I know it has been awhile and I haven't finished my last story. Though I am working on it, this story hit me like a freight train and I was working through it faster than I have any other story. I'm posting this chapter to see if people would be interested in it. It is a multi-chapter story. Each chapter is based off a line or two from Nickleback's song which gave this story it's name. This is an older Harry, who has seen and done much and can meet the people around him as an equal. There are some key differences with The Deathly Hallows which will become obvious fairly soon. Please, please let me know what you think of this. I haven't written on this site in a long time and I'd like your input. Also, as of this moment, I do not have a Beta Reader. I've read over this multiple times, but I might have missed something.

And thank you to all who will read this. I do hope you enjoy!

Re-post 5/27/11: Reposted this chapter as I now have a beta reader for this story. Thank you, SilverSmile! You've been very helpful in making the story be the best it can be!

Chapter 1: I missed you so much That I begged you to fly and see me

Harry winced as he stripped out of his t-shirt. Perhaps his lover was right, button up shirts might be the way to go after all. In his defense, he didn't get knife wounds on his back…at least not that often. Damn, how was he going to treat that? It wasn't like he could call somebody, he knew no one in Berlin and he certainly couldn't walk into a hospital with something like this and not expect people to question him.

Tossing the ruined shirt aside, he smacked his head when he felt his wound begin to sluggishly bleed again. Great, of course he'd made it worse. He could try to make contact with his back up, but somehow this didn't seem quite like the "life or death situation" that his boss, Kingsley, had stressed should be the only reason to get in touch with his Auror contact. After all, no undercover cop would willingly give up his cover, not even for a rather painful and slightly frightening stab wound.

It was times like this that he wished his lover could have come with him. Of course, not only would his bosses think him nuts to even think of something like that, but no one even knew he was currently in a relationship. The longest one of his life, in fact. For three years they had kept it secret from the world, and Harry was in no hurry to change that. Having exchanged the title of the boy-who-lived for the-man-who-vanquished-the-Dark-Lord (VOLDEMORT YOU STUPID PEOPLE!), his fame had not diminished but rather frighteningly increased. To stalkerish and fear of large crowds proportions, which had caused him a great deal of trouble when pursuing a relationship.

So he and his current lover had decided that three people could keep a secret only if two were dead, but two very private people might just be able to pull it off. And so far, they had. Even with restriction placed on them by both of their jobs, they were still going strong-something which still mystified and terrified the accomplished Auror. Though Harry's long-term infiltration missions had brought up a couple of issues and not a few fights. Well, this was the last one. After the successful completion of this mission, Kingsley had promised that Harry would be stationed at home from now on. When asked for his reasons for the request (after all, he was their best under cover worker, something, Harry mused, that must have come from all those years of wishing to be someone else and creeping around the castle), he had merely replied that while he loved his job, he was now nearly thirty-eight years old and irrevocably single. This would not change until he could be assured that he wasn't going to have to disappear with no word for six months to a year. While this was partly true, the real reason was that Harry was hoping that his current relationship might come to something more and there was no way he could move beyond their serious-casual relationship until his job stopped sending him places his lover couldn't travel to with him.

Damn, but he missed him. Harry could practically hear his comments as he wandered near naked around his hotel room, trying to figure out what to do and his mind utterly incapable of doing so. He missed his lover so much in fact that he had broken not only his own personal rules, but the Aurors and his lover's rules as well, and had sent him a secret letter by means they had previously come up with, begging him to fly, floo, or portkey into Germany to see him. His latest assignment, infiltrating an infantile neo Death Eater group in Europe, had taken four months and was looking to be at least that again. He had to be damn sure this performance was letter perfect, because the suspected leader of the group was none other than Voldemort's former right hand man, Lucius Malfoy. Luckily, Harry had become extraordinarily good at glamours and could hold one not only in his sleep but through torture and, so the speculation went, even after death, though he had no desire to test that. Well; he'd put it off long enough; time to try to tend his wounds. Perhaps tonight he might dream of his lover, rather than the horrors he saw as he wormed his way into Malfoy's grasp.

So, what do you think...

E

5/27/11: Would really like your thoughts on this story, people. I haven't written in awhile and could really do with some feedback!