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Chapter Text

Draco awoke in St. Mungo's and had to guzzle about a gallon of various antidotes before his requests for information were answered; a harried-looking Potter even dropped by to explain personally. "Seems like Vance has been tracking your movements for quite some time," he said. "At least, he's got loads of information on you in his cottage...possibly he's been going through the rubbish bins outside your office."

"Remind me to invest in the self-incinerating models," Draco said. "What about the poison?"

"Not Dark magic, but close enough that the Wizengamot isn't going to be lenient with him," Potter said with a sigh. "You were lucky—if you'd ingested any more of it, you'd be dead by now, one way or another."

"If you recall, I had prior warning," Draco said. Potter flinched and looked down at his hands. "What part did R—did Weasley play in the endgame, exactly?"

"He...sort of escaped from the hospital," Potter said. "And, er, kidnapped me. With my own wand."

Draco, to his credit, did not smirk.

"His parents are having another talk with the senior Healer for the fourth floor," Potter added. "About, er, alternative therapies."

"Don't tell me you're finally lending some credence to the idea that he might have been telling the truth all this time," Draco said.

Potter glared at him, and pulled out a long, narrow scroll. "Look, I've got a few questions I need to ask you..."

Draco answered various questions, many of which were asked more than once by different people on different days. Draco drank various antidotes, until all the strength and feeling had returned to all his extremities. Draco stayed in hospital for several days, and received no visitors except for Aurors, Healers, and Nibblet, who briefly disguised herself as a fruit basket. Eventually, Draco went home.

Draco brooded.

"Master is brooding," Nibblet said after he declined her third offer of chicken soup.

"Master isn't hungry," Draco told her. "There's a difference."

"Master needs to get his strength back," she said, and pushed the bowl towards him.

Draco kicked the bowl over and shut himself up in his study, where he made a very long chain of paperclips and threw quills at the ceiling to see if they would stick.

The attack was in the papers for several weeks, and so there was at least the mild distraction of fending off reporters in the cruelest ways he could devise. Then came the trial, in which all Draco really had to do was sit in the courtroom and look victimized; Vance didn't even try to argue his innocence. But then the trial was over and the reporters lost interest, and Draco was able to slide back into his old habits with minimal effort.

Despite his brush with death, nothing in Draco's life had changed in the slightest.

Hence, the brooding.

He couldn't quite explain it, and so he chased Nibblet away every time she tried to ask. He couldn't even think about it clearly, so he spent for more time at the office than necessary, interfering with his employees even when he knew perfectly well that they were better at their jobs than he was, because that was the reason he'd hired them. He couldn't concentrate on reading in the evenings any longer, and so he spent inordinate amounts of time walking in the gardens, or sometimes just wandering the upper floors of the Manor and sticking his head into the many perfect empty rooms. For reassurance, he told himself, because something in his life felt profoundly disturbed. He just wanted to check that everything was still as it should be, as he'd arranged it, as he had wanted it and, naturally, still did. Because nothing had changed, after all. He certainly wasn't looking for anything. Or anyone.

"Master is having an existential crisis," Nibblet complained one evening as he picked at his dinner.

"How would you know?" Draco snapped at her.

"Because Master is not finishing his risotto," she said.

Draco pushed the plate away. "The risotto is terrible," he said. "It needs salt."

Nibblet sniffed. "Nibblet is adding plenty of salt. Master is not tasting anything but Master's own angst."

"Are you speaking German at me?"

Someone knocked at the Manor's front door. Draco was so startled he fell out of his chair. Nibblet disappeared with a pop, then reappeared at Draco's feet before he even had a chance to climb upright. "It is Mr. Wheezy!" she said cheerfully.

"What?"

"Mr. Wheezy is visiting us."

Draco blinked and shook his head. "How?"

Nibblet tugged on his sleeve. "Master is not ought to be asking why now! Master is ought to be greeting his guest!"

Draco climbed to his feet, dusted himself off twice, and then marched to the front door. Several different things to say ran through his head at once, including Thank you, Piss off and Your sense of timing is impeccable. In the end, though, when he threw open the great front doors of the Manor for the man standing on his front stoop, the first thing to come out of his mouth was, "Why aren't you melting?"

Ron blinked at him. "Well, I reckon I'd stain my clothes, for starters."

"I mean," Draco said, "that the wall around the Manor is cursed. You shouldn't have been able to get over it."

"I just climbed the bloody fence, Malfoy."

"You climbed the fence?"

"Er. Mostly."

He looked surprisingly good, Draco thought, both objectively and in comparison to their last meeting. Ron was clean-shaven, his hair was clean and trimmed, his clothes were clean, well fitted and seasonally appropriate. He even appeared to have gained some weight, going from emaciated to merely scrawny. But he was still staring at Draco with his head cocked as if he were listening to something only he and dogs could hear; Draco was not certain whether to find that comforting or not.

He decided to sigh his resignation and step out of the doorframe. "I suppose I'll have to invite you in, then."

"I reckon I've got to thank you for it." Ron stepped into the foyer and Draco heaved the doors shut. "You're not dead."

"Thank you for noticing," Draco said.

"I was right about the murder."

Draco sighed. "Yes, you were. And I...was wrong about your being psychotic."

Ron looked down at his feet and shuffled a bit. "Er. Maybe not all wrong."

"Am I meant to find that reassuring?"

"Just saying."

Nibblet popped into the foyer with a tray of cakes larger than she was balanced on her head like an Indian water bearer. "Mister Wheezy! Mister Wheezy! Nibblet knows you is keeping your promises!"

Ron smiled. "Yeah, well, I try my best."

"Is Potter even speaking to you now?" Draco asked.

Ron shrugged. "He's, er, getting over it."

He fell silent, and Draco could not think of anything particularly clever to say, so they followed Nibblet into the morning room, even though it was night. Nibblet deposited her burden of cakes and brought tea, but this time Weasley did not stuff himself, but merely stared into the fire.

"What are you doing here?" Draco asked eventually, before he asked it of himself.

Ron shrugged. "I, er. Things are getting, you know, better. A bit. I mean, they believe me now."

"Bit difficult not to."

"Hermione bought me this book..." Ron shrugged again. "At least they believe me. And I think...I think I might be getting a bit better. About, you know."

"Functioning in day-to-day life?"

"That too."

Another measure of silence; Draco poured himself a cup of tea. No sense in wasting perfectly good tea.

"Did you," Ron said, then stopped.

"Did I what?"

"Did you really believe me?"

"It would be rather ironic if I did, wouldn't it?" Draco said. "Your own friends and loved ones refused to listen, but your old enemy, the boy you've so long despised..."

"You're not that boy anymore," Ron said promptly. "And I don't think you did believe me."

"I don't suppose it matters either way," Draco said quietly, and gave into the urge to toy with his teacup. "You still saved my life, after your own deranged fashion."

"If you didn't believe me, why'd you let me hang around so much?"

Draco sighed dramatically. "I found you amusing," he snapped. Ron surprisingly, laughed out loud at him. "And just what is so funny?"

Ron shook his head a bit. "You can't even tell the truth without being a—a bitch about it, can you?"

"Excuse me?" Draco wasn't certain if he was more offended by the laughter, the epithet, or the mischievous sparkle in Ron's eyes that strongly suggested he wasn't being taken seriously.

"Amusing. Of course I'm amusing." Ron tried to cover his smile with his hand. "You've got to be pretty bored of the house-elf after all these years, right? And who else is left?"

"I've already got the house-elf performing psychoanalysis on me," Draco said, "so if you've just come to inform me of how incredibly lonely I don't know I am, you can leave."

That quieted Ron. "Didn't say you were lonely," he said solemnly. "Just alone."

"Exactly," Draco said. "I'm glad someone understands the distinction."

Ron scratched at the knee of his trousers, but there were no frayed threads to pick. "I'm, er. I've been, sort of alone for a while too. With people and all, but...alone, you know."

Draco set down his teacup. He suddenly felt very aware of his heartbeat and the heat of the fire on his skin. "I think I can imagine."

"So I guess I thought," Ron said, and swallowed. He glanced up at Draco, with no tilt of his head, with no cast on his eyes. "I guess I wondered...if maybe...you might, er, want to...to be alone together?"

Draco thought about this for a while. "Just for clarification, that was an attempt at a proposition, was it not?"

"Er," Ron said, "sort of, yeah." He slumped in his seat and folded his arms across his chest.

Draco stood up, feeling a curious disconnect from his body. He wasn't entirely certain that he was actually going to do what he was going to do until he did it—standing, edging around the table, laying a light hand on Ron's stiff shoulder. "In that case," he said, "this discussion would best continue upstairs."

It turned out to be rather gratifying to shock a Seer. Draco supposed it didn't happen nearly often enough.

He let Ron stutter at him for only a moment before tugging on his wrist and leading him upstairs—though not before glancing around to ensure that Nibblet wasn't overtly spying. (Draco had no doubt that she would be watching them covertly, but if he couldn't see her he would be free to assume that she would at least cover her eyes at the appropriate time.) The master bedroom was on the top floor of the house, had played host to several generations of Malfoys and their various indiscretions, and had been as tightly sealed as the rest of the house. So had Draco's childhood bedroom in the garret. Both places held far too many associations for him, pleasant and not, and he saw no reason to face those down when there was a perfectly serviceable suite on the south side of the building that had a nice view of the gardens. Someone once told him that it had been intended to house visiting mothers-in-law. It suited Draco fine.

He led Ron into the suite (which looked far neater than it had when he awoke that morning) and into the bedroom (which had suddenly acquired clean sheets and a roaring fire). Here he paused, because it had been too long since he'd done something like this, and even as he turned to face Ron he couldn't quite believe that he was doing it now. This was a Weasley. This was a Gryffindor. This was a lunatic. This was a mistake.

This was Ron, looking just as uncomfortable as Draco was, but still leaning in for a kiss.

Draco opened his mouth and responded, using both hands to pull Ron's head down to the appropriate height. For all his physical jumpiness, Ron kissed with a certain abandon, thrusting his tongue into Draco's mouth and clutching at Draco's shoulders. Draco left one hand threaded through Ron's hair and with the other traced a path from the top of his shoulders all the long way down to the base of his spine, feeling the shapes of muscle and bone. He felt the warmth of Ron's body and the heat of the fire, felt the wet slide of their mouths and tongues and teeth, the little puffs Ron's breath mingling with his own.

Perhaps that was why he did it, ultimately. Draco kissed Ron, and he felt.

They were still fully clothed when they moved to the bed, and when Ron started to fumble with Draco's buttons, Draco brushed his hands away. "What?" Ron asked.

"Have a little patience," Draco mumbled into his neck.

"Wanna touch you," Ron growled, and rubbed his face into the curve of Draco's neck like a cat.

"Merlin, what are you, fifteen?"

But Draco let Ron clumsily undress him, and took his time reciprocating the gesture, took the time to taste and feel every inch of skin he uncovered. Without the bulk of his jumper, Ron looked unhealthy, garishly so; Draco thought he could count every rib, and scars of old curses seemed to crawl in the firelight, up and down his chest and arms. Draco traced his fingers along the hollow of Ron's stomach and the shocking arch of his collarbone, watching the shadows flicker as he breathed.

Ron unbuttoned his own trousers. "Are you just going to sit there?"

"Are you in such a hurry?"

Ron wriggled out of his trousers and pants, revealing a long curse mark down his right thigh and a stone-hard erection. Draco supposed that was answer enough.

He shed his own pants and straddled Ron's thighs, taking both their cocks in hand. Ron pawed at Draco's thighs briefly with sweaty hands before throwing his head back and thrusting into Draco's fist, mouth falling open. Ungodly noises were coming from deep in his chest, and Draco might've found enough breath to mock him for it if he hadn't sounded rather the same. Oh, it had been far too long since he'd had someone else in his bed, since he'd felt someone warm and eager moving against him, since he'd felt anything at all. He stretched out to kiss Ron's throat, taste the sweat there, feel the hammer-blows of his pulse under his lips. Ron tilted his head to nuzzle Draco's hair. Draco kissed his way up to Ron's earlobe and bit.

"Fuck," Ron blurted, digging his fingers into Draco's arse. "Ah, fuck, more...more?"

"More?"

"Yes, please, anything."

Those words enclosed a world of possibilities, but Draco wasn't thinking along those lines; he was more concerned with groping through his nightstand one-handed and fishing out a bottle of lube without tumbling to the floor. He fumbled with the bottle, dropped it, and tried to pull out the stopper with his teeth before Ron steadied it for him. "All right?"

"Thank you." Draco gave up and used both hands to warm the potion before he reached back and began to prepare himself. Ron, wide-eyed, took over the wanking, and almost reverently followed Draco's wrist to feel what he couldn't see.

It had been too long, all right. Draco tried to be patient, but when Ron began to speed up and make little breathy grunts in time with the strokes of his wrist, he pulled Ron's hand away and rose up on his knees. Only the first inch or so ever really hurt anyway, and then it was smooth and full and the good kind of ache, and Draco couldn't help but make another one of those ridiculous-sounding groan-yelps as he sank down. Ron, surprisingly, held his breath until Draco was all the way down and had gone still; then he exhaled loudly, a whisper that almost sounded like yeah.

Draco started off slowly, to get the angles right, but with one of Ron's big bony hands on his cock and another one anchored to the place where his hip faded into thigh, gripping, squeezing, that didn't last long. Draco rocked down on Ron's cock, gasping for breath, meeting Ron's hips on the downstroke and then snapping up so high his balls were bouncing off Ron's belly. He tangled his fingers with Ron's on his cock, not sure if he wanted to go faster or slower, to hurry up or make it last, because he just wanted more, more skin, more feeling, more everything. Ron threw his head back and every tending sprang taut in his neck, and with one more blurted curse he slammed into Draco and came. Draco lasted longer, but only just.

He flopped panting onto his back, halfway on top of Ron, and as the last waves of orgasm receded Draco tried to roll away and find something to clean them both up with. Ron suddenly rolled over and flung an arm around Draco's chest, drawing him back. "Stay," he mumbled into the pillows.

"I'm just looking for—"

"Stay," Ron said emphatically.

Against the back of his neck, Draco could feel Ron's eyelashes flicking fast. "What will happen if I don't?" he asked.

Ron's arms tightened around him. "I won't be here if you go."

"Leaving so soon?"

"I won't be now," Ron said. "I need—as long as you're here, then I'm now. But if you go I might end up somewhen else."

Draco managed to roll over despite Ron's grip and looked at him. Ron's eyes were large dark, but they were focused on him, on now. For now. "All right," Draco said, and relaxed into Ron's sticky, sweaty embrace. "I suppose I can stay for a bit."

Ron pulled him close and kissed his forehead, nuzzled his hair. "Thank you."

"Just don't get used to it."

That was how they fell asleep, and that was how they awoke the next morning, sticky and smelly and warm. And, no matter how many times Draco threatened her over the years to come, Nibblet never did let him live that down.