I. praesumo adjungere te, tandem by verity

They wrote in code. It was the only way they could be sure of - making that connection, without breaking. That was a long time ago.

Hermione died a long time ago. Was it really so long ago? he asks himself, afraid of the answer, as he turns the steering wheel of the car to gently lead up the ramp to the highway. Ten years. They were fifteen. Everything melds together after a while, when he steps back, one fluid slide to the end.

It hadn't been like that, though. He knows there were years when the danger was escapable, everything was conquerable, in the end. It hadn't mattered, though, or - not enough. Even Hermione hadn't seen him, whatever he was, beneath the layers of expectations and ready-made mantles he'd been all too eager to assume.

He didn't call himself Harry anymore. That name belonged to too many faces, all of them impossible to put back on. (A flash - a memory - of mirrors, of faces, when he catches a glimpse of his reflection in the mirrorlike glass of the car window, the silver-black rain pouring past it.)

He remembers Hermione at the oddest times. Like now, in the rain. She had been beautiful, so beautiful that last year, and he had watch how her beauty had been hardening, even then. As she guarded her face, kept her head high. She had always told him, Harry, you will do it. When the time comes. I know you will. Her dead words rattle through his head now, little ghosts trespassing there.

So beautiful. He had watched her and Ron once - through a keyhole, as it were - they never knew. Ron, so awkward - and she had led him through the dance, with grace, and held his head to her breast, when they were done. Ron had slept, not seeing her face, the tears in her eyes, in this one unguarded moment.

He had seen them, and knew them for what they were; he had known that grief too, that soft crying after too many dreams were shattered. She had always been kind, so kind.

I do love him, you know, Harry. We are made of mercury, he and I - perhaps I have the greatest depth, and he the greatest breadth, but we are alike. And he needs me.

There was some illogic there, but even now he can not decipher it - it was so many years ago, so many years. Her bones are in the ground now, her sweet lovely flesh turned to dust. It is raining harder now, sheeting off the car as he drives, heading home. Oh, the bitter irony - he can not bear the train, he truly can not, but it is only when it rains that he allows himself to think of her.

There is a hitch-hiker ahead, and he pulls to the side of the road - anything for a distraction. How I loved her, how we all loved her... Oh, God -

The figure in the black rain slicker stumbles toward the car - the seats will get wet, surely, but there is no turning back now.

"Get in," he mutters at the person - a man, he sees now, about his own age, a blond once, though now striped thickly with harsh black die. The contrasts would have interested him more, some other time.

"Thank you," says the blond man roughly. "I've been hours."

He shrugs. "People are like that. I'm going up in Scotland a bit, if that's where you're headed."

"Suits as well as any."

The car is quiet now; the rain has hushed a bit, thin pourings instead of an incessant deluge. And as the rain lessens, the man who had once been called Harry seems to regain himself, if such a thing is possible.

A flash of light; another car hurtling along this desperate stretch around on a hot, humid summer night. The headlamps illuminate the car, its occupants for perhaps a second. Before they can move on, the blond man's wand is at his throat.

The scar. Always the scar.

"Who the fuck," Draco hisses, "do you think you are?"

They wrote in code. It was the only way they could be sure of - making that connection, without breaking. That was a long time ago.

"I used to be Potter. Back when you worked both sides."

Ten years. Hermione, who always got the owl, who always gave it a little extra treat even when Ron scorned her for it. He remembers Hermione now, always, forever, especially on this journey home.

There is a farm, perhaps fifteen kilometers along the roadway from here; Remus had owned it, thought it is abandoned now, ten years after Remus's death. Ten years.

Down the exit ramp, down the diplidated road that led to the little farm's turn off. He parks the car in the barn, takes the keys out of the ignition, and sets them on the dashboard.

"I'm sorry," he says, honestly, "If I'm causing any inconvenience to you."

"To me?" Draco's voice is curiously incredulous. "You do realize that the Ministry is offering five thousand galleons for my dead body? War crimes?"

"I left the wizarding world seven years ago."

"Ah."

They stare at each other. He does not know what Draco is seeing, or looking for (the scar?); everything is changed now. Draco is taller, more - Muggle-looking, perhaps, for he could never be mistaken for the Malfoy heir in those damp black trappings.

"I can't believe I never fucked you," says Draco, who has, obviously, changed more than externally.

They wrote in code. It was the only way they could be sure of - making that connection, without breaking. That was a long time ago.

And he is so tired, so broken, now. "I'm going home now," he answers. "If you want - Sirius Black stayed here, once, hiding, and no one would think to look for you."

"I killed her, you know."

"I know." Her closed eyes, her brow bared, every line of her body frozen in sacrifice. A flash of viridian. Lucius - had forced Draco's hand, perhaps. He does not know, will not ask now - it is enough to know that this can be the end of things he never thought finite.

"I am going home," he says.

When he is back on the highway he thinks of how simple everything had seemed when they were young. The struggle, the fight for survival. The pure light that war cast on all their deeds. Harry, you will do it. When the time comes. I know you will. He had always done it, always done what was expected of him, except in that one moment, where it truly mattered. And what is he now, but putty without form? His shapers long dead. He reviles the masks but is nothing without them.

He remembers Hermione, who in the end he knows was something more lovely than anyone had dreamed. All the world's a stage, as we are players. A lesson learned.

Hermione, he thinks, I'm looking forward to joining you, finally.