Prompt: Red berries and leaves frozen on a tree.
Author's Notes: Wow, look at that word count. :) Is shamelessly trying to make up for my low words on a few of the parts last week.

In Auror training, they had spent a whole week on not going with the obvious answer. They were Aurors and not Hit Wizards for a reason. They dealt with the difficult cases, the ones the Hit Wizards had lost all trails on. But still sometimes the simplest reasons are the correct ones.

Malfoy laid bloody and beaten behind a trash bin not far from where he'd disappeared. Unconscious and covered in snow so that no one who wasn't looking specifically for him in that alley would have ever dug to find him. He was cold to the touch but not dead. Harry Apparated him to St Mungo's. That time Harry refused to leave the room Malfoy was in at anytime. The Healers just had to work under Harry's supervision.

It wasn't lost on Harry that his behaviour wouldn't have been allowed by any other guest, but he was Harry Potter and for once it should give him something he wanted.

For some reason, Harry had pictured them taking care of Malfoy as one of their own. He was a Healer and worked with them daily, after all, but they treated him with a casual indifference. If anything, they treated Harry with care. Yet he wasn't the one near death in the bed. Harry sat by his bed long after everyone had left and waited for signs of life.

Harry had stared at Malfoy a lot over the years. He watched him as he ate meal and made a habit of keeping track of him as he walked through the halls. All through Harry's favourite Quidditch games. They were boring without Malfoy there. But he'd never had the chance to look at him so up close and for so long without being disrupted by one thing or other.

A few hours after Malfoy opened his eyes for the first time, a Healer came in and discharged him.

'You can take him home whenever you're ready.'

'What?' Harry asked, confused. 'He hasn't been coherent since we've got here.'

'He's fine,' the Healer said. 'The potions will keep him sleepy for a day or so, but then he should be back to normal. Sleep is what he needs right now, but we have too many patients who need this bed for him to stay here. He can sleep at home.'

Harry wanted to point out that they are being neglectful to their patient by sending him off with just anybody—it was known that Harry and Malfoy didn't have the most friendly of history together—but he didn't want them to wise up to why sending him off with Harry was a bad idea, and keep Harry from him. They might let him go with someone far more dangerous in that case, so Harry settled for glaring at everyone as he took Malfoy to his flat.

When they'd found Malfoy in the beginning, Harry sent Ron back to Mrs Malfoy to reassure her that Draco was safe again, but at St Mungo's. Harry Floo called her after he had Malfoy settled and explained that he didn't want to worry her, but Malfoy still needed some sleep.

If she saw Malfoy the way he was, she would mostly be filled with as much anxiety as Harry was and he didn't want that.

True to the Healer's words, though, the next afternoon Malfoy opened his eyes again.

Harry might have just finished off a bottle of wine to himself and was opening another one when he heard the slurred, 'Potter?'

'Don't get up too fast!' Harry said. 'Your head was hit pretty bad and the potions they have you on are strong. You need to take it easy for a few days.'

'Where am I?'

Harry flushed. 'My flat.' He didn't add that he was in Harry's bed, but that seemed obvious as who else's bed would he be in at Harry's flat? 'Are you hungry? I could bring you something?'

Malfoy tried to stand and Harry quickly grabbed his arm to steady him.

'Slowly.'

'Yeah, food. Sounds good.' Malfoy's speech was still slurred and his eyes were only half opened.

Harry shouldn't have drank so much himself, he wouldn't be much help if he got himself so pissed he couldn't stand either. Thankfully, he had eaten some beef stew with his first bottle of wine. Malfoy made it halfway to the door and had to stop.

'Are you sure you don't want me to bring it to you?'

'No,' Malfoy said and pointed to the door. 'Walking. Downstairs.'

Smiling, Harry nodded and helped him to the door glad his flat didn't have any stairs they'd have to attempt. After a lot of stumbling, Malfoy finally agreed to sit on the couch and let Harry bring him some stew.

Harry held the bowl, not trusting Malfoy to keep it in his lap and brought the spoon to Malfoy's mouth.

'Don't.' Malfoy tried to push Harry away, obviously not wanting Harry to feed him.

'I don't want you to hurt yourself.'

Malfoy tried to snort. 'On stew?' He grabbed the spoon but dropped it under the weight of the stew a few times before he let his head fall into his hands. It took a moment for him to swallow and get the word, 'fine' out, but once he could sit up again he let Harry feed him.

Harry had to keep biting the corner of his lips to keep himself from smiling.

It was perverse and wrong. Malfoy was hurt and Harry should not be enjoying it, but he couldn't help it. Harry's hands began to shake as he remembered that first day at St Mungo's, pacing and waiting for news about Malfoy.

After half of the bowl was gone, Malfoy didn't have the strength to sit up anymore, so Harry helped him lay down. Harry ran out of the door before he was even sure if Malfoy had fallen back to sleep.

The cold wind hit his face and woke him up. Harry had needed it. He hadn't been outside to just enjoy the outside too long. Ron was covering for Harry at work that day, saying that he had more important things to deal with at the moment, but Harry really needed the break from work regardless of everything else.

Harry walked until he found a park and sat on a bench just staring around at all the trees covered in ice. There was no denying what had happened the other day, and once Malfoy was in his right mind again he was going to have to tell him all about it.

Malfoy's moods were so back and forth, Harry didn't know how he'd take it. Plus he was a pureblood, which just made everything more complicated in Harry's mind. Harry was sure Hermione would understand—there were cultural things that still tripped them up when it came to the magical world. Magical things that no one questioned. Magic just knew things, and they trusted it completely. Hermione knew why Harry had a hard time with that, even if she could logically talk herself into trusting it as well.

Like with the Fated One, the soulmates. Ron was perfectly fine with Harry and Malfoy somehow magically belonging together.

Malfoy.

It wasn't just the lack of choice in the matter—Mrs Weasley was right about no one getting to chose who they loved, and Harry might have to reexamine some of his past feelings—but what if Magic was wrong? What guided it? What if Malfoy wasn't really the person Harry wanted? Worse still: what if Malfoy didn't really want or love Harry back? Malfoy being a pureblood would just be with Harry, trusting it was the right thing.

That was the other way he saw Malfoy's quick turnabout.

He'd been just as upset by the idea of Harry being his soulmate in the beginning, but when the reality of it being true presented itself to him Malfoy just accepted it. Harry couldn't trust that Malfoy was there willingly, not with the way he was raised.

One of the trees had small red berries on it and Harry thought they looked the season and broke a frozen branch off the end of the tree.

Malfoy would probably think it was stupid, but at least they weren't flowers.

When he go back to his flat, Malfoy was asleep, and Harry decided that he was safe enough on the couch, and if they were going to have sort of conversation about soulmates Harry would certainly need another bottle of wine.

It was hours later—and Harry was through a couple bottles of wine—before Draco began to mumble in his sleep. Somewhere in the middle of the first bottle, Harry decided that if he was going to accept that not only were soulmates a thing, but that Malfoy was his, he should probably call him Draco.

So as Draco's words became clearer, Harry started to respond.

'Where am I?' Draco's eyes weren't opened, but it was the first sentence Harry could understand, so Harry was sure they would be soon.

'My flat. St Mungo's released you after giving you a bunch of potions. You just needed some sleep.'

'Are they gone?'

Although Harry's first instinct was to ask who, he was pretty sure he knew who Draco was referring to. 'Yes, I found you,' Harry said. 'You're safe now.'

'What did they want?'

'To hurt you.' Harry's throat contracted making it hard for him to breathe. They more than likely wanted his Draco dead, but didn't have the guts or nerve to actually throw the killing blow. iHis/i Draco. As if Draco were a popular enough name for him to think of Draco that way. Merlin, he was pissed. That might have been a bad idea. He was supposed to be taking care of Draco.

Harry kneeled down next to the couch. 'Do you want more stew? It's been a few hours, but I could warm it up or get you fresh.'

'No, thank you.' Draco was quiet for a moment and said, 'You saved me, again.' Then he laughed. 'I thought for a moment that I'd be the one to rescue you.'

Harry smiled and then kissed Draco's forehead. 'I'm an auror, Draco. I get into dangerous situations. It's part of the job. You just need to trust that I'll always come home.'

'Come home?' Draco squinted and stood up quickly.

'Come, sit and have a drink with me.' Harry gestured behind Draco to the couch he'd just leapt off of and filled two glasses with wine. 'You shouldn't move so quickly yet. It's not good for your head.'

Draco sat back down as he looked around him. 'Where am I?'

'My flat,' Harry reminded him. 'You were attacked in Diagon Alley and—well, I found you in the snow and took you to St Mungo's'

Waving him off, Draco said, 'I can figure out the rest myself . . . did you just kiss me?'

Flushing Harry glanced back to the pillow that Draco had been laying on just moments before. 'I might be a little tipsy.'

'A little?' Draco chuckled and Harry decided that he rather liked that sound.

'How's your head?'

'Better now that I'm sitting.' Then he took a sip of his wine. 'Ah, yes, much better now.'

'Careful, you probably shouldn't drink too much with all the potions they gave you.' Harry took another gulp of his wine and closed his eyes. 'Ron took me to the Bond Department while you were missing.' Harry stopped, hoping that Draco would ask a question or do something to stall the conversation, but he didn't. 'He thought it might help us find you . . . and he was right. It did. I found you. I found my soulmate. We're one of the lucky few that have them.'

As Harry downed the rest of his glass, Draco said, 'That bothers you I take it.'

'Yes.' Harry grabbed Draco's hand and held it tightly, refusing to look at him. 'And no—I have no way of explaining this to you; you wouldn't understand.'

'Now who is the one with the mixed signals?' Draco squeezed Harry's hand to make the point. 'Are you saying you did kiss me?'

'Fuck.' Harry pulled Draco to him and kissed him on the mouth that time. The spell the women at the Bond Department had cast on Harry made him want to the moment he'd seen Draco lying in the snow. The force of the spell slowly disappointed. His wanting to kiss him had not. Harry had simply watched him instead, but he couldn't hold back then. Not with Draco awake and Harry full of so much wine.

Draco felt so warm. Harry climbed into Draco's lap and devoured his mouth. Harry pulled back only to say, 'tell me you want this,' then changing his mind he said, 'no, don't say anything; your body can't lie to me, right?'

Harry kissed down Draco's neck and then up around his jaw.

'Are you saying my mouth will?'

'Yes,' Harry said in between kissing it. 'It will. It most certainly will.' Harry frantically moved against Draco, trying to satisfy his need to be closer to him. 'Show me you want this.'

'I'm trying.' Draco's movements were still slow against Harry's.

It made Harry slow down, remembering the situation they were in.

'I'm trying, Potter.'

Harry dropped his forehead into the crook of Draco's neck as he tried to gain control of himself. 'I'm sorry. I'm pissed and you're still injured . . .'

'Potter.' Draco pulled Harry into a kiss. It was soft and lingered like the wine on Harry's breath. 'I want this. How dense are you? I was suicidal. Haven't you noticed that going away?'

'What do you mean?'

'I knew. I've known for years,' Draco explained. 'I grew up with the knowledge of soulmates with them in our folktales. I had no idea you'd never heard of them until you invited me to read about them with you. I figured it out when—I just figured it out, and just like you thought when you read about George and the dragon: I thought you'd never . . .'

Harry kissed him, again. Talking was a horrible, horrible idea. Kissing was much safer ground. Because Draco was still weak, Harry kept it to that: just kissing. Just kissing and being wrapped in Draco's warmth.

It was all Harry needed right then.