“Harry.”
Drao’s eyes are sad, and Harry didn’t want that, that was the exat opposite of what he wanted. “I mean,” He fh. “What kiious asshole builds a house like this and thinks, yes, I’m goio hold some prisoive for a bit, better build an old fashioned dungeon?”
“It was a very old house.” Apparently they were pying their game that everything was fi was the fashion bak then.”
“The fashion?”
“Yeah, you know, like…” He was asting around for words, for any distratiohe pointlessness of your unle’s fake firepe? Like that kind of thing.”
Harry snorted, ahe reminder of his uhe memories in this room aher out, beause suddeer. Tositive.
“It’s ugly, whatever it was.” He reahes out a hand to Drao and is relieved whe. “Let’s get out of here.”
Drao
Maybe he hadn’t thought this through.
It would have beeo ome here on his own, put things bak io get it ready to be habitable again. It was quite a Harry here, Harry who had almost died here, tive ao his best frieured, ed with seonds to spare, aid the prie for. There was enough bad memories without making Harry unh him with every turn of the house.
“You o go anywhere else?” Harry appeared at his shoulder like he ing out of thin air, his voie so loud Drao half expeted the dust to fall from the eiling. Nothi some rats surry away from them, and Drao feels sik.
“No.” He hears himself say it but doesn’t remember deiding to. The r ioo loud. “I just need some air.”
He pushes away from him and out what used to be a window but is now just a rumblihe wall. He trips over a hunk of marble but keeps going, out into the damp grass that has gro to his knees, sinking down into the ground, tiltio stare up at the sky.
& goier?” He’s not sure who he’s yelling at. Drao never had believed in God, but you had to bme something when your life has this level of shit in it, and he seems like a good a person as any. “Huh? When are y to let me have some peae?”
& beside him and finds a hunk of stohen a rystal, piees of his house that they had blown to ki’s the first time that he realizes it was ion that made his house look the way it does. It le, people wh and angry and afraid, who stayed after their shift ahis pe apart piee by piee a all rain down into ruins.
It was a house, he though savagely. A really good house. The hell did it ever do to you?
&o stay out here forever, keep ursiars, maybe burhing down ah it. Burn the n just to prove that he ould. But he doesn’t, beause Harry is still there, walking aross the w notied Drao’s tantrum and sitting down beside him, hat the ground ould sh his jeans.
“We ould fix it bak up.” Harry’s tapping his wand against his knee, and Drao has to put his hand on his wrist to stop him fr a hh his jeans. “I’m good at fixing things.”
“I thought I would want to.” That was the that was b, the sense that ame from walking through the house, how every part of him was sreaming at him just to board it all up and throw away the key. “But I don’t.”
“Course you don’t, it’s got rats in it.” Harry still wasn’t heario fix things, Harry did, and this was the biggest projet he ould possibly uake. “But we an fix that, too.”
“No, I mean.” Dra and ughiime, leaning into Harry for support, ah everythiill has time to wohey aren’t dati. “I don’t want to. Like, I ahio make me want to stab my eye balls out.”
“Oh.”
Yeah. Oh. “I thought I’d walk in here and fix it up ahe year ended, I’d ome bak here with mother ahing would be the same. But it’s not the same. Nothing is. Not you, not my family, not this house. Aely not me.”
&h quiet for a moment.
“Moving on isn’t so bad. But hanging on iserrible, either.” Harry stood up, ahat rumbliher, a house that he an no longer all his home. “We doo deide now.”
“I want to burn it down.” Drao deides, aer n. “Build something else in his pe. Somewhere he ouhed.”
“Or we ould keep it. Just le TLbsp;Harry grins down at him, making Drao he first time that he was offiially the shorter o whatever we—you— deide, I’ll be there every step of the way. You wo alone.”
&her, huh?” They’ve still got their haher. “I like the sound of that.”
“Yeah.” Harry squeezes his hand, and they are off, pikihrough the tall grass, goihough suddenly, Drao wants to stay. To show him the balo him look out over the old wood, to take him out to the old fountain, show him the tree house that Dobby had magiked together for his sixth birthday. The good things, but there would be time for that ter.
Chapter 24
Harry
& say no.
&ried to think of ways to say no without losing fae ever sihe owl. Aer that. Aer that one, all of them f his presery event that was goiing the offiial start of Kiime in offie and where