Well-Kept Secrets (Harry Potter, Draco/Harry)

“Sure thing,” he says and leads the way upstairs.

They’re at the Burrow for the holidays. He likes it here, always has, but it’s hard staying here sometimes. It always reminds him of what a family’s supposed to be like. He could have been raised like this, if the world had gone a little different, with loving parents and a home that made him feel safe and maybe even siblings. Even with Sirius, it could have been like this. Not exactly like it but close. Sirius was no mother, but he’d been a friend when Harry needed one. Sometimes, when his mind wanders into “what if”, he thinks of the kind of life he could have had if Sirius hadn’t been charged with his parents’ murder. Would he still have been sent away to the Dursley’s or would a godfather have been a good enough guardian? Would Harry have turned out more like his father under Sirius’s guidance? He wasn’t sure he wanted that, but at least Sirius would have cared for him.

The three of them file into Ron’s bedroom. Hermione shuts the door while Harry puts the book, a history book that Hermione swore covered all the same topics as their assigned textbook and made far more sense, back in his bag. He can tell by both their faces that he isn’t going to like what they have to say, and yet it has to be important if they’re confronting him about it over the holidays, in a house where you never know who might overhear.

“It’s about Draco,” Hermione begins.