Chapter Text
Tower Bridge isn’t going to work out.
Harry knows from the moment his feet land on the greyish-black ledge almost at the tip-top of the South Tower.
“Well. Fuck-bollocks.” Harry drops his arse onto the ledge, slouches onto the massive gold-fence decoration or whatever it is thrusting out of the stone, and swings his legs sulkily at the North Tower.
Why did he think the South Tower would have a better view?
Why did he think the view was going to matter? Did he think looking at the Tower of London was going to help? Even if looking at an ancient castle and, like, jail did it for Harry, he can’t really see it from here. This side of the South Tower of Tower Bridge faces the Tower of London, but the view is mostly the twin North Tower.
“Sort of does matter,” he grumbles at a passing flock of cormorants down below his battered trainers. The loop on his right laces is about to come undone, like he was barely paying attention when he tied his shoes.
Harry was paying attention. He bought the shoes, what, two years ago? Three? Still gets a pang in his chest when he looks at them. The top eyelet on his right shoe is almost totally free of the upper, holding on by a shoelace that’s only got a few peeks of red left.
God, Harry loved them when he saw them in a shop window on the way to some pub night or other, so he’d gone in and bought them, a shimmering anticipation in his chest like a sunny day. He threw his old shoes in the bin. Told the bloke behind the register to keep the box. Wore the new trainers out.
Made it to the cross-street before he had to sit down and put his head between his knees, his stomach in tight knots and his eyes burning for no bloody reason at all, the sunny-day feeling drowned in guilt and shame.
Harry didn’t know where that awful feeling came from. Imagining what everyone at their regular pub night would say? What they’d think? No, it couldn’t have been them. It had to come from him, but he couldn’t locate where it sat in his body. Couldn’t find which memory brought it on, if it was a memory at all.
The trainers are barely white anymore. The tiny London coats-of-arms are fading smudges.
Okay, so, that’s another in the column against the South Tower.
Harry’s shoes aren’t part of the Tower, but they’re involved in this whole thing because they’re on his feet.
He’s had to be careful with the shoelaces for at least a year. Harry can’t tie them too tight or else the laces will rip that loose eyelet off the upper. He could use charms, obviously, but the spell might not hold if he hit—
Like, there’s so many things to crash into.
The two matching walkways that stretch from the South Tower to the North. The big turret things on the corners of the tower. The roadway itself.
Harry’s not sure how he’d end up on one of the turret-crosses, but he did once end up on the chimney of the school kitchens without meaning to, so it’s not much of a stretch to think that somehow he could end up dangling from an ornament by his shirt or something, probably with only one shoe.
Which is not why he came up here.
He didn’t really come here to jump. He just…
Thought he’d check it out.
See if it was, like, feasible.
Only the angles of the roof below his worn-out shoes are a lot steeper than they’d looked from the pavement next to the Thames. The golden crest is a lot taller. Harry feels pretty small, but not as small as he thought he would.
It’s not like he thought about it for long. Thirty seconds, maybe, leaning on a black railing that’s a shadowy smudge from this height.
He’d pictured…dunno. A swan-dive into the afterlife. Apparating directly into hushed, misty King’s Cross.
The Thames was pink and orange and rushing cheerily, or at least not dragging its feet, and the towers caught the light, so Harry cast a half-arsed Disillusionment Charm on himself, thought ledge, and went.
For some reason, he hadn’t factored in hitting the water, or the whole falling thing. He hadn’t thought about the turrets.
There’s more of a breeze, this high up. A memory from around the time of the chimney incident resurfaces. The towers are sixty-five metres tall—somewhere around there. Harry’s got no idea how deep the Thames is at this bridge, and the sunset has turned the water into a rippling sheet of gold with a ferry trundling through.
He lets out a deep, irritated sigh. For one glorious moment, he thought he’d had a possible solution to the cock-up he’s made of his life. But of course it can’t be simple. There’s accidental magic to think of. The walkways and the ferry and his shoes.
That hadn’t been a problem when Tommy killed him in the Forest. One AK sent him neatly to King’s Cross, which really had been simple: get on the train or don’t. Go on or go back.
Can he be blamed for wanting something that cut and dry when everything else is so painfully fucked? Literally everything else. His house. His job. His life.
Grimmauld Place hasn’t been itself—its decent self—since everyone moved out. Ron and Hermione were gone by July after they finished at Hogwarts. Seamus and Neville went soon after. The Slytherins who stayed there drifted off in stages. Pansy was the only one left when their curse-breaker training got going in September. She ended up sitting so many certification exams that she got a flat closer to the Ministry.
That was about when Sirius started keeping him up nights.
Sirius, or something with his voice and his presence.
Harry’s been a satisfactory curse-breaker, but not satisfactory enough for Pansy to want to stay. He’s taken course after course to specialise and hasn’t managed to finish any of them.
And the rest of Harry’s life—
Well. He hasn’t made it easy on anyone, has he? Harry knows how hard he is to love, and that’s, like, the resonance behind everything else. That first summer after Hogwarts, he’d been awake one night, the rest of the house sleeping around him, and thought what about Godric’s Hollow?
That never worked out, either. There’s a pile of parchments and a few Ministry hearings between him and actually being able to rebuild his parents’ house, and, like, he works for the Ministry. He works for Bill in the Curse-Breaking Department attached to the DMLE. The idea of being called in from Godric’s Hollow doesn’t sit right, but then—
Nothing sits right.
A loud, guttural grunt directly in his ear scares the bollocks off Harry. He jerks to the right with a shout that’s more of a shriek, sliding close to the edge in the process, and a black wing knocks his glasses off.
“Hey!” Harry reaches for his glasses, catching them on the tip of one finger, and uses some incoherent wandless to get them back on. The single, late cormorant from the passing flock gurgles at him some more. “Try that again!” he yells at the cormorant’s arse-feathers, realising only then that he’s holding onto his balance with the strength of a failing shoelace. “Bollocks fuck.”
Harry tosses more wandless behind him—a mild Sticking Charm that snicks the strap of his wand holster directly to the massive gold crest.
Merlin’s arse.
He looks like a twat.
Harry lets the wand holster take his weight. It’s strong enough to hold three of him, thanks to Pansy’s yearlong obsession with reinforcement spells, and he didn’t take it off when he walked out of work earlier.
Good thing, too, because now he can sulk on the top of Tower Bridge without having to worry about falling off when he didn’t plan to.
Wouldn’t be much of a surprise, really. Everything happens to Harry when he’s not expecting it. Every bloody thing.
And when he does try to plan, try to work towards something, it’s always too late.
How’s he supposed to fix that?
It’s not as if he can just, like, ask.
If he’d done any of the things he set out to do—if he’d made it easier for his friends to say yes, of course—and if he was more, like, lovable, and worth it, maybe he could ask, but at this stage—
What else? He’s too late.
He scuffs his shoes on the slate roof and pretends his face is only burning from the reflected sunset and his chest is only tight because of his wand holster and his eyes are only stinging because of the breeze. Harry pretends, or maybe he just accepts the truth. Mostly, his emotions feel like they belong to another person. They’re too strong or they show up on a horrible delay or he calls them by the wrong name.
A sharp crack splits the air somewhere below Harry and bounces off the South Tower. It ricochets through Harry’s chest a bit, too. His heart wiggles about, does a few uncoordinated flops, and sets to racing like he did fall off the ledge and now he’s dangling by his shirt from one of the turrets.
It was probably, like, a bridge sound. A car door slamming. Something other than a person Apparating nearby.
Definitely not someone Apparating onto part of the bridge.
“Potter,” Draco calls. The wind picks up his voice and carries it straight to Harry.
“Jesus bollocks fuck,” Harry says to his knees. He makes a show of rubbing at his eyes underneath his glasses like he’d been deep in thought, then picks his head up.
Draco stands on the slightly gabled roof of the lefthand walkway, his hands slid poshly into the pockets of his trousers like he’s got his feet on the actual ground. Harry’s heart swan-dives out of his chest and straight into the Thames, then scrapes horribly along the bottom, because Draco is just everything that Harry—
He’s everything.
He’s grey trousers and matching waistcoat and crisp white shirt. He’s sleeves buttoned at his wrists because he doesn’t push them up when he’s doing curse analytics. He’s starlight hair swept into a bun at his nape and soft lips and skin that’s like bloody rose petals.
He’s glowing in the brilliant last gasp of the sunset.
And…
He’s Harry’s ex-boyfriend.
Ex-almost-fiancé.
Harry slaps his hands bracingly on his thighs and then—
Because he really has no bloody idea what else to do—
He waves.
Draco shifts his weight with this easy movement of his hips that will never stop driving Harry mad. The walkway, it turns out, isn’t as far away as Harry thought. It’s close enough that Harry can see the tiny furrow in Draco’s brow.
Harry used to know what it meant. Now he’s not sure he knows what anything means.
“What are you doing up there, Potter?”
“Er…” Harry turns his face into the breeze and imagines it can cool the molten slosh of his thoughts. “Sitting on the ledge.”
“I can’t hear you,” Draco calls.
Harry clears his throat. Merlin, it aches. Is that because of the air? Did he inhale a cormorant feather or something?
“Sitting. On the ledge,” he calls back.
“Potter, I can’t hear you.” Draco holds up one hand and beckons, just like he does when he wants Harry to come in from the observation gallery to consult on a curse. Just like he, er, did. Just like he used to. “Come down.”
“Fine, okay, Jesus,” Harry says, mostly under his breath. His arms tingle with the particular embarrassment of being watched when he thought he was having a bit of privacy. The tight, tender feeling follows the straps of his wand holster across his chest and over his shoulders. He’s got to unhook himself—there—and once that’s done, Harry hops to his feet and turns.
It’s a ridiculously short Apparition. Barely a pinch.
Harry comes out of it too close to Draco. His lungs flatten, forcing out all the air, and in the middle of taking a huge replacement breath, Draco grabs his waist.
Draco actually, like, grabs Harry’s waist, which startles Harry almost as much as the cormorant. Draco usually doesn’t—usually didn’t—grab. Even when it was fast and urgent, it never seemed hasty.
And then, the next second, Draco’s touch isn’t hasty at all. Draco spreads his hand out on Harry’s lower back, firm and confident. He takes Harry’s left hand in his. Harry’s entire body says dance and his feet take a little step towards Draco before his brain screeches that’s not what’s happening that’s not what’s happening you’re a fool holy bollocks what are you thinking are you mad why would you—
Draco takes them into the turn, and they’re on the pavement in the dusky shadow of Develin Tower before his screeching, tardy brain can finish the thought, and Draco’s taking them all the way through the turn and letting Harry slip out of his hands like it’s only natural.
Then Harry has to shove his hands in his pockets, because he’s missed Draco so much since they broke up that it takes him ages to fall asleep and ages to get out of bed and his skin is raw and sensitive everywhere, everywhere, but especially where Draco just touched him. He can feel Draco’s fingerprints on his waist and Draco’s fingers curled through Harry’s.
Oh, for Merlin’s bollocks’ sake, is he going to have to sit down and put his head between his knees?
If he is, then hopefully Draco happened to be walking by the bridge, and now that he’s got Harry on land again, he’ll, like, carry on.
To wherever he was going.
Harry’s just braced for Draco to carry on when Draco brushes past.
Except there’s Draco’s touch again—just above Harry’s elbow, turning him, then drumming lightly on the small of his back—and it’s only a habit to fall into step with Draco.
They leave the pavement, and Draco’s long strides take them down a dirt path and into a garden in bloom.
The path winds through grasses and flowers, tended without looking too tended, just a bit wild. The garden’s grown enough for a few crickets to chirp, tentative little calls like they’re not sure if it’s evening.
“Better, I should think,” says Draco. The rhythm of the words is…off, somehow. Just a bit too fast.
“Er—yeah?” Harry doesn’t know if this is better. He can smell the Cleansing Charms on Draco’s clothes and the faint traces of his hair potion and Draco’s clean, silver magic, which hurts loads more than an AK ever did.
A whisper of pressure at his elbow tells Harry they’re taking the path on the left. “Quite. Whatever were you doing just now, Potter?”
“Sitting on the—”
“I gathered as much. What I mean is—” Two women come towards them, huddled close together, laughing, and Draco steers Harry out of the way with a distracted nod. “What I mean is, why?”
“No reason, really? I just, er, saw the towers, and I’m, like, a wizard, so I went up, and—”
“Merlin’s bells.” Draco pulls Harry to a stop on the edge of the path. Traffic rumbles above them on the very beginnings of the bridge, but it’s relatively quiet down where they are. Not too many tourists on the path with them at the moment. Harry’s heart pounds like he’s surrounded. His eyes feel too large in his head, like they’re straining to see, though it’s not that dark yet. Draco keeps his fingertips on Harry’s elbow and closes his eyes, drawing himself up tall and breathing in deep. “Did you know, Potter—we’re standing in a ditch?”
“Yeah? Sort of. I mean, it’s—” Harry waves at the bridge’s approach on one side of them. “It’s lower.”
“This was once a moat for the Tower, but it was drained in the nineteenth century.”
“Oh.” Harry knew they were next to the Tower of London. He’s been to the Tower of London several times in the course of being a Ministry curse-breaker. But he hasn’t thought about, like, the Tower’s fortifications or whatever since primary school. “I think I did know that, yeah.”
“Sometimes,” Draco continues in the same level voice. “Castings can be influenced by the proximity of certain elements.”
Harry takes a very small step closer to Draco. His mind shows up late and frantic, explaining why in a mad rush.
This is what Draco does when he wants to, like, calm himself.
And if he wants to calm himself, that means he had a reason to feel unsettled, or upset, or worried.
“I’ve heard that,” Harry answers, not moving, not taking his elbow away. “Also that the influence can, er, keep going over time.”
“Right,” Draco says, almost to himself, and takes another deep breath.
When he opens his eyes, Harry’s heart misses a beat entirely.
Because Draco was really worried. Draco’s still really worried.
About Harry.
And—yeah, Harry fucked everything up. Harry—after being dated, like, so comprehensively he’s pretty sure he was being courted—found the ring Draco got for him and freaked out. Harry left. But he can see from Draco’s expression that the breakup doesn’t matter to him right now.
“Listen.” This is not what Harry wanted when he went up to sit on the ledge. This is, like, the opposite of what he wanted. But how in Merlin’s tit is he supposed to explain it to Draco, who he left? His throat cinches around a lump that’s hard as a rock. “Listen, I—”
“Were you thinking about killing yourself again?”
“No,” Harry says instantly. “I mean, yeah, obviously I thought about it. But I didn’t really want—I didn’t think—it wasn’t going to work. I didn’t, like, want it to work. I’m fine. Like, I’m really—I’m fine. I’m good.”
Harry’s voice gets all tight and funny towards the end, which probably doesn’t help his case. He knows it doesn’t because Draco’s touch goes even softer on his elbow.
“Will you come to see Weasley at—”
“No,” Harry says, just as fast.
“Granger, then.”
“No.”
He just can’t explain any of this to Ron and Hermione. They don’t get it, and he doesn’t expect them to, because they’re good. At their lives. At planning things out and doing them.
And the one time he tried to put into words how King’s Cross doesn’t scare him or haunt him, it sort of…comforts him, sometimes, even though he doesn’t regret the choice he made when he was seventeen, Ron nodded in a Healer-ish way and Hermione squeezed Harry’s hand and later he overheard Ron crying in the bathroom and Hermione saying it was a different experience, Ronald, he can’t know what that was like and Ron not saying anything at all.
More crickets sing in the pause between them. The lights on the bridge railings tick on above them, casting shadows at their feet. A bloke belly laughs, the sound bouncing from Tower to bridge and back again.
“Will you come to mine?” Draco asks.
“For tonight?”
Another pause. Draco’s hand is warm on Harry’s arm. Harry’s constricted lungs and chafed skin and sandpaper eyes are starting to take, like, a shape. Maybe even one that he could name.
“Yes.” Draco moves his thumb in a little arc on Harry’s arm. “For tonight.”