"As I've been trying to tell you, Potter, it doesn't matter that the star charts don't make perfect sense—we have this."

Tall buildings stretched over them, and their shadowed alley gave a brief, welcome reprieve from the London crowd. With a complicated movement of Malfoy's hands, the maps vanished into the satchel at his side, neatly rolled up and organised as if they'd been placed there, and an instrument appeared in their place.

Harry stared, and it was only after a full minute of staring that he realised he wasn't looking at the instrument. Curious though it was, he was looking at Malfoy's hands. Those hands which had so deftly and delicately removed the maps and replaced them with this silver thing. Fine boned, long fingered hands. Draco Malfoy's hands.

Harry cleared his throat. Fortunately, Malfoy hadn't noticed. He held the silver instrument up. It looked like a Muggle contraption Harry remembered seeing in primary school, and only because it had such a funny name—a sextant. The class had always set off into giggles at that. But this one was different. This one was very clearly magical.

There were bits of glass embedded throughout, and what looked like a tiny galaxy stored at the rear. Besides, the silver parts of the contraption moved a little. Not swinging out of the way, just alternating. Switching around, depending on which way Malfoy faced.

"I'll bite," Harry said. "What is it? I know it looks like a sextant, but I'm assuming it's more than that."

Malfoy made a slightly strangled sound. "A what?"

"A sextant," Harry repeated.

This time he swore a faint pink blush rose on Malfoy's cheeks. "A sex tent?!"

Oh. Malfoy had never heard of those. The corner of Harry's lip twitched as he fought back a smile. "You know, the Muggle thing that helps you measure the angle of stars against the horizon or something. Is that what this is? A sextant? Malfoy, is it a sextant?" Harry pushed, leaning in a little bit closer.

Malfoy cleared his throat and shook his head. "Potter, I don't know what the fuck you're on about. No, it's not that. It's a..." He froze, lips parted and eyes wide. The pink blush rose. "It's a cockrun," he said, mumbling the word in a rush.

Harry spluttered out a laugh. "It's a what?"

"You heard me," Malfoy snarled.

"No, actually, I didn't," Harry said, fighting back a laugh. "Did you say it's a cock run?"

"Roll the R, Potter. It's a cockrun. Emphasis on—" He froze again. "You know what? Forget it. You know what it is and you know what it does. We are going to follow it, right now, to the location that I think I've deduced from the maps, and we are going to see what the stars show us."

Harry folded his arms and leant back on one foot. "All right then, Malfoy," he said, no longer bothering to hide his grin. "Take me to the stars."

Malfoy didn't grace him with an answer.

After a while, walking again, they ended up in front of a building that Harry faintly recognised. He squinted up at it, racking his brains for the word to describe it.

"Globe," he said finally. "This is the Globe. Shakespeare, yeah?"

Malfoy arched a brow. "Very good, Potter."

Harry gave a sigh. "Next you'll tell me Shakespeare was a wizard, I suppose."

Malfoy chewed on his lip. "Squib, actually," he said after a moment, his tone a little too airy to be casual. "Not that anyone admits it."

Harry's brows lifted. "What, you all know he was a Squib and you just pretend he wasn't?"

"I didn't say it made sense," Malfoy drawled. "I said it's how it was. Can you imagine people like my father," he drawled the word in a tone Harry couldn't identify, "admitting that one of the most famous, talented men who existed was a Squib? No, you'll find all manner of theories about him. He was more powerful than Merlin; he just refused to show it for fear of bragging. Took a vow against using his magic. Traded it to the underworld to save a poor young witch from drowning. All sorts of rubbish." Malfoy sniffed. "He was a Squib, and he was a bloody talented man."

Harry reeled back a little in shock. He'd never heard Malfoy compliment someone like that before, let alone a Squib.

"Shakespeare fan, are you?" he said, finally settling on the most neutral response he could think of.

Malfoy's lip twitched. "If you don't already know the answer to that, Potter, then you don't know me at all."

It was on the tip of Harry's tongue to answer—no, I don't know you. I thought I did, but now I don't think I know anything at all.

Gratefully, he kept his mouth shut.

"Alright then, so you think the Globe is the location?"

"I'd need a quill and parchment to double check the math of it," Malfoy said, running a thumb over his chin absentmindedly, "but by that point the perfect window to translocate the constellation would have passed. So unless you want to risk our best chances." He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "Why don't we Gryffindor it up and just have a go?"

Harry stared at him, no longer bothering to hide his surprise. Images flashed through his mind. Shouting echoing from the door at Malfoy Manor, Malfoy shrugging and saying 'fuck it'. Malfoy already dressed and ready for their outing an hour beforehand, available to step through Harry's Floo at a moment's notice.

And those looks Harry kept seeing. Looks he couldn't read. Looks he didn't understand.

"Let's Gryffindor it up," Harry repeated.

Malfoy's gaze dropped once more to Harry's shirt, but instead of looking at the logo emblazoned on the front, his eye was drawn to the loop of the armpit, where it fell halfway down his stomach. The breeze had caught inside it, billowing it forward. His nipple was showing.

Harry shrugged his shoulders and shoved his hands deeper in his pockets, so the fabric pressed against his skin once more. When he'd first worn this shirt, he'd had no idea how Sirius could be comfortable going out in it. And then he had, and he felt free in a way he couldn't explain.

But from the sudden glint in Malfoy's eye, he had a feeling Malfoy might understand.

Before Harry could say anything, Malfoy lifted the cockrun to his eye and stared at the roof of the Globe.

"Aren't you meant to be looking at the stars?" Harry asked, arms folded as he leant against the side of the building.

"I am," Malfoy drawled. "There are mirrors inside this, Potter. Mirrors that allow one to see through the clouds, even when the sun is out."

Well, that didn't make any sense, but since when did magic make sense? Harry thought. He gave himself over to watching Malfoy.

His initial thought, as he stood there, was relief. He would have been royally screwed without Malfoy by his side, and not just because of the Black blood that he needed or whatever. Even Hermione hadn't known what to do with the charts, hadn't known what exactly a Will quest would require of them.

But Malfoy did, easy as breathing.

And where Harry had initially been ticked off that he had to rely on a pureblood for this last final glimpse of his godfather, he couldn't help letting the phrase Gryffindor it up echo through his mind. And when he did that, it didn't feel like he was relying on a pureblood at all.

Abruptly, Malfoy let out a breathless little 'oh' and dropped the cockrun from his eye. He gazed up at the Globe, eyes wide, lips parted.

Harry couldn't look away for five whole seconds before he wrenched his gaze to try and see what Malfoy was seeing.

"What is it?" he asked in a hushed whisper, ignoring the crowds of tourists moving around them. "Did you find part of the constellation?"

"I did," Malfoy said in a very strange voice. "Tell me—what are stars, Potter? What are they made of?"

Harry grimaced. "Gas?"

"Gas captured in a state of nuclear fusion," Malfoy said, distantly, seeming completely unaware of the oddity of a pureblood wizard using the phrase 'nuclear fusion'. "There is no way to record or obtain a part of a star down here on Earth without disrupting that chemical reaction in a way that fundamentally destroys it. But with this process of nuclear fusion, they produce light. They shine and they shine, Potter. And so the best way to translocate a constellation of light onto the earth without destroying it is to trap. That. Light."

He looked at Harry suddenly, his gaze so sharp, the silvery depths of his eyes capturing Harry and holding him still.

"We couldn't just draw a picture?" Harry suggested in a daze, moving his finger vaguely around in the shape of a star. "Five points, call it a day?"

Malfoy ignored him. "We trapped that light with mirrors. At some point in time, wizards reflected the beam of light from those constellations and then enchanted the mirrors' reflection so the light never escaped again. And there was the constellation—translocated onto the Earth."

Harry looked up, alarmed. "I don't see any mirrors."

"Think smaller," Malfoy breathed, and he held up the cockrun to Harry's face.

It was a testament to how charged the moment was, how poised, that Harry didn't even laugh. He held the instrument to his eye and aimed it roughly where Malfoy had been looking. It took a moment, but it was as though the instrument was attuned to what they were looking for—quickly, it landed on the spot.

He gasped.

There, above one of the windows, was the tiniest pinprick of light. Poised between three mirrors the size of a penny, you couldn't even see it from the ground. You couldn't see it unless you were looking for it.

A tiny, enchanted bit of starlight, caught for eternity.

"So now we find the other ones?" Harry suggested, still speaking in that hushed tone, but Malfoy was already looking.

He prowled the perimeter of the globe and then, ignoring the security guards at the entrance, cast a Notice-Me-Not charm over himself and slipped inside. Cursing, Harry picked up the satchel from the ground, tucked the cockrun under his arm, and followed.

It took them twenty minutes to scout out every nook and cranny of the theatre, to find each pinpoint of light. Harry recognised the shape they formed instantly; he'd seen it a dozen times on those star charts.

"Cassi—" Harry began, but Malfoy shut him up by simply slamming his palm over Harry's mouth.

"Don't say it," he cautioned, eyes wide. "Not yet."

Harry stared at him.

"That's what we're here for, so it has to be done right." After a second, Malfoy withdrew his hand. The hushed silence descended around them again.

"So when I say the name of the constellation," Harry said slowly. "The Black magic that's been stored here will come to me?" He finished with a question.

Malfoy grimaced, his expression as open and unsure as Harry had ever seen it.

"Your guess is as good as mine, but yes, I think so. Which means..." Malfoy reached into the satchel at Harry's side and withdrew a small crystal ball. "You'll need this to store it."

Harry took the ball, fingers brushing against Malfoy's. "All right," he said, glancing at the door and back again. "Do I just... Do I just say it?"

Malfoy nodded a little too quickly to be reassuring. Especially when he immediately took a step backward.

Harry gritted his teeth. Gryffindor it up.

"Cassiopeia," he said aloud.

Lightning struck the Globe.

"Merlin," Malfoy yelped, bracing himself against the wall as the entire building shook. Dust fell around them in plumes. The wooden beams above ached and creaked. "Hold up the ball, Potter!"

Harry just managed to resist the urge to say 'hold up the ball to the cockrun', and instead simply did as he was told. It was like magic. Like the air was filled with magic, glittering and sparking. Like lightning had filled every atom in the space.

But something was wrong.

It wouldn't go into the crystal ball. It zapped at his fingers, making him flinch and nearly drop and shatter the ball completely. It flicked at his hair, tugged at his curls, and shattered one of the lenses in his glasses.

"Shit, shit, shit," Malfoy hissed. "Something's not right. What have we missed? What's going on?"

"Don't have a bloody clue," Harry hissed back. "But we're in it now."

He held the ball above his head, ignoring the faint shriek of anger that seemed to echo through the space. Outside, he could hear terrified Muggles running, shouting something about an earthquake. One of the custodians of the Globe was wailing, protesting the damage that was sure to come.

Harry couldn't help but agree with them, because if he didn't manage to capture this lightning bolt in the next twenty seconds, he was pretty confident the whole place was going to come down around them.

"Malfoy, you've got to do something," he hissed, bracing himself as the magic grew stronger.

"Do what, Potter?" Malfoy snapped. "I've already done everything." He gritted his teeth, taking another step backward. "You haven't done a bloody thing. I quite think it's your turn, don't you?"

"Well, just give me a suggestion," Harry yelled, beginning to panic. "Just an idea of what I can do. What the general options are, you know. Then I'll do it. It's fine, just for God's sake, Malfoy, give me something."

Lightning struck again, and Malfoy's already pale face turned paler, all sharp and pointed. He looked as Harry remembered him on the top of the Astronomy tower.

He couldn't escape the parallels—the bitter irony of it. Chasing astronomy down here on earth, the sky rushing toward them as the ground had rushed towards Professor Dumbledore. So many choices to make, and no idea what to do.

"Please, Draco," he whispered, not even realising what he'd said until Malfoy's eyes snapped to his.

In the brief lull between blasts of magic, the two of them stared at one another.

Malfoy took a step closer, and then rested his hand on Harry's below the ball. "Maybe if we..." he began.

But with an immense crackling sound, like a vacuum suddenly filling, the lightning struck one more time and then was quiet.

The silence was deafening.

Outside, people were still screaming, though the sound was beginning to fade into confusion. Harry realised his chest was panting in rugged waves, and Malfoy beside him...

Draco...

Draco was shivering.

"Huh," Harry said. "I guess it just needed a bit of time."

Draco glanced at him, the whites of his eyes showing, pupils almost completely dilated. "Well, I'll jot that down for next time," he snarked, lip curling in a frightened sneer. "Do you think it's safe for me to let go of the ball? Or would you like me to hold your hand all the way into your pocket?"

Harry raised an eyebrow, and the pink flush returned to Draco's face.

"Oh, shut up," he snapped, tugging his hand away.

But as he turned, he couldn't help glancing back one more time, their eyes meeting in another lightning spark of their own. Harry slipped the ball into the satchel and slung it back over his shoulder.

Without speaking, Draco lifted his wand and aimed it at Harry's glasses. The broken lens shot back together, good as new, and the warped, distorted vision of the man before him solidified, becoming, abruptly, crystal clear.

"Do you want to come back for a drink?" Harry asked, adjusting his frames for something to do.

A strange expression crossed Draco's face, and he shook his head.

"Better not," he said, suddenly looking immensely tired. "Mother's serving..." He trailed off. "Well, I should go home anyway."

"When's the next time?" Harry asked. "You know..." He shrugged. "Mathematically speaking."

Draco's lips quirked into a small smile. "I'll have to work it out. I'll owl you, okay?"

"Sure," Harry shrugged. "Or just stick your head in the fireplace. Works for me."

Draco snorted out a surprised laugh, and then with the final lift of his hand, he Apparated away.