A/N: Still don't own Harry Potter, still wish I did. This one is a little long, but hope it doesn't bore you to death. Thanks for reading! Drop me a line if you're enjoying yourself because that seriously keeps me writing and brightens up my day/week/month/decade.

Chapter 2

"Before I knew you, I lived in the rearview

To wish back an image of myself I thought was true

So now when colors fade and on that day of days

I needed you to say it wasn't one to rue"

-Tall Heights, Horse To Water

June, 1998

Draco apparated onto a dark, empty corner of the street outside the Leaky Cauldron, and instantly realized that something was wrong. An aching, stinging sensation was spreading across his arm, and the cloth on his sleeve had become damp with blood. He ducked under the awning covering the entrance to an empty storefront, stumbling back against the door as a sudden wave of pain flooded over him. Wincing and nearly doubled over, he retrieved his wand from his pocket, quickly ripping off his shirt and examining the wound. It was deep, much deeper than he had treated on himself before. He took a deep breath and began to administer some of the charms he had used just moments ago in Potter's house, trying his best not to recall Harry's look of amazement at Draco's knowledge of these healing remedies. Healing was something he knew, something he had been practicing for years. There was something comforting about the fact that no matter what happened, no matter how badly he had been physically injured, he at least had this ability to carry around with him. It made him feel significantly less vulnerable.

He winced again as the skin began to weave itself back together in front of his eyes, the pain making him tremble as he gripped to his wand, trying his best to concentrate. He wouldn't be able to heal this completely on his own; he would need to pick up some potion ingredients in Diagon Alley. He should have known better than to disapparate after what had happened with Potter, not to mention the slight intoxication caused by the firewhiskey he had drank.

He sank down to the ground and squeezed his eyes shut to focus on anything besides the agony he was experiencing. After several, excruciating minutes, he was able to catch his breath, opening his eyes to look at the streets around him. It had begun to rain outside. Muggles were walking back and forth quickly, clutching umbrellas and scampering through the streets like children, trying to get inside before they had become completely soaked to the bone. Draco stood up slowly, picking his black shirt up from the ground beside him and muttering a quick cleaning spell to rid it of the blood he had soaked it in. He didn't mind the rain. It was cleasing, it would rid him of the shame and the embarrassment he felt from everything that had happened today. He should have never gone to see Potter - he knew that, now. He should have arranged another way to get his wand back, or maybe even asked Granger if she could help get it for him. She probably would have been able to tell him if he owed Harry a life debt as well, or at least provide some of the information he was missing.

At the same time, however, Potter had kissed him, not the other way around. He couldn't forget the look on his face when he had decided to do so, those beautiful, green eyes fixed with determination, his jaw clenched, and his body pulsing with desire. Draco was getting hard again just thinking about it. He'd been picturing the scene that had just taken place in his mind for at least five years, ever since he realized that his feelings of jealousy for Potter were a little more complicated than they had seemed.

He shook his head violently to ward off the thoughts that were pouring in, buttoning up his shirt once more and heading in the direction of Diagon Alley.

...

The rain had began to pick up, and by the time he set foot on the familiar cobblestone of the magical street, his hair was completely drenched and sending drops of water down his neck and into his muddled shirt. He walked down the alley, past the boarded up shops and vacant buildings that were all too common since the war, and stopped outside the apothecary, casting a quick drying spell to make himself presentable. Inside, it smelled as it always did, of dirt and sulphur and disgusting ingredients Draco didn't want to identify. He wrinkled his nose slightly, but otherwise ignored the smell. The walls were stacked from floor to ceiling with bottles, vials, and flasks, and there were barrels all around the store holding spare ingredients, herbs, and fungi. The shopkeeper hollered from the back of the store to "let him know if you needed help finding something". Draco began searching through the boxes and barrels of ingredients for some dittany he could use for his shoulder. He had finally found the section of boxes labeled "healing herbs" when somebody cleared their throat rather loudly over his shoulder. Draco turned around, a handful of the magical herb grasped in his fingers, and found the large, gruff looking, and bearded shopkeeper, who didn't at all look pleased to have a customer.

"We don't serve your lot here," he said in a slow, growling voice.

Draco blinked several times, sure that he had misheard the man.

"Sorry?" He clenched his wand in his back pocket, not sure he would be needing it, but having it ready just in case.

The shopkeeper remained frowning, pointing his finger at the door.

"You heard me. We don't sell to death eaters. Get the hell out of my shop." Draco glanced down at his shirt, seeing that his left forearm was left exposed, something he normally tried very carefully to keep hidden. He had forgotten all about it in the buzz of adrenaline ensuing his splinching.

Two years ago, or even last summer, Draco would have put up a fight worthy of an angry Hippogriff if someone had treated him as such. Now, however, his pride had been so irreconcilably damaged by everything that had happened that he couldn't muster the energy to do anything but adjust the buttons on his sleeve, toss the dittany into it's container with a bit of a flourish, and deliver the shopkeeper a pointed glare.

"You'll regret this," he said as he left the shop, not really meaning anything by it, but just wanting to seem as though he had some kind of upper hand in the situation. He heard the burly shopkeeper shout something along the lines of "rot in hell" as the door slammed behind him.

Splendid. He would have to make do with something else. He thought about trying out one of the potion shops in Knockturn Alley, but last time he was there, the owner had forced him to take home a mysterious vial containing a sapphire blue liquid that had just hit the market, urging him to try it out and let him know if he would be interested in selling some. Apparently it induced a"euphoric state unlike anything he would ever experience." He knew a trap when he saw one, and didn't want to be forced into the role of a black market peddlar unless it was absolutely necessary.

Deciding that his home remedy option list was exhausted, he returned to the Leaky Cauldron, bounding up the creaking stairs to his room once he was finally out of the rain, and fastening each of the 3 spellproof locks he had purchased once he had closed the door. The silence that greeted him in the room was almost deafening. The pub was empty downstairs, and there weren't any other long-term tenants that Draco knew of who were renting out rooms upstairs. Draco took a great, heaving breath, glancing briefly at himself in the mirror above the vanity. The circles under his eyes looked worse than they had in weeks. The rain had ruined the sleek, well-kept look of his hair; it was no longer holding the spell he had placed on it before arriving to Harry's.

Potter. Harry fucking Potter. He bit his lip, trying to repress the thoughts of Harry's casual, lopsided smile, the effortless laugh that Draco had accidently coaxed out of him a couple times, the look in his eyes right before he kissed Draco. He had wanted Harry so badly for almost all of his life, just not like this. Not when his whole world was in a state of flux, when the foundations of his entire existence were crumbling in front of his eyes. Everything was falling apart. His family, his relationships, his reputation... In an overwhelming surge of rage he punched the mirror above the vanity as hard as his strength would allow him to. Shattered glass rained down on the dresser and the books he had stacked on the floor. His fist was stinging with pain, but he ignored it, hurling the rest of his possessions off of the desk and aiming a hard kick at the bedpost.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to make it all go away; he wanted to wake up and have this all be a terrible, fleeting dream that would leave a bitter taste in his mouth.

He reached in the bottom drawer of his desk and retreived a bottle of brandy he had procured from the bar downstairs, taking several swigs until he couldn't feel the pain caused by any of the injuries he had sustained today. He drank until he couldn't feel the pain of anything else in his life, either.

...

It was nearly dusk when he left the Leaky Cauldron again. The rain had finally subsided, the air replaced with a thick fog that fell like a billowing cloak over the streets of London. Draco had done his best to heal his minor cuts and bruises from the day. He was freshly showered, shaved, and had fixed his hair to so that it was cooly smoothed back, once more. He had to admit that dressing as though nothing in his life had changed helped him walk a little taller down the crowded London streets.

He strode up to the front of the abandoned department store that concealed the entrance to St. Mungo's Hospital, heading up the staircase to the fourth floor. When he got to the small reception area for the floor, however, he stopped in his tracks, recognizing a familiar face seated in the wooden chairs of the waiting room.

Bennett was holding a bouquet of colorful flowers, and looked like he had just woken up from a nap when Draco had closed the door from the stairwell. He stood up slowly, placing the flowers on the chair he had been seated in.

"What are you doing here?" Draco demanded, looking around him nervously for people that might have noticed the tall, handsome man waiting in a reception area for terminally ill patients that everyone knew included his mother. "How long have you been here? She didn't see you, did she?"

Bennett shook his head at this, pointing to the flowers he had brought in. "No. I thought you could bring these in for her, it might brighten up her room."

Draco ignored him, disregarding the kind gesture and the cadence of his American accent he had always found so irresistable. His mind was still racing from the shock of seeing Bennett here. He hadn't seen him face to face since an explosive fight they had had on the night of his father's indictment, right after the article accompanied by a photograph of their embracing, half-naked bodies had been published in Witch Weekly.

"So you thought you could just march right into the hospital where my mother is being treated for a heart condition? Are you insane? Do you know what it would do to her if she saw you?"

Bennett looked hurt at Draco's words, but Draco refused to let remorse dictate his actions.

"You weren't responding to my letters. I tried coming by earlier this morning to talk to you, but you weren't at the inn."

"And the thought never entered your mind that I didn't want to see you?" The witch at the reception desk had gotten up briefly, and there was no one else seated in the waiting area. It appeared as though they were alone, but Draco still knew better than to discuss these matters in a public area. He jerked his head towards the entrance to the stairwell, so that they could have this conversation somewhere a little more private. Bennett obliged, following him and closing the door to the 4th floor behind them.

"Draco, the medical research position you were looking at, the one at Ilvermorny just opened up. I recommended you, I thought that - "

"I don't want you making my decisions for me."

"Draco we talked about this - it's what you always wanted to do, and through the university you won't have to worry about any of the financial aspects while you're earning the degree -"

"I wanted it on my terms, not yours. I don't need your handouts."

"You would have to pass the entrance exam on your own, I'm hardly doing anything but pulling a few strings..."

"I didn't ask you to do any of that."

Bennett sighed deeply, moving in a little closer and lowering his voice.

"Look, I know it hasn't been easy, with everything going on. I can't imagine what any of that must be like, but I'm on your side. It would be easier, in America. There wouldn't be any of this pressure...We could be together." He tried to place a hand on Draco's arm, but Draco quickly moved it out of his grasp.

"I told you before - I haven't changed my mind. I don't want that."

"You don't, or your family doesn't?"

Bennett looked at him with those warm, chocolate coloured eyes and Draco remembered what it had been like to be in love with him. He had been charming, intelligent, and he represented everything that Draco had wanted at a point in his life where nothing else made sense. He was considerably older than Draco, which had been part of the thrill when they had first started sleeping together the summer before the war. He had let Draco stay in his flat in London when Draco couldn't bear to be in his own house. He had encouraged Draco's pursuit of being a healer, providing him with the academic resources and information he would need to continue in his education while he was in school. He had been the person that Draco could run to when he was feeling desperate, or horny, or lonely, or was just wanting an escape from reality for any amount of time. But he had promised that no one would ever find out about them, and the consequence of him not keeping his word had created a world of new problems for Draco.

On the morning before his father had been sentenced, Lucius had found the paper and been the angriest Draco had ever seen him. There was yelling and smashing of furniture and awful words being flung by both parties, making Draco wish he had never gotten involved with Bennett in the first place. Ultimately, when Lucius was carried away by ministry officials and given an opportunity to bid his family farewell, he hissed under his breath to Draco that he was "glad he would never have to face his son again." Draco had gone to Bennett's flat immediately afterwards and ended things between them.

"I don't." Draco said firmly, trying to stop the memories of their relationship from affecting the decision that needed to be made.

Bennett narrowed his eyes slightly, moving aside the collar on Draco's shirt to glance at his neck. "What the hell is that?" He asked, pointing to a vaguely brown indentation that Harry's lips must have made on his neck earlier that morning. "Are you serious? You're already seeing someone?"

Draco looked behind him, wary of anyone who may happen to overhear their conversation.

"Look, Bennett, I can't do this right now. I need to go see her."

"Did this even mean anything to you?" Bennett asked, desperation dripping from his words.

"Ben, I don't have time for this."

As he turned to leave, Bennet caught his forearm in a way that jolted Draco's memory back to Potter kissing him. He looked into Bennett's eyes again, imagining Harry's in their place, and realizing how incredibly unfair he was being to this man who had shared more than a year of his life with him.

"Draco, please just answer me." He held Draco firmly by the crook of his arm, the pain and frustration evident in his voice. "I just need to know it wasn't a waste."

Draco sighed, looking down to the ground and back up at him again. He was a broad, strong man, with chiseled bone structure and an impeccible waistline. He checked off all of the boxes that Draco was looking for physically, which is part of the reason he had pursued him in the first place. His countenance, on the other hand, was soft and kind - he was as considerate and thoughtful as he was strong. Draco didn't want a man this desirable to be squandered on someone like him.

"I meant it," he said, knowing that he at least owed Bennett the truth. "I did at the time. I just can't be what you want me to be."

He pulled his arm away from Bennett, disrupting the sleeve of his jacket in doing so.

"Your wand," Bennett said, his eye catching the dark, carved wood tucked into Draco's jacket pocket.

Draco had to stop himself from rolling his eyes in frustration. Of course this would happen. He hadn't anticipated running into Bennett here, otherwise he would have changed it out with his mother's wand which she was allowing him to use since she had been in St. Mungo's. It didn't take long for the gears to start turning in Bennett's head.

"It's Potter, isn't it?"

The pleading expression on Bennett's face had faded, replaced by a stiff, clenched jaw. Draco noticed a vein pulse in his neck.

"What are you talking about?" He scoffed, trying to behave like he wasn't thinking of Harry's lust-ridden eyes, or his chiseled stomach, or his perfect arse that Draco had spent hours upon hours evaluating during Quidditch games and in between classes in the corridors at Hogwarts...

"No, it all makes sense." Bennett turned around, pinching his forehead as though nursing a headache. "You completely vanishing out of nowhere, avoiding me and lying to me and then showing up here with marks all over your neck -"

"Don't make this about you, Ben. I can't handle this right now."

"Just tell me I'm wrong, Draco."

There was a beat. Draco glanced around in the stairwell, feeling more trapped than he had in the past couple of weeks. He shouldn't have to justify what had happened at Potter's house to a jealous boyfriend when he was trying to visit his mother in the hospital. He was going through hell, and all Bennett seemed to care about was whatever preconceived notions he had about the monogamy of their relationship.

"I've hardly been anywhere except here, the inn and the ministry in the last 4 weeks, and I've been more fucking miserable then I think you can even begin to understand, Bennett."

"So you slept with Potter."

"No! I never - " Draco exhaled sharply, stepping closer to the professor to ensure that everything he was saying was kept private. "It wouldn't have even mattered if I did. You gave those photos to the press, I don't owe you anything."

"God dammit, Draco, would you stop going on about that? It was an accident, I've told you a thousand times, Nyle lifted them from my flat during the court proceedings, I don't know how many times you want me to apologize to you..."

"You knew better than to be showing them off in the first place."

"Why, is it illegal for me to have a relationship with you?"

He was standing so close to Draco's face that he could see each sunspot on his tanned, handsome face, the beginning of each dimple and crease which would slowly turn to wrinkles as the years began to stake their claim on his body. This would never have been a normal relationship, he had to remind himself. There was always a part of him that knew he couldn't be with someone nearly 10 years his superior before he had even graduated from school. Before he had even decided what he wanted to do with his life.

Draco took a long, drawn out breath, closing his eyes briefly so he could shut out the look of pained resignation on Bennett's face. The stairwell was small and echoey and smelled like cleansing spells. When he opened his eyes again, Bennett was still waiting expectantly for any acknowledgment of what had been said.

"Thank you for the flowers."

As he turned to leave Bennett remained silent, clearly accepting this as his dismissal. Draco retrieved the flowers from their seat in the waiting room and strode past the witch at the reception desk into the hospital wing.

...

The walls of the hospital, which were at one point quite cold and sterile, were covered with drawings that children had made for the influx of patients since the war had begun. Crayon scrawled families with owls and cats and house elves decorated the once white surface of the hallway, and the spaces in between were filled with colorful encouragements such as "get well soon!" and "feel better, mum!" The staff had done everything they could to make the walk to the spell damage ward a little less doleful, but despite their efforts the pictures served as a kind of melancholy relic in themselves. The families who had lost children or parents now had the gut wrenching, pictograph reminders of when hopes were high, of when the future may have diverged in a number of different ways.

There was a picture of his mother that the Bellamy child, a resident of the room down the hall, had drawn for her. Draco closed his eyes, trying to cleanse his mind of everything that had just happened so that he wouldn't be dragging his own problems into the room. His mother sat up in the bed when she heard the doorknob turn.

She was very pale and nearly skeletal, her long blonde hair pouring down over the pillows stacked under her head, but her eyes still lit up when Draco entered the room. There were several weeks worth of cards and drawings pasted to the walls around the bed, reminding Draco how long she had really been here.

"Oh, Draco, they're beautiful!" she exclaimed as he set the bouquet of lilies down on her bedside table, bending down to kiss her forehead. Her skin was burning to the touch, but he smiled as though he had not noticed.

She beamed at him when he kissed her head, which was really all that he had been hoping for to begin with. It had been a whirlwind of a month for her, with the sentencing of Lucius at the ministry, and the series of health complications that resulted from both the torture she had endured at the hands of Voldemort, and the stress of losing a husband to Azkaban. Draco hadn't even told her about the financial stress weighing down on him from the legal fees and medical expenses, or that the ministry had seized their home for investigation, and was forcing him to live in the Leaky Cauldron and pay for his room out of pocket until they finally relinquished the posession of the mansion back to him. He couldn't help but feel that they were biding their time with the inspection simply to punish him for the role the Malfoys had played during the war.

"How are you?" he asked, taking a seat at the foot of her bed. "You look wonderful."

A little lying never hurt anyone.

"Don't be silly," She smiled again at his words. He noticed that some of the color had returned to her face since he had been in the room. "I've been resting and doing little else, I can't look any different than last time you were here."

"That was yesterday, mum. You definitely look better than yesterday." She laughed softly, picking up the bouquet of flowers and setting them in her lap.

"Did you bring any more books? Any letters from Lucius?"

Draco felt a pang of guilt when she mentioned the letters. In truth, his father hadn't written any letters. When the healer had spoken to Draco about how serious his mother's condition was, he had begun forging letters from Lucius, using a simple spell to transform his handwriting into that of his father's. He made it sound as though Lucius was living in the most comfortable and accomodating conditions possible, and that he missed his family more than anything. Lucius's ongoing silence surely confirmed that at least one of these facts was untrue, but Narcissa didn't need to know that.

"No letters yet, I'll get you a new book, though." He glanced at the pile of newspapers and magazines that had accumulated ontop of the table. He knew it was highly likely she had read the article about him in Witch Weekly - it would have been hard to avoid at this point - but she still hadn't said anything about it. He had no desire to discuss with her either the fact that he was gay, or that he had been in a relationship with a man much older than himself, so they had both merely pretended as though nothing had happened.

"I got my wand back," he said, putting on a smile once more to reassure her that things were going well. "It works just as well as it did before. I'll be sure to bring yours back for you tomorrow."

"That's wonderful," She said, sitting up a little straighter in her bed. "Did the Potter boy have it that whole time?"

"I don't think he even remembered he had it, to be honest. He's not the most organized person in the world."

"I saw in the prophet he's in auror training, did he say anything about your father? Do you think he could help get a reduced sentence?"

"We're not friends," Draco said quickly. "I couldn't really ask."

Her face fell, and he felt a wave of anger that she was still so worried about the man who had compromised their safety, put them in a position where Voldemort could play with them like pawns, and then didn't even have the courtesy to write them and apologize.

He placed aside his own feelings about his father for a moment, composing his face once more and taking his mother's hand encouragingly.

"I'm sorry. I can talk to him again, see what I can do."

She tried to smile but then began to cough, grabbing a handkerchief that had been resting on the bedside table. He tried to ignore how bad it was starting to get, and looked away when she withdrew from the fit that had seized control of her body temporarily. The napkin now had several scarlet droplets of blood in it. The healer had explained to him that her internal organs had suffered an irreversable amount of damage from the curses that Voldemort and some of the death eaters had performed on her in the Spring, after Harry and his companions had escaped the Malfoy Manor. He himself had been chained in the cellar and tortured by some of the men that had once been his father's friends, but it was nothing near as bad as what Voldemort had done to his mother, surely to punish Lucius. He tried not to dwell on these memories, and instead did his best to supress them with liquor or some other distraction as soon as they arose. It was difficult to ignore the effects of the war on his family, however, when they sat right there in front of him.

"Mother I wanted to talk with you about something," He said, squeezing her hand a little harder. "You saved his life, didn't you? In the forest?"

"Is that what he told you?"

"I thought I owed him a life debt, because of what happened in the room of requirement. I think he considers this an equalizer, as far as anything I might have needed to do to repay him."

She nodded slowly. Her eyes were glazed over as though she were deep in thought.

"I would have done the same for anyone, if it had meant I could see you again. There was no use for the battle to continue if you weren't alive."

He squeezed her again, wishing once again that he hadn't left Harry's house like he did.

"I'll talk to him," He said, mostly to ease his mother's mind. "I'm sure he would want to help."

He had no intention of ever speaking to Potter again in his lifetime, but would say anything to make it seem like there was hope. She needed that more than anything right now.

...

It was nearly midnight when he closed the door to his room in the Leaky Cauldron once more. He had nearly forgotten the mess he had made earlier in the morning, the shards of glass lying around the room and splintered wood splayed across the floor like a tattered snowfall. He withdrew his wand and began to clean up what he could.

He caught a glance at himself in the shattered mirror, and started when he noticed the blood that had soaked through his shirt from the wound on his shoulder. He removed it quickly, examining the cut once more. He didn't have the money to check himself into St. Mungo's; he would have to find a way to get a hold of some dittany from Knockturn Alley the next morning.

The room somewhat clean, he lay down in the large, four poster bed and tried his best to sleep. He indulged himself in thoughts of what may have happened earlier that morning if he had stayed, recalling the taste and feel of Potter's lips on his own, and wishing that he had the emotional strength to go back.