[If you love someone, let them go. If they return they were always yours. If they don't, they never were.]

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(You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly.)

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Chapter 9

The first few weeks were as promised. Firecalls every night, owls every day, and visits to each other any chance they got whether it be by Floo powder or by Apparation. It was easy, but then again, the beginning was always the easiest to hang on to.

However, as weeks turned into months and months finally into a year which then turned into two years, the firecalls switched from every night to every now and then, the owls from everyday to once a few weeks and the scarce visits to each other stopped completely.

Then on the third year, correspondence stopped completely.

It had died.

The connection bonding the two people, the effort that they wished that they could put in, and the feelings of determination that had fueled them to do what they did.

Distance cut them apart. It had slowly sawed away at their feelings, their motivation, their endurance.

Draco was too busy managing his family affairs along with his father's near imprisonment in Azkaban once again while Harry had joined the Ministry of Magic as an accomplished and elite Auror. Business, life, distance, all of it had just thrust themselves onto the two people who had a duty and obligation to fulfill their responsibilities.

"Harry you have another assignment." A brunette set a stack of papers down onto the already overflowing desk while passing by," It's a group of former Death Eaters that managed to escape causing trouble again." She said as she disappeared out of sight.

The green eyed wizard sighed heavily barely glancing at the new stack of papers as he tried to organize the chaos on his desk. Being an elite Auror was good, but who knew that it was so much paperwork?

Weeks after week, Harry labored over writing satisfactory reports, reading assignment details, organizing his desk or at least trying to, doing active duty, and thinking about Draco.

It wasn't that he was trying to or voluntarily thinking about him, it was just that thoughts of him always remained somewhere in the back of his head no matter what he was doing. He didn't know how they had stopped communicating, he didn't know why he was still hanging onto a little thread of hope after 4 years had passed, and he didn't know if Draco still held onto the same feelings for him.

The monotonous cycle that he went through everyday numbed his brain, nothing was new, and he felt like he was always in some kind of auto mode where he just did things reflexively.

The former Gryffindor sighed as he stood up stowing his wand away in his pocket and grabbed the papers he had received just a moment ago so that he could read the details on his way to subdue the crazy bunch. He wondered how long it would take to bring them all down and make it in time for lunch break.

There were apparently around 9 former Death Eaters creating mass panic in the back alley ways of Diagon Alley. Harry would be the only one going to subdue them all in a quick and timely manner before things started going out of control.

After the great demise of Voldemort, crime rate in the Wizarding world crashed down and for a time most of the Aurors had almost no work until the world became peaceful again so to speak. It had seemed that after the lord of evil had died, criminals, villains and former Death Eater's alike had been too scared to do anything else but hide and wait it out until it was safe.

It was sort of ironic that the Savior of the Wizarding World was now an Auror who now moved around on missions 'exterminating' the so called Death Eaters trying to create chaos even though their precious dark lord was now forever gone.

Along the way Harry grabbed a handful of Floo powder and stowed away the papers full of information away in the inside pockets of his robes. The air around him was cool and he took no notice of the various Squibs, Witches, Wizards, Goblins and house elves as he made his way across the large room towards the fireplaces.

Here we go, Harry thought to himself as he headed towards a large brick fireplace lively with emerald green fire dancing and flickering merrily,"Diagon Alley." He said loudly and clearly before dropping the handful of Floo powder into the fire that he was standing in and braced himself for the dreaded sensation of Floo travel. There were many controversial things about the great wizard Harry Potter, however, there were one or two things that people all over the world could easily agree on, first was that he was single and the second was that he was a lousy Floo traveler.

And so as Harry finally exited out of the correct fireplace of some dusty and dark store near Burgen & Borkes , it was no surprise that as he stepped out of the sooty fireplace, he tripped on his own two feet and while flailing around to try and regain his balance grabbed a shrunken head and toppled down onto the floor in a heap of dust, old dried goat eyes and some pieces of old parchment.

Coughing as indiscreetly as possible Harry brushed off all of the items off of him, let go of the shrunken head, wiped his glasses and sat up trying to survey his surroundings and to make sure that he had not been heard to any outsiders who might have been wandering around the back alley ways of Diagon Alley.

Silence rang in his ears. The only sound he could hear were various slow feet shuffling against the cobblestone road outside and a few stray cats and dogs yowling and barking at each other.

When he determined that there was no one who had heard his arrival, he slowly got up from the filthy floor and dusted his black robes off, little puffs of dust and dirt coming off him and his robes as he swatted himself. He could smell the ash from the fireplace and the mustiness of the old and seemingly abandoned shop he had managed to somehow Floo to. What a miracle.

Harry automatically took his wand out and held it at his side, years of living in constant danger kicked in reflexively and he stood at taut attention listening and staying alert. His green eyes slowly scanned the dark and filthy area. Now how should he go about this? Go in with a bang or finish everything silently and quietly?

The lone wizard standing at attention in the room mused to himself silently, this was the fun part. It was deciding how he should go about his job that he took the most pleasure in.

"What a surprise, Potter." A familiar voice spat from somewhere in the darkness of the shop.

Harry froze instantly. His heart stopped beating and icy cold currents of shock coursed through him like a giant tidal wave. This voice…it hit too close to home, no, it did hit home. All the weeks and months of not hearing this voice had locked up something inside of Harry, and finally after hearing this voice, something inside of him collapsed and an outpouring of emotions burst out of it,"Malfoy." Harry's own voice was calm and collected as if he had expected to hear from this particular person. What am I saying…Harry's chest contracted painfully as he realized that both of them were back to using their designated names for each other. The dreaded last names…

The darkness obscured Harry's vision but out of the corner of his eyes he saw a shadow move and grow bigger as it walked towards him, and just as he had expected, it was Draco Malfoy. His hair as silver blond as ever and looking clean and cut as always. His face was the same emotionless face, but there seemed to be some unknown and half hidden emotion etched into the depths of his silver eyes. He was dressed in plain black robes with the Malfoy family crest sewn into the left breast pocket of his chest.

Draco stopped a few feet away from Harry. The distance wasn't far but it seemed like they were miles apart from each other.

"How have you been." The green eyed wizard's voice was unexpectedly calm and expectant.

Their eyes were drawn towards each other as if pushed and pulled by gravity itself. Magnetizing and hypnotizing.

Draco's perfectly arched eyebrows creased slightly as if that had not been the words he had expected Harry to say to him. It was as if he had had been forced to swallow some kind of noxious potion brewed by the one and only Hermione Granger,"Fine, and yourself?" his voice was smooth and even.

"Same." Harry said without hesitation.

Silence descended upon them like a heavy and stifling cloud of thick fog.

What else could they say.

What was with this superficial conversation. Draco frowned slightly, his silver eyes flashed in the dim light and the corner of his mouth turned down in distaste. He had expected Potter to run to him and throw those long arms around him and hold him close. This was not how he had imagined everything to be, this was not how he had wanted things to turn out, and this was definitely not how he had planned to meet Harry.

"What are you doing here?" Harry asked calmly as he rolled his wand slowly between his forefinger and thumb. There were a million questions exploding in his head, too many thoughts, and too many images appearing one after another.

"Funny you should ask." Draco replied mildly,"Did you forget that I own this place now?"

Harry started for a moment, surprised how he could forget such a fact no matter how small about Draco.

The silver eyes scrutinized Harry as if he was missing something , there was something wrong. Something terribly wrong, he could feel the large rift that had appeared between them during the time they had spent apart,"What are you doing here?" he asked cautiously. His thin white fingers curled around his worn wand inside the pocket of his robe. Harry couldn't be here to arrest him now could he?

Harry stood still as his green eyes took in Draco's form. He had missed it so much and now just being in the same room as he was in made the desires he had worked so hard to repress begin to stir and awaken like some giant beast coming out of hibernation,"I'm in the middle of a job." He replied evenly. He hoped that Draco couldn't hear his want and need in his voice,"Rogue Death eaters." He added almost inaudibly.

Draco almost guffawed at that but managed to suppress it and just gave a quick nod,"Well…don't want to get in the way of you Potter." He said briskly as he moved to clean up the mess that Harry had made using the fire network.

Harry felt his hands tighten into fists as he watched Draco pass by him. He could smell his scent, feel his warmth, his presence. It was everything he had ever wanted but why…why did he have to meet him when he was on a job? He desperately wanted to reach out and pull the slim blonde into his arms, to just hold him for as long as he could,"Right…" Harry said instead as he forced himself to put one foot in front of the other and made it to the door. He hesitated and turned back to Draco who was busy flicking his wand while muttering spells to clean up the floor,"I'll…..er…I'll be back…so just wait?" he managed to say loudly enough .

Draco stopped what he was doing and slowly turned to face Harry,"Sure." He nodded once. Afterall…there was so much to talk about, so much to explain….

Harry smiled crookedly but his eyes immediately brightened,"Great. It won't take too long." He promised as he rushed out the door to the shop.

Draco sighed but let himself smile a little, silence descended in the shop once again as the dust settled. He could see that Harry had not changed at all from his awkward and slightly cowardly ways. With a last flick of his wand, he finished cleaning up the last of the papers and shrunken head,"Terrible with Floo travel as always." He said to himself quietly as he walked back to his place behind the dusty wooden counter and waited for Harry to return to him once again.

….

I'm SO SORRYYY for the delay guys. I hope this long chapter made up for it a little. I'll be updating as regularly as I can now.

Reviews are welcome and thanks for being patient!