Wheredoesshego

It’s raining, despite being early June, but she’s just standing in the street outside the children’s home, looking up at the old brick building.

Harry is the one who notices her first. He motions Draco towards the window pointing down at the strange lady crying in the street.

She’s wearing all black, some sort of long cloak. She’s holding something in her hands that he can’t make out.

Draco leans closer to the class and the lady’s eyes meet his.

They’re grey.

Something inside Draco fractures.

The world seems to tilt on its axis.

He starts to bang on the window, suddenly desperate, aching to get nearer to the woman on the street. Her eyes widen and she sobs, casting him one more longing look before she turns and runs down the road.

Draco shouts, hammering on the glass. He’s frantic.

She can’t.

She can’t leave.

He’s barely aware of Harry trying to pull him back, that he’s fighting Harry off, pushing him roughly away. It’s only when Harry tries to stand in front of him that he loses control.

Draco screams, he roars. And every window in the building shatters.

Harry’s cackle is loud is loud in the darkness, drowning out the tinkle of falling glass.

He and Draco take off at a run, sprinting away from the broken window, twin holes where their stones met their mark.

Draco pumps his arms and legs as fast as he can, the wind whipping his hair, his heart juddering in his chest. He doesn’t feel scared, not with Harry by his side, but he’s relieved when they round the corner of the outbuilding, crouching down to watch the chaos unfold.

Draco doesn’t know why Harry needs this so badly, why destroying things makes him feel good.

All he knows is that Harry’s happiness feels like oxygen. He needs it to survive. Draco looks into Harry’s eyes, burning bright with satisfaction, the colour high on his cheeks. It’s terrible and it’s beautiful, and Draco knows he’ll spend his whole life wanting to see it.

He’ll do anything to make Harry smile.

Draco can’t. He can’t speak, not even to Harry.

He buries his face in his pillow, trying to stop his teeth from chattering. He can’t stop thinking about the man, about the tattoo on the inside of his wrist.

He isn’t scared of him - not specifically -but of the tattoo - and what that tattoo means.

Somehow, Draco knows that it’s the reason why he’s here, that it’s something…bad.

‘Draco,’ Harry says again. ‘I was scared. I thought they were going to take you away, away from me.’

Draco turns, finally able to look at Harry. He sees Harry has been crying too. His throat is too sore to speak, but he sniffs, lifting up his blanket in silent invitation.

Harry lets out a shaking breath. With a sigh of relief he crawls onto the bed, his knobbly knees digging into Draco’s back as he burrows his way under the blanket. They turn back to back, but Draco still feel Harry’s warmth, the sound of his steady breaths gradually lulling Draco into the same calming rhythm.

He lets his eyes fall closed, clutching tightly onto his toy dragon.

Sandwiched between the comfort of his two best friends, Draco finally falls asleep.

Draco’s head shoots up. He tenses, instantly on his guard.

‘Matron wants to see you.’

From his bed opposite, Harry’s eyes are wide.

‘M-me?’ Draco asks. ‘Why?’

The older boy shrugs. ‘I dunno. There’s some creepy bloke in her office. He’s come to see you.’

Draco’s heart kicks up instantly, beating a rapid tattoo inside his chest. Is it his father? Have his parents finally come to take him home? He snaps his book shut, pushing it deep under his pillow out of sight.

‘Come on,’ the boy snaps. ‘Move your arse.’

Draco follows the boy out and down the corridor, casting one nervous glance back at Harry. As they approach Matron’s office he can hear murmuring, two voices, speaking in hushed tones.

‘— the odd thing here and there.’ Matron is saying quietly. ‘But I don’t think he’s aware he can control it. I don’t think he knows yet that it’s him.’

‘What about the other?’ The man says. ‘Any incidents?’

‘None yet. But he’s spent his life around Muggles, he won’t be aware —‘

She cuts off sharply as Draco approaches, shuffling behind the older boy. He can’t see the man yet, merely his shadow, long and looming from within Matron’s office. His heart beats so fast he thinks it might burst from his chest.

‘Draco,’ Matron says, in a sickly sweet voice he’s never heard her use before. ‘It’s alright, darling. Come on in.’

Draco holds his breath, stepping cautiously into the room. He looks up and falters.

The man in the corner is pinched, greasy black hair falling down to sharp cheekbones. His eyes are dark and glittering, his mouth pulled tight in a moue of distaste.

Draco’s stomach sinks all the way into his shoes.

This isn’t his father. He knows it from the very first glance.

‘Mr Malfoy,’ the man says, frowning down at him. ‘Do you know who I am?’

Draco shakes his head. He’s never seen him before, he’s certain. He’d remember someone as unsettling as this.

Somehow his answer seems to have been the right one. The man smiles thinly, motioning to a chair beside him. ‘Come. Sit down.’

Draco moves to do so, but then freezes, fear jettisoning through his veins. Suddenly he can’t move, can’t do anything except stand, staring at the man’s pale, extended arm.

There’s something tattooed there, beneath his sleeve. Draco can only see part of it, but his mind instantly fills in the rest.

Draco knows that tattoo. He’s seen it before.

He opens his mouth and begins to scream.

Harry and Draco are huddled under a blanket. It smells like the stolen Hobnobs they’re sharing, the antiseptic on Harry’s grazed cheek.

They’re sitting cross-legged opposite each other, a weak torch lighting their faces from underneath.

Draco shakes his head, thinking carefully. ‘Nothing specific,’ he says quietly. ‘But there are certain things I just…know.’

‘Like what?’ Harry munches another biscuit, the crumbs falling down into his lap.

‘I know my mother loved me, even if I can’t remember her face.’ Draco squeezes the cuddly dragon he sleeps with. He found it in his suitcase the day he was left. ‘I know she didn’t want to leave me at Wool’s. That she wants me to come home.’

Harry snorts incredulously. ‘How do you know that if you can’t remember her? How do you know your parents aren’t dead, like mine?’

Draco shrugs. ‘They aren’t dead.’ His chest hurts when he thinks about the things he found in his suitcase, all lovingly folded and packed. Sweets he’s hidden under his pillow, a story book with his name and age written on the first page.

‘I dream about my parents,’ Harry says. ‘Other things too. I know it’s not real though. My aunt used to say I was making it up to scare my cousin.’

‘You have an aunt?’ Draco says, surprised. ‘Why don’t you live with her?’

Harry pales. ‘The police took me away from my aunt and uncle.’ He mutters darkly. ‘The court decided I wasn’t safe.’

‘Do you miss them?’ Draco misses his own family, even though he doesn’t know who they are.

‘No.’ Harry’s chewing a fingernail again, teeth worrying the skin around it. ‘I never want to see any of them again. I wish they were dead instead of my parents.’

Draco doesn’t reply. Harry looks angry, but he also looks sad.

‘What other things do you dream about?’ He asks eventually, once he’s certain Harry’s not going to cry.

Harry shrugs. ‘It’s stupid really,’ he says. ‘I dream about a green light. A really scary man pointing at me, but his face looks like a snake. He’s the one who kills my parents in the dream I have, that’s why I know it can’t be true.’

Draco doesn’t say anything. He’s looking at Harry, his blood suddenly cold in his veins.

‘What?’ Harry frowns beneath his glasses. ‘Why do you look so weird?’

Draco feels like he’s choking, like the biscuits are stuck in his throat.

‘Harry,’ he says eventually. ‘I dream about that scary man too.’

Prompt: Book @drarrymicrofic

Harry stumbles, coming back with just as much confidence as he had the first time. There’s blood on his mouth but he doesn’t seem to notice. He lunges forward, fists swinging.

Somehow, he connects.

There’s a crack and the other boy’s head jerks backwards, a crimson arc splattering over the tile.

‘You little fucker!’

The boy shoves Harry in the chest. He sprawls to land on the floor next to Draco, already laying on his back.

‘Idiots.’ The boy laughs, shaking his head. He turns to walk away, leaving them together on the floor.

‘Are you okay?’ Harry mutters, scrambling nimbly to his feet.

Draco nods, ignoring the pain in his ribs. He flexes his jaw side to side, running his tongue over his split bottom lip.

‘I don’t know why they’re always picking on you,’ Harry says. ‘Or why you never even try to fight back. You can’t let people think you’re weak here, Draco. It will only make everything worse.’

Draco doesn’t answer. He’s spotted Harry’s glasses on the ground.

He picks them up, inspecting the broken lens.

Harry can’t see without his glasses.

While Harry can’t see him do it, Draco waves a subtle hand.

When he passes them back a moment later, the lens is as good as new. Harry grins as he pushes them onto his face, eyes sparkling beneath his funny-shaped scar. ‘I’m starving,’ he says. ‘Shall we see what there is for tea?’

Draco nods, grimacing as he begins to push up off the ground.

When Harry extends a hand towards him, he takes it, letting his friend gently pull him to his feet.

He knows they worry about him at the children’s home. He doesn’t talk, doesn’t sleep, doesn’t eat.

Most of the boys avoid him, casting him suspicious glances or laughing behind their hands.

His roommate Harry doesn’t though.

Harry talks and talks and doesn’t seem to care that Draco doesn’t talk back.

Harry says his parents are dead - killed on Halloween when he was just a baby.

Draco doesn’t know where his own parents are.

He doesn’t know anything before this. Can’t remember anything before being nine years old, waking up on the concrete steps of the home with an expensive suitcase and a note pinned to his chest.

‘Keep him safe.’

Part 2 in an AU where Draco and Harry meet at a children’s home for boys

He sits up on his bunk, finds green eyes blinking at him from across the room.

‘I’m Harry,’ the boy says, pulling scraped up knees tight into his chest. ‘Who are you?’

Draco can’t talk yet, his throat still raw from screaming.

Harry shrugs, picking at a ragged nail. ‘Anyway, welcome to Wool’s.’

The first in an AU microfic series, where Draco and Harry meet in a children’s home for boys