No this is how it works

You peer inside yourself

You take things you like

And try to love the things you took

And then you take that love you made

And stick it into some -

Someone else's heart

Pumping someone else's blood

Regina Specktor 'On the Radio'

The first time Harry saw Malfoy after the war he had just been with his friends shopping for Christmas and laughing so hard he thought his sides might melt. "No, it's true," protested Ron with a wheeze, "she never saw it coming, just bang. Right into her hand, just like that." He clapped his sister congenially on the back. "Only Ginny could unintentionally catch the quaffle in her search for the snitch." And then he cracked up again.

Harry grinned conspiratorially at Ginny as he gave Ron a gentle shove towards Fortescue's. "Look who's arrived," he commented blandly. Waiting for Ron to look up, restraining the urge to shout 'Hermione's here!' at the top of his voice.

Ron gave a whoop of delight as he caught sight of 'Mione's dark curls, and he rushed forward only to stop inches away from her. "Uh, 'Mione." He said brushing a hand self-consciously through his hair.

"Just hug her already," stated Ginny loudly just behind them. Ron blushed furiously but, as if given permission, leant forward and tentatively put his arms about Hermione.

"About time you got here," Harry commented, selfishly pushing his way into the hug. Pulling both Ron and Hermione towards him in a dramatic gesture. "Missed you both," he whispered softly reluctantly letting go of his two best friends.

"You only saw us both yesterday," Ron whispered back grinning.

"Yeah, well," commented Harry, as it was his turn to sheepishly scrub at his hair.

"Don't I get a hug?" Ginny suddenly demanded, standing tellingly close to Harry's shoulder.

"Sure you do," said Harry. Spinning round he gave her a quick squeeze before saying, "Hey, I have a definite urge for something disgustingly rich. Let's go get ice cream."

If Harry hadn't spent the better part of the previous year being chased by a megalomaniac wizard and developing a sixth sense when it came to his surroundings he never would have noticed the look Hermione and Ron exchanged, or the red faced hurt on Ginny's face.

As it was he forged ahead, not wanting to confront something he wasn't sure he could fix.

Today was for sunshine and happiness. Today was for shopping and laughing and friends. "I think I want triple chocolate," Harry declared boldly.

...



"Strawberry," said Ginny, trying, trying so hard to hide her hurt that Harry could almost convince himself she'd succeeded and he didn't need to pretend not to see her face.

"Vanilla," said Hermione to a chorus of groans from her friends. "What?"

"Hermione, it's just, sometimes it's actually physically painful, just how predictable you can be," said Ron companionable swinging an arm over her shoulder and dragging her towards the restaurant.

Once settled at a table outside Fortescues happily slurping up ice-cream the friends all took turns awkwardly trying to start a conversation.

"I..."

"What..."

"How're..."

Harry only was silent as one by one the others searched for something to say that wasn't made painful by memories.

"Will you be going back to school?" asked Ron, finally. Looking at Harry and Hermione. "It's just Professor McGonagall did invite... and I was wondering..." he trailed off staring out towards the shops crowded with people celebrating survival.

"I won't be," said Hermione suddenly. Holding up a hand at their surprise she said gently. "I don't need to. I've been asked to attend Trinity University, they've actually given me my choice of courses, and it's an opportunity I can't miss. As much as I'd love to return to Hogwarts."

Harry knew what Ron was going to say before it was said. He had seen the envelope on the dining room table two days ago. And had known then just what it had meant to Ron. "I won't be going back either," he said as decisively as possible fiddling with the collar of his shirt. "I've been asked to play quidditch, for the Canon's Harry, and they've offered to fund me at university as well. I can't say no. I mean. I would have. But Hermione, you won't be there, and Harry... I mean you won't be going back, the offers..."

"Why wouldn't I go back?" asked Harry abruptly. Perhaps he had known what Ron was going to say, but that didn't make it any easier. Ron wasn't the only one to get a letter from The Cannons, and Hermione wasn't alone in her offer of university studies. In fact Harry knew that by now he had probably been offered free training in almost every occupation the wizarding world held as suitable for The Boy Who Lived. And money for anything that wasn't.

'Be my personal catamite...' had been Harry's all time favourite. He thought one day that he might use the proposal to shock his friends. The sum stated as pay was a ludicrously large amount. In one night Harry could have made his fortune.

But he didn't want a fortune. He didn't want power or prestige, for all that the wizarding world seemed intent on foisting it upon him. He wasn't sure what he wanted. He still felt like the year before had occurred in some form of limbo where time didn't pass. He didn't feel old enough yet to leave Hogwarts. He still felt the need to be a child clinging to the safety of his parent's skirts. In truth, he wasn't ready to leave home.

"I'm going back," he said simply. He smiled sadly in Hermione's direction, "I think I have a lot to learn before I can skip a year to attend university," he commented.

Ron sat silently staring at the ice-cream bowl cupped in his hands. "But Harry," he protested eventually. "The other day..."

"The other day I was telling you just how great it would be to be able to play quidditch professionally. I saw the letter Ron. I was encouraging you to go."

Ginny stared at Harry, "you mean, you're coming back to Hogwarts, when you could be... I don't know, training to be an Auror or something," she asked. Harry nodded. "Oh, Harry," she cried and flung her arms about his neck. And Harry couldn't help but feel she had somehow managed to get the wrong message.

...

Harry had always thought of Hogwarts as home, but if Hogwarts was home and the Dursley's his own personal version of hell then Grimauld Place was strangely in between the two. He'd almost instinctively disliked the house from the very first moment he set foot in it. Its dark hallways and even darker atmosphere serving to constantly amplify Harry's depression and despair.

But the house had been Sirius' and he had given it to Harry - to my godson, may he do with it whatever he wishes – and Harry had heard the words and thought of demolition. Harry had a vague idea that had almost been what Sirius had wanted, for him to rebuild, something grand and his. But he found now, that with Sirius' death like a ghost in his memory it wasn't something he could do.

So he had avoided the house for as long as possible even after the Order had moved out.

And after the war had finally came to a halt, lumbering to a stop several weeks after Voldemort was killed, Harry had been asked by not one, but twelve wizarding families, if he would now like to live with them. The first to ask had, of course, been the Weasley's. Then the Diggory's, the Dean's and even the Zabinni's.

Hermione's offer had been tentative. The Wealey's assured, assuming a resulting yes. Others had been proud, some conciliatory, some begging. And Harry had just wanted to escape from everyone. So he had.

He had torn every offer in a fit of rage and ensconced himself in Grimauld Place before anyone could prise him out.

Hermione had been hurt, and so had Ron. They seemed to have been harbouring some thought of living together once the war was finished. Despite the fact Harry knew he would have driven everyone mad within moments, including himself.

So it was that after ice-cream and the formation of an uneasy resolve Ron and Ginny returned the Burrow, apparating, Hermione excused herself at the entrance to the muggle world and Harry wandered towards the Fireplace at the Leaky Cauldron.

...

Harry was almost at the Leaky Cauldron when he realised something peculiar was going on in his peripheral vision.

He had wandered past the same piece of blank wall several times in excursions to the Alley and that's all it was. Just a piece of blank brick, perhaps several feet across, between Eylops Owlery and Sissingtons Alchemia.

But now as he passed he saw from the corner of his eyes a small alcove. Not deserving of the name alley. Merely a dip in the structure allowing room enough for perhaps two, maybe three people, but no more.

He looked more closely. Brick, just brick.

Blink. Look to the side, and there, barely registering on peripheral vision, an alcove. With a body pushed up against the wall.

Touch it, and all his hands registered was brick, all he could see in his field of vision was brick. But there had been a body in there. Collapsed, or shoved into the wall. Perhaps hurt, perhaps dead. And Harry couldn't leave someone like that.

So he turned his head again, until he could see the alcove from the sides of his eyes and slowly reached out a hand, fully expecting to encounter the rough surface of brick. Instead he passed through easily fell on his knees beside the body and behind him witches and wizards went about their business.

...

Harry hadn't always hated Malfoy. Sometimes he managed indifference, at other times he managed irritation. But the fact was only once in his life had Malfoy managed to inspire in Harry any feelings other than the usual.

He'd appeared a Grimauld Place several months into the true war, when wizarding London was in shambles and the Order was fighting with everything they had to merely survive.

His face had been cut, and there were bruises on every visible body surface. His first words had been: let me help. His second: that blood traitor killed my parents.

Harry had been surprised that he'd even thought to come to the Order. And then annoyed that Malfoy who in Harry's mind was a git, always and in every was a stupid idiotic git, had obviously managed to put aside his pride and arrogance to ask for help from those he'd been taught to loath.

It niggled at Harry that Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, had managed to do something Harry was sure he could never have done himself. But slowly out of waves of jealousy and envy there had come to be several tiny beads of respect.

Of course, that was really the only time Harry saw Malfoy during the war. He was the centre the hub about which the war efforts proceeded. He didn't have time to concern himself with a blond haired boy who'd surprised everyone with his loyalty his family. During the war Malfoy was nothing more than a blond haired fighter who barely registered on Harry's radar.

But Harry had given him respect once, and as he turned over his beaten body in the alley, he found he could also give him compassion.

...

Malfoy's face was pale and beside the coarse grey of cobbles he looked wraithlike and translucent. His eyes were closed, lashes lightly brushing his cheeks, and his body was cold.

Harry was almost thankful for the medi training the war had forced on him, as he slowly took Malfoy's pulse and ran a diagnostic spell to see where the damage was. But as the pulse beneath his hands ran steady, and the spell came up blank he sat back on his heels and knew that whatever this was it wasn't curable by a quick curo.

Raising his right hand above his head he let of three bright red sparks whose particular frequency would be immediately sense by the emergency room at St. Mungo's

Help would be on its way. Capable help. Adult help. Harry could leave now, and within ten minutes Malfoy would be in the hands of Mediwitch's who knew exactly what they were doing.

It was a temptation. Running away.

Harry had avoided almost all publicity since the war, letting himself be bullied into only one interview, conducted in the presence of Moody and McGonagall. Even today he was avoiding notice, wearing a light glamour Remus had taught him before he died.

But if he was here when the Medi-Team arrived, he would almost certainly have to give his name at some point. There would be paperwork, and signatures and whole realm of fuss that Harry could quiet happily live without.

But the boy before him stirred wincing and curling inward around some internal pain. And Harry knew he wouldn't leave.

...

It was illogical, totally, utterly and blazingly illogical. Not only was Harry told that Malfoy was 'quiet all right,' and that the pain he was feeling was 'psychosomatic'. Now he was being told that Mungo's didn't have room to keep him overnight and that he was going to be released without anyone so much as contacting his family or friends.

They'd arrived probably two hours before. Harry apparating just behind the Medi-Team as they moved Malfoy to a waiting chamber.

There'd been questions, Who are you? – What's your relationship with? – How did you find?

And then there'd been quiet.

Malfoy still hadn't woken up. He been moved to one of the hospital beds and his robes exchanged for a hospital gown.

He still looked frail and as he had shifted uneasily in his sleep Harry had been struck by his vulnerability. Malfoy asleep was not like Malfoy awake.

Malfoy awake was unpleasant, with a smirk and sneer. His pride visibly overriding any and every good point he may have had. Malfoy asleep was lost and vulnerable, with a soft face and a grace that was lost in the tension of living when he was conscious.

Harry had sat for a good thirty minutes waiting for someone to come, run some tests, say 'yes he'll be fine,' and 'we'll look after him. You can go home now.'

His mind had wandered surprisingly calmly over the last eight years of his life. From the moment at which chance had made him choose Ron instead of Malfoy, to the point at which he had acknowledged to himself that Malfoy wasn't perhaps as bad as he had seemed.

During the war a lot of things had changed in Harry. He'd come to understand that those who followed Voldemort often had as little choice about it as he did in fighting. His respect for Malfoy had grown, as among the many children of Death Eaters he was one of the rare few who had turned to the Order.

Yet Harry had realised, fate was fate. Whether it presented itself in the form of a wand to your parent's necks or a prophecy voiced before you were born. Malfoy had only been able to leave Voldemort when Narcissa had finally killed herself, leaving the Dark Lord with no leverage and Malfoy with less than no reason to stay.

Other's had not been so lucky. Crabbe had fought to death at the Fell, because his father was in one of the Dark Lords labyrinthine cells. Goyle had fled Europe only when his younger sister had drowned herself. The war had harmed so many of them. Forced them to commit actions that had twisted and pulled them out of shape.

And Harry had respected Malfoy, because instead of running when he could have, he chose to hurt those who had hurt him. Fight the evil he perceived in Voldemort and his followers.

But Harry did wonder just what damage such a decision had caused.

After the war Harry had been angry. Not just at Voldemort, or the Death Eaters, but at his friends and his family. The dead and the living. Everyone and anyone who came within a two mile radius was in danger of becoming a target to his rage.

Hermione had pleaded with him to calm down, and Ron had muttered under his breath that maybe he needed a vacation. Far, far, far away.

Harry hadn't been able to make them understand that he needed to be angry. That the war had torn something within him, and the anger kept the world at bay as he began to heal. Instead he had left the Burrow and formed a home for himself in Grimauld Place, where if he shouted at pictures they damn well shouted back.

It had taken him till now, some four months since the official end of the war. Four months after the memorial service, the awards ceremony and the appearance of his one and only public interview for him to begin to calm down.

It was only now, that he was beginning to realise just what the war had done to others as well.

Hermione had become far quieter. Her ideas no less brilliant, but they were no longer presented as certainty. A shadow of doubt had entered her soul, and Harry wondered if she would ever get it back.

Ron had lost his innocence. He'd always been just a little oblivious to subtext. To messages and conversations that occurred at a level below the verbal. Now he could read Hermione's mood from a look, and have entire conversations with his eyes. Now, Ron was hypersensitive to others moods. Sometimes it surprised Harry that he'd been the only one to run away. But Ron had chosen his path, he'd chosen to comfort the pain he now saw in his family, not flee from it.

Sometimes Harry hated himself for running away, but the night Ginny had come to his room crying from nightmares and expecting him to be her hero he'd realised he couldn't stay.

As he'd sat waiting beside Malfoy's bed he'd realised he was gazing at the face of yet another person who was changed by the war. Because it would have been impossible to have survived that much pain and horror and emerge the same as before.

And now, as he stood in the corridor facing a tall, stick thin medi-witch he realised that he felt a kinship to Malfoy. Survival forged ties stronger than blood, and Harry knew that Draco's survival, now, was as important to him as his own.

"What do you mean there's nothing wrong?" he asked genuinely bemused and beginning to get a little angry.

"I mean Mr. Potter," said the witch, her face falling into a stern pattern that said she refused to let his identity affect her, "that there is nothing medically wrong with Mr. Malfoy. There is nothing in the scans to suggest any physical damage, and there have been no spells cast on his person recently. He is well. And as soon as he awakes we are releasing him."

"But," asked Harry, lost, "where will he go?"

Because there was very obviously something wrong with Malfoy. And maybe only Harry could see it. A person didn't voluntarily curl up in a magically hidden alcove and go to sleep. And Malfoy would be the last person Harry could see going on an all night bender and collapsing on his way home. Besides, apparently, the scans had given a negative to foreign substances in his blood stream.

"Where he goes is not our business, Mr. Potter," said the Medi-witch. "Now, if you please, I have other patients to see."

...

Harry had two more hours of thinking to do before Malfoy woke up. His eyes snapping open suddenly, and all the tension flooding back into his body and forcing in upright.

"Potter?" he asked. Staring at Harry sitting in the chair beside the bed, feet tucked up beneath his legs and magazine open on his lap.

"Malfoy," Harry rejoined. "Welcome back to the land of the living."

"Where the devil am I?" asked Malfoy staring at the unfamiliar room before giving a slight shake of the head. "Mungo's," he muttered.

"Yeah," agreed Harry. "I found you, just outside the Leaky cauldron. You were in a pretty bad way. Care to tell me why?"

Malfoy gave him a blank look.

"You were unconscious, Malfoy. On the pavement, near the Leaky Cauldron. Any idea why?" enunciated Harry carefully.

"What?" asked Malfoy. "Last I know I was headed back from Flourish and Blots. For some very well deserved rest. In a bed. Not as far as I know on the cobblestones. So, who cursed me? You?"

"No!" Harry protested. "I just found you. You'd been shoved into a hidden alcove. I thought you were hurt, but the medi-witch says there's absolutely nothing wrong with you. So apparently it wasn't a curse anyway."

"It has to be a curse Potter," said Malfoy in a tone reserved for children and animals. "I wouldn't just choose to collapse in Diagon Alley, now would I?"

Harry had to agree with him, but he was damned if he was going to verbalise that agreement.

"What did the medi-witch tell you anyway?"

"That you were fine, with the diagnostics returning as clean, clean, healthy, and clean. Nothing to suggest there was a single reason for your collapse in the Alley."

"Oh, well, if there's nothing wrong with me..." Malfoy said suddenly sliding from the bed. "No reason to stay..." He eased off the side of the bed opposite Harry and over towards the rack holding his robes. Which he slid over his head before muttering the spell that would return the hospital gown to cleaning and storage.

"What are you doing here anyway, Potter?" asked Malfoy snidely. "Enjoying the show," he leered in Harry's direction and Harry almost expected him to make an obscene gesture.

Harry just rolled his eyes and stood up, brushing the creases out of his robes. "In your dreams Malfoy," he retorted. "If you must know I was concerned for you," he cocked his head in Malfoy's direction, "won't be doing that again."

Malfoy opened his mouth, just about to reply when the stick posing as a medi-witch entered the room. Draco closed his mouth and frowned at her, while Harry barely heard her introducing herself and explaining to Malfoy his condition. Or at least in her opinion his non-condition.

The truth was Harry had been enjoying the show. And he was waiting for it to hit him that he should so totally be having a sexual identity crisis right about now.

Thankfully he was distracted by Malfoy chucking a trademark hissy fit.

"What do you mean, 'maybe it was self induced'? I'll have you know Malfoy's do not attack themselves and dump their own bodies in hidden alcoves in an attempt to rot to death. We may be many things, but we have never been known to be crazy."

"Mr. Malfoy, all I am suggesting..."

"Is that I'm crazy?" Malfoy cocked an accusing eyebrow.

"No, I assure you..."

"That this has been a monumental cock up, and you will have several qualified curse-breakers attempt to discover what was done to me?" asked Malfoy sarcastically.

"I'm afraid..." the medi-witch was being to feel just a little bit annoyed by now. Harry could tell. She was turning puce.

"You really do think I'm crazy, don't you?" said Malfoy, not at all derailed by the colour of his victim. "Potter, she really thinks I'm crazy." He cast a earnest glance in Harry's direction. "You don't think I'm mad do you? No wait, what am I thinking, asking Potter, of course you think I'm mad. Well I'll have you know I'm not!"

Malfoy bridled and straightened. "I'm not mad, but I am leaving." And he pushed past the medi-witch and out the door.

...

It turned out that Malfoy's threats of departure were just that, threats. Because before he could leave he had to fill out a million and one documents detailing just how wonderful his stay had been and just how happy he was to be leaving.

Harry hovered at an almost constant two meter radius as Malfoy waded his way through the discharge papers.

"I do believe you," he said eventually, because he was a Gryffindor and refused to be cowed by Malfoy's bastion of silence.

"Oh yay, my life is again worth living. I am not mad and the world shall dance about the sun once more. Potter believes me and my very being is fulfilled," Malfoy said snidely as he absently turned to the next piece of paper. "What makes you think I want your opinion?" he asked glancing up at Harry while arching one of his ever expressive eyebrows.

"Well," said Harry defensively, "you did ask."

"Of course I did," muttered Malfoy, "of course... Potter what are you still doing here, anyway?" He stared at Harry genuinely puzzled.

"Making sure you're all right," offered Harry half-heartedly. He really didn't know why he was hanging around either.

"Well obviously I'm alright. You can leave now," Malfoy made a vague shooing gesture with his right hand as he wrote.

"But..."

"Potter, exactly what part of perfectly healthy did you not understand? You can leave, depart, disappear. As I will be doing just as soon as I am finished here. Then we can mutually forget that this embarrassing little incident occurred and live our lives without ever thinking of one another again. Understand. You don't need to be here," Malfoy looked at him, irritated.

"You'll be fine?" asked Harry, groaning inwardly as Malfoy smirked.

"Aw, Potter, didn't know you cared. Of course I'll be fine. I shall leave here and return to my rooms at the Leaky Cauldron none the worse for wear, according to that charming imposter in the medi-witch outfit. Now leave. Please. Before you embarrass us both any more than you already have."

Harry opened his mouth to say something, anything. Only to be halted by Malfoy raising a hand.

"Leave now. Don't say anything. Just leave," said Malfoy still staring at his papers.

So Harry left. Looking back several times, watching as Malfoy hunched forward about the forms, quill scratching response after response.

And wondering how long he would manage to hold out before he went to the Leaky Cauldron on an entirely innocent visit.