Chapter 6

~*~Present Day~*~

Harry sat outside the cottage, wrapped in his dressing gown and holding a cup of coffee closely to his chest. He'd been out there since the sun had come up and, although it was cold, the weather was beautiful.

He'd been unable to sleep; the pain in his lower back and hips had been driving him insane and he hadn't been able to lie in bed any longer and hope for sleep to pull him under. He had little enough hope at the best of times, but now that Severus and Ron had him off all painkillers and sleeping aids, it was a near impossible task.

He sighed and sipped at his coffee, then closed his eyes and leant back in his chair, breathing in the smell of the sea and listening to the waves crash on the beach below. He had done this so many times, had sat and let the environment wash over him in a place that had brought him more peace than anywhere, even Hogwarts, had ever done. Now though, now everything that had gone before seemed to stand in the way of achieving that sense of peace and he hated it.

Was he so very different from the boy that had crossed the threshold all those years ago? Was it impossible to go back to the way things had been before? Somewhere in the back of his head a snide little voice was telling him that it was always impossible to go back, that the past was the past for a reason, but, contrary to almost everything that he had learnt in the ensuing years, his heart still held just the smallest bit of hope.

"Couldn't sleep?" came Severus' voice, and he tilted his head to look up at him.

"No," he said with a sigh as Severus came to sit opposite him.

"Pain?" Severus asked, fixing him with those dark eyes.

Harry nodded and placed his mug on the table, saying, "I don't know what to do. I can't live like this, it's hell."

Severus looked pained by the assertion and a deep frown settled between his brows as he said, "We'll find an answer, Harry, I promise you. A little more research, a little more therapy – "

"I know you're doing everything you can, and I appreciate it, I really do, I just…I don't know how much more I can take." He rubbed at his eyes tiredly and massaged the bridge of his nose before taking a deep breath and saying, "It's debilitating and it's draining. I wake up exhausted and everything feels like a struggle. Some days it's all I can do just to put one foot in front of the other and I hate feeling like this, it's hideous."

Severus reached across and took hold of his hand, and the gesture was so familiar that it made Harry's chest constrict. "I wish I could take this from you, I would do anything to take away your suffering," he said, his voice so soft that it flooded Harry with all the memories he had tried so hard to squash down.

"I know," he said quietly, giving Severus' hand a squeeze, holding the man's gaze.

"Ron will be here soon. Have you two made up yet?"

Harry shrugged, releasing Severus' hand and leaning back in his chair. "I don't think so. We didn't really speak to each other at Elodie's party."

"I've never known Ron to hold a grudge," Severus said, mirroring him and leaning back in his own chair, folding his arms across his chest.

Harry hated how easily Severus spoke of Ron, and he couldn't honestly say that he knew where his jealousy was placed. Was he jealous of Ron for the relationship he had with the man he had such complicated feelings for, or was he jealous of Severus for the relationship he had with the man who had once been his best friend? It made his head hurt to think of it.

"Maybe not, but he can be a stubborn prat when he wants to be," Harry groused, and Severus raised an eyebrow at him.

"That's rather the pot calling the kettle black, don't you think?"

"I'm not stubborn!" Harry protested, and the eyebrow arched even higher.

"Harry, that's like Dumbledore saying that he doesn't enjoy a good meddle."

Harry pulled a face at the man opposite, receiving a smirk for his troubles. "Do you want some breakfast?" Severus asked, getting up from the table. "It might be a good idea to fill your stomach with something besides endless quantities of coffee."

"I'm not – " Harry began to say but stopped himself at the stern look being sent his way. "Fine, fine," he said with a sigh, "I'll have some breakfast. You'd make someone a lovely mother, you know."

The smack that was aimed to the back of his head seconds later was certainly no accident.

After being persuaded to eat something, Severus insisted Harry do his exercises. He didn't know why he was bothering; it seemed to him that all the stretches were designed to do was piss him off and make him ache even more, despite Ron's protests to the contrary.

He was sitting on the floor in the living room after having completed them, contemplating just how he could kill Ron and Severus and get away with it, when Ron poked his head around the door and said, "Can I come in?"

"Not my house, I can't stop you," Harry said, knowing that he sounded like a ten year old, but in no mood to moderate his behaviour.

Ron sighed and moved into the room then slid down onto the floor next to Harry, his back leaning up against the sofa. He paused for a moment then turned his head to look at Harry and said, "There are things that need to be said, Harry, and I don't think things are ever going to be ok between us unless they are."

Harry gritted his teeth together and felt the pressure build behind his eyes; he hadn't had enough sleep to be having this conversation.

"You've said your piece," Harry said, continuing to stare straight ahead, refusing to look Ron in the eye, "do you really need to say any more?"

"Harry could you stop behaving like a child for five minutes and realise that there are things that need addressing?"

Harry snorted and said, "The old Ron would have been quite happy to keep his head buried in the sand."

"The old Ron?" Ron echoed. "What does that even mean? I'm the same person I always was, Harry; any changes you see in me are the result of you not being around enough to have witnessed them gradually. I'm still your best friend," he finished firmly.

Harry shook his head and said snidely, "Is that a fact?"

Ron sucked the air through his teeth and said, "Fine, you be like that." He rose to his feet and looked down at Harry. "I'll just go and speak to Severus about continuing to try and find a cure for you, you ungrateful prick."

He was gone before Harry could think up an adequate response, or even an inadequate one. His mind was cloudy and his head was throbbing. The pain in his hips was becoming more and more insistent, and all he could think about was the way that Ron and Severus seemed to talk about each other in terms that always made them sound like a couple.

He knew it was a stupid thing to think; Ron and Draco had been a couple for years and Ron was head over heels for Draco. They were absolutely devoted they were to one another, but he wasn't in a condition to be thinking rationally, to talk himself out of thinking like a moron.

He hated being at odds with Ron, always had done, it just felt too unnatural for the two of them not to be partners in crime, to be each other's sidekicks, but he couldn't help the growing feelings of resentment that kept festering in his gut. He wanted things to go back to normal, and it was easier to blame Ron for them not being so rather than to face up to the realisation that the fault lay at his door.

"That went well," came a voice from the doorway, and Harry turned his head to see Draco standing there, his arms folded and a gentle smile on his face. He held out his hand and said, "Come on, love, let's go and take a little stroll by the sea."

"I don't want to," Harry said petulantly.

Draco laughed and said, "That wasn't a request."

Gentle but deadly, Harry thought as he was suddenly reminded of how Draco had fought in the final battle, of how he had acquired the scar on his face that stretched when he smiled. Perhaps disobeying him wasn't the wisest of moves. Harry sighed and accepted the hand, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet and guided out of the front door.

Draco was such a soothing influence; there was something about that man that exuded calm and, after a few minutes in his company, Harry felt a little of the hideous tension that he had been carrying simply melt away. They walked down from the cliff-head to the little cove that lay below and meandered over the sand, enjoying the warmth of the sun as they went.

Eventually, Draco stopped walking and stood looking out towards the sea, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. He stood with such grace and elegance, his delicate chin tilted upwards slightly, that Harry felt like a clumsy, uncoordinated oaf next to him. He also couldn't shake the feeling of having been brought before a benevolent but stern headmaster, one who was about to read him the riot act in the worst way possible.

"Harry," he said softly, "I love you, but I love Ron too, and I'm afraid that that love will always win over anything else."

"So you're taking his side?" Harry asked, regretting it immediately when Draco turned his head and raised a remonstrative eyebrow at him and fixed him with those steely grey eyes.

"We're too old for 'taking sides', Harry," he said, turning back to face the sea again, "and we're too old to be engaging in these petty arguments. I understand that you're hurting, and that there are things at play here that go beyond the curse you've been hit with, but other people are hurting too, and whether you like it or not, you're the cause of that."

"Why is everything my fault?" Harry asked, and Draco shook his head while continuing to look ahead.

"Harry, you have to remove yourself from this 'poor me' mentality. You've been through some terrible experiences, no one could deny that, but so have other people. We've all lost someone, we all have the nightmares, the flashbacks. Do you think that I don't relive every second of killing my father?"

The words hit Harry like a fist and he couldn't bear to look at Draco's profile while he processed what the man had just said. His eyes went to the ground and he felt a hot blush of shame creep across his cheeks, and his stomach twisted as he knew that there would be to come.

"There's a part of you that's so bruised, so wounded, that you've shut yourself down to avoid anything that remotely resembles emotion. What was the last relationship you had?" he asked, turning to face Harry, but Harry continued to stare down at the sand beneath his feet.

"I haven't really…I haven't been in a relationship. There hasn't been anyone…"

"There hasn't been anyone that could replace Severus," Draco finished certainly.

Harry opened his mouth to speak but could think of no way to respond to what Draco had said. He couldn't deny it, it was true after all, but neither could he admit it, not out loud, not to another person.

"Harry," Draco said gently, reaching out a hand and gripping Harry's chin, forcing him to look up, "you're in love with the man, you have been for years now. Why do you want to torture yourself and him by pretending otherwise?"

Harry met the unyielding grey eyes, feeling himself shrink from their intensity, wishing he were anywhere but there, fixed to the spot and being scrutinised by a man who seemed to know his thoughts better than he did.

"You're going to have to face this, one way or another. You can't keep running, hoping that if you put enough distance between you that it will go away. You should know better than anyone that you can't escape your feelings."

Harry took a shuddering breath, feeling his eyes prick with tears that he kept refusing to cry, tears that he had silenced for a long time. "I don't know what to do, Drake," he whispered.

"That's ok," Draco said with a soft smile. "You don't need to have all the answers, none of us does, but you need to be prepared to face this. You're not alone, Harry, please stop acting as though you are."

"Tell me what to do," Harry implored, desperate for someone to take the pressure off his shoulders, to make it all better for him.

"I think you need to start by talking to Ron. You need your best friend if you're going to start confronting things."

Harry gave a bitter laugh and said, "Won't I have to confront him too?"

"Yes love," said Draco, matching the sardonic smile that Harry was wearing, "I'm afraid you will."

He leant forward and pressed a kiss to Harry's cheek, then pulled him into a strong hug, amazing Harry yet again with just how much strength the man could possess in such a gently elegant body.

They spent the next half an hour taking a gentle walk along the shoreline before Draco very firmly told Harry that it was time to go back up to the cottage. He climbed the hill reluctantly and Draco led him back inside, Harry loitering in the kitchen doorway while he watched Draco interrupt Severus and Ron's conversation.

"Sev, could I have a word with you about your latest order?" he asked. "Neville's produced a hybrid that I think you might be quite interested in."

Sensing what was being asked of him, Severus nodded and followed Draco out of the kitchen, raising a knowing eyebrow at Harry as he passed him. Harry stood there, collecting his thoughts and psyching himself up before he finally bit the bullet and moved into the kitchen.

Ron was sitting at the table, Harry's notes spread out in front of him, flicking his pen from finger to finger in that way that always made Harry jealous that he couldn't do the same thing. Ron had tried to teach him once, but the lesson had come to an abrupt end when Harry had nearly stuck the pen up Ron's nose. The memory made him smile in spite of himself.

"Can we talk?" he asked quietly, and Ron looked up, his expression wary.

"I tried to do that an hour ago but you weren't having any of it," he said, clicking the pen and laying it down on the table.

Harry sighed and pulled out the chair opposite Ron, taking a seat and resting his elbows on the table and looking at his friend resolvedly. If he didn't do this, Draco would remove his liver, of that he was certain.

"I can't do this without you, Ron," he said tiredly.

"No one bloody asked you to," Ron shot back. "The second you came back, the second you told me you'd been cursed, I was there for you, ready to help and – "

"I don't just mean with the curse," Harry said, his eyes going to the table, unable to meet Ron's piercing blue eyes.

"Why are you such a dick?" Ron said, and Harry couldn't help but laugh at the man's bluntness. Ron would never be one to sugar-coat anything, and he loved him for it.

"Sorry," Harry said, looking up at him, "it's just what I do."

Ron shook his head, looking exasperated and mildly pissed off in equal measure. "We can't keep playing this game," he said, and Harry nodded, wondering just how many tellings-off he could take in one day.

"I know," he said, "I don't want to, I just…I don't know what I'm doing."

"That's pretty obvious," said Ron with a snort. He leant back in his chair and a slightly pink tinge crept up his throat; Harry recognised it as a sure sign that Ron was uncomfortable about what he was about to say. "I miss you," he said, crossing his arms defensively. "I miss…I miss the way things used to be between us."

"So do I," Harry insisted, feeling as though Ron didn't really appreciate the fact that things weren't exactly rosy for him either.

"But I didn't leave, Harry! I've been right here. If you missed me, if you missed any of us, all you had to do was come home!"

"It's not that easy, Ron!"

"Evidently," Ron shot back, the pink tinge spreading to his jaw. "You know what really hurts, Harry? I was with you from the start, before Hermione even. I was there from day one and for you to be able to just write me out of your life fucking hurts."

"I haven't written you out of my life!" Harry protested.

"Really? Well it sure as hell feels that way! I don't know anything about you anymore."

"What are you talking about? Of course you do!"

"No I bloody well don't! Harry, I don't know anything about your job, or about anyone that you've dated. I don't know where you live when you're on assignments, I don't even know what Grimmauld looks like these days! And you know what? You know fuck all about my life either! You haven't seen the place Drake and I bought together and you haven't got a clue what's going on with my work. We never talk apart from the brief times that you pop back and that's only usually when you want something."

Harry opened his mouth to argue, but it seemed that Ron wasn't finished. He leant his fists on the table and stood up, eying Harry fiercely and saying, "You're a selfish git, Harry. You left us all behind to get on without you and now you want to be the injured party and tell me that this is hard for you too? You're unbelievable."

"It is hard!" Harry shot back. "Do you think I like the way things are?"

"You made them this way! You left without so much as a glance back."

"You can't really believe that it was just that easy for me?" Harry asked, getting to his feet and trying to put himself back on some sort of even keel with Ron.

"It looked pretty easy to the rest of us, Harry."

"I had to leave, Ron, I had to get away, to get my head clear, to – "

"To pretend like the rest of us didn't exist? We all went through it too, you prick! I lost a brother, Hermione lost her sight, Draco killed his own father! Everyone else had things to deal with, but for some reason your stuff was more important! And what about Severus?"

The man's name was like a slap in the face to Harry, and he blinked in shock for a second before saying, "What about him?"

Ron's eyes became harder than Harry had ever seen them and his nostrils flared angrily before he said in a horribly quiet voice, "Well if that doesn't just sum up your attitude towards him, I don't know what does. You couldn't give a shit could you?"

"How can you ask me that?" Harry said, his voice catching as his emotions threatened to overwhelm him.

"Well what do you expect me to think? What do you expect him to think? How do you think he feels about the fact that all he gets from you are a couple of letters a year if he's lucky?"

"Well I'm sorry I don't pop around for tea twice a week and have a cosy little life with him the way you do – "

"Are you fucking jealous?" Ron shouted, his face flushed and his eyes angry.

Harry didn't say anything, simply stood there and clenched his teeth together as his hands balled into fists at his side. He was jealous, he wasn't entirely sure what of but the feeling was there, nonetheless.

"Oh you're priceless, Harry, you really are. Never mind how insulting that is to my relationship with Drake, do you have any idea how stupid the idea of him thinking of anyone but you actually is? Do you really not know how he – "

"Ron," came Severus' voice from the doorway and Harry turned to find him standing there with one hand on the doorframe, his face guarded. "That's enough," he said quietly.

Ron's eyes went to the floor and he suddenly looked embarrassed, ashamed of himself, and he nodded as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Sorry," he said softly, "I shouldn't have…sorry." He looked back up to Severus and something wordless passed between them that only served to make Harry's gut twist painfully.

Ron sighed and stuffed his notes back into satchel, saying, "I'm going to go and work on this stuff from my office."

"Ron – " Harry said, not wanting to leave things the way they were.

"We're done here today," Ron said firmly, "before I say something that I won't be able to take back."

He moved from the room, clapping Severus on the shoulder as he went and stopping to press a quick peck to Draco's lips, telling him he would see him at home. Harry heard a soft pop moments later, indicating that Ron had indeed left. He looked to Draco, who looked as frustrated as he did, and Harry shrugged at him, saying,

"I tried."

"I'm not sure that's true," Draco said softly, "but perhaps that's enough for today. I'll leave you in peace." He too apparated away, and Harry and Severus were left alone in the kitchen, staring at one another and wondering what the hell to say.

Harry decided that he was too much of a coward to confront the issue; he didn't want to hear the same harsh things from Severus as he had done from Ron, and he had nothing to say that would really defend himself. He raked a hand through his hair and said quietly, "I'm going to go for a walk."

"Are you sure that's wise?" Severus said levelly, and Harry wondered how the man managed to maintain his composure even at times like this. "You won't do your hips any favours."

"It's better than staying here and playing that little conversation over in my head for the rest of the afternoon."

Severus shook his head but stepped aside from the doorway, nevertheless, and Harry moved past him and out into the hallway. He grabbed his cloak and headed outside, wanting to put the whole sorry morning as far from his head as he possibly could.

He turned from the cottage and walked inland, into the heavy woodland that lay beyond. He remembered the many times he had walked side by side with Severus, sometimes talking, sometimes in companionable silence.

That seemed like another world now; everything was so different in this horrible present he found himself living in. He couldn't imagine walking with Severus now as he had done then, couldn't imagine sliding into his seat at the kitchen table and smiling sleepily across at the man before they began their day, sipping on coffee and stealing glances at him.

He couldn't face the cottage or the man inside, couldn't be assaulted with all the memories that damn place stirred within him and couldn't cope with the worsening state of his relationship with Ron. He wanted to block it all out, wanted to drink himself into oblivion as he'd done so many times in the past or tip a bunch of pain potions down his throat to block everything out for a few hours.

The pain radiating through him was so intense that he could barely think straight. He was exhausted and he felt that he was thoroughly depleted of resources. He wanted to crawl into bed and never leave, to pull the covers over his head and block out the world. He walked as far as he could, the pain in his back and hips so intense that it was pulsating through him. He levered himself down onto an obliging rock and buried his head in his hands, staving off the tears for as long as could until he could do nothing but let them fall, damning himself and everyone else along with him.

AN: I promise it won't all be so relentlessly depressing, but Harry's going through some stuff...Updates will now be Mondays and Fridays, so I hope you manage to catch them :)

Hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you're not melting away in this heatwave as I am! Also, I want to say I hope any of you who might be in Germany, Belgium or the surrounding areas are staying safe and that your loved ones are ok.