"Draco, please don't leave!" Harry begged as his lover of four years packed his things.

"We need time apart, Harry, I love you but this is just too much. Maybe some time apart will stop the fighting when we get back together. If we get back together…" Draco replied, a sorrowful look covering his face as he imagined his life without his beloved.

Draco walked his way through their apartment to the front door, Harry following along behind him the entire time, begging for another chance. "Maybe you could just stay for a while and we could sleep in separate rooms. Talk about it in the morning." Now Harry was just pulling at straws, he really didn't know what he could say to make his lover stay with him.

As Draco approached the front door, he turned back. "Nothing you say or do can make me stay, Harry. I love you, but I'm sick of it. I'm tired of the fighting and I'm tired of the sleepless nights, wondering if you'll still be here in the morning, so I'm taking the initiative, and I'm leaving."

He turned and gave Harry one last kiss before he opened the door and walked out to their Muggle car, kept for such times when the wanted to stay in the Muggle world. That left Harry's options to about a thousand. He had no idea which hotel Draco would be staying at if he were staying in the Muggle world.

Harry, still numb with shock, closed the door behind his lover and walked back up to their room…My room now, I suppose. He thought as he lay down on the four poster, adorned with silver curtains and burgundy sheets. It had been Draco's idea to incorporate the Slytherin and Gryffindor colors into their bedroom.

Harry hugged the pillow to himself as he thought on their previous fight. What had gone wrong? What had made that fight so much different than all the others that Draco felt as if he had to leave? Harry thought he knew what it was.

"Why are you going out all night, Harry? That's all I want to know, is why you're out." Draco was trying to keep his anger in check, but failed miserably as his feelings fought their way into his voice

"I told you, Draco, it's ministry business, I can't tell anyone what it is I'm doing, even you!" Harry tried to argue his point but saw he was failing miserably. This had been an ongoing fight between the two of them. Harry really was out a good portion of the time for Ministry business, but Draco seemed to truly believe that Harry was cheating. Harry didn't know what he could say, other than the truth, that Draco would believe. It was true, he had been sworn to secrecy by Kingsley Shacklebolt, who was still in the position of Minister, that he tell no one, even Draco, about where he was going or what he was doing.

"If you can't tell me where you're going, how am I supposed to trust you on anything? How do I know that when you say 'Oh, I'm going to the grocery store' you aren't really saying 'I'm going to get some more ass, be back in a few!'? I feel like you don't trust, and I'm getting sick of it. I can't stand the lies and I can't stand the secrets. If you can't tell me what it is, then I can't promise that I'll be so forgiving!"

That's where Harry had made his mistake. It was true; he really couldn't tell Draco where he was going at all hours of the night. Draco had made it clear that he didn't trust Harry, and that if Harry didn't tell him that he was leaving, but Harry, being Harry, thought that Draco was just being his stuck-up self and was trying to get on his nerves.

Harry cried himself to sleep that night, imagining Draco's warm body beside him as the tears ran in rivulets down his cheeks.

Don't know what's going on, don't know what went wrong, feels like a hundred years, I still can't believe you're gone. So I'll stay up all night, with these bloodshot eyes, while these walls surround me with the story of our life…

As Harry dreamed that night, it was not of Draco as it normally was; it was of a life alone. How his life would be if Draco did not return. Of how his life would be if he had no life…

Harry awoke the next morning as tired as when he had gone to bed. He had dreamt of nothing but a life alone, the one thing in the world that scared him more than anything. Yes, it was true, he had fought the greatest Dark wizard of all time, married, gone through a divorce where he had left his wife and three children behind, and had realized he was bisexual and in love with Draco Malfoy, all in the course of the last twenty years. And yet the only thing he was afraid of was a life alone. He had learned to be with someone. He had gotten together with Draco not too long after his divorce from Ginny, and he hadn't truly been single since his seventh year. The idea terrified him. He could barely remember a time when he was single, and even just this taste of it seemed more then he could bare.

Harry went downstairs to the kitchen, skipped right over breakfast, and went straight to the liquor cabinet that they kept for special occasions. He grabbed a bottle of firewhiskey and headed out into the living room, popping the top off the bottle as he went.

He sat on the couch and began to drink the bottle straight. He winced slightly at the taste and the burning sensation in his throat, but continued to drink, feeling it was the only way to relieve his suffering.

After drinking down the entire bottle straight, Harry was finding himself rather tipsy. Grabbing his cell phone from his pocket, he flipped it open and dialed the number he had long ago memorized to heart.

"Hello?"

"Draco. I miss you." Harry's slurred voice was barely comprehendible.

"Harry, I told you I need time apart. Please don't call me unless it's an emergency."

"But it is an emergency, Draco! You're not here and I feel so alone!"

"That's not an emergency, Harry, and stay out of the liquor cabinet. You've been drinking."

"I have not!"

"You have. I can hear it in your voice. How much did you drink?"

"Just a bottle."

"A bottle of butterbeer? That won't do that much to you, are you sure that's all you had?"

"No, not a bottle of butterbeer, a bottle of firewhiskey, silly one."

"Harry, lay off the liquor, and don't call me for at least three days." And with that, Draco hung up, leaving Harry, once again, completely alone.

Harry lay down on the couch and began to cry. He thought calling Draco would be the right thing to do, but it had simply angered the blonde even more that Harry had not taken his wishes into mind. He got up and walked back into the kitchen, just long enough to grab another bottle of firewhiskey before he walked back to his room.

I feel so much better, now that you're gone forever. I tell myself, that I don't miss you at all. I'm not lying, denying, that I feel so much better now, that you're gone forever…

Draco lay down on the bed in his hotel room. He had already been away from home for a week now, and despite wanting to give himself time away from Harry, he couldn't help but worry after that drunken phone call. He wondered what other trouble Harry had gotten himself into. He turned over onto his side and continued contemplating what he had been thinking about for the last three days. Should he go home? Yes, he missed Harry, and yes he was worried about him after that phone call, but he still didn't think that he had been away long enough to fully think about what it is he left to think about.

The problem was, Draco didn't truly know whether or not he should believe Harry about the Ministry, or if he should start to think about a separation. He didn't think he could handle being away from Harry forever, but what if he really was cheating? Was it the right thing to do, for both of them, staying with him when he knew in his heart that he couldn't trust him one hundred percent? Draco was thinking about Harry in the course of his thoughts, of course, but he thought that in this particular situation it was okay to think mostly of himself. If Harry really had been cheating, then he would be the one going through most of the heartbreak, not Harry. But then he had to consider the fact that if he broke up with Harry and he really hadn't been cheating, then he was sending them BOTH into heartbreak for now reason. It was a harder decision then it seemed…

Harry had not left the house since Draco had left…well, he had, but for nothing more than to pick up more booze. He had been putting down as many as three bottles of firewhiskey a day, so much, in fact, that after just a week of drinking he no longer felt the burn on his throat. He could drink a straight bottle down in as little as an hour and felt nothing in the process, although feeling nothing was exactly what he had been trying to achieve.

"I NEED HIM BACK!!!!!" Harry yelled, as he began to throw another one of his many fits. The firewhiskey had a habit of throwing him into fits of rage, in which Harry could not control himself at all. He smashed the bottle onto the glass table in their living room, but in the process toppled over in his drunkenness. He cut his head open, and opened up a laceration in his arm that spurted a large quantity of blood with every beat of his heart. Harry simply laughed at the pain as he passed out. He no longer cared…

Now things are coming clear, and I don't need you here, and in this world around me, I'm glad you disappeared. So I'll stay out all night, get drunk and fucking fight, until the morning comes I'll forget about our life…

Draco had finally made his decision. He needed Harry and Harry needed him. Even if Harry was cheating, they'd find a way around it. They'd find a way to fix it, they just had to. They loved and needed each other more than either of them knew.

He pulled into the driveway and sat there for about five minutes, just thinking to make sure he had made the right decision. He knew there was no mistake. He had made the right decision.

What he didn't know, was that if he had just walked in, rather than taking those five minutes to think, he would have walked into a scene much better than the one he was about to witness. If he had walked in just five minutes earlier, Harry would not have gone into his fit of rage, he would not have smashed his bottle against the table, and he would not currently be lying in the middle of their living room, drenched in a pool of his own blood.

Draco fell to his knees at the sight before him. Never had he known Harry to drink, except for that one phone call, and yet here he was, lying on the floor with a smashed firewhiskey bottle lying beside his unconscious body.

When Draco finally came back to his senses, he walked over and felt Harry's pulse. It was still there, but it was weak. Much longer and he would be gone…He ran out to his car with Harry in his arms. He pulled down the driveway with just one thought in mind…Please don't let me have been too late…

I feel so much better, now that you're gone forever, I tell myself that I don't miss you at all, I'm not lying denying that I feel so much better now, that you're gone forever. First time you screamed at me, I should've made you leave, I should've known it could be so much better, I hope you're missing me, I hope I've made you see, that I'm gone forever…

Draco sat beside Harry's hospital bed. They had no way of knowing whether or not he would live. He couldn't imagine his life without Harry, and regretted so much not believing him about the ministry. The mission was done, and Draco had spoken to Kingsley. It turned out that Harry really HAD been going out for auror missions when Draco had thought he had been out cheating. He couldn't push away the immense guilt that threatened to swallow him alive, and he even embraced that guilt. He knew that if Harry died, it would be his fault, and he would never live a happy life again. The only happy time in his life was around the time his son, Scorpius, had been born, and when he and Harry were together.

And now it's coming clear, that I don't need you here, and in this world around me, I'm glad you disappeared. I feel so much better, now that you're gone forever, I tell myself that I don't miss you at all, I'm not lying, denying, that I feel so much better now, that you're gone forever, and now you're gone forever, and now you're gone forever…

He's gone forever…Draco thought. He looked up to see Harry's bright emerald eyes gleaming back at him, and he knew at that moment that everything was gone to be ok…