since being cleared of any suspicion by the Inquisitorial Committee, but really, who could bloody tell?
What really bothered Harry was that Draco seemed to be living life on a razor's edge, even after six weeks of being housed, fed, clothed and having Harry for dull conversation a couple of hours most evenings.
There was an alertness about Draco that Harry found unsettling. It irked Harry immensely because this alertness was proving contagious and Harry didn't enjoy feeling antsy in his own home.
It wasn't paranoia, which frankly would have been more understandable given what Draco had recently been through. Rather, it was just Draco's natural state of being.
It seemed an unlikely prospect that some revenge-bent Voldemort fanatic was going to somehow break into the house and off them in their sleep, but that didn't stop Draco from undertaking self-imposed guard duty at night, checking doors, windows and wards. On the occasions that they had to present themselves at the Ministry, Harry felt like he had his very own, one-man security detail.
So then, were they friends?
Harry was inclined to think not. Friends trusted each other. Draco trusted no one.
Harry guessed that there was only one person on the planet who would have ready access to Draco's arguably complex inner workings. The only thing was that said person apparently didn't want anything to do with Draco at this point in time. Hermione had made this fact quite clear every time the topic of Draco was brought up in her presence.
Draco's guard never eased, not even in the relative safety and privacy of Grimmauld Place. This wasn't intentional on Draco's part, Harry understood this. Rather, it was most likely the product of living life on the run for so long. It had to be mentally exhausting, thought Harry, to never feel like you were safe enough or home enough to relax for a minute.
Harry couldn't do anything about enabling Draco to feel truly safe, but he could at least assist with the 'home' part. That sort of homecoming ought to be a private affair. Getting Draco to Malfoy Manor without half of an extremely persistent British wizarding media in hot pursuit was going to be tricky.
He didn't realize he was eyeing Draco rather intently until the latter drawled at him from the landing.
"Your sudden interest in my trousers is worrying, Potter. Speak."
"Hmm," was all Harry said, followed closely by an equally worrying, "what size are you again?"
**
Colin Creevey was having a bad day. He and his unflappable junior assistant, Jessica, had thus far managed to amass a collection of photographs featuring the brickwork at the front of Grimmauld Place, numerous shots of the first floor windows and several close ups of someone's nose poking through the small parting at the curtains.
No one was going to pay for pictures of an anonymous nose.
Nothing so far of their intended subject, Draco Malfoy, who was bound to take off from under Harry Potter' s watchful eye now that he had been officially cleared by the Ministry.
Colin's informant at the Magical Transportation Department had so far confirmed that there had been no Floo travel from Grimmauld Place that morning. That was clever of Malfoy. Floo travel could be tracked. Broom-flight could not.
Well, not unless you were prepared to give chase, which they most certainly were.
No one even knew if Harry was still at home that morning, but Malfoy definitely was. They had just seen him.
Three hours of waiting in the blistering cold paid off when Draco finally made his move. The eager-to-be-promoted Jessica was the first to notice.
"There he is!" she shrieked, her voice scratchy from the cold.
The miserable lot of them, putting all thoughts of collegial competition aside, had huddled together for warmth. They didn't so much spring into action, as creep into it.
Someone from Witch Weekly groaned that it was good to feel his feet again.
It was Malfoy. They all recognized the faded brown pants and the thick, black wool jacket he had been wearing moments ago at the window. He had pulled up the hood of the jacket and wrapped a scarf around the lower half of his face.
There was a brief look directed at them - Colin could briefly make out disdain, it had to be disdain. And then Malfoy was on his broom and up into the air at a dizzying speed.
Time to earn some rent money, Colin decided, as he and his assistant mounted their brooms.
**
Draco waited until the agreed upon twenty minutes had lapsed, before he made his undetected exit