分卷阅读14（1 / 2）

Still, it was different when it was just Draco, where he could make as many mistakes as he wanted without anyone watching, and he could take up the whole kitchen, and didn’t fee strange about turning on the radio to Celestina Warbeck. When Harry was here, it was like he was always watching. Draco felt his eyes on him, like a tickle right between his shoulder blades.

He doesn’t ask him why he was here. Clearly, the conversation of last night had not been drunken nonsense, but something that he had been mulling over for a while. And Draco had meant it, when he told him that maybe it was time he learned what it was like to be just Harry. He wasn’t about to chase him out of his own kitchen, in case that stopped it from happening.

They stand in silence until Draco is satisfied that the pancakes are done, and the doles them out onto plates, sitting down across the table from him. He’s almost nervous, sitting there, and he can tell that Harry is too.

“I sent my resignation out with morning post.” Harry talks around a mouthful of food, hiding behind the paper, like that could make this less important, less life altering. “Should have got it by now.”

Draco didn’t really know what to do with that, but the sick part of him in the back of his head that wanted to keep Harry all to himself made his breathing catch. Home. Safe. Mine. But that’s wasn’t right. Harry would never be safe, this place would not be a home no matter how much Draco cleaned it, and Harry would never belong to him. Would never want to belong to him.

“Good.” It was a lame response. Everything Draco says is a lame response, with all these revelations Harry keeps dumping on him. “Have another pancake.”

Harry

He doesn’t feel guilty about it, exactly.

Really. The thought of not wanting to be an auror occurred to him a while ago, before Draco even came to stay, on one of the nights where he was creeping through his own home, looking for break ins that weren’t possible. He had checked the locks three times, had Kreacher sense out any intruders twice and couldn’t stomach the thought of asking again. And he realized that if this kept going, he was going to turn into the person Mad-Eye Moody was before the second war, the kind that everyone thought was crazy because he could not live without the fight.

Harry didn’t want that. He wanted to find some peace, if just for a little while.

The thing he does feel guilty about is leaving Ron behind. He had told sent him an owl last night before the drinking started, telling him he wouldn’t be into work tomorrow. Then he asked if he would meet for lunch, because he wanted to talk about some things. But it turns out that Draco took care of all the talking and working through things, and all that was left for Harry to confess it.

Ron’s not late. He hasn’t been late to anything since the war ended, because Hermione had once been inconsolable when he didn’t come home on time. She had thought that he had been taken, murdered, right at the end of things. Ron didn’t blame her, so now he’s punctual.

For once, Harry hates him. There’s half a moment as Ron says hi and unwinds the scarf from his neck that Harry wants to flee. Just turn and run when Ron has his back turned to place his order. But he doesn’t.

“So what’s up?” Ron looks concerned. They’ve all learned to be gentle with one another, but Ron is still more likely to throw a punch for you then be a shoulder to cry on.

(Honestly, Ronald, you’re a wizard, Hermione had told him, the last time she was mending his broken nose. It’d go better for you if you’d remember your wand.)

It’s the concern that guts Harry. They had been in this together, from the very beginning, when they sat down together in the same train compartment. They started this long ride together, and now Harry was trying to get off early. But he had to. “I’ve got something to tell you.” Ron’s got his eyebrows raised, and Harry knows that whatever he thinks he will hear next, it will not be this. “I quit the auror program.”

The reaction is not as loud as Harry had been expecting. He counts it as a good sign that Ron leans across the table to whisper-yell into his face instead of flipping the table. Maybe it was the shock. “What?” A blink, and then a smile, like he was half hoping that Harry was joking. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” He raises his hands, realizes that might draw attention, and then lies them flat on the table. “I never got the chance to choose, you know? None of us did. We just got thrust into the fight.”

Ron didn’t get it. He was all anger, now. This was the only thing he knew. “So?”