A/N: Hello everyone, I just want to say hi to everyone who just started following this story right now and have me on alert. Aww, thank you. I also wanted to specifically thank ilreies for giving me such an amazing review on the last chapter. It really meant a lot to me to hear your kind words. As usual, please review and let me know what you think.

Enjoy!

Chapter 26:

Harry winced. It was very bright, and it was too loud. It sounded as though there was water rushing in, a loud swish-swish-swish.

Harry smiled to himself; perhaps Draco was right, and he actually made a sound when he brooded. Harry would have to save that one up to share with his boyfriend, if only to amuse Draco, because it most certainly wasn't true- Harry thought all the time; he thought about Teddy, and the Weasleys, and Ron and Hermione, and his work, but above all he thought about Draco. He had always thought about Draco, only now he couldn't help but think about him, because he loved and needed and respected him more than anyone except his best mates. Draco meant the whole world to him. Draco probably was his whole world.

"Draco," Harry said and then coughed roughly.

"Shh," someone said softly. "And you should probably close your eyes, if I remember correctly the lights are the worst part about waking up from stasis."

Harry thought that that person was an utter genius. He closed his eyes, relaxing back into his sheets. It didn't feel like his bed- it felt like someone else's bed, like someone else's home. Maybe Harry was in a hotel again- had they left Marbella? Harry tried to remember, but he really couldn't; and that also didn't feel right.

"He should be awake by now," a female voice said, sharp and confrontational, and Harry squeezed the hand that he was holding. He knew somehow that he didn't want this witch attacking the man that had told him to shut his eyes. He wanted more than anything to tell her to shut it, but Harry was too bloody tired.

"Hermione," another man said tiredly. "Please."

"No," Hermione said. "No. I know I'm right now, and I'm right about what happened too-"

"Let's leave them alone," the second wizard said. "Just for a minute, then-"

Harry closed his eyes. He was so tired-

Harry was floating in space. It felt light, light and free; and yet he felt grounded; tethered by the invisible little rope that tied his hand to the one gripping his own. Harry smiled. It was Draco. It had to be Draco; Harry knew that much, he could tell just by the way the fingers felt gripping his own, how there was a little callous over the right ring finger where Draco rested his quill when graded his student's papers. Harry noticed that- he noticed all of that.

"Time to wake up," Draco drawled, tracing his jaw. Harry winced- his head ached and he most certainly needed a shave. "Wake up, slumbering Stasis-head. Come along, then."

Harry opened one eye and grimaced. The lights were too bright and he felt as though he was on a stage or with awful photographers following him. Harry tried to pick up one arm, but it felt like jelly and it trembled awkwardly as he covered his eyes.

"Draco," Harry coughed. "Water?"

Draco conjured water with a sigh and cupped Harry's head; tilting the water from his wand into Harry's mouth.

"It's the potions," Draco said softly. "Some of them cause dry mouth and increased thirst."

"Oh," Harry said, shoving over so that Draco could lie beside him on the small cot. Even moving that much was like running a mile normally- Harry felt extremely winded; and extremely tired, as though all his bones had been grinded down with the mortar and pestle that Snape had forced them to use in Potion's classes.

"I should call over your mediwitch," Draco said, tracing the slope of Harry's nose with his fingers. He looked as though he was torn between whooping with unrestrained joy, and pulling back with Slytherin-like reserve. Harry sighed heavily, staring at the tiles on the ceiling. He remembered the fight now, the duel with Avery, Ron falling under Yaxley; Draco biting Avery's arm toward the end. Draco had been like that that whole weekend; himself, yet not himself. Harry hated how the stress and strain of the press and the case had burrowed yet another hole between them.

"Not yet," Harry pleaded hoarsely. "Will you tell me what happened- with Avery and Yaxley?"

Draco looked away from Harry and toward the wall. Harry immediately regretted asking Draco about the case; he could have waited to hear the information from Ron or one of his mates on the force, it was obvious that Draco would never feel comfortable speaking directly about some of the things that happened to him during the war. Harry felt upset and anger rise up in himself- he should have been a better Auror and not have allowed himself to be led by his emotions. Avery had sniffed that out about him in the first five minutes of being in Draco's flat and had used it against him. Harry had almost lost Draco because of it.

Harry had almost lost Draco. Harry felt a curious mix of relief and guilt mingle through him, and begin to harden like a stone in the pit of his throat.

"The scars will fade," Draco said, pressing a kiss onto Harry's neck and like always Harry felt a tingle of arousal mixed in with his exhaustion. "The Healers said so. Avery and Yaxley had a trial and they've gone to- to Azkaban, I assume."

Harry didn't miss Draco's little slip of a stutter. Did Draco sometimes think of himself serving a sentence for the mistakes he had made as a child? Harry squeezed his fingers, wishing he had the energy to rise up from the bed and simply leave with him.

"I'll fetch the mediwitch or the Healer," Draco smiled, fixing Harry's hair back from his face with the ghost of a smile.

Harry relaxed back on the cot and closed his eyes, hoping that he could fall back to sleep for awhile without being scolded by Draco and the Healers, but then he heard the loud whoop that Draco hadn't let out. It was Teddy; his hair was a bright teal-green and he looked as though he wanted nothing more than to leap on top of Harry and check his scars for himself, except for the fact that Mrs. Tonks was restraining him. Behind them stood Ron and Hermione, tired looking but not nearly as exhausted as Draco had seemed within the first sentence that he spoke. Harry felt sorry for them, but between cutting Draco out of his life or letting Ron and Hermione have their own; it seemed the better option to put Draco down as his emergency contact.

"Does it hurt?" Teddy asked, positioning himself in the space that Draco had vacated.

"No," Harry laughed. "It only looks like it does- but that will be going away, too- Draco says that the Healers said so."

Teddy looked put out by that fact, put out and relieved. Harry could hang himself by his own incarcerous for what he had put Teddy through. It was bad enough that he had deserted Teddy for over a year to gallivant around the States trying to find Draco in every street corner; now he had risked himself and Teddy's cousin because of his own emotional baggage. Teddy had suffered enough; and Harry knew that Mrs. Tonks was glaring at him to remind him of that fact.

"We'd better leave Harry alone, Teddy," Mrs. Tonks said, tapping her wand on her leg in a warning. "Come along, we can visit him tomorrow."

"Gran," Teddy pleaded, but when he saw the wand he sighed and hopped off the cot, toddling away with a morose wave for Harry.

"He's so cute," Hermione grinned. "Sometimes he looks so much like Tonks and then at other times he looks like Professor Lupin."

Harry thought it best that he didn't add in all the times that Teddy got the worst little malicious gleam in his eyes before doing a stunt on his broom and reminded Harry of Draco when they had been eleven or twelve. He could tell just by looking at Hermione that she and Draco had not come to a separate peace whilst he was under stasis, recuperating. Harry sighed- he wanted more than anything for his best mates and his boyfriend to get on, because if he had a say in it none of them would ever be going anywhere.

"How do you feel, mate?" Ron asked kindly, as though he could sense where Harry's mind was going. Good old Ron- and poor old Ron, always put in awful situations.

"Alright," Harry lied and then amended. "Tired, and sort of sore. What happened with Yaxley and Avery?"

"Azkaban," Ron said, looking very much like he'd like to spit on the lino flooring. "Life."

"Draco said as much," Harry said, and watched Hermione's face-yes, there it was, underneath all the polite expressionless expression. The disgust. Harry wondered why it wasn't there for himself; was it something that had to do with the war and what had happened at Malfoy Manor? Did it have to do with Hermione and Draco's old childhood enmity? Or was it a mixture of all the pieces of the puzzle, forming together to create a perfect storm? Harry didn't know- all he knew was that he wanted so very much for them all to try a little bloody more.

Harry laid back on the bed, frustrated with himself. He wanted to walk around and do something, anything. Harry had been home for five days and he was bored out of his mind, entirely bored. It was frustrating having to rely on Draco for every little thing while the wound on his stomach knitted up and the potions that he took every day healed the last of his internal injuries. Harry sighed- he knew that he should be grateful that once again he had escaped with a lucky break. But he was bored.

Harry looked at the books on the little rolling table in his room resentfully. Hermione had bought him all sorts of scrolls and tomes to read about Defense and Aurors and magical theory, but Harry had never been a literary worm like Hermione was; even at school he had often begged off, or begged for her help. Harry's only skill was action, or reaction, not research.

Draco came into the room, his hair swept in front of his face. Harry felt awful for Draco- he hadn't had a moment of peace since Harry had come into his guest bedroom and lined up his daily potions on the mantelpiece. Harry had thought that Draco would have complained, he often did without any reason, but when it came down to it Draco was actually a very good home mediwizard; kind and forgiving and patient. Harry didn't mention it to him, but it what had probably made him such an amazing teacher amongst all those children in the first place.

"How's your headache?" Draco said, picking up Harry's pants with a wrinkle of his nose and banishing them away. Harry sighed- he had liked that pair, but he loved Draco and didn't want a row.

"Better," Harry said. "Can I take a pain potion?"

"Not unless you want that wound to reopen," Draco said sympathetically, kissing Harry right on his scar. "Do you want the wireless on, or something?"

"Or something," Harry said, admiring the way that Harry's jumper sat just the slightest bit baggier on Draco. He looked adorable and utterly shaggable. Harry cursed himself.

"Charming," Draco snorted and then he sat down.

"Your friends keep Flooing here and then dropping the line as soon as I answer," Draco said, his expression positively dripping disdain. "Well, everyone except Weasley."

Harry sighed. He knew that choosing to come and stay at Draco's to heal was a polarizing choice to say the very least, but it was his. He loved Draco and trusted him, and just because they had begun their relationship under a dark cloud didn't mean to Harry that it would continue under one. He knew that he and Draco would stand the test of time, and he was going to prove it to his friends and the people he saw as family. And if they couldn't accept it- well, Harry didn't know what to think about that possibility. He just knew that he couldn't live without Draco. The alternative was that there was no alternative in this case. This went beyond love.

"You're getting along with Ron," Harry teased, trying to find a ray of light in an otherwise negative topic.

"Well," Draco huffed, trailing a finger along Harry's forearm as though to reassure him and to annoy him, "He's not entirely useless, Potter, though I still stand by my statement that I could have shown you the right sort."

"Could you?" Harry grinned, propping himself up on the mountains of pillows that Draco had transfigured from everything and anything in his flat. "And what would you have shown me, Malfoy?"

"Hmm," Draco said, nuzzling Harry's earlobe with his nose. He leaned in and took a soft bite and Harry was as gone as the last box of Honeydukes on Valentine's. "A little of this and a little of that."

"Really," Harry muttered, no longer interested in the little game they were playing, but in the hand that was climbing up the inside of his thigh and cupping him lazily, wonderfully. "Oh, Draco, don't be such a bloody-"

The wards warped. Someone was on the Floo. Draco pushed back from Harry's body; his trousers were unbuttoned and he looked annoyed and pained.

"Tease," Harry finished his sentence lamely.

"I could ignore it," Draco said slyly.

"Don't," Harry sighed. He knew that it was his friends and that Draco was once again trying to get out of chatting to them. Harry understood that Draco and the Weasleys were a lost cause but as long as he was there they were going to Floo at his flat. And moreover, Harry wanted his friends to at the very least be able to stand in the same room as each other without there being wands drawn and hexes fired. Harry sighed- what was he going to do on his birthdays and hols- act like the child of a divorced couple?

"Fine," Draco said curtly, narrowing his eyes until they looked like diamond slits. Harry groaned as Draco left- it was clear that Draco was over-stressed, but Harry wanted to see his mates as well.

Ron and Hermione made their way into Draco's guest bedroom before Draco did. Harry closed his eyes; he could just imagine Hermione pushing her way through Draco's flat, her face a painted-on pleasant expression while she made an inventory of everything he owned. Draco would be just as bad, sneering at her, his beautiful face a mask of annoyance and pride, twisted into the Black haughtiness.

"Harry," Hermione said brightly, even though she looked very uncomfortable as she sat down on Draco's favorite rocker. "How are you feeling?"

"Good," Harry smiled. "A bit bored, you know. I would have been walking now if it hadn't been due to those complications, but I suppose that they couldn't be helped."

"You got an extra week of hols," Ron said bracingly, patting Harry's arm. "Think of it that way. Then you've got Yule off and by the time you're back at work it will feel as though you've never left it."

Harry smiled; he hoped that he hadn't missed too much, and that Ron hadn't become too comfortable with Landry as his partner. He felt as though time was slipping away in this little enclosed space, as though he were away in the States again and everyone was moving on without him.

"Everyone is worried about you, Harry," Hermione said, looking at the pile of laundry in the corner of the room distastefully. Harry had the absurd notion to tell Hermione off even though she hadn't said a word. "I wish that you had stayed at Grimmauld Place so that we all could have-"

"No," Harry said firmly. He had gone down this road once at the hospital, and he wasn't going to revisit this alley again. It was Draco or hades.

"Hermione," Ron said reasonably, patting her shoulder. "Harry's doing fine, love, can't you see that? He's got more pillows around him than an incubated dragon's egg."

Harry laughed and even Hermione forced out the ghost of a smile. But Harry could feel the pressure mounting between his friends and his relationship with Draco. And if he could feel it, bound to his bed, then Draco could most certainly feel it, out and about in the wizarding world. Harry knew that soon he was going to have to face it all and make that definitive stand about his feelings with Draco. He simply just didn't want his friends to dictate his timing, just like the tabloids had before.