A/N: So sorry for the wait, I have been getting side tracked . . More angst for you!! Enjoy!

One week went by.

Then another.

Draco tried his best to fall back into his own life as best he could, sure that if he did he would be able to forget, to be able to put everything behind him and move on as if what had happened was only an assignment successfully completed. It should have been so easy too. After all, he barely knew the man that he saw plastered on the front of every paper and magazine, the outcry of the Savior returning resounding throughout the entirety of Europe.

But those eyes; they haunted him…

When he had gone into the office the evening after returning from the forest, he learned that the reason no one had come looking for him was not because they didn't want to but because they couldn't. Kingsley had made a point to find him and explain what happened, wanting to hear from Draco his side of the story as well as explain that he had not been abandoned. The magic the Greyback had cast over the area had kept them all in place, unable to move about the forest freely, holding strong against every spell they cast to counter it. It was ancient, wild magic that would break only when the curse on Harry did and it was speculated that the only reason he had been able to get through was because it had been Harry, or Harry's consciousness, that had brought him there. And they had not been there for a day like he had thought but nearly a whole week.

The entire time he listened to the older man speak, he carefully kept his questions to himself. He didn't care about the events that surrounded his breaking of the curse that had been set on the Savior of the Wizarding World. He didn't care about why it happened or any of the other details that he once would have absorbed greedily. All he wanted to know was if Harry was happy.

Yet how could he ask something like that?

How could he ask if the dark haired wizardhad regained his memories or if he wasn't going to have any lasting effects or even if he had happened to ask about the blond that had rescued him?

It wasn't fair of him to wonder those things. Harry had a life to regain and Draco had never once been part of it. What made him think he had the right to be so now? They had been on opposite sides in the war, at least until the very end where Draco had tried to change and very nearly failed. Apparently he hadn't made a better spy than he had a Death Eater. The only thing they had ever felt for one another was contempt and irritation, beginning on the very first day the boy had refused to shake his hand. Now he could understand why Harry had refused but it had begun a tradition of hate that they couldn't seem to break from. Even when it was all said and done, he had owed the man a life debt. Surely that had been repaid.

Except that it had been more than that and he knew it. He was reminded of it every time he went out and another article was printed about the Boy Who Lives Again, the green eyes staring at him from beyond the flat surfaces of the pages. It made him want in a way that he hadn't even known was possible and he tried to tell himself it was ridiculous, tried to convince himself he was crazy because a few shared words and a single broken curse couldn't possibly instill such strong feelings. Then he would think back, back to the way those deep, wide eyes had peered up at him, trust and longing staring right through him and he knew. Knew that he had been hopeless for Harry the moment he had called out for help, choosing Draco to be the one to set him free. The feelings burrowed deeper and deeper into his heart until they were lasting, like a steal structure encasing his heart.

All because Harry had shown him there could be something more and then had offered to be that something more.

Still, the weeks passed and he remained in the shadows. He couldn't bear to read the articles that were being written almost faster than they could possibly be printed for he was afraid it would make the longing, the desire, the need so much stronger that he wouldn't be able to resist. Harry would have remembered him by now, remembered the truth and he could not bear to think what would happen should he be forced to face that blazing hatred again. Once it had made him feel alive, because Harry Potter was at least acknowledging him. Now it would just break him.

So he did what he always did; went to work, kept his eyes down, did his job and went home. No one besides Kingsley even mentioned the fact that he had been the one to bring Harry back and it was better that way. There was a strange kind of comfort in people's hatred and distain for him because it was predictable. It would always be there, no matter what he did.

A month later, as his grey eyes watched murky water trickle down the glass pane of the window to his flat, he realized that he should never have allowed himself to hope for more. He would never regain his pride and he would forever be alone. Such was his fate.

And Harry Potter would never return his love.

TBC