September 2001

I had just gotten off my shift at St. Mungo's and was lying around reading the paper when I heard the knock at the door, around ten in the evening. I had only been living in London for a few months now, but I had already grown used to my new home. It was a really overpriced house, but I had been able to afford it of course. My parents had visited once or twice, but nobody else. I had lost touch with Goyle since the war, mostly because he and his father had been imprisoned. Whatever friends I thought I had in school were no longer around. So now I lived alone with nobody but Reg to keep me company. Which is why the knock on my door struck me as particularly unsettling. I wondered if it was just someone with the wrong address. I folded my paper up and threw it on the dining table before I went and opened the door to see who was calling at such a late hour.

If I was more prone to drama, perhaps I would have audibly gasped. But all I did was raise my eyebrows, "Harry?"

Sure enough, the boy wonder stood at my doorstep. "Hey. Can I come in?"

"Not here to search my house, are you?" I asked cautiously. The Ministry had already checked my father's home, and had not been able to get past his enchantments. I wondered if he was doing an extra inspection on my home as well.

"Do I really look like I'm on the job?" He asked with weak sarcasm. True enough, he was wearing nothing but his ratty hoodie and the blue shirt that I was pretty confident he had been wearing since he was fifteen years old.

"Fair enough. Come on in," I said, standing aside and holding the door open for him.

He slipped in and I shut the door. It had been three years since I had sent him a letter professing my love to him. It hadn't really surprised me that he never said anything back. For a while I convinced myself that it had gotten lost in the mail, but when Reg returned home I knew he must have read the letter. It was hard at first, but eventually I tucked my emotions in a nice box and left them there so that I could move on with my life. I had taken my NEWTs independently and had become a healer. I was surprisingly good at it. After all the hurt and pain I had caused a number of people in my time at Hogwarts, I felt that the least I could do would be to help other witches and wizards, a sort of shift in my karma. As if such a thing were real. This was the first I had physically seen of him since he had saved our lives during the Battle at Hogwarts. We hadn't spoken since we last stood in the Room of Requirement, trying to escape the fiendfyre.

"I don't mean to sound rude, but what are you doing here?" I asked, turning to face him. He had wandered halfway down the hall toward the living room. I followed him down the hall and watched him move to sit on the sofa.

"I — I needed to talk to you." He said simply, propping his elbows on his knees and looking down at the dark hardwood floor.

"What about?" I asked, sitting in a chair opposite of him. I didn't feel totally comfortable sitting beside him. Not that I didn't want to, but I suspected it wasn't what he wanted.

He ran a hand through his hair roughly. Despite his age, his hair was still a complete mess at all times. "Well, I don't really know how to go about saying this."

"Trust me, whatever it is, I can handle it," I said.

Harry took a deep breath and looked up at me, "Ginny and I got in a really bad fight. Screaming and yelling. And I stood there and I felt this brief flash of rage and I almost … I almost hit her. And it terrified me. I — I didn't know who I could tell. Didn't know who to turn to. I just apparated out here. It dawned on me that there was at least one person I knew who could understand without judgement."

"How did you even find my house?"

He shrugged, "I'd heard you'd started working at St. Mungo's. I went in and asked where I could find you and someone sent me the right way."

"So you came to find me after three years of silence and no communication, hoping that I would help you work through your momentary rage with your girlfriend?" I reiterated.

He frowned, "Well that makes me sound like a right arse, doesn't it?"

This brought a small smile to my lips, "A little, but to be fair I was an ass to you for most of our lives. And I owe you one for saving my life anyway."

"You don't owe me anything. Even if you did, that doesn't justify me ignoring you and then begging for help at the drop of a hat. I just didn't know who to turn to. I don't think Ron or Hermione would be able to hear me out or totally understand what I'm going through," He explained.

"And you thought I would know?"

He seemed a bit embarrassed now, looking away from me, "Well, I thought since you used to work with some of the darkest people...you've seen and done terrible things. You know what it's like to have that compulsion for darkness."

"Fair enough," I admitted. He had made a safe assumption. "What were you two fighting about anyway?"

He grimaced at this. He kept fiddling with his hands, picking at the cuticles around his nails, ringing his hands together as if trying to squeeze the blood out of them. "Well, it requires a bit of background."

"I've got plenty of time," I said, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms.

"After the battle, Hogwarts reopened and Ginny had to go back for her last year. Minerva wanted to keep a semblance of normalcy while the school was being repaired and made an effort to make sure Quidditch continued. Of course, Ginny was Captain of the team. I went to their first game with the family and she got hit by a bludger in the head. She fell from her broom a good forty feet. Nobody was able to stop her in time because it happened too quickly. They rushed her to the hospital wing. Her skull was broken. She was fine, Pomfrey fixed her up quicker than I ever thought possible." In my head I wondered why he thought a broken skull was much to worry about, having handled it a dozen times myself. Wizards were a right reckless folk. "You have to understand, I grew up in the muggle world where a cracked skull spelled out your death. I thought I was going to lose her." It was almost as if he had read my mind. I simply nodded and let him continue. "All that being said, after she finished school she started working for the Prophet for a little while. Well, just last week, apparently, the Captain of the Holyhead Harpies came to her and asked if she wanted to join their team. She brought it up to me and … I told her I didn't want her to join. She was furious. She knew why I didn't want her to do it, of course, but she interpreted it as my assumption that she was weak. Which isn't it at all. I just want her to be safe. It's pretty ironic that while we were arguing about this I got the urge to compromise her safety." He shook his head, clearly angry with himself now. "I just don't know what to do."

He grew silent and his head drooped. His shaggy hair covered his face and I couldn't help but wonder if he was crying. I waited a beat before finally speaking, "I'm sorry, Harry. You're clearly shaken up over this."

"No shit," He muttered. "I thought I was going to be fine. My connection with Tom Riddle's been severed. I shouldn't have any lingering darkness from him left in me. He literally killed it."

"With the horcrux and all that? I read something about it in the paper not long after the battle."

"I wanted to make sure people understood and didn't try to come up with ridiculous rumors as to what happened in the forest," Harry explained. He had gone to the Prophet and wrote an op-ed for them, and it made the front page. The entirety of the wizarding world now knew the truth of how Voldemort had met his demise.

"So now you're worried something may have gone wrong, that you might still have a bit of him left in you?"

He looked up at me again, nodding slowly. I could see the look of fear in his eyes clear as day. He was scared of himself. I knew the feeling well. My expression relaxed and I made a point of speaking softly, "Harry, just because you think of hurting someone does not mean that you have residual evil left in you."

"So I'm just a bad person? Independent of Riddle?"

"That's not what I'm saying," I said. "You are not a bad person for thinking such things. It's human. Everyone, muggles and wizards alike, have the impulse for violence from time to time. What matters is that you didn't act on it. The fact that you knew it was a terrible thing to do proves that you are better than you give yourself credit for. Your first response to an inkling of violence was to run away from the feeling and seek help. Now tell me, what part of that seems like something an 'evil' person would do?"

He slowly shook his head. "I suppose you may have a point."

"It's been known to happen on occasion." I smiled.

He made direct eye contact with me, taking me a bit by surprise, "You think I'm alright then? You don't think I'd do anything like that?"

"Of course you wouldn't. If the impulse ever arises again you'll just stop yourself. I have known you for years Harry, and I know that physically hurting other people is near impossible for you."

He smiled my way, "Thank you, Draco. That means a lot."

"Don't get used to it, Potter." I said light heartedly as I stood, assuming he was going to be leaving at any minute.

"Listen," He said as he still sat firmly on the couch, "Would it be alright if I just laid low here tonight? I don't think Ginny will have cooled down just yet."

This surprised me a bit, but I didn't let it show. "Oh, sure. I don't mind." I slipped my wand out of my pocket and summoned a few blankets from the linen closet in the hall. I let them fall beside him on the couch. "Let me know if you need anything." I said simply, starting to turn toward the hall.

"Draco?" He asked gently.

I stopped and looked over my shoulder at him. A weird sense of deja vu fell over me.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." I turned back around and headed upstairs to bed.