HD 'Day 254'

by tigersilver

Angsty, angst, angst-fest! Draco has done wrong and knows not how how to make it right...p'raps Legilmens? As then Harry can see, and Merlin knows, Draco so needs Harry to see.

HD 'Day 254'

Author: tigersilver

Rating: PG-13

Word Count: 10,800

Warnings/Summary: On a certain day Harry walked out, jealous and sad. And Draco counted the days till he came back again. No…it was more he counted every day, because Harry was everything to him and there was nothing to mark the time without him but the geometric increase of soulless numbers.

Angsty mush. Happy ending. Gratuitous bashing of Zabini, sorry, in an incidental sort of way. For hidders, for her birthday, with hugs and year-long appreciation, always. Have a great one, BB! Also, I stole myself, or rather, my own words, to use in a different context and a different way. This I did do—self-plagiarism, sorry. Beat me, then, with a bloody frozen sesame noodle. I am unrepentant.

-0-

"If you dare walk through that door, Potter, I will curse, I will hex you. I will destroy your life."

"If I stay, Draco," Harry swallowed hard, pained bog-green eyes searching glass-grey ones. "Then you already have."

He walked through that door. Draco watched. In disbelief.

It wasn't supposed to go like this.

-0-

It was three weeks to the dreadful Tuesday later Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger staged a sort of intervention. In Harry and Draco's flat but not with Harry present, naturally (he'd moved out, on Day 254). Only with one Draco Malfoy, the recent 'ex'. He'd stayed, ever in denial, ever hopeful. Counting days and moping something fierce. ('Pitiful', Zabini called it, the insensitive lout.)

"Draco Malfoy, you're an unmitigated arse," Hermione informed him from where she sat plumped and prissy-faced on the centre of the double-wide ottoman, twirling her wand like a bloody baton and she an anti-cheerleader. Ron nodded, crammed in next to her, one leg tucked up, one half-falling to the carpet but still tall and broad and ginger, oddly sphinx-like. He'd his arms crossed and Draco eyed his muscular forearms warily.

When, that is, Draco wasn't pointedly ignoring the two of them, as much as was humanly possible in his own flat. He'd not invited them in, they'd just come. Stormed his siege, in the vernacular.

No tea had been offered. Draco wished he had allowed his manners to overthrow his affronted dignity. His throat was drier than a desert. He swallowed down the very small amount of saliva his mouth was producing and darted his gaze to the door, hopeful that a hint was being telegraphed. Eyebrows were only so useful and the Granger-Weasley contingent well inured.

Blast Potter for having interfering mates. Draco hated being cared at. If Harry were here, he'd deal. But Harry was not…clearly.

Day 254. Fucking a day of infamy.

"You, Draco Malfoy, let the best thing that ever happened to you walk out that door," Hermione went on in a musing way, squinting at the door in question. Ron nodded eagerly, mute and scowling. "Did nothing to prevent it. Fool. Imbecile."

This Draco could not ignore. It was true. He'd allowed it, much to his regret. Besides, it was becoming clear he might be in need of their assistance. If only to understand Harry. The parts that always confused him, which he never quite got right. He was oddly certain that if he could just get a handle, he could woo Harry back.

"I—yes."

Quiet Harry. Hurt Harry. Jealous Harry. Sad Harry.

"Jealousy, twat," Hermione announced, "is counter-productive." Ron huffed, nodded again—sharply, smugly-at Draco's mumbling confession, his cheeks mottling faintly red with stifled ire. Draco paled, impossibly so. Had he said that last out loud?

Of all things, why now?

It was hard to concentrate. Draco felt himself fading in and fading out. To grey, maybe. It was hard to discern in the watery light tentatively creeping through the unclean windows exactly which expression his visitors wore most often: triumph or annoyance—with him, over him. The flat was a bit of a dump, now. Draco couldn't bring himself to give a rat's arse.

"All because you were jealous." Hermione sniffed and bobbed her pretty little chin at her host, as if this was not normal, what Draco felt. As if a completely to be expected interest what one's lover got up to when one wasn't about was a crime against nature or something. "Dog in the manger."

"Not a dog, Granger."

Ron practically cracked the vertebrae in his neck, throwing it up and down in furious motion, chomping his back teeth in a nasty sort of snort. His hair ruffled in the breeze of his motion, a jaunty blaze of colour in a room left soullessly dull. Draco kept his eyes on Hermione, leveling his stare. "I am never a dog, please."

"Yes, a dog," was snapped fiercely at him. "Or more like a donkey, maybe. An arse's end, anyway. You're too much, sometimes, Draco. You always overreact. You need to tone it down."

"Well…"

Draco nodded at this, but reluctantly, nose scrunched up and forehead furrowed. He looked years older than the twenty-two birth days he'd celebrated so far. His mirror had advised him he looked peaky earlier, cooing with concern over his state. Bloody mirror. Decades older and likely the exact opposite of the self-confident, boldly successful young Wizard his unexpected but maybe useful guests had seen last (on the evening of the happy occasion of Harry's birthday party, Day 241.) Then he'd been his usual self: charming, debonair, coolly composed and sharp of tongue, but with a silly party hat stuck on. There'd been champagne and cake and his mates visiting as well as Harry's. Like old home week at Hogwarts, but better, lots better. Then Harry had still lived in this drab flat, breathing life into it, into him. Now he was a shadow of himself, a moored ghost. Voiceless and void.

"So, Draco." Was that a trace of unasked-for sympathy buried deep in the habitual smugness? Draco was curious, in a faraway sort of way. "It's like this."

Because…without Harry. Harry being gone, the git. Inexplicably, endlessly, ruthlessly departed.

"You simply must do something." Harry's irritating know-it-all best friend chirped brightly at him, swooping forward suddenly and poking Draco's kneecap painfully with the tip of her wand. "To fix it up with Harry. Take action, you gormless limpdick or, mind you, I will make your life miserable." With a significant glance at the hulk of a Weasley beside her, she amended, "Pardon. We will make your life miserable. More miserable. You look terrible, Malfoy. Like somebody died."

Ron nodded, his blue eyes narrow vivid slits in the watery dim. Draco also nodded. And sighed, eyes on the floor, fortunately not noticing just how sickly white were the knuckles on Weasley's punching hand. His lip twitched wryly. It was funny how the only humour he could appreciate these days was always black. Somebody died? Yes, somebody had died…him. Along the way, left lonely by the one person he counted on never to leave him lonely.

"What?" Hermione probed, scalpel-sharp, never missing a trick, a fleeting shift in expression. "You're laughing?"

"That's funny." Draco blinked at the floor, strewn with the litter of bachelor living. "What you said, just now."

"What's funny about this situation?" Hermione demanded. "Where is the fun? I see nothing funny, Malfoy."

"That's what I said," Draco dropped his head into his hands in patent despair. "To Harry. 'Dog in the manger', I said. About Blaise. I was…just kidding. Joking around. And then he left me."

Ron snarled into a fist, the non-dominant one. Hermione scowled. At both of them, in turn, her brows beetling in disapproval.

"Shut up, Ron. Don't even start. And you!" Her eyes swiveled to Draco. "And you didn't go after him? At once? You just let him pop off like that and did nothing about it? What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't."

Draco raised his chin and rubbed fretfully at the scruffy stubble with a damp grubby palm. His eyes were red-rimmed, his immaculate self long since overlaid by a grey sort of fug, one that spoke of prolonged tension and sorrow. The flat was covered with a thin layer of dust, papers and clothing abandoned in every corner, carryaway boxes half-consumed and left ignored. It smelled. So did Draco's body, just a bit. He didn't give a fig; he deserved to smell bad.

It had been his fault, he reckoned. It usually was, somehow.

"Clearly," he added. "Thinking, I mean."

"Go on, then." Granger was coaxing him, in an imperiously impatient manner. "What exactly were you doing, Malfoy, to set Harry off like that?"

"I wasn't doing anything in particular—I was angry, okay?" Draco admitted quickly. "I…didn't think he meant it was permanent. When he left, you know?"He lifted a shoulder; it felt impossibly heavy, like the rest of him. Too heavy to breathe, to eat, to sleep. To care. "What," he gulped, because this was the sticking point, the only reason he was grateful they'd come, these two. "What do you suggest I do? Now? Because it's hopeless. He's left me, he hates me. He'll never come back. He's said."

Ron didn't react to that, much; certainly he was still mumchance and uncannily silent, not crowing aloud over Draco's failure, his loss, his stupidity. Well, excepting that his fists loosened up finally and his eyes narrowed, assessing. No, Weasley sat very still instead, like a coil, compressed under pressure, dangerously inert. Hermione, of course, reacted differently.

"It's hopeless," Draco repeated numbly, not noticing. "What do I do now?"

"Fool!" She spat, newly ticked off, rising like a small Fury and tugging her silent sidekick along with her impatiently, her disgust with Draco over-evident and brashly loud. "You've let it go too far again. He's broody, Harry is. Probably obsessing, thinking he's made this grand gesture by walking out and now he can't come back here, even if he wants to. So, for Merlin's sake, Malfoy, find him and talk to him, you pitiful prat. Make him see reason; go down on your knees if you must. Apologize, if nothing else! Tell him you didn't mean it, that you'll do anything if he'll just come back. Lie through your teeth, but do it!" She stomped a small foot at Draco, who jumped, twitching. "Or bloody well die trying. Because you'll wish you had, if Harry's not happy. Again—soon again, Malfoy. I mean it."

"Die trying," Draco echoed blankly. "Alright." It seemed a real possibility. With Harry gone.

"Mnfft." Harry's best mate Ron nodded, reluctantly, slowly, a grudgingly accepting light dawning in the brilliant blue as he glanced from his sensible girlfriend's determined expression to Draco's positively shattered one. "Huh."

"Yes. Well…."

"You have something to say, Weasley?"

"Ahhhh…." Weasley sighed Draco's way, a long exhale of stymied tension releasing that had him flapping a hand pointlessly, gesturing acceptance of the bloodlessly sane judgment his girlfriend had brought low upon their hapless host. Hermione caught the hand, clasped it and glared at Draco hard enough for the both of them, all business, brown eyes sparkling challenge.

"Ahem." And Draco nodded some more at her, at them, feebly, weakly, acknowledging his ex-lover's friends, giving him advice when they didn't need to; at his blown-away life, which had been so happy, even at the mess neglect had made of his living quarters. Bowing to the inevitable, was considering The Apology. He'd known it was coming, the grand gesture, him begging Harry to come back. He'd only gotten so far as the demands for same, though. Foolish, as Granger said.

He should've done more, but he was so tired, so terribly fatigued by the very thought of it. Likely only because he was actually physically exhausted; he never slept well without Harry. He didn't know what to do, how—when—where?

"Sure. Yes. I'll give it a whirl."

"I should hope so," Hermione snapped. "It's the least you can do, Malfoy. At least have the sense to try out the basics first. An apology should've been the first thing off those lips. A real one, Draco. Don't fuck around with your sophistry; don't think you can slide. Because if we have to stop by this pigsty again, I'll—"

"No. No, okay. Right."

Draco didn't quite take in what Granger would do to him if he didn't go straight off and apologize to Harry; how it would hurt, the hexes she'd throw his way. He just…couldn't quite think how to go about it, apologizing; not in a manner that guaranteed success. He wasn't so good at saying he was sorry, he knew that. And he'd his pride, once. When Harry had walked he'd still had all his pride about him, bolstering him. All his courage. Now he'd nothing, three weeks from that fucking horrible day. Tatters, maybe.

"You'd best."

"Okay." He blinked vaguely at the fire burning earnestly in Hermione's eyes and then dropped his own, meek, biddable. Weasley he didn't even glance at; he knew what he'd see there. "I get it." And he'd didn't rise to his feet to see them out, either, even though all his Malfoy breeding demanded it. He was just so…just so. "…Yes, yes. I'll try. I will try, I promise."

"You'd better," Hermione growled. "Fool. More than a fool—criminally stupid! Show some spine, Malfoy, or Ron here will be happy to pound you a new one out."

"Hrrhn." Ron nodded along one last time, rolling his eyes at Draco as Hermione marched over the hearth and threw ash at the floo, taking him with her. And then, finally, he addressed Draco, reluctantly, just before she dragged him bodily into the gout of lime flames. Well, growled, more like. "See you 'round, loser," he said flatly, with a hint of teeth. "Don't go mucking this up and force me to come back here and speak to you. You won't like what I've got to say."

-0-

Draco flinched. It was over, at last. He'd the best advice he was likely going to find, at least from the people who knew Harry better than he did.

"Fuck me, fuck me blind," he bitterly informed the filthy underwear, the strewn-about Prophets, the silently sitting telly, the very dust. "Fuck me. For I am well and truly fucked. Here goes nothing."

-0-

It was more than a matter of mere moments, cleaning the flat, bathing, digging up clothes that wouldn't highlight the sallowness of his fair skin, the gauntness of his wasted wrists, and that would pass in places either Muggle or Wizard. Shoving down a bowl of stale cereal and possibly off-date milk as a precaution because he'd not eaten much he could remember recently and remaining too long standing produced a wobbly result in the kneecap region. His blood sugar was low; Harry always complained of him driving himself, of being too focused to take 'good care'. Harry had always been there to take care of Draco for him.

…Besides, he'd need it, all of it, all the sugar in the flat, surging through his veins. All the sparkly remnants of Harry's quiet heroism, the stuff that inhabited the corners just as much as the dust did, all scraped up and inhaled—metaphorically, maybe?-just to face Harry. He'd need to stand tall as he always did: fearless, stubborn. Malfoy, but fucking sincere.

-0-

Draco did sincere pretty horribly. It was probably his delivery, his inimitable Malfoy style. All he knew was that it wasn't working, his version of sincere.

"Harry," he said again, having fortunately cornered his prey at the back entrance to the Leaky a few frustrating hours after the massive flat clean-up. 'Harry', he' d said, any number of times in the last few, all to no avail. Harry was a stubborn cuss, and Draco liked it. But he like it so much, directed at him. "Harry, listen to me for a moment. Hear me out."

"No," Harry replied, easily enough, casting away his spent fag with a sneer. An oddly familiar expression, that sneer, and then, too, Draco hadn't even realized Harry smoked! Muggles smoked; he'd seen it in films. Wizards were pipe people, mostly. But Harry—smoking! It must be some new affectation; he shrugged it off without comment, though barely. If offended him; he'd heard it was harmful. They'd speak of that later, ta ever so. No, he'd make a point of it; he'd never want Harry inhaling that weird Muggle smoke, nor ruining his heroically lovely lungs,, but there were more important matters now, more immediate ones at least. He needed those lungs in his life, breathing his air. "No, thanks," Harry went on, as if Draco's sincerity was so much rubbish, not worth his while. "Now push off. I hate you. Have I mentioned?"

Courage was dry, dull, dreadful stuff, like stale biscuits. Draco choked it down, even mindful. Concentrated on the art of looking as earnest as he felt. Perhaps if he tried it on long enough, it would take.

"But you have to listen," he insisted. "You owe me."

"No, I don't," Harry riposted promptly. "Wanker." He sniffed the air about Draco, pulling a face. "Huh. Smelly wanker. You reek."

"I'm not a wanker!" Draco was offended. "And I'm not damned smelly, either!" Yes, he'd tidied his person up a bit but he was nothing like his usual. A blind man could see he was laboring beneath a heavy weight. A deaf man could hear the unspoken 'please' which flavoured every syllable out of his mouth. He might as well say it aloud as much as he could manage; what did he have left to lose by begging, by playing the cur Hermione named him? If he was to be the dog here, he'd be the terrier, the one who always ferreted out his rat? "Harry? Harry, what's wrong?"

"Whatever," his ex-lover huffed at him. "Just go away now."

"No."

It made no nevermind. This was real as it got. This was his life, his and Harry's. Draco set his teeth and glared down at Harry—sincerely.

"No, really," Harry smirked. "I mean it. Leave me alone."

"No! Hermione said to make you listen, Harry, if I must. I'm not about to Pretrificus you, so…please. Please?"

"Why?" Harry smirked some more at Draco, rather nastily in the dim light. It made him look feral, what with those eyes of his. He set his teeth in a baleful flash and tapped a toe on the filthy pavers, toetip running the spent fag-end into a filthy smear.. "Why should I? So you can talk me into coming back to the flat and then make me feel like shit again at your leisure? I don't think so, Malfoy. I'm happy where I am, back at Grimmauld. It's very comfortable there, these days. So, er. Piss off."

"Where you are? Grimmauld, that old wreck? No, that's not right," Draco frowned, diverted. "You hate Grimmauld Place, couldn't wait to move out. That's not home, Harry. Home, Harry, is—"

"So?" The shorter man twisted his spine against the brick wall, flinging out an uncaring hand, making as if to lever himself off and away. "What's it to you?" he snarled. "You don't even care, not really. And I can live where I please, thanks. I don't know why you're acting as if you do, now." He sneered, and it was all Malfoy; learn behavior, obviously. "Go away. Go back to your friends, Malfoy, go back to the flat, carry on with your life. I don't care to speak with you, not anymore. Not ever, actually. We're over."

"That's a lie!" Draco lunged stiffly forward, hands first. "I do so care; I care so much!"

He planted his palms flat on the brick face, one on either side of his hopefully not already ex-beloved's head. This one he couldn't let get away—no, not Harry. Please not Harry.

"Sure you do," Harry scoffed. "Right, then. Pardon me, so much. Arsehole."

"Of course I care. Don't you dare say I don't, Potter," Draco growled out bitterly, furiously pressing in as he bent his elbows, crowding Harry. The scent of him nearly buckled Draco's knees, it had been so long. How many days now? And counting. Always counting. "Don't you tell me lies like that—when, all this time, you—and I, we've—we, we're meant to be together, Harry. We are."

Harry laughed at him. Laughed. Fucking guffawed right in his face, as though Draco were joking. Acting, even.

"Oh, no," he chuckled, when he'd caught his breath, gay and droll in the face of Draco's utter bewilderment. This was not his Harry; this stranger, all cold-eyed and flinching away as much as he could in close quarters. Laughing with no humour. "No, no, no. We've nothing. We're nothing. It was a mistake, Malfoy, from the start."

And he laughed again, and only to himself, chuckling quietly for the longest time. Draco gaped at him, vastly daunted. This was in no way a joke.

"I never!" he exclaimed. Every little rolling chuckle out of Harry's lips was like a quick fast knife to the gut. They wounded him to the quick, they did. He couldn't wait to stop them from happening—he'd say anything, anything. "You know I always, always cared, Harry. How dare you say I don't?"

Harry's lips set in a bitter twist.

"You don't care for me, you never have. Not really. Not that way it matters." Harry, in marked contrast to his former flat-mate, was clean and well dressed and smelt very good. And he was deathly calm now that he wasn't giggling like a mean schoolgirl up his damned sleeve. "You're a bloody fraud. You only ever wanted me for all the trappings," he went on, nodding as if Draco should know all this, as if Draco was the one who should understand, how it was to be in his shoes. "All the stupid fame and the press. And for my arse—you seem to like that, at least. My bloody arse, as if that's special!" Harry laughed again, bitterly, but only for a second before he turned accusing eyes upon his rapt audience and really got down to it, sparing no ammunition. "Actually, you're the whore in this picture, Draco, not your bloody pal Zabini. An attention-seeking whore. You like people's notice, you seek it. Think it's great. Think it's super. " He huffed, snapping his teeth in patent disgust. "I don't, thanks. So go play your games with someone in your league because I'm off out. Have been, this last se'enight—or haven't you noticed I'm not living there? I'm so gone. Been gone."

"No—Harry." Draco swallowed. "Please, Harry."

"Yes," Harry snapped back, implacable, convinced. "Everything I'm telling you is true, you know it is. You're all about you and you could care less about me, Draco Malfoy, not as a person. Don't stand there and tell me any different because I won't believe you. I've seen you in action, dot forget. All that nonsense you pulled the day I left? Bloody horrid; I don't know why I ever put up with you enough to live with you, sleep with you. And for god's sake, believe me when I tell you I'll never believe anything you say to me, not ever again. You've kind of ruined that, okay? You and your friends, between you. Now go. Please just leave."

"No!" Draco wanted to grab Harry, grab him if only to shake some sense into him. Grab him because his fingers actually hurt him, having Harry so near and yet so far, glaring at him. He retrained himself with effort. This was not the way to be penitent and, by all the fucking merciful gods, he was penitent.

"Shut it—" Harry began, but Draco was done with the quiet pleading bit.

"But—no! You can't seriously say that, Harry!" he burst out, loudly, speaking above the low-level noises emanating from the Leaky's rear door. "I've always cared—I love—fuck, Harry. Don't go. Come home. Don't be like this, so stubborn, so arse-headed. Come home with me, talk this out, talk to me, okay? We can fix—we can fix whatever it was, whatever I said; I don't even know. I didn't mean it, alright? I never mean to be like tha-"

"Not a sodding chance." The green eyes were hard and steely. "No fucking way." They shut Draco out, and the chin he loved to kiss was turned sharply away. Every muscle was tensed in that shorter length of body caught between Draco's form and the filthy bricks of the Leaky's rear wall, as if Harry were but a moment away from simply turning a heel into Apparate in place, no matter how cramped the space was he had was to work within, no matter how much Draco flinched at the thought of Harry dissipating like smoke when he had him nearly in hand's grasp…and then he'd bloody well do so and then Draco would be left again. Bereft again. Alone. "Fuck off, will you?"

"Harry." In a dirty old alley, filled with rubbish and the odour of gone-off butterbeer, bottles discarded in bins, and without Potter. This wasn't something Draco could stand seeing, no. It had taken hours of Point Me and scouring the streets for stray gossip just to track Harry down to the here and the now. He'd no help from Harry's mates or his own. He wasn't about to let his quarry go. Not now. Not like this. "Harry!"

"Nope. That's it." The black curly tendrils quivered as Harry gently shook his head. His hair was a shade too long but Draco liked it. He wished he'd had the chance to observe Harry growing it out. If the world spun the proper way, he would've. "I'm done, finished, through with you. And I'm leaving now. I never should've stopped to even hear you out. I was just here for a break, to get out. This isn't doing either of us any favours."

"No!"

Favours? No, it wasn't favours Draco was wanting; it was his life back. The one Harry had taken away with him on Day 254.

"Let go of me, please." Harry raised his wand despite the clamp of silk-shirted forearms closing in around his upper body vice-like, gathered himself together—Destination, Determination-despite the insistent press of six foot of increasingly desperate Wizard shoving forward. "Stand back, Malfoy," he ordered shortly. "Get out of my way. I'm going back home and you're not invited."

"Harry!" Draco threw himself forward, his person functioning instinctively, all parts clamping down, clinging, entangling the two them together in any way he could manage. "Harry, don't you dare lea—"

-0-

"..ve. Me… here?" Draco trailed off, staring around at the newly done up front parlour of Grimmauld. "...Here?"

Here was the Place. The Place which looked ever so much…better than when he'd been last, the day Harry had moved out of Grimmauld and into their flat. At first glance. At second glance about him, Draco's eyes widened. Things had definitely changed, and in such a short while, too. Harry snorted at Draco's astonishment, pulling himself away in a business-like fashion and retreating as fast as his shorter legs could carry him. Draco hardly regarded it—at first.

"Oh, fuck off, will you?" he muttered. "I don't even know why you did that, the side-along. Can you even be more of an arsehole, Draco?"

"Here, but why here, Harry? The wards," Draco breathed, shocked shitless, not minding his ex-boyfriend's words because his ex-boyfriend's old house was so incredibly different now. Like the flat, actually, but not. "They let me through. Haven't you." He blinked and quickly glanced away from the place where Harry had gone to stand when he'd ripped himself from Draco's hands. He'd stalked off and was planted, feet flat, standing stolid and dour and staid on the familiar old worn down hearthstones, glaring daggers at Draco's puzzlement. Possibly because the floo provided him a quick out if he should want it. Possibly because Draco was daring to exist on the same planet as him; was rude enough to exist in the same damned room. Breathing in Harry's precious personal air, the stuff he didn't seem to care to share anymore, at least not with Draco.

Draco folded his lips thin. This was more than enough, this whole ridiculous tiff. It had gone far enough, and he must needs put to a stop to it.

If only Harry would cooperate, the pissy little git.

"Leave, please." Harry, it seemed, was stuck on the same old song. Not even the lyrics had changed.

"Haven't you," Draco persisted softly, gamely stoic in the face of just plain grimness, and because he was curious, "already altered them? When you." He wet his lips, biting down hard on the lower one when Harry scowled. "When you first came here, after?"

"No, clearly not," Harry snapped, shifting from one foot to another and glaring. "Should've, obviously." He waggled his fingers, brushing it off as nothing, his lack of foresight. "My mistake. But thanks for the reminder, Malfoy. I'll alter them as soon as you're out. Now, if you'll please to be on your way?" He thumbed toward the front entry hall, barely visible around a freshly painted archway and a short step down a newly re-papered stretch of wall. Curled a despising lip and pushed his specs up his nose dismissively when Draco made no move to depart. And all but screamed out wordlessly how Draco was completely and totally unwanted, unwelcome, unnecessary. Draco flinched, defensive in the face of so much silent dismissal.

"Harry?'

"Out lies that way," his ex informed him, again. As if Draco were a slowtop and didn't get it the first time. As if Harry was the arsehole he was trying to act like. "Take yourself there."

"No." Draco shuffled forward and bloody well sat his bottom—more like he collapsed—on a convenient wingback. A brand new armchair, which most definitely hadn't been in Harry's scruffy old sitting room the last time he'd been. So much had changed and so very quickly in his life—in Harry's—and apparently that included the landscape of the décor. "Gods, no." He hung on with both hands to the chairs arms, gripping them fast. Leaving Grimmauld was not an option; not now he was inside. Inside, he still had a chance, he knew. If he allowed Harry to usher him out, he might as well give up on Harry altogether. The little git was that bull-headed. "Not if I've got this far, at least."

"Go."Harry's soft command, a literal leitmotif of denial, was a hammer to Draco's ears, never ceasing. "Now. Because you've gotten nowhere with me, Draco, and you never will. I could care less."

"I'm not. I won't. I won't go." Draco released his hold ever so slowly and ran a single questing fingertip across the pristine cream upholstery, blinking rapidly across at Harry's angry snort and his impatient shoo-ing gestures. "No, Harry. Don't say that. Don't try it on, don't send me off. Or even think to. Please don't. We're worth more than that-we have to talk. We must, it's import—it's our lives, Harry!"

"Pfft!" Harry looked away abruptly, shifting his narrowed eyes elsewhere. "Important? 'Our lives', you say? Is it now, Draco? Typical of you, pulling out the emo card. But no." He rocked back on his heels, clearly skeptical. "I can't say as I'm interested. Not anymore. Go tell your tale of woe to someone who cares. Go sob on your pal Zabini's shoulder—I'm sure he'd have the time for you."

"What?" Draco elevated his chin abruptly, twisting in his chair, attempting to re-engage his ex-lover's gaze. "Blaise? What the hell are you talking about, Harry? Blasé doesn't even come into this, except as a bloody nuisance, alright? And I'm not going anywhere, not a fucking inch. Get used to it!"

"You won't go?" Draco earned a bitter smile. "I'd've thought you'd be happy enough to. You're well shot of me now, aren't you? Don't even have to think up a good way to dump me. I've done it for you; aren't I just so helpful like that? Now," Harry snapped his fingers. "Stop faffing about and be off, like a good little boy. Show me your precious proper Malfoy manners and take your damned leave from where you're not wanted. We've nothing more to say. Not a dingle damned word."

"No, no, no, you've got it all wrong, Harry." Draco straightened where he perched and stared beseechingly at Harry. But with a bone-deep hauteur, of course, because Malfoys always looked that way: po-faced, starched-up, lemony. A bit too high in the instep, they were. But Draco couldn't help it if his stupid face always sent mixed messages. He couldn't help if he never seemed to work out how to send all the right ones, at the right time, and especially to Harry. But Harry had never objected overmuch to Draco's manner, his usual methods; well, at least not after they shagged that first time. He'd understood, or at least it really seemed he had…until he'd simply not wanted to, one day. And then he'd walked out on Draco and all because of some misunderstanding that Draco still wasn't completely clear on. "Harry, please. I don't know what it was he said or I said, for that matter, but I didn't mean it. You have to know that."

"No."

Day 254.

"I don't, thanks."

"Stop saying that! Stop saying 'no' to me, Harry. Look at me, alright? Just look at me, Harry. Can't you see what this has done to me, you walking out that door? How you could? And enough's enough, now. I didn't mean it; you know I didn't mean it. It was likely just me, being the way I usually am—you understand, right? And Zabini's always like that; always fucking about and you know how he is, right? He can't help it; his mum's a bloody murderess, Harry. That's what she does, murder relationships. And he's got no people skills, no point of reference, thanks to his stupid old bitch of a mum. He just tried it on you, hoping for a rise—it was a joke, Harry, nothing more. Because that's what Blaise does for fun, alright? What he said, what I said; I don't even remember what it was now but you can't possibly take it seriously—you can't! And I'm trying to apologize, sincerely; I've been trying to find you in person to say it for ages now, if you'll only just hear me out, Harry. I bloody well owl you every damned day! Give me a bit of a break, will you?"

Draco didn't so much as take a breath, didn't exhale. He stayed right where he was, immobilized in Harry's bloody brand new armchair and watched Harry watching his every move intently, with lips just as tight and mostly bloodless, and Draco didn't dare.

He paused, waited for a beat, listening to the thud in his chest. It hurt, a bit, and Harry said bloody nothing, only looked at him. As if he were a bug, infesting Harry's new furniture.

"No, please," Draco went on—at last, at last, and sincerely-and maybe there was a bit of sob underlying his words now, as they poured out. His fingernails were back to digging into the upholstery and quite possibly puncturing holes right through the cream brocade. "I can't do this any longer, coming home to the flat without you in it. I'm not eating, not sleeping, not fucking caring—barely going to work, alright? For gods sake, I'm bloody well mourning you, Harry, 'cause you're just not there! And I can't concentrate with you not there and I can't breathe or sleep or anything. Fuck, I'm dying on the vine with you not there—it's horrible. Have some fucking pity, Harry!"

Pity? Gods, no. Silence, dead silence, all emanating almost palpably from the man Draco loved and all he got for the gift of his admission was a set of very green eyes trained on him, forensically. Never blinking, never shifting, as if he were an insect tracked in on the carpet. Draco shuddered, flinching and blinking fast against the encroaching blankness that was life without Harry.

"Horrible," he repeated, his voice worn thin from over-use. "Really awful, how quiet it is." He'd rubbed his forehead, ducking down his chin to avoid Harry's gaze, vaguely shamed. He'd not said this much about his feelings in years, if ever. Harry likely despised him, on top of everything else. But it made no difference; he wasn't budging. "So lonely, Harry. I'm so lonely now. I miss you. Please come back."

Harry barked. Well, more snorted or coughed. A muffled sound and so sudden, and it broke the awkwardly lengthening silence between them in such a way as to splinter most of hope.

"Bosh. You aren't. It isn't, and it's not the great huge tragedy you're making it out to be, either. It's fine, Draco." He shrugged, lifting his eyebrows quizzically. "You know? Hey, shit happens, yeah? Well, shit happened to us, is all. It's over, alright? Finally run its course, all we had—all done now, all finished, the fucking, the flat share. And you know? You know what's so funny, Malfoy?"

"Malfoy?" Draco gasped, shocked. At Day 3 they'd already been beyond 'Malfoy' and 'Potter'; why go back to that now? Didn't he deserve better? "Harry, come on-!"

"Malfoy," Harry repeated, firmly. "We should've known it would happen someday, Malfoy. Now go away, before I bloody well make you go. Take your poncey arse out of my face, out of my house. Because I can't stand you being here, in my home. This is mine, mine alone."

"No! I'm staying right here," Draco sprang to his feet and stalked forward, finally giving into his mounting urge to move. He would go spare if he sat for one moment longer and simply took this unwarranted dressing-down, this freaky weird fit of Harry's. All this newness about him, which spoke volumes of Harry settling in. And…and there was time enough to feel devastated later, by all his Harry was saying to him; but-right now he was busy, damn it! He'd a life to save. His own. "And I'm not moving one fucking inch, Harry. Right damned here, Harry, in your face, in your Merlin fucking home until you agree to actually talk to me—till you agree to come the fuck back with me to the flat—our flat! This isn't home, no matter how you've prettified it. " He darted quick eyes about, taking in to all the improvements in a glance. Harry must've had some help; he didn't know which on e the groupies would've jumped at the chance, but he damned well knew there'd have been someone—and the jealousy he felt over that was needlessly distracting. "It was your prison, wasn't it?" Draco went on, doggedly. "This house, and everything in it, back in the day? Terrible as that bloody fucking closet you grew up in, Harry—you said that, to me! You told me, Harry! You hated it here. You couldn't wait to leave!"

"That'll be a cold day." The reply was fast and flat, unemotional and spare. Spec lenses glinted at him, reflecting Draco's frown, the bags under his eyes. "In hell. That you should even consider I'd return to the debacle you've made our old flat. I'm not a fool, Draco. Do run along." Harry gulped, and seemed to stand a little taller, if anything. Draco took another step towards him, involuntarily. "Really. Be real, okay? You're not wanted here, Draco. Not welcome, got it? Go back to the fucking flat. Hell, sell the flat, why don't you? Burn it and all the contents for all I care. But do leave. I can't stand the sight of you, Malfoy. I bloody well hate you, now."

Draco gasped, poised to duck. Poised to swing sideways and lunge, to grapple his true love to the carpet if he must, anything to put a halt to the monumental hexing firefight that might erupt between them at any moment.

But it didn't. Perplexingly enough, it didn't.

Harry didn't bother to lift his wand, though, nor shift on his feet at the ready for casting, nor indicate in any way he was planning next to physically wrestle Draco out the door of Grimmauld. He only waited, grim-eyed, head tilted a bit enquiringly. As if he truly didn't understand why Draco wasn't already history, wasn't already long gone. As if…the fire had burnt right out him, leaving only nothing.

"Harry, don't say for me to go." Draco took contrary heart at the lack of movement. He wouldn't think of what else it might mean, no. He ventured forward, by tiny degrees. "Don't say you hate me, okay?"

Hate? He'd heard words of hate before, from Potter. And they'd then gone on despite them; had managed to move beyond all that. Had turned a lifetime of angry dislike upside down and inside out and found that it was so much the better for it—all of it, both their lives. They'd had each other, hadn't they? And Draco refused to believe they couldn't, anymore. He stared wonderingly at the dear familiar nose, those lips, that faded scar and those wild locks, battered spectacles framing all of it, every line, and his fingertips twitched forward and longingly, showing his wanting for him.

"Huh. It's not even hate. Not anymore."

"Harry!"

Harry cast them a derisive glance, Draco's pitiful fingers. So he curled them up, making tight fists as he folded his arms across his chest, not budging a step towards door or hearth or any exit, stalling where he stood. For, if he could do nothing else, he could wait this out, give Harry time to regain his temper. No—bloody well find a grip on reality. Their reality. Because this was nonsense; tosh, every bit of it: the fight, the way Harry wanted him gone, even Harry's mates, visiting him to chivvy him along merely from some misguided sense of grudging do-goodery. Fools. Bollocks. It had never been necessary, none of it. Love didn't disappear in the blinking of any eye. Certainly his hadn't.

"I don't understand you. And I can't. I can't go. Not without you, Harry. Literally, I can't."

"You can," Harry insisted, pursing his lips and wrinkling up his nose, as if Draco were dense as a thicket and just wasn't twigging something so obvious. But to him, only him. "You must. We're over with, Draco. Have been. Old news."

"You…" Draco shook his head slowly, eyes widening at nothing much in particular. Maybe the mantle, actually, with its dearth of pictures of the two of them. At home—at the flat—there were pictures of he and Harry everywhere, on every surface. "You're not serious." He rocked back on his heels, as if to align with a world suddenly shaken and upended. He inhaled sharply, gustily, and blew out a ragged breath. "Bite your tongue, Harry. You don't mean it."

"On the contrary, I'm very, cheers."

"No! You're never serious about this, I refuse to believe it. No. No, Harry. You once said you'd always, always love me, Harry. Love me till we both died. You did. You swore it to me, I know you did. I remember—I remember every word, alright? Was as good as a vow, what you said. So—so?" Draco was struck again by the unreality of all that was being said between them. Appalled, more like. This couldn't be happening; he'd wake up any moment…wouldn't he? "Er—ah? What exactly even happened? Because it can't have changed that fast—you can't not. No. You're not like this, Harry. You-just tell me, alright? Will you just say it? What can I do to…how can I ever…ever? Because this can't go on, not like this. I can't go on. I'm lost without you, Harry. I'm…lost. Fucking well history, Harry. Please come home. Please?"

"Oh fuck!" Silence. Dead silence and then Harry swallowed noisily, the first—the only—sign of a crack. One he was instantly, hastily patching smooth again, flinging out his words like a scatter of verbal gravel. "I can't—you're not. Wait. No. No, it's like this, alright? I lied, that's all," Draco was informed briskly. He watched narrow-eyed as Harry threw up his hands in a defeated gesture. "About loving you. It was a fib, a dare, from the very start—a means to an end, Malfoy. My mates bet me, dared me to have you in bed, show you what's what. And it wasn't anything much, just…well, maybe Ron's got a little lingering resentment, but Hermione doesn't. Well, whatever, they knew I thought you were fit. And George said I should go for it, see if you'd play. So, yeah." Harry shrugged. "A total fabrication, all of it, nothing more. I wanted your body and I wanted to show off I had you, a bit. Famous Malfoy, on a string. Prove I could—that's it."

"Pardon?" Draco's eyes widened. "Have me…on a string? What's that mean, Harry? What good would that do you?"

"Never mind, alright?" Harry snorted; looked away from Draco's curious eyes. "Look, I only really only wanted to shag you for a bit; seemed like the thing to do to make it happen, telling you I cared for you. And you went for it, hook, line and sinker, just like I knew you would."

"But, I—"

"I mean, you're such a sucker if you think someone admires you, Draco—so easily persuaded, so flattered. Your ego's got to be size of Greater London, you know? So we fucked, alright—we fucked and got the Merlin-damned flat just make it easier to fuck. And…and that's it—that's all it ever was. Convenience. And now it's over; I'm done." Harry tapped a toe silently on the plush pile. "It's not convenient. I've had enough. So, um, you should go. Get out. This is my home now and I live here alone and I bloody don't want you in it any longer. Please…just…go."

"I—Harry. No!" Draco licked his lips. Blinked away a bit of lint that obscured his vision for moment. That was what must be making it blurry. "That's. Tha-"

"Go," Harry commanded stonily, caught on an unbroken loop of denial. Cruel as any lash, that. Draco winced, mid-syllable. "Please. Now."

"…t's cruel," Draco could only protest it, this outrage. This…oddity. "That's...that's really cruel. Harry." His head sank down, slumping shoulders going with it. His whole body felt thinned out, compressed; he even went flat on his heels as if waiting for the carpet to swallow him. He clasped his arms about himself very tightly, to hold it in, his not understanding. This not-Harry. "I never knew you were…that you could be…mean, Harry."

"I'm not mean!" Harry shot back, falling into a no-nonsense stance, almost a mirror of Draco's posture, but sharper. Harder. "Far from it, Draco. I'm sensible, is what. It wasn't working out, can't you see that? None of it—nothing. Bloody anyone could see that. Your mates certainly did, didn't they? It was time—past time, to put it to rest."

"No!" Draco surged forward once more, stung into action, the force of it toppling the armchair abandoned behind him. It fell with a solid thunk, rattling the random bibelots on the mantel. "No! Fuck you, Harry Potter—that's a fucking lie! Don't lie."

"Dr—"

"It was working. You loved-love me, Harry. And I love you. Don't lie like that! Don't do it or I won't be responsib—oh, sod this shit, Harry! That's enough!"

Harry starltled and there was something bout him that seemed to presage him leaving. Just going off, if Draco did not. Draco snarled at it, fair warning, and was across the distance that separated them in a twinkling, finally breathing freely as he moved, puffing and huffing and snorting. Breathing fire.

The freshly renewed plaster crackled with the force of Harry's back and hips slamming into it. Draco threw all of him into immobilizing Harry, into wiping that nasty mocking expression straight off his face.

But it never shifted, Harry's studied mask of indifference. Harry only stared up at him, lip curled, and maybe his eyebrows shaded to cynical and his nostrils flared the tiniest bit, but that was it. "Fuck you, Draco," he said flatly. "Get off me."

"No. No."

"Fuck you, then. Arsehole." Harry's eyes went a poisonous hue. And when his hands settled on Draco's upper arms it wasn't to grip them with love and adoration, it wasn't to squeeze them fondly as he'd used to do, days and days ago—an eternity. He shoved harshly at Draco, who dug in his heels and didn't shift.

"Come on, come on, Harry—please?"

"Bastard." It was a hateful word, tumbling from Harry's mouth, all 'esses' and spite, and Draco watched them move around it, fascinated unwillingly. "I won't 'come on', not anywhere, not ever, not with you. I owe you nothing, Malfoy. Nothing. Go. Away!"

"Oh-gods. No." Draco shook his head slightly, waiting for his hearing to settle. It was all buzzy in his head and he knew for a fact Harry had never ever looked at him that way. Not even at Hogwarts, not even in the lav there. He couldn't—it left Draco angry. Very angry, and very abruptly so. He wans't taking this lying down. It took two to sodding well tango! "No, you listen to me, alright. You're the fucking bastard here, for just walking out on me. And for not listening, not even trying to—why is it won't you hear me out? Why are you even like this? It wasn't that bad, what I did, Harry—it wasn't even that awful! It can't have been; I never meant it to be!"

"Hah! Bollocks. I was more than provoked—and don't you dare tell me what I can and can't do, Draco Malfoy. Just leave now, like I keep asking you to. Go away. Get out, you!" Harry snapped his teeth like a mad dog when Draco pressed closer.

"Harry." Seeking a kiss, for surely a kiss would realign those bitter-thin lips into something more familiar? A Harry Draco could understand again? "Harry, stop this. Stop."

"Stop that! Don't dare touch me, you wanker! I keep saying that to you and you don't listen, do you? Are you frigging deaf as a post as well as stupid and blind and bloody fucking selfish?"

"I." Draco's jaw worked; he licked his own lips, feeling that they might be freezing. Funny, how cold one could be when one was burning up with a contrary fever. He'd never understand love—never. He just knew he could lose it. If he didn't say something—anything. Give something. "Harry, I."

Anything.

"What! What are you trying to even say, Draco? Spit it out!"

"I," he hissed, chest gone tighter than a drum barrel head, and all the blood that had fled his heart busy pounding in his temples, "will not let you go, I won't. Come back to me, come back home. See bloody reason, for once in your life, Harry. Don't be such a child—and don't sodding lie to me! I won't stand for this, not any longer." He growled deep in his chest, eyes glittering, as he used to do, back in the day where he'd believed menacing was cool. The done thing, the coolest. And knew full well it was stupid to do it at this point, to Harry; that it sounded stupid, but it hurt, his chest, his head, every-bloody-thing—oh, so much, it hurt, having Harry like this, so cold to him. "You can't do this to me. You'll not leave me. I won't have it. I'm not giving you up, Potter."

"You," Harry sniped, face fox-narrow with matching fury, chin tipped in heady challenge as he stared straight into Draco's eyes, "won't have a choice in the matter. Don't, in fact. I've already left you, haven't you noticed? Been gone, weeks now I've been gone. I've. Left. You. Draco. Got it? It's a simple enough concept if you'd just listen to me. Now—let go. Bugger off. Do us both a favour and get the hell out, Malfoy. This is ridiculous, squabbling. We're adults now, not schoolboys. Don't you know when to quit?"

"No…!" Draco moaned; his head all at once too damned heavy to hold upright. He could feel himself falling, falling into Harry, but Harry—for all he was there, right there in Draco's arms—wasn't reaching out to catch him. "No—no."

"Draco." So sensible, so sane. Harry so matter-of-fact, as if there was no other way. As if it were inevitable, that horrible day. Which was mad, completely, and Draco's head was spinning with how very mad it all was. "Malfoy."

This was nothing like how it was supposed to go, nothing like.

And, gods, but Harry's body was so hot, so searing hot, even through their clothes, and it was like dancing naked on the lip of volcano, how they used to feel for each other, almost palpable but hovering just out of reach. How it was just there—within a hand's grasp, if only he could manage some lift, a little boost—a ounce of mercy. Just…a dream of mercy on Harry's part and they'd be fine again, Draco knew. And how hard they were still, hips mated, what with Draco's cock gouging a little dent in Harry's midriff and the both of them panting away in each other's faces as if oxygen were in short supply and the world burning down round their ears, unnoted.

"No, please, no." Draco's voice cracked on them, all the 'pleases' he must say till Harry consented to finally hear him; he shook it off where once it would've galled him, the begging. Begging didn't matter squat, in the end. It was only results that mattered. "Tell me why. You didn't even say why, Harry, just some nonsense about me—and Zabini. Fuck Zabini, Harry—say it. And fuck this crap about you just wanting to shag—or show me off. That's laughable; I can't even think you'd expect me to lend that bullshit credence. Just. Harry. Whatever it was, just say. Tell me. I'll fix it, I swear!"

"Oh, you're so right." Harry's teeth closed. He smiled, thin as knives, and the words whispered back intimately into the hollow of Draco's neck, formed where he was bent over Harry like the arc of a bow, they sliced as deep as any ice-coated steel. "It was never that. Clever, Draco."

"If it wasn't that, then what was it? I have to know, Harry"

"You being a jealous sod, when you bothered to be, and then not even seeing, not seeing me—"

"I always see you." Draco groaned pure despair to Harry's explosive 'Pah!' and gaveit up for a bad job, this straining to read Harry's expression. "Oh, please. Don't you know?" He dropped his aching head fully upon Harry's collarbone, wrapping his arms tight about Harry, holding fast still when logic would've presupposed they'd move apart. He couldn't budge; he was stuck fast. "Oh, gods, I always, always…"

And Harry stood and waited with him, thankfully. Didn't startle or struggle or fight him; just let Draco be…and breathe. They only stood, like statures of themselves excepting their sides, faintly heaving, and the quiver in two sets of fingers. Neither shifted nor showed a single sign of it.

"I see you," he whispered when Harry at last made another slight noise, like 'pfft!', but ever so softly it was almost inaudible, and there was only disbelief hanging solemn, dark and cloudy, growing fast in the tiny space between their lips. "How can you think I don't? I always see you. I only ever see you—that's the worst bit of this, the utter worst. But, what? What, Harry? What did I do that was so fucking wrong? Why is it I can never-I've always, always—and you. Harry. Harry."

"Doubted." Draco felt more than heard the tiny gulp, the bitter puff of air against his cheekbone. "You doubted me. You, of all people."

Harry wrenched away as he whispered, ripping his person sideways and back a step, twisting nimbly, so the space grew between them form nearly nothing to what might very well become a whole universe. Till there was only his hands left on Draco's upper chest, splayed out wide and shoving. Draco, panicked, reacted immediately. "Wait—Harry, don't! Don't let go!"

"I'm." Harry's fingers slid from where they'd gripped Draco's upper arms, relaxing enough to trickle and slide and grasped and found their eventual way between two close-clamped elbows, squirming through the gaps, meeting up and latching tight on the other side, where Draco's spine bowed inward. Clenched interlaced till Harry's knuckles turned white and Draco swore at the painful intensity. "I'm not, arsehole. I was only—only."

The fingers squeezed like mad, digging in. Draco squirmed, shutting his eyes at the painful slide of muscle rearranged. "Fuck, Harry! Ow!"

"You. You don't trust me," Harry informed him gently, deceptively so. "You never did." The fury of angry voices was vanished; somehow this hushed conversation was just so much worse. "I don't think you even have it in you, honestly."

"No—" There was nothing to do but stuff his face into Harry's throat; keep it there, where it was warm and Harry's cool voice was muffled. "Harry, no. That's not true."

"You don't trust anyone, Draco. Can't say as I blame you but there it is."

Harry nosed his face with its askew-spectacles carelessly about the flurry of falling white-gold hair obscuring his vision, tickling his forehead, and tilted his head toward Draco's, as any fond lover would do. Gods, but it hurt, how he did that. And they hurt—Harry's eyes, so gentle, so cool.

"You don't know even what I am, Draco, who I am," he murmured, so close to Draco's ear, Draco could practically hear the words inside his brain, echoing. "And you seem to believe it's all a game with us, I swear you do. That that was all it ever was, all along. You don't see me—you see Harry Potter. You've never really seen me. Or loved me. It's the goddamned truth." He laughed shortly. Bitterly. "Though I sure wish it weren't. And you, wanker that you are, keep on proving it, over and over."

"Gods," Draco tensed, stark-eyed and severe when he lifted his head to stare down and meet Harry's gaze full on. "You little fool. Fool." He laughed, dark and sharp, so deep in his chest that tremors shook them both, as close against each other as they were pressed. "And what does that even mean, Harry? Some gobbledygoop your friends fed you? Pop Muggle pyschobabble? What about you, then?" He shrugged sharply; it became a body-length shiver. "You just admitted right out all you wanted from me was a fuck, yeah? And not just one, either. A whole series of lays and a frigging whore on your arm. Decorate your bloody life with Pureblood, was it? Show off to your friends how you can own one, just like, with a snap of those fingers. But, it's just…it's just pretty pictures, Harry. Just the packaging, the outside, that's all you wanted—that's all you saw, too! And you say I don't see. Hah!"

"Huh." Harry humped a careless shoulder. "What can I say?" he asked, bleakly. "You're very fit and I—"

"That's not all I am!" Draco growled, grinding his cheekbone against Harry's fiercely. "That weas never all I was and you know it!" Stubble grabbed and burnt pink trails across features unbearably strained. They were rubbing one another raw, not that they hadn't been, already. Draco hated it—hated that he'd denied it, all these days. Hated that Harry seemed so stuck on it, and had never, not once, forgotten, as he had. "Look at what I am, Harry. Just fucking look."

"Draco—"

"That's not all I am, Harry." Draco butted his forehead up against Harry's, not minding the metal of the old familiar frames, not minding at all that his nose tip bent. Not minding that people weren't supposed to be able to do this, physically. That he couldn't possibly force sense into Harry's head, literally. He wanted to, though, and there were ways—and there were ways, Draco knew. Even if Harry didn't, because he was him. "No! Listen, I have it! Legilmens, Harry. Use it. On me, in my head. Just go on in, poke about and see, for once in your life—please just see. See how I am for you. See me, Harry-look."

Harry jumped, almost literally. "I-what?"

Draco grabbed at him, pressed them closer, all the way down, from foreheads to chins and lips to shins and hips and shoetips. "Please, Harry. Try it. Use Legilmens. Go inside me, go inside my brain. Everything, anything you want—I don't care. I want you to. Just….just see."

"Ah." The pesky spectacles were dangling off one ear; all Draco could see was blaze of grass-green, a set of puzzled eyebrows. "That's—that's? All right? You're sure of this? Draco?'

"Yes! Now stop fucking about and do it, Harry," Draco gritted. Ground his teeth and swayed forward, a little off balance, as he held Harry harder, tighter, nearer, till he and the wall and Harry were nearly a blend, an inextricable mix of young man and old dust and fresh paint, fumed with all sorts of desperation. His throat was so dry he croaked. "Do it. Now. See what's there for you, Harry. What's inside me. What's always been. I want you to."

"…Really? You want this—I can believe you want this."

"I want this, Harry. Please."

"Oh…well. Fine, then. Legilmens!" Harry sighed. Sighed again as the spell came whispering, creeping up. He shut off the light that was his startled, wondering eyes by simply closing them, leaving Draco in the dark. Draco closed his own, knowing the dark was better shared. Besides, he'd be dizzy in a second. "Okay—oh! Oh, Draco!"

"—Harry—"

"Dra—oh!"

He—they—were never quite clear on whether it was words or images or feelings, or what precisely it was that left Harry Potter speechless and awed, his lips parted, his once again revealed eyes wide and strangely pupils-blown. It didn't last more than moment, though.

The moment happened to be century, of course. And Draco caught eird snatches of images here and there. Images now populated with a Harry in swift motion, travelling his mental byways and highways, peekinginto all his covert spaces, his small joys and greater sorrows.

Prodding, but gently, at feelings he'd no name for. That other people had to identify for him. Ad teased him for, sometimes, as that was the way of his mates.

But Harry had never teased—Harry never would. Harry was so brutally honest, even when he was lying. Draco could read him; Draco knew him because he needed to, he must, to make sense of his world and his place in it.

"Harry."

Draco wouldn't have thought it was all that, what he was, how he was. He was sometimes—and this only sometimes—a bit of shabby person.

"Harry, do you see?"

A rubbishing friend, an insensitive lover. All that Harry said he was. All Harry's mates said he was.

"Harry?"

"Draco."

But it must've worked. He must've been convincing, because Harry was back, back with him again, just like that. In a blink and a sigh. A rush forward and Draco had a loving armful, a solace and his joy. Draco's joy.

"...Draco. I never-"

"Harry—Harry, come home with me," Draco interrupted, fiercely. "Don't talk about it. Just. Please—please just come home."

"Okay," Harry nodded eagerly. " Yes—yes!"

"Oh, thank fuck."

"No." Those eyes Draco loved above all others pierced him, through and through. "Thank you, Draco. You didn't—you needn't have—done that."

"Oh gods, Harry," Draco blushed scarlet, then paled. "Look, do me a favour? Never mention it. Never again. Not a word. Please?"

"Oh. Um." Harry grinned at him, and life was good. "Sooo. Like we'll pretend I never saw any of that, then?" All balance was instantly restored and Grimmauld Place would make a nice house to let for a little extra income because it was crystal clear Harry and Draco wouldn't be living here. "I see how it is. Scaredey-pants, Malfoy. Coward; afraid of a few feelings. Fine, then."

"You're damned right, Potter, it is fine. And shut up about my feelings, cause you're the one to blame for me even having them, arse. Now, let's go the fuck home. I'm fucking starving."

"Huh," Harry blinked. "Carryaway, was it. And I bet the flat's fair rubbish now."

"Yes, it is. Naturally. You left me."

"What did I expect?" Harry sighed, grabbing up floo powder. "You're helpless without me."

"Yes, I am, so shut up about it," Draco nodded. "Throw that, will you? Growing cobwebs, here."

Harry giggled, and Draco hid a smile. He'd have shared it but he'd already given away his whole hand. No use encouraging Potter to believe he was a complete wuss…even if he was. But only for Potter.

"I am, I am; hold your frickin' thestrals!"

"You're so slow, sometimes," Draco had to be snippy. He was owed it, a bit. Being as it was his head he'd shared. "I mean, really, Harry."

"Oh, shut it, Malfoy. I'm hardly the slow one here-"

"yes, you are. And make me, then."

"Ponce."

"Little prick. Love you, too, Potter."

"Hmm…Love you lots, Malfoy."

That rocked Draco back on his heels, but in a good way.

"Yeah?" He risked showing the grin, the one he'd been hiding. And was rewarded, right smart.

"Yeah."

"Good man. Home, now. Feed me."

"—Seymour—" Harry muttered, as he tossed the powder. "Our flat!"

"…Er? What, Harry?"

"Never you mind. Tell you later."

It was true fact. Day 254 was a day that would live in infamy, forever after in their lives, his and Harry's. It required only the barest mention of it by either of them to halt any spat, end any tiff, cancel out any resentment or ill-will. And Zabini never seemed to get that, though Draco was fairly certain Harry's mates did. It didn't say much for poor old Blaise, but then poor old Blaise never did manage to fall in love, not with anyone. The only counting he did was of his massive amounts of Galleons, inherited from his mum, the murderous whore.

Not his blessings, whatever they might've been. Poor unlucky sod.