“Thank you.” Harry’s eyes are ear, searhing Drao’s fae for something. “I wao know how muh I mean that.”
“It’s no problem.” Dra to be no know why. Maybe it’s a defense mehanism. “You mean a lot to me.”
Stupid.
It’s a stupid thing to say, but Harry’s voie gets evehat ossible. “You mean a lot to me, too.”
“I would hope so.” Beh the table, Drao digs his nails into his thigh, tries th the ahe that had suddenly sprung i. “I don’t limb into bath tubs with just any man, you know.”
It was, admittedly, a very unsubtle way of feelihey stand from st night, but it works. The tension (and the look in Harry’s eyes, whatever it meant) disappears, and suddenly Harry is ughihan Drao had ever heard him, and Drao a, he starts ughing, too. “That was so bloody weird.” Harry agrees, finally, a should be over but he is still staring at Drao with that fond expressioill has his hand on Drao’s arm. “Drunk people, huh?”
Drao smiles, relieved, and then pulls his hand away, trying hard to hase off the feeling that he was missihing. “Drunk people.”
Harry
He’s gone for all of three minutes.
It’s all Harry’s fault, really. He left his sarf at the table, aold him to go bak ahat he’d be fiihe alley, he believed him. And then whe, Drao was gohere was the unmistakable sound of a fight oming from around the orner.
&hree of them, ahere’s Drao. It’s , really, just a beat doo of the boys holding him ihe other just wailing on him, sending puhere’s bl from Drao’s nose, and a ut above his eyes, and m from lip. His oat is gone and shirt sleeve is ripped, ahey finally give him a break, Drao oughs ahrough the paihe again.
“What’s the matter?” The one asks, grabbing Drao by the hair and wrenhing his head up, f him to look at him. Drao spits ihe guy bakhands him, making him fall to the ground. “No daddy here to save you now. Where’s your daddy, huh Drao? Tell us where he went.”
Harry doesn’t knoiing, or if he was really goiay on the grou find out, just runs dowil he gets to them, wa ao fight.
& away from him.” His voie is steady, but more franti than Harry had ever heard it. He washis paniked faing dowom Riddle.) (Dam a ma him like one.) “You’ve got three seonds.”
“Oh yeah?” The one who was doing the punhing turned around to fae him, obviously expeting someone who was more easily sared. “And who’s going to make us?”
& many oasions in whih Harry is grateful that he is who he is. This time, though, he illuminates his wand so they ould see his fae, aheir eyes dart up to see his sar. “Harry bloody Potter, that’s who,” He says, and steps five Drao a hand up, wishing he had ome up with somethier. “And y with my friend.”
“Your frieer?” Harry reog was swarts, someone he probably ate lunh with, pyed a game of pik up Quiddith with. That’s the w about all this hate, how it divides them. “Thought better of yht you fought against people like him.”
“Y.” He says, not knowing what he is saying, just that Drao is bleeding and hurt and sared and Harry did not stop it. “I fought for my friends. For the people I loved. And now he’s ohem. So you should get going.”
It works, finally. Two on three are odds they are not willing to fae, espeially if ohose two had killed the dark lord less then six months ago. “Fis at Harry’s feet. He’s just gd it isn’t his fae. “But &’s a duel.”
Harry snorts. “Looking forward to it.”
They leave, and Drao makes a sound that Harry takes for a sob but is atually just a ugh. He’s in hysteris, right there in this dirty alley with his broken nose, and Harry doesn’t really know what to do with that, so he rouhes on the grouo get a better look at his fae.
He liks his to’s what Hermione always did whe, ahe end of his shirt sleeve to lear away some of the blood. “It’s alright, Drao.” He s an arm around his shoulder and then pulls him to his feet. “We’ll get you sorted out.”
Drao
&i up suks.
It’s happening more aely, but none as bad as this oook Harry a half hour to path him up, but even that wasn’t as bad as the idea that Harry had seen that, had had to resue him from that, like some sort of damsel in distress. And evehe fat that Drao had.
(That, he thinks, is the biggest differeween him and Harry. Harry whting.)
“Maybe I should be an auror, after all.” Harry’s ugh is a little dry for it to be funny, but Drao still snaps his head up whe. “Was good at it.”
He was. He’d be a great o beome one on my aount.”
He’s only half joking, but Harry isn’t whe and ups Drao’s fae in his hand, his thump brushing over had split. “Who’s going to look out for you if I don’t?”
Somewhere in the bak of his mind, Drao knows that he doesn’t mean him, speifially. He means anyone who ever had been disrimi, who had felt what it was like ted to the end of a dark alley and not know if y out again. The ommoill, it makes him ang