(Or, Draco can remember the last time Potter walked away from his life like it was yesterday. Who's to say it won't happen again?)

Written for smoochfest 2015, to prompt #173 (In My Veins - Andrew Belle) by thania-hinata.

Dear prompter, I loved this prompt so much when I saw it, I just had to have it! Thank you so much iwao,eidheann and pasdexcuses for beta-reading this for me. You are all too marvellous for words; I honestly don't know what I'd have done without you :) Lastly, thank you mods for your endless patience—and of course, for running this wonderful fest!

: : :

You're All I Need (All I Can Taste)

: : :

Saturday, 21st November 1998

Draco and Pansy had been sitting side by side when Potter walked in. The eighth year common room was nearly empty, the fire crackled soothingly in the hearth, and Pansy might have been telling him about that girl in the Hufflepuff team, the one everyone thought was pregnant but no one actually knew by whom. Draco can no longer remember the details—in fact, he's not even sure he'd been paying attention.

Right then, he only had eyes for Potter, and Potter stood frozen by the door. There were a million tiny snowflakes slowly melting in his hair, and a little red in his cheeks from the sharp November wind just outside. He looked tired, and Draco thought he looked gorgeous all the same, which was so ridiculous it bordered on silly. Then again, when had Draco been anything but, when it came to Potter?

He never expected Potter to turn away from him. He never expected to have to follow him up the stairs, to have to call out "Harry, wait!" just to get Potter to stop and look at him. And he certainly never expected to regret it. He never expected the unyielding ice in Potter's gaze—flat, colder than Father's cell in Azkaban. Good grief, Potter's eyes would have made the Dark Lord's glare seem cheerful.

Draco wonders how that didn't clue him in to what was about to happen. It wasn't even the first time Potter tore Draco's world to pieces and left him without a leg to stand on—oh no, not even close. Potter seemed to have made a fine art of it, perfected it to the point where he could likely do it in his sleep. He was that good—but it was that evening when it hurt the most.

"Listen, about yesterday . . ."

"It's okay, Malfoy. Forgotten, really." Potter had looked down at his shoes then, shrugged lightly before apparently deciding to dig the knife deeper and twist it. "We just did what we had to do, right?"

"Right."

"Good. So, er—" Potter's fingers flexed at is side, curling then uncurling in a mockery of Draco's memories. He had felt that same hand tracing the line of his jaw, making fists of his hair, and it had felt brilliant—it had felt so impossibly brilliant, "—see you around?" And this was Potter telling him that it was over—they were over. Just like that.

Like it meant nothing.

Draco swallowed against the taste of bile in his mouth. He felt empty, as if his insides had been carved right out and he couldn't breathe anymore. He still remembered lying awake late at night, listening to Potter's voice as he made up stories about the people on that map of his, as he chattered on, explaining some Muggle reference or other—and Draco never got most of them, didn't even care to know what they were, but still he'd listened. He remembered helping Potter with his Potions homework, trying to teach him to play wizard chess well enough to beat Weasley—not that Potter ever had, but it was the thought that counted.

Nearly four full months of memories in the room behind Potter, that were now worth nothing when all Potter could recall was doing what had to be done. Even the phrasing sounded callous.

Draco heard himself say, "Sure," in a voice that wasn't even his own—a voice that sounded far too weak to be his own—and that was that.

End of story.

He remembers every instant leading up to that moment with a blinding clarity, he remembers the exact second he looked into Potter's eyes and could no longer recognise the person behind them. But he doesn't know how long he stood there after Potter shut the door in his face.

His feet must have carried him back to the common room at some point. He knows this because Pansy was still there, thrilled and expectant with her 'Well?' and her questions, and Draco is not exactly sure what his answers were. All he knows is they made her roll her eyes.

"Cheer up, darling. It's not like he was your first."

"No," Draco said. But I was his.

It rang true on more levels than one.

: : :

Tuesday, 15th September 1998

"This is all your fault. This is all your bloody fault."

"Excuse me?" Potter halted his pacing to give Draco a look of such disbelief that, bloody hell, Draco really wanted to break his nose again. It had been quite relaxing the first time around, and besides, perhaps it'd make the pounding in his head grow quieter. Admittedly, it seemed far-fetched, but it wasn't as if he'd know unless he tried it. "How is any of this in any way my fault?"

"None of this would have happened if you hadn't pushed me into Longbottom's cauldron!"

Draco wouldn't have lurched awake in the middle of the Hospital Wing, with a mouth that tasted as if he'd swallowed a bucket of Thestral piss and a banging headache right between the eyes. As though he'd taken a particularly ill-tempered Bludger to the head.

"If you weren't such an arse all the time," Potter muttered, "then maybe I wouldn't have had to—"

"Yeah, yeah." Draco shakily rose to his feet. It was quite hard to maintain his dignity when he was still clutching his head like it was about to explode, but in all honesty, he thought he'd been doing a fairly good job. He was certainly doing a better job than Potter, who was just standing there with his arms crossed, looking for all the world like his soul had been sucked out. "Do feel free to bore me with your laments some other time, Potter. I'm out of here."

"You can't."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You can't leave," Potter explained, "that's part of the problem, actually."

Draco sneered. "Watch me."

It all worked fine at first: he made his way to the door, yanked it open and walked a couple of steps down the corridor, but it was right then, as victory was looming just out of reach, when he'd been on the verge of turning back to Potter and snidely saying, 'See? I told you I could leave,' that he felt it. A wall in front of him, a wall he couldn't actually see—transparent, but undeniably there. Hard air, impossible to penetrate.

"What the—"

"I told you that you wouldn't get very far," Potter's voice came through the doorway. "You seriously thought I hadn't tried that myself?"

"But . . ." Draco pressed his hand against the wall. It was still there. It wasn't going anywhere. It was tall enough that he couldn't even reach the end of it. "This cannot be happening," he mumbled, the beginnings of panic making his voice rise. "Where the hell is Pomfrey? Does she know what this is? Has she—has she told you?"

Potter shrugged. "Sort of. It's some sort of potion, apparently—Neville's potion. They just don't know what it was, not exactly."

Draco walked around, following the length of the wall—it appeared to be circular, it appeared to be built around Potter, and Draco had to fight back sobs, fight back hysterical laughter because Potter, Potter, Potter, why was everything always about him?

He was trapped. He was trapped in a room with Potter.

"She's in there right now," Potter said, pointing vaguely towards the office at the end of the infirmary. "Talking to McGonagall, I guess."

"Okay. So it's a potion. That's good though, isn't it? It means we just need a bezoar and then—then we can both walk out of here and go our separate—"

"Malfoy—"

"What?" Draco snapped. Forever trapped in Potter's vicinity. It would drive him insane; he could see it.

"Malfoy," Potter repeated slowly, as if talking to a very small child, "somehow, I don't think this counts as a poison."

Draco fell back on the bed. "Merlin," he said, "Merlin . . ."

"Yeah."

"They'll fix this though, won't they?" He lay back, staring up at the white ceiling. "Of course they'll fix this. They have to, they have to find a way to—they can't possibly leave us like this."

Potter snorted. "You keep telling yourself that."

Draco rolled onto his side to look at him full on. It was funny, he thought, he'd had the Dark Lord living in his home for a full year, he'd put up with the Carrows, mad Aunt Bella and that half-breed Fenrir, and one way or another managed to survive them all. But somehow, spending the rest of his life bonded to Harry Potter felt much, much scarier than all that.

It was one thing to hide your plans, your intentions, your motives . . . it was a very different thing to hide your feelings twenty-four-seven.

: : :

Friday, 13th April 2001

"So how is Potter these days?" Draco asks, his voice scratchy from a long morning of not speaking, of staring down at his notes and scribbling new ones underneath.

Pansy looks up at him. She chews thoughtfully. "I'm not telling you," she says, and then sticks her tongue out at him before taking another bite of her peach. "If you want to know, you'll just have to owl him and ask."

"I'd rather not owl the new Dark Lord, thank you very much."

"You keep saying that, but he's a Healer in training now, Draco. Hardly the right qualifications to become a Dark Lord of any kind."

"Says you."

"Says everyone," mutters Pansy. "And anyway, I should know, shouldn't I? I see him every day."

"But it's a trap! He's doing all those . . . all those good deeds—kissing babies and learning to mend bones and Merlin knows what else—but it's only so you can't see who he's become inside."

"Fine." Pansy sighs. "But if he's the new Dark Lord, why would you be asking about him anyway?" she asks, and Draco glares at her.

"You're a horrid flatmate. I hope you know that."

"Really now?"

"It's complicated, all right?"

Pansy takes another bite of her peach. "Mm-hmm."

"It just is, okay?" Draco snaps, but then he adds hesitantly, "You didn't see what he was like during our eighth year, and what he turned into after . . . you only saw bits of it, but you didn't see him in private—the way he acted around me . . ." He shakes his head. "You couldn't have known."

He stares at the clock. The hand that has Pansy's name on it is pointing towards 'LATE! LATE! LATE!' and he can feel her eyes on him all through it, as if she's trying to puzzle him out. The urge to break down and tell her everything—of baring his and Potter's sordid love story to her—is almost overwhelming for a minute there.

But then it's gone, just as it came.

"So . . ." He clears his throat. "I think you need to get back to St Mungo's."

Pansy's head snaps to the clock, her eyes widening. "Shit. Healer Kaur is going to tear me to pieces, I keep being late to our Mind-Healing practices . . ."

Draco shrugs. "It's not as if you want to be a Mind-Healer though. Technically, you just need to pass."

"Seriously though, you should owl Harry," Pansy calls back from the fireplace, "he's not nearly as bad as you think."

"Do not tell him I asked!" Draco yells, but it seems like he's too late as well. By the time he says that, Pansy has already left.

When she Floos later that evening to tell Draco she'll be missing dinner, Draco simply rolls his eyes. "Abandoning me yet again to go for a drink with your new Healer friends, are you?"

Pansy snorts. "Healer wannabes, actually, but yeah."

"Well then, have fun. I'll just stay here, bored out of my mind."

"You could come, you know? It's not like it's a private party or anything, besides, Harry will be there as—"

"Not a chance. Go now, buy your new best friend a drink."

"Aw, jealous, are you?" Pansy winks at him. "You know you'll always be my BFF."

Draco dares a little grimace back—it's not as if Pansy is going to think less of him; she knows him well enough. "I just wish you'd stay away from those Muggle acronyms."

: : :

Friday, 2nd October 1998

"Do you think they'll ever figure out a way to break the bond?" Draco asked, but Potter stayed silent.

It would have been easier if they'd had a sample of Longbottom's potion, Draco guessed, if Slughorn hadn't vanished it so quickly. If only they'd been able to study it.

"I don't know," Potter said a while later.

"They'll keep trying though, won't they? They won't—they can't leave us like this."

Potter shrugged, sitting on the other end of the bed—just across from Draco. He was eating treacle tart again; Draco thought it was quite a marvel his teeth hadn't fallen off so far, what with the amount of golden syrup he must have ingested on a daily basis.

"Maybe," Potter said, "I don't know." His feet were barely inches from Draco's own. "I hope they do."

If only Draco moved his foot a tiny bit to the right—just a tiny bit—their ankles would be touching. He wondered if Potter's skin would be as warm as Draco imagined it. Everything about Potter was so hot, so lively, so full of energy, it just felt as though his skin should be as well. But then, what did he know?

"Me too," Draco told him, "me too," but he wasn't too sure he wasn't lying.

It had been true in the past, but right then, it felt like there was some sort of special magic between them. A kind of subtle energy Draco couldn't quite understand, but that kept pushing and pushing under his skin, pushing them closer, making Draco's heart beat faster whenever Potter was in the room—which was to say almost always, except when Potter was in the bathroom next door—and Draco thought . . . well, he didn't think it was the bond. He thought perhaps it had always been there, even before everything went wrong—before they both landed themselves in the Hospital Wing, before their potions accident. Only back then, Potter was never around for long.

When he looked back up, he could see Potter's mouth moving. Draco had been so lost in his thoughts he hadn't even heard him speak, but Potter was still there, looking oddly amused in a way that could mean nothing good.

"What did you just say?"

"Were you just staring at my feet?"

"Don't flatter yourself, Potter," Draco scoffed.

Potter simply grinned around his fork before shovelling another bite of tart into his mouth.

"Seriously, what's up with you and that thing? You're always eating treacle tart."

Potter shrugged again. "I like it. Besides, Winky keeps bringing them up here. I think . . . I think she misses Dobby."

"If only the Dark Lord had known all he needed to do to take you out of commission was to give you endless supplies of treacle tart . . ." Draco trailed off then, he pressed his lips together into a tight line—it was just a stupid comment, words he didn't think through, but he'd heard them now and he could see how they could be taken the wrong way. And that was what they all thought about him, wasn't it? That Draco wanted the Dark Lord to win—only they knew nothing.

They didn't know what it had been like, having the Dark Lord stationed in his family's home. They had never had to watch in despair as their parents were ordered around like servants, and while they might have occasionally gone to bed with the deep fear that they'd be murdered before they woke, there was no way for them to know that it'd been the exact same for Draco—every single night, he'd feared for his life. But they couldn't know that.

Still, Draco guessed that would be the end of his and Potter's truce, and for a moment, he was almost too afraid to look back up, to see the disgust in Potter's eyes. But much to his surprise, Potter simply laughed.

"Indeed, an easy win," he said, and Draco breathed out a sigh of relief. "Who would have thought you had a sense of humour?"

"You might have noticed if you'd ever bothered trying to talk to me."

"I might have talked to you, if you weren't so busy being a massive twat half the time."

"Fuck off," Draco said, but he was smiling. As soon as Potter looked away, he slid his foot a couple of inches to the right—just a couple of inches, just until it was barely brushing against Potter's.

Potter didn't move away.