Order From Chaos || Drarry

E I G H T

"Mate, I think we've found him."

It was December 15th 2001, and still there was no snow. It wasn't expected to snow, but Harry felt the disappointment nonetheless.

"What?" he nearly yelled. His mind had narrowed down to the sight of Ron handing in the doorway, face alight with hope. Ron nodded at again, stepping into the office with a grin.

"Turns out a friend of a friend of Ginny saw him going into this building- a block of flats- only last week. Don't look at me like that, I know it sounds unreliable, but it's worth a shot, right?"

The excitement in Ron's voice made him sound very young all of a sudden, and Harry thought of another time, back at Hogwarts, before the war and before Draco... No. Now was the time to find Draco.

Because, yes, he did love him. 

He frowned. Maybe it was too soon for that. He didn't want to scare Draco off by rushing into things as he always did and confessing his sudden undying love to a man he wasn't even dating. He would settle for caring a good deal about Draco for now, and go from there. That was better. 

He jerked to his feet, grabbed his coat and Apparated away a moment after Ron gave him the location, despite his friend's call for him to wait a goddamn second. 

When his feet touched the ground again, he saw he was on an unknown pavement with people milling around him, clearly unperturbed by his sudden appearance. They had to all be wizards then. Thank goodness, he thought as he realised how badly this could have gone. Kingsley would have been furious. Several gave him shocked looks when they realised who he was, but he paid them no mind.

His gaze was fixed on the ropy block of flats before him. It was the only building that could be a flat, as the rest were shops or small business firms. The flats really were ugly and in awful condition. There was graffiti everywhere, cracked windows, peeling paint, and scarily precarious looking walls.

No, Draco would not live here.

Harry marched into the building, head held high and determined. He was going to find Draco, drag him back to his much nicer flat and make him live there.

There he went again, getting ahead of himself. Merlin, he really was more impulsive than he had thought. What was he going to do? Kidnap Draco and force him to live with Harry?

Whatever. He couldn't think about that now. He began to knock on various doors, asking shamelessly if they'd seen a gorgeous blonde man recently, and if so, where. He did realise that this made him seem rather dodgy, but the only one to question him was an old woman who threatened to call the Aurors if he didn't explain himself. He hastily explained himself.

Many of the occupants stared at him as if he suddenly had a halo, and Harry found himself signing a lot of autographs before he was able to find Draco.

Finally, he came to stand outside door on one of the higher floors. 

Draco lived here, in this dump. Draco was on the other side of this door. Draco was close to him... Harry could have screamed at the nervous tension this brought. 

He brought a shaking hand to the door, hovering it over the wood before knocking.

The door made a disconcerting breaking sound.

There was only silence on the other end. No sound of anyone getting to their feet, or walking to the door, or even asking who was there. Harry's heart dropped for what felt like the thousandth time.qu

But just as he was about to knock again, there came a scraping sound, and the door was being pushed open.

In the doorway stood Draco Malfoy.

But he didn't look quite right.

His hair was vaguely lanky and hung around his face, completely unlike the pale halo of gloss that Harry had grown accustomed to. His skin was paler and he seemed to have lost weight. His cheekbones were prominent, cheeks more hollow than they had been. The wrist that held the door open was frightfully thin.

He looked physically worse than he had been, but what struck Harry the most was how tired he appeared, judging by the purple bags beneath his eyes. 

"Harry... You're here."

Harry realised that he'd been gaping in horror at the Slytherin, and smoothed his expression down in a way that Draco used to do. He hoped it was convincing, though he never had been very good at acting. 

"Draco, Merlin. I... I'm so sorry. I didn't know you'd end up here in terrible place like this." No, that wasn't what he had wanted to say. He shook his head. "I've been looking for you since you left. We've all been looking for you, thinking something had happened, that you'd been hurt, or..."

He couldn't say it.

Draco raised one eyebrow in silence. 

"Wait, isn't this your idea of hell? I mean, look at this place." Harry asked. Draco, somewhat reluctantly, shook his head.

"No, actually, I think living here has been positive because there not a thing I can do about the instability and everything. Although I make sure that I keep everything I can organised."

"When was the last time you ate?" Harry asked suddenly.

Draco glanced at the floor, looking embarrassed. "I'm not starving myself intentionally, don't worry. It's just that I work long shifts in a few nearby places, like the shop down the road, so I often forget to eat and I don't get to sleep much." He paused. "It was hard getting people to hire me initially and even if they wanted to, they couldn't because I don't have a wand. You'd be surprised how much you can't do without them." He sounded matter-of-fact. Harry hated it.

"Come with me." He said.

Draco's head snapped up so that he was staring at Harry. "What?"

"Come with me. Live with me." He hadn't meant to say it so abruptly, but now it was done and he would have to deal with it.

Draco shook his head at him, looking vaguely confused. 

"No." he replied, far more bluntly than expected.

"Why?" Harry's voice dropped to match the volume of Draco's. He thought that he could hear his own heart pounding, and wondered if Draco could as well.

"Because... I can't. You don't want that, you don't want me." The tone of his voice made Harry want to cry all over again and throw himself to his knees in front of him and beg him to forgive him and kiss his fingers and pretty lips.

"I do want you." He insisted. "I don't think I've ever wanted anyone more. I was stupid, and all of this is my fault. I promise that I'll fix this and you'll get your wand and your job back. Just come with me, please." This was the closest Harry had ever come to begging, and he didn't even care. 

But resolve seemed to have settled in Draco's eyes, and he was able to finally glimpse the old Slytherin that had long since been buried.

Draco took a deep breath and squared Harry with a look. "I'll live with you if you can get my wand back."

And then he shut the door.