DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter, that right belongs to J.K. Rowling, and I don't intend to make any money with this story.
Warnings: Slash (don't like, don't read), un-betaed (sorry)
Pairing: Harry/Draco
A/N: First Drarry fic (be nice please). Auror!Harry; Unspeakable!Draco
-Florence 3
Incendio!
The latest Daily Prophet headline burst into flames at a flick of Draco Malfoy's wand, but the words remained imprinted on the backs of his eyelids, glaring at him every time he closed his eyes. 'Auror Potter Still Missing; Ministry Continues Search.' Draco wished they wouldn't call him that. 'Auror Potter.' So impersonal. Typical Ministry procedure, but still. He'll always be Harry to me, Draco thought, tears threatening to spill over as he twisted the griffin ring on his fourth finger, a thirtieth-anniversary gift from Harry.
Locking the impending flood of tears behind their mental walls took a supreme effort of willpower, but five minutes later, Draco was fully dressed in his Unspeakable uniform, showing no evidence of the almost-breakdown he'd gone through earlier.
After Apparating to the Ministry and undergoing the usual security checks, the blond ended up in the lift with none other than Auror Ron Weasley, looking distinctly distraught. Having formed a grudging acknowledgement bordering on friendship with Harry's best friend, Draco put a comforting hand on Ron's shoulder.
"Hey, Weasley, are you alright?" he asked, just as courtesy. He knew that Ron has probably feeling the same way he himself had felt that morning, judging by the look on his face.
"Malfoy?" Ron asked, not looking up from the memo he was reading. Suddenly, he dropped the purple sheet and let out an anguished sob. "No, I am not alright. Harry's still missing- its been months, Malfoy, months! The Auror Department isn't the same without him-bloody hell, Hermione and I aren't the same without him!"
"My life isn't the same without him either, Weas-Ron. I see reminders, memories of him every moment of my life. I was married to him for 36 years, of course my life is different without him!"
Instead of the berating he was expecting, Ron replied, "Mate, I know how you feel. Hermione's tried every tracking spell she knows, and invented three new ones in the process. None of them have worked. And every Sunday is an especially harsh reminder-the times Harry would come to Hermione and my flat for tea and a chat about old times…"
Draco didn't even have time to marvel at the fact that he and Ron Weasley were actually having a civil conversation before the truth slammed him in the face like a jinx.
"He's gone, isn't he?" Four words. Four simple, short words, but they marked the death of something inside Draco. He thought it was hope.
Just then, the elevator dinged and the doors opened onto the familiar, torchlit hallway of the Department of Mysteries. Picking up his grey briefcase, Draco nodded to Ron and walked out. He thought he heard a sob as the metal doors clanged and the lift began moving upwards. A gray, cloudy sky showed through Draco's charmed "window" as he sat down at his desk. Unsurprisingly, it matched the Unspeakable's mood to a tee.
Malfoy moved mechanically through the rest of the day, back ramrod straight and eyes chips of slate. Only the solitary ember of hope, fuelled by the picture of Harry in his Auror uniform sitting on Draco's desk, kept him from taking the lift up to the highest point of the Ministry building and hurling himself off of it. Harry would've wanted to stay strong. Oh, it hurt so much to think about his beloved in the past tense, but Draco knew that there was so little hope left that there would be a better chance of Neville Longbottom earning an O in Potions than that of Harry's return.
Not sure how he'd made it through the day, Draco collapsed on the bed the moment he Apparated into his room (his and Harry's, the ember whispered). He might've managed to hold his sorrow in if it hadn't been for the picture on the bedside table: Draco's favorite of himself and Harry, at the Ministry's New Year's Eve party. Hermione had taken the picture while they were kissing on the dance floor, he in black robes and Harry in full Auror uniform, blond hair tangling with black. The serpent and lion rings on Harry and Draco's fingers stood out even from that distance, and the most wonderful of smiles was painted upon each of their faces. That picture, combined with the fact that Harry's side of the bed still smelled like him after four months of terrible emptiness, simply broke Draco. He collapsed on top of the Snitch-patterned sheets, clutching the frame in a death grip and sobbing uncontrollably. He cried until there were no tears left and he felt like someone had taken him and turned him inside out. Then he just lay there in silence, curled around the picture, relieving every memory he had of Harry Potter, until he drifted into a blessedly dreamless sleep.
The next morning, after his first lemon tea of the day, Draco shrunk the picture enough so that it would comfortably fit in the pocket of his robes. This simple act gave him a prayer, a memorial, and an ember of hope all at once, gave him the strength to go on. Gave him the strength to walk through the coming hours, days, weeks, ramrod-straight and steely-eyed, until one fateful morning when Draco Malfoy's life was turned upside down again.
It was a sunny morning a few weeks after The Breakdown, as Draco was now calling his "little incident." Drinking tea and eating a lettuce sandwich, he didn't notice Hermione's beautiful brown screech owl outside the window until she tapped the glass with her beak, whereupon Draco rushed over to the window and popped it open, taking the letter in exchange for a bite of bread. The brown-haired former Gryffindor had been sending Draco updates on her attempts to locate Harry after Ron had told her about their talk in the lift at the Ministry. That morning, there were only six words, written so fast that five out of six had huge ink blots in the middles.
Come to St. Mungo's, quick!
-Hermione
Draco's heart leapt into his throat. Was it possible…? Did he dare to hope, to fan the tiny ember that had somehow lived on? Throwing on his clothes from the day before, he hurriedly ran a comb through his blond hair, slipped his wand into his robes, and Disapparated with a crack.
Arriving outside the entrance to St. Mungo's, Draco's eyes nearly popped out of his head. The crowd of witches and wizards was so large that it spread over the street in both directions. Luckily, the Muggles just walked right through them and kept on their merry way, as a result of a nifty little charm someone had cast that had made anyone with Wizarding blood transparent and ghostlike to Muggles. Even more luckily, a flash of his Ministry badge automatically brought him to the front of the line. Inside the building, it was even more crowded than the outside, witches and wizards crammed into every available nook and cranny, but Draco spotted Hermione instantly. Tear tracks streaked her cheeks, but she was pink in the face, hair even bushier than normal, and the huge smiles spread over her and Ron's faces was the dead ringer for good news. The ember of hope in Draco's heart burst into merry flames, and he raced over to the couple. Ron and Draco's Ministry badges got them through the crowds, and Hermione and Ron led Draco up four flights of stairs, down three hallways, and to a nondescript door across from a restroom. She knocked once, twice, three times, and a voice, oh-so-familiar, said, "Come in." Draco froze. He had been remembering the sound of that voice for four months, three weeks, and six hours, thinking he would never hear it again.
"Back so soon, Ron, 'Mione?"
"No, we aren't the ones visiting you," Hermione said, and shifted to the left, giving Draco a clear view of the single bed in the whitewashed room. He stood motionless for what seemed like an eternity, because this could not be real. Harry- his Harry- was lying against a pile of white pillows, bandages wrapping his chest and right arm, the expression in his beautiful green eyes switching from confusion to surprise to pure, stunning love.
"Go on, Draco. Harry's waiting for you," Hermione whispered, prodding him in the back. A heart-stoppingly beautiful smile was spreading over Harry's face, and Draco flashed him an identical smile, fairly bolting to the Auror's bedside, and, forgoing a chair, plopped down right on the edge. Ron and Hermione chose that moment to make their exit, a wise choice, for in the next heartbeat Draco's lips were on Harry's, fingers tangling in messy black hair as Harry's hand curled around his waist and pulled him closer.
"Oh, Merlin, Harry," Draco gasped the moment they broke apart. "I was so worried about you… I thought you were gone, that I'd never see you again. I thought this would be one of the only things I had left of you." He pulled the slightly shrunk picture out of his robes and handed it to Harry, who smiled in wonder.
"You carry this with you everywhere? Typical Malfoy, really." Draco was slightly hurt until he noticed the half-smirk on Harry's face.
"Stupid, adorable idiot," he whispered in Harry's ear. "I've missed you so much."
Ron and Hermione returned an hour later to find Draco sitting at the head of Harry's bed, black-haired head pillowed against his chest, fingers intertwined with Harry's. They both looked so happy that the couple were loath to break them apart, but finally Hermione tapped Draco on the shoulder and said, "I'm sorry, Draco, but there's somewhere around the entire Wizarding community outside waiting to see Harry." Rolling his eyes, Draco poked Harry, and he inched off the blonde's lap enough to allow him to slip off the bed.
"I'll come see you tomorrow after my shift at the Department is over, Harry."
"See you, then," Harry said, smiling. "Oh, one more thing," he interjected as Draco made to get up.
"What?"
"I love you, Draco."
"I love you too." Draco pulled Harry into one last goodbye kiss, making Hermione turn pink and Ron slightly green. Harry's laugh pealed through the corridor after them, making Draco smile as he followed Ron and Hermione through the crowds and into open air.
"Thanks for everything, you guys," Draco told them as they prepared to Disapparate.
"Never thought I'd hear a Malfoy say 'thank you,'" Ron quipped. The Malfoy mentioned just laughed and vanished with a crack.
Draco continued to visit Harry every day after work until one afternoon, Harry told him the news, in between kisses, that he was being discharged, fully healed, from St. Mungo's. A breathtaking smile spread over Harry's face as Draco gasped and flung his arms around his husband, kissing him passionately. When they both began running out of air, Harry pulled back, planting a gentle kiss on Draco's nose to soften the parting.
"You'll finally be home-be able to sleep with me in our bed, and I'll get to wake up with you in the first time in months-oh, Harry, this is wonderful news!" Draco exclaimed as soon as he caught his breath. Harry just smiled that beautifully serene smile again and pulled Draco down into a second kiss.
An hour later, Harry followed Draco out of St. Mungo's and they both vanished, reappearing moments later in the entryway to their cozy flat. Harry hung his Auror uniform, magically restored to its previous impeccable state, in his side (or maybe fourth) of the huge wardrobe in their room, as Draco replaced the New Year's Eve picture, now back to its normal size, on the bedside table and curled up, catlike, under the covers. After casting several spells on the house so the press wouldn't bother them for the next day, Harry slipped under the covers on his side of the bed and curled into Draco's arms, nestling into the curves of his body like he hadn't done in so long. Draco nearly broke down into tears of pure joy as he leaned over to meet Harry's lips with his own in a long kiss that spoke more than words could convey.
"Draco?" Harry whispered a few minutes later.
"Hmm?"
"I love you."
Draco's gray eyes glowed, and he replied, "I love you too, Harry."
Soon after, both of them fell asleep, but neither was able to keep the smiles off their faces, even asleep, because they were both home and safe in each other's arms.
{fin}