A/N: Second to last chapter. Almost there!
When Draco woke, he immediately wished he hadn't. He groaned. Everything hurt. His leg and his chest were wrapped, but it was more than that. Someone had obviously given him Skele-Gro, and it was working. Unfortunately, they hadn't bothered to give him anything for the pain. He shut his eyes and turned his face into the pillow as best he could.
He felt something warm on his hand and dared to open his eyes just a little. Someone was holding his hand, brushing it lightly with a thumb. He opened his eyes the rest of the way and followed the arm upward to see who was sitting there.
"Harry?"
"I'm here."
Draco closed his eyes and tried to relax into the bed. The events of the previous few days came flooding back. There were a few holes, though, such as who had attacked Harry.
"What happened?" he managed to ask.
"You took all the protections off my house. That bastard Yaxley—the one who was never caught—came after me. Apparently he was too stupid to know that first of all, I don't actually live there, and second, I don't have what he was looking for in my possession anyway."
"What was he after?"
"You don't know?" Harry sounded surprised.
It hit Draco with full force. "The elder wand," he said.
"Of course. What he doesn't know, though, is that part of my work was finding out whether something like that could be disabled. It can't be broken or otherwise damaged, but I've been researching whether its magic might be separated from the wizard who possesses it."
"Can it be done?"
"I believe so, but as I said, I don't have it. I returned it to where I felt it belongs."
Draco frowned, mildly confused. He would need to ask what Harry meant, but not until he was well enough to understand the answer. For now, he had a more pressing concern. "How did you keep Yaxley from simply disarming you and acquiring it?"
"Tossed my wand away. If I was already unarmed, he couldn't get it. Killing me wouldn't have made him its master, as discerned by Dumbledore and proved by Voldemort."
Relief washed over Draco. So that was what Ron had meant by it being a smart thing to do. Something seemed wrong about any other wizard being master of that particular wand. Harry would have been dead, but the wand would have died with him. Harry's interest in wandlore now made much more sense. The current situation raised a whole host of new questions, however they could wait. Draco relaxed back against the pillow.
"What's going to happen to Yaxley?" he asked.
"Fortunately, he and his men aren't going anywhere for a very long time. They're in Azkaban." Harry smiled, and it was reassuring.
The good feeling Draco had ebbed as he remembered there was still one thing Harry didn't know. "I need to tell you something." He tried to shift so he could look at Harry better, but it was too painful. He winced.
"There's plenty of time for that," Harry told him, "after you've had the chance to recover."
"No. I need to tell you now." Draco knew the longer he waited the less likely it would be that he'd be able to confess.
"All right." Harry reached out with his other hand and kept Draco's clasped firmly between his own.
"It's about the letters," Draco began.
"Letters?"
"The ones from Ginny. The ones she used to get you to fall for her."
"Wait—what? What letters from Ginny?"
Draco ignored Harry's confusion and forged ahead. "She didn't write them. I…I did."
"You've lost me. What are you talking about?" Harry shook his head, his brow creased.
"The ones she—I mean I—wrote to you whilst you were gone on your trip. The ones where I promised you all the things she would do with you when you returned." His face was hot as he recalled the intimate content of the correspondence. "It started with my helping her write to you because she was too shy to ask you for a proper date. After you were together, she told me she'd said she would write you every day but that she wasn't really going to do it. So…" He cleared his throat. "I did it for her."
He waited for Harry's rage, but it never came. Instead, Harry let go of his hand, leaned back and stared at him. "I don't understand. You think Ginny and I—you wrote those letters for her? So I would fall in love with her?"
Draco nodded miserably. "That's how it began, yes. Only she didn't know I kept going. I never said anything. I was going to tell you before, but it never seemed to be the right time, and then we were so busy fixing your house…" He trailed off. He didn't want to admit he'd meant every word he'd written when he could see how disappointed Harry was.
Harry just sat there, his mouth open. "Oh," he said at last. "Oh, my god. You mean you didn't intend—You didn't want—" He was shaking, and Draco was certain he was at last angry. Harry stammered, "I-I have to go."
He got up and almost ran from the room, leaving Draco alone, the pain of his shattered heart overtaking the pain of his shattered ribs.
Harry didn't visit him again whilst he was at St. Mungo's, and that was fine with Draco. He didn't want to face any more of Harry's anger and disappointment. He'd seemed so hurt and confused when Draco confessed, and Draco didn't think he could take another conversation about it. It didn't matter anyway; he'd known all along their former animosity and his status as an ex-Death Eater would have come between them at some point even if Harry hadn't been upset about the lies. Fortunately, Harry and Ginny were perfectly content with each other, and they didn't need anything more from him.
After he was released, he went to see Pansy to let him know he was out. She'd been in to see him as often as she could, given her busy schedule. The minute he stepped through the door, she rushed out to greet him with a fierce embrace that both warmed him and left him a bit winded. She dragged him over to a booth and sat down with him.
"You look much better," she commented. "Your heroics were all over the Prophet. I can't believe it was Harry Potter's house!" After a small pause, she said, "And how did things go with Harry himself?"
He scowled. "No idea what you're talking about."
She huffed. "Don't give me that. Your interest in him was more than the house. I haven't forgotten our last conversation."
Draco sighed. "Then I think you probably already know. How many times have we been in here in the last month?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that it's my fault he's with Ginny, and I've got no chance whatsoever anyway. He's straight, Pansy. Classic case of unrequited gay attraction."
"Did you ever bother to tell him how you feel?"
"More or less." Draco slouched in his chair and refused to meet her gaze. "Probably closer to less."
He explained the situation, leaving out a few of the details, such as the erotic content of the letters he'd been receiving in return. They were meant for Ginny, regardless of who the owl delivered them to, and he wasn't going to add reading her sex mail to his list of Stupid Things Draco's Done This Summer. When he was finished, he raised his eyes just enough to peer at Pansy.
She sighed. "You really are an idiot. You know that, right?"
He glared at her. "What are you talking about?"
"Are you so sure it's Ginny he's been interested in?"
"Of course it is. I see how they look at each other."
"Darling, you've been in here most nights with them, yet you still can't see it. Ginevra Weasley would have made a horrible Slytherin."
"Make some sense, Pansy."
She huffed and gave a dramatic roll of her eyes. "She wouldn't have been nearly sly enough to accomplish what she was attempting if it weren't for your stubborn lack of self-confidence when it comes to Potter. The answer's in front of you, and you're refusing to do anything about it."
"What answer is that?"
"Tell him how you feel," she said. "Try going for more this time instead of less." Her voice was dry.
"I can't do that! It won't change anything."
"Then there's nothing I can help you with, darling. You're going to have to sort this one out on your own. I will tell you this, though. You're not the only one who was obsessed back then. Don't underestimate yourself." She stood up from the table.
Draco stood too, undecided whether he felt better or worse for having confided in Pansy. He supposed it was a bit of both. He hugged her again, and she gave his cheek an affectionate pat before turning around and walking into the back.
It took another three days before Draco was able to return to work. He couldn't do anything but file parchments yet, but he was glad to be well enough for that at least. He needed something to fill his days instead of dwelling on the fact that he'd lost Harry for good, even as a friend.
When he'd been sitting at his desk for thirty minutes staring at the same piece of parchment, he decided to take a break. As he was rising from his desk, Ginny appeared in the doorway. She had a cup of tea and a small bouquet of yellow flowers in her hands.
"Welcome back," she said, setting the tea and flowers on his desk and embracing him gently. "It's good to see you." When he didn't return her smile, she said, "What's wrong?"
"It's nothing."
"It's not nothing. We've been working together for months now, and I know exactly when you're not acting like yourself." She hummed. "Which if I'm honest, has been for approximately the last month."
He huffed. "It's nothing you can do anything about. You've already got what you want, and so does Ha—Potter. Now that he's free from his cursed house, you can go buy a cosy little cottage somewhere and have lots of cute ginger babies."
Ginny opened her mouth and promptly shut it again. She stood there, her lips pursed, for all of three seconds before she lit into Draco. "Is that what you think? Let me tell you something. I assumed you would see right through me from the beginning, but you never did catch on to what a terrible actress I am. When it comes to work, you're brilliant—no one could deny that. But when it's something for yourself? You have no fucking idea."
He snarled at her coarse language to cover for his confusion. "Watch your tone, Ginevra."
She put her hands on her hips. "Please. You've been dealing with my mouth since I began working here. Don't change the subject. I cannot believe you bought everything I told you and didn't even once question it."
"I honestly don't—" he started, backing away from her.
Ginny's eyes blazed. "This was never about me, you idiot. He's been obsessed with you for as long as I can remember. When I owled him about my new job, he didn't even wait until he came home to start asking about you. I saw how you looked at him at the party and how he lit up around you. I started out just trying to make you jealous so it would motivate your arse to fucking do something about it, but it backfired when you helped me write those damn letters. Once you'd started, I did everything I could to get you to figure it out on your own. Didn't you ever wonder, even for five seconds, why I kept leaving the two of you alone? Why I never stayed after working in Grimmauld Place? Why I insisted on keeping it all anonymous? Why I fucking tried to get you to come with me on our 'date'?"
"I—yes," he admitted. "But you said it was nerves and the anonymity made it romantic and mysterious."
"And you believed that? Not to mention, you never bothered asking why he was sending letters to you and not to me the whole time he was away."
"You knew about that? But I—"
She rolled her eyes. "Who do you think made sure you got them?"
"I just assumed—"
"I knew you were writing to him on your own. He owled me about the letters and asked what to do. I told him to write back, and eventually whoever-it-was would be honest. I thought for sure after he returned you'd have developed a spine and told him how you feel in person. Apparently, I was mistaken about that."
"But the pair of you—"
She threw up her hands. "We've never been together at all—not for dates, not for sex, not for anything. It's you he wants, not me." She was breathing hard by this point, and she paused to suck air into her lungs. When she continued, Draco was forcibly reminded of watching her mother kill his aunt all those years ago. "Now. You get your arse over to his flat and you make this right, Malfoy, or so help me I will make you wish those Death Eater scum had taken you out." She marched to the door and hauled it open. Glancing back over her shoulder, she snarled, "And don't call me Ginevra." She stalked out of his office, slamming the door behind her and leaving Draco staring at the place where she'd been standing.
