分卷阅读28（1 / 2）

He feels him watching in the darkness, and part of him wants to reach up and touch his face, to slide his hand up his arm and trace the veins that stand out against the skin. To pull him down to him, trace along the edges of the dark mark, tell Draco that he loves him and not have it be refuted on the sole basis of what they used to be to each other.

“I never sleep,” Draco says, but there is no longer any frantic breathing, and in the end, he does lay back down beside him, even if Harry is sure that neither of them get much sleep.

The next night, Draco makes himself a sleeping draught.

Harry tries not to think that it’s anything to do with him.

They’re still not sleeping, either of them.

Harry keeps going around the house, even though it was a habit that he thought he had been able to stop ages ago. He peeks behind curtains, moves chairs around the room to see if anything is hiding behind them. He pulls on doorknobs and rummages through cupboards, shoves the clothes to either side of the closet so he can see all the way to the back. Harry manages to stop short of poking his way through Draco’s room, contenting himself with pressing his ear to the heavy oak door and seeing if he can hear anything.

(He doesn’t ask Kreacher to check up on him, no matter what Draco might have suggested the next morning.)

He knows Draco isn’t sleeping either. Things keep showing up cleaner than ever, and Harry stumbles down to the kitchen in the morning to find a full breakfast waiting for him, even if there is no Draco in sight. His hands are always raw and chapped, too, even when Hermione started leaving some of her lotion for him to try.

“This isn’t working.” Harry tells him one night, when the two of them find themselves in the kitchen at the same time. Harry had been triple checking the locks on the front door, and Draco was scrubbing the floors by hand. He couldn’t tell which one of them was more embarrassed to be caught. “Not for either of us.”

“That’s what sleeping draughts are for.” Draco was talking from his place on the ground, then realized how it must have looked, so he got up, knees groaning and soap suds dripping off his hands. “That’s all I was waiting for.”

Right, Harry thinks, looking at the bucket and the collection of sponges on the counter. Like you weren’t going to bottle it up to use tomorrow and just keep going, from the floor to the windows to the kitchen sink, and then to the bathroom, all of which is practically spotless because I know for a fact that you cleaned the whole downstairs the night before.

“Whatever.” Harry’s annoyed, suddenly, because if it wasn’t for Draco and his stubborn idea that he could do everything on his own, Harry wouldn’t have to do this. Instead, he could just wake up and turn his head to the side and reassure himself that Draco was still there, still alright, still breathing, how neither of them were about to be murdered by death eaters. He could just check the room, then, not the whole house, and when Draco started with his compulsive cleaning, Harry would be able to bring him back to bed. It would work out better for both of them.

“Harry.” Harry doesn’t turn around, and then there is a hand on his arm, so light he could ignore it but so pleading that he doesn’t. “Wait.”

Harry does wait. And he turns around, finding him face to face with a steaming goblet full of Draco’s potion.

Part of him, the nasty part, wants to say no. That if Draco doesn’t want his help, Harry won’t be taking anything from him. But he can’t quite bring himself to do it.

He takes the goblet, forces himself to try and show a bit of gratitude. “Thanks.”

Draco isn’t fooled, but that doesn’t stop him from tapping the rim of his own cup against Harry’s, quirking an eyebrow together. “Cheers.”

They drink it together, but when Harry goes back to bed, Draco stays.