All Life Is Yours To Miss

Chapter 48

While he gets no such second chance, Draco's mood is brightened by the fact that Harry shakes off the conversation in no time and, as soon as they have finished eating, drags him back out onto the snowy cobbles for more wandering and window shopping. Predictably, Harry does stumble once or twice on the slippery ground and Draco manages to grab him both times, though the force of the second fall pulls them both to the ground where they lie for several seconds, breathing hard and slightly tangled while Stanley tacks frantically and attempts to help. Finding himself rather too close to Harry for comfort, Draco scrambles back to his feet and hauls Harry up off the ground with some effort.
"Why do I have the feeling you're enjoying this?" he asks, rattled and flushed and covered in snow.
"I'm having a nice day," Harry says airily.
"Are you alright, Professor Potter?" calls a concerned student as she passes.
"Fine thank you, Elena," Harry calls back, lifting a friendly hand and waving at the girl. He turns back to Draco and starts brushing the snow from his coat. "I think I've just realised why you were different."
Draco arches an eyebrow. "Different?"
Harry grins, taking Stanley's lead as they start walking again. "Well, you're different in all kinds of ways, of course, but I meant that you were different when I was stuck in bed. When I couldn't move or even open my eyes, and all I could do was listen. Plenty of people came to talk to me—I know that Healer from St Mungo's said they should and I heard Poppy trying to encourage people when they said they didn't know what to say."
"I don't understand," Draco admits.
"You did know what to say," Harry says simply.
"I certainly did not," Draco tells him. "Stanley, put that down."
Harry snorts. "Maybe you think you didn't, but you did. You know, Ron and Hermione spent hours and hours with me every weekend but until I could talk back, they didn't talk to me like they usually would. It was always a bit... awkward, I suppose, like they were so distracted by what I couldn't do and they just couldn't see past it. You were just... the same. It was quite comforting."
Draco stares down at the cobbles as they walk, pulse fluttering and tense hands crammed into coat pockets. "I don't know what to say," he admits at last.
"Well, there's a first time for everything," Harry says.
"Oh, shut up. I said all kinds of rubbish, I'm certain of it."
"Don't make me tell you again how much I enjoyed your stories," Harry says darkly.
"Please don't," Draco says, pouring as much disdain into his voice as he can muster. Harry just laughs, brushes his shoulder against Draco's and starts talking to Stanley instead. He's hopelessly charming and warm and bright, and he knows all of Draco's secrets. Draco is lost and he knows it.
After dinner that night, they gravitate towards Draco's rooms without a word. Once inside, Harry carefully lowers himself onto the hearth rug to stroke a rather sleepy Stanley. Draco puts the kettle on and watches them, warm and content for a moment as he allows himself to enjoy just how right they look together, there in front of his fire, in his living room, as though they belong there.
As though they belong to him.
As reality begins to filter back in, Draco turns away and yanks open the cupboard to look for cups. Harry doesn't belong to him, even if he is sitting quite happily on his floor on a Saturday evening, having spent the entire day with him already. He's just there, and soon he won't be, and the whole thing just aches too much to think about. He has his own rooms; maybe he should be there instead.
"Draco?"
"Yes?"
"How many cups do you think we need?" Harry asks, amusement flickering in his voice as he looks at the sideboard, where almost every cup Draco owns is now sitting.
"I don't know," Draco says crossly, scowling at the cups. "Maybe you should make tea for a change, or don't you have your own rooms any more?"
Harry's eyebrows shoot up under his messy fringe. "Wow. What was that about?" he asks carefully.
The sudden flash of anger dissipates and Draco leans against the sideboard, rubbing his face with both hands. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that," he says, exhaling slowly. "I've never seen your rooms, though... are you hiding something weird in there?"
Harry reflects his cautious smile back to him. "Not exactly."
"Well, now I'm intrigued," Draco says, putting the spare cups back into the cupboard and pouring the tea. "Spit it out."
"It's ridiculous."
"I don't care."
Harry sighs, watching Stanley crawl slowly across the rug towards the bedroom, stopping every few inches and tacking softly. "What's the matter with him?"
"He's just tired. Put him on the bed if you like, that's where he wants to go," Draco says, indicating the open bedroom door.
Harry gets to his feet stiffly and lifts the weary beetle into his arms. "Come on, then," he murmurs, carrying Stanley into the bedroom and then reappearing, hands in pockets, looking equally worn out. "I like your quilt," he says, yawning.
"Thank you. Now tell me why you don't want me to see your rooms."
"It's not that I don't want you to see them, I just don't want to be there," Harry says, accepting his cup of tea and leaning against the doorframe. "It just... doesn't feel right. Not since I got back."
"Why not?"
Harry shrugs. "It just feels cold, and it smells damp and neglected. I don't feel like I can relax there any more. I told you it was stupid."
"Do you feel like you can relax here?" Draco asks, surprised.
Harry yawns again. "Yes."
Draco taps his fingers against his tea cup as he thinks. "Okay," he says eventually. "Tomorrow we are going to spend the day in your rooms." Harry pulls a face but Draco ignores him. "It's not that you aren't welcome here... quite the opposite, in fact... but as you rightly said, everyone needs a sanctuary, and yours isn't going to get any less neglected if you just keep neglecting it."
Harry collapses into an armchair and drinks his tea, frowning. "I hate it when you're right."
After breakfast, Draco follows Harry directly to his rooms before he can change his mind. As he waits for Harry to unlock the door, he tries to imagine what Harry's living space will look like, but before he has reached a decision, the door is swinging open and unleashing a waft of cold, musty-smelling air. Wrinkling his nose, he steps inside and tries to look around, but all the curtains are drawn and he can barely make out the shapes of a table and chair just five or six feet away from him.
"Maybe some light would help," he suggests, and Harry shrugs, so he draws his wand and sends the curtains rattling along their rails. Harsh winter sun floods the living room, revealing a dull coating of dust on every surface. The air is heavy and smells slightly of mildew; Draco walks across the floor and presses his hand against the stone wall, finding it damp.
"When was the last time you opened the windows?" he asks, turning to look at Harry. "Or lit a fire?"
Harry hovers in the doorway for a moment before reluctantly coming inside and leaning against the door to push it closed. "September?" he says uncertainly.
"No wonder it's so uninviting," Draco says, catching sight of Harry's dejected expression and wanting nothing more than to stride across the floor and kiss him until he smiles again. "I can't believe the house-elves didn't come and sort this out before you came back, we should..." He stops, shaking his head. "They tried, didn't they?"
"They came the morning I got out," Harry says, looking at the floor. "Loads of them. They said they were going to put everything back just the way it was before, that it'd be like none of it had ever happened. I didn't want that, I... I don't know. I shouted at them and told them they couldn't come in, and, well... it's been like this ever since. Nobody else knows, so..."
"I'm not going to tell anyone," Draco says firmly. "They were so pleased to see you on Monday night, I don't understand it."
Harry glances up at him with a tiny sheepish smile. "I'd already apologised by then, but they haven't been back."
Draco takes a long careful breath before asking the question he's not sure he wants the answer to.
"Why didn't you want everything back the way it was?"
Harry looks at him and shakes his head gently. "Don't, Draco."
"Don't what?" Draco rasps, stomach clenching with a dull, inevitable sort of pain.
Harry's eyes are bright as he pushes himself off the door and wanders into the middle of the room.
"Let's just... tidy up a bit, okay? If you help me, you'll have your space back twice as fast," he says, flashing a smile that doesn't quite convince Draco.
He sighs heavily, torn up with the knowledge that something has shifted between them and he has absolutely no idea what to do about it. Harry doesn't want things back the way they were before, but exactly what he does want remains somehow out of Draco's reach. He watches Harry for a moment as he walks around the room, flicking away dust with his wand, and then, pushing his painful confusion to the back of his mind, he sets to work.
Harry's rooms, he quickly discovers, are very much like his own, and not just in terms of the standard Hogwarts fixtures and fittings. His taste also tends towards the comfortable, worn and practical, and he has just as many books on his shelves as Draco, though most of his have titles like: 'The Love of Flying' and 'Quidditch: the tactical persuasion' and 'The Philosophy of House-elves and Other Domestic Beings'. He also finds volumes on cooking, gardening, and advanced Transfiguration, as well as the biggest, heaviest Muggle dictionary he has ever seen.
The main difference between the two sets of rooms is that Draco's walls and surfaces are mostly clean and empty, while Harry's are host to a plethora of photographs, drawings, old tickets and odd little trinkets. Draco dusts each tiny ornament and oddment, happy to have something on which to focus his attention in the absence of Harry's usual stream of conversation. They work in near-silence, flinging open windows, cleaning out the grates and lighting fires in every room in an attempt to banish the miserable smell of disuse that hangs in the air.
At lunchtime, Draco runs down to the kitchens and brings back sandwiches and fruit and tea and they sit on the clean-swept floorboards to eat, sleeves rolled up and hair sticking to their foreheads in spite of the cold air swirling in through the open windows.
"Sorry about earlier," Harry says suddenly, pulling the crust from his sandwich and chewing on it.
Draco's stomach flips unhelpfully and he forces himself not to look up straight away. "It's alright."
"It isn't at all. I don't think I realised how daft I'd feel when you saw the state of my rooms, but it's no excuse for acting like a child," Harry says firmly, and though Draco doesn't entirely believe the excuse he is being offered, he takes it, because he likes resolving conflicts this way—quickly, and with apologies—it's rather novel and he suspects that he and Harry should have tried it years ago.
"I understand. You've been through a difficult experience... it's not all that surprising that you've come out of it with a weird tendency or two," he says, biting into his sandwich.
Harry throws an orange at him.