Rita would have been more than happy to publish the article as it was. She had plenty of evidence, of course, just not the type that newspapers liked to print, apparently.

"Circumstantial," the editor-in-chief of the Prophet had told her. "We can't print something this bold with just circumstantial evidence. Get a source."

A source! Fifty years in journalism and all of a sudden she needed a source. When had the news industry started insisting on integrity? It certainly hadn't been a primary feature back in her heyday. She was plenty sure that speculation that the Boy Who Lived batted for the other team would be enough to sell papers (especially with her very interesting theories about whether he "pitched" or "caught", as the lingo went), but the editor had not been swayed. Him and his ethical standards. Rubbish.

It left her with the burden of proof. If any of Potter's friends had been open to her questions, she would have finished her second biography of him by now (Harry Potter: the Man, the Myth, the Mystery), and he certainly didn't have publicist from whom she could get a statement.

If not Potter, then perhaps the mysterious, reclusive writer with whom he'd fallen into acquaintance. Unfortunately, the man was a hermit, and if she'd had any luck finding his personal information, she would have finished her biography on him (The Cross that Cross Bears).

There was the writer's agent, of course – but a large part of an agent's job was to understand and handle the press, and Rita doubted that she'd get much out of him, even via her more persuasive methods. She briefly considered breaking into the agent's office and naming an "anonymous editorial intern" as her source, but alas, the building was warded against malicious intentions.

A lesser journalist would have quailed and collapsed under such steep odds, but Rita was nothing if not resourceful. And when the front door of the small London flat opened, she was wearing her pearls and winning smile.

"Hello, Mrs. Weston!" she said. "I understand that you've been looking for a nanny."

A wolf whistle abruptly drew Harry's attention away from the mirror.

"Blimey, Boss," Felicia said, eyeing him up and down. "Looking good. Hot date tonight?"

Felicia was perhaps the only one of his underlings to make comments like that to Harry's face. Her cockiness was simultaneously her most endearing feature and the one that had, on more than one occasion, nearly gotten them both killed in the line of duty.

He liked Felicia.

"Sort of," he said, turning back to the mirror. He'd chosen a neutral, charcoal-colored jumper and slacks. Casual, inoffensive, ambiguously Muggle but not enough to draw attention. He tried to comb his hair, and when that hadn't worked, tried to spell it. When that also hadn't worked, he'd given up entirely. "Meeting for dinner."

"Anyone I know?"

"Isn't your shift over?" Harry asked in a smooth deflection.

"You're one to talk. You weren't even meant to come in today."

"I'm older and I know what's best," Harry told her, straightening his collar.

"You're so full of shit. You work too much, Boss."

"I'm sorry, did you come here to lecture me on my work habits or did you have something productive to say?"

Felicia rolled her eyes and held up a parchment. "Word from Dimmock. They've found the nest outside York."

Harry frowned. "Damn." He'd been waiting for word from their scouts in York, itching to take them down since he first got wind of them. He headed over and grabbed the parchment, pulling it open. According to the report, it was larger than they'd been expecting.

"You're not seriously thinking of taking care of this right now, are you?" Felicia asked. "Did you not hear my comment about how you work too much?"

"I heard it," he answered vaguely, still perusing the report, "I just don't listen to anything you say, as a general rule."

"It's six-thirty on a Saturday and you have a date. Get the hell out of here."

"And I suppose that if we ask nicely, the human-sacrificing dark wizards will just stop being evil for a while the aurors go on a date."

Felicia grabbed the report out of his hands.

"Hey!"

"I'm going to take this to Grimmond," she said, "and he can handle it. You're going to go on your date, be totally charming, and get lucky."

"Merlin's beard, Felicia—"

"I'm serious," she said sternly. "This is my serious voice. Get out of this office, you workaholic."

She turned on a heel and strode back out of his office. For a moment, Harry seriously considered going after her and making up some lie about how it wasn't actually a date and he could cancel if he wanted to.

Then he looked towards his desk, and among the bric-a-brac and loose stacks of parchment, he saw the prince's letter.

The desire rose in his stomach again, hot and familiar.

Grimmond could handle it.

When Dolly's piteous wailing about Draco not being ready for a date became entirely too much for him to take, he left the flat and Apparated into the Leaky Cauldron before he lost his nerve.

At once, Draco felt overwhelmed.

There were people everywhere.

Obviously, he told himself, obviously it was crowded. It was the Leaky Cauldron, the most famous wizarding tavern in London and he was right in the middle of it without a disguise what was he doing this was mad.

No one had even glanced his way, he told himself, but the thought didn't lessen the feeling that every pair of eyes in the place was eating away at his skin like fire. He had to sit down before the dizziness and terror turned into nausea.

The nearest unoccupied table was in the corner by a roaring hearth, and he sank into one of its chairs gratefully. He hunched forward with his arms on the table and fussed with the long green scarf pulled tight around his neck. The Leaky Cauldron was toasty warm and the scarf made his neck uncomfortably hot, but he dared not take it off, not if it in any way helped to obscure his identity.

"What can I get you, love?"

Draco jerked so violently that he nearly knocked his chair over.

"Easy, easy! Steady on, love! You all right?"

He started to look up at her, but thought better of it and kept his head down instead. His heart was slamming in his throat and he could barely speak.

"I'm waiting for someone," he said, though it came out as a sort of wheeze. Don't look at her, she'll recognize you, she'll know.

"I can get you a butterbeer for starters, you look like you need one. Or maybe something stronger."

"I'm fine," he wheezed. "Thank you."

A moment of silence passed. "All right," she said, and he heard her footsteps echo away.

Draco was sure he was going to pass out. He leaned forward on his elbows and knotted his fingers in his hair, willing his breath to steady and his heart to slow.

This was stupid. He never should have done this. There was nothing in the universe that could possibly be worth this torment. The minute someone recognized him – and in Draco's addled, terrified mind, it was not a matter of if but when – he would be lynched, he would be killed in the street like the filthy, hateful, Death Eater dog that he was, he had to get out, he had to—

There was a crack of Apparation and Draco looked up.

The first thing that entered his mind, before he even placed the name to the all-too-familiar face, was oh, God, no.

Two options: it was a coincidence, or it wasn't. Neither of them seemed within the realm of something vaguely resembling possible.

But there he was. Harry Potter, like a ghost of his past, fifteen years older and every line of it on his face, wearing a lovely gray jumper and scanning the room, looking for—

Draco ripped the scarf off his neck and stuffed it into his lap under the table.

This wasn't happening. This wasn't possible. Not Harry Potter of all people. God, anyone but Harry Potter, who knew all his shames, who had seen the worst of him, who never could and had no reason to see him as anything but a monster and an idiot.

The floor was bowing and warping underneath him. The room was spinning. Out get out get out get out.

It should have been easy enough to pick out a green scarf in such a grubby old tavern with a palette that seemed to be made primarily of shades of gray and brown, but to his disappointment he couldn't see any green at all.

Harry tried to quash the twinge of worry and approached the bar in the center of the room. He caught a waitress with a tap on her arm.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm looking for someone – blonde fellow, green scarf, probably siting alone?"

The waitress's eyes lit with recognition. "Oh, yes, he's right—"

Her words fell short when she turned toward the corner and frowned. Harry followed her gaze toward an empty table by a fireplace.

"That's odd," she said. "He was right there a moment ago."

The worry Harry had just suppressed reared up again. "Did he seem nervous?" he asked.

"Terrified, more like," she said. "Nearly leapt out of his skin when I asked him if he wanted anything to drink. Were you the one he was waiting for?"

Harry pushed a hand over his hair. "Yeah," he said. "Thank you."

Harry would not let himself be hurt. He knew that this could have been a possibility from the start. He refused to blame the prince – it hadn't been an act of spite, it had been his anxiety.

But there was no keeping away worry. Harry thought about his prince dissolving in on himself from fear and was suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to make sure that he was okay, that he'd made it home, that if nothing else he was safe.

The moment he was home he stumbled right into his office, locked the door, and cast the most powerful silencing charm he could manage. He didn't want to look at anyone, to deal with anyone, not even Dolly, not even himself.

He felt like he was on fire, like every part of him was dissolving into dust. He was left to the whims of a cruel, unforgiving universe, torn apart, breaking down, suffocating, dying.

He started to scream.

He'd bought so easily into the illusion of happiness, into the idea that maybe, just this once, after so long, that he could find something good to hold onto. That he could break the shackles of his past, that he could learn to love and live and breathe again.

And then it had been ripped away from him again, an action that had taken with it Draco's bloody, beating heart.

He'd been so close. He'd been so close. So close to having everything, and now there was nothing.

He screamed and screamed until his voice broke, he burned until there was nothing left of him but ashes.

Silence came like a law of nature, and Draco was empty, blessedly numb. A million-million years passed before his eyes.

And then, an owl rapped on his office window.

Are you all right?

Please answer, I need to know that you're safe.

For the first time in fifteen years, Harry did not go to work.

He'd meant to go back to the office after, to check with Grimmond about the state of things in York, but when his owl had returned without a response from the prince, any thought of work left his mind like water through cupped hand. He was almost sick with worry, and he lost count of how many times he paced around his flat, trying to untangle his thoughts and figure out what to do next.

Harry felt like the worst person in the world. He never should have pushed him into meeting somewhere so public. It would have been so much better if they'd met somewhere quieter, somewhere that would have allowed him some degree of solitude. He could only imagine what being at a place as crowded as the Leaky Cauldron had done to him, this brilliant, delicate man to whom Harry had grown so desperately attached that it even surprised himself. He was nauseous at the idea that his actions had pushed him even further back into himself, ripping open old wounds and making everything worse.

Midnight came, then morning. Harry didn't sleep. Every few minutes he would pace to the window and scan the sky for the sight of wings, never to any avail.

He could not put it off anymore, not in good conscience. He grabbed a parchment and quill and began to write.

Dear Mr. Weston:

It is for the best if you do not ask why or how I know what I'm about to tell you. Please understand that I am not being alarmist, at least not deliberately.

Your client, J. William Cross, may be dangerously unwell. I am very afraid that he might have had some kind of a breakdown and is not receiving the proper care. I don't know who else to tell, and I worry that you may be the only one who can help him.

Check up on him in person as soon as you can. I would advise against sending an owl, as I am almost sure that he will not answer and worry that it would be a dangerous waste of time.

Please write back at your earliest convenience to keep me updated.

Thank You,
Harry Potter

Eric knocked, and the silence that followed was just long enough to start him worrying.

The door finally opened and he saw Dolly, wide-eyed and twitching and staring up at him like he was the best thing to happen to her all day.

"Mr. Weston," she squeaked.

"Is Draco in?" he asked at once.

"Yes," she answered. "He locked himself in his office. Dolly's heard nothing all night."

"Shit." Eric pushed in and made a beeline through the sitting room and for his office. He grabbed the handle and it refused to turn.

"Draco?"

Silence.

"Draco! Are you there? Can you hear me?"

More silence. He produced his wand from his sleeve and cast a quick alohomora that didn't help.

"Dolly, open the door," he said.

"Dolly is under strict orders," she squeaked, wringing her hands. "Master Draco has told Dolly in no uncertain terms that he is not to be bothered when he's in his office."

"He's not in there working, Dolly!" he said. "This is an emergency! Open the door!"

The conflict on the house-elf's face was blessedly brief. She snapped, and the door clicked open. Eric shoved his way inside.

Draco was sitting against the bookshelf, knees drawn up to his chest and hands knotted in his hair. His head was down, obscuring his face.

"Merlin," Eric said. He hurried over and crouched down next to him. This had happened once before, years ago, when Draco was still his new client, and he'd received a frantic owl from Dolly saying that Draco had taken a kitchen knife to one arm.

It had been one of the more terrifying moments in Eric's life, and if Tragedy of the Narcissist hadn't been so brilliant, it might have been enough to make him drop Draco as a client.

"Again," Dolly wailed behind him, "it's happening again!"

"Dolly, go make an emergency fire-call to St. Mungo's," he said.

"Master Draco!" she keened, gripping her ears tightly and tugging.

"Do it now," he snapped, and the volume was enough to send her scurrying into the sitting room. "Draco, Draco," he said, turning back to him, "you'd been doing so well…"