分卷阅读24（2 / 2）

“I mean, yeah, we can get together and celebrate, just let me get a piece of paper. You want to go where?” The sounds of him rummaging through drawers for a pen. “You know that’s a strip club?” Pause, more laughter, this time muffled. “Does Alice know you’re going there?”

They really are friends, now. “Okay. And I’m sorry, again, about today, I didn’t mean…” Longer pause, a sniff. “Yeah. You too, Dudley.”

There was a bang, and then something smacked against the wall. Probably the pad of paper he had been writing on, but maybe the phone. Draco didn’t want to go find out yet.

People suck, he thought, straining to hear when Harry was approaching him. But no one can hurt you quite like family.

Draco gives him an hour or so, long enough for him to get a shower and settle down in the living room and listening to Lee and George’s nightly radio show.

(Lee’s nightly radio show. George is a very sporadic guest.)

“I didn’t know.” Draco stayed by the doorway, letting Harry decide if he wanted to talk or not. Company wasn’t always helpful. “How bad it was.”

“I didn’t tell you.” Harry accepted the gift of hot chocolate, and Draco took that as an invitation to sit down beside him. “I didn’t tell a lot of people, outside the Weasleys and Hermione. McGonagall, once.”

Draco nodded, letting the information wash over him. He didn’t want to pry, but part of him thought that Harry needed to talk about it. Or maybe that was just the selfish part of himself that wanted to compare scars. “How old were you the first time?”

“Five.” Harry took a drink and held it in his mouth, even though Draco had warned him it was still much too hot for that. “I had drawn a picture of a magician. You know, the muggle kind—big wand with the sparks that flew out, pointy hat, the long beard. They locked me in the closet for a week, only let me eat once a day. Like they could starve the magic out of me.”

It was a wonder that they hadn’t killed him. Draco wants to say something, but sorry doesn’t quite cut it when you learn something like that.

(He has a horrible flash of back in their first year, when he mocked Harry about not being welcome at home for the holidays, but he had never suspected it to be really true, just thought of it as a stupid thing to say to get under his skin.)

“I meant what I said, back at the house. About how you saved all of us, and how he doesn’t deserve to even come near you.” Draco felt like it was important for Harry to know how much better than them they were, how he rose above all that to become something better, something good and brave who fought for everyone, even if they don’t deserve saving. “You did more when you were eleven than those two have done with their whole miserable suburban lives.”

Harry choked out a laugh, and then leaned against Draco, lying in his lap. Draco didn’t say anything else—he really didn’t have any other comforts tucked up his sleeve, if he was being honest—so he stuck with running his hands through Harry’s hair until he was sure he had fallen asleep.

Chapter 20

Draco

He wants to tell him not to do it.

When Harry first mentioned that he was going to throw himself back into his fight the bad guys routine, Draco didn’t think it would bother him this much. He had just shrugged his shoulders and asked if he would be home for dinner, because in his head, he was thinking that going out to play the hero was just something that Harry did. He could no more stop putting himself in dangerous situations in the name of doing the right thing than he could rip out his own DNA.