#cw references to canonical ill-treatment and abuse

[tackytigerfic]

Hand on the Key

Lost the run of myself entirely with this “microfic” which is just a fic, I’m sorry @drarrymicrofic. The prompt was “Burn It”. This fic is a recreation of a scene that I remember reading in a fic years ago but have never been able to track down. All I know is that Harry and his friends return to Privet Drive and Dudley is working out in front of the television. So I made all the rest up just to get that in! If anyone remembers the fic itself, please let me know! Title is based on a line from The Consignment by Hannah Flagg Gould.

When they arrived at Privet Drive, they all stood at the door for a few moments, momentum lost, before Harry shrugged and stepped forward to ring the doorbell.

As soon as Petunia saw them through the peephole, she backed away, but they could follow her shadow through the frosted glass panels beside the door, and anyway Hermione was out of patience by then, and didn’t even look around to check if the coast was clear before whipping out her wand and performing a brisk Alohomora.

Petunia did try to stop them, drawing herself up to her full height and summoning as much poison into her voice as she could, but Ginny just laughed and elbowed past her, Luna dancing behind, and Neville had his fingers in the hanging basket beside the door—All clear, he said gravely, as though there might have been something brutal and awful lurking among the pansies—and Hermione, who bore a long grudge, said unsympathetically, “Oh, do shut up” to Petunia as she ran some diagnostic charms over the lintel of the front door. Ron hovered behind her, glaring, wand out.

Dean and Seamus were just there to bump the numbers up, really, and they were already preoccupied by the little yappy dog that was running around in the side passage, behind an unnecessarily fussy metal gate, so it was only Draco who noticed that Harry wasn’t moving.

It was just that Petunia was still there, that was all, standing in the doorway, ribs straining with her rage, the rattle of her outraged breaths keeping Harry at a distance. He remembered how angry she could get.

“Don’t you dare come in here,” she said, pointing at Harry, hand upraised, and he couldn’t help it; he flinched. Draco was behind him suddenly, a solid heat at his back, and then Harry felt his steadying hand at the base of Harry’s spine.

“Move,” Draco said to Petunia, “or I’ll make you regret it.”

He was still good at that, being impossibly posh and commanding, Harry thought dimly, looking up at Petunia from the front step. She was so tall. And then she stepped to the side, leaning back against the wall as though she was very tired, and Draco steered Harry past her so fast that it was over before he even had to think about it, and he could breathe again.

Ginny was sitting on the kitchen counter, swinging her legs and eating some of the good biscuits out of the biscuit barrel. With every beat of her heels against the cereal cabinet, she left a dusty smear. Petunia’s not going to like that, Harry thought. Through the window he could see Dean and Seamus in the back garden. The dog was on its back on the grass, four legs in the air, wriggling with delight as they rubbed its fluffy tummy. Through the open window, Harry could hear the distant hum of a lawnmower. The air felt heavy with summer.

“You’d better not have eaten all the good ones, you rotter,” Draco told Ginny, and stalked across the kitchen to her. She hugged the biscuit barrel to her chest, and before Draco managed to wrestle it away from her, she dug out a green-wrapped Viscount and chucked it to Harry over Draco’s head. He muttered something to her and she laughed out a spray of crumbs, and then Draco picked out a piece of shortbread and came back to stand with Harry.

“You can have this one, if you like,” Harry told him, holding out the Viscount. The foil was stretched out and shiny from his smoothing thumb. He could feel the chocolate inside softening under his touch.

“You have it,” Draco said, stuffing half the shortbread into his mouth. “This one is fine.” His voice was muffled by biscuit, but his eyes were still sharp when he looked at Harry. He swallowed hard, and then said, “You’re allowed to have it, Harry.”

Harry didn’t know what to say, because he could feel the slow familiar bloom of panic deep in his chest, and everything felt too small and dangerous now he was actually here, with the same heavy tick of the kitchen clock, and the fuzzy murmur of the television from the next room, and knowing Petunia was just down the hall. It wasn’t that Harry didn’t feel like he could eat the biscuit. He knew he could. This wasn’t his home any more, and he was here on business, and he didn’t care about the fact that the biscuits were for Dudley. He just didn’t want it, not with this sick curling ribbon of tension spooling through him.

“But,” Draco said quietly, “if you like, I can mind it for you. And you can have it at home with a cup of tea.”

“Yes,” Harry answered, with a dizzying sense of relief. “That’d be nice. Thanks.” 

“Here,” Draco said, holding out his little mokeskin pouch for Harry to drop it in. “Now. We had better see about that box.” He tucked the pouch into his pocket, then he reached out and clasped Harry’s arm, just above the jut of Harry’s wristbone. His fingers were a warm, solid band. 

He was always doing that, these days. Reaching out for Harry, touching him casually, like he couldn’t really help himself. He didn’t care that Ginny was watching and rolling her eyes, or that Hermione was sighing from the hall doorway and gesturing at them to come on. Harry liked it, liked the feeling that he made Draco helpless for him. It was different when it was just them of course, Draco possessive, almost greedy, rougher sometimes (though Harry liked that too), his hand covering first Harry’s mouth, then his own, to muffle the sounds he made when Harry touched him back. 

Draco hadn’t wanted to come to Privet Drive. He hadn’t thought Harry should go either, and he’d had a stand-up row with Hermione about it at the last meeting. “He’s done enough,” he had shouted, and “Why should he have to be there?” and Harry had stayed quiet, because he knew it had to be him, and he knew that Hermione was going to make him come no matter what. But after the meeting he had dragged Draco out into the hall and kissed him quiet again, got him all slow and languid up against the wall, and then he had said, “I’ll go if you come too,” which settled it.

“Stop messing about,” Hermione said now, and Ginny jumped down from the counter and they all trooped dutifully through the double doors into the living room. 

“We’re on the clock, mate,” Ron said. “Do you have any idea where it could be?”

“I don’t even know if it’s here,” Harry said, as though he hadn’t already told them that, over and over. “You saw her—she hates us, and she hated my mum. Why would she keep any of her stuff?”

Neville was already at the tv cabinet, rifling through the drawers, casting detection spells. Behind him, Luna was methodically patting down all the couch cushions. The tinny blare of the television was unceasing, figures in lycra moving in sync.

“Harry?” 

It was Dudley, standing half-naked in a corner and looking very pale. He was holding a set of dumbbells, foolishly, in his big hands, and he was covered in a sheen of sweat. He was still massive, Harry thought; strong-looking. Harry let his eyes slide over to Draco just once, quickly, hating himself, wanting to see where Draco was looking, but Draco just glanced at Dudley, a cool, condemning once-over, and then looked back at Harry expectantly.

“Hi Dudley. Listen, I don’t have much time. But there’s something we need—something of my mum’s—and we think it might be here. Have you ever come across anything weird, anything your mum might have hidden away? It’s a box, about so big—”

Dudley didn’t move, but his big chest muscles twitched nervously.

“It doesn’t open though,” he muttered. “The box I mean. The small one with funny writing.”

“You’ve seen it then?” Hermione asked coolly. “Where is it, please?”

“It’s under the stairs,” Dudley said, flushing violently. He wasn’t looking at Harry at all. “In behind the picnic basket and the box with the garden hose.”

“Harry?” Hermione said, but Draco was already moving.

“I’ll get it,” he spat, casting a vicious glance at Hermione, who only sighed again. Harry wished they wouldn’t fight so much, knew they probably always would.

Seamus and Dean tapped on the French doors, Seamus cradling the dog in his arms. 

“We’re taking this little fella with us,” he announced, and Dean scratched under the dog’s chin until its whole little body went limp with ecstasy. “I’m calling him Bran.”

“He looks like a Kyon to me,” Luna said mildly, and Dudley interjected from the corner, “She’s a she, not a he,” though he fell silent after a withering look from Hermione.

“We are not taking the dog,” Hermione began, and that’s when Harry slipped out into the hall.

Draco was standing in front of the open cupboard, and he had the box in his hand. There was no sign of Petunia.

“I could kill them,” he said quietly when Harry came up behind him, hooked his chin over Draco’s shoulder so he could look into the dark space under the stairs. He felt okay about it, with Draco’s body between him and the cupboard.

“I know,” he answered. “We all could.”

“No,” Draco answered, body tensing, though he put his free hand over Harry’s where it rested against his stomach. “I mean, I would. I want to kill them. I want to burn this place to the ground.”

“You won’t though.” 

Draco was very quiet.

“And in any case,” Harry continued, “we don’t have time.”

“Okay.” Draco squeezed his hand, then turned so he could put his arms around Harry. “But if we weren’t on the clock…”

“And if Hermione wouldn’t totally kill us…”

“And if I thought any fire could destroy a hell-demon like your aunt…”

“Maybe next time,” Harry said, and kissed him. “Maybe next time I’ll let you go on a murderous rampage.”

“Fair enough.” 

Draco smiled, the lovely heartbreaking crooked smile of his that Harry knew to touch and taste. 

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, and kicked the cupboard door shut.

It's here on AO3