Disclaimer: First of all, I don't own the characters or any of the canon details, those are the wonderful Ms Rowling's. Secondly, sorry Ms Rowling for corrupting your boys in this way.

Pairings: HPDM

Warnings: Slash, obviously. Swearing, sex, etc etc. Rated for a bloody good reason - do not read this if you are under the age of consent in your country.

Beta: Consulting Shippers

"How do you feel?"

'Bored out of my fucking skull,' Draco thought to himself, shrugging his shoulders and eventually offering up the word, "Fine," instead.

Healer Tebb lifted an eyebrow.

"It's three years to the day since you first went under sedation, it would be normal to feel a little… affected by that."

Draco thought back to that day, so long ago now. It was hard to remember a time before the constant haze of potions and sleep but he could just about make it out: The sharpness of everything, the feel of it in his head, in his heart - the world he was just starting to wake up to again.

"Yes, well, like I said, I'm fine."

"I'd say it might even be normal for a person in your situation to feel… resentful."

Draco ground his jaw.

"Did he tell you to ask that?"

"If by 'he' you're referring to your father, then no… but I think it is something that concerns him, and so yes, he's the reason I'm asking – doesn't mean it's not a relevant question though."

Draco dropped his gaze, 'Do I resent the man who's spent the last three years drugging me up to my eyeballs, let's think…'

"Well I don't," he lied.

"If not your father, perhaps someone else? You might blame me for instance, or even yourself?"

"Nope."

"What about-"

'Don't go there…'

"-Harry."

Draco wanted to reach over and rip the name out of Healer Tebb's throat even as it was being said. With great effort he shoved the impulse down - staying sedative-free and having his life back hinged on him acting calm and rational, especially when it came to Harry.

"Harry did what he thought was best. He'd want me to move on with my life."

"Did he tell you that?"

"No, he didn't have the chance before he died," Draco told her, "And after… well that was all in my head, I know that now. But he loved me, and that's what you want for the people you love, isn't it?"

"Yes, Draco," Healer Tebb reached out to wrap a hand around one of his. "Your father and I wondered if you wanted to have dinner with him tonight?"

"Dinner?" Draco asked, "Like, solid food? With cutlery? No more replenishing potions?"

Healer Tebb gave him a promising smile, "We'll see. Why don't you pick out something smart to wear, I'm sure your father would appreciate that."

Draco frankly didn't give a flying fuck what his father would appreciate, but for actual solid food – the kind he could eat by his own hand – he'd do almost anything.

Harry shuddered and slunk down to the ground, wrapping his arms around his knees. Cold beads of sweat dripped down into his eyebrows as he curled his fingers into the dirt. Beside him, Voldemort let out an abject groan.

"What?" Harry spat. "If you've got something to fucking say about the situation then by all means just come on out with it!"

Voldemort simply grunted.

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

Something scurried out from a clump of rocks some distance away and headed straight for them. It was roughly the size of a small cat but moved closer to the ground and had long sticky clumps of fur jutting out at all angles. Harry grabbed for the crudely carved shiv he now habitually kept to hand and scuttled toward it, gnashing his teeth and waving the weapon overhead. The creature wavered for a moment between forward and back before making a hasty retreat.

"Fuck! Shitting fucking FUCK!"

The only reply came in the form of more grunting and Harry, in a fit of rage, grasped the bundled-up Voldemort in one fist and shook him violently; he was slightly ashamed of how satisfying it felt.

It had been three years since he'd punched is way into this circle of hell and he usually regarded it as the worst decision he'd ever made in his life. Instead of broken-down cars and dilapidated buildings this place had heat, and dirt, and fucked-up little rock-dwelling monsters that wanted to eat the flesh off his bones and he couldn't take much more of it!

He suspected there was no way to die in this place - to move on from it - except by their teeth. When he'd first arrived he'd explored every other option he could think of, even trying several times to crack his skull off the rocks, but this only bought him a few hours of unconsciousness at a time. Oddly, the creatures weren't interested in him then, they wanted him awake. Nor did they pay any mind to Voldemort, something which Harry harboured a great deal of resentment about.

Sometimes he'd gnaw on his hands to try to convince himself that he could go through with it. Once, he'd even let one come close enough to try. It had sunk its teeth into his leg and Harry had never felt such blinding pain. He'd scrambled away from it and had been frantically fending them off ever since.

"Oh dear, not interrupting a bout of self-pity am I?"

Harry swung around to find a squat, hobbled-over woman in a dirty grey cloak creeping towards them.

"Who the fuck are you!?" he demanded, brandishing the shiv once more.

"Never you mind dear."

"What do you want!?"

"My my, so many questions. Only to help you, that's all."

Harry's eyes darted around looking for some kind of ambush or trick.

"I don't believe you."

"You don't believe something good could exist here? Something that might want to do good? Then, pray tell me, what exactly are you doing here?"

"None of your damn business!"

The woman threw back her head and let out a shrill cackle. "Oh excellent, I knew you'd be a fun one."

"I'm not playing."

"Neither am I," she told him. "But I know things... For instance, I know that you get home... in the end."

Harry tensed, squinting at her, trying to pick out some detail that would explain her motives.

"How could you possibly-"

"Because you're Harry Potter," she said, as if she expected that to resolve everything.

Harry growled, "That doesn't mean I'm going to get home, it just means I was stupid enough to get stuck here in the first place."

"Ah, so you admit that you are quite stupid then?"

"I didn't-"

"Well you can't take it back now, especially not since it's true. I mean, look at you!" she cackled again. "Dragging that wretched creature around the underworld with you - it's a tattered old scrap of soul for Pete's sake, not the embodiment of all evil. It's not going to grant whoever gets its hands on it unlimited power to end the world. The most terrifying thing it's capable of is a bowl movement."

Harry furrowed his brow, trying unsuccessfully to formulate his argument.

"I could take him off your hands."

"You really do think I'm stupid."

"Oh do shut up. I simply want to… recycle him. That's what I do you see - clean up the things that aren't meant for here."

"Trust me, he's meant to be here."

The woman's eyes flashed. "Actually, you're each supposed to be somewhere else, but together… well... it went a bit wrong."

The wheels in Harry's head started to pick up speed, "Hang on – you clean up the things that shouldn't be here? You can send me home?"

"Where I should be sending you and where you want to go are not the same place," she said knowingly.

"Well how do I get home then!?" Harry demanded, losing patience.

She waved off the question. "This is a hard dimension," she murmured instead. "Don't misunderstand me, the others are cruel, monstrous places, but at least you can traverse them quickly if you have the stomach for it. This one though," she tailed off with a wincing sound. "It's long – slow. Not to mention horrifically painful."

"So… I do have to…" Harry's blood started to pound in his ears; he bit his tongue to keep from retching.

The woman smirked in a way so reminiscent of Draco that Harry's heart twisted on reflex.

"Perhaps not. I can move you 'next door', so to speak. By way of payment," she finished suggestively, eyeing Voldemort.

Harry scrubbed the heels of his hands into his face, "I can't…"

"Oh but you can, surely."

"I wish-"

"Yes?"

"-that I could talk to him again," Harry finished weakly. "Draco that is," he clarified, too in his own head to consider that this woman probably had no idea who Draco was. "I miss him so much that I can't think straight, and now I'm so lost…"

The woman cocked her head to one side, making the lopsided grin on her face seem almost balanced.

"I could stretch to that," she said slowly. "But that'll be it – and there'll be no going back. You'd better be certain you can live with those terms. You know the old saying… be careful what you wish for."

"I don't understand."

The woman reached into her cloak and brought out a long, heavy pendant. She cast a few words over it and it turned a translucent shade of purple.

"Touch this," she said, "And you'll be transported to the next circle. After that, when you wear this you will be able to speak to your 'Draco'. Though you should bear in mind that he may not be as receptive you'd think. Three years is a long time…"

Harry barely heard her. His eyes followed the pendant back and forth. With effort, he pulled his gaze away to study Voldemort one last time.

"He's really not evil?"

"Oh he is, but he's also weak and completely devoid of power."

Harry let out a long breath and waited for his better judgement talk some sense into him; it didn't.

"Fine," he said eventually.

"Really? Fantastic! One last thing dear..."

"Yeah..?"

In a split second her cheek was pressed up against his. "You have no idea what you've just done!" she rasped. In that instant she settled the pendant into his waiting hand and he was whisked away.

Draco and Lucius sat across from each other in the formal dining room of Malfoy Manor in relative silence save for the sounds of cutlery against plates.

"I asked the elves to make this especially, I know it's your favourite," Lucius tried carefully.

Draco managed a nod. In his head he was listing over and over the reasons why it was not in fact a good idea to jab a fork into his father's eye.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fi-" Draco stalled. His vision started to curl at the edges and he gripped the table until his knuckles turned white.

"Draco?" Harry's voice whispered in his head.

"Son?" Lucius asked, perturbed. "Are you alright?"

Draco shook his head clear. "Yeah. I'm fine. Sorry."

"Draco, can you hear me?"

"Are you sure?" Lucius asked again.

"I said I'm fine!"

Lucius recoiled the hand he had reached out in comfort and Draco immediately regretted the look of alarm on his face.

"Sorry, look, this was great. I just have a sore head is all, can I be excused?"

Lucius nodded, studying his son carefully as he pushed back his chair and stalked out of the room.

Many hours later, Lucius paced his drawing room. Dinner had been a welcome relief from his usual daily routine of forcing potions down Draco's throat, but he'd imagined it would be more – that it would mean more. In the years since the war their relationship had been hard. Lucius couldn't pinpoint exactly when Draco had stopped fighting him, but he had, and now he wanted nothing more than to have the bright, sarcastic, smart-mouthed version of his son back, because at least that Draco was his own person.

The heavy din of the manor's ancient brass knocker sounded three times. A moment later a house-elf came to let him know that the Weasley boy was in the entrance hall and Lucius dutifully made his way through the house to greet him.

"I heard you passed your auror exams, Mr Weasley. Congratulations."

Ron turned his head sharply towards the words, "Where did you hear tha-?"

Lucius cut him off, "Calm down Mr Weasely, nobody's been feeding me secret Ministry information - it was in the Prophet."

He watched Ron compose himself. "Well, then, thank you Mr Malfoy."

Lucius gave a curt nod and led Ron through the manor to Draco's room. Once there, Ron entered alone.

"Draco?" he ventured, confused to see the bed unoccupied.

"Yeah?" Draco replied. He sat at his desk, looking out over the gardens with his chin in his hands.

"Mate! When did-"

"Today."

"And…" Ron carefully moved closer, "How are you feeling?"

"Why does everybody keep asking me that!?"

Ron paused. "Well, probably because they want to know the answer? Just putting it out there..."

Draco turned to meet Ron's eyes, unable to keep the small smile off his face. "Well… that makes sense I guess."

"Seriously, Draco. You look... Well, I was beginning to wonder if you'd be staying a drool-fest for the rest of our lives."

"Maybe I will," Draco said softly.

Ron knitted his brows together in concern. "I don't understand."

"Three years without the voices, that's how long it took to get here."

"I know - it's been a hard road mate, but we've got there in the end, haven't we?"

"And if they came back," Draco ignored him, "Then I'd have to go back on the potions. And then how long would it be until they chanced it again. Maybe they never would. Maybe I'd never be free again."

"Who says they're going to come back?"

The first time Draco tried to answer his throat was too dry to make the sounds. The second time he managed to get out two words: "They are."

Ron felt his face turn cold. "Are you sure?"

"I can't live like that Ron, I can't go back."

"You need to talk to the healers-"

"Are you shitting me!? That's the last thing I need to do. As soon as they find out I'll lose any opportunity I have to get out of this."

"Draco, this isn't something you can 'get out of'."

Draco paused for a moment, wetting his lips. "I think it is," he said quietly.

Ron stared at him. "No."

"Yes."

"Why are you telling me this? I can't know this."

"Because I need your help."

"I'm not going to help you bloody well top yourself, Draco!"

"Will you keep your voice down!" Draco chastised him, but Ron had already started to hyperventilate and had eased himself to perch on one of the window seats a safe distance away from where Draco sat.

Draco frowned at him. "Look, I know this isn't what you would have wanted. We were friends, you and me… we still are… I know you probably imagined that one day, you'd come here and I'd be sat up and talking and we'd have a good solid man-hug and play chess and laugh about all the good times we had before all this shit happened… But I need you to put that to one side, okay? You're the only one who can help me now."

"I'm going to get your father."

Draco made for the door, successfully lodging himself between it and Ron.

"I can't let you do that."

"Let me past."

"I just need my wand. I can use it to get out of here, and then I can find somewhere peaceful and just-"

"Can you hear yourself? Peaceful? You know first-hand how little peace death leaves behind, how much hurt it causes. Why would you do that to your friends, your father?"

"Oh since when do you give a fuck about my father? And what friends, huh? The only person who still comes is you."

"That's because you chased them all away!"

"Didn't take too much chasing from what I remember."

"So that's what this is about? You're feeling sorry for yourself? You get your life back and realise it's just not worth the effort anymore so you decide to chuck it in?"

"You're not even remotely close," Draco hissed. "I can hear him, Ron. Right now. He's pleading with me to answer him. He says he needs me and he can't find his way home without me. How am I supposed to go about my life ignoring that? His voice… it's so full of misery, and I know it's not real, but... what do I do with that? I can't go back to the potions. This is the only other thing I can do."

"I can't."

"Please, Ron. I need help. I need my friend to help me. He'd want you to."

"He wouldn't."

"He'd want me to be free," Draco insisted. "Just my wand, that's all I'm asking."

Ron worked to steady his breathing and think, fists clenching and unclenching as he did.

"Alright," he said finally, "I'll get it for you."

"Tha-"

"Don't. Just don't."

A/N: Thoughts and comments always welcome.