Albus was a mess when Harry told him. He had stood up from the table and shouted, his face red with anger and wet with tears. He hadn't even let Harry explain it properly, he had only let him say that Scorpius would die before he had jolted to his feet, shouting, "You're lying! He's not dying, he's my best friend! You're lying!"

"I wish I was, Al, I really do. I know it's hard, but-"

"He was fine at the burrow! He was fine, he was completely normal! They made a mistake! St. Mungos doesn't know anything! They couldn't even find the spell that was hurting you and Uncle Ron! What do they know? We'll take him to a new doctor-a better doctor! They'll tell us he's fine!"

"It doesn't work like that, Albus." Harry said, willing himself to keep his own tears back. He had waited until Draco had apparated home to break the news to Albus, and he was glad for it. "They are doing what they can for him, but right now there isn't much. It's a genetic disorder, they've determined. His mother had it, and she passed it onto him without knowing it. I'm so sorry, Al-"

"No you're not!" Albus shouted back at him, and wiped his sleeve across his eyes to roughly scrape off the tears. They were quickly replaced. "You're not sorry, you don't even know him like I do! You don't know what this is like!"

"I do, Al. I know exactly what this is like, I-"

"You have no idea, don't pretend otherwise! You didn't lose your best friend! You've never felt this before!"

"I'm sorry!" was all Harry could think to say. He was right; Harry didn't know what Albus was going through. Everyone he had lost had died in the war, or by Voldemorts hand. He had never been forced to stand by as one of his friends was given an expiration date.

"It's not fair!" Albus sobbed, his anger deflating. He looked at Harry as if he expected him to be able to do something; as if Harry somehow had the answer stowed in his back pocket.

"It's not." Harry agreed instead, his mouth dry and useless. He had always been his sons hero, and it stung that he couldn't save the day this time. He couldn't do anything.

Albus swallowed, gave Harry one last heartbroken look, and took off for the stairs. His bedroom door slammed shut with an echo that Harry heard in the sitting room, and he immediately crumpled on the couch, burying his face into his hands and willing himself not to shout at the horribleness of it all. Scorpius was a kid, a kid that he knew fairly well, and that he cared for very much. It didn't make sense that he had been sick the entire time Harry had known him. It didn't make sense that nobody else had seen it before. It didn't make sense that Harry, who had always been known to fix things, couldn't fix the things that threatened to pick his world apart by the seams.

He had never felt more tired and useless in his life. He couldn't heal Scorpius. He couldn't fight off a measly spell-or whatever it was that had been used on him. He couldn't admit that he liked Draco. He couldn't do anything, it felt like.

He went with Draco to the hospital the next day. Since Scorpius would be in quarantine for the week, the blond had decided to pack him a bag with clothes and books and stuffed animals-he had ended up packing seven bags, and Harry had been forced to tell him that Scorpius would only be in the hospital a few more days, and couldn't possibly need all of that stuff. Draco had glared, with tears still glittering in his eyes from hours of crying, but he narrowed their load down to a two medium-sized bags.

He hadn't been allowed past the front desk when they got there, but a small nurse with purple shoes and white robes had agreed to take the bags to Scorpius, and had promised Draco that his son would be just fine for the next few days. Draco had sniffled, and asked her desperately, "You can tell him I came, right?"

"I'll tell him whatever you please, dear." She said sympathetically, and rested a kind hand on his elbow sympathetically.

"Okay. Tell him-tell him I love him, okay? But don't just say it, make sure he knows I mean it. Tell him I would hug him if I could, and I would take him flying, and I would help him bake cookies if he wanted and-just make sure he knows I miss him."

"Of course, dear." She said, and hesitated a moment before she said quietly, "Just remember this; he is looking at you for strength right now. I know its hard, but I need you to be strong for him."

"He is strong." Harry said, a bit more loudly than he intended to. "He's the strongest person I know, in fact."

"I don't doubt that." She smiled kindly, and turned to Draco again, telling him softly, "I helped to treat you as a teenager, after the war. You probably don't remember me, because I was so young back then, just training, but I do remember you. You were strong then, and you've only gotten stronger. I know what you're capable of, Mr. Malfoy, you've just got to find it in yourself to be the fighter you used to be."

Draco nodded, lost for words, and a moment later they were in the lift going down to the cafeteria. The silence was long and awkward, and the pain weighing both their chests made talking seem too difficult. They went to the cafeteria in silence, and Harry bought them breakfast without asking what Malfoy wanted. He had a feeling it didn't matter, because if Harry wasn't there Malfoy probably would have forgotten to eat anything at all.

"Any headway in the case?" Draco finally asked when they finished eating their eggs, which had gone cold with how long they took to finish them. It didn't matter; Harry couldn't taste them anyways. Draco's voice was soft and shaky, but Harry didn't say anything about it. He knew what the blond was really asking for; a distraction.

"None." Harry told him, just as quietly. "Ron and I looked over everything just the other day, but nothings come of it. The healers think we imagined it, or its some effect from being an auror so long."

"You wouldn't cast that curse on your own." Draco said, determination in his set jaw, "And I'm almost certain you wouldn't have been such a prick if there wasn't something seriously wrong."

"The hallway." Harry remembered, paling. He had forgotten about it completely with all that had happened sense then. "I made you cry."

Draco flushed, and took a deliberately long sip of his coffee to avoid responding.

"Merlin, what did I even say to you?" Harry asked, groaning. He could remember exactly how devastated Draco had looked as he stood there, frozen with shock and heartbreak.

"You don't remember?"

"I blacked out, whatever it was that I said, I was too muddled up to hear it." Harry said, then added, because he thought it was necessary, "I really am sorry about it, whatever it was. I'm sure I didn't mean it. What...what did I say to you, exactly?"

"You don't want to know."

"No, I really do."Harry said, "Please, it will kill me if I don't find out."

He realized belatedly that maybe he shouldn't mention death, considering Scorpius's condition, but Draco seemed not to notice the slip.

"It was about my mom, I think. Said she'd be disappointed if she could see me now; gay and raising her only heir to be a Hufflepuff. I think you called me naive and foolish, too, and told me that I was just as pathetic as you'd always said when we were growing up."

"You're leaving something out." Harry accused, noticing that Draco hadn't once looked at him during the explanation. He was rewarded with a dark pink color sneaking up the blonds cheeks, and he knew he was right.

"You, uh, used some choice phrases about my sexuality, told me that my father would be disgusted, which isn't far from the truth, of course." He said slowly, then seemed to swallow, and his eyes met Harrys with a dark determination, as he said, a bit more strongly, "You said that I was pathetic to be falling for Harry Potter when he would never love me back. Said that you and Weasley laughed about it behind my back that I had such a big crush on you."

"You're falling for me?" Harry asked, nearly knocking his coffee over on the table they were sat at. Draco's face darkened six shades. Harry felt a smile slip onto his face, which he knew didn't belong there given the reason he was at the hospital in the first place, but it crept up his cheeks anyways and he asked, "You've got a crush on me?"

Draco glared, and said stubbornly, so red he had started to turn the color of Ron's hair, "You've got egg in your teeth."

"You've got a crush on me." Harry repeated, and ran his tongue over his teeth to work the egg out. Once it was gone, he smiled again, his chest buzzing softly. "Does anybody else know?"

"Scorpius told Ron, and he made me talk to him about it a few days before the burrow. I didn't even know Scorp realized it. I was, uh, going to ask you out at the burrow, actually. It probably would have gone better if you weren't under that spell."

"Yeah, I'd say it would have gone a lot better." Harry said, annoyed with himself for ruining things, even if he hadn't really been at fault. Then, another thought hit him and he asked, his heart warming, "You talked to Ron about me?"

Draco took another long sip of his coffee. Harry chuckled, momentarily forgetting about Scorpius and his condition, and teased, "That's cute, Malfoy. Did he braid your hair while you told him all about how good I look in my auror uniform?"

"Vanity doesn't look good on you, Potter." Draco snapped, "And if you're just going to make fun of me you can take me home."

"Can't you apparate?" Harry frowned, which was probably not what Malfoy wanted him to say, as he appeared distinctly upset again.

"My magic has been uncooperative lately. It's why I asked you to come with me today. Well, also because i didn't want to come by myself, but mostly because I've been so upset my magic is sort of pissed off at me. It gets like that when I'm depressed; it stops doing what I want it to, and kind of gets wonky."

"Oh." Harry said, swallowing hard. He hadn't meant to bring up Scorpius again. He had been doing so well at keeping Draco distracted. They were both quiet for a moment longer, and Harry couldn't fish out anything new to say, so he sighed and asked, "Why don't I take you home? The apparition point is just down a floor and past the check-in desk."

Draco nodded stiffly, probably out of tears to cry, and they made it to the apparition point in silence that was almost comfortable. Harry cleared his throat, and apparated them into Malfoy Manor with a crack. He and Draco stood staring at one another for a long time, not saying anything, and then Harrys mouth worked on its own to whisper, "If you had asked me out at the burrow when I was normal, I would have answered differently, you know."

"Oh?" Malfoy asked, his eyes dark and locked on Harry's mouth. Harry hadn't ever noticed that Draco was slightly taller than him, and it surprised him that the fact turned him on. "What would you have said?"

"I wouldn't have needed words." Harry told him, so caught up in Malfoy's grey eyes, soft and dark and lustful, that he didn't notice it when his knees lost feeling.

"Why not?"

"I would have been far too busy snogging you to say anything." Harry said, breathless, and his mouth was pressed firmly against Draco's in an instant. Draco's hair was soft and smooth beneath his right hand and Harry kept kissing him even when he pressed a little too hard and accidentally rammed his nose into Draco's cheek. He didn't think he could stop if he wanted to. It wasn't even the kiss that had him feeling so ethereal; it was Draco himself, with his soft hair, his hard eyes, and his warm chest and arms.

It wasn't perfect, and it wasn't at all how Harry imagined he would kiss Draco for the first time, but it was enough. He tasted like coffee and cheap hospital eggs, but it was enough because his mouth was warm and alive and his. Draco gasped when they broke apart, and said with a shudder, "Fuck, Potter."

"If you ask me kindly." Harry said automatically. He realized belatedly that he meant it; he would gladly go to bed with Draco if he was wanted there.

He was. Draco's hands came back from around Harry's shoulders, and thin fingers shook as they worked the buttons open at Harry's collar. He had never seen Draco look so conflicted, as if he knew what he wanted, but was scared to put his heart into it. Harrys hands moved on their own, closing over Dracos, and he held them in front of him as his breathing slowed. He needed to be able to think properly. Draco couldn't; there was too much going on; too much pain, too much want, too much of everything. Harry had to make the decision of whether they would go through with this or not.

Harry steadied himself, and looked at Draco carefully, trying to read his eyes. They were wet with tears, and wide with need, and it did nothing to put Harry at ease when Draco's mouth shivered on a stifled sob. Harry asked him slowly, meaningfully, "Is this what you want? You're not taking me to bed because you need a distraction, are you? You really want this?"

"I want you." Draco said, his voice wobbling dangerously. It was true, and Harry could read that in his face, but it still wasn't genuine. He was hurting too much; he was asking Harry to make him feel better for a moment that he might come to regret if he was given the chance. His son was going to die, and he was distraught, and Harry couldn't sleep with him without taking advantage of that.

"I can't." Harry said, and it was the most difficult thing he had said yet. He could, if he wanted to-and he did want to. Draco wanted to. But it wouldn't be fair; not to either of them. "I'm sorry, Malfoy, I can't."

"It's Draco when you're about to fuck me." Malfoy breathed hard, and Harry nearly came undone right there.

"Draco." Harry said softly, his head clearing once he found his words, "I'm not having sex with you today. I have Albus waiting for me at home, and we haven't talked properly about this at all. I'll come by tomorrow, and we can talk then, but you are way too upset right now. I don't want to make any mistakes."

"I'm not a mistake. I won't be." Draco said, practically begging with his eyes, wide and hurt. Harry knew he understood, though, deep down.

"Prove it." Harry swallowed, and snuck his hand back around to grip his wand, images of his kitchen in his head as he steadied himself. "Wait until you're ready. We can talk tomorrow. Goodbye, Malfoy."

Harry kissed his cheek, very quickly, and pulled back before he could get caught up again, then apparated into his kitchen with a pop. He almost kicked himself when the room stopped spinning. He had just rejected the man he was falling for, right after he found out his only son was dying. He nearly screamed in frustration. Why did he always have to do the right thing?

Albus was sitting on the couch when he went to find him, still in his pajamas, and he lit up when he spotted Harry in the doorway, saying, "I got a letter from Scorpius from the hospital! He's going to be released in a few days! Maybe he isn't that sick after all, dad. I mean, they're letting him go home, aren't they?"

"Maybe." Harry said, offering a weak smile. He had way too much on his mind. He didn't feel like breaking Albus's heart again. He went upstairs for a nap.

When he went down for dinner, Albus had another letter, and was grinning at Harry when he sat down. Harry frowned at him, and asked, "What is it?"

"You kissed Mr. Malfoy, didn't you?"

"What?" Harry spluttered, his face going hot and his hands feeling clammy with sweat, "Did Draco send you a letter? What the hell did he say?"

"No, Draco sent Scorpius a letter. And then Scorpius sent it to me as proof."

"What did he say?"Harry demanded, horrified but also touched that Draco had immediately told his son what had happened between them. Well, he hoped he hadn't told him everything, buthe had faith that Draco wasn't that open about his trysts with his son.

"Nothing." Albus smirked, and folded the letter carefully, "Just that you finally kissed him, and that you were a perfect gentleman, and even bought him breakfast. You're going to see him tomorrow, right? Scorpius says that he thinks it helps when he's with you. He talks about you a lot. Did you notice his shirt?"

"His shirt?"

"He wore the blue one that Uncle Ron and I picked out. It makes his eyes look stand out, and Aunt Hermione said that you didn't stop looking at him for ages the last time he wore it."

"Have you lot been giving Draco tips on dating me this whole time?" Harry gaped, amused and completely embarrassed that he hadn't realized it sooner. His own son was involved and he hadn't batted an eye. Merlin, if he hadn't been cursed, things would be a lot easier right about then.

"He's been crushing on you since that first Quidditch game." Albus snorted, with a roll of his eyes, and then went upstairs with the letter in hand, refusing to say another word on the subject. Harry was annoyed and flattered in equal measure.