Draco and Harry's Escort Service

Chapter Eight

Harry stalked back to the girls, but halted when he overheard Luna talking to Cho.

"...wasting your time with Harry."

"What are you talking about, Ms. Hanging On Draco Malfoy Tighter Than a Quidditch Robe?" Cho demanded.

Harry nearly kept walking, especially when he heard Malfoy's voice in his head with a mocking timbre say, "Eavesdropping is wrong," but he was simply too curious. Luna laughed.

"Oh, that. I was just trying to make Harry jealous."

Harry's brain did a momentary disconnect at her words, a condition obviously mirrored by Cho.

"What? Make Harry jealous? Of you? Or of Draco? That makes no sense."

"Of course it does. Can't you see they're terribly in love? I just wanted to give them a little nudge. Because they don't seem to want to acknowledge it."

Harry suddenly felt like he was suffocating.

"In love? Who?"

"Harry and Draco!" Luna said in exasperation. "Honestly, are you blind? Haven't you noticed how Harry's eyes go all out of focus when he talks about Malfoy? And haven't you seen the way Draco is constantly watching him? You should have seen him when you and Harry went into the woods yesterday. Draco paced like a caged tiger. It was dreadfully sweet. He loves Harry so much it's almost painful to watch. I just wanted to give Harry a taste of what Draco was feeling. Because he doesn't seem to know."

Harry's knees felt weak. He didn't hear Cho's response because he turned and raced into the wood, looking for Malfoy.

ooOoo

Harry was too late. Draco was gone. He searched for twenty minutes before he realized that Malfoy had actually left. After forcing down his frustration and growing despair, he collected Cho and Luna and they continued on to Hogwarts.

Cho watched him closely as they flew, but she didn't bother to ask where Malfoy went. She was likely too busy processing the information Luna had disclosed. Harry was having a hard enough time with it, and he was the one in love with Draco Malfoy.

He dropped them off at the front gates of the school after sending a Patronus message to Hagrid to open the gates. He didn't even feel like sticking around to say hello to the groundskeeper.

Luna hugged him.

"You had a fight, didn't you?" she asked.

"Sort of, yes," Harry admitted.

"It will all work out," she said confidently.

"I hope so. Thanks, Luna."

Cho gave him a cool handshake and a measuring look before saying, "Good luck, Potter. I think you're going to need it."

As he pushed off and headed for London, he knew she was right.

ooOoo

Harry went home first, hoping against hope that he would walk in to find Malfoy reclining on the sofa in the study, or pacing in Harry's room waiting for him to return. But Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place was empty. Harry did not want to consider just how empty it would seem if Draco never returned. In the vacant hallway, something crunched under Harry's boot. He bent down and picked it up. A single button. As it glittered in his hand, he felt like weeping. Instead, he left immediately and went to Draco's flat on the other side of town.

The place was beautiful and cold, furnished all in white. The artwork and fixtures looked elegant and expensive, but they were made to look at and never touch. It looked like the sort of place people would expect Malfoy to inhabit. Another façade. As Harry walked around the sterile flat, he realized why Draco never spent any time there. It looked as desolate as Harry felt. It had taken Harry the whole night to fly back to London at top speed, and he had no idea where to look for Draco next. Harry collapsed on Malfoy's stylish, but uncomfortable, white bed and fell asleep.

When he awoke in the morning, he felt a bit better and immediately resolved to go and see Fred and George Weasley. If anyone could help him find a missing person, it would be the Weasley twins.

Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes resided in the same spot in Diagon Alley, although it had grown to encompass the shop next door. Fred (or George) looked up when Harry walked in and then leaped over the counter to pound him on the back.

"Harry Potter! Slumming with the regular folk today?"

The other twin hurried from the back room at his words and gave Harry the same treatment on the other shoulder blade.

"Harry! What brings you here?"

"In the market for some Decoy Detonators or Extendable Ears?"

"We heard you were in the escort business now."

"You need something to help you fight the Dark Arts?"

"Actually," Harry interrupted, "I need to find someone."

"Missing person, eh?"

"Haven't thought to go into that line of business."

"Not too many people disappearing nowadays."

"Not like they used to."

"I need to find Draco Malfoy."

Fred (Harry was pretty sure it was Fred) scowled at him.

"What do you want to find that git for?"

"Is it true you were working together?" George asked.

"Yes, but he's disappeared and now I need to find him."

"So you can kill him?" Fred asked hopefully.

"I was thinking more along the lines of torture," Harry said evenly.

Fred clapped. "Even better!"

George said, "You don't really need us, mate. All you have to do is go to Knockturn Alley and ask his old followers."

Fred nodded. "Yeah, Crabbe and Goyle. They took over Borgin and Burkes after Borgin vanished during the war."

"It's still called Borgin and Burkes, probably because they can't spell Crabbe and Goyle."

"If anyone knows where Malfoy hangs out, it should be them."

Harry wandered around the shop for a bit, trying not to appear impatient, but he finally escaped and practically ran to Knockturn Alley.

Borgin and Burkes looked precisely the same as it had when Harry had unwittingly visited the shop years before, except that everything now looked much smaller. He remembered hiding and watching young Draco try to wheedle gifts from his impatient father. He never would have dreamed that the boy he hated would have grown up to be the man he couldn't live without.

Crabbe was behind the counter, and fairly gaped at Harry when he walked in.

"Harry Potter?"

Potter didn't waste time with small talk, which was generally wasted on Malfoy's former minions, anyway.

"I'm looking for Draco Malfoy."

Goyle had been sitting in a chair behind the counter with his feet propped up and the front legs of the chair hovering off the ground. Goyle sat forward and the chair legs banged on the floor. He stood up and flexed muscles that had grown to outlandish proportion in the intervening years.

"He ain't here."

"Hold off, Greg," said Crabbe. "We're business owners, now, remember? We don't beat up potential customers."

"Customers," Harry repeated. "All right, then. If you tell me where I might find Malfoy, I'll buy something ridiculously expensive."

Goyle cracked his knuckles dangerously, but Crabbe's eyes lit up.

"How ridiculous?"

"What's the most expensive thing you've got?"

Crabbe pondered for a moment and Harry could practically see him adding several hundred Galleons to the price of everything in the store. Harry didn't care.

"You aren't planning to hurt Draco, are you?" he asked reluctantly.

"Of course not. I just need to have a little chat with him."

In the end, Harry purchased not only a ridiculous amount of magical bric-a-brac, but a ludicrous amount. He arranged to have it sent to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place and hoped he could dispose of it before Lupin returned, but he didn't waste time worrying about it. Goyle informed him that Malfoy could usually be found at a pub in Chelsea. Harry had the feeling Goyle was lying, but it was the only lead he had. He tossed a pouch full of Galleons on the counter and went out.

Harry had not gone far up Knockturn Alley before he heard his name called. He turned to see Vincent Crabbe running after him.

"Hey, Potter!" Harry waited and Crabbe huffed to a halt.

"You really aren't planning to hurt Draco, are you?"

"No. I rather... I sort of like him, now."

Crabbe laughed and it was no longer the evil, horrid laugh that had followed Potter through the halls of Hogwarts. It was a mature, natural laugh. Who would have guessed Vincent Crabbe would have grown into a human being?

"You love him, mate. I can tell. Everyone loves Draco once they get past... you know, the walls."

Harry grinned ruefully, surprised at Crabbe's astuteness.

"Yeah."

"You can probably find him at Malfoy Manor."

"Malfoy Manor? But I thought it was destroyed."

"It was. You'll see what I mean when I get there. Luck to you, Potter."

Crabbe raised a hand and trotted back to Borgin and Burkes.