分卷阅读14（1 / 2）

He paused in his stride, fighting the urge to go back. He couldn’t go back, he really couldn’t. He doubted Professor McGonagall was still up, but the possibility that Draco called her down was too great. Not that his presence would change anything. He would eat his own shoes if he wasn’t on the train back to King’s Cross at the end of the summer. He mucked it up. But didn’t he always.

He resumed his walk of shame back towards his corridors. He would begin packing tonight. He didn’t know where he would go. Well, back to Grimmauld Place, obviously, but he didn’t know what he would do. The hope, or rather the fantasy, that Draco had wanted him, even in a small way, had really been one of the only thoughts he had taken solace in since the war. And now…and now he knew that Draco, alive and well- well, alive and breathing and better than dead, if not exactly well—wanted him but wouldn’t have him. Or wanted him, but not enough. Or had wanted him, at some point, but didn’t anymore.

He marvelled at the fact that it didn’t make him feel any better, to know that in some place and time of Draco Malfoy’s life, he had felt something for Harry. But he supposed that was because the knowledge made all of his imagined losses real. The awkward first few meals they would have shared after the war, both worried that the other was just going through the motions of being civil to help move along the post-war unity movement. The first few cautious touches that would lead them both to overthink, because surely, surely he hadn’t meant—But had he? And when they realized that the other had meant it, then they would be facing all the rebuilding they had to do, personally, globally, together instead of separately and so incredibly alone. And maybe they’d have fought, screamed at each other until they were hoarse, thrown things, made an absolute tip of Grimmauld Place with the small wars they waged every night, which was what everyone would have expected. But maybe they would have been happy. Harry liked to think they’d have been happy.

But Draco had been dead. He had been dead, so there was beyond a doubt no possibility of these thoughts being more than a fantasy. But now he was alive, and if only Draco wasn’t so scared, if only McGonagall wasn’t so careful, he could try. It didn’t have to work, but god, he wished they could try.

Chapter 7

“Mr. Potter, it is rather late.”

“I’m sorry, Professor, I realize this is an inconvenience. If it weren’t important, I would have waited until morning,” Harry said, fidgeting nervously on the other side of McGonagall’s desk. “I need to make this right.”

“Mr. Potter, I haven’t the slightest idea as to what could be so wrong that it warranted making right at two in the morning,” McGonagall sighed. “I was under the impression that these unfortunate late night meetings of ours would end with your learning to behave like an adult.”

“That’s what I am trying to do, Professor. In telling you.”

“Telling me what?”

“I love him, Professor. I love him and for his safety, I feel like it would be better that I left,” Harry said. “I’m sure you agree.”

McGonagall froze.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“The wolf. He’s not so much white as he is blonde, isn’t he? Have you ever seen a blonde wolf?”

“I’m not particularly well versed in the coloration patterns of wolves, Mr. Potter,” McGonagall replied slowly.

“There wasn’t a body,” Harry continued.

“What do you mean a body? Do you suspect the wolf of having killed someone? Surely not a student, there are none left on the grounds.”

“Professor, you’re smarter than this. Don’t do me the disservice of pretending you aren’t. His mother’s testimony was the only reason we had to believe the pile of ashes was him. There was no identifiable body.”

“How?” McGonagall asked, her face darkening as the act she was putting on fell away.