Heaven Through a Window • Drarry •

Chapter Eleven: Malicious Communication

Potter's fifth year was not a good one.

He hurt himself trying to break the door down, shouted his throat hoarse, and Nigel, the painting in the corridor, rushed to find Draco. He ran in, Euodias hot on his heels, but Mother was already there, rocking Potter and stroking his hair.

Potter hadn't seen him at the door, so Draco quietly left. Mother smiled over the top of his head.

Things would get better.

He'd make sure of it.

To take Potter's mind off things, Draco took him onto the roof that night and quizzed him about simpler times.

"We learnt the usual stuff," Potter explained, hands clutching his Butterbeer. "You know, English, maths, PE, science, art—"

"You're an artist?"

Potter grinned. "You know how some people, they're like nine years old and really good at drawing and can like draw a lion just from their imagination?"

"Yeah?"

"Well that's so not me—I was rubbish at art! At primary school, you're just sticking down leaves you picked up from the playground, making collages from feathers, that sort of thing."

"How old were you when you started school?"

Harry pulled Draco's cloak against the mid-May wind. "I must've been four. Cos my birthday's in July."

Draco pointed his wand at a weed in the rose bed and it shot up into the air. "And how many went to your school?"

"Oh gosh, I dunno. There were a hundred and twenty in our year. So... maybe seven, eight hundred?"

"... Wow. Hogwarts must have felt like home."

Harry smiled wryly. "It did, but not the way you're thinking. We didn't live at school, just went for the day. They randomly assigned our houses, for you know, sports day and stuff." He hopped up onto the wall of the flower bed and tore the leaves off the weed's stem.

Draco turned to sit beside him and looked out over London.

"School was bloody miserable," Harry went on, "my cousin's gang would beat people up for being nice to me. Hogwarts was a dream. All that food! A nice bed. Nice people. Not too many who wanted to do me in," he said, jabbing Draco on the shoulder. "Still, if I hadn't gone to Hogwarts, I was looking forward to secondary school, Stonewall High... I thought I'd be an electrician or a fireman or something."

Draco shook his head, laughing. "You, of all people—"

"I know I was Head Auror," Potter said softly.

"I don't even want to know how you know that." He laughed and bowed at the waist with a flourish of his arm. "Our Most Revered Sir Saviour Head Auror had dreams of being an electrician!"

"Stop being a twat!"

Draco shook his head and got out a cigarette. "I don't believe you."

"Well, what did you want to be?"

"Easy!" Draco said around his fag, lighting it with the tip of his wand. "A professional Quidditch player."

"Our Most Revered Head of the Mind Healing Department had dreams of being a Quidditch star!"

"Don't be stupid," Draco said, lip curling. "I'm not revered."

Potter's smile turned wistful. "Things don't work out the way you plan."

"No," Draco said, blowing out smoke. "They don't."

****

Potter threw himself back into his exercise and saw his friends once or twice a week. Sometimes Weasley's parents or Hagrid came to visit on weekends.