Disclaimer: All characters are created and owned by the magnificent J.K. Rowling
It had been just another day. He snoozed his alarm for those extra five minutes and his coffee could have melted plastic. He always forgot to title his reports and had to go back to label them.
Harry and Ron frequented this bar every Friday.
"Best be getting back, I told Herm I'd go with her to some museum early tomorrow." Ron rolled his eyes.
Harry smiled. "Sure, let's get going. I told George I'd help him in the shop too."
The moment they had stepped into the alley behind the pub, Harry sensed that something was wrong. A lifetime of training had alerted him immediately to the twin cracks of Apparition. In a split second, his wand was out from his sleeve, pointed upwards into the night air.
In the time it took Ron to process, two burly men came around the corner and pressed the tip of a wand to Ron's temple. The other man's wand was steadily trained on Harry, but not before he landed a punch to Ron' gut.
"RON! Ron, are you okay?"
"Fine," came the muffled reply.
"Move your lips again, Harry Potter, and your friend dies," the first man spat. Harry loosely identified the voice belonging to one of the Death Eaters present at Voldemort's return.
Burning with fury, the air surrounding Harry began to crackle.
Apprehensive, the Death Eaters glanced at each other. "Stay back, we're taking him. If he gives us the information we want, you may even have your friend back," one of them spoke up.
"Cowards!" Harry hissed, refusing to lower his wand.
Slowly, they began to back up, dragging the struggling Ron with them.
"Get off me, you bastards! Don't worry about me, Harry, I'll be back here by tomorrow night," Ron said before vanishing on the spot.
The sound of Disapparation crashed down like an explosion around Harry's ears.
If he had known that would be the last time he would see Ron wink, he might have smiled back.
Aurors, squads and his friends had searched for weeks, only to come up with an empty trail. A while after, they had found the Death Eaters in question dead on the bank of a river. Ron was nowhere to be found.
Like he said, he took a desk job after the incident. No one would argue with the Saviour's wishes anyway. The Weasleys tried cajoling him into moving in, and Hermoine was ready to drag him to Australia with her. He made his excuses, packed his bag and left that night, finally leaving behind the world he had almost given his life for.
Yet Harry never missed another night to be at the pub, hoping to catch a glimpse of flaming red hair dripping with water, and a low voice grumbling about forgetting an umbrella yet again.
It's a thin line between remembering and forgetting. Harry started drinking to forget. Ironically, he also drinks to remember. To remember how it felt to have his best friend at his side, or sitting across from him. To remember safety as a physical state instead of a nebulous theory he can't really grasp. He aches for a place where he isn't walking on the shattered glass remains of his world, and where he doesn't need the orange cylindrical bottle by his bedside. To go back to a time where his world was whole, and he could bear to be sober for 24 hours straight.
But more than anything, as he feels Draco's arms suddenly supporting him, he longs to feel more than a ghostly touch, yearns to feel the electricity through his fingertips, and the tenderness in light kisses. Harry wonders if it is too much to ask to be divested of this perpetual numbness—to love something with not just his wasted heart. But instead, with kneecaps, knuckles, and the spaces between his fingers.
He blinks out tears, and looks up at Draco.
Draco, whose past Death Eater ties made him privy to certain information. His lover, whose silence was enough to confirm his best friend's death. For a moment, Harry thinks that Draco is going to apologize, and he doesn't want to hear it.
"I need to be alone," says Harry, roughly pulling out of Draco's grip.
He leaves the door ajar in his wake, letting in a chilly night breeze that wracks Draco's frame in an instinctive shiver.