Chapter 12: A Sideways Leap

"Who is it?"

With a start, Harry dragged his gaze away from the girl standing across the table from him. She wasn't a regular visitor, but he'd seen her twice before. Only once he'd tried to help her, as only once had she clung to his side for long enough that he could step out the door, but he remembered. He remembered them all.

Harry turned towards where Draco sat across from him, his gaze downcast and focused upon smearing spread on his halved scone. Harry frowned. "You'll give yourself a cavity if you use that much jam."

Draco didn't even glance towards him. He made a point of cleaning his knife on the edge of his scone before placing it deliberately upon the edge of his plate. Only when he'd taken a bite that was more jam than actual scone did he return Harry's attention.

"There's a charm for that," he said. "A preventative that stops sugar-rot."

"Lucky you," Harry said, rolling his eyes. "You get to abuse your diet and can remedy it with a spell."

"I can do it for you if you ask nicely enough."

Harry frowned. "No thanks. I don't even really like jam."

Draco frowned in return. "That's a cardinal sin, Harry."

Harry smiled a little. Just for a moment, he almost forgot that the girl stood in the room. Just for a moment he could smother the memories of how she'd died, of the family of the young suicide victim, and could pretend he wasn't haunted by his inability to help her.

Just for a moment, it was nice to linger in the knowledge that, just two days before, Draco had begun to call him Harry.

There was no particular trigger for the occasion. Nothing exceptional, and no announcement. It was simply that, two days ago, Draco had awoken and begun to call him by his name.

Harry hadn't realised how much he needed to hear it. He hadn't thought anything of Draco calling him 'Potter', but that he'd altered his term of address felt like something. It felt… nice. Harry didn't know if they were friends, if they even could be friends with Draco's hatred and resentment surely still lingering within him, but it felt nice nonetheless.

Just as other things had been nice. Like sharing a bed with someone as Harry had never done before, the warmth of body heat far greater than his own could produce anymore like a comfortable furnace alongside him. Like Draco's oftentimes silent companionship, or his increasingly arising conversations that were mostly Draco speaking and Harry listening.

Like the fact that Harry could see, had seen, that Draco was changing. That, just a little bit and just slowly, he was getting better. He had his Bad Days, and they were frequent enough not to be forgotten or not to notice the distinction between those and the Good ones, but Harry thought they might have even been growing a little less frequent than they had been.

Draco wasn't better. Not completely, and not even mostly. Harry knew that something still had to be done. He could see it, just as he could see that a simple box of pills actually seemed to make a difference. Draco needed something that Harry couldn't give him, and whether that was a Mind-Healer, a Muggle psychologist, or something else, he wasn't sure. He didn't even know what to suggest because Draco was taking small steps and Harry didn't want to rock the boat.

But they were better. They really were. And for purely selfish reasons, Harry was satisfied. This one time, this one person, he'd managed to help. This one person he'd been able to support past that moment of departure that his visitors faded into, and it was special. Harry hadn't done anything like that for a long time.

That he was actually enjoying Draco's company was only a bonus on top of that. How incredibly odd it was to think that so much of their teenage years Harry had wanted to knock his lights out. Draco still bore a semblance to his younger self, but there was enough change, for better or worse, that Harry couldn't think him a git anymore. Not entirely.

That company was not, however, enough to incite him to drown in jam and cream as Draco appeared inclined to most mornings. Kreacher, much to Harry's only recent discovery, seemed silently inclined to feed Draco's obsession. Maybe he thought that whatever ailed Draco could be driven off with sugar? He was certainly making the effort to try and ensure as much.

Harry winced in sympathy for Draco's teeth as he watched him take another bite, but a gesture in the vague direction of Harry's visitor distracted him. "Who is it, then?"

Harry spared another glance for the girl. Hollow eyed, her lips downturned mournfully, she was exactly the same as the last time he'd seen her. Still young. Still silently pleading. The reminder of her was enough that Harry's momentary jam-distraction was vanquished.

"She's someone I've seen before," he said. "That first time… A little while ago, when I started drawing the hippogriff in the master bedroom?"

Draco paused mid-bite. He nodded slowly. "I remember. The suicidal girl."

"Yeah. Her." Harry bit his lip briefly. He knew Hermione would caution him not to speak of suicide around Draco, but Draco didn't turn aside from it, so he couldn't himself. It would be overlooking a pivotal part of their circumstances, of how they'd gotten where they were, and though Harry supposed many in a similar situation to Draco might wish for that part of their experience to be overlooked, Draco didn't seem to. Not as far as Harry could tell.

"What does she want, exactly?" Draco said, staring in the direction the girl stood. He was surprisingly accurate with his directionality. Harry wasn't quite sure how he did it, but even without seeing her, he managed to look almost exactly into her face.

"She wants me to give a note to her parents," Harry said.

"And you haven't?"

"I've tried. They chased me out of the house when I knocked on their door."

Draco frowned, his eyes darkening. "That's just rude."

Harry shrugged, picking at his eggs without tasting them. "It's realistic."

"No. It's rude."

"Most people don't want to be approached by someone who supposedly carries a letter from their dead daughter, Draco."

"Most people are idiots, then," Draco replied.

Harry smiled a little once more, though more ruefully than with real amusement. That was the thing. That was the one thing that Harry had grown so heartily glad of with Draco's company. Hermione sometimes understood – or tried to understand – that Harry saw the dead. She tried to believe it, and at times Harry believed she truly did.

But other times, it was apparent that Hermione deemed something was 'wrong' with the whole idea of it. That she didn't – or perhaps couldn't – believe Harry, and that though she placated him with nods and words of commiseration, she would shoot wary glances towards Lily's chair in the library, or across the table to where James sat, as though trying to convince herself that there even could be someone there.

But Draco was different. Whether it was the mention of Narcissa or simply that he'd been living with Harry for longer, had seen the arrivals of the visitors and even accompanied Harry on a few of his cross-city hikes, he seemed to genuinely believe him. Harry hadn't realised how much he needed that belief until it was given to him.

"What are you going to do about it, then?" Draco asked, shouldering his way into Harry's thoughts with another deliberate bite of his sickly-sweet breakfast.

Another glance towards the girl, still staring at him owlishly, and Harry sighed. He dropped his chin into his hand. "I suppose I should give it another go. Trying to visit them, I mean."

"Will they chase you out again?" Draco asked, placing the final bite of his scone into his mouth before proceeding to meticulously dust off his fingers. He was a bit obsessive about tidiness, Harry had noticed – or at least he was when he could summon the energy to care about such things.

"Most likely," Harry said, drumming his fingers on his chin. "But I've got to at least try."

"She'll stay until you've managed it?"

"Most likely. That or, if I don't, she'll begin to fade away unfulfilled over time."

Draco frowned once more, his eyebrows dropping low. "She doesn't scream, does she?"

"No," Harry said, shaking his head. "You'd know if she was screaming, even without hearing her." Which he would. Draco had known with the boy weeks before. It was hard to miss when Harry knew that he himself became so caught up in the throughs of distress.

"But she's annoying you?"

It was Harry's turn to frown. "She's not annoying me," he said. "She just needs help, and I'm the only one that can give it to her."

Draco pressed his lips together in a way that Harry had grown to understand meant he was intently considering something. He turned slowly back towards the girl, staring just over her shoulder as the only indicator that he couldn't really see her at all.

"Alright, then," he said. With a final dust of his hands, he rose to his feet. "Why don't we get it over with? I'll deal with this."

Harry stared up at him incredulously. He felt his mouth flop open. "Excuse me?"

"You're clearly approaching this girl's family in the wrong way, Harry," Draco said, sniffing. The gesture was so reminiscent of his teenage self that Harry almost rolled his eyes again. "So let me try."

Shaking his head, Harry shot another glance towards the girl. Draco had indeed accompanied him upon occasion, but he'd remained silent and at a distance. Harry didn't know why he bothered at all; it seemed a little redundant to him, or at least it surely was from Draco's perspective. For Harry, he silently appreciated the company in his disheartened trek home. He appreciated Draco's Apparition abilities almost as much.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Harry asked slowly. "You actually want to come?"

Draco paused in step as he started towards the stairwell, glancing over his shoulder. "Of course."

"Even if it might hit a little close to home?"

"A little –?" Draco's eyebrows lowered once more. "Isn't that all the more reason to do so? What's the point of having nearly done it myself without learning from it?"

Harry could only stare after him as Draco turned and disappeared up the stairs. He was… a little incredible. That he could even contemplate such a thing – Harry knew that Hermione would be dumbfounded, and he found himself of a similar mind. Not even about the subject itself, either, though that was certainly cause for stupefaction. Draco's words…

What's the point of having done it myself?

Harry shook his head as he rose from his chair. He wasn't quite sure from where the sudden motivation had arisen and suspected that it was likely something that would be 'there' one day and 'gone' the next, but it was nice. That Draco could even find such motivation… it was kind of nice.

"We'll go, then," Harry said to the girl waiting silently beside him. "I'll try again – or we will."

The girl didn't quite smile, but the tightness around her eyes might have eased just a little.

The trip through London this time was far shorter than it had been that first morning. Draco released Harry's hand as they stepped out of the squeezing embrace of Apparition, and he instinctively glanced around himself as though to ensure that they'd avoided Muggle notice. It would have been unlikely had they been caught given the narrowness of the alley they'd appeared in and the relative darkness of the gloomy sky, but Harry found himself doing the same nonetheless.

"Is she still here?" Draco asked.

Harry glanced over his shoulder and, as expected, caught sight of the girl barely two steps behind him. They always followed, Harry had realised. Somehow, through magic or somehow clinging to him, when Draco Apparated them, his visitors always kept pace.

"Yeah," he said. "She's here."

Draco nodded. Then he folded his arms across his chest and turned expectedly towards Harry. "Where to, then?"

This might not be such a good idea, Harry thought, pausing for a moment to stare at Draco. He didn't know for sure, had so rarely seen such an expression on Draco's usually expressionless face, but he suspected it breathed bull-headed determination as Draco's usual listless apathy so ardently spat in the face of. Harry wasn't sure if such an approach would be appropriate for the girl's family, but he supposed he had to try. He had to – right?

Starting from the confines of the alleyway, Harry poked his head into the relative busyness of the street beyond. He glanced both ways, then over his shoulder and tipped his head towards Draco. Draco took the unspoken message and fell into step at his right, just as the girl did upon his left.

The inner-city streets were plagued by traffic at such an early hour. Harry knew from his previous visit that, at barely seven o'clock, his visitor's family were only just preparing to head for work. Weaving through pedestrians and across crossings beneath the watchful yet inattentive eyes of commuters, he led Draco and the girl with single-minded intent.

Head tucked. Hood raised. Eyes lowered. It was a method Harry had learnt to employ out of necessity. He hadn't been caught out by passing witches and wizards in a long time, and it was less likely to happen in the streets of Muggle London, but habits were easily formed and hard to break.

Surprisingly enough, Draco didn't say anything at his side. He oftentimes became lost in thoughtful silence, but this kind of thoughtfulness seemed different to his usual. He regarded their surroundings as they passed each street, drawing from the thickness of the main roads and into narrowed but less populated residential regions in minutes. It was only when Harry slowed to a stop that he seemed to recapture his own attention.

"This is it?" Draco asked, drawing his gaze up to the terrace leaning over them.

Harry nodded. This was it. He would likely always remember the location of the quaint little house, its iron wrought gate and the modest garden with its perfectly trimmed hedges. The short steps leading up to the doorway were like a tongue spilling from the bright red door at their head.

"What did you do last time?"

Blinking, shaking himself from his staring, Harry eyed Draco sidelong. "What?"

Draco gestured in a vague motion to the terrace. "So I know what to avoid doing this time."

Harry glanced towards the girl at his other side, then back to Draco. He chewed his lip in a moment of wary silence. Was he really letting this happen? It seemed somehow wrong to have someone else deal with the request for his aid. But the memory of Harry's previous visit, of the girl's mother and her shouts, the distress that emanated from her and had driven Harry from the house as much as her words, was fresh enough.

He nodded. "I basically just asked her."

"Asked her?" Draco repeated.

"Or told her. I said I had a message from her daughter." He hitched a shoulder in a shrug, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his oversized jacket. He fingered the written note he'd kept for weeks that was folded within. "I tried to read out the words her daughter had left for me, and –"

Before he could help himself, Harry was turning towards the girl at his side. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm really sorry I didn't manage it."

"Harry," Draco said from his side, but Harry hardly heard him.

"Sorry that you've had to stick around. It shouldn't have been like that, and I didn't mean to hurt your mum and dad."

The girl blinked up at him solemnly. There was still no resentment, still no accusation in her mournful gaze. Draco nudged his shoulder, murmured something else, but Harry hardly heard that, either. "Is there anything you would suggest? You can just mime it to me if you'd like."

"Harry –"

"I don't want to upset them again if I can help it. You shouldn't have to see that –"

"Harry, you –"

"- not when it's such a simple thing."

"It's not a simple thing."

Draco's more forceful nudge as much as his words snagged Harry's attention. He turned slowly, almost unable to drag his gaze from the girl, but Draco's expression caught him.

He wasn't usually expressive. Harry thought that perhaps he wasn't able to be so much anymore. But despite that usual blankness, the solemn cast to his features that seemed suddenly so similar to that of the girl's was astounding. It was almost as though he felt what she did.

"I think you're misunderstanding," he said quietly.

Harry blinked. "What? What do you -?"

"Hearing from someone who's passed, even just a few words… That means a lot, Harry."

For a moment, Harry was unsure what Draco referred to. Then it dawned upon him. Stupid, he silently cursed himself. I'm so stupid. Of course he's thinking of his mother. That thought, that Harry hadn't even considered it, tightened his chest light a constricting vice. He'd assumed that Draco's main drive to help him had something to do with the similarity he had for the girl, but now he wasn't so sure. Maybe it had less to do with Draco's own experiences and more correctly his loss.

Harry had lost people, but not like that. Maybe that was where he'd gone wrong in the first place. If he couldn't quite relate, how could he properly empathise with the girl's family?

Nodding slowly, Harry turned back towards the girl where she still watched him fixedly. "Draco's going to help," he said, accepting that help properly for the first time. "So long as that's okay with you."

The girl blinked her wide, watery eyes. With what seemed an effort, she shifted her gaze towards Draco. Harry had noticed that apparent struggle that surfaced at times; much as those around him – Draco, Hermione, Kreacher – didn't seem capable of seeing his visitors, those visitors seemed to have a bit of difficulty themselves. With the exception of James and Lily, it was almost as though they had as little perception for those who were alive as was afforded to them in return.

Finally, slowly, she nodded.

"That's okay?" Harry asked quietly.

Another nod.

"Is there anything else you'd like us to try and do?"

Quirking her lips to the side, the girl frowned for a moment before reaching for Harry's wrist. Her cold fingers didn't really clasp, but Harry drew his hand and the note it held from his pocket at the unspoken request nonetheless.

He knew what it said. Of course he did, because he'd copied it down from the insubstantial phantom of a note the girl had shown to him weeks before. It didn't make much sense to him; it was riddled with apologies and heartbroken love, with more references to past occasions that would likely only make sense to her parents. It still hurt a little, though. It hurt to know that the girl had poured her heart out onto a single, simple page as her only means of saying goodbye.

Harry swallowed thickly, lowering his gaze down to his slanted scrawl. "Anything else you'd like to add?" he murmured. The girl only tapped it with a faded finger.

"This is it, then?" Draco asked, and Harry dragged his gaze towards him. He nodded, and that was all he had time for before Draco plucked it from his fingers.

Harry didn't get a chance to protest, to demand that it was private and Draco shouldn't read it, but Draco didn't even attempt to. He folded the note neatly and, with that same decisiveness that had clung to him since he'd realised the girl had appeared, he strode towards the red door.

"Draco," Harry began, hastening after him.

"Just let me try," Draco said, taking the stairs two at a time and rapping on the door before Harry had a chance to stop him. Not that he would have. He didn't think he could. That he should.

A pause met Draco's knock. A long pause in which Harry shifted uncomfortably in place, glancing over his shoulder towards the waiting girl. He felt like he should do something, should say something. That he should be doing more than simply standing just ahead of the girl who peered at the red door as though it were the gates into heaven. Harry supposed it almost was for her. Draco, however, stood unmoving and more confident than Harry had seen him in months.

A scuffle, the muffled thump of footsteps, sounded from behind the door and preceded its abrupt opening. The woman who appeared from behind, as short and dark as the girl alongside Harry, frowned in visible bafflement as she peered up at Draco.

"Can I help you?" she asked. And then she saw Harry.

Her face twisted. It fell into a pained crumple, flushed briefly, and then it hardened as she struggled to grasp hold of herself. Her mouth opened, and Harry could almost hear the shouted words she would speak tripping off her tongue.

Only for Draco to speak over her. "Don't," he said curtly, and even that simple word snatched the woman's attention towards him. "Don't rant. Don't rave and accuse someone of trying to help you. It's pointless, and it does your daughter a disservice."

The woman's eyes widened, flaring while her pupils visibly shrank. Her jaw worked once more and her stuttered words were choked and pained. "How… how dare you think that you… that you could presume –"

Draco wasn't cowed. He held out the note in Harry's handwriting, all but thrusting it in her face. "I don't know what she wanted to tell you," he said, "but it must have been important if she went so far to ensure you go it."

"You –"

"Read it if you will. Don't if your truly think that she wouldn't have left something behind, even after what she felt compelled to do what she did."

The woman's mouth flopped open. She stared up at Draco, her breath coming in stutters, and Harry felt something in his constricting chest seize further. He peered towards the girl as she stepped further towards the door, and cringed further at the sight of tears dribbling down her cheeks, at the silent, "I'm sorry," she mouthed like a chanted mantra.

The girl's mother trembled with a whole-body quiver. Her fingers, curled as they were around the doorframe, whitened as they clenched even further. "You have no right to do this," she whispered, her wide stare including Harry as well. "Neither of you do. Not after everything –"

"Probably not," Draco said, overriding her with all of the presumptuousness that Harry had once hated him for. "But I know that if someone I loved left before I could properly say goodbye, I'd grab onto anything that was offered to me with both hands, regardless of how it came to me."

When the woman's own tears began to fall, her resemblance to her daughter was made only starker. She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, shaking her head fiercely before glaring up at Draco. "You bastard," she whispered.

Harry was almost surprised when she reached for the note. She all but snatched it from Draco's fingers, shaking her head all the while. Then, without even glancing at it, she swung the door closed with a slam so fierce that, had Draco been standing an inch or two closer, he would have likely lost his nose.

Harry stared at the peephole for a moment before slowly turning towards Draco. Draco himself turned just as slowly towards Harry. He met his gaze and held it. "It's important."

"What is?" Harry said, his voice barely a croaking whisper. He couldn't manage anything louder.

Draco pressed his lips together, but the effort didn't quite hide their minute trembling. "Family," he said, a little hoarse himself. "Even when they're gone, they're important."

His words struck Harry just a little too hard. He squeezed his own eyes closed, thoughts of Lily and James welling forth. He could understand that. He'd never known them in life, but Harry could understand and appreciate the importance of them as he never had in life. He might not understand the kind of loss that Draco had endured, that the girl standing at his side struggled through, but he knew a different kind of loss.

Turning towards the girl, he swallowed thickly. "Is that enough?" he asked. "What else… what else can we do?"

The girl swiped at the tears dribbling down her cheeks with shaking hands. She shook her head, her bedraggled hair flicking her chin, and the smile she attempted was worse than if she'd not tried at all. No, Harry heard, even though she didn't open her mouth. No, that's all.

And then she faded. Just as countless other visitors had faded, she too sunk into gossamer translucency and then nothingness. Harry stared at the spot she'd been but not quite stood, unable for a long moment to look away.

"Well?"

Harry blinked. With a struggle, he tore his gaze from the emptiness and turned towards Draco. Another struggling swallow did little more good than it ever did. "She's gone," he managed.

Draco nodded slightly, almost knowingly. "I suppose whatever was on that note was enough for her."

Harry nodded himself. He didn't really understand, couldn't understand, because the note had only been a note, even riddled with words that he knew he didn't quite grasp the meaning of. "I guess so."

"So what now?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," Draco tipped his head in a gesture towards the door beside them, "do you have to do anything more?"

Harry glanced back towards the door, back to the empty peephole, and shook his head. "No. No, she's gone. That's it." Then he turned, hunched his shoulders, stuffed his hands back into his pockets, and strode towards the footpath once more.

Draco fell into step alongside him without comment. The warmth of his presence, a warmth that seemed to be making a concerted effort to rid Harry of the cold that dribbled through him, was reassuring in a way that Harry had only appreciated recently. Just that company, that simple companionship in the aftermath of his visitor's disappearance, meant more to him than he could say. More than he thought he voice.

I didn't know how much I needed a real person until he came along, Harry abruptly realised, staring at his shoes as he strode down the street. Mum, Dad, Padfoot… I need them too, but it's not the same.

"It's different," Draco said.

For a moment, Harry started. Draco's words echoed his thoughts so perfectly he could have been using Legilimency. As he slowed in place, however, Draco slowing alongside him and shoving his own hands into his jacket pockets, he saw the thoughtful contemplation wrinkling his brow.

"What is?" Harry asked.

"Her," Draco said. "She was different to the other one's I've accompanied you with."

Harry shrugged. He took a step closer to Draco to edge out of the foot traffic, and it was enough to be all but buffeted by that radiant warmth that Draco emanated like a fragrant smell. His own chill, a coldness that had nothing to do with the swirling winter around them, soothed just a little more for it.

"They're all a little different," Harry said. "They all have their own stories –"

"I meant for you," Draco interrupted him, his breath pluming in a thin cloud and brushing Harry's cheeks. He nodded, though it seemed more to himself than to Harry. "She was different for you."

Harry shrugged again. "Maybe. I don't know."

"It hurt to help her. That was why you were painting before, that first time she came to see you."

"I suppose," Harry said, though he could acknowledge the validity of Draco's assumption. It had hurt. "But they all hurt a little, and they all feel better when they're helped."

Draco stared at him, meeting his eyes with a stare that wasn't quite hard but captured Harry's attention nonetheless. It was a strange feeling, to be so studied so closely. There was less than a step between them, and Harry… He didn't really know what to do about that. He didn't know what to think. Being close to someone felt good. Even with the distraction of his thoughts, in the aftermath of his visitor's disappearance that always left him feeling a little hollow, a little tired, and just a little colder, he found himself drawn in an unprecedented direction.

It was nice. It was almost too nice, that Draco was with him. Harry didn't even know if it was expressly Draco or simply someone at all, but he found himself unconsciously clinging to that feeling, to that presence. He felt a burning sensation rise in his eyes and had to blink rapidly to suppress it.

But I can't have this, he thought, because he knew what would happen if anyone got too close. He knew why Draco had to leave, just as he'd been reminding himself for weeks, for months. He couldn't have him stay, couldn't do that to him, because he knew the inevitability of what would result.

Harry had seen the effects of his company in Kreacher and that was bad enough. He couldn't do that to anyone else. Hermione knew of his visitors, but this? This secret that he couldn't tell even her? It was a very good thing that she only visited herself once a week. If it was anything more than that…

I can't let him stay, Harry thought, even as tightness tugged in his chest. It's not good for him, and not only because he needs more than I can give him. He has to leave, even if he's not better, because…

"I think I can see why you do it," Draco said so quietly his voice was almost lost between the beeping, the chatter, the incessant noise that echoed throughout the city. Harry was drawn from his thoughts, peering up through his fringe, and Draco cocked his head in acknowledgement. "I think I get it."

"Get what?" Harry asked, struggling to smother the preparatory ache of loss that welled within him.

"Your purpose," Draco said just as simply. "It helps if you live to help others, I think. And that's your problem, Harry."

Harry could only stare at him. Problem? It was a problem to help others? Harry didn't think so. It was all that was keeping him afloat. "What do you mean?" he asked.

Draco pursed his lips. Then he shook his head, turned in place, and began to walk in a slow wander down the street once more. Harry followed just as slowly after him. "You tell me to live for myself, even if you don't do the same," Draco said over his shoulder. "And yet you're surviving now, if not quite living."

Tipping his head back, Draco breathed a puff of misty whiteness into the air. For a moment, Harry was caught by the simple sight of it. He couldn't do that. Whatever coldness filled him and from wherever it came, it seemed to have filtered into his breath as well.

Draco's sigh was real. It was a visible breath of air, and it puffed once more as he spoke. "I'll just copy you for a time, until I get better at it myself. This living thing, as you see it. Unless you have a problem with that, that is."

That tightness squeezed Harry's chest so tightly he almost couldn't breathe. Did he have a problem with it? Of course not. Not at all. Harry didn't want there to be a problem, would have been content or Draco to stay, and practice, and become, but –

But Draco still needed help. Harry knew that. He still needed to be – if not fixed, then at least assisted on his way towards healing in a manner that Harry knew he couldn't provide. More than that, he couldn't stay because it would hurt him. Because it was bad. Because… because…

Draco couldn't stay with Harry, even if Harry longed for the company. He couldn't help with Harry's visitors, even if he truly was a help, and he couldn't assume the purpose, the driving motivator, that Harry did, because it wasn't right.

More than that, though, he couldn't stay because Harry knew what his magic would do. He recalled the smell, the feeling, of Death that clung to Draco. The kind of magic that seeped off Harry himself, that latched onto Kreacher solely from their shared proximity. It was a different flavour of Death magic to the visitors, Harry he didn't think it was any better. He couldn't subject Draco to that. He simply couldn't.

"You need to find another purpose," Harry said, tucking his chin and lowering his gaze towards his shoes as he arduously picked up his feet to a shuffling walked once more, edging past Draco on the thinly crowded pavement.

"What?" Draco asked, voice and step following after him. "Is this further hypocrisy? That I'm not allowed to emulate your motivation."

It's not that, Harry thought, and for a moment he struggled to find the right words. The right answer. The right solution. It settled upon his tongue with as much relief as despair. "What about your family, Draco?"

Harry felt rather than saw Draco pause in step and, gaze still lowered, stopped himself.

"My family?" Draco asked.

Harry nodded. "Your father."

"My father's in Azkaban, Harry," Draco said curtly. "He's not coming out any time soon."

"But if he did?" Harry turned, head still bowed, to peer at Draco behind him. "What if he did?"

Draco's cheeks were slightly wind-slapped, but Harry thought his flush was for more than the cold. As Harry watched him, he saw his jaw ripple as it clenched. He saw the shadow of a vein pulse in his forehead, and the hollowness of his cheeks, a hollowness that wasn't nearly as bad as it had once been, darken once more.

No words met Harry's suggestion, but he knew the reply well enough. He didn't need Draco's agreement, his admittance that he would surely leave in a heartbeat should his father appear.

When Draco strode past him, back rigid and chin raised, Harry followed after him. He followed, and in those silent moments, he decided: he has a new mission, a new purpose, and though it might only be a brief chase, he would pursue it as fervently as he did the aid of his visitors. For some reason, he felt he owed Draco that much.


"I've got to ask Hermione something, if that's okay?" Harry asked that evening just before bed. Or it was what he'd said, but there wasn't really all that much asking about it. Harry had decided; he would do his utmost to ensure that Hermione took him upon on his request.

Draco shrugged and hauled himself into bed. His energy, if not necessarily his unexpected motivation, had rapidly waned throughout the day following their morning endeavour, and he didn't put up much of a fight where he would at times all but demand Harry find his own sleep at the same time as him.

Harry didn't quite understand that. He didn't know why Draco demanded, couldn't quite understand the drive fuelling that order, but he accepted it. Maybe Draco simply quietly appreciated the presence of someone at his back too?

Harry descended the stairwell on quiet feet, and he was falling to his knees before the basement fireplace almost before he'd snatched a handful of Floo powder from its pot beside the hearth. The flames flashed green only seconds before he pressed his face into them.

Despite the hour and despite what must have been a busy schedule, Hermione took barely moments to appear on the other end of the call. Her eyebrows, painted green to Harry's Floo-tinged vision, shot upwards at the sight of him, and she was instantly dropping to her living room floor in almost frantic haste to scramble towards him.

"Harry?" she asked, her tone urgent. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Has it been so long since I've called her myself that she worries something's wrong? Harry thought, and he mentally berated himself for his laxness. I should make more of an effort.

"Nothing's wrong," he said, hearing the apology in his own voice. "I just had to ask –"

"Can I help you with something?" Hermione leant towards him, and her eagerness, her tangible concern, warmed him even as it conjured a painful weight into his throat. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Harry repeated with emphasis this time. "I promise. Nothing's wrong."

Hermione frowned, rocking back on her heels. Her shoulders slumped a little, though she didn't appear wholly relieved. "Oh. That's good, then. Did you need to ask me something?"

"Of a sort," Harry said. He took a deep breath that tasted of ash for more than the closeness of the hearth beneath his chin. "You said you needed a poster child, right? For the VLF? Will you let it be me?"

Hermione stared at him, brow furrowing further. "What?"

"I want to help, Hermione, which is what I should have done a long time ago." Harry closed his eyes briefly. He really, truly should have stepped forth so long ago, even if it terrified him to thrust himself into the public eye from where he'd once withdrawn. He wanted to help, to really offer his help to all of the falsely or exaggeratedly accused victims of war. But in particular, to help one person… "What can I do to help?"

The decision had been made, and Harry was going to stick to it. He saw as Hermione's face hardened that, even if she didn't know why, she realised his commitment too. "Alright, then," was all she said, and Harry felt hope well within him at the same time as that weighty despair and woeful anticipation of loss arose.

It's the right thing to do, he thought. For Draco. For Lucius. For all of them. And if I can help just a few people…

It might have been different to helping his visitors, but at least Harry might be able to do that much. Just that much.


A/N: So I know that this story has been almost ridiculously slow-paced so far, but next chapter it picks up a bit. I promise. Looking forward to sharing it with you!

As always, thank you to the wonderful people who have reviewed, particularly those I've seen time and time again. I really appreciate hearing your thoughts, so if you have the chance, please leave a word or two! Both for selfish reasons and otherwise - to improve my writing and to get that oft-needed nudge to work a bit faster - it really really helps!