Elementary, My Dear Potter

Rated: M (for eventual smut, I swear)

Summary: Harry's a Healer and a veteran. Draco's an Auror gone detective. If it tastes like a Sherlock parallel, it's probably a Sherlock parallel.

Prologue

"He's gone."

The mental health healer nodded. This was progress—small, but progressive nonetheless. She dictated the moment carefully, sure to date and time the new level.

"Good, Harry. That's very good. Can you tell me who has gone?"

Harry's grip tightened on the left arm of his chair. The question wasn't meant to condescend. In fact, it held next to no tone whatsoever. However, this was a child's question and Harry had lost that innocence quite some time ago.

He cleared his throat and attempted to relax in posture—a futile effort in such a condition.

"Draco Malfoy."

"And where has he gone?"

Oh for pity's sake. "He's passed."

The healer scratched something against her off-yellow tablet. Harry never asked about her notes. Not only was he decidedly disinterested, he also had the sneaking suspicion that these notes would only encourage his already profound tension.

"Where has he passed to, Harry?" she asked, adding quickly, "We're almost there."

Harry took a deep breath and ignored the slight shudder of his frame. A moment passed before he realized a wetness staining his cheek and chin. When the crying began, he couldn't say. The quiet sobs seemed endless and he felt entirely ashamed for allowing himself to succumb to such a poor state.

"Um, Draco Malfoy passed away," he held his hand upwards to stop the following question he was always promised. Passed away. Harry, we're evading the word again. Harry, what are you trying to say?

He inhaled slowly through his nose and exhaled at an impossibly slower speed through clenched teeth.

With eyes shut tightly, Harry said, "Draco Malfoy is dead. Draco Malfoy was my best friend and he's dead. He killed himself. I watched him die."

She nodded again. A smile would have been inappropriate. She scratched another note and the sound made Harry itch and ache to flee the confines of this steadily enclosing space.

He was suffocating.

"What else?"

"You know I don't believe the rest of it. I refuse."

"Harry, Draco confessed this to you before he passed. Sometimes we want to idolize those who have died in order to preserve them as something other than—"

Harry shook his head. No one would convince him that Draco told any sort of lie. Not in this life and not in the next. "He was never anything other than himself."

"Of course," she smiled. Sympathy oozed from every pore of her body. It had taken nearly three years for the pair to come this far. Harry continued to seek therapy through Hermione's insistence, but the sessions left him bereft and guilty for wasting this woman's time. "Tell me about your engagement. How is the planning coming?"

"It's going. Ginny takes care of most things. I've never been very good at that rubbish."

"You think weddings are rubbish."

Harry shrugged. "I think they're a bloody waste of time. Why does the government need to be involved with my relationships?"

"Do you love her?"

Harry's stilling was an abrupt rendition of a deer in headlights. "Pardon?"

More scratching.

"Ginevra. Do you love her?"

"I don't see how that's any of your—" He paused. Of course it was her business; his bill said so. "We work well together."

"Is that the same as love?"

Deciding to focus on the stale coffee taste aggravating his senses, Harry ignored the question and wished the horrid flavor would disappear before it made his stomach turn. He wasn't nervous, nor was he biding his time.

Absolutely not.

"Have you been in love, Harry?"

He laughed—the sound bitter and hollow, and a fine distraction from the staleness in his breath. "Could you tell me what that feels like, Doctor?"

"You were a physician, Harry. Surely you know. It's a chemical reaction that stimulates the brain. It's a pleasurable experience, but one that can have unpleasant side effects. Knots in the stomach, obsessive tendencies, unusual behavior. The person's presence is normally a relief. Senses heighten and lessen all at once—awareness becomes acute to that person specifically. A dangerous enterprise, but a very human one."

Harry's answering chuckle was far from natural. His knuckles paled to an almost translucent pigment as he gripped impossibly tighter at his chair. Magic swelled in his core, and Harry worried momentarily that he might break this poor woman's seat.

"I—" he began and choked. "I don't know if I've ever felt that way."

She didn't make a note. The healer placed her notepad and pen on the table beside her and leaned forward, studying Harry with meticulous precision.

"Can I be frank with you, Mr. Potter?"

He would ask if he had a choice, but that was a useless question. There was always a choice.

Harry nodded and his doctor looked down towards her feet, twining her fingers together and sighing.

"You've been seeing me for three years. We discuss the same man at every session. And from what you've told me, this isn't the first time you've developed this sort of passion for him."

She was referring to their years in school, that much was obvious enough—though she'd never called it a passion before. Harry had a passion for Quidditch during Hogwarts and a knack for falling into trouble.

Could passion be negatively influenced? Perhaps…

Living with an Auror detective should have solidified as much. People could be passionate about next to anything. Hate was quite the disturbing motivation for passion.

Passion seemed too strong a word, too misguided.

Too accurate.

"Suppose you're right. Hypothetically speaking. What exactly are you getting at?"

It wasn't new news. Hermione irked him for ages back at school.

And I denied it then as well.

"Can I still be frank?"

"If I told you that you couldn't, would that really make a difference?"

She smirked. "Of course. I'd have to alter my vocabulary and riddle my way through such a point to allow you to come up with the thought on your own. Or, I can simply tell you what I'm thinking. Either way, the end results are the same."

"Give it to me straight, then. I have a feeling you've been keeping it for three years."

The elephant in the room.

"I think," she started and reconsidered, sitting back in her chair and collecting her pen and pad. "I think you're quite capable of loving, Harry. I think you've loved all your life—at least a large portion of it. I think you're very accustomed to doing what's best for the whole as opposed to what's best for yourself. So much so, that ignoring instinct not specifically tailored to a group good has become natural. Obviously you can't want something if you never allow the want to come into being in the first place."

Harry couldn't argue just yet. His healer was still speaking in riddles. Perhaps it was only natural.

The silence stretched for an uncomfortable length of time, and Harry assumed this was the end of her speech. She wanted him to continue—to agree or retort.

"You think I was in love with Malfoy."

Her face softened. She stood and paced to Harry's side, bending to a knee and placing her hand atop the now loose fist resting on the left arm of his chair.

"I think you are, Mr. Potter."

Harry pursed his lips and looked away from the woman at his feet. The room was continuing to spiral inwards and fortunately, their time was coming to a close.

The former hero clumsily made for the door, and would have escaped unscathed had his palms not begun to sweat in earnest against the brass knob separating him from safety.

"And Harry," his doctor said quietly, "It's perfectly fine to be."

The flat was unlocked upon his arrival, unsurprising as Ginny had a knack for forgetting such trivial matters. Harry threw his now useless keys on the hook beside the door and avoided the mirror attached beside it. He felt like a right mess and presumed he looked as such.

No need to bring a reflection into it.

"Ginny," he called, hearing the kettle begin to steam. "Ginny, your tea is—"

Heart ceasing to beat, Harry braced himself against the arch to the kitchen. He was hallucinating. He hadn't done so in months, but it wasn't the most irregular occurrence. At least this mirage appeared healthy enough—nowhere near the regular deceased image he was blessed night and day with.

However, the sight didn't falter or flicker. It turned the heat of the stove off and poured water into two already prepared mugs.

"I'm glad your therapy is routine. I was afraid you'd come home to cold tea."

Harry gulped and his eyes snapped shut to will away the figure closing in on him.

When he'd found the courage to reopen them, Draco Malfoy was still very much in existence—a foot away and offering him a steaming cup.

"Careful, it's quite hot," he warned, eyebrow rising as Harry merely stared then blinked in a rush of disbelief. "Oh, yes. I'm back. Sorry for the delay."

The Malfoy patented smirk was firmly set, and not even Harry's vivid imagination could recreate such a trait perfectly.

He did the only logical thing: knocked the mug clear from Draco's hand and rammed his fist with as much force as he could muster into his presumed-dead flatmate's cheek.