A/N: Okay. So. I feel like I always add these disclaimers, but I really feel like I need to say them.
The thoughts and opinions of the characters in this chapter, and their reactions, are not necessarily my own. Just to emphasise that. Prepare for the wincing and the 'please stop saying that'-ing.

But otherwise, enjoy!

Chapter 7: Flung Backwards

It went well. After the first night Malfoy left his room, it went unexpectedly well.

For a time.

But just as Hermione had warned, a step forward was often accompanied by a following step backwards. Harry hadn't known what to expect, but an explosive fight? That wasn't it.

He was having a bad day. Not that Harry didn't often have bad days; more surprising were the good days, the successful ones, the ones where a visitor appeared and he could actually help them. Winter was slowly encroaching upon London, not quite arrived but nipping on the heels of retreating autumn. Harry trudged up the street alone but for the company of a silent visitor that pleaded at him with mute mournfulness.

Harry paused at the stunted path leading up to number twelve. He turned with heavy eyes towards the middle-aged man who similarly paused, and met his eyes as they faded in hopefulness. "I'm sorry," he said. It felt so inadequate that Harry almost bit his tongue off. Swallowing thickly, he dropped his gaze to the simple gate his fingers curled around like a lifeline as if it could support him, could help him.

It couldn't. No gate, however strong, could prop Harry up, and it certainly couldn't help the dead man. "I didn't know you, so they won't… they won't let me…"

He trailed off. The guilt that welled within him wasn't lessened by the fact that he knew it wasn't entirely his fault. Personal finances were a private matter at best, and savings were horded by banks like misers with their gold. A person who actually owned that money had enough trouble accessing the numbers. What chance did Harry have when he was acting on behalf of another?

His inadequacy wasn't even because he knew little about Muggle banks and the banking system. Harry understood enough to know that this man, the Muggle standing beside him with mournful eyes and clutching a repayment notification to his chest as though he'd held it when he'd died – he couldn't help him.

It wasn't because he didn't want to. It wasn't because he didn't understand how much the man's family needed the help.

It wasn't because he was oblivious to the meaning of the words 'repossession' and 'final warning'. That a dead man's family would be cast out for Harry's incompetence… it hurt. It ached, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Harry might not be inclined towards helping people who were alive, but he wasn't heartless. The thought of a mother and two children struggling again the inevitable hurt on a level deeper than muscle and tissue. And he couldn't do anything.

Closing his eyes briefly, Harry squeezed the gate in a bid for strength. "I'll talk to my friend," he muttered. He couldn't bring himself to glance towards the man again. "She might know what to do. She's a solicitor, so… I'll try. I don't know what I can do, but I'll try."

For a long moment, Harry stood in silence. The mournful whisper of wind chasing down the length of Grimmauld Place, dragging a film of blanketing night after it, seemed to echo his melancholy. When Harry finally raised his gaze and turned towards the man, he'd already disappeared.

But not for good, he thought. He'll be back, because I didn't help him. I didn't do anything. With a silent sigh, Harry pushed the gate open and trudged towards the front door.

Within the Black family residence, the hallway was as dark and gloomy as ever. Comfortingly so, Harry had long found. He kicked his shoes off and padded down the hallway towards the library. He couldn't help himself; he needed his mother, and even without knowing if she would be there, he had to check.

Harry had never understood if his parents and Padfoot felt his need. He didn't know if his silent pleas for their company called that insubstantial part of them that remained, begging them to step forth from wherever they waited and seat themselves in the library, or the kitchen, or upon the front doorstep. When Harry paused inside the doorway, however, it was to find Lily seated in her usual armchair and turning towards him expectantly.

She smiled softly, and though Harry didn't let himself cry, he felt the urge well within him and briefly blur his eyes. "Sweetheart," was all Lily said, rising to her feet and crossing the distance in an instant. Her cool, insubstantial hand stroked his face in a way that he was so familiar. It felt like fingers of ice, but Harry didn't mind. He liked this cold.

Closing his eyes, Harry tipped his head to rest against the door frame. He let his eyes slide closed. "I couldn't help him," he whispered.

"Mm," Lily hummed in reply.

"He had a family. Two kids. They were never well-off to start with, and since he died…"

"Mm."

"I don't know what to do in these situations." Harry sighed, opening his eyes to meet his mother's sympathetic gaze. "I'm useless."

"You're all they have," Lily whispered back, her voice as quiet as ever.

"Fuck load of good I am, though."

"You're far better than nothing."

"Am I?"

"Of course. You give them hope, if nothing else. Even without success, how many have been able to pass onward simply knowing that you tried?"

Harry didn't like to consider that question. It hurt in ways that mulling over Death only caused him to ache more deeply. When they found him, Harry tried. Most of the time he failed, and sometimes his visitors would pass anyway. What kind of a person was he that he failed the dead so badly that they gave up on him?

Unbidden, the thought of Malfoy rose in Harry's mind. What's the point? Malfoy had asked him more times that Harry could count. He never asked in defiance of Harry's suggestions, but almost as though he needed to know. As though he longed for an answer. I'm useless and I'm not good for anything. So what's the point?

The point, as Harry had attempted to explain, was to try. To keep trying because that was the point. Harry clung to that notion as much as he enforced it to Malfoy. He'd forced himself to believe it over the years. It was the only way he could continue without crumpling under the weight of his incompetence.

Harry might not be able to relate to much of Malfoy's thoughts or what drove him to act as he did, but that – that part he understood.

"That's somehow less reassuring that I think it's supposed to be," Harry finally muttered, because Lily was his mum and she was allowed to hear his doubts.

Lily's smile grew rueful. "I know. This visitor today – he left?"

Harry nodded, his forehead scratching the old wood of the doorframe. "Temporarily."

"Do you have a plan of what you can do?"

"I was just going to ask Hermione," he said. He swallowed, straightening slightly. Even speaking his plan to someone who didn't appear so heartbreakingly desperate as the man made him feel a little better. "She might have some ideas."

"I'm so happy you have her."

"I'm lucky," Harry said with a small smile of her own. "She keeps me sane – or at least helps me retain what sanity I still have."

"Do you?"

Startling, Harry glanced over his shoulder. He shouldn't be surprised by an abrupt voice from someone he hadn't noticed; his visitors always moved silently, and those that spoke as often as not did so unexpectedly. But Malfoy? Harry should have noticed him. He wondered if he would ever grow accustomed to having him in the house. He wondered if he even should. How long Malfoy would be around, Harry had no idea but… it couldn't be forever. If Harry knew anything, it was that it couldn't be forever. Such a situation would only be ultimately harmful. To both of them.

Malfoy had paused on the bottom step of the stairwell, leaning against the bannister as though to support himself. His was planted almost exactly where Fred usually appeared, seated with his elbows propped upon his knees. A flicker of discomfort for the thought – because that was Fred's spot – rose within Harry before he forced it aside. He pushed himself from the doorframe, turning more towards him.

Each day, Malfoy seemed a little better. Harry didn't know what to expect, how fast Malfoy was supposed to recover or if he even would, but he did seem better. His face seemed less grey and more simply pale. His frame was less sickly thin and more angular in a manner reminiscent of his younger self. He was still too skinny, the impression made even more pronounced for the too-short slacks Harry had leant him that he still wore, but it wasn't disconcertingly noticeable.

Most importantly, however, Malfoy was out of bed. He was out of his room. Harry didn't know what precisely had triggered his emergence – could speculate but wasn't certain – but he was grateful. Malfoy rarely appeared for anything other than mealtimes, but that was something. He was usually punctual for those meals, too. Harry had only needed to search for him a handful of times in the past days.

Which meant that it must be nearly dinnertime. Harry hadn't noticed. As always happened following a disappointing failure to help his visitors, Harry had lost track of time. His belly rejected the thought of eating, and escape to the master bedroom he was still painting or the attic with its quiet emptiness beckoned him with promise of comforting distraction. Harry would have readily embraced its calling, except –

Malfoy stood before him. Even if Harry knew precious little of what went on inside his head, he knew that his company was at least part of the reason Malfoy came out of his room at all. That he enjoyed Harry's company specifically was unlikely, but any port in a storm would likely be approached with open arms. Definitely for someone as grasping and desperate as Malfoy seemed. It was the same reason Harry received so many desperate visitors that he couldn't help.

Strangely enough, helping Malfoy felt a little bit the same. Not exactly, because no matter how Harry looked at it, Malfoy wasn't dead. The smell of Death that shrouded him continued to fade every day, and it felt good to notice. Nice to realise that Harry was somehow, without knowing how, helping Malfoy. Narcissa might have been the reason he'd done so in the first place, but Harry was growing increasingly aware of the fact that he would continue to help his once-rival regardless of that promise.

Harry cared. Only a little, but he did care.

With a glance towards Lily where she regarded Malfoy over Harry's shoulder, Harry frowned drew his attention back to Malfoy's interrupting words. "What do you mean?" he asked.

Malfoy plucked at the thin fabric covering his knee. "I meant, do you still have your sanity? After everything, I suppose – I mean, to most people, you appear to be talking to yourself."

Harry glanced towards Lily once more. She smiled slightly before, with a small shrug, turned and drifted back to her armchair with a gliding step. Harry didn't want her to leave, but her departure wasn't quite so uncomfortable as it might have once been. It felt less stark when Malfoy was demanding his attention.

"I know how it looks," Harry said, turning slowly back to Malfoy. "Most people think the same as you."

"The same as me?"

"That I'm crazy," Harry supplied. "For talking to people who don't seem to be here –"

"I didn't say I thought that," Malfoy interrupted quietly. "Merely that most people would."

Harry fell silent. It was statements like that, entirely lacking in provocation, that left him floundering. He knew his social fitness had lagged in his isolation, but he could usually navigate a conversation if it was brief enough. But with Malfoy… the contrast to the sneering, spitting boy he'd been was oftentimes startling. Malfoy was quieter. A little listless, but also calmer. Harry couldn't quite decide whether it was a good thing or not.

"You don't think so?" Harry asked curiously.

Malfoy continued to pluck at his knee. His gaze was trained upon his fingers, though from disinterest in Harry or some kind of awkwardness, Harry wasn't sure. "I believe you, you know. About the… the dead people. That you can see them."

Harry blinked. It wasn't the first time Malfoy had alluded to as much over the past few days, but it was the first he'd spoken in so many words. "You do?"

Malfoy nodded.

"That's unexpected."

"How so?" Malfoy frowned at his fingers where a nail dug into the old, polished wood of the bannister. "I would think it would be more unexpected if someone in my situation didn't believe you. It's a little hard not to."

"Talking to the dead is impossible," Harry said, quoting Ron from the first time he'd really discussed Fred with him. It hadn't ended well.

"Ghosts," Malfoy supplied shortly.

"This is different."

"How?" Finally, Malfoy raised his gaze. His eyes narrowed slightly, but Harry didn't think he seemed angry. "What makes them different from ghosts?"

Harry dropped his own gaze to his toes. The greyness of dust that likely already smeared his soles had begun to spread up the sides of his feet, darkening the whiteness. Harry chose to think about that instead of the answer to Malfoy's question: that his visitors felt different. That while ghost and portraits and memories were of a person captured at the moment of their death or when their likeness was being painted, his visitors were something else. They grew, changed, and remembered. They were a part of a person that couldn't quite leave rather than a copy of them.

That made it all the more important to help them.

"They just feel different," Harry said quietly.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Harry was used to such silences. Oftentimes, even if Malfoy was more partial to talking of late than he had been, he would go through a meal without a word before retreating to his room. Harry accepted his muteness. He wasn't used to talking during his meals anyway.

But Malfoy did speak then. Quite aside from the barely-there curiosity that he seemed to show for anything, a touch of inquisitiveness laced his words. "Who was it?"

Harry flickered his eyes towards him sidelong. "What?"

"That you were talking to," Malfoy clarified. "Who was it?"

Harry's eyes darted towards Lily's armchair. A pang of sadness arose within him briefly when he realised she was gone. "My mother," he said quietly.

"Your mother?" Malfoy sounded almost surprised at that. It was the most distinct emotion besides than grief Harry had heard from him since he'd found him weeks before. "But hasn't she…? Wasn't she…?"

"She's been dead for twenty-two years, yes," Harry said, assuming the words that Malfoy couldn't say. A weight settled upon his shoulders for them and abruptly Harry didn't want to speak of it anymore. He didn't want to pursue a discussion that could lead to contemplating just why his mother and father – and Padfoot, for that matter – remained at his side. It hurt to consider, triggering its own world of guilt.

Shaking himself slightly, Harry started down the hallway towards Malfoy. "It's dinnertime, right?" he said, ignoring Malfoy's slight frown with the change of subject. "You want it down here, or…?"

He trailed off suggestively. Harry might not know much about depression or those suffering from it, but Hermione had mentioned that urging people like Malfoy to participate more actively in his life and decisions could be of benefit. Who was Harry to question her suggestion?

Malfoy's frown settled a little heavier for a moment as his gaze turned absently towards the stairwell leading into the basement alongside him. "Why do you always eat in the kitchen?" he asked finally.

Harry cocked his head. "What do you mean?"

"You have a dining hall. Why you don't eat there."

Despite the weight still resting heavily upon him, Harry almost felt himself smile. No, he didn't know much about recovery. He didn't know how to help Malfoy, or what signs would suggest that he was getting better. But his words? The fact that he'd wondered at all? For whatever reason, Harry somehow felt a touch of satisfaction for it.

Even if it did call forth unwanted memories.

"I just always have," he said. "My godfather did, so… It's tradition, I guess."

Malfoy had turned his regard towards the dining hall that Harry had barely ever stepped into, but his gaze fwll back to his fingers and their plucking after barely a moment. "Oh," was all he said.

Harry pursed his lips. "Would –? I guess, if you wanted to have it there, then that's okay."

"I don't care," Malfoy said. His words sounded remarkably less petulant than they could have. Harry couldn't detect much beside true disinterest at all.

"Then why did you ask?"

Malfoy raised a shoulder. "Family tradition on my own end, I suppose. Mother –" He paused, his voice catching, before taking a deep breath and ploughing on. "My mother and father always insisted upon dining properly. It has felt somehow wrong to do otherwise these past weeks."

"Why didn't you tell me, then?" Harry asked quietly.

Malfoy gave another shrug. "Because I couldn't do otherwise these past weeks."

There was no real reply necessary for that. Not from Harry. He accepted the admission for what it was, rejected the urge to comment upon what Malfoy clearly felt discomforted by, and shifted his attention towards the basement steps.

"Kreacher," he called.

Kreacher appeared with a crack alongside him in an instant. He acknowledged Harry with a dip of his head. "Master and the Malfoy brat will be taking their tea?"

Malfoy had never seemed perturbed by Kreacher's term of address, so Harry let it slide as usual. "Please," he said. "But could we have it in the dining hall tonight?"

Harry had rarely seen Kreacher excited. He hadn't really known he could be. But Kreacher's eyes widened slightly and his shrivelled lips parted with something of a gasp. He was nodding vigorously a moment later. "Yes, yes, Master Potter. Of course, Kreacher will be bringing tea to the dining hall immediately, sir. What a wondrous thing, just as he is supposed to. Master Potter is making a very good decision, yes he is. A very, very good decision."

Then, with sprightliness bellying his age and creaking bones, Kreacher was scuttling down the stairs in a flurry of thuds. That enthusiasm – it could have something to do with his servitude of a real person again, or because apparently Harry's fulfilment of the 'right' way of doing things was affecting him. From Malfoy's words, Harry supposed that 'dining properly' was something of a pureblood form of etiquette.

Or it could have been something else entirely. It could have something to do with the fact that the aged cloak that had always muffled Kreacher's shoulders in a tight embrace, the smell of Death that Harry had first noticed over four years before had retreated slightly in the years since. Harry didn't want to think about that, or whether it was a good thing or not. He didn't want to consider what it meant at all.

Shunting the thought aside, Harry turned from the clattering in the kitchen basement towards the dining hall opposite the library. "Okay, then," he muttered, more to himself than to Malfoy. "I suppose we'll just..." He trailed off before padding into the room.

It was a long room. Dark, if no more shadowed than the rest of the building. Black and rich brown timber composed the length of the stretching table, the cabinet with its antique china pristinely maintained by Kreacher's specific dutifulness, and the hanging chandelier more modest than it could have been but still grander than Harry felt comfortable with. The sight of it all, the grandeur and refinement that Harry had never wanted a part of, abruptly added to the weight seeming to drag him down. It suddenly seemed far too much to carry that day.

The visitor and his failure. Lily's temporary visit cut short. The thought of a conversation with Hermione to come wherein she would tiptoe around disbelief of just why he was asking legal questions pertaining to loans and property repossessions. Harry found he had little energy to spare for Malfoy anymore, and flopped into the nearest seat.

Malfoy paused just inside the doorway. Harry watched wearily as he drew his gaze around the room, expression blank but not quite as listless as that he'd worn more often than not since he'd come to Grimmauld Place.

"This," Malfoy said quietly. "It reminds me of my own manor."

"Understandably, I guess," Harry said, dragging a leg up to tuck against his chest. He rested his chin heavily atop his knee. "You're related to the Black family, aren't you?"

"Yes," Malfoy barely, barely a murmur, and began a slow circumnavigation of the room.

Harry watched as he grazed his hand over the backs of the chairs. He followed the line of Malfoy's gaze as he briefly inspected the glass-fronted cabinets with their immaculately-lined china. After a moment, Harry closed his eyes. It was strangely comfortable, losing himself in the shuffling whisper of Malfoy's footsteps, the click of a door as he opened a cabinet that Harry had never looked into himself.

He heard when Kreacher arrived, smelt the wafting flavour of something distinctly cheesy, and heard the clatter of plates set upon the table. Harry wondered momentarily whether he would be able to stomach anything at all. He just wanted to sleep, but… Malfoy probably needed the company. It wasn't much a good example to set if Harry didn't eat himself.

I never would have thought a day would come where I was trying to be a role model for Malfoy, he thought idly. He couldn't even summon the energy to feel amused for the fact. He couldn't find the energy for anything, for that matter, until –

"The Malfoy brat should not be touching things that are not being his," Kreacher croaked, just short of a sharp snap. "The Malfoy brat should be putting things back."

Harry cracked an eye open, blinked hazily, and drew his gaze to where Malfoy stood across the table. He still stood before the cabinets, still silent and remarkably attentive, and that was all Harry had time to realise before his focus snagged upon the bottle in Malfoy's hand.

Harry didn't know where he'd found it. A cabinet, maybe. For all Harry knew, those beneath the china could have been stuffed with the most expensive vintages London had ever seen.

He didn't care. All that flooded Harry's mind was the sharp yet shadowed memory of a dark room scattered with bottles, the weight of Death slugging through Malfoy's veins, and Hermione's words, what were almost pleas when Harry had briefly partaken of his own bout with the bottle as a crutch.

He'd never found the stash in the dining room. How hadn't he found it? Harry suddenly, desperately wished he had – not so that he could have had it for himself, but so that Malfoy wouldn't have found it.

"Don't," Harry blurted out before he could help himself. He was on his feet in an instant, hands clutching the edge of the table. "Malfoy, put it back."

Malfoy, who until that moment had been frowning down at Kreacher at his side with a poor mimic of the glare he'd once worn so readily, glanced towards him. His frown shifted with it.

"What?"

"I don't even know where you go that, but –" Harry's fingers tightened in their grasp. "Put it back, would you?"

A confusing mess of emotions leapt across Malfoy face. Harry had never been good at reading expressions, but he understood the one Malfoy's finally settled upon. Annoyance. And a touch of frustration. And maybe something… something a little desperate.

His hands squeezed the bottle, fingers choking the neck as though it were that of a hated opponent. "What, you think I shouldn't have any?"

"I know you shouldn't," Harry replied.

Malfoy's lip curled in what wasn't quite a sneer. "Well, you are the authority on all things mental illness, apparently."

"Not in the least. But you're not drinking any of that."

"Because I can't control myself?"

"Probably not," Harry said truthfully. He ignored Draco's widening stare. "After what I've seen, it wouldn't be good for you."

For a moment, Malfoy seemed to struggle. Harry could almost heard the conflict clashing in his mind, a war raging between 'I can't be bothered to continue this conversation' and 'Let me do what the fuck I want'. Finally, his gaze returned to the bottle, and Harry saw his jaw tense.

"And if it helped me?" he said lowly. "Would you say I couldn't if I needed it?"

When Malfoy's hand rose to the waxed-sealed cork, Harry felt his whole body tighten, weariness abruptly swept aside. Quite against his intention, his magic flinched.

It shouldn't have done that. It shouldn't have been able to, not anymore. But it did, and before Harry knew what was happening, the bottle in Malfoy's hands was wrenched free and flung across the table cluttered with its steaming plates.

It didn't soar far. Harry's magic hadn't performed a full Accio charm in years. The bottle spun, flipped head over end. To Kreacher's squawk, Malfoy's wide-eyed attention, and Harry's preparatory horror, if fell. The shatter of glass, the glugging spill or wine, shouldn't have erupted so violently from such a fall.

But it did.

The dining room froze. Kreacher had fallen silent and balanced on his toes to peer wide-eyed at the mess on the table. Malfoy's stare had flattened, but stare he did. He was fixated, blank, but definitely staring.

Harry's hands trembled on the edge of the table. The drip of purple wine from the jagged edge of the bottle's broken neck, rocking gently in the centre of the table… It called forth images too stark to withhold or smother.

The spill of blood. The reeking scent of Death. The line of red on pale skin that Harry had only seen in dreams because he hadn't seen it, not really, not yet and he didn't want to see that. It hadn't happened. Not yet. Not ever. Blood and split skin and self-harm were words that Hermione used, not elements of his past. Just because it could happen to a victim of suicide, didn't mean it always did. It didn't mean it would happen to Malfoy.

Death didn't have to take so much.

But Harry's mind turned far from rational thought. Malfoy hadn't even moved, hadn't made to move, but Harry lunged himself across the table until he was almost off his feet. His hand flung forth as though to shield the wreckage, the sharpness of possibility, the only danger that could possibly present itself in Grimmauld Place because Harry and Hermione had made sure of it but they hadn't prepared for this.

"Don't touch it," he gasped, voice wavering. "Don't try."

Malfoy's gaze was still blank. His eyes were still affixed. Or at least they were for a moment before he slowly, slowly rising to meet Harry's. Then they weren't quite blank but flattened again, cold, and that felt almost worse.

His lip curled into a more pronounced sneer this time. "What do you mean?" he said shortly. When Harry could only shake his head, hand trembling above the wreckage, his lip curled further. "Just what exactly are you insinuating, Potter?"

He knew. Malfoy wasn't an idiot, regardless of what Harry had accused him of in their past. He knew, but he wanted Harry to say it. Harry didn't want to, but he couldn't quite help himself. "Don't – don't kill yourself," he managed, his tongue running away from him again. "I can't help people that are still alive. It – it doesn't work like that but… I don't want to help you when you're already dead. Please."

Malfoy flinched. His face visibly paled. The sneer faded from his face but somehow that felt worse. "You think I'd –?"

"It's a possibility," Harry said. "It could happen."

"You think I'd –"

"You could."

"My mother made you promise," Malfoy began again.

"Exactly," Harry cut him off. "She made me promise. Not you. That doesn't bind you to your word."

"It does as good as!"

"But you might not have a choice!" Harry said. His hand fell to the table, still covering the bottle, and he barely felt the bite of broken glass sinking into his palm. "That's what happens with depressed people, Malfoy. You might go through with it even if you thought you wouldn't!"

Malfoy flinched again. This time, his whole body recoiled with a step back into the cabinets. China clattered. "What did you just say?"

"It's not your fault," Harry continued, even though he wanted to stop. He felt as though he were regurgitating Hermione's textbooks. "It's… it's chemical. You can't control it, so you can't stop it sometimes. Of course I'd be worried if –"

"You think I'm incapable of controlling myself?" Malfoy all but hissed.

"I didn't say that. I said that you don't have a choice –"

"A choice? I can choose if I want to, Potter."

"But sometimes you can't."

"But I can –"

"But sometimes you can't."

Harry heard the frustration in his own voice. He couldn't withhold it, couldn't stop the words from tumbling out even if he didn't know what he was talking about. He didn't know what kind of depression would drive someone to try to try to kill themselves. The doctors and theoreticians who'd written the books Hermione so dutifully attended to likely didn't either. But the words just kept tumbling forth. "Sometimes, and possibly some time you're here, with me, when I'm supposed to be saving you, you might try again. Even if you don't mean to, Malfoy. That's how it bloody well works."

Malfoy was so pale his skin seemed translucent. A vein pulsed in his forehead, but his expression was otherwise carved from stone. His eyes were so flat they seemed like chips of marble. Silence seemed to roll off of him like waves, dribbling through the room. Kreacher was glancing between them but Harry felt himself suddenly unable to move too. Until –

"You don't trust me."

Harry blinked. "I –"

"You don't," Malfoy repeated. Something seemed to fracture in his voice. "I told you I wouldn't, but you don't trust me."

Harry hadn't known until then. He hadn't realised, couldn't fathom, that Malfoy needed company, needed to be trusted, as much as he did. He'd known on a purely observational level that Malfoy had changed with Harry's forced companionship, but this?

Not that it changed anything. Not that it held any real relevance to the core problem. Not really. "It's not a matter of trust, Malfoy," Harry said. "Trust entails you have a choice in your actions."

"You don't –"

"I think you think you have more control of the situation than you do," Harry said, though even as he said the words he knew he should stop. "I think you're forgetting that you already tried. You can't overlook a precedent like that."

Silence. Silence so thick and heavy that Harry could hear the crackling thrum of the record player three storeys above. Its upbeat tune was jarringly out of place.

Malfoy didn't say anything after that. Harry wondered if he even could. His face was so emotionless, so empty, that he seemed to be truly a thoughtless statue where he stood.

Except that statues didn't abruptly straighten. They didn't turn towards the door and stride on swift feet from the room. They didn't retreat with such speed that, had Harry anything to say, he likely wouldn't have had to change to voice it. Malfoy was gone before Harry could even straighten from where he stretched protectively over the broken remains of the bottle.

Malfoy was gone. He was gone, and…

His claims were wrong, but Harry knew he himself had been too. What was he doing? He didn't know what to say, didn't understand something so complex. He didn't know how to help someone, and especially not an alive someone. Why had Naricssa asked such an impossible feat of him? How could he help Malfoy when he couldn't even find the right thing to say to him?

"Master is bleeding," Kreacher grumbled.

Harry blinked out of his stupor. He hadn't even heard Kreacher draw to his side. Following the line of Kreacher's gaze, he turned his palm over. Little chips of green glass clung embedded to his palm, criss-crossed smears of red drawn between them. They painted a macabre image, like a poor attempt of Join the Dots.

Harry curled his hand into a fist. It barely stung in the face of the hollowness that yawned cavernously in his chest. He wondered if it hurt as much as it would have to have sliced his palm open purposely. The thought sickened him to his bones, but if Malfoy had even contemplated it for a second…

He might hate me for it, and I might have said the wrong thing – but I had to do it. That he hates me doesn't really matter.

Harry could only wonder why he felt like he was lying just a little.

A/N: Thank you once again to the wonderful people who have reviewed this story. You're all so wonderfully supportive, and I can't tell you how much it helps to hear your thoughts each chapter. Thank you so, so much, and hope to see you next time!