Chapter Text
And if I shed a tear I won’t cage it
I won’t fear love
And it I feel a rage I won’t deny it
I won’t fear love
They entered into a room of total blackness, smooth round black walls like obsidian polished to a wicked gleam. There were no other doors here, Malfoy was already standing in the room, he spun around and watched them while they entered, he had a hunted look in his eye.
“Well look what’s washed up.” He said, his shoulders high and defensive.
“Shut it you ferret.” Ron snapped. Harry felt strangely in the middle of the two of them. Malfoy pointed his sharp white wand at them, his eyes cold and hard as stone.
“Don’t you point your fucking wand at me.” Ron said. Harry physically got in between them and began pushing Ron to back up a step.
“Let’s not fight, it isn’t worth it.”
“That’s right, Potter, keep your dog on a leash will you.” Malfoy sneered, not a hint of the softness Harry had seen from him before, just all sharp hungry angles. Harry took his hand off of Ron's chest as though giving him permission to do as he pleased, Malfoy growled. Ron pulled out his willow wand and Harry felt like things were already flying out of his control.
Distantly he could hear the sound of running water, he could feel something shift in the magic of the room around them. Harry pulled out his own wand but he didn’t know who to point it at so he pointed it down at the ground.
“Stop both of you.” He said he sounded like Hermione, at least that meant he sounded reasonable.
The floor shifted, turning almost liquid, Harry felt himself slipping through it. A moment later the floor had turned completely into gas, just a cloud of textureless darkness and all three of them fell down through the air, there it was again, that sound of water, and further away something else, something that had long since become familiar to him.
Suddenly the darkness gave way into almost blinding white light, Harry was still in free fall, all he really had time to do was cast a cushioning charm before he finally hit the bottom.
There was water, reflecting the powerful white light so strongly that it almost looked silver. There was a glass shimmer to it, Harry slipped though his cushioning charm and then through the surface of the water.
The water was hot and soothing against his skin, under the surface he could hear music. Like a magical egg, sweet notes that came together forming into Hermione's CD.
Harry swam up back to the surface of the water and took in a great gasp of steaming air. As he tried to tread water he struggled to see either Ron or Malfoy swimming in the surface.
Distantly he could see what looked to be the gleaming white ledge of shore, he started to swim out to it, dragging his wet clothes and school bag against the drag of the water. As he grew closer to the edge the water grew shallower and shallower until it was only about an inch deep.
He slid his hands over the perfectly white tile of the wall, it appeared as though it reached up infinitely though the blinding white light made it hard to tell. He turned, looking back that the water that still shone so brightly it hurt to look out over it too.
“Ron,” he yelled against the soft crooning of the music. He walked along the wall, everything was so bright, after a while he heard the distant sound of calling. He looked out through the glare of brightness and saw Ron’s silhouette, in the distance. He called back to him and ran through the shallow water until they finally met up again, gasping.
“Where’s Malfoy?” Harry asked him.
“Who cares?” Ron said back, Harry did, he couldn’t explain why, only that he knew that they all had to be together.
“Malfoy!” he called out into the glare. Trudging along using the wall for balance.
“Blood hell,” Ron said and still he followed along after Harry. “-Why’s it got to be Malfoy? tell me that,”
“I guess ‘cause Malfoy is the one who made it through the Maze?”
“Not that, I mean going around fancying blokes, -bit sudden, but fine what do I care?” Ron said, frowning down to his sopping shoes, “but Draco bloody Malfoy, you’re either having a laugh or lost your bloody mind.”
“Er I-” Harry said, he didn’t really know if he did fancy Malfoy, was it possible to fancy someone without actually liking them first. “It just kind of happened I guess.”
“That’s not the thing that just kind of happens,” Ron said “-no offence.”
“No I get it,” Harry said, rubbing between his eyes, they were starting to hurt from the light all around him.
“Look mate I know the way things ended with Ginny weren’t-”
“It’s not about that,” Harry said quickly, because it wasn’t. “It wasn’t bad the way things ended, I mean not really. Yeah I guess I was disappointed but I was also kind of the one who ended it… I like Malfoy because he’s- I don’t know- you don’t want to hear this-”
“Go on,” Ron said.
“I-” Harry said, but he didn’t know how to put it all into words without revealing all the little horrors in himself. He liked the way that Malfoy cried when his father died. He liked the way that he loved his mother, the way that he didn’t treat Harry any differently just because he had saved his life.
He liked the way that he had looked in Voldemort's memories as if he had been transported straight into hell. He liked how much it had hurt him and how despite that he still couldn’t forsake all of it.
He liked that Malfoy wasn’t evil, but that he was capable of doing evil none the less. It made Harry feel like… like he didn’t have to be better than the worst parts of himself. Like Malfoy didn’t expect him to be, like it was normal to have pieces of yourself you might never be able to reconcile. He liked that Malfoy still moved forward anyways, that he wanted to change, maybe not for perfect reasons, but for his own honest reasons.
He liked following him, he liked that Malfoy had known he was being followed. That there had almost been something exciting about it, like Malfoy really just was that hungry for attention. He liked the stupid way that he said ‘Harry Potter's like the idea was all a ridiculous fad he refused to get swept up in.
He liked that he bafflingly smelt of roses. That he had still picked Harry up, cradled him, had still called him his darling, even when he had been frightened witless. He didn’t want to think about it but when he did, he realized that he really liked Malfoy.
“...It’s not some kind of self punishment thing is it?” Ron asked, the way it sounded was like he had been thinking that for a while, like that was the whole reason he was bringing this up now.
“it’s-” Harry said, but how the hell was he supposed to know. “No, not a punishment thing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah I’m sure.”
“Fuck. Alright then.”
They kept walking along the wall, there wasn’t much to say, and there wasn’t Malfoy for as far as the eye could see, all there was, was the comforting sound of music, one song after the next looping together forever.
“I think it’s a dog,” Ron said, “my Animagus I mean.”
“Oh yeah, I can see that.” Harry said, turning to look over his shoulder at him.
“I don’t think Hermione's instructions have helped at all.” Ron said.
“Yeah I was thinking that too.”
“How’d it work for you? you just came down here didn't you?” Ron asked.
“For me it was…It was like, it had always been there, like I just had to give myself permission to let it happen.” Harry said.
“Do you think it’s because you're a Parselmouth?"
“Maybe,” Harry said. “You know, I used to think that was Voldemort. I mean it’s really rare, right? what are the chances that both of us would have it?”
“Yeah?”
“I guess it’s something that always felt like it was connected to him, snakes I mean.” Harry said. “...I used to like snakes a lot actually, I mean back when I was a kid. Even before I ever talked to one.”
‘And then I thought that way just him too.- you know, that piece of him inside me…It's just I'm not so sure anymore…and I guess in a way it’s kind of a bit nice, like I got a chance to get that back.”
“Yeah, it makes sense.” Ron said, Harry stopped, and grabbed Ron’s arm.
“Let’s do it.”
“You mean right now?”
“Yeah why not?” Harry said, “come on”
They both took a seat down into the shallow warm water. Closing their eyes against the glare around them sat silently for a moment, while the music played behind them.
“Don’t worry about what Hermione said, don’t worry about what I said either,” Harry instructed. “I think it’s about your own connection to the animal side of yourself. Neither of us have any idea what that’s going to look like, so…you know. ”
“That’s helpful.” Ron said.
“Just, try.”
Harry felt a shift in the water around him, he looked up and saw that Ron had shifted. He was right, he was some kind of large short haired dog with a slight red tinge to his brown fur and little triangles of light on his chest. Harry reached out and touched Ron and smiled.
“You’ve done it,” Harry said. “See nothing to it at all.”
“Potter,”
Came a voice came out in the glaring light around them. He turned to see Malfoy's shadow, dredging through the shallow water, Ron stood up, his short hair standing on end.
“Don’t fight,” he told him quietly.
“Potter that is you, where’s Weasley?” Malfoy said he was gasping for breath as though he had been running and was carrying his heavy wool robe around his arm. “Where’s that dog come from?”
He looked back to Harry and then back to the dog.
“I see that’s Weasley, is it?” he said coldly. “How appropriate, well tell him to transform back.”
Ron snarled at him.
“What kind of dog is he?” Harry asked.
“He’s a Doberman, Potter.” Malfoy said, rolling his eyes.
“I thought Doberman's had straight up ears?”
“They crop the ears, do you have more questions about dogs or can we go now?”
“Yeah, I have a question, where are we going?”
It turned out that Malfoy actually had an answer to that question as well. He took them far along the rim of the wall. Ron it seemed wasn’t able to shift back into his human form, he stayed right by Harry's side throughout the whole walk.
Almost as if he expected Malfoy to try to pull something. They went back to where Malfoy had swam out to shore, there as luck would have it was a demon door in the side of the wall.
Harry looked up at the charred finish of the demon door, he realized that Malfoy could have just opened the door and left without them. That he didn’t have to come and find them but that he did anyway. Maybe he wanted that to mean something.
“What do we need to open it?” Harry asked.
Malfoy stepped out in front of him, he pulled out a memory and laid it down into the dish, the memory spilled out over the side like weightless jelly before drifting back inside Malfoy's mind. He tried again, the next memory slid out in much the same way, Malfoy let out a little groan.
“I’ll try,” Harry offered, taking a step up, he spooled out a memory, looked at it how small it was, how it shivered, how easy it was already to carve it out of him. He placed it in the open bowl of the demon door's mouth.
‘Please help,’ Harry prayed inside his mind as though asking the castle, ‘please take us to where we’re meant to be.’
The door opened up into sooty darkness and they walked through the portal and whatever it was, Harry never remembered it again.
The room was strikingly normal cold stone, grey as a stormy sky. The torches were filled with regular castle fire. There was that smell, the smell of hundreds of bodies, of mixing magic. Of every student, of the castle itself, alive filled with secrets and conscience will. Too many pieces for a single person to ever know.
There in the center of the room was a familiar mirror. Sitting where the castle windows let in the bright drifting moonlight as though this room had only been made for the mirror's temptation.
Harry took a step, and then another, he expected to hear Ron's claws against the stone of the floor behind him and instead heard nothing. He turned around and saw that only Malfoy was standing there at the entrance.
“Ron didn’t go through?” Harry said.
“The Maze didn’t take him here.” Malfoy said, and that was right, why would it when he had accomplished what he had set out to do? why wouldn’t it bring him here instead of spitting him back out into the real world?
“It’s the mirror of Erised.” he told him. He had expected that Malfoy would know what that was, but there was no sign of acknowledgement on his face. “It shows you what you want most in the world, I found it in first year.”
“Did you?” Malfoy said cautiously, taking a step out to the mirror and taking a look at his reflection. Harry held his breath and wondered if Malfoy would ever let him know what he said there. “-It isn’t.”
“What?” Harry said, walking out to the mirror and looking at his own reflection, it showed him himself, still a little wet, his eyes a little hungrier than he expected, but still so much the same as he could expect. Malfoy was reflected there right beside him, his eyes trailing up and over the inscription on the mirror.
“I don’t understand, this should be-”
“It’s a mirror that measures the soul.” Malfoy said. His hand froze part way like it was about to touch the frame and then thought better of it.
“What do you mean?”
“Touch it and find out.” Malfoy said, Harry took a step closer. What would he do if he could somehow see Voldemort's living fractured soul inside of him. There had been moments where he felt like he would have given anything just to know for sure, other moments where he would have done anything to keep it buried inside him like a secret.
“How does it work?” Harry asked.
“I don’t know, just touch it.”
“Can it see if-” Harry started. “Would it know if there was more than one soul?”
“You mean if we both touch it?”
How could he possibly explain what he meant? Harry took a breath and reached out and touched the glass, he could feel his magic connect with it, the reflection filled with color, hot ambers, and deep marrons like old blood, it shifted his image, he looked a little younger, a little thinner, there was something desperate around the eyes, the whole of the glass had a slight sea bottle murkiness to it.
“What does it mean?” Harry asked.
“I don’t know,” said Malfoy looking at his reflection like he was transfixed.
There was a crumbling line of black on his scar like an old scab, he picked at it and tiny flecks came off in his hand like ash. So benign, so harmless. Like someone else's dried blood picked off his skin, like that was all that remained of Voldemort's hold over him, something that could be so easily rubbed off.
There was even a slightly heroic golden warmth in his green eyes, something dangerous that was undeniably beautiful. Harry froze, he looked at Malfoy through the reflection in the mirror he looked colorless, soulless beside him.
He didn't want to be dangerous but he was, he could see it right there in front of him. A venomous snake, but even for snakes wasn't their venom a choice? He looked back at those green eyes, he didn't look hard to love at all, it almost felt like if he kept looking he'd fall in love himself.
“I don’t understand.” he told the room. It was so, so, lovely. This image of him. “You touch it.”
Malfoy looked over at him, his grey eyes looking frightened. He looked back at the mirror, and Harry stepped out of the way, the mirror returned to its previous state, like any other lifeless object. Malfoy reached out and touched it. The mirror shifted again, he looked a little older, a little frailer, the mirror filled with sea colors, iron grey and churning greens and blues, there was something crystal clear about all of it.
There were specks of blood all over Malfoy's clothes, pink stains of blood over his hands, as though he had tried and tried to wash it out and couldn’t manage. Harry watched as his eyes were fixed on them, watched as he aggressively rolled up his sleeve and exposed the darkmark, in the image the mark was flaking away too, leaving his clean white skin underneath untouched.
“I don’t understand either.” Malfoy said finally.
The blood had stained, but the evil had worn away. Harry touched his own scar, that hair thin line of connection. Voldemort was dead. Even the parts he had forced into others were dead. Everything inside Harry was just Harry.
“The roses.” Malfoy said, and sure enough, Harry could see a spattering of pink roses tangled in the background, other things, small fragile things their significance so unknowable to him. Malfoy pulled his hand away, the mirror shifted. He plopped himself on the ground and buried his face in his hands.
“What is it?” Harry asked.
“I know it now, I know how to shut down the Maze.” Malfoy said to his hands.
“How?”
He stood up again and pointed his wand at the mirror. He wrote out his name in his poncy beautiful handwriting. It shone out on the mirror like moonlight.
“Name your price.” He told the mirror.
“What are you doing?” Harry asked not sure if to take a step closer or away.
“Don't think I enjoy this, but needs must when the devil drives, Potter.” Malfoy said, his head held high even as his hand shook, as he confronted the image of himself in the mirror.“Take as you see fair, I am my Father's son and I will honor my debts.”
The walls creaked all around them, the mirror responded by slowly scoring out in a perfect replica of his impeccable hand writing. In a screeching rain of dust. “All the cruelty I've given and all the cruelty I have yet to give’ above his name, like a contract.
There was a single still moment before the magic turned. Salty green magic was pulled out of Malfoy's body. It trailed through the air vicious and vibrant before bleeding into the surface of the mirror. Malfoy doubled over like the extraction was agonizing to him.
He was breathing heavily as though in too much pain to scream . Harry wanted to do something. Something to stop his pain. But anything that he could only spoil the despicable virtue of the act.
The mirror cracked, the walls around the turning coal black, turning fire stained and brittle. Still it drank Malfoy's magic, straight from his soul. Until all the poisoned light had finally been leached out of his body. Malfoy collapsed to the ground trying to grasp at breath.
The Maze collapsed back to the ruin of the room of requirements. Until it was only seemingly miles and miles of charred, nothing around them.
“I thought…heroics would feel better than this.” Malfoy gasped out clutching at his chest.
“No, not often” Harry said, kneeling down beside him.
“I’ve just had a piece of my soul ripped out, I don't need your sass, Potter.” Malfoy whined. Harry looked up at the mirror where the cracks had carved Malfoy's sacrifice into the glass.
“Only the worst bits of your soul, “ Harry said.
“I would have rather liked to stay intact all the same.” Malfoy said finally, sitting up, looking at the shattered glass of the mirror and what he had done.
“That was a brave thing to do.” Harry told him.
“It was, wasn't it?” Malfoy said, giving a weak smile to his own shattered reflection. “Impressed, are we?” He asked a little smugly, Harry couldn't help but smile back.
“A little…would you hate it if I kissed you?” He asked. Malfoy frowned, his eyes burrowed into Harry's like he was trying to peer inside him. He had an incredibly vulnerable look on his face.
“...Harry, if you kiss me now I might fall in love with you,” he said. Harry wasn't sure if that meant he wanted to kiss him or not. Honestly Malfoy didn't seem to know either. “Please, don't do something so unkind to me.”
“Okay.” Harry said. Sitting down crossed legs, he reached out and placed his hand over Malfoys. “Do you mind if I stay with you anyways?”
“If you must.” Malfoy said, smiling and shifting his hand so that he could hold it back.
He was following Draco Malfoy again.
This time at least he definitely knew Harry was following him. There was something in the incredibly showy way that he was acting. Like he was putting on a little show just for him. It was quite charming, truth be told.
Though it was admittedly missing the thrill of hunting him down unseen from those shadows there was something lovely about this too all the same. They weren’t friends, not really, but they had become something that was intimate and intertwined all the same. Sometimes all it took for people to connect was collapsing a magic Maze, it was like bashing in a troll's head that way.
Harry was hanging around the dungeons, watching, watching, silent from the shadows, while Malfoy was talking to some of his friends by the door. They went inside and Malfoy bent down pretending to tie his shoe until it was just the two of them alone in the hallway. Malfoy looked just a little nervous before he stood back up and put on his best showy over confidence.
“Coming Potter?” he asked the air around him, before opening the door and going inside. Harry only hesitated for a moment before following him down inside. They crossed through the common room down into the boys dormitories, it was still early enough that there weren’t any other students in the room. Malfoy held open the curtain to his bed and directed him inside with a show gesture.
Harry climbed inside and Malfoy followed after him, as Harry was invisible there was a moment of tangled limbs, a near scuffle as Malfoy reached out to pull the cloak off of him.
“There you are.” He whispered, his grey eyes alight with excitement. He cast some privacy charms around the bed. Until they could be sure that they were alone.
“Hey.” Harry said, blushing at how close they were.
“Sneaky Potter,” Malfoy said with a smirk. “Following me around.”
“Someone has to make sure you're not up to something.” Harry said, was this flirting? he felt like it might be.
“And you couldn’t help yourself could you?” Malfoy said. “Always looking for your mysteries aren’t you Potter?”
“Mm, yeah that’s me.” he said.
“And what’s it this time?”
“This time?” Harry repeated, this time it was just the case of Harry Potter and the need to know what Malfoy was doing at all possible moments. Harry Potter and the ongoing need to figure out if Malfoy even liked him.
“Yes Potter, what exactly is it that you are looking for?”
“I guess I want to know what this is?” he said. “I want to know if you like me?”
“Like you?” Malfoy said as though the question was baffling.
“I mean, did you hate it when I kissed you?” Malfoy went a little pink, he quickly checked his privacy charms as thought he hadn’t just put them up.
“That’s all a bit direct isn’t it?”
“I’m not good at this, the guessing, I mean.” Harry said. Wasn’t this easier if he was a little direct, god, he has never been good at any of this stuff.
“No…I imagine you're not.” Malfoy said carefully. “Of course I didn’t hate it, Potter, I wouldn’t have let you do it if I hated it and…I wouldn't have been so angry if I hadn’t also wanted you to do it.”
“Then why did you get so upset about it?”
“You might not have noticed but the dark Lord wasn't exactly keen on having faggots for his followers.” Malfoy said sharply. He spat out the word faggot like it had a hateful taste to it. Harry didn't like that, though it felt like that was rather the point.
“It was a problem, it could have gotten me killed. It still is hard to think of it as anything more than a particularly dangerous weakness, so you'll forgive me for being suspicious.”
“-Of course, I can only assume by your utter shamelessness that the ‘Harry Potter’ side probably disagree on that notion. I’m sure it's all a bunch of holding hands assuming the best and taking all your followers as they come and such nonsense.”
“The ‘Harry Potter’ side isn't much for followers of any kind honestly.” Malfoy scoffed.
“Is that so, and what then are we calling Weasley and Granger if not followers of the ‘Harry Potter’ side?”
“Soulmates.” Harry said before he had a chance to consider it. Then it started to sink in, how much he felt that way. How almost blisteringly honest that single word was.
“Well bloody hell don't spare my feelings.” Malfoy said with a little flippant scoff, his shrew eyes raked over Harry, he wondered what he saw there. “You really do feel that way don't you?”
There weren't words for what he felt. It was as though meeting them, living with them was an act of divine providence, of luck so incredibly valuable he could spend the good deeds of a thousand lifetimes to work it off.
“I would die for them”
“Well forgive me for not throwing myself over at that. You don't as far as I can tell have much value in your own life. I imagine you would die for a great many things.”
“I would kill for them.” He said seriously, Malfoys looked back at him just as seriously.
“Yes, I believe that,” he said, then cleared his throat. “What's all this then, just a bit of fun?”
“What?”
“I mean with soul mates already sorted out what could you possibly want from me?”
“I want a family.” Harry said suddenly. “I want people that I can love forever.” people he could grow with until all of their holes and cracks had filled each other into one single inseparable object.
“Well you don't ask for much,” Malfoy said with a snort. “Do you expect that kind of commitment from all the boys you suddenly kiss, when you're already so hopelessly dedicated to two other people?”
“I haven’t kissed other boys, and it’s not like that with Ron and Hermione.”
“I was being facetious.”
“Er, Sorry” Harry said lightly, “-Did I mention I'm also ridiculously famous.”
“Of course you are, that is the only part of your wild demands that makes any sense.” Malfoy sighed. “Even still you could ask for more, your fame is really wasted on you.”
“If you can find some way to take it, trust me you're more than welcome to it.” Harry said.
“-Look I didn't really know that's what I wanted either until you asked, I know it's not fair to throw that on you, but I think it’s true. I don’t want fun, I don't want to try new things. I’ve lived a pretty stressful life and I just want to feel secure, honestly. I think that’s one of the things I admire about you, you know, how seriously you take loving your family.”
Malfoy sighed it was like a discharge of tension.
“Not fair is a way of putting it. Yes, look if we're going to be sitting here being pornographally honest with each other, then I should tell you…I may have fancied you for quite a while, which of course means that you and your ridiculous demands have me at a disadvantage.”
“Really, you fancied me?”
“Merlin knows why…” he sighed again. “No, I know why, it was that stupid handshake on the train. I've never been good at not having what I want and you didn't want to be my friend, so as stupid as it was I had to make you out to be some great disappointment. To try and convince myself that I never really wanted you because I couldn't have you.”
“And then of course you were, you…that is to say, well not disappointing at all. You were brave and talented and chivalrous and Merlin have mercy, valiant. You’re like fucking Galahad…it drove me crazy.”
“Oh…Er, Galahad?” Malfoy dramatically threw himself against his pillow.
“Shut up Potter…You drive me out of my right mind. Only a crazy person would have these feelings for ‘Harry bloody Potter', especially when they were literally fighting a war against him…No matter, there's nothing that can be done about it now. It's all very embarrassing. I don't want to talk about it, but I thought you should know.”
“So what happens if you can have me?”
“Hmm well I don't know now do I? I suppose you'll have to be careful not to bore me” he laughed again and then stopped. “But knowing you, you're more likely to give me a bloody aneurysm first.”
Malfoy pouted. Harry laughed.
“You can have me if you want.” Harry said smiling, “well the parts that don’t belong to Ron and Hermione at least.”
“I’m a jealous lover, Harry.” Malfoy said, giving him a hard look, but all he could think was that he was Harry now.
“And I’m an honest one.”
“Yeah I can see that…”
“...So, you never did tell me what it was you saw in the mirror.” Harry asked after the moment had passed.
“You mean how I figured out the mystery that you weren't able to solve despite having bashed your head against it for months and then heroically, bravely did what had to be done at the sacrifice of my own well being.” Malfoy said as though he was all very impressed with himself.
“Yeah that, you said it was the roses?” Harry said. Malfoy made a gesture for Harry to come down and lay beside him, so he did it.
“Yes, the roses.” Malfoy said, “only I noticed what it was that I was seeing was me, that is that I was all the parts that I had sacrificed and dedicated to the Maze only from the outside. Then I saw how much of me was…a patchwork of other peoples love, sacrifices, dedications…
“…I realized that I would never make the right sacrifice, because I would never be able to see enough of myself to understand what the Maze wanted.”
“Then you really didn't know what it was going to ask for, that means that you wanted to solve the Maze more than you were afraid of the consequences.” Harry said.
“Yes, it was all terribly brave of course, but don’t think I tire of hearing about it.” Malfoy said with a smirk, his face was so close to Harry's own, the smell of roses filling the space between them.
“Then why is it that you smell of roses anyway?”
Harry finally asked. Malfoy ran his hand into Harry's tangled hair, pulling gently, the smell of Luna's coddling stirred out of the roots.
“The same reason that you smell of…patchouli, pine sap, amber and what is that rhubarb? Oh yes, and then something just a tad gamey, like raw lanolin down in the base. hmm it’s all very intoxicating if I'm being honest…drives me more a little batty."
“You mean coddling?”
“Yes, the coddling, Harry, of course the coddling. My mother uses rose oil that she's makes from the manor’s gardens. She’s made the coddling for me for years actually but I was so stupid that I never wore it.”
“Isn’t that so ridiculous? And now I have it, her coddling, her roses… gets on everything, impossible to get rid of just like roses are, you know that? You know you have to dig up all the roots if you mean to get rid of them or they’ll just keep coming back no matter how much you cut them down…It’s powerful magic, you know.”
“Luna made mine, she said it was because I have a proxy aura.”
“Well, someone had to say something, didn't they?” he said with a laugh.
“She has a gift I think…Ron said it’s all superstitious nonsense that there isn’t any real magic in it at all.” Malfoy kept gently pulling his hair, the smell tangled up in his fingers, in Malfoy smell of roses the two of them bleeding together. intertwined. “Smells nice though doesn’t it?”
“Weasley is a moron,” Malfoy said sharply, “it’s the oldest, most powerful magic in the world, Harry. It’s love.”