It had taken Harry a full twenty four hours to accept defeat and admit that he needed Draco's help learning how to Occlude. And only then because he'd spent seven of those twenty four hours staring into the lightning-filled depths of the crystal ball and realising that, even now, the magic wasn't happy. Every time he came close to it, daring to reach out with his palm, it fizzled and threatened to break free.

He'd seen what this magic had done to the Globe. He had no desire to find out what it would do to his house.

Such realisations led them to now, with Draco sprawled along Harry's chaise, hands lifted towards the ceiling as he tilted them this way and that, studying them for no apparent reason and spitting out instructions in a bored tone.

"Do you have the wall up yet?"

"It's a mind, Draco," Harry gritted out, "there are no walls. No matter how many times you call it a wall, it is not a wall."

The corner of Draco's lip curled in amusement. "But it gets such a good response," he said lightly.

Harry rolled his eyes, opting to close them so he didn't have to see Draco's smug face.

It was not a wall. No matter how many times Draco called it a wall, Harry did not see a wall in his mind. He saw fog.

He saw fog and drifting snippets of thoughts popping in and out—memories, as best he could figure it. The wall that Draco was describing would likely mean, in Harry's case, something like thickening the fog. The thoughts might still be there, but if the fog could just be a little bit denser, Harry wouldn't be able to see them. And so, in theory, neither would anyone else.

"You know what?" Draco drawled, the sound of fabric shifting as he presumably sat up. His voice was sharper now, directed straight at Harry, and without the edge of amusement it had held before. "I think I'm just going to dive on in. It's not like we have enough time to properly practice this. And if you don't get your shit together quickly, Potter, we might have a lightning storm the size of the Galapagos Isles in central London. So it's in our best interests to move a touch quicker."

Indignation filled Harry, burning deep in the centre of his chest and rising, erupting in his mind. Memories of Snape invading his mind were already close to the surface, for obvious reasons. And Draco's suggestion was just a little too close to those memories for comfort. The underlying tension between them that still hadn't faded began to rise.

He snapped his eyes open, vaguely aware that the rolling, twisting clouds in his brain had turned a deep black, like storm clouds.

"Don't you dare," he snapped.

"Or what?" Draco challenged, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees. "Go on then, should we continue what we started back in the Globe?"

Obviously, Draco was also recalling the tension that hadn't dissipated. His eyes darted toward the crystal ball as the lightning inside it began to strike again and again, snapping against the glass in fury.

"You were so certain I was worthless for a few minutes there at least," he said. "Until you were shocked by your own failures, anyway. Are you quite sure these scars you gave me are enough to vindicate me of my wrongdoings? Maybe you should have another go, just to make sure."

The fog in Harry's mind poured through him, filling every inch of him until he was nothing but black smoke. He couldn't believe Malfoy was honestly threatening to invade him like this.

"You're doing a real great job at convincing me I shouldn't," he said, his voice so low and filled with anger he didn't even recognise it.

It felt like the centre of a mosh pit. Like slick bodies and sweat-coated skin. Like pure freedom and pure power, music thundering in his soul while Sirius's clothing wrapped around his body and something rotten inside Harry broke and fell cleanly away.

"Five," Draco drawled, grey eyes fixed to his. "Four."

Harry snarled.

Something glinted in those grey eyes as they widened slightly and then darkened.

"Three." Draco's voice was a low purr.

"You backstabbing little..." Harry began, but Draco quickly threw out 'two, one, oops, here I come,' and then his magic slammed into Harry's brain—

Only to bounce right back.

Draco winced and rubbed his head. "Very good, Potter." He rolled his eyes. "You didn't have to prove you were the best quite so much. No one's shocked, believe me."

And then he leant back in his chaise, arms stretched over the top, looking casual as anything.

Harry gaped at him. "You're not honestly telling me that you meant for that to happen."

Draco tutted. "Of course I did. You're a Gryffindor. You work best under pressure."

Harry did something very complicated with his face. He was fairly sure it resembled a toddler.

"But Snape was just as much of an arsehole," he protested. "It didn't work when he did it."

Draco snarled. "I hardly think so." He almost looked offended at the idea that he wasn't the number one prick in Harry's memory. "But if we're entertaining the notion, you couldn't fight with Snape like you can fight with me." That same glint reappeared in his eyes. "Snape was a professor. You could snark at him, talk back at him, push his buttons... but ultimately he was the one with the power. You and I are equal."

Something ricocheted through Harry, starting low in his gut and erupting in his chest. Fire, darkness, freedom.

Of all the people Harry met these days, not one of them dared to call themselves equal to him, and it was bloody ridiculous. He'd done nothing, for fuck's sake. He'd thrown a haphazard Expelliarmus at the Dark Lord, and then his own hubris had brought him down.

Harry was not powerful. He was not clever. He was not anything. Of course he was equal to these people. If anything, he was lower than them.

But Draco... he didn't mess about with any of that. And the fact that he dared call himself equal, after everything he'd done. Dared to say it while staring Harry down, eyes glinting, as if silently commanding Harry to challenge him... Well. Fire. Darkness.

Freedom.

Slowly, Harry leant back in his armchair. "So you really can't get into my mind?" he asked, turning his gaze inward just a little—just enough to take note of the black fog, the muffled edges. He felt a wave of Draco's power again, washing over him from head to toe. It moved slowly, like water trickling down a newly formed stream.

Harry shivered.

For some reason he couldn't quite name, he thought of that photograph. Sirius and Bill, entwined—he now realised—on the very chaise that Draco was sitting on. He couldn't get the image out of his head.

Couldn't stop looking at Draco's fingers as they tapped idly against the arm.

"No," Draco said, unaware of the sudden direction of Harry's thoughts, "I can't get in at all." He tilted his head. "Unless..."

Without warning, that sense of magic suddenly crashed over Harry. The stream had become a torrent, and he was drowning in the scent of magic that suddenly felt so familiar. Draco was everywhere.

It was nothing like when Snape had invaded his mind. Snape was like an arrow, tearing through his memories for what would hurt the most, but Draco wasn't even looking. Draco was simply there.

Harry's breath heaved in and out of his chest, and he couldn't escape those eyes before him. The tension between them was still there, but it was shifting into something he didn't even recognise.

"Go on, then," he said through gritted teeth. "I can't shove you out. Take your fill. I know that's what you want."

Draco arched a brow. "Is it?" he said lightly. "Do go on. Tell me more about what I want."

Harry frowned and turned away, trying to fight the sense of Draco inside him, but he couldn't. He didn't even know what weakness Draco had exploited to get in.

"You want to know where I go at night. Why I dress like this," he said in a low voice, still not looking up.

Draco hummed vaguely, already back to examining his nails. "Why do I want to know that?"

It was too much, trying to Occlude while someone invaded his mind and all his memories of Snape's violation burned through him. Harry was too unsettled to take it, too off balance to retain any sense of stability. As Draco asked the idle, infuriating question, all Harry's insecurities raced over him—that he was only fooling himself, pretending he was as cool as Sirius.

"You want to know so you can throw it against me," he snapped, not even caring that he was revealing his secrets. Draco was in his mind; he'd know them all soon enough anyway. "So you can call me pathetic. Deluded."

Draco's other eyebrow slid up to join the first. "Well, this is news to me," he said archly.

Instead of trying to break free, Harry tried to turn the onslaught around, tried to slip through Draco's defences, but it was—he hated to say it—like a wall.

"I can't..." He squinted, grimacing. "I can't get you out."

Draco held up a hand. "Steady, steady. I'll talk you through it, Potter. And it helps if you..." He waved his hand vaguely. "Find a distraction. Read something—go on, start with that." He waved toward the pile of papers from their previous research session.

At the top was the Black family tree. Harry grabbed it and drew it toward him. He began reading names silently, at random. Orion. Ursula. Bellatrix.

"Try to sense me," Draco said. "There'll be a scent. Or a feeling. Find that, and then all you have to do is find the edges."

"Find the edges," Harry muttered. "Sure. Okay."

They stopped talking for a few minutes, but Harry couldn't find the edges, no matter how hard he searched. He could feel something, though. Only... it wasn't anything he could name. It was sharp and rich—cloying, even.

He kept looking back at the chaise, losing track of the names altogether. Clearing his throat, he doubled his efforts.

Unfortunately, so did Draco.

"Why do you think I want to slip into your thoughts and discover your secrets?" Draco asked in a low, deceptively casual voice.

Harry focused on the names. Pollux. Arcturus.

"Because I can tell it's been bothering you," he said tightly. "You've sniffed out a secret that no one knows, like a bloodhound. You were always like that in school, always looking for something you could share with the Prophet."

"Do I look like I share things with the Prophet these days?" Draco asked, an irritated tap, tap, tap of his fingers echoing from the table beside him.

"No," Harry admitted reluctantly.

"I don't want to uncover your secrets," Draco said finally, the words slightly stiff, like he didn't mean to say them. "I want you to share them with me."

Harry looked up, startled, but Draco's face was too tightly held for him to read the expression there. He turned back to the names.

Cassiopeia. Sirius.

"Well, go on then. Ask what you want to know."

He waited for the inevitable. Why are you dressing like a punk when you aren't one? Where do you go at night?

But instead, what Draco asked was, "Why do you even want to win this quest?"

Harry fumbled, eyes fixing to a single name—something Potter. He read it without taking it in.

"It's all that's left of Sirius," he said finally.

Draco made a rude noise. "You and I both know that isn't the reason."

Harry's stomach sank. He remembered having the same conversation with Hermione and Ron, and how they'd accepted that answer with sympathetic smiles and soft gazes. He felt Draco's presence in his mind stretching, sifting about. Not looking; just stirring things up.

Harry could have fought it, could have thickened the fog so that whatever was brought to the surface wasn't visible. Instead, he let it be.

He let that faint feeling of shame rise.

He saw the moment Draco caught it, his eyes growing wide, lips parting. And before he could ask another question, Harry said, "It's because I want to be worthy of it. I want to earn this. Everyone says I'm the Chosen One. The Saviour." The words began rushing out. He couldn't stop them. "But it was always an accident. It was always luck. I defeated Voldemort as a baby because my mother had cast strange magic on me. I defeated him as an adult with Expelliarmus for fuck's sake. This is the first chance I've had to really prove myself. To find this magic and have it trust me enough to let me inherit."

Draco had gone quiet as the words rushed out of Harry and fell into the silence between them. When Harry finally looked up, Draco's brow was crumpled, an expression visible on his face that was a mixture of confusion and understanding. His hand, gripping the arm of the chaise, was clenched, fingernails driving into the fabric.

Something in Harry let go, relaxed. And as it did so, it made space for something else.

He realised what name he'd just seen. He looked down in shock.

"There's a Potter in the Black Family," he said, an unfamiliar disgust swirling in his gut.

"Yes," Draco drawled. "I thought you'd be happy. Charlus Potter."

"Happy?" Harry snorted. "It means you and I are related."

He couldn't keep the disgust from his words, which was strange. Why would he be disgusted? His eyes slid to the chaise again, remembering Bill and Sirius, and suddenly he realised why he couldn't get them out of his head. He realised why he kept looking at Draco's hands. Why the punks making out at the gig the other night—one blond, one dark-haired and messy—had floored him so badly.

He realised why the thought of being related to Draco disgusted him.

Draco sneered, reeling back as if struck. "Is it so unpalatable to be related to me?" His face twisted in scorn—an old, familiar look.

Harry, panicking, just managed to avoid answering with the truth—which was, no, I'm just not really into incest.

Draco went very still, and Harry remembered abruptly, with absolute horror, that Draco was still inside his mind.

It was as if the fog of Harry's mind had slipped free and into the room with them. Everything grew still, quiet, intimate. When he caught Draco's eye, his skin already unbearably flushed, he saw Draco's pupils were almost completely dilated. His darkened gaze fixed on Harry with something he'd never seen there before.

"Don't worry, Potter," he said eventually, eyes glinting. "It's by marriage only. That particular Potter line doesn't extend to you."

The silence held, hovering about them, and in the pure, sparking white noise of Harry's terror, he managed to see Draco's presence in his mind in a way that he hadn't seen it before. It was as Draco had instructed. The pieces of Draco could be identified when compared next to the pieces of Harry's mind, and they could be unfurled.

With a rush, Harry clasped hold of Draco's presence in his mind, tore it free and ejected it. Draco jolted, hands gripping the fabric of the chair, but his eyes never left Harry's.

After a beat, where Harry's mind was filled with pure white noise, Draco cleared his throat.

"Would you like to know where the next constellation is?" he asked in a voice slightly lower than usual. "You're going to love it."