Disclaimer: First of all, I don't own the characters or any of the canon details, those are the wonderful Ms Rowling's. Secondly, sorry Ms Rowling for corrupting your boys in this way.

Pairings: HPDM

Warnings: Slash, obviously. Swearing, sex, etc etc. Rated for a bloody good reason - do not read this if you are under the age of consent in your country. This story deals with miscarriage which may be distressful for some readers (I know from my point of view that it was distressful to write).

Beta: Aima D. Duragon.

Draco's head raved and reeled him through the castle and took none of it in; splinters of rhetoric clattered around his brain and manifested themselves pointlessly across his face, clinging to an argument left behind and lost. Snape looked down at him when he arrived.

"Have you seen him?"

The Potions Master stepped aside - before he was pushed - and closed the door behind them.

"Well? If someone were bleeding to death on my watch I'd call the man with the ruddy great vat of blood replenishing potion or am I missing something?"

"That's really Slughorn's job now," Snape said, sidestepping the real issue.

"Oh don't even get me started on fucking Slughorn."

Snape suppressed his distaste at the foul language. "Draco, sit-"

"Don't fucking tell me to sit down, just tell me what's going on!"

"I will once you sit."

"... fucking Dumbledore and his idiotic questions about us… fucking business is it of his?"

Snape himself sat and began to rub his temples. "Did you sleep with Harry last summer? Late summer…"

Draco's rant caught in his throat and his head swivelled as if on a rail, "How did you know that? Did he tell you or did you go poking around in his head?" he accused, "You know, he's entitled to some fucking privacy, Severus! What is it with you people?"

"Were you careful?"

"What do you mean 'was I careful?' Did he say I hurt him? Is that why everyone's treating me like the next dark lord rising? Because if he did then someone's twisted his head," Draco insisted. "We're friends, he wouldn't lie about something like that. He wouldn't even if we weren't friends. I mean-"

"Draco, stop!" Snape rattled out a sigh. "That's not what I meant."

Draco squinted at him, "I don't understand."

"Were you careful? Did you use..."

"Urg," Draco shuddered, "Stop! For fucks sake will you just tell me how he is!"

Snape chose his words very carefully. "He'll recover, he's strong and he's in good hands, but it will take time."

"Right, okay," Draco flipped into action mode. "So I need Harry's cloak, and probably his map, which means I need to get into that bloody tower... stupid prat should have moved out of the dorms like a sane person... "

"Draco, I really must insist you sit down and pay attention."

"I don't have time-"

"Make the bloody time you ignorant little scroat!" Snape barked at him. "Now, were you careful?"

"Severus, I didn't give him anything, okay? There hasn't been anyone else, so whatever you think he's got... Oh for fucks sake! You don't even know what's wrong with him then, do you? How can you tell me he'll be fine when you don't even know what's fucking wrong with him!? If none of you idiots can take proper care of him then I-"

"DRACO! SIT DOWN! You know very well how competent I am, I know precisely what is wrong with Harry and if you shut up for long enough I will tell you!"

"GET TO THE FUCKING POINT THEN!"

Snape faltered in the vacuum that followed.

Draco sat down next to him and put his hands in his lap, "Severus, you're scaring me," he whispered, "We'll put everything right again, I promise. If I can get to Harry everything will be okay, it'll all make sense - I know it, I don't know how, I just do."

"Harry had a miscarriage."

The words hovered in front of Draco and he couldn't bring them in or send them back, all the pieces in his head started to whir in the other direction and got ruined in the process.

"Say something else."

"Draco..."

"Anything else, anything else..."

Draco wasn't aware of his screams until long after they had stopped and he realised his lungs were scratched raw. White flesh tinged red came away from under his nails; he saw the gouges running down his old Professor's neck and didn't have enough of himself left to feel ashamed. Instead he sat in the quiet and drank cup after cup of sweet tea until it started to fizz inside him like salt on a fire.

"He didn't know?" Draco hated that it came out like a question.

"I don't think so, he's not talking much."

"He didn't know," Draco said more firmly.

"I believe you."

"I want to see him."

"Okay."

Draco couldn't feel grateful for Snape's lack of argument, to him there was no question that this was what should be done. When they reached the hospital wing he didn't even register Madame Pomfrey's protests but instead stepped around them and let Snape take care of that too. He couldn't care less what they said to each other so long as they stayed by the door and away from him.

Harry lay curled around himself under a thin white sheet; Draco wondered how he wasn't frozen solid and why Pomfrey had allowed it. He frowned and brushed the hair away from Harry's eyes, startled to find them glass-like and tilted toward the pillow.

"Hey," he said gently.

"Hey," Harry croaked back.

"How do you feel?"

Harry's mouth worked around a lack of words. He freed his hand with a wince and grasped his fingers in the direction of Draco's. Hot new tears poured from some waiting reservoir, though he could have sworn he'd drained the last of them; he felt the hollowness of his bones and it ached like nothing he'd ever known. Draco was whispering things in his ear but he couldn't process it, he just let them pass over him and soothe what places they could.

"I can't breathe, I think I've forgotten how..."

Draco carefully widened the bed and lay down alongside him, "Watch me, okay? In, out."

"Don't leave me alone."

Draco pulled the sheet over himself and drew closer, "I won't."

Draco woke to the sound of hushed voices from behind the curtains of the furthest cubicle and padded over to investigate. Pulling the curtain aside he found Dumbledore reaching his arms out to Madame Pomfrey who cradled a soft pink blanket to her chest. It took longer than it should have for him to understand.

"What are you doing with her?" Draco hissed, "Don't touch her."

"She needs to be laid to rest my boy."

"I'm not your boy. Your boy grew up, but he's over there in pieces if you have anything remotely helpful to say to him."

"I've already spoken with him - my help to him is taking care of this situation so that he doesn't have to."

Draco glanced back to make sure Harry was still sleeping, "You can't just label this a fucking 'situation' and wipe it away you half-baked eejit!"

"I can if it's what's in his best interests."

"Who are you to decide what's in his fucking best interests!?"

"This is what he wants."

"How the hell would you know?"

"I asked him."

Draco felt the revelation slam into his stomach and it stayed there. "Well you didn't ask me."

"This is none of your concern."

"She's my daughter!"

"She was never your daughter," Dumbledore said gently, "She was never alive."

"I have a right to know what you intend to do with her."

"I told you, she'll be laid to rest."

"Where?"

"You don't need to know that."

Draco's nostrils flared the way his father's did when one of the house-elves got under his feet.

"You mean no one will. You're going to dump her in some hole in the ground and hope the whole thing gets forgotten."

"I'm not as callow as you seem to have decided, Draco. But it will do nothing but harm if this gets out. If the people think that Harry is weak - in any way, for any reason - they'll start to give up."

"I don't give a shit about the people. My daughter deserves to know that she was loved, in death if nothing else."

"This is why you should have kept him out of this," Dumbledore glared at Pomfrey.

"You have three options," Draco snarled, "You can kill me right now where I stand, you can give her to me so I can bury her properly, or I can go to the Prophet and tell them everything."

"Do you think that will help Harry?"

"This is about her, not him, and you have five seconds to make up your mind."

"Where will you take her?"

"Somewhere unplottable, does that help you?" Draco spat.

"The ministry has all the unplottable locations on file."

"Then I'll create a fucking new one! I was raised by a bloody deatheater, you think I don't know how to do that?"

"I actually didn't," Dumbledore looked completely disturbed by the prospect.

"Well?"

Dumbledore looked between him and the bundle of blankets, "Very well then."

Left alone behind the curtain and trapped with his consequences Draco stared down at the tiny thing in the centre of it all. He lifted her from the basket that was much too big and settled her in his lap, his mind dredging up all sorts of thoughts that didn't seem appropriate, yet he couldn't shake free of them - like where did the blanket come from, and who had cleaned her face?

He took a deep breath and forced himself to deal with his heart. It surprised him when no tears fell; he gazed down at her in confusion, questioning the good of his soul, if maybe there'd been none there at all. And slowly it came, magic creeping down over his skin and hers, iridescent and right where it should be.

"There you are. Carina," Draco whispered, suddenly remembering the letters etched into the marble in his vision, "I'm going to make you a place so beautiful you'll never want to leave it, and you're going to be safe there. And I'll never be far, I promise."

Draco knew he should check on Harry, but leaving had never been harder. He did though, eventually. Harry didn't see him, he looked right through as if to count the jars on the shelf behind.

"You left," he stated.

"I was with her."

"Her…" Harry repeated. "Her…"

"They didn't tell you that?"

"I told them not to."

"Oh."

Draco struggled to accept this last swerve the night had pulled him through.

"I'm going to take her up into the hills. Do you want to say goodbye?"

"Let Dumbledore deal with that. Stay with me. We can wake up tomorrow like we woke up today and everything will be okay, nothing will have changed."

"Harry…"

"Please just don't go... I need you here, okay? I didn't think I did but I do. Just for a little while, just until I can stand it again. You don't have to stay forever, just for a little while. Please…"

"I have to do this before he changes his mind. I'll be back before dawn..."

"Please just leave it alone, you don't have to go. It was a mistake what we did, but we can make it alright again. We can make it go away and be us again, and then it'll be okay, wont it?"

"Harry, you're exhausted. Close your eyes; Open them at dawn and I'll be next to you, okay?"

Harry's eyelashes fluttered home as Draco kissed his cheek farewell.

The frozen mountainside had been desolate and unforgiving when he'd arrived but he'd worked to the blueprint in his head, glad to escape himself for an hour - hours? He'd lost track somewhere amongst the sweat and rain.

The sky was heavy with magic, and every colour seemed to thread through the ground: up into the trees and around the leaves: a perfect bubble of life in the most isolated place he could find. Around it he'd cast every shield and deterrent he could muster.

He conjured up his patronus - a Unicorn of bright white light he'd named Mississippi when he was a boy, just because he liked the feel of the word in his mouth.

"This is your new home," he told it.

The cool marble beneath his fingers read 'Carina Io Malfoy', and he knew it was right for her.

"Keep her safe for me girl."

Draco's boots sluiced rain through a few choice breaks in the leather; his wrecked head clung to the lights outlining the castle on the horizon and the promise of sleep.

Still, he reached the courtyard and shied from the door. No Remus to greet him, just cold sky slamming into his upturned face.

"Why couldn't you just leave it alone?"

Draco whipped in the direction of Harry's voice and found him sitting at the foot of a broken gargoyle.

"What are you doing out here? You'll catch your death."

Harry waited to see if Draco would try to smooth over his words but he just made a self-berating sort of gesture and it didn't seem like enough to hold against him.

"Come inside, its freezing."

"I want to stay out here."

"I'll carry you if I have to."

Harry scoffed and Draco knew they were on the edge of something ugly.

"Same old spoilt, self-centred brat you always were."

Draco closed his eyes.

"What, you're not going to disagree?"

"I know what you're trying to do."

"You know everything don't you? You know what's better for me than I do. What I want never comes into it."

"...I'm sorry you feel that way... I never meant-"

"I never wanted to be your friend, but you just- you were always there. You sunk your claws into Ron, and Remus, even Molly and Arthur - running around pulling horcruxes out of nowhere and handing out miracle potions, I couldn't even get away from you in my own head!"

Harry's fists were balled so tightly it was a wonder there wasn't blood dripping from them.

"I didn't want to love you. I have more to do than that, I told you that so many times and you said you heard it but you didn't. You stand there, and you look at me, and what I want stops making sense and it's your fault - don't try to make out like it's not on purpose, you're not that dense," Harry accused. "I had one choice left to make and you took it away, just like you take everything that's mine and make it yours, and now I can't stand what's left of me because it's nothing when you're not there and even less when you are. You've ruined me, are you happy?"

Draco swallowed to loosen the choke hold around his throat. "Come inside," he said plainly.

"That's all you have to say?"

"For now."

"Did you even listen or did you take that away from me too?"

"I can't speak for you - obviously - but I don't need this right now. I need sleep and dry clothes."

"Well maybe I need this!"

"You can scream at me perfectly well inside the castle, I'll even put up wards."

"Are you trying to be funny?"

"No," Draco took a soothing breath. "I'm just trying to be practical."

Harry shoved him hard in the shoulder. "Well fucking stop it!"

"Don't hit me."

A harder shove answered him.

"Stop it."

"Why should I!?"

"Because you're hurting me."

"So stand up for yourself!"

"I'm not about to fight you, Harry—you're in no fit state for one thing."

Harry fell into him with his fists, "Don't. Fucking. Patronise. Me!"

Draco pushed him away; Harry careened into the gargoyle and a jut of stone caught him in the back. He bent double and gasped for air.

"I didn't- I'm sorry. Come on, I'll take you back to the hospital wing."

"I don't want anything from you! Just leave me the fuck alone!"

Draco clenched his teeth, turned on his heel and took two steps toward the courtyard steps. Harry watched him with a kind of morbid curiosity, he realised then that the last thing he wanted was for Draco to go, not that he'd say that. He'd given himself up to despair when all of a sudden Draco veered back towards him. Harry's heart jerked back up sharply, then raced when Draco made to hook his arms underneath him.

"What are you playing at!" Harry made himself demand, "Get off!"

"Well get up then!"

Harry successfully fought down the stupid urge to smile that was filling up his chest, "No! Fuck you!"

But with the ice in his bones and the blizzard spiralling out of control in his head, Draco didn't understand the complicated dance they were doing, or see it for what it was.

"Grow up, Harry!" he spat, "You're acting like a fucking child! You're not the only one in pain here! She was my daughter too."

The hope went out of Harry just as suddenly as it had reappeared. It was just as well, he thought. He narrowed his eyes and slowly got to his feet, turning to leave. "Don't ever talk about her again."

Draco grabbed Harry's arm, spun him back around, and threw the galleon from the lake at his feet; Harry's eyebrows ducked as he struggled to make sense of the gleaming red thing now half-sunk into the mud.

"It shows you the people who'll make you strong," Draco ground out. "And I understand now why I didn't see you."

A/N: Okay, so, *breathes*

This is the chapter that inspired me to start writing this story 10 years ago, but it's also the chapter I could never put on paper until very recently, and believe me when I say that it honestly broke me to do it. It was worth it though, I think anyway.

...does anyone have a tissue?