Responses to all your comments are at the bottom! :)

I'm sorry for the wait. I struggled all week with where to take this story.

Part Seven: Rock Bottom

Draco sat in his chair and stared at the chest of drawers in front of him. His hands were balled into fists, and he realized he was shaking. Tears of fury streaked down his cheeks, and he beat his fists against his useless legs, again and again and again, until he was too sore and too tired to go on. He rolled to the bed and slipped under the covers It was still only early afternoon, not even tea-time, but Draco couldn't bear the thought of food. Or anything. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

Draco spent the rest of the day in bed. He would have locked the door to his room, but Potter could simply alohomora it. Potter didn't come in until late in the night, anyway. Draco was lying on his side, facing away, when he heard the creak of the door, and the soft padding of Potter's feet. He left something on the table, and then hovered, like he wanted to say something… but in the end he simply turned and slipped out.

When the door had closed behind him Draco turned around with some effort, and found on the bedside table vial of pain potion that he desperately needed, and a bowl of rice with chicken and lentil curry that he wished did not smell so bloody good. He swallowed the potion and resisted the food for nearly fifteen minutes before he finally broke down and ate it. The spicy curry burned his tongue, but the bland rice soothed it, fillign his stomach slowly, warming him, and when he had set the bowl aside, he rolled over again and drifted back to sleep.


Granger is screaming… her voice is echoing through the stone walls and he can hear Bella's manical laughter… cackling over the screams…

And then, a gentle hand reaches out to him and he rolls into a pair of strong arms, and seeks out the warm mouth that's pressed against his forehead… "I'm so sorry Draco… I'm so sorry"… but too soon the arms withdraw… and he is alone…


He woke on Monday morning soaked in his own urine, but managed to lock himself in the bathroom before Potter came in to change the sheets. When he rolled out of the bathroom, though, Potter was sitting on the end of the bed looking at his hands clasped in his lap. A pile of soiled sheets lay at his feet. Apparently he was waiting for Draco, because he stood as soon as Draco entered.

"Draco," he started, "please, just… talk to me," he said plaintively.

"There's nothing to talk about," Draco answered quietly, staring out the window into the grey morning.

"I'm sorry it didn't work out," Potter offered, and Draco winced, deciding he'd rather not know if Potter meant the treatment, or the relationship, or both. Probably both.

"It's fine, Potter, just leave me alone."

Potter stood as though to leave, but then he spoke again, "I don't know why I'm surprised…" and he sounded surprisingly bitter. "I just… I thought things were different this time…"

Draco frowned at that, unable to decipher Potter's cryptic mumbling, or unwilling to hope that it meant what he wanted it to mean. A soft sweep and click behind him told him that Potter had left the room.

Thirty minutes later, the house was silent, and Draco ventured out of his room. He wasn't hungry, and couldn't concentrate on anything, so after an hour of staring out the window, he decided to try the library. That paid off tremendously when he discovered Potter's fully stocked liquor cabinet at the back by the large fireplace. Draco grabbed a bottle of fire-whiskey and a tumbler and deposited them in his lap, then wheeled himself back up the stairs and into his room.

The first glass burned and spread warmth down his throat and out to his body through his stomach. The second glass left him a little light-headed. The third glass sent the room tilting slightly off-centre, but generally things looked much better from the vantage point of three large glasses of whiskey in the middle of the day. He could block it all out, forget it all, numb the pain of loss and disappointment… fill the empty hole of his loneliness. He drank, and it all just slipped away.


Draco woke up Tuesday with a blinding headache and barely managed to roll out of bed and get into the shower before Potter to came in and change the sheets. They were soaked that morning, as usual, but with the charming addition of vomit, which apparently came up sometime during the night, though he had no memory of it. By the time he came out nearly an hour later, he found that Potter had changed his sheets and left him a hangover potion. He cursed the bastard even as he gulped down the potion. Then he threw on a bathrobe, and made his way back into the library.

The rest of Tuesday was a gin-soaked blur. Potter seemed content to ignore him, and Draco knew he needed to get out of that house, but the prospect of doing anything, anything at all, even making himself food, was so overwhelming, that after contemplating it, he felt compelled instead to just take another drink and lay back on the bed.

That night, Potter came in with a bowl of Italian wedding soup and a couple of hard rolls, but the smell turned Draco's liquor soaked stomach, and he rolled away, with considerable effort. Potter lingered by the bed, and Draco tried to still the buzzing in his ears.

"You can't keep this up, Draco," Potter was saying, but Draco's head was spinning too much to really focus on him. He groaned and pulled the covers over his head. "You're not even eating, are you? You can't just sleep and drink all day."

"I can do whatever the bloody-fuck I want to," Draco slurred. At least he tried to. "Go away."

"You're going to kill yourself like this," Potter said quietly. For some reason, Draco found that fantastically funny, and laughed. Potter didn't seem to see the humour, though, and just sighed.


The men are cursing him, now, with words and wands, but he can't see anything… the pain is blinding him, coursing through his body, and he convulses on the floor… he can't feel anything but the shooting, stabbing pain the pulses irregularly but ceaselessly into his nerves, like millions of tiny knives… screaming…

And then a warm hand reached out to him, and warm arms embrace him, and something coils inside of him, rising into his throat, and he seeks out warm, soft lips, and hears a gentle voice saying, "Draco, Draco… you're drunk… we can't" but Draco isn't listening… he reaches out a pulls arm strong, lean body on top of him, and hears a moan…


"Draco, Draco no we… we can't…" Potter said, but gave little resistance when Draco pulled him up onto the bed. He moaned as he slipped under the covers to find Draco naked and hard under the bathrobe that was already hanging open. He gasped and bit his lips, and Draco gazed up, bleary eyed, his alcoholic daze making him frantic but uncoordinated. He struggled with the tie on Potter's shorts until Potter finally relented, pushing them off, and settling between Draco's legs.

He bent down to press their mouths together and Draco reached out to wrap an arm around his neck and deepen the kiss, but he was sloppy in his alcholic state. Still, emboldened by drink, he broke away to whisper, "take me, Harry… I need you so badly please, please…" his voice thick with lust.

Potter growled into his ear and Draco felt the warm tingle of a lubricus charm and he gasped as fingers breached him, sliding rhythmically, stretching him, filling him. The room was spinning and he faintly thought this might actually be a really bad idea, but then Potter's finger brushed against his prostate and the haze became a shower of sparks and he cried out and pleaded, "now, please, I need you inside me right now…"

Potter pulled up Draco's legs pressed them against his chest, positioned himself, and then thrust into him in one stroke. Draco arched his back, groaning at the sudden fullness, and prickle of pain, pleasantly dulled by the alcohol. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes as Potter started moving inside of him, starting slow but quickly growing faster.

Draco lay there, and let him move. But without being able to wrap legs around him, or lift his hips to meet Potter's thrusts, or twist his toes into the sheets, Draco felt so helplessly passive. It was beautiful and terrifying and… Draco hated it.

Absolutely hated it.

Before he could even register what, exactly, he hated so much, he felt his chest constricting and he was gasping for air and the tears were pouring down his cheeks and he couldn't breathe. Panic surged through him, threatening to lock his chest and his jaw and all he could do was shake his head no, no, no!

Potter stilled almost instantly, and through his unfocussed eyes Draco could make out an expression of confusion and fear on his face, and suddenly Draco was sobbing, openly sobbing, hands covering his face, as Potter pulled out of him and started to stammer, "Draco… I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I've hurt you…. oh gods, I'm so sorry…. I'm such and idiot…"

Draco tried furiously to wipe away the tears and clear his eyes, but he was so overcome with the humiliation of it all, and he couldn't settle his breathing… and Potter was already putting on his shorts again. Draco tried to reach out and stop him… tell him that leaving wasn't helping… leaving would only make it worse… wanted to ask him to stay… please, please stay…. But he couldn't speak, he could only sob, and Potter left him there, alone…


Draco woke drenched in urine and crusted in dried vomit, with a splitting headache. He struggled his into the shower, head reeling, and actually vomited again once he managed to disrobe and get into the shower chair. Potter was waiting for him when he got out, the pile of soiled sheets on the floor at his feet.

Draco wheeled past him and tried to fight the blush of humiliation as he remembered the catastrophe of the night before.

"Draco… listen… I'm sorry," Potter said.

"It's fine."

"No, it's not. Look, Draco, look at me," he said, and Draco turned to look at him, gritting his teeth and willing himself not to react to whatever Potter was about to say. "Can we still be friends?" he asked quietly.

Draco nodded.

It shouldn't hurt, really. Bad enough to have a cripple living in your house, but then to have said cripple try to seduce you while drunk, and then have him burst into tears right in the middle of it… there is only so much crazy anyone is willing to put up with. Potter apparently had a pretty high threshold, but even he had his limits.

"Friends," he agreed, and went to pretend to get dressed so that Potter would leave.

Clearly Potter regretted it as much as Draco did. Ok. He took a deep breath. This is why Draco needed to leave.

On the plus side, despite the alcohol-soaked haze in which his memories of the night before were still saturating, Draco felt like he could confidently say that a life of celibacy was infinitely preferable to the kind of vulnerability he had been subjected to last night.

Maybe some people could handle that, but Draco was not a Gryffindor, he understood his limits. Last night he had been entirely too powerless and although maybe that might have appealed to him when he was young, and whole, he was already so powerless now that there could be no pleasure in it, only bitterness.

He rolled downstairs around noon, found himself a new bottle, and rolled back out into the hallway to go upstairs.

And then he saw the crate against the front door. Funny that it wasn't the two brooms, one adult and one juvenile-sized, that set him off. But it wasn't the brooms. It was the crate of Quidditch balls, a golden snitch painted on the dark wood, fluttering in place. Leather straps worn soft, brass buckles tarnished.

His chest ached with the reality that he would never fly again. He would never do so many things again. He knew this. He'd known this. Why was it upsetting him again so much right now? Again the realization seemed to hit him… as though all over again… and it was so unfair. So miserably unfair.

He opened the bottle and took a drink. And then another. He sat there, drinking and staring.

The feeling was not of loss, this time though. Last time he'd been hit by this, he had felt loss… but now, sitting here in this bloody chair staring at that box and knowing that if he released the snitch inside he would never, ever be able to catch it… right now, he felt impotent. He couldn't fuck. He couldn't fly.

He took another drink, allowing the anger and frustration to seethe inside him, bubbling up and compounding all his past hurts. His parents, dead. His friends, lost. His magic, repressed. Ten years now he'd been wandless. He'd already coped with that loss, long ago, but now, coupled with his physical disability and, as he learned last night, a state of absolute sexual passivity.

He felt physically, magically, sexually impotent.

And it was just too much… much too much for the last shred of his pride and self-respect to handle. He sat there, staring and seething and hating…

Suddenly, the sound of shattering glass split the air, and Draco felt himself thudding against something hard.


Draco opened his eyes, feeling groggy and out-of-focus. There was a strong smell of alcohol very close to his nose, and underneath it, something coppery. He felt suddenly nauseas, and tried to open his eyes.

He was… on the floor. Lying face down on the floor. He couldn't see his chair, but he couldn't turn around behind him to see if it was back there. He tried to lift himself up onto his forearms but cried out when a sharp pain shot through his wrist and arm. And there was something sticky and wet on his arm… he turned around and felt his stomach drop when he recognised it as blood. He heard a vague crunching sound as he tried to move and upon closer inspection found that to be glass. Glass shards, to be specific.

He'd fallen? Out of his chair? Or maybe he'd been jettisoned. And the bottle… it must have exploded in his hands. His magic, dormant now without a wand to conduct it, must have burst out in frustration and anguish.

Draco tried to shake his head to clear it, but the hangover from last night, and the pungent reek of evaporating alcohol that he had been breathing in for probably some time before he even woke up… made it difficult to think.

After thirty minutes of cursing everyone he'd ever known, who could walk, which was pretty much everyone he'd ever known… he drifted back into an uneasy sleep.

It was afternoon when Draco realized exactly how pathetic his situation really was. His arm had stopped bleeding, but it still hurt too much to bear very much weight. And he really didn't think he could drag himself with one arm all the way to the stairs, or even to his chair, much less get into it. His legs, completely useless, were now actually a hindrance, dead-weight that kept him stuck here, lying on his stomach on the floor, in a drying puddle of his own blood, spilled booze, broken glass, and… well shortly his own urine if no one came to rescue him.

His bladder control being what it was, he tried his best to hold off, but eventually there was nothing for it. The warm wet liquid spread around the crotch of his pants and into his trousers before spilling out onto the floor. He felt his cheeks growing red just at the thought, because, although he was alone at that moment, eventually Potter would come and find him.

Well, luckily Potter no longer thought of him as a sexual being, either, so the prospect of finding him like this wasn't going to be that different from most mornings, anyway.

Gods, Draco hated his life.

This… this had to be the worst it could possibly get.

Until… "Dad! Draco! I'm home!" Teddy yelled as slammed open the door and stomped in, slamming it behind him. Draco winced at the noise. Teddy nearly tripped right over him in his haste to get into the kitchen, but when he saw Draco lying there, he gasped.

"Are you ok?" Draco tried to reassure him but Teddy was having none of it. "Hold on – I'm just going to go floo Dad, ok?"

"That's really not necce—" Draco started to protest, but Teddy had already run into the living room. Draco couldn't see the floo from his vantage point, but he could see Draco sitting in front of it.

"Dad!"

"Hey mate, what's up?" Draco frowned at the voice. It wasn't Potter's.

"Uncle Ron, where's my Dad?" Of course, thought Draco. With his luck, it would be Weasley, of all people.

"He's out in the field, what's going on? Are you ok?"

"I'm fine, but…" Teddy paused for moment, looking at Draco, who shook his head vehemently. He sighed, and turned back to the flames, "it's not an absolute emergency, but he needs to come home right away, ok?"

There was a silence at the other end, and Draco thought that perhaps the call had been ended, but then he heard Weasley calling out, "Malfoy, are you dying?"

"Like you would care!" he called back.

"I don't. But Harry would kill me if anything happens to your ungrateful arse, so tell me if I need to come through this bloody floo and–"

"No!" Draco called out. "No, it's fine. I'm fine."

"I should bloody-well come through here anyway and give your ferret-face a good talking to, so you should count yourself lucky Teddy is there."

"Honestly, Weasel, I don't give a bloody fuck what you have to say to me!" Draco yelled, cringing at the relapse into immaturity.

"Watch your language, you fucking ponce!" Weasley bellowed through the flames.

"Oh, that's just typical…" he drawled, rolling his eyes, though Weasley couldn't see it.

"Don't give me that! I supported him! I've supported this whole fucking farce and you-" the stopped abruptly and Draco winced at the sound of whooshing fire, then, and clomping footsteps. He braced himself for the flood of humiliation that washed over him as Ron Weasley, son of his father's hated rival, stepped into the hallway.

"Oh shit, Malfoy, are you ok?" he burst out, rushing over and kneeling down on the ground beside him. When his eyes fell on the blood, swore and turned to Teddy, "floo Hermione."

"I'm fine, Weasley, fuck off," Draco protested weakly, but already Weasley's overlong arms were rolling him over and pulling him up to a seated position, his limp legs folded uselessly beside him. Draco cradled his injured hand but managed to sit stiffly, his jaw clenched, staring daggers at the wall and utterly refusing to acknowledge that he was now leaning on the bloody Weasel. "I'm fine, Weasley, just go away," he finally pleaded.

"I can't very well do that, can I? You arrogant bloody…" Weasley seemed at a loss for words, and instead just lifted him up roughly and threw him into his chair. He stalked down the long hall and back on his overlong legs, cross his arms, and glared at Draco. "You smell like whiskey and piss, Malfoy, I hope you're happy. Some example you're setting for Teddy."

Correction: this was the worst it could possibly get. If the floor of that miserable old house could have opened up and swallowed Draco right then he would have been eternally grateful. Certainly he couldn't possibly get any lower than this short of the floor giving out under him. Being looked down upon by a bloody Weasel with a sneer worthy of his own teenage years. Rock bloody bottom.

But before Draco could answer, Granger strolled in with a surprisingly cool efficiency and healed his hand and the side of his face quickly and quietly. Then she led Teddy up to his room. Draco sat there warily watching Weasley who had been leaning against the wall scowling while she worked. He winced when Weasley pointed his wand, but it was only to reparo the shards of broken glass on the floor. He summoned the newly repaired bottle and sneered at it. Draco ground his teeth and tried to ignore the impulse to ram him in the shins with his chair.

Granger returned quickly, and moved to join Weasley. Draco moved to roll up the stairs, when Granger called to him.

"We'll just be in the kitchen… ok?"

He didn't answer them. Instead he just wheeled himself back up the stairs and into a shower, before throwing on clean pyjamas. He considered putting on actual clothes, but decided against it. What was the point?

He considered not going down there, but of course they weren't going to go anywhere, and he really did not want them to come up to his room seeking him. He'd be better off just getting the yelling over with so that he could go back to lying in bed wallowing.

He rolled in to find them sitting at the table, each frowning into a cup of tea. A third cup, glowing under a warming charm, was sitting at his customary seat. Grudgingly he wheeled up and prepared for the lecture.

Surprisingly, it wasn't Granger, but Weasley who finally broke the silence. "I'm just glad you've shown your true colours before Harry got even more attached. Do you have any idea how wrecked he was on Sunday when he realized you were only pretending to be interested in him when you thought he could help you?"

"What are you talking about?" Draco was not sober enough to be having this conversation. Or maybe not drunk enough.

"Ron…" Granger said, and placed a hand on his arm, but Weasley shrugged her off.

"No!" Weasley cut her off, and then he leaned in and caught Draco's chair, keeping him from wheeling away from the invasion of his space. "Listen to me," he said, his voice quiet and deadly, "I've already had to pick up the pieces the last time you freaked out and left. So you need to man up or get the fuck out of here before you do any more damage, because Harry has been in love with you since he was seventeen years old."

"You're delusional," Draco scoffed, inwardly reeling at the implications of Weasley's claims.

"Oh you are both bloody impossible!" Weasley declared, throwing up his hands and storming out of the kitchen. A roar in the floo told them that he was gone.

Granger sat across the table and sighed.

"Go on," Draco sighed, arms crossed, "say what you want to say."

She swallowed, and then put down her cup of tea and looked across at him. "I'm really glad you're here, Malfoy. We'd lost hope in the last few years. I can't believe you were… I mean…" she flushed and stammered. "It's just awful. I'm so sorry."

"It's fine, Granger," Draco dismissed.

"No, it's not. And now the Auror Office is dragging it's feet, like they don't even care what happened to you?"

"They don't," Draco said bitterly, and took the cup of tea in front of him.

"Well, we do," she answered firmly, and Draco snorted. "Malfoy- Draco," she said, her voice almost painfully earnest, "I told you ten years ago, it's all in the past." Draco frowned to cover the wince at the memory of Granger's screams echoing through the cold, dark hall of Malfoy Manor. "You should have heard Harry when he told us you'd been found."

"Potter just wanted to satisfy his, what did you used call it? His saving-people-thing. Now that he knows I can't be saved, or fixed, the novelty will wear off. He'll move on," he said, trying to sound dismissive, but failing.

"Move on to what? He practically rebuilt the house for you to live here with him." She shook her head in an infuriatingly affectionate way. "Ron's right, you're both impossible," she said, and stood to leave.

"Granger?" he called, as she was almost through the kitchen doorway. She turned and looked back at him. He wanted to say, 'thank you' but it came out as a silent but firm nod.

Apparently that was enough, though, because she answered, "you're welcome," before heading into the living room and out through the floo.


Responses to your comments:

Hanai-kun: I agree, it would have been too good, and unrealistic, for him to get better. And I agree that Draco has to learn to feel better about himself before he can get involved with Harry.

Denise0949: Yes, in this chapter Draco gets to learn that he can't isolate and feel sorry for himself.

Serpent91: Thank you!

Asalea: Thanks for the tip, I'm going to read it when I finish with this. And I'm glad you like my take on Teddy.

lauren49ERS: Thank you!

AcadianProud: Thank you!

Justlookingforupdates: Thank you!

Tondayala Cherise Dupre: I'm so glad you like my characterisation of Draco, he's a fun challenge.

AlineDaryen: Thank you, I'm so glad you like the flashbacks, I'm always worried that they will be too hard to follow.

SeaBoundOphelia: Yes! Exactly! People are fragile and imperfect and tragic things happen, and one shouldn't need to undo all the bad, or "fix" everything that is "broken" in order to have love – for yourself, and for others.

blackcurrent: Thank you!

Ucelai: Thank you!

Dulinh: Thank you, I'm glad you like them together.

ariablu: Don't worry, Harry won't let him go. I'm glad you like it :)