He Knows Better

Hermione's voice sounded in Harry's mind, "You know better than this," but Harry wasn't here to listen to her nagging rationalities. Harry was here to quietly drink his whiskey, stare at the man in front of him, and then go up with him to a room. "Harry, you know this is dangerous!" she shouted in his mind as the two young wizards took a look at the staircase, and then shared a small smile. Harry was in so much of a hurry to go that he almost tipped his chair over backwards when he tried to scoot it back and stand up. The man across from him let out a small chuckle, and put his hand out to Harry. He took it, and they casually walked up the stairs together with the last, "Harry, please, you're being an idiot..." fading from his mind.

A couple of months later Harry was still going to go see the man, but it was getting much more difficult. The security surrounding Harry was suffocating, but he supposed it could only be necessary. Then again, maybe it wasn't. He was the one going out and risking his neck as much as possible, no one was making him, and honestly, how would a couple of guards really help him in the end? He was going to do it alone anyway; he had to.

"Potter! Potter?" he called.

Harry shook his head, and looked up with an apologetic grin. He willed his mind to stop thinking, and just let him be. That was the whole point of this meeting. Sort of. To forget, yes, that was the reason.

He couldn't forget with Ginny.

"So, what's going on?" The young man asked, and poked Harry's forehead, "In here."

Harry gave him a questioning look, and shrugged. They weren't supposed to talk about this. Complaints and the occasional quidditch score, yes, if they were too tired to get up, too awake to sleep, and too bored to just keep staring at the ceiling; but nothing any more serious than that.

"You can trust me," he whispered to Harry, almost too softly to hear.

It was all the alarm that Harry needed, though. He immediately got up, and got dressed. For a moment the man just stared at Harry, but then the prominent scowl took its place.

As Harry opens the door, he looks back red-faced. "Don't say that to me," Harry tells him, placing emphasis on each word.

Harry stood on the battle-ground, breathing hard and looking around. He didn't see anyone - well no one living at least. Having seen the smoke rising, fading sparks off of distant wands, a couple of corpses, and the Easter-egg pink and purple colors from the start of sunset, he sat down. The sunset wasn't right for all of this. Hell, nothing was right, but even the sun couldn't work with him. He pulled his knees up to his chest, and hung his head. Tears slowly eased down his face, and he angrily wiped at them. 'It's over, all over... and all I can fucking do is cry.'

He heard quick, heavy foot steps, and saw Hermione and Ron rushing towards him. He jumped up, and hugged them both tightly.

"Is he...?" Ron questioned.

"Yeah," Harry told him, and felt the first real smile in a long time spread across his face. It felt so right to be saying that now.

Harry was confined at the hospital for only a day, and spent the rest of the week touring around the hospital to see who else was there. The next week was filled with the funerals. Harry didn't cry at a single one of the three that he went to, and he felt like the worst prat that ever took a breath of life.

"Harry, you're just numb," Hermione would say in tears, "Please, just come and say good-bye to the others. No one expects anything from you. Just, please, come and say good-bye."

Mrs. Weasley would always cut her off before Hermione could finish with a shake of her head while she stood behind Harry and rubbed at his tense shoulders. Harry would just hang his head, and glare at the floor as if the mere power of his eyes could burn through the planks.

Harry wasn't so sure that he was even numb. He hadn't been close to many people in the last year of the war, and he just guessed that he really didn't care about them. Nothing happened to Ron and Hermione, right? That would have killed him.

Not to mention it could still happen if he happened to be one of them. Especially with the way that his body would be treated. Especially if they found--

Harry never let the thought go further. He wouldn't let it. As far as Harry knew, he had never even shown up at the damn battle. He hoped that he had never shown up anyway.

A couple of years went by, and Harry's numbness eventually ebbed away. He kept himself strong through the grief the way that he had after Sirius had died, and led a quiet and, honestly, kind of boring life. Harry eventually even pushed that man out of his mind, and went to others. So, when Harry saw him walking on the opposite side of Diagon Alley, he had to look twice. Harry ran over there, ignoring the, "Are you insane? He's still dangerous!" that flew through his mind. He wasn't even so sure it was Hermione's voice any more.

"Hey! Hey!" he called, and stopped in front of him.

The man looked up, surprised, and then scowled.

"Hello?"

"You- I never even - don't you remember me?"

"Of course I do. How could I forget you?" He said the word 'you' as though it were a curse. "You can't stand-"

Harry looked up, and kissed him. The man sputtered, and opened his mouth to speak but never said anything.

"Don't be mad at me," Harry muttered, wondering if the man was still that upset over a silly thing like distrust in the war, and Harry put his arms around the man's neck.

He pulled away. "Potter, what on- Why are you- We're not-"

Harry kept kissing him. "Shut up."

The man pushed Harry off, harder than he had meant so that Harry almost fell as he stumbled backwards. "After as long as we've been apart, how could you just come up to me like that?"

"I thought you died," Harry replied quickly, only realizing how stupid that sounded after it was said.

"Do you kiss everyone like that who lives?" he joked after a few beats.

"Nah. You... I don't know," Harry finished with a slight blush. "It was the war, and...I don't know."

The man smiled, and understood. He pulled Harry into a quick embrace.

"We should catch up."

"We should," Harry agreed.

"Would you like to come over?" he asked with a grin.

"Yeah," Harry said. He could shop later.

The man took hold of Harry's arm, and they apparated to his home.

Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story, and I make no money.

The he in the story can be taken to be anybody, but I like to think that it's Draco. :D

Also, this was written March 2007, so it doesn't comply with Deathly Hallows.