The job was going smoothly, that is, until the air around them turned ice cold and a sinking dread clawed its way into their stomachs.
"Fuck," Draco hissed, his wand raised, his eyes darting frantically, trying to catch a glimpse of tattered black robes, "no one said anything about Dementors."
"It's fine, just a minor inconvenience," Harry shrugged, turning so he was back to back with Draco, who didn't have time to reply, for they were suddenly surrounded.
"Expecto patronum!" Harry belted out, a silver stag bursting forth, so strong it almost seemed solid.
Draco, to his effort, tried to do the same. He got the words out, but nothing happened, not even a wisp of light. As Harry's stag sent seven or so Dementors shrieking into the sky, Draco sank to his knees.
"Draco?" Harry turned, dropping down beside him, "what's wrong?"
He could give no answer, his body shaking violently, gripping desperately to the front of his robes like that was the only thing keeping him alive.
Harry cast his patronus out again, making quick work of the remaining Dementors, his eyes never leaving Draco.
"Hey," Harry touched Draco's hand gently, "they're gone, it's alright."
At first, it did not seem as though he had heard him, but after a moment the shaking subsided and he looked up at Harry just long enough for him to see the panic and shame in his eyes before he turned away.
"Let's call it a day," Harry said, standing and offering his hand to Draco, who ignored it in favor of standing shakily on his own.
"Yeah, fine, lets go back." That was all the warning Harry got before Draco turned on his heels and vanished with a faint pop.
~x~
Back at the ministry, they changed in silence, Draco hoping desperately that Harry would not ask him questions, and Harry wracking his brain for the right words.
Adorned in muggle jeans and winter jackets and, in Harry's case, a soft Weasley sweater, they left the locker room, still in silence.
It wasn't until their feet left the steps of the ministry and hit the snow covered pavement that Harry decided to just wing it.
"Want to tell me what happened back there?" Harry asked, noting how Draco stiffened beside him, but continued to maintain their matched pace.
"You'll have to be more specific," Draco sneered, but Harry had worked as Draco's partner for five years, and at that point he knew a plea when he heard one.
"Back with the dementors." Harry said, not willing to back down from this one, "you couldn't produce a patronus."
"So?" Draco bit back, his shoulders stiff as they walked, "you can do it just fine."
"Do you not know how?" Harry asked, "I can teach you, it just takes a bit of practice."
"I know how to do a bloody patronum charm, thank you," Draco was seething beside Harry and he wasn't quite sure why.
"Then why couldn't you?" Harry asked, stopping suddenly, taking Draco by surprise as he pulled them into a nearby alleyway, "you say you know how, then why couldn't you? Are you really going to let your stupid pride hold you back? Just tell me you don't know how to and I'll teach you."
"I fucking know how to do it, Potter!" Draco snapped, his eyes burning.
"Then why didn't you?" Harry snapped back, his frustration building.
"Because I fucking can't!"
Harry stopped at that, "what do you mean?"
"There were no Christmases, no stories before bed, no smiles, no hugs, no.." he plucks angrily at Harry's jumper, "cozy sweaters. My entire life has been expectations and pressure and disappointment. I didn't get to enjoy flying, Potter, because I knew that if I messed up, if I came in runner up, there'd be a howler waiting for me come morning. Every friend you thought I ever had was forged entirely on politics, mandated by our parents.
"If I so much as sneezed, my father heard about it. I was to make allies with the powerful and enemies with the weak, and any failure to comply to those rules was met with swift and violent discipline. By the time our first year ended, I was more than intimately familiar with cruciatus curse. I lived my life from the moment I was born until the day he was sent to Azkaban following every order he gave me because the alternative was death. I have to live every day knowing the horrid, wretched things I did, the pain I caused, all because I wanted to live. So, forgive me if perhaps I find it a little difficult to summon up happy memories."
"Well what about now?" Harry offered desperately, finding it difficult to absorb all this new information he was being bombarded with all at once, "we have good times."
"Good times?" Draco's mouth pulled at the edges like the words caused him physical pain, "Harry, every moment I spend with you is... it's... torture... absolute fucking torture."
The words took Harry by such surprise he reacted as though Draco had slapped him, his feet bringing him back a step, his chest twisting violently. "Torture?" The word burned like acid in his mouth "That's what it is to spend time with me?" Harry prodded.
Draco wouldn't meet his gaze, the indignation that had been burning in his eyes a moment ago had fizzled out into something akin to shame.
"Then why bother?" Harry asked, taking in the way Draco's shoulders seemed to be slumping under a great weight, "why not request another partner?"
"It's not... I didn't mean..." Draco's words came out thick and hesitant, "it's complicated."
"Do I make you uncomfortable?" Harry asked, trying desperately to catch Draco's eyes.
"No, I didn't mean it like that... it's not you."
"Well I must be doing something for you to claim that being around me is torturous for you!" Harry threw his hands in the air, confused now more than anything.
"L..." Draco started, but paused. Harry could see a battle raging behind those eyes, but after a moment, Harry saw them harden with something like determination, maybe a bit of resignation, "love is torture, Harry."
Before Harry had a chance to begin to form a coherent thought in response, Draco took in a rattling breath and continued.
"Love is... more than torture. It's earth shattering pain. It's soul crushing. It is an all consuming, all encompassing plague on the heart and mind. It fills you with hopes and dreams, only to pull it all away and leave you hollow and alone.
"I have loved you since the first time I saw you in that robes shop. I have never stopped loving you, through all the years that you, rightfully, hated me, through the war and the pain and the loss I have loved you. I have spent my entire life trying to push you away because you... are everything I have I ever wanted, needed... and I know that I can never have you. But no matter how hard I push, you always seem to end up back in my life. So..." Draco took a deep breath, his shoulders squaring up to Harry, but still not completely meeting his gaze, "now you know, and you can walk away and avoid me and we'll all be better for it."
Harry's brain had come to a complete standstill, his entire body frozen, unable to force a single word from his lips.
"Okay... I guess I'll walk away then," he tried to mask the hurt in his voice with anger, but it just came out broken.
As Draco turned to leave, Harry's mind seemed to kick back in, allowing him to shoot forward and catch Draco's wrist.
"Just let me walk away with what dignity I have left, Potter," there was a please hidden in those words, a desperate plea.
"You... are," Harry paused, taking in the sight of the man before him, seeing him with new eyes.
"Spit it out, you prat!" Draco said between clenched teeth, "just call me whatever you're going to call me so we can move on."
"Will you just give me a second!" Harry said, a bit of hysteria slipping out in his tone, "I want to say this right!"
Draco, who had been about of rip his wrist from Harry's grip and tell him to piss off, froze in place, his thoughts coming to a shuttering halt.
"Our entire lives I have thought you were a pretentious, insufferable, spoiled brat who got everything he ever wanted and all the attention he could ever ask for..." Harry paused, taking in a deep breath, "so, I told myself I hated you, hated you for the privileges that you had in such abundance that I had none of... and when my eyes would wander over to you and I'd notice how soft your hair looks or how beautiful your eyes are, I hated myself because I was supposed to hate you... but I never could, and I would get so angry with myself for not being able to and for... wanting to... to know you, to be with you. And, I am so sorry, Draco... I'm sorry I didn't say something to you, I'm sorry I didn't offer help, I'm sorry all I did was try to hate you, I'm sorry... I didn't take your hand when you offered it."
"I wasn't exactly friendly..." Draco conceded, his voice small.
"But I should've... seen it... when I found you in the bathroom sixth year... I should've known," Harry looked at Draco, who was trying desperately to keep tears from breaking free from his eyes, "and I fucking..." Harry's voice broke, "that fucking curse... I didn't even think..."
"Harry," Draco's voice shook, "it's not your fault, you weren't to know. I... made my choice. I could've asked for help, I could've accepted Dumbledore's offer... but I was too much of a coward, too afraid..."
"You shouldn't have had to make that kind of choice! You were a child!"
"You're one to bloody talk," Draco said, his eyes wide, no quite believing all of this was happening, "we were the same age and you saved the world."
"That's different," Harry shook his head, "I can't even imagine... having your own family..." he trailed off, the horror of Draco's past setting in. Sure, his biological family had been horrid, down right abusive in almost every way. But, Harry had found himself a new family, with the Weasley's and all his friends. He had had constant unending support throughout his entire journey, during every hardship his friends were there, either through it all or waiting to greet him on the other side. But Draco, it seemed, through all the war and struggles and pain, had had no one, had received nothing but fear and hatred from those who were supposed to care for him. Even now, he could not recall a single instance since school had ended where Draco had mentioned any friends, from Hogwarts or otherwise, no Pansy or Blaise who he had thought Draco so close with in school. His heart broke as he looked at the man standing before him, seeing the child he had thought he had known, seeing himself curled up in his cupboard under the stairs and crying himself to sleep.
"You know..." Draco cut through his thoughts, "I believe there was a confession from you somewhere in that savior speech of yours." His smile was tentative, somewhere in the back of his mind worried this was all a dream and he would wake up any minute.
"A confession?" Harry asked, his mind thick from all the new thoughts and feelings he was still trying to process.
"I think you said you like me," Draco's smile shifted to a worried frown, "I think..."
"I..." a blush broke out of Harry cheeks, "yeah... yeah, I do."
"Well that's..." Draco's heart seemed to have stopped for a moment and then come back round to beat rapid fire against his rib cage, leaving him breathless, "that's good."
"So," Harry couldn't help the smile that tugged at his lips as he looked at Draco's flustered expression, "no new partners?"
"I suppose not," Draco was looking up at him with eyes so wide and vulnerable it made his heart melt.
"Good," Harry was grinning now as he stepped forward, intent on doing what he had longed to do since he was eleven, and carded his hand through Draco's hair.
The silver locks ran smoothly through his fingers before settling gently back just slightly out of place, just as soft as he had always imagined it would be. His hand moved from the crown of his head down to the base of his neck and held him there, staring into those wide, beautiful grey eyes down to lips, slightly parted to let out a shaky breath. Harry wanted to catch those lips in his own, to draw out all of his bad memories and replace them one by one with ones so warm and pleasant that Draco could conjure a patronus without even uttering the words.
"Can I?" Harry asked in a whisper, his eyes darting back up to Draco's before looking pointedly back down at his lips.
"Of course you would ask," Draco rolled his eyes, but there was affection and wonder behind the words, "yes, you may."
As soon as permission had passed his lips, Harry captured them in his own, moving against the body before him, trying to sink years of emotion into this first kiss. It took only a moment before Draco began kissing him back, letting out a sigh that sounded like relief.
In that moment, with the feel of Draco's lips moving just so against his own, the smell of mint and coffee invading all his senses, Harry's mind left him completely. All that mattered now was Draco, he wanted to touch every part of him, to map out his body with gentle hands and soothing lips. At some point in their newfound desperation to discover every inch of the other, they deepened their kiss, each making needy sounds neither was sure originated from who.
Neither were sure how long they stood there, kissing the breath out of each other in that alleyway, snow falling all around them. They broke away eventually, Harry looked at Draco's blown out pupils and kiss swollen lips, and he couldn't help the grin the spread across his face.
"Hold on," his words sounded too loud in the silence around them. That was all the warning Draco got before Harry moved to his side and turned.
A suffocating moment later, Draco found himself landing heavily on the doorstep of Grimmauld Place. Harry, his arm still secured around Draco's side, reached out and opened the door, ushering them both out of the cold.
He had been there a number of times before, sometimes to work on cases together when Kingsley insisted they go home and take a break, sometimes just round for tea per Harry's request. He had always felt himself an intruder here, like this was Harry's space and he had no right to trespass, no matter that it was always Harry who invited him.
"Would you like to..." Harry pulled Draco from his thoughts, a blush was burning it's way up to the tips of his ears, "go upstairs?"
His mouth suddenly gone completely dry, Draco could only manage a nod. That was all Harry needed though, before grabbing hold of Draco's hand and leading him, perhaps a bit over-enthusiastically, up the stairs and towards the open door of his bedroom.
When they arrived in the room, Draco couldn't help but note the Gryffindor colored bedspread and the Chudley Cannons poster with a fond smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
However, any ease that Draco had acquired as he had reveled in watching Harry quite literally drag him into his bedroom, drained out of him the second Harry moved to unbutton Draco's coat. Dread and shame filled every vein in his body, his heart pumping it out like thick blood. With shaking hands he took hold of Harry's, "Why..." Draco's tongue felt large and heavy in his mouth.
"Why what, Draco?" Harry's face had morphed into that of concern, which somehow only made him feel worse.
"Why would you possibly want me?" Draco asked in a whisper, unable to meet Harry's eyes.
"Draco..."
"I am broken, I am scarred and twisted and... I have done such horrible things... I do not deserve you," Draco cursed how his voice shook, "but..." his brow furrowed in determination, "I am also not here for pity. And if that's all this is," his hands squeezed around Harry's, "then please let me go. I don't think... I could take it if I let you continue and this was all for pity."
"I can assure you, Draco, this is not about pity. You don't need pity," Harry pulled his hands gently from Draco's, bringing them up to cup his cheeks, forcing him to look up, "I am here with you because I want to be, because I want you, I have always wanted you. Let me show you."
Draco could feel his resolve slipping, his heart melting at Harry's soft words, "I'm not... it's not pretty under... here" he gestured towards his coat.
"You would be beautiful to me no matter what you looked like," Harry smiled at him, so genuinely and so lovingly that Draco nearly swooned.
"Alright then, you sappy idiot," Draco laughed shakily, "don't say I didn't warn you."
Without another word, Harry gently lead Draco to sit on the foot of his bed, dropping to his knees in front of him. With steady hands, Harry began to remove the layers of clothes from Draco's torso until he was bare chested.
He was pointedly looking anywhere but at him, his posture rigid and tense, just waiting to hear a noise of disgust that never came.
The faintest of the scars were dull and white, crisscrossing the entire expanse of his chest. Harry's heart grew heavy, remembering Draco laying bleeding on the bathroom floor because of him, because he had been rash and foolish and angry. But those were nothing compared of what else littered the rest of his upper body.
There were odd marks scattered across his torso, burns and cuts that ranged from superficial to so deep he was sure they'd hit the bone. Some were so old he wouldn't have been able to see them unless he was looking for them, just a slight discoloration, skin pulled just a bit too tightly. Draco shouldn't have been old enough to have scars so faded with time, but there they were, some Harry would guess to be almost two decades old.
There were much worse, much more recent scars though, and Harry had to steel himself in order to really look at them.
He felt sick to his stomach as he tried to catalog it all. There were hundreds of lashes, raised and jagged across his chest, trailing around his ribs and extending to his back.
"Alecto and Amycus Carrow," Draco's voice was thick as he tried to keep the tears threatening his eyes from spilling over, "for trying to help Luna and Dean escape the dungeons at the manor."
Harry felt bile rising in the back of his throat, but he moved on.
There were the marks from stab wounds laid frantically across his hips, red and twisted in on themselves. They overlapped in a way that told him these particular attacks had taken place over an expanse of time he dared not guess the length of as he ran his fingers over the puckered skin.
"Bellatrix" Draco tried to stop his voice from wavering, "After I lied about recognizing you."
Harry laid gentle kisses along those, silent "thank you"s too long overdue that Harry didn't think Draco could handle hearing just in that moment.
Across his clavicle, faint, just like on his own hand, Harry could make out the words 'I must not tell lies' in Draco's own neat handwriting.
"Umbridge," his fingers tracing over the faint wording, "After she found out I had been lying about the movements of the DA... trying to keep her off your trail."
Harry felt guilt settling so heavy in his chest he found it hard to breath. All these scars, all this pain etched forever into Draco's skin, marked sacrifices Draco had made for him. Each one was a sacrifice that had gone without thanks, without acknowledgment. Draco had taken all this abuse from the people that should've cared for him and all the hatred from the people he was protecting and had never said a word. Harry wondered how long Draco would've continued to say nothing if he had not been pushed to the edge that day.
He moved on from the lettering to the crook of his elbow, where dozens of thin lines were smattered. Harry looked up at Draco, and the shame behind his eyes told him what they were. He laid a gentle kiss across the healed skin, and, to Draco's relief, pretended not to hear the shuttering sobs that tore their way from his lungs.
Harry moved down to the next scar, arguably the worst of all of them. There, on Draco's forearm, where the dark mark would have been, was the word 'Traitor' carved so deeply and healed so poorly that you would almost think the wound was still open.
Draco didn't need to tell Harry why he'd gotten this, or who had given it to him. Harry ran his fingers over the torn red skin and could almost see the memory, Lucius Malfoy carving the word into his own child's arm, furious he had not accepted the mark, that he had dared to tell him no.
Harry thought back to Draco that year, thought back to how hollow his eyes had been, how pale and sunken in on himself he'd become.
He looked farther down the arm and saw ligature marks worn into his wrists. He didn't want to think about how long Draco must have been bound for, or how frequently it must have happened to leave permanent marks on his skin.
For his entire life, Harry had pictured Draco living luxuriously throughout their school days, lounging lazily in gardens and sitting rooms without a care in the world. He had pictured him with his mother, doting and fretting about a single speck of dirt on his cheek, and his father, caring for him so deeply that he would strike down upon anyone who so much as inconvenienced his son.
Never had he ever imagined Draco living his life in fear, strung up and bound in the manor dungeon, enduring punishment upon punishment for protecting Harry and his friends.
"Why?" Harry heard himself asking, his voice unexpectedly raw.
"I couldn't... be on the side I knew was right. They would've killed mother. They told me that every day." Draco said the words through clenched teeth, "I know I did more harm than good... but... I..." he drew in a quivering breath, "I tried to help, I tried to lie..."
"Why didn't you say something?" Harry laid his hands over Draco's, trying to ease white knuckled grip he had on the comforter beneath him.
"Because, I needed you to hate me," Draco finally looked at him, and Harry could see the tears streaming down his face, "because if you hated me, I could tell myself you wouldn't want me on your side anyway, I could tell myself that the only place I belonged was hiding in the dark, keeping mother alive.
"Because I was a weak, terrified child who let some part of himself believe that his father loved him and would eventually make the right choice... even though I knew he never would. All I ever was to him was a pawn, a heir to maintain his name and then a sacrifice to appease that demon, and I didn't realize that until..." he raised his marked arm just a fraction, "but at that point it was too far into the war, Dumbledore was dead soon after, and then you disappeared, so... I just kept lying, tried to keep your friends off people's radar at Hogwarts until they started to suspect me and pulled me out. Their trust in me was completely gone after they found out I lied about recognizing you, so they kept me in the dungeons until the last day of the war, kept as a damn play thing, a punching bag for their entertainment."
Two months. Two months Draco had been bound in his own family's dungeon, beaten and tortured.
"There is nothing I can do to make this okay." Harry spoke softly, squeezing Draco's hands in his own, "There is nothing I could ever say or do to make up for what you have been put through..."
"Harry," Draco interrupted him, "I appreciate whatever savior rant you were about to go into," there was a teasing smile on his face, albeit a slightly watery one, "but you already made up for it. You won... you lived," Draco leaned down so his forehead was pressed against Harry's, "that's all I ever wanted."
"Why me?" Harry couldn't help the tears that welled up behind his glasses.
"Who knows?" Draco shrugged before letting out a shaky laugh, "I didn't have any say in the matter. When I first laid eyes on you it's like... something clicked into place and... I knew that I would do anything for the boy with the wild hair and the wire rimmed glasses and stupid scar. And you'd think with all the arguing and the rivalry maybe I could've squashed it, but quite the opposite, actually. I resigned myself to the fact that I would fight in a war for a side that did not want me... all for a barmy little git I fell in love with in a robes shop when I was eleven."
"I wanted you," Harry suddenly felt as though all the breath had been sucked from his lungs, "I always wanted you. I..." Harry brought his hands up to Draco's face, the pads of his thumbs wiping away the tears still falling from those grey eyes, "I love you, Draco."
"You're not just saying that?" Draco gave him a look that promised a slow and painful death awaited him if he dared to lie.
"Promise." Harry smiled before pressing forward and catching Draco's lips in his own before he had a chance to interrogate Harry any further.
"I feel inclined to believe you, I suppose," Draco broke their kiss just for a moment, before he dove back in, completely intent on memorizing the feel of Harry's lips against his own.