Chapter Text
The last person Harry expected to see on his doorstep was Malfoy. The last thing he expected to see covering Malfoy was blood. The last he expected Malfoy to do was to smile at him and say;
“Don’t worry, it’s not my blood.”
And then pass out.
Harry had been invited to train to be an Auror by the Head of Aurors, but he had declined the day he got the owl. Instead he had used some of the money left by his parents and bought a small house on the outskirts of a Muggle village. He hadn’t told anyone, apart from his closest friends, where he had moved, and he was happy with that. Ron and Hermione came and visited once or twice a month, kept him up to date on news in the Wizarding World, and brought Molly Weasley’s baked goods.
The village kids found him intriguing, if a little intimidating. The village adults looked at him knowingly, reading his scars and cagey posture, the way he flinched when cars backfired. His next door neighbour warned him when they were gonna send up fireworks on New Year’s Eve.
He had tried to hide from the Wizarding World, to just live as a normal Muggle for a while. He barely used magic in his day-to-day life, even difficult things like carrying heavy luggage and chopping wood.
So how the hell did Malfoy find him?
Malfoy had collapsed against the door frame, and Harry had been quick to catch him so he wouldn’t fall back onto the gravel. He had looked around to make sure no one saw them and then pulled him inside. Malfoy was paler than normal, and Harry doubted his claim that the blood wasn’t his, but he didn’t have time to worry about that.
“You bastard, what did you do?” Harry muttered. Malfoy’s long hair was ruffled and falling out of his ponytail, and Harry chewed on his lip. The blood was mostly on his face and shirt, so he decided to lay him on his back on the sofa. He spent about a minute futzing around trying to find his wand before frustratedly yelling out ‘Accio Wand!’ and catching the wand behind his back.
Casting magic was clumsy at first, but soon he was back into the groove of it. He cleaned up Malfoy, checked him over for injuries, healed up the scrapes and bruises on his face and arms. Then he sat down on the coffee table and buried his face in his hands.
“You look like garbage.” Harry snapped out of his thoughts with a start, surprised to see Malfoy awake and looking up at him. It looked like he had started to take off his coat but then stopped, like he had exhausted himself halfway through. His forehead shone with sweat, and Harry found himself wanting to brush his hair away. He shook his head and stood up instead.
“You don’t look so great yourself,” he shot back, sticking his wand in his back pocket. Malfoy sneered and went to turn away, but winced and grabbed at his stomach. Harry kneeled down again, and when Malfoy didn’t stop him he untucked his shirt and pulled it up to reveal his stomach. Harry frowned when he saw the marbled blue and purple, and he whispered a healing charm under his breath.
When the bruise was gone and Malfoy’s skin was back to a porcelain shade, Harry looked up at him over his glasses.
“Anywhere else?” Malfoy rolled his eyes but forced himself into a sitting position, and tried to shrug his coat off. He drew in a sharp breath, and Harry put his wand down and helped him take it off, draping it carelessly over the coffee table. He didn’t mind the glare Malfoy gave him, instead rucking up his wrinkled button-up shirt and surveying the injuries he could see without stripping the man to his pants.
“Are you just going to stare, or are you going to heal me?” Malfoy said, voice laced with anger, but Harry only raised his eyebrows. Perhaps it was like Ron had said, that he’d mellowed out from Muggle-village life, because he didn’t take the bait. He didn’t want to take the bait, didn’t want to get into an altercation or argument with Malfoy.
“You’ll have to unbutton your shirt,” he said, ignoring the look on Malfoy’s face - Surprise? Anger? Disappointment? Instead he helped him, unbuttoning it for him when Malfoy’s fingers slipped on the small buttons for the fourth time. Harry was gentle when he pulled the garment open, slow and deliberate movements so Malfoy wouldn’t be startled.
The injuries… There were a lot of them. Malfoy looked like he’d been beaten, probably punched, along with something like a knife or a blade slashed dangerously close to his throat. His eyes lingered on the healed scars, and the long scar across his upper body.
Malfoy coughed, and Harry looked up in surprise. Malfoy had a hand clamped around the backrest of the sofa, and his arm was twitching with the effort to hold himself up. Harry wanted to smack himself, but instead he grabbed a hold of Malfoy’s shoulder and helped him sit up into a better position, resting on his side against the backrest. Harry fiddled with his wand, before muttering ‘Accio First Aid Box’ and catching the green plastic box when it came flying at him. Malfoy looked at him over his shoulder, clearly unimpressed with the Muggle medicine.
Then Harry touched his waist and Malfoy cried out.
“Sorry! Sorry, sorry.” Harry reared back, unsure what exactly had triggered the abrupt reaction. Malfoy’s shoulders heaved, taking in deep breaths of air, but at the same time he was muttering something to himself.
“Of course it was you, of course it was you,” he said, over and over, and Harry feared he had gone mad.
“Malfoy?” Malfoy whipped his head around, white hair falling over his face in limp tresses. “Can… Can I touch you?” Hermione’s voice echoed in his head, talking about consent and asking for it, and he was kind of glad he had had that awkward conversation with her.
Malfoy pressed his lips into a thin line, haphazardly pushing his hair out of his eyes before jerking his head in a nod.
Harry nodded slowly to himself, unsure of what had just happened to Malfoy, so he was more careful when he touched him. Malfoy broke out into shivers, but didn’t scream, so Harry would count that as a success.
He had taken two courses of first aid, Muggle first aid, in the months after the… Anyways, he had learnt fast.
He was okay with Healing Charms, even if he bungled potions on more than one occasion, but being able to help someone without magic felt like the first step to helping himself.
From what he could tell, just from a cursory examination without magic, Malfoy had only external injuries apart from a cracked rib. Harry picked up his wand, and held his left hand over the cracked rib as he muttered different diagnostic Charms under his breath. He let out a small breath of relief when he realised that there were no other injuries, nothing he couldn’t heal on his own.
It was only when he removed his hand that he saw that Malfoy had been incredibly tense during the examination, because as soon as the contact was gone Malfoy slumped over. His breathing was shaky, and Harry could see his vertebrae through his shirt.
“Something is very wrong, and I’d like you to tell me what it is,” Harry said, and even slumped over gracelessly, on a shit sofa looking like he had been trampled, Malfoy looked positively venomous.
“I don’t have to—” Malfoy started, but when Harry grasped his arm he whimpered, drawing his shoulders up to his ears.
“Does it hurt when I touch you? Or do you just hate me that much?” Malfoy huffed, slapping Harry’s hand away before straightening up and turning to face him.
“What do you think, Potter? I’ve been cursed.” Malfoy’s voice was humourless, but the grin on his face looked just like the one he had when he made shit jokes on other’s expense.
“Cursed? Doesn’t surprise me, what with your reputation,” Harry shot back, and Malfoy sneered at him.
“This is not a recent curse. It’s… You could call it a generational curse. My great great grandmother was cursed, but in some way the curse has been carried through blood. It only affects one person per generation, and I was the unlucky git who caught it.” Malfoy looked away while explaining, though Harry wasn’t sure why.
“So you have an inherited curse? Like a genetic illness?” Malfoy glared at him with badly hidden confusion, and Harry waved it off. “So you’re cursed. You gonna tell me what kind of curse it is?”
And then something happened that Harry had never seen, never dreamt he would see.
Malfoy blushed.
He was already pink in the face from exertion and pain, but his cheeks lit up red, like the roses climbing on the side of Harry’s house. He didn’t look away from Harry, kept strong eye contact.
“If the person most important to me, most important in my life, touches me, I will experience excruciating pain.” Harry mulled over the words for a few moments, and then choked on his own tongue in a desperate attempt to hold back the unhinged laughter that threatened to bubble up.
Him? The most important person in Malfoy’s life? This had to be a joke. Malfoy was playing some sick joke on him, trying to catch him off-guard at a vulnerable moment, get a photo of him looking stupid and sell it to the papers…
But when he thought more about it, and looked at Malfoy’s steady grey eyes, it started to make a worrying amount of sense.
“Oh, fuck me.” He slapped a hand over his mouth. “Fuck.”
“You understand why I didn’t want to tell you?” Malfoy hissed, arms crossed over his chest stiffly. “So?” Harry blinked, looking up at him. “You don’t find this funny? Everyone I’ve told it to has laughed. I expected you to find this hilarious.”
Harry swallowed.
“Why would I be important to you?” Malfoy opened his mouth but nothing came out, unable to answer the question Harry didn’t know if he actually wanted the answer.
The silence stretched, like a worn strap of leather, and Harry ruffled his hair.
Malfoy tried to speak again, but, for possibly one of the first times in his life, he was speechless.
Harry sighed.
"Can I touch you? I need to finish healing you." Malfoy rolled his shoulders and sat up in a slumped position, then nodded.
Malfoy didn’t talk to him, even after he had healed him and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. He kept his hands in tight fists, muscles twitching occasionally.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, and Malfoy just nodded, staring down at the floor.
Harry walked out of the room, stepping to the side and leaned against the wall. His legs shook. His hands shook. Breathe in, hold it, breathe out.
Then he straightened up and kept walking to his kitchen.
When Harry returned with a pot of tea and biscuits, Malfoy had fallen asleep on the sofa, legs pulled up to his chest. His face shone with sweat, and in a moment of weakness, Harry put down the tray so he could brush Malfoy’s hair to the side, careful to not touch his skin.
He was peaceful in his sleep, small mouth relaxed and pink. The late evening sun was filtering through the roses covering the living room window, playing gently over Malfoy’s white skin. His white blond hair was messy, falling down his chest and back in tangled clumps. His eyelashes were long, longer than Harry thought they would be, but the light tips deceived his eyes.
Harry shook his head and stood up, just then realising how close he had ended up leaning to the other man.
He made himself a cup of tea and drank it slowly with two biscuits, and then he gently shook Malfoy awake.
"I made tea,” he said. He poured a cup and put it on the table in front of Malfoy, pushing the sugar bowl closer before sitting back on the sofa.
Though his hands trembled slightly, Malfoy added sugar to his cup and then sat back to drink it without spilling. He didn’t look at Harry, just looked around the living room with measured nonchalance.
Harry couldn’t stop stealing glances at him, mind overrun with ‘I’m the most important person in his life?’. He fidgeted with his wand, rubbing his thumb over that spot on the handle that was a little extra worn from use.
In a sick, twisted way, it made sense. Malfoy had been obsessed with him since they first met, many things in his life had revolved around Harry and being better than him. And after Lucius Malfoy was sent to Azkaban and his wife fled the country to France, Malfoy was left here. From the news Ron and Hermione had brought him Malfoy had stayed out of the public eye for the most, but there had been one incident where he’d gotten into a fight at a Muggle bar and gotten the crap beat out of him. Neville had, by accident according to Hermione, been nearby and saved his hide, but Malfoy’s bruised face had been plastered over newspapers for weeks afterwards. Ron had brought the paper for him, and after his friends had left he had paged through it, sneering to himself when he saw the column titled ‘Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter’s Biggest Fan?’ He hadn’t bothered reading it, had just crumpled the paper and stuck it in his fireplace.
What is it to be defined to be your relation to someone else? Harry felt a pang of recognition in his chest because bollocks, isn’t that him? Defined as the boy who lived (after being attacked by Voldemort), the Saviour of the Wizarding World (from being taken over by Voldemort).
He shook his head. Malfoy was looking at him, but Harry stood up and stalked over to the window. He took a breath, and leant his forehead on the cool glass. The sun was setting, last rays of light falling through the trees west of his house.
“I’ll make up the guest bed for you,” he said, struggling to push away from the window but doing it anyway.
The guest room was still unused since he had moved in, but he kept it clean and tidy. He turned down the bed and fluffed up the pillows, and turned on the bedside lamp. Then he took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes; he was tired, and he could feel the energy draining out of his body. He cracked his neck and then put his glasses back on.
Malfoy had pulled his feet up on the sofa and wrapped his arms around his knees, but when Harry came back into the room he put them down.
“Do you need help getting there…?” Harry asked, feeling awkward. Malfoy looked away for a moment, swallowing heavily before looking at him and nodding.
Harry pulled his sleeves down over his hands before touching him, even over the blanket. Malfoy scooted forward on the sofa, and when Harry put his arm around his waist he flinched, but carefully laid his arm on Harry’s shoulder. Harry pulled him up and let him regain his balance before taking a small step. Like that they shuffled over to the guest room, and Harry helped Malfoy sit down on the bed before getting back up and stepping away.
Malfoy sneered, but there was a sadness in his body language that confused Harry.
“Seems the curse is two-fold,” Malfoy muttered, kicking off his shoes and pointedly not looking at Harry. “It causes excruciating pain when you touch me, but you won’t even willingly touch me in the first place.” He spit out the word ’willingly’ like it was bitter, and Harry pushed at his glasses.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, and Malfoy snorted in a very undignified way.
“That’ll happen regardless of what you do. What are you so afraid of?”
“Is it so weird that I willingly don’t want to hurt you?” Harry threw back, and Malfoy was visibly shocked for a moment before composing his face into a frown full of disdain.
“You have never liked me in all the years we’ve known each other, so why would you even care.” Harry clenched his fists at his sides, biting down on his lip. Breathe in, hold it, breathe out. Breathe in, hold it, breathe out.
“I didn’t like you because you were a bigoted wanker who looked down on everyone that wasn’t you.” Malfoy opened his mouth, nose in a sneer, but then stopped, face falling into a confusion.
“’Didn’t’? What do you mean, ‘didn’t’?” Harry’s stomach roiled, and he wanted to run, run away, hide, hide underwater, but his feet were frozen to the floor. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I don’t… hate you, anymore…” Breathe in, hold it, breathe out. “You used to… infuriate me, but…” Breathe in, hold it, breathe out. “I’ve- I’ve moved past it.” Breathe in, hold it, breathe out.
Malfoy was quiet, eyes trained on Harry’s. His mouth twitched.
“So what do you feel about me?” he asked. There was a rope wrapped around Harry’s lungs, getting tighter with each breath.
“You confuse me.” Malfoy let out a surprised noise, and leant back on his hands.
“Is that so?” he said, an amused smile playing on his lips. “In what way?”
“I should be mad at you. I should hate you. But instead I wonder about you. I wonder if you’re okay.” Malfoy’s smile shrunk with every word, until he was staring up at him, unreadable emotion in his eyes.
For a moment Harry felt like his chest was going to cave in, but he somehow managed to breathe anyway.
“I need to sleep,” Malfoy said, voice barely above a whisper, and he looked down at the floor. Feeling like he was going numb, Harry nodded.
“My bedroom’s just up the hall,” he mumbled. He hurried to the door but Malfoy cleared his throat. Harry stopped in the door frame, body half-way out the room. He looked back at Malfoy, who looked greatly uncomfortable.
“There’s a potion. In my coat. I need it.”
“What kind of potion?” Malfoy grimaced and, seeming to be unaware he was doing it, picked at his fingernails.
“It’s a sleeping potion.” Harry nodded, mostly to himself. He walked back to the living room and rummaged through Malfoy’s coat. He found his wand, four empty metal potion vials, and three full ones. He took the wand and all the full vials and brought them to the guest room. Malfoy had pulled the duvet to the side and scooted back on the bed, and when Harry came in he didn’t look up or say anything. Harry put the wand on the bedside table and moved to place the vials there too, but Malfoy put a hand on his jumper-clad arm.
“You’ll need to open it for me,” he said, his hand trembling slightly. His fingers reached all the way around Harry’s arm.
“Okay,” Harry said, and placed two vials on the bedside table. The third he uncorked, and held it by the neck towards Malfoy.
Malfoy still had a tight grip on Harry’s arm, and he raised his other hand to grab the vial from him. Their fingers brushed, and even if Malfoy shuddered in pain, he didn’t flinch or pull away. He deliberately touched Harry’s fingers again, just for a moment, before putting the vial to his lips and drinking it.
“It’s like I want you to hurt me,” Malfoy said in a low, raspy voice, and Harry didn’t know what came over him. He reached out towards Malfoy’s face, and when Malfoy didn’t pull back he let his fingertips dance over Malfoy’s high cheekbone.
Malfoy shuddered and let out a choked whimper, and Harry pulled back. He realised he had been holding his breath, and gasped for air.
“You make me indulge in my bad habits, Potter,” Malfoy chuckled, finally letting go of Harry’s arm and falling back on the bed. Like he had been released from a spell, Harry reared back, feeling the heat creeping up his face and neck and ears.
“Night,” Harry mumbled and rushed out the room, barely remembering to close the door behind him.