17th May
This is what they have come down to.
Harry sometimes wonders if he'd done something in a past life. Something awful. There has to be reason every major relationship in his life seems to descend into mutually assured destruction.
'Just shut the fuck up, Potter,' the man is hissing now, knuckles white and clenched. Most likely in an effort not to belt him across the face.
'I can't fucking stand you sometimes.'
Harry feels his own nails bite into his hands as the sound of footsteps and the slamming of a door gave way to silence. He feels like retching for a brief moment, and thinks of the Dursleys, of Voldemort, of Alistair, of his parents. He vaguely remembers reading something somewhere that advised you to look at the common factor. Harry is painfully aware of what that is. Of whom it is.
It doesn't matter anyway. Draco will come back. He knows he'll be back. The thought is… well. It is something.
27th May
His fourth cup of tea is stone cold when he takes his first sip from it, and he grimaces, returning to the kitchen to rinse it out and set it on the side. The water swirls down the drain, gurgling, and he leans over, face cradled in his palms, eyes shut. He tenses at the sound of keys in the door, but doesn't turn, and heavier than usual footsteps stumble in the way of the kitchen. The man is framed in the doorway for a long moment, finally stepping around Harry to claim the clean mug. Harry holds his breath as the man bends around him to fill the mug with water. The stench of something potent is heavy on the air.
The arms that come around him are firm, and he tries to not to shiver as he is pressed into the countertop, his eyes clenched shut.
'I want to fuck you,' the man whispers into his cheek, breath so pungent Harry feels like gagging.
'Don't, Draco,' he mutters, but he is weak in his response and the other man knows it. The hands skimming under his top, over the flex of his abdominal muscles, the jut of his hips, know it too. For a moment, Harry hates himself. The feeling flickers to war with happiness and a myriad of other things as Draco pushes him atop the counter and kisses him like he used to, before it all went to shit.
12th June
His head snaps back from the force of the backhand, and he staggers, knocking a glass off of the countertop. His glasses have been dislodged, flung across the room, and he actually feels fear eating into him at the indistinct, horribly unclear space his kitchen has taken. Oh he has felt great sadness, and weariness, and sometimes even loathing for the life he leads now, but there is rarely any anger or blame there. Because he can understand why Draco is the way he is. And he has never felt real fear.
'Draco, please not now, Teddy-' he is cut off by the shove that sends him reeling, his back colliding with the granite, the breath knocked from him as he slides, winded and bruised, to the floor.
'I wouldn't lay a hand on that fucking child, Potter, he's family, how fucking dare you,' another shove that sends the blonde sprawling on top of him, knocking Harry's head back against the cupboard door. The smell of the potion is seeping from his pores.
'Family, Potter,' he bites out, hands curling around the other mans biceps and squeezing fingerprints into him, 'you know what that is?'
He begins to sound upset in his anger, and Harry turns his head away, knowing what direction this will take.
'You could have fucking saved more than just that half-breed child,' he spits, 'you could have saved my goddamn parents, you bastard.'
'Uncle Harry?'
Harry freezes. Oh God.
He pushes Draco off with strength he wasn't aware he possessed, crawling away from him towards the blurry shape of Hairy Maclarey pyjamas he'd dressed the child in a couple of hours ago. He gets to his feet, spine screaming at him, and reaches forwards, bringing the uncertain body into his arms. Teddy buries his face into his neck and sniffs. Harry makes shushing noises and takes him to bed unsteadily, relying on his knowledge of the flat to not trip, and tucks him in. If he falls asleep under a quidditch themed duvet, curled up around a four year old, he doubts Draco will ask.
16th June
Draco is well aware that he has problems. He may not speak of them, but he is very much aware. He stands in the doorway, unnoticed, and watches the dark haired man as he sleeps, curled up in the single bed with the young child cradled in the unnatural curve of his body. The child has black hair, and Draco knows that if he were to wake, his eyes would be the green of the man holding him.
Draco can remember, once upon a time, when those eyes would be as grey as his own, the features a blend of something Draco should be so lucky to have.
He cannot remember the last time he held Teddy Lupin. He cannot remember a great deal of the days gone by.
Harry's lip is cut, his eye purple and swollen. Draco feels shame rise up in him like bile. He is aware that he has problems. He is aware that the addiction he once had for Harry has lost out to something more viscous. He may not remember what he says in the evenings, high on an illegal potion he would once have scoffed at, but he is sure the words hurt Harry more than his hands do.
He turns to leave, the beckoning of work in the early rays of light.
21st June
It is the middle of the morning, and Draco is sitting on top of him, arm drawn back to deliver another hit to Harry's face. Harry cannot move his arms from where they've been pinned by Draco's legs, and he's mainly stopped eating these days, and he wonders how many weeks, months ago the fight went out of him. He can see his lovers face through cracked frames, and closes his eyes. A moan escapes him, and he hates himself, but he can feel Draco pause. He dully wonders what the man sees.
The smell of the potion isn't strong, and Harry knows this is why Draco clambers off him in a parody of their relationship of a year ago, where he would have only left to claim a blanket, tucking himself around Harry and falling into sleep easily.
He hears the man stride out of the flat, but he doesn't get up.
1st July
'Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!'
Draco is on something other than drink and the potion Harry doesn't like to think of. He is manic in his anger, sweating and trembling, screaming abuse with a venom Harry hasn't experienced from him yet, banging at the door, shaking it on its hinges. Harry is backed into a corner of Teddy's bedroom, hands over the boys ears, pressed firmly into his lap. Teddy is whimpering, clutching at his shoulders and alternating between burying his face into the baggy folds of Harry's hoody and staring at him with wide, wet eyes.
Harry knows his face is similar, pupils blown in fear, his lip bitten through.
'Oh God, oh God,' he whispers, shaking. The portkey Hermione had given him for emergencies three months ago, after searching his face in a way only she could, was in the living room.
Harry can only be thankful that for all his inability to use magic, at least Draco is wandless. As the door bursts its hinges, and Teddy screeches with fear, Harry is prepared to die, to kill the man to protect the child. He doesn't have to. Teddy, in a panic, apparates them away to the outside wards of The Burrow. This first display of accidental magic will never be mentioned by either of them.
20th July
It is Week 2 of the detox programme Draco had checked himself into after knocking Harry unconscious and stumbling away from him into the night, high and unaware of the blood collecting at the back of the man's skull from the collision of the bedside table. When he'd returned, knuckles raw and an apology on his lips, the sight of skinny limbs and pale skin on the floor had almost given him a heart attack, and he'd carried him downstairs to a taxi, thankful that Teddy was with the Weasleys.
The hospital had been suspicious, but the Muggle doctors were overworked and underpaid as it was. Harry didn't say anything, and they stopped asking.
Draco had only left to buy groceries, his actions sped in fear of returning to an empty flat. Harry had remained silent, watching him warily, too thin and too pale, and Draco couldn't look at him without self-loathing clenching at his chest. When he'd told Harry about the programme, Harry had touched his face and said he was proud of him.
Draco had never felt worse.
25th July
'Harry,' Draco mummers, unsure if he should enter the room. Their room, once. Harry sits up, the sheet pooling around his waist, his thin torso bare and littered with scars, some war-bourne, some… more recent. Draco cannot think about that now, because he wants this man, here, now, on clean sheets, and Harry is liquid eyes and messy hair and forgiveness. He hesitates again, but a hand is being reached out to him, offering salvation.
3rd Septemeber
Draco has been clean and sober for almost a month when he arrives at his minimum wage, potion ingredients only, not good enough for a squib, job, only to be told that they 'no longer require his services'. He is reminded that if it were not for his partner, he would be called up for using the lab after hours. Draco leaves with a sour taste in his mouth and an itch in his fingers.