分卷阅读18（1 / 2）

And you, mother? Where have you been? Sitting in this apartment, pretending nothing ever happened?

“What do you want me to do?” He shouldn’t have asked that. Shouldn’t have taken the blame onto himself, like he had done something wrong. What Draco should have done was demand why he would want to see a man like that, who led his only son down all the wrong paths. Why he should care about the man who ruined him.

“Help him.” She was still strong, but he was stronger. That’s what Draco realized, sitting there, as she reached across the table to clutch at his hands. There were tears in her eyes, and he couldn’t tell if they were real or a charade to make him play by her rules. “You’ve got powerful friends now. Use them.”

He does not want to be the kind of person who makes friends only to collect favors, but Draco does not bother explaining that to her. It is not the world she lives in.

“I’ll ask,” He promises her, pulling away from her. “But I can’t make any promises.”

If Draco has learned one thing, it is that promises are rarely kept.

Harry

When he gets back from coffee with Hermione, he finds Draco standing in the kitchen, holding a mug of tea in his hand and staring out the window.

“Hey.” He keeps his voice neutral on purpose, when really he wants to demand to know how the afternoon meant. “Did you get to see your mom?”

Harry knows that the situation was complicated, so he wasn’t expecting Draco to come home and be happy about it. But he didn’t expect Draco to turn and put his fist through the wall, either, or immediately cry out and double over after he makes contact, clutching at his hand.

“Holy fuck,” Draco swears, because Draco likes to say the f-word a lot when something surprises him, then shakes his hand out, laughing. “I didn’t think it’d be a solid wall.”

“What did you think would happen?” Harry’s already getting a wash rag out and wrapping ice cubes up in it, because in his head he is still that muggle boy licking his wounds on his own, and it never occurs him to use magic. Draco could probably get rid of the pain in a moment, but he is too nice to turn down Harry’s help, so he just stares at his hand in dismay and then accepts the makeshift ice pack.

“I thought it was plaster. that my hand would go right through it,” He winces, curses again, and then throws the rag in the sink, keeping one ice cube to run over his knuckles. “And then I could just repair it.”

“Ah.” Harry jumps up onto the counter, and Draco leans into him. He almost doesn’t notice when his hand goes up into Draco’s hair, carding through it. Even when he does notice, he doesn’t stop. “So I take it things didn’t go as well as you were hoping?”

“They did.” Draco’s voice was very surly. “And then she asked if I had been to see my father.”

He hadn’t. Harry knew he hadn’t. Or maybe (and it was horrible that this was the first time that Harry had this thought) he had been going to see him and just not telling anyone, because who would give up on their father, no matter how horrible?

“And?”

“And she asked me to help him.” Draco was biting his nails, which was a bad sign. “Asked to get you to help him.”

Draco doesn’t say anything, because now he is thinking of that night in the graveyard, when all the masks stared down at him and Lucius fell at Voldemort’s feet.