“Hey,” Drao leao him, uses his free hand to smooth Harry’s wild hair bak, and really, really hopes that he doesn’t remember any of this in the m, beause Drao is sitting way loser to him than is stritly neessary. “It’s ht? You won.”
& say we. Drao is areful to never say we.
“No.” Harry says, and Drao wohis is what made him drink so muh tonight, the memories hiding in that farae. “It’s never over.”
&hinks Harry is just goi his bearings and go to bed, so he leaves him to his own devies and heads bak iing room, where he ould wath the steps in ase Harry needs help them. It’s a mistake, though, beause Harry omes out with two gsses and a bottle of firewhiskey, the good stuff that you only buy if y to give it to someone as a gift.
“You want one?”
He’s already p, and Drao wants to say ired and Harry has already had too muh to drink and is only n to sober up, and also beause lines and blurring ahey are onstantly in ger of diving into uers, ohey won’t ever be able to ome bak from.
“e on.”
It’s unfair, the way Harry is looking down at him, how ihis feels, with the b piled in his p aing low and the way Harry is smiling at him, like he knows, has always known, that Drao is uo say no to him. That he k stetting hen it matters.
“Don’t make me drink alone.”
Harry shakes the drink at him a little, and Drao annot stop himself, just reahes out to take it from him, like it is not his owo make.
An hour ter, Drao is a lot more drunk and Harry is a lot more sober, ah sittied bathtub that Drao had thought was so ool, both fully lothed but soaki.
& remember how they got here, but somewhere in the bak of his mihat this is a bad idea and that he should be getting out of it while he still an. What will they do when it’s time to get out? Or if they fall asleep and thehe m in freezing old the hell they thought this was a good idea? Or wheo sit aross from eah other at the breakfast table the m a everything is the same?
& know, but he doesher, beause Harry has ehe bubbles to float and Dra them i shapes at Harry’s request, beause they’re grown mehihey’re oeeeen grown? It feels like it.) They’re also so lose together that they’re knees are pressed up agaiher, aimes Harry will ath at his arm like he wants to say something important, but never does.
“What are we doing?” Drao doesn’t know what he is askily. If he means this moment, as ihey pretending this is something mates would do if they were ser sale, as in why he was evehe house at all, eneral, as in, what are they thinking about these feelings growihem like flowers that are only going to be hoked out by weeds, beause he knows that Harry is feelioo.
“I don’t know.” Harry is blindingly i at times like this, the embodimehat is good. He is not someone who is prepared to expet disaster at every turer everything he has seeo know?”
Drao liked the sound of that, the not k sort of terrified him.
“No.” He id his arm out ft alohe tub, and after a moment Harry opied him, their hands lying lose enough sers touhed, but just barely. “We don’t.”
They moved from the bathtub to the bathr agaiher tht, Harry’s head on Drao’s shoulder.
“I really don’t think I want to be an auror anymore.”
His the silene, and Drao uands what all the drinking was about, the lihe not wanting to be alo had nothing to do with him at all.
(But it did. It had everything to do with him, with the both of them, a.)
&.” The answer seemed so simple whe like that, even though he k was anything but. Harry was not a boy who was raised to stop fighting. He lived his life as a soldier for a war he dided from the very moment he was born.
“I don’t know how to be anything else.”
& be anything.” Don’t you think you’ve given enough? Isn’t it time that you got a hao figure out what life is when there are no ing at your hells and keeping y? “Just be Harry.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
The onfessions you make when you are druhe sort of things you would never say while sober. That’s the whole entire purp, to fih behiell yourself.
“I do.” It’s only beause he was ertain Harry would grabbed hold of his hand and pressed a kiss to the bak of his kill w that he got the hahis. He does not feel like he deserves it, still. “I’ll help you find him.”
Chapter 12
Drao
Drao the m on the floor beh the lothes that aren’t his. He has a fuzzy memory of stumbling out of the bathroom into Harry’s room, and Harry sayihing ab to have the heesy, traditional kind of sleepover, awo to figure out how to have a movie night when Harry is too drunk to read aons and Drao had never even seen a DVD pyer before.
It was a good night, evehat it will ome bak to bite them i figure out. But he’s okay with that,