One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This (Harry/Draco)

Title: One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This
Author: Geoviki
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Word Count: about 9,200
Summary: Secrets and imp magic make a bad combination, and Draco will never, ever forgive Blaise for any of this.

I am writing to raise awareness of: Juvenile (Type 1) Diabetes, although this story isn't related to my cause.

Author's Note: The title is a translation of a line from Virgil's Aenead: Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. It's also the title of the most recent album by the New York Dolls. Another ways to put it is: Someday we'll look back on this and laugh.

Many thanks to my beta, novembersnow, who did a great job of pointing out the weaknesses, even though I didn't give her much time. Thanks also to parthenia14 for the Britpicking.

For those of you who've lost your school textbook, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them:

The crup resembles a Jack Russell terrier, except for the forked tail. The crup is almost certainly a Wizard-created dog, as it is intensely loyal to wizards. It is a great scavenger. Crup owners are legally obligated to remove the crup's tail with a painless Severing Charm, lest Muggles notice it.

The imp is sometimes confused with the pixie. It is about seven inches tall and is coloured dull brown or black. Imps live in damp or marshy areas. It has a somewhat slapstick sense of humour and is often found near river banks, where it will amuse itself by pushing and tripping the unwary.

...~…~…~…~…~…


When Blaise showed up at the manor one chill Thursday morning and began nagging at Draco before he'd even had his first cuppa, Draco resigned himself to another one of those visits. The sort that needed a three-day cooling off period infused with insincere apologies, lots of Old Ogden's, and one last admission of total idiocy before things were back to normal. Sadly, those sorts of visits weren't particularly rare—and never had been. For close friends of such long standing, the two of them suffered each other's company more often than they enjoyed it. But Draco couldn't imagine his life without that push-pull tension that Blaise was so gifted at.

As Draco saw it he had two choices: humour him until they both were fed up with each other, or else set him to doing something he hated and hope he buggered off of his own volition. After a few false starts, Draco managed to sell him on a spot of imp-hunting at the river that ran through one neglected corner of the estate.

Blaise still bitched about it all the way to the kennels, though. "Can't you just banish them off the property or something?" he grumbled, with a rough pull on the boot Draco had tossed at him. "These aren't going to fit."

"So transfigure them, you damned squib! Or go without, I don't care."

"I'm not ruining my new Crockett and Jones's to go mucking around in some bloody pond with you."

"It's not a pond, it's a river, you silly—" he began and bit down on ponce. Blaise, of course, was no ponce, and therein lay one glaring source of their tension. If Blaise had been gay, they would have settled by now into a sensible domesticity filled with bickering and lots of make-up sex. As it was, Draco was stuck with the shitty half of that deal.

He tossed Blaise a hunting jacket that looked—and smelled—prehistoric. Blaise glared back and muttered a strong cleaning charm before shoving his arms into the worn sleeves.

"I pray God no one sees me in this rag," he said.

"Why not? You look every inch an aristocrat."

"That's what I'm afraid of. I look like I'm playing at feudal lords. It betrays my humble roots."

His ancient house-elf shuffled up with two overexcited crups on leads, handing them over with a small sigh. "They's not been hunting in too many months, Master," he said. "They is wild."

As if to prove the point, both crups bounded towards Blaise, tails wagging. Before Draco could stop them, they jumped up in exuberant greeting, leaving dusty paw prints on Blaise's crisp black trousers and whipping his legs with frenzied tails.

"Get….aauugh, get down!" Blaise thundered. "Dammit, Draco, get these mutts off of me!"

"Sorry, sorry," Draco said, pulling them away and casting his own cleaning charm on the disheveled Blaise. "Behave, you two!" he told the crups, and, to Blaise, "They're just excited to see you."

Blaise, who Draco knew had a soft spot for animals, knelt down and scratched one floppy ear. "Doesn't he come and play with you enough, girl?" he sing-songed. "Poor, neglected baby."

"I do too," Draco lied.

"And when will he finally have your tails off, hmm? If the Ministry finds out about those, they won't look the other way this time. It'd be Azkaban for sure."

Draco scowled. "Don't be daft. They don't send wizards to Azkaban over crup tails. Anyway, they never leave the manor grounds. The Malfoys have a tradition of leaving the tails on our crups the way nature intended."

"Huh. I'd have thought these days you'd be leery of keeping up Malfoy traditions. Wouldn't that just take the biscuit, seeing you sent off to Azkaban after all, and not for any of the Death Eater stuff but for illegal crup tails! It'd be a bigger scandal than that business with Finch-Fletchley!"

"Look here, Blaise, there's no call for you to bring that up," he said, his voice low. That business was something Draco was loath to remember: last year he'd been caught in flagrante with a former classmate–cum–Ministry official in a last-ditch effort to stay out of Azkaban. Needless to say, the gossip had been splashed across the Daily Prophet for weeks. "If I'd known Potter was going to go all saviour on my behalf, I'd never have—"

"Oh, no, here we go," Blaise said to the crup chewing happily on his fingers. "Settle in, girl, Draco's off on another of his legendary Potter speeches. I should warn you, he's obsessed with the git."

"I am not!" he sputtered.

"Oh, come off it, Draco, you've been fixated on Harry Potter ever since you were ickle firsties. It's always 'Potter this, Potter that' with you. Has been for years. The man that got away and spoiled you for anyone else, right?"

Draco felt a cold wave of alarm run through him. He had been careful to hide his recent change of heart about Potter. So what was Blaise getting at? Did he have some reason for bringing this up or was he just mouthing off again? "I—That's not true! You're delusional."

"Am I? I don't think so. Remember, I lived with you for seven long years. I have eyes, Draco." Blaise stood up and brushed off his hands on his newly-dirtied trousers. "Denial, my friend, is not just a river in Egypt."

"Har fucking har," Draco shot back. He nearly added that if Blaise were so damned astute, then why had he missed the giant torch Draco had carried for him all sixth year? Instead he said, "Maybe you should have paid more attention to what your mother was up to instead of making up stories about me—"

Oh, bad, bad move.

Blaise looked murderous. "What are you implying?"

"Nothing. Forget it. Look, are we going to do this or not?"

"This was your idea, remember? If it were up to me—"

"Never mind, come on."

Draco trailed Blaise through the overgrown path leading to the river. After the fourth or fifth time he had to dodge a branch that whipped back at him in Blaise's wake—deliberate, of course—he decided that Blaise was still hacked off over the crack about his mother. Any other time, Draco would have manoeuvred himself in front to avoid the underhanded assault by shrubbery, but today he merely let Blaise lead the way. Obviously, Blaise had forgotten Newt Scamander's warning about what imps liked to get up to around rivers. In the mood Draco was in now, he didn't see the need to remind him.

Was it just a lucky guess, he wondered nervously, that made Blaise think that he was obsessed with Harry Potter? It wasn't like he could avoid ever mentioning the sodding bastard—the whole wizarding world was obsessed with him, and had been ever since he defeated the Dark Lord. But clearly Draco would have to guard his tongue around Blaise.

A splash brought Draco's head up fast enough to see Blaise, knee-deep in the river, struggle to keep his balance, swing both arms wide, nearly regain his footing, and then succumb to the pull of both crups tugging energetically on their leads. He fell into the water with a loud, profanity-laden shriek.

Schadenfreude was so satisfying.

"God damned imps! Stupid fucking—aargh! Malfoy, you prick, are you laughing at me?!!" Blaise, on his knees in the shallow river, tugged a handful of muddy weeds and chucked it at what appeared to be half a dozen dun-coloured imps watching from the riverbank. "Come and help me, you bastard!"

The crups, their leads trailing behind them in the mucky water, thought it all great sport. They leapt and snapped at the pestilent imps who danced just out of jaw-reach. The imps, on their part, were clearly delighted that their river-trap had snared such lively game.

Draco, who hadn't actually been laughing—much—picked his way down to the river's edge, wary of the same invisible snares that had tripped Blaise up so completely.

When he and Blaise later tried to reconstruct what happened next in a futile attempt to work out where things had gone pear-shaped, Draco realized—hindsight being what it was—that it all started because he couldn't keep his stupid mouth shut. Which didn't excuse Blaise in the least.

"Are you sure my help is going to be enough?" he said. "Maybe what you really need is a bona-fide saviour like Harry Potter."

Blaise's angry eruption echoed through the trees, and even the crups stopped bolting after the imps and stared at him in amazement.

"You—you knew this would happen, you shit! What are you—twelve?! I'm freezing my balls off here in your fucking river—and why? Because you're pissed off at me over pointing out your obvious Harry Potter complex!"

"Don't be ridiculous," he replied, feeling a little bit guilty. Blaise's predicament was not his fault. "You should have been watching out for imp-snares down here by the water. It's what imps do."

"How the hell should I know that?"

"Any wizard knows that, that's how."

"I'm a city boy, you great twat. We don't have imps in London. It's civilized there." Blaise tried to stand up, nearly succeeded, then lost his footing and toppled over again in a geyser of mud and water. "Fuck! "

Draco lowered his head and almost succeeded in hiding his snigger.

"Well, let me tell you something, Malfoy, laugh all you like, but your precious Harry Potter never spares a single thought of you, I guarantee it. You can obsess about him all night long, but the sad reality is you might as well be invisible as far as he's concerned!" Blaise took one last angry swipe at an errant imp skimming past him like a giant water bug and surprisingly managed to capture it. With a triumphant cry, he held it tightly in his fist and brandished it at Draco.

Draco suddenly found himself upended, dangled mid-air above the water for a dizzying second, then plopped face down in the mud. A loud explosive crack rang in his ears, followed by Blaise's howls of laughter.

Spitting out the grit in his teeth, he managed to say, "What in hell was that?"

"Payback, I'd say!" Turning to the imp, he added, "Thank you, you ugly little bugger. Just for that, I think I might just let you go."

But Draco wasn't listening. He was staring in shock at his hands—or at least where his hands should have been. They were…or rather, they weren't.

"Aaaugh!"

"Oh, be quiet, you big baby," Blaise snarled. "It's just a little water. So maybe you messed up your hair a bit—"

"No, look! My…my hands are missing! What the fuck did you do to me?!!"

Peering closer, he could see his sleeves draped around something, so it wasn't as bad as, say, a splinching. Panicked, he reached towards the water, which gave an encouraging splash as if his hands were still attached to the ends of his arms. Invisible, then. But how?

"What are you talking about? I didn't do anything! My wand's right where it belongs, so you can't blame me—oww! That hurts, you little shit!"

The forgotten imp, still held prisoner in Blaise's fist, had its teeth sunk deep into the soft pad of his thumb. Blaise opened his hand, and the imp shot to freedom.

"No, don't let it get away!" Draco cried. "You idiot! It probably did this!"

"What?"

"If you didn't cast this curse, that thing must've…"

"The hell are you talking about? You can't use an imp like a wand to cast a spell…can you?"

"How should I know!"

"I thought you were the world expert on imps, isn't that right?"

"Oh, shut up."

Blaise finally struggled out of the river and up the bank to Draco. "Let me take a look."

Blaise's hands were ice cold and filthy, and Draco jerked away. "You're dripping mud all over me."

"Well, whose fault is that? Never mind. How far up does it go, then? Because I can still see your head, more's the pity."

Draco gingerly drew back his sleeve, not at all sure he wanted to see the extent of the damage. "It looks like it goes up just above the elbow," he said. The way his arm just sort of...faded into nothingness made his stomach turn to look at.

"What about the rest of you? Are you solid everywhere else or—"

"Stop it, Blaise, I—hey, get your grimy hands off me. I'm not stripping down for you out here."

"Don't be such a prude, Draco, it's nothing I haven't seen before. We did share a room for seven years, you know."

"That's not it. It just looks so...ugh, creepy. Stop pawing at me!"

"Look, let's just get you to St Mungo's, and they'll have you back together soon enough. Let's get going, though, because I promised my mum that I'd drop by for a visit this afternoon. Seems she's got a new man she wants me to meet—"

"Listen, Zabini, this is all your fault. Don't you dare leave until you take this bloody curse and…and…stick it where the sun doesn't—mmmffflllff!"

His traitorous crups, finally tiring of their fruitless chase, took that moment to overrun and nearly flatten him with a high-spirited greeting. In disgust, he spat out a mouthful of muddy tail and vowed that these rotten beasts were getting a long-overdue tail docking as soon as they got home.


...~…~…~…~…~…


"I told you the healers at St Mungo's were useless," Draco burst out as soon as they'd cleared the Floo. Bad enough they'd left him waiting for hours out of spite—their half-hearted attempt at a cure did nothing but give him an enormous headache.

Blaise frowned. "Well, the healer did say this was the first time anyone's been hexed with an imp. Hey! I bet this'll end up in the medical books. I'll be famous."

"Oh, shut it, Zabini. If you're so talented, why don't you just undo this little spell of yours, then? Go on."

"I already tried. Maybe it's like they told us, it'll end on its own."

"Like that ever happens. Maybe you're just not trying hard enough. Or maybe you're a crap wizard, which is what I've thought all along."

"Watch it, Malfoy. Right now I'm just sorry I didn't make you inaudible instead of invisible."

"So you finally admit this is all your fault?" he said, in case Blaise had somehow forgotten despite the constant reminders.

"Well, not really. The healers said it was the imp magic that made the difference."

"But it was your words… You were the one talking about making me invisible. Not that I was paying that much attention to what you were babbling…"

"No, what I said was…" Blaise wrinkled his brow. "You have a thing for Harry Potter. And that…that you were invisible…to him. That was it. So it must have something to do with Potter."

If Blaise was trying to drive him to a nervous breakdown, he was well on his way. "So why am I invisible to everyone else? And it's getting worse." Draco tried not to check on himself too often, but he was already invisible up to his shoulders, and now his legs were looking a bit transparent, too.

Blaise brightened. "Maybe Potter has to be thinking about you to keep you visible!"

It took Draco a minute to come up with a fitting reply. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

"No, it could happen. Magic, remember? Well…I mean, it's worth a try, anyway. Right?" That was another annoying thing about Blaise—he refused to back down once he got something in his head.

"And just how do you propose to make Harry Potter think about me? Not that I believe you."

"I dunno. We could start with something simple, like…like sending him an owl. Yeah! We'll send a note from you, and then he'll think of you, and we'll know for sure whether that's the key to unspelling you."

He tapped into his boundless supply of Malfoy disdain and pronounced, "You're utterly bonkers."

"Look, it's worth a try. C'mon, where's a quill and some parchment?"

In the end, Draco let himself be persuaded to send off his best owl to Potter. After heated words between them over what the message should say—No, I'm not going to let you tell him what happened, you pillock—they settled on a simple signature.

It was only after they'd released the owl that Draco had a nasty thought.

"What if he thinks something terrible about me when he sees my name? It's not like we're exactly friends."

"Oh, shit, I didn't think of that." Blaise scowled, then looked thoughtful. "But he saved you from Fiendfyre and then kept you out of Azkaban, right? He even shook your hand afterwards. Maybe he doesn't hate you as much as he used to. Think positive!"

Draco was instead thinking of the best way to carry out a hasty, clandestine murder of his so-called best friend. True, Potter, against all expectation, had come to his rescue in the Room of Requirement when he was seconds from being engulfed by Fiendfyre. And then he repeated the deed with a much more public rescue at Draco's trial. In fact, Potter seemed to be making a regular habit of saving Draco's arse. When he put it that way, it was no wonder his opinion of Potter had done such an about-face. He still got a secret thrill when he remembered flying full-tilt through smoke and flame, his arms wrapped around Potter snugly enough to feel every shift of muscle. At the peak of his terror at that moment, he'd finally let go of his enmity and trusted Potter with his life. It wasn't something he could forget even now.

The minutes ticked by in silence and much too slowly. Just when Draco thought he couldn't bear it another minute, Blaise let out a cry.

"Look! It worked!"

Against all reason, it had. His arms and hands were back where they belonged, visible and whole and wrapped around Blaise's scrawny neck.

"Don't you ever, ever do anything so stupid again, do you hear me?"

"I'm sorry," Blaise croaked. "Now let go of me!"

Against his better judgment, Draco did. Blaise wasted no time, either, in making himself very scarce, very quickly.

All in all, it might have been chalked up as just another of their bad episodes if Draco hadn't stared to fade away again a few short hours later.


...~…~…~…~…~…


Harry beamed at Ron when he showed up for his usual post-work beer at Harry's place. He continued to be relieved that Ron still came round after their falling out last spring, when he'd found out that Harry and Ginny had called it quits. At first, Harry expected that having Ginny know the real reason was good enough. But when Ron had told him, "Well, at least you're not some flaming poof like that wanker, Malfoy," he decided that Ron deserved the truth, too. Ron reacted with his usual flair for the dramatic.

He'd come back a month later with a mumbled apology, and they'd been pretending that nothing had changed ever since. Which was okay, really. It wasn't as though Harry had some amazingly wild sex life that he needed to keep under wraps.

Even though he and Ron both worked for the Ministry, their paths rarely crossed these days. Ron had signed on with the Department of Magical Games and Sports. He travelled a lot, keeping track of the official Quidditch balls for the pro teams. Harry, on the other hand, spent most of his days in a cavernous warehouse tucked away in the outskirts of Neasden. His formal title was Dark Arts Investigator, but what it meant in practice was that he spent his days sorting through mounds of odd junk to work out which things were likely to be dangerous. Most of it wasn't even magical; just odd Muggle stuff like Chia pets and talking alarm clocks and golf club covers that some Auror had never seen before and thought looked sinister.

It wasn't a bad life, Harry told himself. He wasn't that lonely.

Ron was unwinding a shaggy-dog story about a failed attempt at tampering with the Snitch during a semi-final game—but of course, I could tell by the way its wings were pitched about a finger's-width too far forward—when the sharp rat-ta-tat of a beak on the window startled them both. Harry threw open the window, and an enormous owl crowded onto the ledge.

"Wow, he's a beauty!" Ron exclaimed. "Oh, did I tell you that Mum finally got a new owl? It's a barn owl. It's only half as useless as Pig was. I'd love to have one like this, though."

Harry could tell that Ron was bursting to know who its owner was but didn't dare ask, in case it was from some clandestine boyfriend and they'd finally have to have That Conversation.

"Don't worry, it's nothing important. It's just, well, every day I get an owl from Draco Malfoy, of all people."

Ron visibly recoiled from the owl, who was peering at Harry and waiting for its usual treat. Harry didn't have the heart to snub any owl, even Malfoy's. It couldn't help who its owner was. He held out a scrap of bacon, careful of the beak.

"Malfoy?! And you let it in? Beauty or not, you should just Avada it before it gets too close. There's no telling what that prat might be sending you."

"Don't be daft, Ron. Hermione would have my balls on a plate, for one thing. Not to mention that killing owls in the line of duty is illegal."

"Wait a tic…I thought you had wards here against strange owls."

"Yeah, I do. Most of them get shunted off to a post-box in Brixton. I have to let in the ones from friends, though, don't I? And somehow Malfoy's gets through, too. It must be a pretty special owl."

"Right. If by special you mean sneaky and underhanded…"

"I think it's more like special as in costs an arm and a leg. Anyway, there's nothing special about his messages. No threats, no insults, no promises to see that I get what's coming to me. To tell you the truth, they're all rather dull."

"Dull?"

"Yeah. The first few days, it was just his name. Then it was a week's worth of, "The weather has been fine for this time of year."

"The weather?!"

"Yeah. Yesterday he mentioned he'd had a nice walk earlier that morning, and it looks like we might have an early spring."

"Are you sure you aren't getting mail meant for his senile old granny?"

"I know. It's bloody odd, isn't it?"

Ron scowled. "He's obviously up to something, though. We just have to work out what. Do you think there might be secret writing in these letters?"

"I already checked. Nothing."

"Huh. Maybe he's testing your security, finding out where you live…"

"He knows where I live. Or if he doesn't, it's easy enough to work out. This place was in his mum's family, remember?"

"Then what's he up to?"

"Not a clue. Maybe he's practising to be a weatherman."

Ron grinned. "Nah, I bet it's that he can't afford owl treats, so he sends it away to mooch off of other people."


...~…~…~…~…~…


Draco had managed to scare Blaise away from the Manor for the past two days, but given his crap luck of late, he wasn't surprised to hear him chatting up the house-elf at his door before the unfortunate effects of his recent experiment had faded. Still, he definitely could have done without all the shrieking.

"Why didn't you tell me it had got worse?"

"Why should I? It's not like you'd be able to do anything useful. Like, say, get rid of this spell for good!"

"But God, Draco, look at you. You're hideous! Your arms look like you've been splinched with an ape."

"Oh, fuck right off."

"Sorry. But I mean, uh, how…"

"It was the last letter I sent to Potter. No, I'm not going to say any more, so leave off."

"C'mon, Draco. This could be a clue, don't you think, so it's better that I know. What was in it?"

Blaise had a point, so against his better judgment, Draco told him. "I was just testing a theory. When Potter gets my owl, he doesn't think of me for very long. So I thought that if he got a strop on, you know, the way he used to in school, it might last longer."

"Well, did it help? I mean, besides the obvious fucked-up part."

"Shut up," Draco snarled. "It was worth a try. It's not like you're even breaking a sweat to help me."

He'd made that point before to no effect, so he wasn't surprised when Blaise ignored it. "What on earth did you say to him?"

"As if I'm going to tell you." Those words were going to be horrid enough to eat without having Blaise seasoning the meal. Draco knew of two guaranteed subjects to trigger Potter's anger, and he was grateful he hadn't been tempted to use the first: Potter's mother and father. Luckily, the Weasleys were such low-hanging fruit.

"So what are you going to do about…ah…" Blaise made a vague gesture that apparently was meant to refer to Draco's ghastly appearance, for which the denying bastard was entirely to blame.

"Send another letter, of course. Mother always taught me that an honest explanation covers a multitude of sins. But she also taught me that when honesty is too mortifying, the same thing can be said for a damned good lie."


...~…~…~…~…~…


For the past week, Harry hadn't known what to make of Malfoy's new tack: sending household tips with his daily owl. Yesterday's had actually been useful advice on the use of desiccated peach skins to discourage nesting chizpurfles, but still. Harry couldn't picture why Malfoy was suddenly turning into Harriet Housewife. So the unexpected note from Blaise Zabini with Malfoy's next owl came as an unexpected relief.

Draco doesn't know I'm writing this, and I'd like to keep it that way. I need to meet with you about something important. You can choose where, but a Muggle place would be best. Send your reply in another owl directly to me.

Which is how Harry found himself at a neutral lunch spot sharing smoked salmon sandwiches with his former classmate, who was either fairly nervous or had an odd enthusiasm for torturing teabags. Harry was none too relaxed either—Zabini had never done anything that marked him as a clear-cut enemy, but there was still that Slytherin edge to him. Other than the bare facts he knew from school, Harry didn't know much about him, except that his mother liked getting married more than celebrating anniversaries.

"Why don't you tell me what's going on," Harry said, after they exhausted their small talk in under a minute. "I'm guessing this has to do with Malfoy's owls."

"Yeah, we tried to handle this without involving you, but it's just getting too difficult. You see, the thing with Draco is…well…it's a bit of a cock-up, you see. I accidentally imped him."

"You what now?"

Blaise's account—heavily censored, Harry was sure—was so preposterous that he couldn't help laughing.

"So that's why I'm Malfoy's new pen pal."

"Yeah, to make you think about him. And it worked the first couple of weeks, but it's wearing off. He only stays wholly visible for an hour or two now. I reckon that means you're getting used to his owls."

"I suppose so, yeah."

"And every day he fades a little more—at this rate, he'll be nothing but a very mouthy head by next week, if you get my drift."

"So… exactly what am I supposed to do about it?"

Zabini gave him a slow, cool gaze. "I'd have thought it was obvious, Potter. Just think about him more often."

Harry tried to imagine that he and Zabini were having a sensible chat, one with rational statements. His years since leaving Little Whinging should have taught him better. "That's easy to say, but how am I supposed to remember to do it? I mean, do I have to think about him all the time or what? I do have a day job."

"Well, we're not sure how it works, precisely, because we've been guessing at how much time you're spending on him. That's why I finally decided to talk to you. Need I add that if Draco gets wind of our little discussion, I could find a job as a harem eunuch."

"But why? I mean, sure, it's a pretty weird spell but no worse than, oh, a bat-bogey hex. Why all the secrecy?"

"Because the last thing he will ever own up to is that he still thinks about you. A lot, actually. Or did you miss that we were arguing about you when he got hexed?"

"Are you saying that Malfoy…what, fancies me?"

Zabini grinned. "Got it in one. Not that he's said so in so many words. Then again, he had a thing for me all sixth year that he still hasn't admitted. He never worked out that I knew, but I saw the signs then, and I see them now."

Harry couldn't help looking around for the hidden Quick-Quotes Quill or some too-casual bystander eyeing them before he blurted, "You've got to be joking! He's hated me for years. Everyone knows that."

"Yeah, hated, past tense. I gather something happened between you two the year you offed Voldemort. Changed his opinion of you in a big way. Not that he'll ever own up to it, mind you. And if it weren't for this bloody spell, I'd never be here telling you about it, either, so I'd appreciate it if you kept your mouth shut. I do value my manly bits."

"I…wow."

Blaise's eyes narrowed. "Listen, you're not going to go all homophobic now, are you? Because I'm not asking you to actually do anything with him… Anyway, I blame that twat Finch-Fletchley for accidentally outing him last year—you'd think the git had never heard of a locking spell."

"No, no, that's not it. I just thought he still despised me."

"Look, I'm only asking you to do this until we can find a counterspell. I know Draco can be a huge pain in the arse, but he's my best mate, and I'd hate to see him vanish altogether. Most days, anyway. Oh, yeah, here, I brought this. It was Draco's. It might help."

This turned out to be a small hand mirror. It was fairly plain for something that had belonged to one of the Malfoys. He hesitated before accepting it, but it seemed ordinary enough at first glance. Not that that guaranteed anything.

"Draco gave it to me back in seventh year so I could check on him when the Dark Lord—well, anyway, that's not important. Look, it's spelled to show him. I thought it might help to remind you to think about him. Say, five minutes, morning and evening, when you're cleaning your teeth or something. If it's not enough, I'll owl you."

"Can't I just check on him myself with the mirror? Oh, wait, he'd be visible the minute I thought of him, wouldn't he?"

"Yeah. Oh, and no negative thoughts if you can help it—they make him look rather hideous."

Harry peered into the mirror and, as Blaise had promised, he could see Malfoy sitting at a desk and chewing on a quill, deep in thought. But Harry wasn't about to trust Blaise's story without some proof. After all, if this was Malfoy's, no telling how Dark it really was.

"If it's all the same to you, I'll check this out at the Ministry," he said.

"Oh, right, I heard something about you working with magical objects now. Sure, do your worst. I don't know how it works myself, and if it's Dark, I don't really want it hanging round my house, either."

"Okay."

"So you're on board, then, Potter?"

"Tell you what. I'll give it a week. Not that I don't believe you, but that'll give you a reason to come up with the counterspell in a hurry. I'm not planning to spend my life thinking about Draco Malfoy day and night."

"Fair enough. I'll owl you, then." He looked as if he were about to stand up, then paused. "Look, Potter. Thanks. I know you don't much like Draco—you've got no reason to, I suppose. Although I will say you managed to dish out as good as you got from him back in school. Anyway, from what they say about you, it sounds like your childhood was as fucked up as mine was, but I'd bet that Draco's tops ours both. It wasn't easy having Lucius Malfoy as a dad and the Dark Lord as a permanent house guest. Draco knows that now. He's trying to deal with it. He's changed a lot since the war."

"We all have." Harry must have put a little too much emotion in that because Blaise stopped short and stared at him curiously for a moment.

"Point taken," he said. "Not that Draco's turned into a saint or anything. But he's lost some of his arrogance. Probably a good thing, that." Blaise smiled. "Too bad he'll never marry—if he found someone like my mum she'd straighten him out pronto or else die trying. She loves to take up with messed-up men and rearrange their lives for them. But Draco's prospects come down to Finch-Fletchley or that Creevey boy. That probably explains why he fastened on you instead. Might as well join the queue, am I right?"

Harry could have added a name or two to the pool, but thought better of it. Instead he slipped the mirror into its case and tucked it into his coat pocket. "One week, then." Maybe by then he would find the whole situation less unsettling.


...~…~…~…~…~…


The next day was Saturday, so Harry couldn't take the mirror to his lab to investigate it. There were quite a few probing spells he knew, though, that he could try at home. The mirror came up clean, so Harry allowed himself a quick look. He found himself watching Malfoy playing fetch with a couple of crups on the front lawn of Malfoy Manor. Under any other circumstances, Harry would have felt guilty spying on him, but Blaise had convinced him—barely—that he was doing Malfoy a kindness. He checked in on him again later in the day—Malfoy was reading—and once more that evening—he was leafing through a copy of Clever Clara's Household Hints and copying something on a parchment. Harry belatedly caught on that Malfoy was writing his daily owl, and it made him squirm a bit.

On Sunday, he was privy to a round of Malfoy eating, napping, and enjoying an evening walk. It all seemed oddly domestic and harmless. In fact, it was a bit like owning one of those silly Tamagotchi pets he'd seen a Muggle girl playing with on a long train ride. She'd shown him how pushing its little buttons kept the thing fed and happy, and told him that if she didn't take care of it every day, it would sicken, starve, and die. Which Harry found rather grim going for a digital toy.

He didn't know if neglecting Malfoy would go so far as killing him, but he wasn't going to chance it. He kicked up the number of times he checked up on him that day, though, just to be on the safe side. Still, he couldn't help remembering what Blaise had said about Malfoy's crush. He wondered if it showed somehow, and then felt stupid. What was he expecting, anyway, glimpses of his Witch Weekly covers adorning Malfoy's bedroom walls?

Monday morning he slept in and was late for work, so he forgot all about bringing the mirror with him to test in his lab. Instead, he sent himself notes that travelled to the Ministry proper and back again, turning up an hour later and prompting him to think of Malfoy. Tuesday he was on time but forgot the mirror all the same, leaving it propped up beside the shaving mirror in his bathroom, where he'd been watching Malfoy buttering toast and deboning kippers. On Wednesday he managed to remember it but was sent out to Tuffnell Park and away from his lab for the entire day, and Thursday brought a surprise visit from some sub-minister whose function he never learned, which left him no time to check out the mirror. He expected to hand the thing over to Zabini on Friday, so he didn't bother bringing it then.

Instead, he got an owl asking for one more week. Zabini claimed to have found an imp specialist who was close to fashioning a counterspell. The first week spent thinking about Malfoy hadn't been much of a hardship, really, and was actually getting to be a habit, so Harry agreed.

And then it all began to fall apart on Saturday night.

There was nothing good on TV, so he'd been idly wondering what Malfoy was up to. That was good, right? Kept the bugger visible. And he knew, when the mirror showed Malfoy undressing and sliding into his bath, he should have stopped watching that instant.

But he didn't.

The truth was, Harry had been celibate for much too long, and one look at Malfoy, naked and relaxed, had stirred his libido. And even though there was a tiny chance that Malfoy might start to wonder just why he was so persistently visible, Harry just couldn't look away.

When Malfoy started running his hands over his own body, lower and lower, Harry really couldn't look away. When he started fondling himself, Harry was mesmerized.

It was better than internet porn—not that Harry watched internet porn, or much anyway—because Malfoy was totally unaware of his audience. There was nothing about it that suggested a performance except for his own pleasure. His mouth was open a little and Harry wished he could hear the sounds he was making. Maybe Malfoy was no saint, but at that moment he looked positively angelic.

And Harry felt like the worst sort of sinner after it was over.

Sunday was a miserable combination of guilt and curiosity. He found himself checking and rechecking the mirror for signs of a repeat performance, trying to convince himself that at least Malfoy was benefitting from his near-constant focus.

When he used the image of a naked Malfoy to bring himself off that night, he started to worry. When he had a seriously erotic dream about Malfoy the next night, he lost a few hours of sleep over it. When he called in sick on Tuesday so that he could watch Malfoy instead, he realized he had a big problem. And then it hit him full force, something he had stupidly overlooked all week: Malfoy's mirror had enchanted him so that he was as obsessed with Malfoy as the prat was with him!

He raced to his lab in Neasden, the mirror securely locked in a lead-lined box, and berated himself all the way there over his negligence. He, of all people, should know better than to trust anything the Malfoys had owned. Obviously, that complacency had been part of the mirror's curse, too. The question was, who concocted the plot, Blaise or Draco himself? As he worked, he grew angrier. They were nothing but devious bastards, both of them. And with any luck, all his evil thoughts were turning Malfoy into something that would frighten a troll.

He started by checking for the eight minor variations of Imperius. Nothing. He came up blank on lust spells, entrancing enchantments, and perversion charms. There was no trace of a single bedazzling hex, binding charm, blood bond, confundus, or even a jelly-brain jinx. It was nearly midnight when he finally revealed the secret magic behind the mirror.

A simple nanny spell. The mirror did exactly what Blaise had said it did: it allowed someone to be watched from afar. Mothers used it all the time to keep track of their children.

And that meant Harry couldn't blame the mirror for his new-found…whatever it was…over Draco Malfoy.

In shock, Harry wondered just how long his latest thoughts of Draco Malfoy would have gone unexamined without Zabini's visit. His early Hogwarts memories were imprinted with hatred of the selfish, useless child Malfoy had been. The later years with Malfoy were punctuated with episodes of adolescent passion—jealousy, fury, distrust, loathing. But as he matured, so did his understanding of some of the hidden things driving Malfoy's actions. Every later memory was awful, but he made himself revisit them all. Malfoy's breakdown in the girls' bathroom. His lowered wand on the tower. His pitiful yet successful attempt at hiding Harry's identity at Malfoy Manor. The first time his hand slipped out of Harry's in the Fiendfyre disaster because he wouldn't let go of Goyle and leave him to die.

Even when he'd begun to get an inkling of why Malfoy did the things he did, he couldn't forgive him. It wasn't until he discovered that Dumbledore, his mentor, counsellor, and friend, was just as capable of the same self-serving acts that he finally got it and let go of his hatred.

But that didn't begin to explain what he was feeling now. It was one thing to stop despising Malfoy and something else again to turn him into wanking material.

Unfortunately, one look in the mirror showed that all his earlier nasty thoughts had left Malfoy looking more like a despondent Yeti than a pinup from Wand-Polisher. Feeling enormously guilty and not a little New Age-y, Harry worked at evoking the most positive feelings about him that he could. It did wonders for Malfoy but made Harry's little predicament worse.

He settled on returning the mirror, harmless or not, to Blaise as soon as he could. Instead, an owl arrived early the next morning with the happy news that Blaise had found someone who could perform the counterspell and could Harry please meet them at Malfoy Manor that evening?


...~…~…~…~…~…


"I still can't believe you told Potter about this!" Draco was in a snit and working hard at making Blaise miserable too. Blaise had been trying to smooth things over for the past half hour, but Draco was having none of it. "What exactly did you say?"

"I told you, nothing. Well, nothing much. I explained what happened in the simplest way I could and asked him to give you a spare thought now and again until we could fix things, that's all."

"That's all."

Blaise had always been a better liar than Draco. He didn't know why he bothered asking for details—he didn't believe a word of it. And now Potter was on his way to the Manor, and his humiliation would be complete.

"So after you told him nothing, he thought he'd have his fun with me last night and turn me into a grindylow?"

"I told you, he said he was having a nightmare. It was an accident."

It sounded like Potter was as good a liar as Blaise. It did support the idea, though, that Draco needed to get rid of this curse pronto. He didn't want to be beholden to Potter for the rest of his life. "So where did you find this so-called imp expert, anyway?"

"Were you even listening to me, Draco? He's one of my ex-stepfather's uncles. I don't know why I didn't think of him earlier. He's amazing! He cured my sister of a bad case of Earworms that had her hearing nothing but hair-and-fur bands for weeks. You can't imagine what it's like to listen to a steady diet of Doxy Music and A Flock of Snidgets and Grim Division. And he's practically family."

"Half the world is practically family to you," Draco muttered. Here he was, facing possible extinction at the hands of some crackpot wizard and in front of Harry Potter, no less, and Blaise was acting like they were curing him of nothing more serious than a stretching jinx.

"Calm down. Have another drink," Blaise said, already pouring. Draco wasn't sure whether it was worse to face Potter drunk or sober, but he didn't protest.

"You're absolutely sure nothing can go wrong?" he said.

"It'll all be over in an hour or two," Blaise answered, which wasn't reassuring in the least. Draco took a big gulp of his drink as a reply.

Their silence was broken by his house-elf ushering in both Potter and Blaise's wizard, who must have met up in the foyer. Draco greeted them with the expected politeness required of a host. Barely. He was painfully aware that Potter could have—and probably should have—refused to take part in this farce. Wasn't it enough that Potter had come to his rescue in front of the Wizengamot, no less, to keep him out of Azkaban? But here he was, in the flesh, solemnly nodding and shaking hands with him (again!) and acting as though this was nothing but an invitation to tea. He'd even worn a jacket, toned down by being tieless. Draco abruptly remembered that Potter hadn't been at the Manor since the travesty of their seventh year. He mentally flinched at his own stupidity. If Potter was remembering, too, he hid it well behind his glasses.

And it wasn't helping his own nerves one iota that he wanted the bastard, badly.

The wizard's name turned out to be Darvish Ragscallion, and Draco's confidence in his abilities plummeted to zero. He was rabbiting on in some thick accent that made him nearly unintelligible. Welsh? Jamaican? American? It could have been Martian for all he knew. His first impression was that Ragscallion was a large man, but that was an illusion from what turned out to be six or seven layers of cloaks, coats, and robes. He looked old—somewhere between a hundred and death.

He tried not to notice how chummy Potter and Blaise seemed. "Can we get on with this?" he asked and winced at how petulant he sounded. Blaise gave him a sharp stare, and Draco looked away in embarrassment.

Ragscallion unleashed a long speech of which Draco understood about one word in ten. The next thing he knew, Blaise was ungraciously shooed out the door, and he was left on his own to cope with Potter and the lunatic. Ragscallion's scruffy black bag regurgitated a profusion of wizardly trappings: candles and bottles, bells and powders, flotsam and jetsam of some nameless magical uses, and a massive leather-bound book. In the midst of copious unpacking, Draco, feeling awkward and self-conscious, managed to mumble, "Thanks for coming," to Potter.

"It's nothing," Potter said, which, given the state of the room and the increasing frenzy of Ragscallion, was pretty far off the mark.

Another volley of unintelligible words, this time sounding like a command, had Draco whispering, "What did he say?"

"I think he wants us to stand side by side and hold that amulet in our hands," Potter replied. Ragscallion was brandishing a plain brown stone that looked suspiciously like the ones paving the path to the manor.

"What?" But Potter already had his hand in a firm, if a bit sweaty, grip, with the so-called amulet pressed between their palms.

Ragscallion then conjured a slightly frayed leather strap and began to wind it around their wrists. Draco jerked back, confused.

"What's all this, then? We're trying to get rid of an invisibility spell, not enter into a handfasting!"

"No, no, all good," Ragscallion said, with an attempt at a reassuring pat on the shoulder that nearly knocked Draco over. "You see. Darvish Ragscallion, he know how to fix."

"I bloody well hope so." Potter gave his hand a squeeze and Draco nearly jumped out of his skin. Potter was being awfully passive about the whole thing. Surely he, of all people, had some insight into spotting Dark magic. He wouldn't be so strangely complacent if things happened to be going pear-shaped, right?

With a loud bark from Ragscallion that made Draco jump, the giant book heaved open. After an elaborate series of wand motions, the ancient wizard closed his eyes and began to intone. Nothing happened. Prying open one eye, he glared at Draco.

"What?" Draco said.

"He wants you to repeat after him," Potter said quietly.

"Oh, okay." Feeling more idiotic with every passing moment, he echoed whatever gibberish language Ragscallion was speaking. Harry had a shot at it too. Somehow he managed to sound both serious and commanding, and Draco fought down another wave of desire. It didn't help that they were standing so close.

There was more intoning and wand waving, interspersed with a lot more claptrap hauled out from the black bag. Draco was soon convinced that Blaise must be paying this madman by the hour. He thought he recognized bits and pieces of familiar spells—a Hot Air Charm morphed into a Relashio that lit up the darkened room and was topped off with a profusion of flowers from an Orchidius, all of which made Draco feel as though he were back at his sixth birthday party. A Locomotor Spell animated a set of goblets to dance upon a tray, and a Refilling Charm splashed some liquid into them. Draco hoped for something strong and mind-altering, but sadly it was only Earl Grey tea, which he drank, as commanded, in exactly 17 tiny sips. At one point, he could have sworn Ragscallion was casting the entire suite of spells that were only good for keeping Quidditch balls in play.

He and Potter were now face to face, both hands entwined and beribboned, Jobberknoll feathers sticking out of their hair and dittany stuffed into their pockets. Ragscallion had lit a bundle of knotgrass, and the acrid smoke was wafting right into his eyes and making him light-headed. His legs ached from standing, and he was becoming hoarse from so much incantation. Would this humiliation ever end?

"Now you kiss."

"What?!!" Draco squawked, and even Potter shook off his silence and said, "You're joking."

Ragscallion scowled. "Now you kiss," he said, much louder. "You want spell off, you do what Darvish tell you."

"You have the wrong spell, then," Draco said, trying to disentangle his hands from Potter's and failing. "What did Blaise tell you was wrong with me, anyway? You know this is supposed to make me visible, right?"

"Right, right. Imp magic make you invisible. This one—" he gave Potter a poke "—he think about you and poof! Visible again. This is right?"

"That's what we think," Potter answered.

"Then this work. You—" he stabbed another finger at Draco this time "—need him, I think? So. This work. You see. Just make the kiss now. You waste Darvish's time."

Draco, mortified, could feel his face burn with embarrassed heat. "Look, Potter, you don't have to go through with this. It's not that big a deal being invisible," he lied.

"No, it's…fine. Let's just try it, anyway."

Ragscallion was scowling at them, which was hardly setting the proper mood for a snog. "We must do all over again if you not make kiss soon," he said.

"Oh God, not all that again," Draco burst out, and a glance at Potter showed that he was thinking the same thing. Disappointment washed over him. This was the only chance he'd ever have with Potter, the object of so many of his erotic dreams, and the reality of what was happening instead was almost too heartbreaking to think about. "I hope you're free tomorrow for Blaise's funeral," he said, and Potter actually laughed. He was still laughing when Draco closed in on him for the kiss.

Draco thought he'd attempt a demure peck on the lips, a grandmotherly kiss to get the job done, but clearly Potter had something else in mind. The dread of repeating Ragscallion's imbecilic charade seemed to have made him determined to do this part of the enchantment thoroughly because Potter—oh god—was kissing him like he meant it. Draco's eyes flew open in shock.

He'd lost any faith he'd had in Ragscallion's peculiar spell a good hour ago, but he returned Potter's kiss with the fervour of a convert. Luckily, this new religion showed every sign that it held celibacy in contempt. Their kiss started out soft and wet and slow, just the way Draco liked it, their mouths sliding together in steady rhythm. Then Potter brought his hand up, which carried Draco's, tied together as they were, up with it. Potter's fingers tightened against his jaw for just a moment before Draco felt a tongue press past his lips in search of his own. And then Potter moaned, and the sound vibrated through his kiss; not the sound of disgust or alarm that Draco might had expected, but one full of yearning and desire. It ignited Draco's pent-up lust for Potter as thoroughly as Incendio.

Pleasure coursed through him, and for a moment he thought his legs, already weak from standing too long, were going to give out. But if this was his only chance at Potter, and he was dead certain that it was, then he was going to take full advantage of it. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears as he encouraged the kiss as far as Potter would let him. And Potter seemed to want to let him take it pretty fucking far, which made no sense, but Draco didn't want to worry about that right now.

He was dimly aware of Ragscallion's unseemly encouragement, and it crossed his mind that maybe the old wizard was some kind of perv who'd made up the bizarre counterspell to get his jollies.

Not that he had any intention of stopping. Because Potter, at least, was finally working some very powerful magic.


...~…~…~…~…~…


Draco found it utterly galling how Blaise, the great git, ended up taking full credit for the sudden and scandalous relationship between him and Potter and even began a matchmaking business on the strength of it. Well, they did say that talent often skips a generation. When the news of the affair eventually got out, it caused a huge fuss that made his episode with Finch-Fletchley look like a church social.

As a secret gesture of thanks, Draco allowed the imp-infested corner of his estate to fall into neglect and become a river sanctuary. He had to put up a notice-me-not spell, however, to keep out the lovelorn who'd heard Blaise's self-flattering story and trespassed in the hope of similar results.

The domestic bliss of bickering and make-up sex that Blaise had forfeited with Draco turned out to be much more satisfying with Harry. In fact it was years later before Draco, invisible once more after Harry triggered a sleeping hex at work that had him unconscious for a week, finally discovered that Darvish Ragscallion had been nothing more after all than a garden-variety quack.

...~…~…~…~…~…
End