Injury, though, was unavoidable. He'd awoken in St. Mungo's, in an isolated ward kept specially for Ministry purposes, swathed in healing spells and bound to the bed. Three days of liquid food, intermittent consciousness, and solemn Healers had repaired him well enough to protest. The hospital staff refused to release him, at first. They said it wasn't possible. They said he couldn't have recovered nearly enough to leave their watchful care. It was a miracle that anyone in his condition could even consider rising from the metal-railed bed.
Harry had known there was no miracle. There was only another day--the day that had sped his recovery and turned him homeward, to Draco.
Except--Draco wasn't here. Harry swiveled his eyes around, seeing all the little sculptures and paintings in their usual places. Yes, Draco's magazine models were blinking and scowling up at him from the coffee table. Draco's favorite mug sat alongside Harry's on the little tea tray, ready for use, on the counter in the kitchen. But no affectionate voice had greeted him, no tender hand had plucked the briefcase from his grip.
Harry's heart sank, in pieces. He thought of Draco laughing with the auburn-haired Muggle. Touching him. Draco hadn't been expecting him to return barely a week after he'd gone. He'd made other plans, and he was keeping them. Whatever else he might do, Harry was certain Draco would never renege on his scheduled trysts. Appointments. Draco was reliable. He'd never missed a single date, back when they'd needed to set dates.
Harry wondered if they were at the same cafe he'd seen them kissing in last time, in Muggle London. Maybe they were at a movie together--a matinee. Or--Harry's head seized painfully--sleeping in, at the Muggle's flat, all curled up and cozy and---
A storm of green roared up in the fireplace, and Draco's white-robed figure burst from the tongues of flame, coming to an abrupt halt as the silver eyes caught Harry's startled face.
Draco's blanched countenance took on the green of the dying embers. He marched forward and flung down the morning's Daily Prophet, thickly folded, onto the table, where it slammed down with a slap.
"You didn't tell me." His voice was devoid of any softness as he crossed his arms, forcing them into his ribs.
Harry gazed, paralyzed, at the grey eyes, gleaming with a heavy layer of wetness. The fragile jaw was flexed so tightly it looked almost square. "You went hunting for secret Death Eaters and you were nearly killed and you didn't tell me." Draco's teeth clenched, distorting the words. "You didn't want me there, did you? At St. Mungo's."
Harry could only stare at the new hollows and shadows carving his lover's face, the perverse elegance that gauntness added to the lithe lines of his body.
The hard angles vanished, and something in Draco collapsed. "I don't blame you," he whispered, biting fiercely into his lip. He hunched his shoulders and turned, sweeping out of the room, not needing to open his eyes again until his foot reached the first step up to their bedroom.
Harry sat up, dazed and alarmed, and reached for the paper Draco had left. Auror-Who-Lived Struck Down, the stark bold letters shouted. Harry Potter In Throes of Death, the sub-heading elaborated. Harry ran fearful eyes past the text, and saw enough to know that all secrecy had been leaked. He didn't give a moment's thought to the Ministry uproar the article was undoubtedly causing, or to the villain who would elude them yet again, or to the fact that his severe injuries would bring only paperwork and no justice.
Every weary fiber cried for Draco, and he launched himself from the sofa and up the stairs.
Their bedroom door was shut, but Harry could make out the indistinct sounds of deep gasps as he turned the knob. There was Draco, heaving great breaths to fend off the tears, standing with one hand knotted into a fist and the other brandishing his wand, clumsily spelling things into a big open box on the floor. A dark sleeve of fabric dangled over one edge, and various items clinked and crunched as Draco whipped them furiously from the shelves and walls into its depths. He didn't notice Harry stride noiselessly into the room until Harry's bruised hand closed over his swinging wand, and Harry's chest was pressed against his back, and Harry's firm arm was binding his own to his side.
"Draco," Harry murmured gently into his hair. "What are you doing?"
The blond stilled his madly flicking wrist, giving in to Harry's unyielding grip on his wand, and trembled. "I'm--I'm doing what you've been waiting for me to do for a while. Ever since you found out." He lowered his head and let out a series of shuddering exhalations, as if he were sobbing.
Harry's hold sharpened, but his voice grew gentler. "What I've been waiting for?"
Draco's wand arm twitched. "You should've screamed at me," he whispered. "Told me to get out." He raised his wand again, resisting Harry. "But you're right. This is what I deserve." He wrenched away from the other man and slashed with his wand, sending a vase shooting into the box. The thin sound of cascading shards broke the silence.
Harry jerked back Draco's sleeve and spun him around, catching him close in his arms. "You deserve--" he steeled himself. "--another lover, Draco." Harry fought his desperation to kiss the man tucked against him, unstruggling. "A better one."
Draco's eyes widened, and the wretchedness in them gave way to frightened confusion. "I--how can you say that?"
"Because it's true." Harry tried to bite back the quiver. He breathed in Draco's scent, fixing it in his memory, though it was already imprinted there. "It's why I never said anything, that day. I never asked about...about him, because I saw you so happy. I saw you weren't lonely anymore. I--I couldn't--not after you got home and...and I could believe you still wanted me."
Harry reached up and thumbed the edge of Draco's cheek, watching the line he traced and not the silver eyes. "I couldn't lose you. Not before you pushed me away." His thumb came to rest at the pale hint of vein-blue, and so did his gaze.
Draco's chest tried to throb outward, and was foiled by Harry's too-close torso.
He dropped his wand and drew the dark head to him, bringing his dry lips harshly over Harry's, pushing all the remorse and relief and pain through his tongue and into the raw, bitter mouth. Immediately, the faint taste of medicinal potions filled his senses as Harry plunged back with his own tongue, weaving his arms over Draco's spine, leaning and kissing deeper and farther until the pale hair was spread against Egyptian-spun sheets. Draco kept his eyes shut as he lay back on their bed, suffused in the warm weight crushing him there. The salve of Harry's mouth healed and wounded with every swipe, and he couldn't claw out of his robes fast enough as Harry began to tear them away.
ooooooooooo
"Harry?" Draco's voice fluttered from his neck to his ear.
"Yeah?" Harry felt the afterglow dim within him at the sound of his lover's uncertainty. His pulse had long since quieted, but his heart had been soaring.
Draco shifted, uncomfortable. "Before you left, I said you could ask me anything. You still can. If you want."
His back had stiffened, but now Harry let himself relax. He bit his lip, weighing his thoughts, not saying anything for a long moment.
"Are you sure?" he finally said softly, turning his head to brush his cheek against the gilt strands. He wondered the same of himself.
"Anything." Draco's fingers pressed hard into Harry's chest.
Harry hesitated, choosing his next question. "How did you meet?"
Draco paused only a beat, then spoke in uneven tones of trespass.
"I was bored, and you were away on assignment. I went out to Muggle London, to look around the shops. Maybe find you a nice shirt, some sexy trousers. You've always been so...devourable in Muggle things." He adjusted his head so it rested in the crook of Harry's neck and shoulder, and Harry felt the other man's face twist as he continued. "Ironic, isn't it? He--Andrew--was trying on a pair of trousers I thought would be perfect for you."
Draco squeezed Harry tightly as he said the name, feeling the ripple run through there, but went on, voice still low, now edged. "He saw me looking--and I wasn't staring at his arse, I really wasn't, I was thinking about how they'd fit you--and he asked what I thought."
Draco pinched his lips together and kneaded his fingers against Harry's chest. "I told him they looked very nice. Then he asked me if I could help him pick out some other things. He didn't have an eye for clothing, and only if I had time."
The blond exhaled, then recollected his voice. "He tried on every single thing I threw at him. We talked. At the end he insisted on buying me a drink for all my trouble, and I agreed to have a coffee with him. Just coffee."
Harry had gone pale in the darkness, but he didn't want to stop listening. He tried not to dig fingernails into Draco. Only his heart thrashed as the other wizard continued.
"We kept talking over coffee. And he was so...genuinely eager to please, so--so the way you were when we started out, so--"
"Mesmerized," Harry cut in, softly but precisely. Draco stopped, then nodded, tickling Harry's chin with his hair.
"Yes," Draco said sadly. "He was. And I--I think I started flirting with him, without even realizing it. At first. It just felt too good to be--to have--that, when I missed you so much."
Harry blinked up at the ceiling as Draco fell silent. "I still am," he said under his breath. "Mesmerized."
"Harry," Draco moaned miserably, turning his face into Harry's shoulder. "I know." It was muffled into flesh.
Harry's head ached. "Go on, love."
Draco pressed his cheek to Harry's skin. "I didn't see what I was doing until he'd suddenly asked me to have dinner with him that night. He was shy. And all I could think was how I didn't want to eat alone, again, and he was so harmless and sweet, and..." Harry felt Draco's jaw clench.
His heart rampaged wildly beneath Draco's flexing fingers, and he waited for the blood to pool in its proper places before speaking. "How long?"
Draco's voice came jagged now. "Two and a half months."
Harry couldn't stop the scenes from the past two and a half months as they flashed by, scorching. He dammed up the torrent of questions as they lay waste to all other thought, and let only one slip.
"Love him?"
The others--slept with him? Tell him about me? See him every time I left?--were useless. Two and a half months. Without doubt, Draco had slept with him. Hadn't said a word about Harry. Had run to those waiting arms every time, a shield from solitude, to be sure. But a home away from home? It was a question Harry couldn't answer without asking aloud.
Draco swept arms, legs, and chest all around him and constricted, forcing air from Harry's lungs. He felt Draco's throat move in a swallow against his heart. "You."
Harry waited for Draco to say more, and when nothing more came, he thought about asking for clarification. Did Draco mean "You, too"? "Only you"? He stared up, and considered.
It wasn't worth it.
"Okay," he said.
Draco looked up, but couldn't meet the darkened eyes as they gazed emptily at the ceiling. "They wouldn't let me see you," he whispered, and raised himself into Harry's line of sight, pressing his palms against the toned chest. "At the hospital this morning. They said no one was allowed. Then I offered every last knut I had, and that would've worked." His slate eyes reflected the shuttered light from outside as they flickered over Harry's. "But then they told me you refused to see anyone." Subtle emphasis, not unnoticed.
Harry lifted a hand and grazed Draco's pale cheek lightly, palm toward himself. "I thought it was someone from the Ministry."
He let his eyes play over the delicate lips, the slender arch of that nose, and found that he felt--satisfied. Not perfectly, but satisfied. "I thought it'd be someone ordering me to get back to bed and let the Healers have their way. I wouldn't have been able to refuse a direct order."
He ran loving fingers through the flaxen silk, drawing fingertips across Draco's forehead. "And I needed to get back to you."
Draco looked imploringly into Harry's eyes, which were now watching as stray tendrils trickled over his fingers, then fell back in place. "You weren't going to leave me." Draco's voice was as hollow as the rest of him.
Harry gave a single shake of his unruly head and smiled, just a little. "Selfish."
Draco gazed at the open affection in Harry's tired face and eased himself back down. He hooked his chin over Harry's shoulder, turning his lips to the bottom of Harry's neck. "How could you just lie here like this, all those nights?" The words were hot smudges against Harry's skin. "I think--I would've gone mad."
Harry didn't shrug, to save Draco from being jarred. Draco bruised easily.
"It was enough," he said simply. "Having you for just another day." He paused, and concentrated on sliding a glistening wisp out of Draco's eyes. "It's enough."
The blond convulsed, then stilled. "No. It's not," he whispered, and moved to kiss his lover. Now--and after, there had to be more than just another day. Draco knew, and promised Harry a better one tomorrow with each gentle kiss.