed the fact that his siblings were still out there, waiting for him, and every minute wasted here meant more risk to them. For their sake, he would let himself believe Potter’s words, even if he knew deep down they were nothing but a lie.

His mouth opened and the words came out rough and dry, forced past the tightness in his chest. “Mister Archibald’s library,” he said.

Potter’s brow knotted for a beat as confusion crossed his face, then cleared into understanding, and he leaned in so his attention felt like a physical weight. “Go on,” he urged.

Draco pressed his fingers flat against the cold table as he forced himself to speak. “There’s a hidden room inside. Farthest bookshelf on the right. There’s a small knob, almost invisible; turn it and the door opens.”

“And they’re in there?” Potter asked.

He gave a stiff nod. “Yes. But they won’t leave unless they know it’s safe. If your Aurors arrive in uniform they’ll bolt and you’ll never find them.”

Potter didn’t argue; he only tightened his jaw and nodded once more. “I’ll send Ron and Hermione,” he said.

Draco let out a slow breath, the kind that came from somewhere deep and exhausted, because he hadn’t trusted anyone in years and he still didn’t, but this was the best option he had and there was nothing else he could do. There was one last thing he needed to say, and when the words came they were small but hard-edged. “Do whatever you like to me, Potter,” he told him, deliberate and steady despite the burn in his throat. “Lock me up, throw me in Azkaban, do your worst. But make sure my siblings are safe.”

Silence dropped between them like a physical thing, and Draco’s hands trembled where they rested on the table. It was the kind of tremor he did not bother to hide, because none of this had ever been about him. It was never about Draco Malfoy.

“You have my word, Malfoy,” Potter said, firm and quiet, and the promise hung in the room between them.