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Harry bumped into Malfoy in the tea aisle of an imported food shop in Bethel, Connecticut. Harry was fumbling to juggle a carton of Tunnock’s teacakes and a multipack of Monster Munch, and Malfoy was holding a bumper box of Yorkshire Gold. When he saw Harry, his fingers tightened so much that the cardboard buckled and creased in his hands.
“Alright, Malfoy?” Harry said, shocked into politeness, even though the last time he’d seen Malfoy—which had been back in England, of course, over a year before—they’d both been drunk at some stupid Ministry party, and they’d ended up in a fruitless, embarrassing scuffle in the corridor outside the toilets. It hadn’t been Harry’s finest hour, but he supposed at least that Malfoy had been just as bad, like always.
“What are you doing here, Potter?” Malfoy said crossly, clearly deciding not to allow his surprise to cloud his obvious displeasure at the mere sight of Harry, as they stood incongruously in front of stacks of PG Tips in a shop in a small town in America.
“I felt like some proper tea,” Harry said, though he didn’t tell Malfoy that he’d been driving along I-95 from Essex to New Rochelle when he saw a billboard with a Union Jack on it, and had been hit with a pang of homesickness so sudden and profound that he had screeched off at the next exit and followed the road until he got to the shop. He also didn’t say anything about the way the boxes of tea reminded him of how far away Ron and Hermione were, in their little flat near Wandsworth Common, with the cupboard over the sink in their tiny kitchen where Hermione kept the box of PG Tips especially for Harry. He had missed them with a sudden rush of pain so brutal and surprising that he almost felt embarrassed for himself, so he definitely wasn’t going to tell Malfoy about it.
Malfoy looked conflicted, then said reluctantly, “Same,” and gestured at Harry with the box of tea. “Although it never tastes quite right.” And then they both said together, “It’s the water,” and Malfoy blinked in surprise at that, and Harry thought for one awful second that he was going to laugh.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” Malfoy asked curiously, and Harry gave him the short answer.
“Holiday,” he said, hoping that Malfoy wouldn’t guess that he’d left England four and a half months before with no real idea of where he was going, and that he hadn’t been home since, even though travelling on his own felt a bit weird, and sometimes he was hit by a queasy sort of loneliness that he hadn’t felt in years, not since he left the Dursleys for good.
“I’m studying here,” Malfoy offered, then shut his mouth tightly, and Harry remembered the pictures in the Prophet of Malfoy at his father’s funeral, and then some story about a broken engagement, and wondered if maybe Malfoy would get it, would understand whatever Harry was trying to do on this trip.
“Weird coincidence, bumping into you like this,” he said, and Malfoy nodded but didn’t say anything else as they walked towards the till together.
Outside, in an open-topped car as big as a boat, a man waved enthusiastically at them, and Malfoy groaned when he clambered eagerly out of the car to join them. He was Malfoy’s cousin, he insisted—Malfoy’s American cousin, a Mayflower Malfoy, Harry thought delightedly—though Malfoy hissed “distant relative” quietly to Harry. Barnard was solid and genial, with a pleasantly round stomach, and he smiled a lot at Harry, but Harry could still see the family resemblance in the crooked sideways curve of their mouths, and the sharp slope of their noses, and of course all that bright, conspicuous hair.
It was obvious that Barnard had no real interest in Harry at all beyond the fact that he had known Malfoy back in England—which was refreshing, because even three and a half thousand miles and an entire ocean away from England, the wizarding world was still interested in Harry—and he seemed charmed by the blatantness of their mutual antipathy. And because of that, though Malfoy made wild throat-cutting motions behind Barnard's back at Harry, Harry found himself agreeing to follow them back to the house and join them for dinner.
It was much less awful than he was expecting, partly because Barnard had the casually hospitable manner of the very rich, and partly because Malfoy was making a determined effort to be polite, and partly because there was lots of very, very good wine to drink.
It felt good to be able to do magic properly again, after months in Muggle hotels, and after Barnard went to bed, Harry and Malfoy took a pot of tea and a pack of Harry’s McVitie’s Digestives and went down to Barnard’s Quidditch pitch and did some laps, though for the sake of their fragile peace, it was probably lucky that they couldn’t find a Snitch. They threw a Quaffle between them lazily, and Harry told Malfoy about Nova Scotia and Quebec and Vermont, and Malfoy told Harry about his research into the use of magnolia in potion-making, and then they went inside and Malfoy showed Harry to a guest bedroom, and Harry crawled into the big American bed and slept the whole night through for the first time since he left England.
Over breakfast, Barnard asked Harry to stay a while longer, and though Malfoy went a bit blotchy under his golden American summer tan, he nodded at Harry and almost smiled, and so Harry accepted.
The weather was a dense summer fug, with barely a breath of coastal wind, so every day they got up early and played tennis until it was too hot to run anymore, and then they went swimming off Byram Beach, picking their way through the crowds until they found a spot to pitch their striped beach umbrella. They swam every afternoon, Harry mostly floating, blinking up at the flat blue sky, Malfoy with his shoulders pink and peeling and his wet hair bleached like bone from the sun. His Mark had faded over the years, though it was still ugly, and he had a ropey, reddened scar curling around the bracket of his left ribcage right up to the hollow below his Adam’s apple. Harry determinedly didn’t think about how odd it was that he suddenly knew Malfoy’s body like this, so casually and easily.
After dinner, they usually went flying. Twice they argued, but they were both so tired and hot that it felt like too much effort to keep it up for long, and it was also too annoying to see Barnard watching them fondly, like everything they did amused him.
Two weeks passed quickly, and then Malfoy needed to take a field trip to Virginia, and it seemed to make sense that Harry would go too.
“I’m supposed to be seeing the country,” Harry told him. “And anyway, you’re a terrible driver.”
And Malfoy was a terrible driver, but he was an excellent passenger. He could read a map beautifully, and he loved planning out pit stops in interesting places, and when he got tired he just curled up very quietly with his face against the side window, and fell asleep. They drove all day, and because Malfoy had booked them into such a nice hotel, it did actually feel like Harry was on holiday at last. While Malfoy worked, Harry swam in the pool and went sightseeing. He ended up in Fredericksburg Cemetery one day, and had a long cathartic cry under a red maple as he looked out over the rows of headstones, and when he came back to the hotel that night Malfoy had looked at him sharply and swept him straight out for a big dinner. Over the pudding course Harry had asked Malfoy if he fancied going on a proper road trip, and Malfoy had put his fork down, and put a hand to the rising flush at his throat, and said yes.
They hadn’t even gone back to Old Greenwich. They had Harry’s hire car, and their small overnight bags, and they went to a Target in Lynchburg and bought t-shirts and new underwear and lots of snacks. It was so hot that they didn’t need much, and anyway they spent hours on end driving with the windows down, Malfoy’s curls flattened and dark with sweat behind his ears, his linen trousers crumpled and soft from the humidity, Harry overheated, wearing only his swimming trunks, his seatbelt catching against his chest hair as they drove and drove and drove.
They didn’t have a plan for the route—Harry had thought that Malfoy would want an itinerary, but he didn’t seem to care about where they ended up, just sat in the passenger seat with the big Michelin map unfolded across his knees, murmuring place names consideringly, like they had some sort of magic in them. Bluefield, Big Stone Gap, Pigeon Forge, Alpharetta, Carthage, on and on they went along the open roads, the words crisp and somehow foreign under Malfoy’s careful tongue. It was nothing like flying—with the heat and dust and the hot baked smell of the air—but it felt the same to Harry, as he narrowed his eyes against the sun and drove on, Malfoy a distraction beside him.
They slept in roadside motels painted in faded fondant colours—sherbet lemons, sugared almonds, Ice Mice—and every night Harry shut his eyes against the hiss and flicker of neon signs through flimsy curtains and slept without dreaming. Malfoy insisted on going halves on everything, so Harry started booking a twin room for them to share, because Malfoy would never mention money but Harry knew what he looked like when he was defensive, and his mouth had that same grim set to it whenever he looked through his coin purse. Harry had more than enough for both of them, but he knew Malfoy better than to suggest it. And it was fine, the two of them sharing. Companionable, even. Malfoy had nightmares, sometimes, but most of the time he slept quietly, though often Harry would wake in the morning to find him already awake, sitting with his feet curled up under him, face shrouded in the curl of steam from his coffee mug.
In New Orleans, they got drunk on Bourbon Street, and Malfoy danced on his own (arms bare, laughing; Harry could have watched him all night) and later on, so late it was almost morning, they let themselves into the St Louis Cemetery—Malfoy unpicking the lock so sweetly—and walked around until the sky was pink-edged with the promise of another day’s heat. Then they sat on the steps of a crypt, watched over by sightless eyes of the statue of an angel. She looked exhausted rather than sad, Harry thought, and that made a lot of sense when he thought about his own longstanding, dull-edged grief. Malfoy told him things then, in fits and starts at first, then all in a furious torrent as if something had been unlocked inside him, mentioning names Harry hadn’t thought he’d ever have to hear again—Fenrir, Burbage, Yaxley, Astoria, Scabior, Crabbe—all the while scratching distractedly at the inside of his left wrist, until Harry reached out for his right hand and kept it tucked into his own. “I miss my mum,” Malfoy said finally, and Harry nodded, because he missed his mum too, and he could only imagine how much more he would have missed her if he’d ever got to have her properly.
The first time they fell asleep together was in a red-roofed motel in Corsicana, Texas. They’d arrived tired and hungover and the pool was shut, and Harry had felt absurdly like crying, but Malfoy hadn’t batted an eyelid when Harry dragged him three miles down the road so he could buy postcards and stamps in a tiny general store. That night, after burritos and beer, Harry had told Malfoy some things he’d never have imagined that he’d share; about Ron and Hermione wanting to get married, and about the time he went back to see the Dursleys just after the Battle, and about Mrs Creevy and her wall of framed photos. Malfoy was quiet, but even though Harry didn’t talk about how he felt about all that stuff, Malfoy seemed to get it, and when Harry lay back against the stiffly laundered pillow of his tiny single bed, he felt a dip in the mattress and then the warm weight of Malfoy pressed against his side. Malfoy’s hair streamed back over the pillow, smelling of cheap motel shampoo, and Harry fell asleep straight away, and didn’t dream at all.
They had an argument about a type of cactus while hiking in the Grapevine Hills, because Malfoy thought they were ugly, and Harry told him that he of all people should like them, and Malfoy got insulted and said crossly, “What do you mean—me, of all people?” But Harry had just meant that they were tall and spiky and a bit lonely-looking against the sun, and he thought they were beautiful, but he was just realising that he couldn’t say all that to Malfoy, who had gone on ahead in a temper tantrum. When Harry caught up with him, he was standing under a bridge of rocks that rested perfectly balanced against each other, rosy in the golden light.
“This place makes me feel so small,” Malfoy told him. He was wearing a straw hat that he’d bought when they passed through Fort Worth—a cowboy hat, Harry told him gleefully—and it was already dark around the rim, red with dust. His face was in shadow, and Harry could only see his mouth.
“You’re not small, though,” he answered, the words dropping low in the vast quiet space of the hills, and he realised he was still looking at Malfoy’s thin, crooked smile just before Malfoy moved and took Harry in his arms and kissed him, one hand scrabbling desperately at the small of Harry’s back to pull him closer, the other pressing greedily against Harry’s cheek.
“My hat’s ruined,” Malfoy said, long afterwards, but most of the dust brushed off, and they managed to push it back into shape so it looked almost like it always had. And anyway, Malfoy was smiling when he said it, smiling like he couldn’t stop himself, with that mouth of his all red from Harry’s stubble, and the hat didn’t seem to matter much after that.
They arrived in Albuquerque during a heat wave, and the man at the front desk of a dingy little Rodeway Inn rolled his eyes at them as he slid their key over to Malfoy, because Harry had a hand on Malfoy’s stomach and his nose in Malfoy’s hair, giddy with getting to touch him. He had always known he was a bit possessive, but he’d never had anyone that was as fierce about him in return. But then, he supposed Malfoy was a bit like him in some ways (in the way he wanted, perhaps) only they’d never been able to see it like that, before.
They barely left their room; instead Harry ordered in random takeaway food at random times of the day and night, and they kept the curtains closed, and sometimes instead of putting up Silencing Charms they just turned the tv up loud to muffle the noises they made.
Malfoy liked it all as much as Harry—it was clear in everything he did, Harry never had to wonder for a minute if Malfoy was losing interest, which was reassuring in a way Harry hadn’t known he’d needed. Often he’d wake from a snatched nap to find Malfoy beside him, watching him clear-eyed and assessing and unashamed from over a cup of tea.
On the evening of their fifth day Malfoy went out for supplies, and though he was only gone for an hour, Harry pushed him up against the door when he came in, just to get the taste of him again.He had his arms full—bags of groceries, and sheafs of newspapers that had gone smudgy in the heat, an already-opened cigarette packet, some sort of giant bag of crisps—but he was already kissing back as he walked Harry to the bed, scattering everything onto the small table as he went, and grabbing at Harry decisively.
His hands were possessive on Harry’s hips, clutching hot at his ribcage, and he wedged them into Harry’s armpits to move Harry further up the bed.
“I’m so hot,” he said, voice rough, and Harry scooped some ice out of the little plastic bucket he had filled from the machine, absent-mindedly, while waiting for Malfoy to come back, and fed it into Malfoy’s mouth, which was warm and open to him. Malfoy’s breath was already coming fast.
“Can we…” Harry said, but Malfoy was already moving over him, reaching for lube from the bedside cabinet, kissing along the side of Harry’s mouth and under his ear and then biting down gently on his shoulder.
It was so good, knowing Malfoy so well, and wanting him in just the same way that Malfoy wanted him, and being able to feel him from the inside out. Harry shivered under him, arched into his movements, and when he said in a small, choked voice, “Draco… please,” he felt Malfoy’s tremble through his own body.
Afterwards, they lay side by side on the bed, sweat cooling, and Harry said, “I miss English rain.”
Malfoy didn’t answer at first, but then he said, “There was a letter…” and Harry distantly remembered hearing the screech of an owl in the distance, seeing its dusky swooping shape as he went to get the ice earlier.
It was from St Mungo’s, and Malfoy made Harry open it and read it for him. When Harry told him it was a letter inviting Malfoy to complete his Mastery there, Malfoy went very pale all of a sudden and then flushed blotchily.
“It’s very prestigious,” he told Harry defensively.
“I’m sure it is.”
“I’d be mad not to take it.”
“You would,” Harry agreed solemnly.
“Right.” Malfoy sat up, suddenly self-conscious, looking for his clothes. “That’s that then, I suppose.”
“When do we leave?” Harry asked, and Malfoy stared at the floor for a moment.
“You can’t possibly think that we would…” he trailed off, a horrible yearning note in his voice.
“Draco,” Harry said gently. “Didn’t you read the postcards I asked you to send?”
And it turned out that Draco hadn’t read the postcards that Harry had asked him to post on a dusty bit of nothing road somewhere outside of Fairfield, because he had some sort of weird code of honour about Harry’s privacy, as though Harry wouldn’t have wanted Draco to unzip his skin and climb inside him, if it could be done.
“I already wrote to everyone and told them I’m in love with you. And I’m sorry if it’s too much too soon, or whatever…” but Draco shook his head and climbed into Harry’s lap, clothes forgotten, skin feverish under Harry’s palms.
“I didn’t know,” he said into Harry’s collarbone, but Harry thought he probably had known, if he’d only allowed himself to think it; to believe that somewhere along the road—Kingsport, Monticello, Bowling Green—Harry had realised exactly where he was supposed to end up.