Drarry - Baby Steps

Second Step.

Teddy coos as he's gently being bounced up and down on Harry's knees. After some painfully long minutes of Draco watching the scene and slowly sipping his tea, Harry gets up. "He needs his milk."

"Can I help?" Draco rises to his feet too.

"Please sit down. I'll be right back." With a lump in his throat Harry turns his back on Draco and walks out. He puts Teddy in a baby-chair in the kitchen, rests both hands on the kitchen counter and blankly stares at the white wall in front of him. Draco Malfoy is sitting on my couch, he thinks. Why is Draco Malfoy sitting on my couch? Why am I okay with it? He crosses the room and stares at his blurry reflection on the immaculate fridge door. His eyes look tiny, distanced and empty.

And for the first time in weeks, he minds. He minds that his guilt, his sleep deprivation, his incapability to cope is there on his face for everyone to see. He minds because Malfoy - his former enemy, that snake - doesn't look half as miserable, giving him the high ground and all the reasons to patronise Harry. Most of all, he minds how Draco doesn't do any of that even though it would be like him, how he isn't insulting but rather apologetic, even humble for once and attentive. Like a dog with the tail between its legs to right the wrongs of an entire cult.

Harry gets the milk powder and prepares Teddy's meal in the microwave as his godson exclaims joyfully using several vowels while in the other room, Draco waits patiently, scanning the clean furniture that seems unused, unwanted.

It takes longer than the average milk-preparing-amount-of-time for Harry to return to the living room.

"You're not using magic." Draco observes, "Might I ask why?"

Looking at the tea and Teddy's milk, Harry feels betrayed by his own actions. Hermione either didn't notice or didn't mind. Why would Malfoy?

"My wand broke." He mumbles, which technically isn't even a lie. In reality, his wand - fixed by the magic of the elder wand - is hidden away in a drawer, where he doesn't plan on retrieving it from any time soon.

"Or just maybe - correct me if I'm out on a limb - you don't want anything to do with magic right now. The muggle neighbourhood, the mundane life full of slow and honest chores... Does it take your mind off things?"

Shut up Malfoy, Harry wants to snap. "What a terribly forward thing to say." He replies instead, detached. Malfoy straightens his posture. "It would be a reasonable coping mechanism."

"You talk to me about coping mechanisms? Do you even have anything to cope with?" At last some of the reproachfulness inside Harry finds its way out of his mouth. He's not proud of it and the more surprised at Draco's composed answer: "Nothing compared to you and your friends. We sold the mansion. My father's in Azkaban."

"But you aren't."

"Yeah, I'd drink to that."

"As coping mechanisms go, that seems to be the muggles of this area's favourite."

"Drinking?"

"Yes. Some nights there are shouting teenagers in the alley. It wakes Teddy up." Surprised at how easily telling his former nemesis such trivialities comes to him, Harry gets back to feeding Teddy the bottle.

For a while Draco simply watches.

The metaphorical ice between them isn't broken yet but cracks are stretching out through it. Harry needs company, he needs help, he needs to talk. And Draco wants to listen, to make it up to him because he cares. He's cared all along. As an eleven-year-old he cared reaching out his hand and attempting to ask for friendship. When he got brushed off he cared and needed to be the first of his class for years to come just to prove himself. Each time they competed in class or in Quidditch matches or by scheming against each other, he cared so much it hurt. How could anyone call Slytherins cold?