When the bell rings for the end of the school day, Harry is waiting impatiently at the gates, hopping up and down and shoving his hands as far into the pockets of his jeans as they will go; the afternoon is grey and bitter cold, but he knows better than to attempt any magic near a Muggle school. He's fairly certain that the dinner lady in the big coat already suspects he's some kind of deviant, even after Maura's introduction and a flash of his most disarming smile.

"Uncle Harry!" Maura cries, pelting out of the building with her hair bouncing behind her and a shiny red lunchbox flapping in her hand as she runs to join him. "You're still here!"

"Well, yeah," Harry admits, slightly embarrassed. "I mean, I haven't just been standing here the whole time. I had a walk around the park... fed the ducks... important stuff like that."

"You're funny," Maura observes, dark eyes sparkling. She weaves her free arm through the railings and dangles toward Harry at an odd angle.

"Thanks." Harry pauses, momentarily distracted by the cacophony all around him as dozens of children stream out of the school and flood the playground, pushing and yelling and squealing as far too many bodies try to squash through the gates at once. It doesn't seem as though much has changed since his own schooldays, though the brief whiff of nostalgia is quickly wiped away by the memory of Dudley's little gang and all of the 'lesser' mortals who suffered at their hands. He knows he wasn't the only one. He sighs.

"What's the matter?" Maura asks, pitching wildly to one side and having to twist practically upside down to meet Harry's eyes.

"Nothing," he says firmly. Something about Maura tells him that she wouldn't stand for any of that kind of nonsense, not for one moment, and it's comforting. "Do you want to come over to the 'shop?"

"Okay," she says, untangling herself from the railings and wiping her hands on her grey pleated skirt. "But you have to tell Grandma first. Oh, look—there she is." She points at something behind Harry.

He turns to see Molly battling her way through the crowds with Hugo in tow. She is wrapped up against the chill in a vast, multicoloured knitted cardigan, a pair of sheepskin boots, and a sparkling beret with a peacock feather sticking out of it. Her face is pinked with cold and it lights up as she approaches Harry and hugs him roughly.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, smiling as she releases him.

Harry coughs. Injury-by-enthusiasm seems to be a common Weasley trait, whichever universe he might be in. "I was wondering if I could borrow Maura," he says.

"I'm helping," Maura supplies.

"Maura," Hugo whines, eyeing her with reproach. "We're s'posed to be looking for Wrackspurts."

"We will," she promises, leaning over to whisper in his ear. "I've got a fomfmble rbntle."

Hugo brightens. Harry and Molly exchange curious glances.

"Secretive children," she sighs, looking down at Maura and Hugo, who are exchanging significant glances of their own. "This is how it starts, Harry. One minute they're all sweetness and light, the next, they're letting off Dungbombs in their bedrooms. And then they're opening a joke shop." She sighs, shooting Harry a long-suffering smile and wrapping her cardigan more tightly around herself. "Still, it is a very successful joke shop."

"That it is," Harry agrees. He ruffles Maura's hair absently. "Anyway, this one's going to be Minister for Magic."

Molly laughs gently. "I can believe it, too. Come on, Hugo, I've been baking cakes this afternoon. You can help me ice them."

"Thanks, Molly. I'll let Gin know where she is," Harry calls as the little boy and his grandmother turn to leave.

"I'm going to ice a crocodile fighting a unicorn!" Hugo says, hanging onto Molly's hand.

Harry laughs but Maura sighs and shakes her head. "Boys are so silly sometimes. Unicorns don't fight."

"You're right," he says seriously. "Boys are very silly. That's why we need your help." He holds out his hand.

She sighs, taking it. "I know."

**~*~**

Five minutes later, Harry lets them into the workshop and lights the lamps; the sun is already beginning to set and the room is soon warmed by a soft, orange glow. Maura discards her coat and lunchbox and, with complete disregard for her school uniform, climbs onto her usual bench to watch Harry work. He thinks it may be the first time he's ever seen her not wearing red—the neat grey skirt, white shirt, and blue tie look very strange on her indeed.

"It's horrible, isn't it?" Maura says, glancing down at her uniform with disdain, and Harry realises he must have accidentally voiced his thoughts.

"No, it's not horrible. You look very grown up."

Maura blinks. "Oh."

Harry smiles to himself and assembles a collection of tools, several different flavours of wood, and his glass-blowing equipment. He lights the furnace flames with practised ease now, and sets everything out around him exactly the way he wants it. Virtually effervescing with excitement, he stands back from his workspace and takes a deep breath.

"So... I was really angry when I made the thing," he muses, tapping his fingers on the worktop.

"You were," Maura agrees, with feeling.

"Do you think I can only make art when I'm angry?" he asks, chewing his lip. He is, if he's honest, rather afraid that unless he can recreate the previous circumstances exactly, he is doomed to fail. And yet... he doesn't have any desire to relive that feeling of complete and utter fury, frustration, and self-loathing. Once was enough, really.

"I don't know." Maura shrugs apologetically. "Sorry."

Harry sighs. "Well, I suppose there's only one way to find out." He stares down at his shiny tools, his stacks of beautiful wood and the many coloured pieces of glass shimmering in the flickering light from the green furnace fires. Suddenly, he feels awkward, as though he's a Muggle conjurer who has whipped his audience into a frenzy of anticipation and then cannot remember how to get the rabbit out of the hat. Bewildered, he rubs his face.

"I think you've got to just... do it," Maura advises. "You know, like when you've got to do a handstand in P.E. If you think about it too much, you go all stiff and you can't do it."

Harry glances up at her, guiltily amused by the poorly-concealed anguish on her face. It's a very long time since he's had to do P.E., and he's not sure he's ever been able to do a handstand, but he thinks he knows what she means.

He nods. "Okay then." Taking a deep breath, he closes his eyes for a moment, thinking about 'he's an artist', and Mr Pepper's admiration of the thing, and Draco's eyes, just because, and when he opens his eyes again, he is filled with an oddly charged sort of calm. Without thinking, he picks up the nearest tool and the nearest piece of wood and sets to work.

**~*~**

As the sky darkens to an inky black with scattered stars, Harry works on, barely feeling his aching back or his raw, scratched hands as he creates a series of sculptures under the watchful eyes of Maura. He can't be sure exactly what he's making, but they are unusual things, and they are coming together more easily each time; his newly-discovered spellwork is becoming just as assured as his hands as he manipulates countless mysterious tools and smoothes sandpaper, friction-hot, over rough edges.

"Lusleevs," Maura mumbles as Harry finishes his third piece, a shimmering pile of oak and green glass.

Startled, Harry looks up. "What?"

"Looks like leaves," she repeats, pointing at the sculpture.

Harry steps back and looks, too. She's right. "Yeah," he says, grinning. "You don't have to be so quiet, you know. I want your opinion. I don't know what I'm doing, remember?"

"I like it. It looks like Autumn."

Harry's stomach performs a small flip of delight. He wipes his sore fingers on his apron and winces at the drag of rough fabric against raw, scraped skin. As he stretches, he gazes lazily around the room and pauses, thoughtful, when his eyes catch on the almost forgotten bottle of blue potion.

"I wonder..." he murmurs, walking slowly to the shelf, feeling every cramped muscle now. Carefully, he picks up the bottle, savouring the welcome feeling of cool glass against his skin.

"Are you going to drink it now?" Maura asks, practically vibrating with enthusiasm.

Harry uncorks the bottle, sniffing with interest at the cinnamon-scented smoke that immediately begins to escape. "You know, I think I will," he says, setting aside the leafy sculpture and wiping down his work surface. Just for... scientific purposes, of course."

"I don't really know what that means," Maura says, screwing up her freckled nose. "But you should do it anyway."

"Sounds reasonable to me," Harry says, and, in one long gulp, he swallows the potion. It tastes chalky and slightly sweet, coating his mouth and throat and sending a warm, tingling sensation all the way out to his fingertips.

"Is it nice?" Maura whispers, kneeling up on the workbench and craning her neck so far toward Harry in her excitement that she almost loses her balance.

"Mm," Harry mumbles, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "You probably wouldn't like it."

Maura pokes out her tongue. Harry does, too.

Seconds later, he's lifted into a haze of colours—bleeding, blending colours and beautiful curving shapes; he can see ghostly images of his own hands before him, smoothing and cutting and shaping and casting; his fingers are light, extraordinarily deft, sketching out shapes that he doesn't even understand, but he hastens to follow, compelled, grasping at the grain of the wood and drawing his wand, over and over, hanging on to the scent of cinnamon in his nostrils and the sound of Maura's voice as she chats away to him, anchoring him, albeit weakly, to his own consciousness. This isn't like the time he let his anger run away with him—the emotion was his, it came from him; the control, ultimately, belonged to him. This, though, this has him, and there's nothing he can do.

When he finally steps away, he's shaking and his forehead is soaked with cold sweat.

"You've finished," Maura says, and he looks up at her.

"I think so," he manages, licking the taste of dried cinnamon from his lips. "That was very odd. I think I prefer being in control." He sighs and turns the sculpture around so that Maura can see it. "What do you think?"

Her eyebrows shoot up. "It looks funny."

Harry smiles wearily, leaning against the bench. Apparently, working under a creativity potion for an hour takes it out of a person. "Funny haha, or funny peculiar?"

"Funny like it's going to eat me," Maura says.

"That can't be good," Harry sighs, and flicks his wand to vanish it. "I think we'll do without the potion from now on."

"You don't need it," Maura says stoutly.

Harry grins; he can't help it. "I don't know about that. But I suppose we'll have to find something else to do with these," he says, indicating the remaining Veneficus branches, which are stacked on the bottom shelf, carefully covered over with their silvery wrappings.

"You'd better, or I shall have to embarrass you horribly and tell you how much they cost," says a dry voice from the doorway. Harry turns to see Draco, all flickering half-smile and long, stripy scarf, leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded. Harry idly wonders if he makes a habit of listening in on the ends of people's conversations; there's certainly something about the dramatic entrance that he seems to relish.

"I didn't hear you come in," Harry says faintly.

"You never do," Draco says, shooting an exasperated look at Maura, who beams conspiratorially as though she had known that Draco was there all along. "I had a feeling you'd go straight for that potion."

"We made smoke and a sandwich first," Maura points out, and Harry wonders just whose side she is on.

Draco laughs softly. "All the important things," he agrees, stepping into the shop and bending to examine each of Harry's completed sculptures in turn. "I see you're in one of those creative phases."

Heart racing, Harry glances at Maura, who shrugs and watches Draco, too.

"Er... so it would seem," Harry manages at last.

"I like this," Draco says, trailing his fingertips carefully over the leaf-like sculpture and looking up at Harry, eyes bright and smile genuine.

"See," Maura whispers, somewhat smugly.

"Thanks," Harry says, and then, realising that he has never seen Draco in the workshop before, adds: "Is everything okay?"

Straightening up, Draco turns to him and frowns. "Yes. Or is that question code for 'what the f—er, Fever Fudge are you doing in here, Draco?'"

Harry snorts. "Careful," he murmurs, amused. "And no, I was just curious."

"That's one way of putting it. Anyway, it may have escaped your notice that it is nearly eight o'clock, but it has not escaped mine, especially as it's your turn to cook dinner," Draco says, attempting to look wounded and neglected, but the only result is a giggle from Maura. "Neither has it escaped Ginevra, who fire-called a few minutes ago, wondering if and when you're planning to return her child."

"I owled her ages ago!" Harry protests, determined not to seem like the sort of person who spirits away other people's children. As Draco's words fall properly into place, his eyes widen. "Is it really eight o'clock?"

"On Frankfurto's life, it is," Draco says, crossing his heart in a theatrical gesture.

"I bet Daddy's eaten my dinner," Maura sighs.

Harry gazes at her guiltily and helps her down from the workbench, lip caught between his teeth as he thinks. "I'm sorry, Maura Fedora," he says at last. "Tell you what, I'll get you a chip sandwich from the Leaky on the way home."

Maura brightens. "Can I get mint sauce on it? And beetle bits?"

Harry wrinkles his nose but nods, turning away from Maura to hunt for a bit of parchment—he's just had an idea.

"Extra crunchy beetle bits," Draco says gravely. Maura giggles.

After a brief search, Harry finds a square of parchment that isn't too creased and smoothes his palms over it on the empty workbench until it is perfectly flat. Something about Draco's words... 'I see you're in one of those creative phases', something in the unsurprised amusement in his tone and the familiar interest in his eyes suggests that this making of... things, whilst brand new to Harry, isn't entirely without precedent. Which is interesting. And, he thinks, picking up a self-inking quill, potentially very, very good news indeed for someone who clearly cannot make furniture to save his life.

As Maura and Draco conduct an odd, giggle-punctuated conversation behind him, Harry writes a short note in green ink and his neatest script. When they all step out into the cobbled street, shivering and arguing about the proper choice of condiment for a chip sandwich, Harry rain-proofs the note with his wand and sticks it to the door of the workshop.

Until further notice, I will not be taking on commissions for items of furniture as I will be working on abstract pieces and hand-blown (Muggle method) glassware. Please come in and enquire/look around. Apologies for any inconvenience.

HP

**~*~**

Midway through Wednesday morning, Harry is humming absently to himself and shaping a long, shimmering bulb of turquoise glass with slow, careful turns of the copper pipe when a large, official-looking owl collides softly with his skylight and starts up a rhythmic pecking against the glass. Harry quickly casts a series of Freezing Charms to keep everything in place, wipes his hands on his apron, and opens the door, gesturing for the owl to come around.

Seconds later, the owl swoops into the 'shop and settles itself importantly on the spare workbench, extending its message-bearing leg toward Harry.

"Thanks," he says, taking it and offering the owl a leftover crust from his breakfast bacon sandwich.

He unrolls the message and smiles to himself. It's rather comforting to see that while the note has been written on luxurious, Ministry-seal-encrusted parchment, there are no airs and graces in the words of the new Head of the Auror Department, and his handwriting is still appalling.

Harry,

Fancy coming down to the Ministry and having a look at my new office? Got no meetings til one. Send Horatio back with your reply so that Marsha won't hold you up with a hundred security questions.

Ron.

Harry reads and re-reads the short note several times, a strange tightness wrapping around his chest. The idea of going to the Ministry, to Auror HQ, no less, is oddly daunting, and it doesn't seem to matter how little sense it makes to feel that way. In reality—whatever that is—it has been less than a month since he last walked through those corridors as an overworked, exhausted person of some significance. It's no time at all, and yet he feels, already, as though he's a completely different person.

Exhaling slowly, Harry gathers himself and scribbles an affirmative reply to Ron before he can lose his nerve. He reattaches it to the owl and returns to his glassblowing, allowing Horatio enough of a head-start to put the apparently safety-conscious Marsha at her ease. When he's done, he places the finished piece into the green flames, pulls on his blue-flecked wool coat, and heads out into the crisp morning.

**~*~**

It takes Harry quite some time to make his way through the main Ministry building, up to Auror HQ and along the familiar panelled corridor to his old office—to Ron's office—to the office of the Head of the Auror Department, he settles at last. Like in Diagon Alley, everyone seems to want to greet him in the hallways, stop to chat in the busy Atrium, or hold up packed lifts to tell him how marvellous it is to see him at the Ministry again. By the time he steps into the small, beeswax-scented anteroom, Ron is waiting for him, hovering in the doorway of his private office and muttering under his breath to a severe-looking middle-aged lady who is seated behind a vast mahogany desk, nodding at regular intervals and tapping her quill against her chin.

"Mr Potter is here, sir," she says suddenly, sharp dark eyes fastening onto Harry.

"Thanks, Marsha, I can see that," Ron mumbles, grinning at Harry; he looks as though he can't decide whether to be amused, embarrassed, or proud, and ends up just looking as though he's about to throw up.

"You'll need a visitor's pass, Mr Potter," Marsha says briskly, rising from her desk and preparing a shiny silver badge with a flurry of wand-flicks and muttered incantations; within a matter of seconds it is attached firmly to the lapel of Harry's coat and winking in the lamplight with the engraved message:

Harry Potter

Visitor to R.B. Weasley, Head of the Auror Department.

11.38am, 3rd January, 2018.

Security Clearance: basic/personal visit

Harry releases the badge after absorbing the words and thanks Marsha. She's certainly efficient, and she has no idea that such low-level security clearance makes him want to laugh inside.

"Er, right, we'll be in my office, then," Ron says, gesturing to Harry, who follows him past the desk and through the door.

"Very good, Mr Weasley," she says, already looking through a sheaf of parchments.

"I see you went for biscuits over youthful good looks," Harry teases as he closes the door behind him.

Ron snorts. "As if I had a choice. They are good biscuits, though... d'you want one?"

Harry takes a bumpy oatmeal biscuit from the proffered plate and bites into it as he looks around the office he knows so well. It's like looking into his old life... except that it isn't quite. The desk is the same, as are the horrible velvet curtains that Harry has always hated; the filing cabinets—slightly dented—are still there, and the spell damage to the skirting boards near the door, which was there when Harry moved into the office, remains a comforting reminder that everyone loses their temper sometimes.

But Harry definitely never bought an orange rug with Chudley Cannons 1698 emblazoned across it, and to his memory, his office never smelled so biscuity. Chewing thoughtfully on Marsha's admittedly delicious creation, Harry examines with interest the collection of photographs Spellotaped to the wall opposite the desk, and the blackboard with its multi-coloured, squiggling chalk lines.

"What do you think?" Ron asks, a note of nervousness in his voice. "It's a lot bigger than my last office... and I don't have to share any more. Obviously. It's a bit strange, really."

Harry dusts the crumbs off his fingers and absently watches them fall to the floor before he turns around to face Ron, who is now sitting on the edge of his desk and fixing Harry with anxious blue eyes. It's evident now, painfully so, that he is looking for Harry's approval, for the confirmation from his best friend that he's done well for himself. Harry gives himself a shake and fights through the tide of his confusion to find a smile for Ron.

"It's brilliant. You've got a nice big fireplace, too," he says, stepping over to the fire and warming his hands behind his back. "It gets really cold in here sometimes... I imagine," he adds quickly, but Ron doesn't seem to notice, and Harry directs his silent sigh of relief at the floor.

"Yeah, I've had the fire lit since I got here. Marsha's brilliant with it; I think she gets here about six in the morning to get everything sorted." He shoots Harry a conspiratorial look. "I'm not sure she ever goes to sleep."

Harry snorts. "Lucky you." He has had the same secretary for nearly ten years now, and he has always been nagged by the belief that she sees him as nothing more than a noisy, messy entity that creates unnecessary work for her.

Ron wrinkles his nose. "I don't know about that, mate. I get enough of that at home—it's like being surrounded by superwomen. Disturbing."

Harry laughs, discomfort dissolving at last. "Well, don't let her frighten you. Remember, you're the big boss now."

Ron shifts on the edge of the desk, gripping the smooth mahogany with large hands and looking, just for a moment, like the uncertain boy Harry met at the train station all those years ago. Just for a moment, and then the accomplished, successful father of two is back, lifting his head to grin at Harry and scrub his vivid hair out of his face with a brown sleeve. He deserves this. He's ready.

"You're going to be brilliant, you daft bugger," he says roughly, shoving his hands into his coat pockets.

"Yeah... yeah, of course," Ron says, nodding. "Thanks."

"I'm not flattering you. I mean it," Harry insists. "You will be."

"You'd have been better," Ron says, so quietly that Harry almost doesn't hear it, but there's no self-pity in his voice, no trace of bitterness. It's as though he's just stating a fact, albeit one with which Harry doesn't agree.

"I don't think I would," Harry sighs, and even as he does, his knee twinges and wobbles beneath him, but he manages to hold himself firm, needing to make Ron believe him.

"I know we don't really talk about this, Harry, but everyone knows that you would've—"

"Everybody knows bollocks, Ron. I chose a different path and I'm far happier with it than I would've been doing this job... this job was made for you. You're going to do it far better than I ever could have done, and I'm going to trundle around in my little workshop making weird things..."

"You're making weird arty stuff again?" Ron interrupts.

"Yeah, and that's... well, it's exactly how things should be," Harry says, the back of his throat prickling. "I know I'm not really the person to be giving advice, but... don't waste your time feeling insecure."

"Thanks, mate," Ron says at last, looking slightly startled. "You're... you know..." he mumbles, apparently unable to find the words, shrugging his shoulders in Harry's direction and going slightly pink. Harry can feel a Weasley shoulder-slap coming on. He braces himself and perches on the desk beside Ron. When the extra-strength, slightly violent approximation of 'You're my best friend, you are' hits him, he holds in his wince and just elbows Ron in the ribs.

"Watch it," Ron murmurs, reaching for another biscuit. "If Marsha finds out you're assaulting the Head of the Auror Department in his own office, she'll have your balls."

"I'm really scared," Harry deadpans, taking off his coat and re-attaching his silver visitor's pin to his shirt.

"You should be. Apparently she was some kind of duelling champion when she was younger," Ron says. "And she's scary when she's mad. You should have heard her yelling at that giant prick Goldstein when he tried to come in here without an appointment."

"When?" Harry asks, already on his guard at the mention of that giant prick Goldstein.

"Last week some time. He wanted my signature for some report or other. To be honest," Ron admits, leaning back on his hands and looking guiltily at the ceiling, "I did wait a bit longer than necessary to go and rescue him from her. I've never seen anybody look so white... I almost felt sorry for him. 'Course, that was before I found out about what he did to Neville."

"Yeah." Harry scowls. "Have you seen him since? Neville, I mean? Is he alright?"

"I haven't seen him, but Ginny and Blaise were round the other night and they said he was okay. Think his pride's a bit hurt... don't blame him, really. And he does feel a bit daft about falling for all the rubbish Goldstein spouted about fancying him at school."

Harry shakes his head. "It's not his fault. It's not as though any of the rest of us have never been taken in by someone."

"That's exactly what Ginny said to him," Ron sighs. "Trouble is, he's already convinced no one finds him... you know... attractive," he confides, lowering his voice as though he's uttering some kind of profanity. Glancing at Harry briefly, he adds: "If you ask me, his only problem is that he takes his job so seriously, he doesn't have time for... other stuff."

Harry blinks. He's astonished that Ron has a perspective on other people's relationships—or lack thereof—at all. "You're one to talk, bloody Head of the Auror Department!" he says at last.

Ron frowns and scuffs one untied shoe on his Chudley Cannons rug. "Hmm. Never mind that. I'm just saying... there's no need for him to be on his own. He's very... eligible."

"That's a Hermione word if I ever heard one," Harry laughs.

"I know plenty of words," Ron says, affecting a wounded tone. "I'm very important."

"How come you sound like a fishwife, then?" Harry asks.

Ron lifts a ginger eyebrow. "What's a fishwife?"

Harry frowns. "I don't know."

Ron snorts, meeting Harry's eyes, and there's a split-second of silence before both of them burst into confused, breathless laughter. Which is how Marsha finds them when she raps on the door some minutes later.

"Forgive me for interrupting, sir, but... oh. Is everything alright?" She stops short in the doorway, sharp dark eyes flicking between Harry and Ron, who are still sitting on the edge of the fancy desk and snickering like schoolboys.

"Fine, Marsha," Ron manages, wheezing slightly and getting to his feet. "We're good. Do you need something?"

Marsha's gaze lingers for a moment on Harry and he has the unpleasant sensation that, for reasons passing his understanding, he is being regarded with the utmost suspicion. Something about the expression on her face tickles him, and he looses a snort before he can control himself and look at the floor, mouth firmly closed.

"Hmm," she says, pursing her lips in obvious disapproval. "If you are sure. Mr Fitzwilliam would like to see you in his office, if you have a moment." She pauses. "Mr Fitzwilliam is the Head of Magical Law Enforcement," she adds, apparently for Harry's benefit.

"I know," Harry says faintly, resisting the temptation to ask if she knows how his early morning jogging is going.

"Thanks, Marsha," Ron says, rounding the desk and leafing through folders and bits of parchment. She makes a small sound of acknowledgment and then takes her leave. "Sorry about this, Harry. He's..." He lowers his voice, "he's seriously hard work at the moment. Thinks someone's following him." Ron rolls his eyes and Harry merely nods, knowing that Ron's new boss isn't as paranoid as he appears.

"I'd better get back to the 'shop, anyway," he says, sliding down onto his feet. "Weird things to make."

Ron grins. "It's good to see you. I've been dying to show off."

Harry pauses, wrapping his fingers around the doorframe and listening to the scratching of Marsha's quill in the next room. "You've every reason to. I'm pleased for you. I'll see you soon," he says, flashing a smile and pulling the door closed behind him. He sets the silver badge down on Marsha's desk as he passes, nodding politely to her and getting out into the hallway as quickly as possible.

The lift is empty, and Harry leans against the wall as he travels down toward the Atrium, exhaling slowly and closing his eyes. Ron clearly expects him to be envious, to resent the lost opportunity, but, try as he might to search for it, the feeling just... isn't. The flicker of emotion experienced at the sight of his office of over ten years belonging to someone else isn't enough. It isn't nearly enough.

Harry sighs. The lift jerks to a stop and the grille slides back. A calm female voice is announcing the level and nearby offices, but Harry isn't listening.

"Are you actually following me?" he demands, pushing off the wall to stand up straight.

"Of course not," Goldstein demurs, wrapping a pure white scarf around his neck and tucking it neatly into his coat. "I'm meeting a friend for lunch."

"You have friends?" Harry mutters, unable to stop himself.

"Of course." Goldstein's brow wrinkles in brief concern. "I take it that Draco is still unhappy with me regarding the other night."

Harry's eyebrows shoot up at the casual phrasing and weary tone. "He's more than unhappy, believe me, and so am I. What you did was... so fucking wrong that I don't even have a word for it. I'm not sure why I'm even talking to you right now... why am I doing that?" he mutters, trailing off into silence and slumping back against the wall, scrubbing restlessly at his hair.

"Perhaps you can't resist," Goldstein says softly. "I understand. You don't have to fight this, Harry."

Harry's eyes snap to him immediately. Chest tight with fury, he clenches his fingers into painful fists at his sides, itching to reach for his wand and barely hanging on to his control.

"I... oh, for fuck's sake. Are we speaking a completely different language here?"

Anthony laughs softly. "I don't know, are we?"

"All I want to say is leave me alone," Harry says, feeling like he's spelling out each word, fingers grazing his wand through the soft fabric of his coat.

"Atrium," announces the cheery voice as the lift shudders to a stop and Harry glances away from Goldstein to see five or six smartly-dressed Ministry employees waiting to board. He pulls the grille open and holds it open for them. In the inevitable rush of 'Hello, Mr Potter'-s and 'How do you do, Mr Potter'-s that follows, Goldstein slips away.

Harry stalks across the crowded Atrium, footsteps ringing out on the marble, heading for the nearest safe Apparation Point with one thought circling his mind:

I should have hexed him while I had the chance.

**~*~**

"You definitely should not," Draco says later that night, when he has finally torn himself away from his work, completed his usual cycle of disgruntled mumbling and stretching and idle threats to give up investigative journalism and start an eel farm or a dance troupe or his own Quidditch team, and stomped up the stairs to the bedroom.

As Harry sprawls on the bed in his thin t-shirt and boxers and fills him in on the day's events, Draco flits around the room and performs his 'getting ready for bed' routine, the rhythm of which is now soothingly familiar to Harry. Shirt, folded neatly, dropped into the washing basket. Sweater, stroked into a smooth square under careful palms, dropped into the washing basket. A much appreciated shirtless interlude, in which Draco makes imperceptible adjustments to the closet doors and taps at the handles with his fingertips, up, then down the row of wardrobes, careful to balance each side.

It is at this point that he turns to look at Harry, one eyebrow raised, waiting for a response. Harry, who has been utterly caught up in watching the shift of light muscles under pale skin and the slide of blond hair across sharp cheekbones, has no idea what sort of response might be expected of him.

"Sorry, what?"

Draco sighs, meeting Harry's eyes for a moment's exasperation before he begins to unfasten the many complicated buttons on his trousers.

"I said, you definitely shouldn't have hexed that idiot Goldstein," he repeats. "I think your admittedly capricious self-control chose a rather useful moment to show itself."

Unsure quite whether or not he is being insulted, Harry tips his head back to glance at Draco, but his face, caught in concentration as he fiddles with the last of the buttons, gives nothing away.

"You never know," Harry sighs, pillowing his head on his arms and staring once more at the flickering patterns of lamplight on the ceiling, "it might've actually got through to him."

"Doubtful," Draco says. "And anyway, if I'd hexed him every time I wanted to over the last few months, I doubt he'd still be standing now."

Harry bites down on a smile as something warm leaps in his chest. "Which would be a great loss, I'm sure."

Draco laughs, lowering himself to sit on the end of the bed as he removes his trousers, socks, and boxers and folds them neatly. Placing them next to himself in a neat pile of black fabric, he runs a hand down Harry's side, lingering over the patch of bare skin just above his waistband.

"That depends on how you look at it, really. I doubt many people would miss him, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say you'd miss me if I had to spend the next twenty years in Azkaban... although, on the plus side, I'd finally be able to shut my father up on the 'you don't know what it's like' front, wouldn't I?" he adds thoughtfully, fingers tapping at Harry's hip in contemplation.

Harry twists to look up at his impressive profile. His brow is furrowed as though in genuine consideration, and Harry pokes him in the side.

"Your optimism is terrifying, Malfoy," he murmurs.

There's a sharp intake of breath as Draco turns to meet his eyes, and the heat that flares there leaves Harry in no doubt that he—or at least some part of him—spoke deliberately. And he has no idea where it came from, but the warmth flooding his groin and the intent flush to Draco's pale skin are more than enough to persuade him to go with it.

"Strong words, Potter. Are you sure you know what they all mean?" he shoots back, voice low and dangerous. It's not exactly as he remembers it; the coldness of Draco's younger self is noticeably absent, but it still sends a thrill through Harry. Explanations are unnecessary; he knows what is expected of him here and his baser instincts crackle with it.

"I'm not afraid of you," he snaps, holding the eye contact and raising himself up on his elbows. Draco's fingers are no longer stroking his skin but splayed across his hip, pinning him with the minimum of effort. Harry knows he could move if he wanted to, but he can't bring himself to focus on anything beside the smirk, once familiar and now incongruous on Draco's lips and the blood rushing to his cock in heated, pounding anticipation.

Draco's laughter is cool, mocking, as he shakes his head and crawls sinuously across the bed, settling himself across Harry's thighs and leaning down close now, close enough for his hair to graze Harry's forehead. He shivers involuntarily, barely noticing that his wrists are being enclosed and held down firmly against the bed, barely caring, because Draco is hot and firm against his skin, he's already half hard and the fact that he's naked and Harry is sort-of dressed doesn't seem to matter at all—he's radiating power from every harsh angle, from the formidable slant of his eyebrows, from the elegant strength of the thighs gripping Harry, holding him, and from the heat-darkened grey eyes that bore down into his with pure challenge.

"You should be, Potter," he hisses, pressing Harry's wrists more firmly against the sheets. "You have no idea what I'm capable of."

"Don't talk shit, Malfoy," Harry says, narrowing his eyes and throwing himself into this... role, he supposes. He's playing himself—yet another version of himself that he's never been. It's wonderfully, thrillingly easy to slip into, as though he's done it a thousand times before.

"What did you say to me?" Draco demands, tightening his grip.

"I said... fuck," Harry spits, as sharp fingernails cut into the soft skin of his forearms. "I said don't talk shit. Everyone knows that you can't back up the things you say. It's all bollocks."

"So, you think you know all about me, do you?" Draco demands, eyes aflame.

Harry smiles breathlessly, glancing at Draco's hard, flushed cock, pressed between them, just inches from his own. "Yeah. I think you want me."

"Fuck you, Potter," Draco rasps, shifting his hips and allowing their erections to slide roughly against each other, separated only by a layer of thin, damp fabric. Harry groans. Laughs.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Just for a split-second, the corner of Draco's smirk wavers and the man Harry has come to know is back, but just as quickly the cool, mocking mask is reinstated.

"This doesn't mean I like you," he mutters, eyes intense with pure schoolboy disdain as he releases one of Harry's wrists, and, without warning or ceremony, slides his hand into Harry's boxers and wraps strong, cool fingers around his cock.

"I think you like me a little bit," Harry counters, gasping at the touch, hips jerking away from the sheets. Draco's strokes are firm, erratic, expertly inexpert, and he's burning up, staring up at those eyes and sinking into a haze of what if—what if their teenage selves had chosen a different outlet for their animosity? Would it have led to yet another future? And more to the point, would it have felt as fucking good as this?

"Whatever, Potter. You're mine," Draco says roughly, his smirk sharpening into a snarl as his fist flies over Harry's cock, dragging dry whimpers from deep in his throat, eyes flashing. Harry lifts his free hand with a half-formed intention of pulling Draco closer, overpowering him like the fierce Gryffindor he's supposed to be, but something in Draco's voice as he mutters, "Fuck, you're hot," yanks him open inside and before he has time to do anything, he's crying out and spilling, hot and fierce, into Draco's hand.

"Draco," he groans, forgetting himself. Not caring. He closes his eyes.

As he comes back to himself and blinks slowly up at Draco, he immediately registers the odd expression on the flushed, angular face. The Slytherin smirk has disappeared, and Draco's eyes are now narrowed in curious puzzlement.

"Well, you've never done that before," he says at last.

"Mm?" Harry says vaguely, partly because he's still feeling deliciously floaty, and partly because the less he says, the harder it is for him to get himself into trouble.

"Look at you," Draco sighs, releasing Harry's pinned wrist and lacing their fingers together. "I was just saying that this has to be a first... you just lying there being all... well-behaved. It's very strange."

Harry freezes. Chews his lip. Fuck. "Well, I just felt like letting you take control," he says, squeezing Draco's fingers and attempting to look seductive. Or at least convincing.

Quite possibly he fails, because Draco just raises an eyebrow and reaches for his wand on the bedside. He casts a couple of absent-minded, tingling Cleaning Charms and then slides from Harry's thighs to curl on his side, head propped up on one hand.

"You don't usually do that when you're trying to be kinky, though," he muses.

"Trying to be kinky?" Harry demands, scandalised.

Draco smiles serenely. "You know what I mean." He pauses, features drawing into a frown as he looks at Harry. "You are you, aren't you?"

Harry's heart pounds, but he feigns confusion. "Excuse me?"

"How do I know you're not just someone Polyjuiced as Harry?" Draco continues, and although Harry knows that he can't be too worried—he's lying there naked and vulnerable, after all—he can't shake the feeling that Draco isn't completely joking.

Harry swallows hard. "You don't."

Draco stares. When he speaks, the words tumble out in a quite un-Draco-like rush. "What was I wearing that night?"

Jerked back to the war, the Order, his early days as an Auror, Harry's hesitation lasts for only a fraction of a second.

"Striped pyjamas," he says quickly. "Goyle's pyjamas."

Draco visibly relaxes. The anxiety that disappears from his eyes confirms Harry's suspicions, and he struggles to control his racing pulse, knowing how close he has been to blowing his cover.

Draco, meanwhile, smiles at the memory. "He always was an idiot."

"Yeah," Harry says, already searching for a way to fix his mistake. He's an Auror—or at least he was—he can think on his feet. Of course he can. He just has to make it look realistic. "Anyway," he adds, gazing evenly at Draco, "what about you? How do I know that you're you? If we're going to start throwing security questions around, then... when exactly was our first kiss?" he throws out, hoping his genuine curiosity isn't as obvious as it feels.

Draco snorts derisively. "What kind of security question is that? I could be Hermione or Ginevra or Weasley himself, for that matter—he certainly had an eyeful that night." He grimaces and curls further into himself, earlier arousal apparently forgotten.

Intrigued, Harry bites back a flurry of inquiries. "Just answer the bloody question."

"Fine," Draco sighs. "When exactly? I think it was about half past eleven at night... let's say eleven thirty-two, shall we? It was the Weasleys' third annual Christmas party, and I believe it was a Friday, but if you check your calendar and find that I'm wrong, feel free to kick me out onto the street," he finishes, directing a long-suffering glance at Harry and scrambling under the sheets, pulling them up under his chin and shivering.

"Just checking, no need for the attitude," Harry says drily, removing his remaining clothing with some effort and slumping into bed beside Draco; immediately, he finds himself draped and tangled with frozen, heat-seeking limbs. He sighs and says nothing.

"There's always a need when you're reminding me about getting caught kissing my supposed best friend behind a half-dead hydrangea bush in the Weasleys' back garden," Draco says huffily. "Not exactly an auspicious start to a relationship."

Harry grins, delighted by the reluctant warmth flickering in Draco's eyes and the fact that he is now able to click another piece of his past into place.

"I don't know, you're still here, aren't you?"

"So it would seem," Draco says, reflecting Harry's smile wearily back to him. He rests his head on Harry's shoulder and sighs. "I've been spending too much time with Fitzwilliam, I think. I'm apparently losing my mind... what's left of it."

"Age," Harry coughs, fully expecting the flick to the ribs that follows. "I almost forgot to tell you—he seems to have worked out that someone's following him."

Draco scowls. "I'm not following him. I'm carefully infiltrating his inner circle."

Harry just buries his face in the pillow and laughs.

**~*~**

The next few days pass without incident, and by mid-January, Harry is becoming comfortable in his new routine; he is wearing himself a smooth, contented little groove in which he can rattle along quite happily without feeling trapped, even for a moment. It's astonishingly liberating.

Crawling into bed satisfied and content rather than tense and exhausted allows him to sleep deeply and rise with relatively few complaints when his copper clock rings and smokes for attention in the mornings. Harry notices the restorative power of sleep in his vigorous appearance in the mirror, in his smooth skin and bright eyes, and in the wonderful absence of pounding head pain; he also wonders, in quieter moments, just how he has managed to push himself along for so many years without collapsing from exhaustion. He doesn't have to think too hard to come up with three good reasons, and fuck, he misses them.

But he's here now, and, hanging hard onto Boris' promise, he throws himself into his work, experimenting wildly and pouring his jumble of emotions into odd sculpture after odd sculpture: he finds a weird little spell for the Veneficus in one of the books in the morning room and makes a series of small pieces that give off massive amounts of heat with a simple wand-flick; he makes a delicate combination of thin, curly oak pieces and vivid orange glass that reminds him of Lily, and a huge, multi-coloured glass bowl that is misshapen, feels like confusion, and sells for an obscene amount of Galleons just hours after completion. Puzzled but pleased, he sets to work making a whole series of them, each larger than the last.

He still doesn't think of himself as any kind of artist, and he discards as many pieces as he displays for sale, but as long as he switches off and doesn't worry about trying to impress anyone, he finds it comes naturally. So naturally, in fact, that he feels slightly sore that nobody from his old life has ever encouraged him to try something creative. Still, he can't help but feel he's finding his place.

On a quiet Friday afternoon, he sticks up a 'Back Soon!' sign and heads for Richenda's, where he spends an enjoyable half hour browsing the various sections and picking out an armful of new records for the workshop.

"You look well, Mr Potter!" she booms, jewelled earrings dangling as she leans over to take Harry's purchases. "Something of a departure from your last selection," she adds, arching one dark eyebrow.

Harry grins sheepishly. "Well, these ones are for me. Pleasure rather than business, if you like."

"Yes, of course, I remember now." She leans still closer, wrapping her fingers around his stack of records, crimson nails tapping on the shiny cardboard. "How did it go, Mr Potter? I must know!"

"I think it worked," Harry says thoughtfully, breathing in the heavy scent of dried flowers and vinyl and recalling his extraordinary duet with Lucius. "I could've done better, but you know how in-laws are."

"Oh, yes," Richenda agrees gloomily. "Well, I hope you enjoy these better. Perhaps they will be inspirational... I've heard you're branching out again, Mr Potter—glass, is it?"

Harry takes his heavy string-handled bag and blinks, mildly surprised. "Er, yeah... I didn't realise you knew about that."

Richenda laughs, shaking her glossy black hair. "Anyone who is anyone knows about it, I assure you."

Embarrassed, Harry scrubs at his hair and gestures toward the door. "Well, that's... hmm... I'd better get back to it, then. Thanks for these," he says hurriedly, holding up the bag and waving as he pulls open the door and steps out into the wintry sunshine of Diagon Alley.

"Goodbye, Mr Potter!" she calls after him.

He shakes his head and clatters over the cobbles to the 'shop. When he gets there, he finds an unfamiliar owl waiting, perching on the low wall and hopping territorially back and forth as a large ginger and white cat tries to curl up on the wall in a patch of sunlight. Harry watches for a moment, amused, as the cat flattens its ears and attempts to defend its position but, with a forceful hoot, the owl goes to nip it on the nose and it leaps down from the wall, hissing, and disappears behind the flapping sandwich board for the Dragondale Deli.

"Well, that was impressive," Harry says, sitting carefully beside the owl.

It hoots and puffs up its feathers before holding out its leg for Harry to take the message.

"Thank you," he says, unrolling the parchment. "I haven't got anything for you, I'm afraid, but..."

Before Harry can finish his sentence, though, the owl has spread its wings and taken off. Bemused, Harry watches until it is no more than a brown dot in the distance, and then turns to the letter.

Dear Mr Potter,

My name is Larson Clearwater and I am the primary feature writer for the Arts and Culture section of the Daily Prophet. I would like to put together an article about you and your work, particularly your new abstract pieces and glassware. As such, would it be possible to come to your workshop some time this week to conduct an interview and take some photographs?

Please let me know when you have an opening; I understand that your schedule must be very busy indeed.

Yours in gratitude,

L. Clearwater.

"Arts and Culture?" Harry mutters incredulously. "Me? That's ridiculous."

"Oww," says the ginger cat, sticking its head out from the middle of the sandwich board and glancing twitchily around, possibly for the belligerent owl.

"Well, you tell them that," he sighs, looking at the letter again, just in case it might have changed somehow.

The cat flicks its tail and blinks large green eyes at Harry. Apparently, it has no more to say on the subject. Harry shoves Mr Clearwater's letter into the bag with his records and gets to his feet. He heads for the 'shop, stretching out his sore arm muscles and preparing for an afternoon of hard work.

Draco will have an opinion, no doubt.

As it turns out, when Draco reluctantly releases the death grip on his teacup to squint at the letter, he merely laughs, passes it back to Harry and says, "I was beginning to worry—you haven't been in the Prophet for almost two months."

Harry accepts the letter back and slumps onto the worn leather sofa, pulling his feet up onto the cushions and wrapping the crisp parchment around his fingers as he thinks. Finally, unable to think of a reason why not, Harry writes his acceptance, advising Mr Clearwater that a Saturday would be best. After all, if he's going to do this weird, weird thing, he's going to need help.

Help arrives just before nine o'clock on the following Saturday morning, in the form of a vividly-dressed Maura, who practically bounces out of the fireplace to meet him.

"Come on, Uncle Harry, we're going to be late!"

Ginny, stepping out onto the hearthrug behind her daughter, rolls her eyes. "Calm down, madam, before you make yourself sick. Or explode." She turns to Harry, hitching her huge bag up on her shoulder. "I've heard nothing but 'we're going to be in the paper' since last week. And it's all your fault," she says, flashing Harry a wry smile.

"Sorry. It's all part of my strategy—the more time they spend taking pictures of her, the less time they have to ask me stupid questions."

Ginny laughs. "If only all strategies were so foolproof. Maybe then I'd have some confidence about beating the Harpies today. Or even just not getting trashed by them, to be honest," she admits, sighing.

"You have a home-ground advantage, Mummy," Maura pipes up. "And your Seeker is better than their Seeker."

Ginny grins at Harry and drops to her knees to hug her daughter tightly. "Thank you. Keep thinking good thoughts. And don't get in Uncle Harry's way, okay?" She straightens up, ruffling Maura's hair. "I'll pick her up after the match."

"We're going for ice cream," Maura informs Harry. "Me and Mummy and Daddy."

"Chocolate and candlewax? Fudge and carrot? Lamb and strawberry?" Harry teases.

Maura pulls a face. "You are very silly sometimes," she says gravely, and behind her, her mother barely manages to conceal her amusement. Harry sets his hands on his hips and lifts an eyebrow.

"I'm going to go," Ginny says loudly, pointing at the fireplace and patting her bag. "Players to go, places to yell at... erm, motivate... or something," she stumbles, almost dropping her Floo powder and giggling her way into the green flames.

Harry and Maura exchange glances.

"Do you really think I'm silly?" he asks after a moment.

Maura blinks large dark eyes up at him. "A bit."

"Is that a bad thing?" he asks, aware that this is the real question, the one he's been wondering about.

She frowns and her freckled nose wrinkles in confusion. "No," she says slowly, as though it's obvious.

Harry smiles. "Good. Shall we go and get our pictures taken?"

**~*~**

"Do you like my dress?" Maura asks some time later as she and Harry sit side by side on a workbench in the much-cleaner-than-usual workshop, waiting for Mr Clearwater to arrive.

Harry looks, taking in the inevitably scarlet garment with its pretty buttoned collar and embroidered ring of snails around the bottom of the skirt. "Very fancy," he pronounces. "Do you like mine?"

Maura laughs. "You're not wearing a dress! But I like your jumper," she admits, reaching out to stroke the soft, jade green wool of Harry's sleeve.

"Thank you. It's Uncle Draco's. He seemed to think it was the best colour to wear for having my photograph taken," he confides, mouth twitching at the memory of Draco's last words before he had dashed out for some kind of meeting: 'Not that I care, of course, but you should wear this one or this one', followed by a tiny smirk and a careless clatter of hangers and heavy fabric on top of Harry's sleepy form before he had stalked out of the room in a whisk of leather and stripes.

"Oh," Maura says, puzzled. She glances down at her dress again, kicking out the skirt so that it swishes around her knees. "Daddy got this for me. Mummy was not very happy at all," she says darkly.

Harry chews his lip. "Why not?"

"It came from Twilfitt's," Maura says, a meaningful look in her dark eyes.

"You've lost me," Harry says. "Sorry."

"That means it was very expensive," she informs him.

"Ah, of course," Harry says. And then: "I thought your dad didn't like colours."

Maura looks up from where she has been brushing an invisible speck from her dress. "He doesn't like them for him. He likes them for me." She shrugs.

"That's because he loves you," he says, gripping the cold edge of the bench hard. Maura frowns lightly. "Just trust me."

"Okay," Maura says, almost in a whisper, and then there's a knock at the door.

"Ready?" Harry slides to his feet and flattens his hair pointlessly.

"Yep."

"I suppose I should let them in, then," Harry says, barely resisting the urge to spell the door transparent and get a good look at the interlopers in advance. Difficult though it is to break his years-old distrustful habit, especially when it comes to reporters, Harry finds a smile and reaches for the door handle. Things are different here. This man isn't going bite him, especially with a child present.

Maura leans forward eagerly on the bench, completely unaware that she's functioning as a safety device for a grown man. "Go on," she whispers.

"Alright," he mutters, pulling a face at the door for a satisfying fraction of a second before reinstating the smile and pulling the handle. "Hello, Mr Clearwater."

The man on the doorstep grins at him, showing bright white teeth in a tanned, slightly lined face. "How does it go, Mr Potter, how does it go?" he inquires, almost bellowing into Harry's face, the delivery somewhat at odds with his frightfully refined accent.

"It, er... certainly goes," Harry manages, stepping back and allowing Mr Clearwater into the workshop, followed by a vast, pink-skinned mountain of a man whom Harry had somehow failed to notice until he had moved.

Now, he trundles slowly around the 'shop without a word, cradling his camera against his chest and sweeping the space with curious blue eyes that are just visible underneath a messy blond thatch of hair. Maura watches him, apparently fascinated, from her perch atop the workbench.

"Don't mind Karlo, Mr Potter, he's just getting a feel for the place. The light, and such," Mr Clearwater calls, removing his heavy winter cloak to reveal a natty three-piece suit in tweed. He throws the cloak over one arm and removes a copper pocket watch from his waistcoat. Squints at it through square, wire-rimmed glasses that are not dissimilar to Harry's, and sighs. "Time marches on! Karlo, must you?"

Wondering just when he's expected to get a word in, Harry turns to see the gargantuan photographer standing precariously on a workbench and poking at the skylight above with a sausage-like finger. He's not worried; those benches seem to be pretty solid, after all, but Mr Clearwater's face is a picture of exasperation.

"Leave Mr Potter's windows alone!" he cries.

"Good light in here," Karlo opines in a soft voice. He glances at Harry before he climbs down. "Sorry."

"No problem," Harry shrugs. "If you're going to take my picture, it might as well be in good light."

"Indeed, indeed!" Mr Clearwater agrees, striding into the pool of morning sunshine and tipping his head back into it until his salt-and-pepper hair sparkles. "Wonderful. Oh, hello!" he says suddenly, grinning at Maura. "What a fantastically spiffy dress."

"Thanks," Maura says, beaming.

"Sorry," Harry jumps in hastily, "Mr Clearwater, Mr Karlo, this is my niece, Maura. My little muse."

Karlo makes an indistinct noise and nods his huge head in recognition.

"Hello, Maura," Mr Clearwater says gravely, shaking her hand. "Just Karlo, though, and you really needn't call me Mr Clearwater; Lars is fine."

"As is Harry," Harry adds quickly.

"So we all know each other!" Mr Clearwater declares, grinning again. "Lovely. I've been looking forward to meeting you, Harry, I must admit. Ever since Penny told me that she ran into you at one of those Ministry functions not long ago."

Harry hesitates, chewing his lip as he thinks. Penny. Of course. Penelope Clearwater, Percy's Hogwarts girlfriend, is this springy individual's daughter. Better say something. "It's lovely to meet you, too," he says, crossing his fingers behind his back and hoping that flattery really will get him anywhere. "Penelope said some wonderful things about you. She's very proud."

Mr Clearwater laughs. "Ah, if only children could say such things to our faces."

Harry smiles, feeling a dull twinge in his chest as he thinks immediately of James, who would probably rather set fire to himself than give Harry a direct compliment.

"True. But children always mean their compliments, which is nice on the odd occasion that we get them," Harry says at last, startled by his own candour. Astonished, in fact, but there's something very genuine about Mr Clearwater—Lars—that's twisting all his views on the press out of shape.

"Oh, well put," he enthuses, beaming and touching Harry lightly on the elbow. "Mind if I take that down? No? Ah, now, where is it?" he mumbles, dipping into each of his many pockets in turn, extracting a handkerchief, his wand, his pocket watch, which he stares at for a moment, before stuffing it back into his waistcoat and re-emerging, triumphant, with a sleek silver notebook and matching pencil.

Harry's surprise must be clear on his face, because Lars laughs raucously as he flips open the notebook and begins to scribble, hand moving across the page at a terrific rate.

"None of that Quick Quotes nonsense here, Harry. Karlo and I like to do things the old fashioned way, you see. We've been working together for many a year, haven't we, Karlo?"

"Yes," says Karlo, without looking up from where he is setting up his camera, watched with rapt curiosity by Maura.

"He doesn't say much," Lars advises, gently chewing on the end of his pencil.

"I hadn't noticed," Harry says drily, suppressing a smile. He thinks he may be starting to enjoy himself.

"I suspect I've enough words for the both of us," Lars confesses. "It's rather exciting to be investigating the art world at last—I've spent twenty-seven years with the Prophet, almost all of them in Food and Drink." He sighs and shrugs tweedy shoulders. "Time for someone else to review those restaurants."

"I'm afraid I'm not very exciting," Harry says. "But a change is always good."

"Oh, it is, Harry. Although the reviewing game isn't without its charms," Lars muses, fixing Harry with a conspiratorial eye. "Have you tried the Flailing Lizard on Carnaby Street? Muggle place, of a fashion—owned by a witch and her husband... Muggle, very nice, though, lovely chap. It's all very wizard-friendly and they've a glorious oriental menu..." He stops, shaking his head and grinning at Harry. "Sorry about that—occupational hazard! Shall we get on?"

Over the next two hours, Harry answers—or, at least, attempts to answer—a mountain of questions from the seemingly tireless Lars, who, despite being at least twenty years Harry's senior, bubbles over with an infectious energy that sweeps Harry along well past the usual point of 'fuck this, I need a coffee break'. The questions range from the undemanding ("What's your favourite sort of wood to work with these days, Harry?") to the intricate ("What does your work mean to you? Is this change of style indicative of some shift in another area of your life?") and everything in between.

Karlo, meanwhile, lumbers around in the background, barely making a sound as he repositions his equipment and clicks away, mumbling short but gently-voiced replies to Maura's incessant inquiries. Taken though she is with this quiet giant of a man, she does remember her pledge to protect Harry from the scary reporter at regular intervals, and slips away from Karlo's side to insinuate herself between Harry and Mr Clearwater, throwing in her opinion as often as she can.

"So, you must be Harry's very valuable assistant," Lars says at last, looking down warmly at her from his seat on top of one of the workbenches. Harry has tried to persuade him to sit in the perfectly decent wooden chair he has dragged out and cleaned for this very occasion, but Lars won't hear of it. So they sit, opposite one another but some eight feet apart, legs dangling and faces bathed in sunlight as Harry mumbles and gesticulates and slowly begins to talk about his work with confidence—it is, at last, his work, and not that belonging to his other self, and it makes all the difference in the world.

"I am," Maura says, flashing her most charming smile. "When I'm not at school."

"I see," Lars nods, scribbling. "And which school is that? I don't want to leave anything out."

"Ottery St Catchpole Primary. But I'm going to go to Hogwarts," she adds hurriedly, blinking big eyes up at Lars as though daring him to contradict her. Harry turns away to hide his smile, just in time to hear the click-flash of Karlo's camera.

"Good one, that," he mumbles.

"I think what a lot of people would like to know, especially with all these marvellous abstract pieces, is what inspires your work?" Lars says, and when Harry turns back to look at him, he's scrutinising his pocket watch again. Perhaps it's a nervous tic. Harry wonders what Draco would have to say about it.

"What inspires me?" Harry repeats, playing for time and picking at the hem of his—Draco's—jumper. He doesn't know how to answer that. He just makes things; there isn't all that much thinking involved. But perhaps that's the point. He screws up his anxiety and grips the edge of the bench, cold fingers pressing against pitted wood. "Anything. Everything. The weather... the seasons... my—a child, a friend, a feeling; frustration's a good one," he admits, urged on by the warm crinkling around Lars' eyes. "Anything that gets the blood going, really. I don't set out with a particular plan in mind; I just set everything up and let go."

"I imagine that's a real thrill compared to the absolute precision that's required to create one of your usual pieces," Lars says effusively, volume increasing with enthusiasm and silver pencil almost flying out of his hand as he waves it around.

"Yeah," Harry laughs. "It's definitely a very different feeling. And it's important to take chances, I think. In work... and life. It's so easy to get stuck, let things pass you by..." Harry coughs. "By which I mean that it's important to try new stuff."

"Risk!" cries Lars, grinning. "Risk is the juice of life!"

"Well, exactly," Harry stumbles, face heating.

"How about some shots of you and your glorious risky pieces?" Lars suggests, hopping down from the workbench and tucking away his notebook and pencil. "And Miss Maura, of course."

"Mm?" Maura looks up from where she's crouching beside Karlo, who is showing her a whole rainbow of different coloured lenses. "I like that one," she whispers, pointing.

"Come on, Maura Fedora," Harry says, beckoning to her. "Let's pose next to the weird stuff."

"Splendid!" Lars chivvies them into position, referring to his watch along the way. "Why don't we have the artist and his assistant behind this beautiful glass bowl? What do you think, Karlo?"

"Yes," says Karlo, drawing down his big blond eyebrows in concentration. And then, in the longest sentence Harry has so far heard him utter, he adds: "Fine piece of glass, that, Mr Potter."

"Thanks," Harry says, unexpectedly touched.

"Wonderful," Lars murmurs, standing out of the way and clutching his pocket watch in both hands.

Maura giggles and holds on to Harry's arm. He drags in a deep breath, inhaling the scent of sawdust and wax and the cooling glass from his earlier demonstration, the citrus freshness of Draco that somehow clings to his jumper, and the roasting onions and baking bread from the deli across the cobbles. It's a tiny perfect moment, and he wants to hold onto it, smoke between his fingers; his smile stretches wide and genuine as he puts his arm around Maura and squeezes.

"Keep still," grunts Karlo.

**~*~**

Lars leaves Harry with a firm handshake, clasping Harry's hand between both of his warm, dry palms and grinning earnestly into Harry's face, while Karlo nods politely and gives Maura a pat on the shoulder that, despite clearly being executed with care, sends Maura stumbling across the stone flags with the sheer force of it. This does nothing to dampen Maura's admiration of the man, however, and she just glows with delight as the two of them stand in the doorway and wave goodbye to the men from the Daily Prophet.

Harry is informed that the article should appear in the paper the following weekend. As it turns out, he is beaten to the press by Draco, whose Fitzwilliam exposé is finally submitted on the last Thursday in January, ready to scorch Friday's front pages and shake the foundations of the wizarding political community.

"I'm not happy with it," Draco sighs, folding the morning edition savagely and dropping it onto the kitchen table. He leans back precariously in his chair and taps his fingers against his green and white striped tea cup. "There was so much more I could've had on him, I know I could, but he was starting to suspect, and... well, people like Fitzwilliam have very few scruples when it comes to eliminating evidence." He shoots Harry a significant look, which Harry does his best to return without seeming as though he's experiencing some kind of facial spasm. "I didn't have much of a choice. It's not as strong as I'd have liked, though."

"You did right," Harry says, reaching for the newspaper and opening it out on his lap. "You had to run with what you had."

"Publish or perish," Draco shrugs, draining his cup and setting it down.

Harry nods. He reaches for a buttered toast triangle and crunches it thoughtfully as he reads.

On the same day that he spoke in front of the Wizengamot, the Minister for Magic, and a watching crowd of hundreds, announcing strict new policies on the operation of the Auror Department for his 'Clear, Safe, Strong' scheme, Franz Fitzwilliam had clandestine face-to-face meetings with two underground groups, including the Slovenian 'Požar Riba', one of the organisations featured prominently on Fitzwilliam's infamous 2015 'Danger List'.

Harry examines several grainy but unmistakeable photographs of Fitzwilliam, his one-time, somewhere-boss, deep in conversation with several different groups of men, some of whom, Harry is horrified to note, he recognises from his field days as very dangerous individuals indeed. He stares, suffused with hot pride for Draco, who he knows has risked far more than his safety to take these pictures. To collect this information and write these words.

"He's fucked," he says, tearing his eyes away from the paper and looking up at Draco. "There'll be an official investigation now, and he'll lose his job... at the very least."

"Good grief, let's hope so. I like to think that I can still cause a bit of a stir."

"I don't think you'll ever lose that ability. You were probably born with it."

"I'm not denying that it's the Malfoy way, but I think you're responsible for my obsession with truth these days," Draco says, returning his chair legs to the floor and biting decisively into a toast triangle stolen from Harry's plate.

Harry says nothing but smiles, recalling those heated words and bright eyes in the dark that are almost real memories now.

"You know," Draco confides, pushing back his black knitted sleeve and examining the harsh letters and lines against his pale skin. "Even after all these years, I like to think that every bastard I investigate is another couple of dance steps on Voldemort's grave," he says, eyes narrowing contemptuously as the name leaves his lips.

Harry's heart slams against his ribcage, swelling with approval, and he allows himself a fraction of a second to enjoy the startled widening of Draco's eyes as he abandons the paper, wipes his buttery fingers on his jeans, hauls Draco to his feet and kisses him hard.

**~*~**

By the time the Saturday Prophet arrives, all anyone can talk about is Draco's article. Fitzwilliam himself seems to have evaporated completely, only helping to lend further weight to the veracity of Draco's words, and the Ministry Spokeswizard is falling over himself in his efforts to assure the public that a thorough investigation has already begun.

Lars' article, tucked away in the Arts and Culture section, is somewhat overshadowed, but Harry doesn't mind in the least. He's bursting with pride for Draco and has absolutely no interest in being the centre of attention. Draco, however, is far happier to see Harry in print, and seems to forget about all of his dissatisfaction with his own work when he flips to the relevant section and sees Karlo's big colour photographs. Harry looks with him, chin on his shoulder, and he's impressed. The man of few words is, as he should have known, an artist in his own right.

Harry has never particularly enjoyed having his photograph taken, and neither has he ever relished the results, but these pictures are something else; full of warmth, genuine smiles and beautiful, vivid colours, they light up the double-page spread and breathe further life into Lars' effervescent, praise-filled words.

"Why is there always one of you trying to look sultry?" Draco murmurs, mouth twitching at one corner.

Harry snorts. "Which one?"

Draco taps a pale finger against a shot of Harry during his glass-blowing demonstration. Granted, there's a lot of smoke and fire, and his eyes are narrowed against the heat as he turns the pipe slowly—it is quite a dramatic picture, but there's no way on this earth that he was, or is, or would ever try to look sultry, for crying out loud.

"I'm concentrating!" he protests.

"Concentrating on arousing your middle-aged fanbase," Draco mutters, smirking widely now.

"Fuck off," Harry says, stretching out on the creaky sofa and nudging Draco with his knee.

"Language," Draco says airily, examining a picture of Maura, grinning and kneeling beside the Lily sculpture, which is almost as big as her.

"I didn't promise not to swear," Harry points out. "She looks great, doesn't she?"

Draco nods. "I think this one's rather good of both of you, actually." He indicates the largest photograph, right under the banner "Harry Potter Takes a Turn'.

Harry watches his photo-self wrap an arm around photo-Maura as they both stand behind the huge, multi-coloured glass bowl. For a moment, they stand neatly, smiling, the image of good behaviour, before they both grin up at each other and dissolve into laughter.

"That's brilliant," he says, wanting to reach out and take the photograph. Keep it with him. He makes a mental note to buy his own copy as soon as he gets to Diagon Alley. This one, after all, is Draco's, and Harry suspects that it is only a matter of time before it makes its way into the album marked '2018'.

"When I heard that this talented and unusual artist was making one of his periodical returns to his roots, eschewing his usual elaborately carved furniture and delving into the abstract, I had to get involved. Potter responded to my owl with impressive swiftness and invited me to his Diagon Alley workshop for a morning, so, last Saturday, that is exactly what the ever faithful Karlo and I did. Truly, Mr Potter, 37, and his wonderful assistant, Maura Zabini-Weasley, 7, are enchanting individuals," Draco reads, one eyebrow arched in amusement. "You've got this Clearwater character wrapped around your little finger, haven't you?" He pauses. Frowns. "Clearwater... Clearwater... isn't he the Food and Drink bloke?"

"He was," Harry agrees, glancing at Lars' beaming by-line picture. "He's very excited to be trying something new, what can I say? Nice man, actually."

"I urge Potter-fans and art-lovers alike to get in on this phase while it lasts—take yourself down to Diagon Alley and get your hands on something strange and beautiful for your home. And while you're there, why not drop into the Dragondale Deli next door, where you can sample the best pumpkin sourdough this side of the Thames," Draco says, reading a section from the end of the article. "He's not forgotten he's a food writer, then."

"No. He gave me a tip, actually," Harry says, stretching and following Draco as he tucks the newspaper under his arm and heads for the study.

"Excellent," Draco calls, stalking along the ground floor hallway and out of sight around a corner. "We're celebrating with Ginevra and Blaise tonight, and it's your turn to pick a restaurant."

Thank goodness for Lars, Harry thinks, picking up his pace to catch up with Draco. As he crosses the tiled entrance hall, though, his knee, well-behaved for several days now, flicks out from beneath him and pitches him, hands and good knee first, into the hard floor.

"Fuck's sake," he mutters, catching his breath and wincing slightly. Feeling his bones creak.

Slowly, he picks himself up, balancing with one hand on the cool wall and flexing his knee with care.

"Are you alright?" Draco says, emerging from the study with the '2018' album dangling at his side.

"Stupid knee," Harry grumbles, and Draco's nose wrinkles sympathetically. He fiddles with the quill in his hand and then stows it away behind his ear.

"Cup of tea, then? And then I have to add my thoughts." He indicates the album. "Very important thoughts. Grave, serious thoughts of great consequence..." he mutters, taking off down the corridor toward the kitchen without waiting for a response.

Harry hangs back for a moment, hypnotised by the movements of the stairwell spider as it scuttles between several of the upper banisters, stringing a new outpost for its already imposing web.

"Good for you," Harry murmurs, taking a few backward steps before he heads down to the kitchen to rescue his cup of tea from Draco. He likes spiders, and this one—like himself, he supposes—has come a long way.

When he reaches the kitchen he finds Arthur's head in the fire.

"Wonderful article, Harry," he enthuses. "Any chance of coming round to have another go with the glass?"

"Absolutely," Harry says, turning neatly and swiping his cup out of Draco's hand just as it touches his lips. "Make yourself another one, you cheeky... er, Slytherin," he finishes, remembering Arthur. "Anyway, yes, please do come over but I think we'd better leave it 'til next weekend—I have a feeling that today might be a bit busier than usual."

By mid-morning, Harry knows he had been right to be cautious. Lars' article has attracted the customers in their droves, filling the 'shop with an interesting mixture of potential buyers, curious Prophet readers, and groups of ladies, some old enough to be Harry's grandmother, who seem content just to watch him work and chatter delightedly over his sculptures in little knots. He leaves the workshop, exhausted, at six-thirty, and hurries back to number twelve to wash away the day and find something Draco-suitable to wear for dinner.

Mindful of the colour combination rules, at least as far as he understands them, Harry lingers in front of the open wardrobes for several minutes, pretending he doesn't hear Draco's impatient muttering from the bathroom, or the hissing of spray bottles and squeak of cloths that lets him know that Draco is cleaning something as he waits.

"If you get bleach on your new trousers, I won't be accepting the blame," Harry calls, pushing Frank out of the way so that he can unhook a dark red shirt from the rail and examine it.

"Not all of us feel the need to fling fluids everywhere when we clean," Draco says, stepping into the bathroom doorway, cloth held well clear of his immaculate outfit.

Harry pulls a face at Draco in the mirror and shrugs into the red shirt. "Not all of us are terminally smug."

"How you wound me. Try my brown jacket with that shirt," Draco suggests, pointing. "No, not that one. The one with Frankfurto's head in the breast pocket."

"Obviously."

**~*~**

The night is crisp and beautiful as Harry, Draco, Ginny and Blaise make their unhurried way through London to the Flailing Lizard, talking and laughing under a velvety deep blue sky. Ginny's spindly high heels clack along the pavement as she keeps impressive pace with her taller companions and Blaise's rumbling laughter carries on cool air that's heavy with woodsmoke and the mingled savoury aromas of the restaurants they pass. Relaxed and warm-tired, Harry scuffs along beside Ginny and makes no effort to defend himself as Blaise now takes on the mantle of teasing him about his 'sultry' photograph in the Prophet.

"He's just jealous that he couldn't look sultry if he tried," Ginny opines, tucking her arm through Harry's as they walk.

"Of course. I'm a man of a thousand expressions."

"Perhaps I should've married you instead," Ginny muses mock-thoughtfully, just as a light gust of wind whips her floral-scented hair against his face. His heart clenches.

"Yeah," he mumbles, throat dry. "I wonder what that would've been like."

Ginny laughs. It's a great laugh. "Terrible, I imagine... oh, no."

"What?" Harry frowns, following her eyes, and then there it is. Of course it is. It's everywhere.

Goldstein, dressed in black from head to toe, is heading up the pavement toward them. He is still at least a hundred yards away, but Ginny's sharp eyes have allowed Harry to observe him in secret for a moment or two, and that is quite long enough for him to notice the slender, dark-haired man at Goldstein's side, one arm slung around his waist as they walk.

Blaise and Draco, heavily embroiled as they are in a discussion that involves a lot of head shaking and hand waving, have not yet noticed, but Harry and Ginny slow almost to a standstill as Goldstein and his companion approach.

"I hate to say this, Harry, but he looks—"

"Quite a lot like me?" Harry mutters, squinting at the man's worn jeans and scruffy hair.

"Oh, that's weird," Ginny breathes.

"What's the hold up?" Draco demands, finally detecting the break in proceedings; he and Blaise have finished their conversation and ground to a halt behind Harry and Ginny.

"It's that ridiculous man, look," Blaise cries, jabbing Draco in the ribs with a vast elbow. "And he appears to have a Harry-a-like. How very odd."

Draco sighs and covers his eyes for a fraction of a second in exasperation. "As usual, Blaise, your summarising talents are second to none."

"We're not just going to stand here, are we?" Ginny asks, wrapping her coat more tightly around herself and shifting her feet on the pavement. "I'm starving, and to be honest, it's going to take something much more interesting than him to keep me away from my dinner."

"I'm with Ginevra," Draco says, flicking a glance at Goldstein and his friend as they cross a quiet side road, apparently unaware of the discussion taking place further down the street. "Ever the classy lady."

Ginny snorts. "Cheers, Draco. Shall we move on, then? Satay chicken?" she says, wiggling her fingers. "Pad Thai? Crispy noodles with—"

"Never mind, I think he's seen you," Blaise interrupts.

"Bugger it," Ginny mutters.

"He might not have seen us if we hadn't been standing here having a mothers' meeting," Draco says, not unreasonably.

"What's a mother's meeting?" Blaise wants to know.

Draco shrugs, tucking his face into his scarf. "No idea."

Attempting to block them all out, Harry turns away, just in time to see Goldstein's eyes lock with his. He immediately disentangles himself from the dark-haired man (who, on closer inspection, Harry thinks is younger and much better looking than himself) and shoves him neatly onto his own side of the pavement in one swift movement. Without breaking eye contact, he flattens an invisible crease out of his jacket and turns up his smile several notches.

Harry watches, mouth slightly open, and it's several seconds before he is able to drag his eyes away from Goldstein and focus on the rejected young man, who is standing on the edge of the kerb, flicking large, distressed eyes between Harry and Goldstein and running a hand fitfully through his hair. Heart hammering, Harry wants to hex Goldstein's arse into the gutter, shake this man's hand and tell him to get out while he can, that he can do so much better. He doesn't need to know the man to know that.

As it is, he just stands there as though he's caught in Devil's Snare, unable to look away from the startled young man, vaguely hearing the shuffling of feet and creaking of coats behind him as Draco, Ginny and Blaise look on in anxious silence.

"Harry," Goldstein says at last, breaking the hush, "I wasn't expecting to see you here."

Still feeling somewhat dazed, Harry looks at him. "Here? Here on the pavement, right next to this streetlight?" he demands, flinging out an arm in demonstration, already feeling his nerves starting to fray. "Are you sure? Because you definitely seem to have a talent for turning up wherever I happen to be! Why is that?"

"Harry, really, there's no need to get yourself tied in knots," Goldstein says smoothly.

"Can't say I have any interest in your advice," Harry retorts. "Especially not now I've seen how you treat your dates."

When he glances pointedly at the dark-haired young man, Goldstein's eyes follow for a moment and then narrow dismissively. "It's nothing like that, Harry. It's nothing."

The man makes an indistinct sound and shakes his head slowly, as though trying to work out just why he is still standing there.

"You're incredible," Harry mutters, glaring at Goldstein. "And not in the good way."

"Come on, Harry, let's go," Ginny says softly, laying a gentle hand on his back.

"I didn't see you there," Goldstein says. "Good evening, Ginny. Blaise." He pauses, lip curling ever-so-slightly. "Draco. Still hanging on, eh?"

The words alone would have been enough, but there's something in his tone, something so fucking contemptuous, that sets Harry's insides alight with rage. Within seconds, he has drawn his wand and taken several steps closer to Goldstein.

"Enough! What do I have to fucking do?" he yells, breath ripped out in rags, wand held inches from Goldstein's face in a steady hand.

The dark-haired man takes an instinctive step back into the road, but Harry barely notices.

Goldstein stares back, eyes blank and breath coming quickly now.

Harry drops his voice. "Leave him alone. Leave us alone. Do you understand?"

"Harry," Goldstein whispers, and Harry closes his eyes, gripping his wand tightly. He's not sure exactly what he's going to do now, but his self-control is dissolving fast.

He jumps at the firm hand on his shoulder.

"He's not worth a second more of your time, Harry," comes Blaise's deep voice from behind him. "Or yours, young man," he adds, and Harry opens his eyes just in time to see the reluctant agreement on the face of the man in the road; he sighs roughly and casts a brief but promising scowl in Goldstein's direction, and then Blaise is steering Harry away, around the two men and along the pavement, one powerful arm wrapped around his shoulder.

He doesn't look back, and even as they round the next corner with Draco and Ginny clattering along behind them, whispering furiously, his ire is starting to fade away. It is replaced by a hot, humming irritation that skitters through his veins and makes him stomp rather than walk, hands stuffed into pockets and head buzzing.

"I wouldn't have done him any serious damage, you know," he tells Blaise when he finally releases him. "Just a little hex. Just a tiny little one."

Blaise snorts. "I'm sure it would have been very satisfying to witness, too, but you'd only have felt horribly guilt-ridden about it in the morning—I know what you're like."

"I don't care. It would've been worth it," Harry sighs. "I feel like it's all my own fault anyway—you know, the way he is."

"You really do take responsibility for some ridiculous things," Blaise says, staring down at him from his great height and looking utterly baffled.

"No, really," Harry insists. "If I hadn't finally noticed what he was doing and called him out on it, would he have started behaving like... well... that?"

Blaise purses his lips thoughtfully. "I don't know. I do know, however, that you are in no way responsible for someone else's mental disturbance." He pauses, glancing behind himself. "Look at Draco—total frog-box material. Not your fault."

Harry laughs. He doesn't want to spend the whole night thinking about Anthony Goldstein. Ideally, he doesn't want to spend any further time thinking about Anthony Goldstein. Taking a deep breath, he twists around and catches Draco's eye.

"Stop that, Ginevra," he says, shaking his head and smiling at Harry. He's beautiful.

**~*~**

"These noodles are amazing," Ginny mumbles, holding her chopsticks at an angle and sucking several of the spicy strands into her mouth.

"I wouldn't know," Blaise says, lifting a dark eyebrow. "You didn't leave me any."

"You exaggerate. Anyway, you knew I was hungry," she points out, grinning and licking a spot of sauce from her bottom lip.

"I'm sure you won't starve, Blaise," Draco says, reaching for the last fishcake and casting a mock-disapproving glance at his friend's abdomen.

Blaise laughs. "I'm equally sure you won't ever stop holding your chopsticks like a quill," he shoots back, whipping out a surprisingly swift hand and stealing the fishcake from Draco; it's in his mouth before Draco even has time to protest, and, inevitably, when he does, it's because of the slight to his table manners and not the pilfered food.

He stares at his chopstick grip and then scowls at Blaise; his eyes are narrowed and his eyebrows drawn down, but there is no malevolence there at all, just the kind of good-humoured, pointless umbrage that results from a combination of good friends, rice wine, laughter, and far too much food. The Flailing Lizard, full of dangling paper lanterns, tanks of exotic fish, and secret magical touches, like the tables that subtly adjust themselves to perfectly fit each party of diners, has so far been a roaring success.

"There is nothing wrong with the way I hold my chopsticks. If you're determined to pick on someone, why not pick on Harry—he's useless."

"Oh, thanks," Harry says, poking Draco's arm with the fork he picked up in defeat somewhere in the middle of the meal. He's never been great with chopsticks, and sees no need whatsoever to suffer for the sake of appearances.

"Poor Harry," Ginny mutters, picking up a dropped something from the tablecloth and holding it out to him like a consolation prize. "Noodle?"

"Mine," Blaise declares, sweeping the noodle into his mouth and then turning to Draco. "And no, because Harry knows his limitations. Harry doesn't have delusions of grandeur."

Harry laughs, partly at Blaise's accusation and partly at the horrified expression on Draco's face. Without thinking, he drapes his arm around Draco and presses a rough kiss to his cheek, savouring the familiar sharp scent of his skin and the faint drag of stubble against his lips, feeling the pull of Draco's smile and closing his eyes for a second, allowing himself to love being in love. It's easy.

"Don't mind him, Draco," Ginny puts in as the waitress comes over and begins to collect their empty plates and dishes. "When we're at home, he eats Cockroach Cluster in the bath."

"Gin!" Blaise exclaims, mouth dropping open theatrically.

The waitress makes a heroic attempt to hide her giggles but her shoulders are shaking as she walks away from the table, arms stacked with dishes.

"What is it with you and the bathtub?" Harry asks, already questioning the wisdom of the inquiry. He folds his arms on the table and leans on them, fixing Blaise with a curious eye.

"The bathtub is a wonderful place, Harry," Blaise rumbles, picking up the bottle of rice wine and refreshing each of the others' glasses, then sets it down.

"Oh, good grief, not this again," Draco sighs, reaching for the bottle and sloshing clear liquid into Blaise's glass.

"This indeed," Blaise confirms gravely, but Harry doesn't get to discover the nature of this because the waitress appears once more at the edge of the table. She sets down a small plate and then hesitates, eyes flitting anxiously between the four of them and slender, black-nail-polished fingers repeatedly clicking a pen at her side.

"Was everything alright for you?" she asks, trying not to look at Blaise. Harry doesn't blame her.

"It was lovely, especially the noodles," Ginny says, tucking her hair behind her ear and beaming up at the waitress. "I don't suppose I can leave my husband here?"

The waitress blinks. "No, madam. We don't have a bath here. I'm sorry," she says, and disappears out of sight behind a fish tank before anyone has a chance to respond.

At the table, it is only a matter of seconds before Draco, Harry and Ginny burst into snickers and giggles. Blaise, who is still pretending to be offended and doing a rather poor job, reaches for the plate and distributes the fortune cookies.

Harry takes his, snaps the crunchy shell and extracts his slip of paper. "When walking the road less travelled, watch out for unexpected bears."

"It is very difficult to find a cat in a darkened room, especially if it's not there," Ginny reads. "Well, that's good to know."

Draco coughs. "Inflated heads gather cobwebs from humble ceilings."

Blaise hoots with laughter. "That is a personal message for you, my friend." He ignores Draco's rude hand gesture and peers at his own slip of paper. "Your wife is dying to give you a foot-rub... really?" he murmurs, turning to Ginny.

"Keep dreaming," Ginny says, smirking. "I have better things to rub than your feet."

"I'm going to have nightmares," Draco complains, draining his small glass and peering into it. "What does it really say?"

"It says: 'your patience will be rewarded.' Perhaps with a foot-rub," he adds hopefully.

"You're a horrible man, but I love you," Ginny declares, crunching into her fortune cookie.

Harry snorts. He chews off one corner of his cookie and washes it down with rice wine. Across the table, Blaise dispatches his own in two large bites. Draco, however, is poking at the halves of his cookie with suspicion.

Ginny sighs. "Draco, if you don't eat it, it won't come true."

"Well then, it's not very good magic, is it?" Draco frowns. "And anyway, I don't want my head to gather cobwebs."

"Never mind that," Harry puts in. "It's fortune cookie magic. It's confusing and mystical."

Draco's lips twist into something that looks very much like a pout. "It doesn't taste very nice."

"Eat it," Blaise intones, widening his eyes until the bright whites are visible all around his dark irises.

"I don't want to."

"It tastes fine. In fact, it doesn't really taste of anything," Ginny says.

"Yes, because that's a real selling point. Anyway, it does; it tastes like hard toast with sugar on it."

Ginny gasps. "Ooh, toast! We haven't toasted yet!"

"Does this mean I don't have to eat the vile thing?" Draco asks hopefully.

"Draco, just eat it. I'm sure you've had worse things in your mouth," Harry sighs, reaching for the bill as the glasses are refilled once more.

Ginny leans across the table to slap Harry's palm, grinning; Draco rolls his eyes and stuffs one half of the fortune cookie into his mouth.

"Good boy," Blaise announces.

Draco grimaces as he swallows. "Why am I your friend again?"

"Because we love you!" Blaise sings, flashing a huge white smile and holding up his tiny glass. "To Draco: investigator supreme, defender of truth, scourge of the corrupt!"

Draco snorts, but lifts his glass to clink with the others'. Harry secretly thinks he looks rather pleased.

"To Draco!"

"And to Harry, for appearing in the paper and turning on thousands of grandmothers with his smouldering good looks," Ginny adds, laughing into her glass and exchanging grins with Draco.

"To Harry's smouldering good looks!" Blaise bellows.

Harry drains his glass and decides not to turn around and find out how many people are looking. After a minute or two, he rises somewhat unsteadily from the table and heads for the bar to pay, gazing at the darting fish all around him as he moves through the restaurant.

"Hi," he says, smiling at the young waitress and then glancing downwards to rummage through the contents of his pockets. "I'd like to pay for our table..." He looks up and the waitress has disappeared. "Enjoying yourself?" he sighs, examining Boris' neat white shirt and his black apron emblazoned with a sparkling bronze lizard.

"Don't mind a bit of variety, young man, you know that." Boris rests his large, age-thickened hands on the dark marble and fixes Harry with his milky eyes. "We've all got to try things."

"Yeah," Harry agrees, smiling. He slips his hands into his pockets and fidgets with the fold of paper money in his left and the Galleons and Sickles in his right.

"An' we've got to know when we've seen all we can," Boris continues. "When it's time to go."

Harry stares at him, insides turning cold. "What are you saying?"

"You know what I'm sayin', lad," Boris says, voice a little softer than usual.

Harry glances back across the restaurant to the table where Draco, Ginny and Blaise are laughing and finishing off the bottle of rice wine. He feels sick. Lightheaded, heart racing, he forces himself to look back at Boris.

He swallows dryly. "I have to leave?"

"This was only a glimpse, son. A glimpse is temporary by definition."

Harry grips the edge of the bar. "Yeah, I... I know. I know that, it's just..." He takes a deep breath, attempting, with limited success, to pull himself under control. "When?" he manages.

"You'll be home by the mornin'."

Feeling himself drop, Harry leans on the bar and scrubs at his hair. "Tomorrow? You can't!"

"You thought you'd never settle 'ere, didn't you?" Boris says softly. "Couldn' figure out what you were doin' with 'im. Come a long way, I'd say."

Harry looks up. "Is that all you've got to say? That I've come a long way? You put me here, you left me here, and now I'm in love with him," he says fiercely, eyes stinging as he glares at the old man. "Did you hear that? I love him! And now that's it? Now?"

For a moment, Boris says nothing. Frozen, Harry listens to the harsh sound of his own breathing and the clinking and murmuring of the restaurant behind him.

Boris rubs an unhurried hand across his vast beard. "I've no desire to see you upset, young man. This was about seein' what could've been... an' the rules state that when you've seen that—which you quite clearly 'ave—then the glimpse has run its course, you understand?"

"No," Harry snaps. "I'm not ready! I'm not... I'm just not..." His voice fades away to a rasp and he rubs his eyes before pushing himself upright with both hands flat against the marble. "My kids—are my kids okay?"

Boris nods, and the tears prickling in Harry's eyes spill over unchecked for a moment before he swipes them away with the back of his hand.

"They'll never know you were gone," Boris says, and Harry is astonished to be handed a clean linen napkin from a stack on the bar.

"Thanks." He wipes roughly at his eyes and takes a shaky breath. James, Al, and Lily. And his Ginny—the other Ginny. Harry looks back at the table again, heart aching with confusion. This Gin, the fun, happy, satisfied version, is making a napkin hat and arranging it on her husband's head.

"What am I going to do?"

Boris shakes his head, sending his whiskers swaying. "Only you know that."

"You're incredibly unhelpful sometimes, you know?"

"It's not my job to tell you what you want, young man," Boris says.

"What is your job, exactly?"

"You ought to get back to your table," the old man says, neatly ignoring the question, as Harry had half-expected he would. "This one's on me."

Harry laughs, a little hysterically. "So, you're completely messing with my mind and my emotions and my fucking everything, but you're going to buy me dinner? Brilliant. Yeah... brilliant," he mumbles, turning his back on Boris and forcing himself to walk back to the table. Incredibly tempted though he is to dash for the bathroom and Apparate to somewhere safe, somewhere silent, he doesn't want to waste a single second of his time with these people.

"Everything alright?" Draco asks, passing Harry his jacket as they all start to gather their things and leave the table.

"Yeah, of course," Harry lies. He looks at the floor as he pulls on his jacket, collecting himself, and when he meets Draco's eyes again, he's smiling.

"It's the fortune cookie," Ginny deadpans. "It's poisoning him."

"You'll be sorry if that's true," Draco says, resting a gentle hand on Harry's lower back as they weave their way out of the restaurant and out onto the street.

The air is bitter now and the four of them wrap their coats and scarves securely around themselves, making slow, meandering progress through the city. Full of food and pleasantly intoxicated, Ginny, Draco, and Blaise strike up an effortless conversation within seconds, but Harry barely hears them. It's all he can do to remember to breathe, to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Because he's leaving. In a few hours, all of this will be over, and not one of these people—not Ginny, not Blaise, and not even Draco—will even remember he was here. They'll have their own Harry back, his talented other self. The man who can make beautiful lamps and ornate wardrobes and little tables. The man who deals adeptly with the press and is respected and loved by the public. The man who really saved Draco Malfoy.

Draco deserves that man.

The trouble is, as much as Harry believes that to be true, it doesn't soften the twist of pain inside him that tightens every time he thinks about letting this go. The thought of having his children back, of hugging them and laughing with them and listening to them argue—that thought yanks him back hard in the other direction, creating a bubble of anticipation in his chest almost too sweet to handle. He has never been so confused in his life.

Draco's cold fingers thread through his and grip tightly; Harry's heart swells, hot and sore.

"I bet Maura's still awake," Ginny says. "Mum always lets her stay up late. She was never so bloody liberal when I was little."

"If I thought my mother would be a better babysitter, I would suggest her," Blaise offers. "Unfortunately, she's dead."

Maura, Harry thinks. Something cold drops through him. His bright, quirky little guide belongs in this world. She doesn't exist where he's going, and it seems senseless somehow.

"Harry? Hellooo?"

"Leave him alone, he's contemplating the meaning of life," Blaise says, grabbing Ginny and lifting her off her feet. She squeals. "The complexities of our very existence!"

"I highly doubt that, Blaise. Look at the way his eyes are glazed over—he's thinking about his bed," Draco laughs.

Harry says nothing.

**~*~**

As soon as they enter the house, Draco heads for the stairs. Harry hangs back, watching him out of sight; after a minute or so, he hears the sound of running water that indicates the start of Draco's nightly bathroom routine. Knowing he has at least five minutes before Draco might come looking for him, wondering about a cup of tea, he dashes into the living room and kneels at the coffee table with parchment and quill, heart racing. He sits there, quill poised, lip caught between his teeth, feeling stupid and inarticulate; he has no idea what to write. But he has to write something. The truth of the matter is that Maura Zabini-Weasley, aged seven, is the only person who knows the truth about his visit—the only person who knows that anything has been different over the past few weeks.

He wants to see her and thank her and supply her with more spinach cake than she could ever eat, but that's not going to happen. It's nearly eleven o'clock at night, and this will have to do.

Dear Maura, he writes. Takes a deep breath. Keep it simple. He doesn't really remember how well he could read when he was seven, but Maura is terrifyingly smart, and she never once tripped over Celestina's sleeve notes, so he hopes she'll be okay.

I'm writing to you because I have to go home very soon. I'm afraid I won't see you again, but tomorrow you'll have your proper Uncle Harry back and you probably won't remember any of this, but I wanted to say goodbye. Thank you for everything you've done for me—you've been wonderful. I'm sure you'll grow up to be a beautiful, amazing woman.

I really loved being your Uncle Harry.

Xx

Feeling heavy, Harry folds up the letter and seeks out Draco's owl. He leans out of the window as it takes flight into the night sky, allowing the cold wind to ruffle his hair and cool his skin.

"Tea-blue-stripy?" Draco calls hopefully down the stairs.

Harry sighs and smiles. In the kitchen, he flips through the Prophet he bought in Diagon Alley, eyes lingering on the photograph of himself and Maura behind the big glass bowl. He stares at it, fingers tapping against the countertop, and by the time the kettle starts to whistle, he is holding down the page and carefully tearing out the picture. Flooded with illogical guilt, he folds it up and stuffs it into his pocket, makes the tea and carries it upstairs.

Draco, propped up lazily on his elbow in bed, lights up at the sight of the steaming cup.

"Sometimes you really are wonderful," he sighs, taking his tea and inhaling the steam with a rapturous expression.

"No one can wiggle a teabag like me," Harry agrees, sinking down onto the bed and kicking off his shoes. "It's a highly underrated skill."

From behind him comes a soft snort, and then the gentle sighs and slurps of the happy, near-horizontal tea drinker. Harry rests his elbows on his knees and stares at the rug, wishing, just for a moment, that he could sink into the colourful fibres and disappear out of sight. Not that disappearing is really going to help anyone. According to Boris, it's not quite time for disappearing yet.

"Must you sit there with all your clothes on?" Draco demands sleepily. "You're making the room look untidy."

Harry covers his mouth as he catches the yawn in Draco's voice. He doesn't feel much like sleeping, but it has been a long day, and there is a naked Draco in his bed. For the last time. Harry closes his eyes.

"I was just thinking, but don't worry, I've stopped now," he says.

"That's a relief," Draco mumbles, and there's a rustle of fabric as he cocoons himself in the sheets; when Harry turns around, only his face, ruffled hair, and one hand are visible in the sea of white cotton. Harry's chest aches.

"I love you," he whispers, barely aware of the words until Draco smiles drowsily, grey eyes warm, and returns them.

"Love you, too, you daft bugger. Come to bed."

Harry obeys without another word, fingers slipping on his buttons and fasteners but hands sure as they distribute the components of his outfit to their proper places around the room. Finally, he slides beneath the sheets and doesn't even flinch when Draco wraps around him, all icy-limbed and lemon-spice-rice-wine-scented and hot-mouthed against Harry's skin. Harry breathes him in, holds him protectively, desperately, and tries not to panic.

Tries.

The nagging guilt he has suffered since the first twinge of feeling for Draco now seems as irrelevant as the past—this is his man, and he loves him, quirks, oddities and complications included. He loves the expressive eyes and the dry wit, the obsessive nature and the love for stripes. The drive to make up for the mistakes he made as a young man and those four neatly-inked letters—T.U.R.N.—that remind him... remind them that change is always possible.

And maybe it is, Harry thinks vaguely, a flicker of an idea igniting in the back of his mind.

"I'm not really tired," Draco murmurs, lifting his head and resting his chin on Harry's chest. Sighing gently, he inspects Harry at close range from under a swathe of dishevelled blond hair before frowning and pulling Harry's glasses from his nose. "'M'young and vigorous. And dynamic." He yawns widely into Harry's chest and then blinks up at him, looking slightly startled.

"I know," Harry says gravely, sliding a hand around the back of Draco's neck and pulling their mouths together in a slow, lazy kiss that seems to go on for a very long time without really going anywhere at all. Draco's fingers curl around his shoulder as Harry urges his mouth open and pushes the kiss languidly deeper, tracing, caressing, exploring; Harry is all at once saturated with warmth and stabbed by the knowledge of just what he is losing.

Draco pulls away, eyes closed and mouth kiss-grazed, and settles back into Harry's neck.

"Goodnight," he whispers, yawning again.

"'Night," Harry says, listening as his breathing grows soft and even. He's gone, and Harry has nothing to do but watch him sleep.

He watches Draco's pale hair glimmering in the flickering lamp-light. Squints at the photographs on the dresser. Stares at the shadows that chase across the ceiling. The restlessness writhing in his stomach intensifies with every minute that passes, and when Draco shifts in his sleep and rolls away onto his side, Harry only hesitates for a moment before slipping quietly out of bed. Wrapping himself in a long, green robe, he tiptoes down the stairs; something pulls him into the study and over to the shelf where the leather-bound albums are kept. He stacks a selection of the heavy volumes in his arms and heaves them upstairs, ducking the nocturnally industrious spider as he goes.

He's not really sure what he's doing; all he knows is that he has to focus on something before he loses his mind completely. Settling in a chair near the window, he puts out the lamps and flicks through the albums by the light of his wand, allowing the soft sound of Draco's breathing to soothe his splintered nerves. He looks at picture after picture and reads article after article, determined to keep his eyes open at all costs; illogical though he knows it is, he can't help feeling that maybe, if he doesn't go to sleep, Boris will be unable to spirit him away; he'll have more time to find a solution to this mess... just maybe.

By the early hours of the morning, though, Harry is starting to flag. He is halfway through his third stack of albums and sipping feverishly at his second mug of strong coffee as he reads. The caffeine, while doing nothing for his heavy limbs and sore eyes, is causing him to fidget and jump in his chair every time Draco shifts or mumbles in his sleep. When Frank slides out of the darkness and onto his lap, Harry startles so violently that he almost dumps his steaming hot coffee all over the snake's head.

"What are you doing?" Frank inquires, twisting away from Harry's mug and flicking his tongue out over a photograph of Harry and Draco buying sandwiches in Diagon Alley.

"Reading. What are you doing, trying to frighten me to death?" Harry demands, setting the mug down at his feet and out of harm's way.

"Heard you. Heard you up and down the stairs, making all the creaking noises. It's very late, you know," Frank advises, coiling neatly on Harry's lap and completely obscuring the album.

"Yes, thank you." Harry rubs his eyes. "I thought you weren't interested in hours."

"No. But can see the darkness, and can see that the other is sleeping. Not stupid, you know. Not unobservant."

Frank's small black eyes glitter and he twists his head away from Harry, apparently wounded. Harry scrambles to correct his mistake, resting a careful hand on the smooth coils.

"Of course you're not, I know that. I was just curious. It's probably best to ignore me."

"You are tired."

"No, I'm fine," Harry insists pointlessly; he doubts the yawn that follows will translate into Parseltongue, but there is no concealing the telltale facial expression from Frank.

"You are tired. What is it that you wait for? Have you quarrelled with the other?" Frank asks, rising slowly to bring himself eye-level with Harry.

"No," Harry says. "No. I'm just not ready to go to sleep."

"Beg to differ," Frank replies, settling himself across the folds of Harry's robe, resting his warm, smooth head against the bare skin of Harry's chest. Soon, he, too, is snoozing. Harry traces his decorative patterns with his finger, glancing between the snake and the man in the bed with weary eyes. Carefully, he closes the album in his lap and reaches for the one marked '2018', reading Draco's handwritten comments over and over.

Smoke, fire, and long pipes—the seduction tools of an ageing Gryffindor artist.

Let the record show that this is your first interview with Mr Clearwater, who seems extremely taken with you. Flattery is a wonderful thing, Harry, but I'm prepared to wager that I'm far more useful in the bedroom.

It would be ruinous for my image if this got out, but this is a picture of my two favourite people in the world.

Harry smiles. He can stay awake. He only needs to close his eyes for a second.

**~*~**

There's a light at the top of the stairs.