Title: Treasures of Old

By: Adarial Ciao

Summary: The War ended 7 years ago, and since then, Harry has exiled himself from the Wizarding world. He lives alone in a small flat in muggle London, and slowly, loneliness starts to overcome him. But when someone from his past comes back into the picture, his life takes a turn...for the better? Let's hope so!

Disclaimer: Not mine. Jk's. Main idea running throughout this story that resembles a mix between a plot and a mongoose is mine.

*Chapter Five *

It was two in the morning by the time Draco and Harry left the hazy mist and flashing lights of the chaotic nightclub. They apparated directly into Harry's desolate flat, too drunk to even care if any muggles at the club saw them magically disappear into thin air.

The two stood awkwardly in the middle of the silent and sparse room, simply looking at each other. Neither dared to speak or question what had happened between them. It held far too much meaning, too much importance to both of them to be tainted with drunken slips of the tongue and stuttered apologies. No, it was best just to let it be, just like they had let everything else that had happened that day be. They hadn't questioned the odds of two rivals suddenly meeting after two years, or of Draco's meeting being canceled. They hadn't questioned Hermione's involvement or Mrs. Marlow's easy acceptance of Harry leaving work early. They just let it happen and let themselves feel for once.

Harry didn't know it, but when it came to actually having fun, Draco wasn't much better off than he was. Sure, he had a good life. He was the head of his own lucrative realstate company that practically monopolized the wizarding world and had restored the honor to the Malfoy name, shaping himself into one of the most respected wizards of the day. He had several estates, plus his brand-new venture, that were all magnificently decorated, filled with lush linens and beautifully carved antiques. He had several friends that were all very loyal and enjoyable to be around, including Hermione who had been his best friend ever since their departure from Hogwarts. She was even nice enough to do the accounting for his company.

But that was just the thing. He was always working. Yes, he had numerous friends, but instead of going out with them on the weekend, he was too busy dining his clients and socializing with the more esteemed wizards and witches of the society. He may have made it seem to Harry that he did this sort of thing all the time, but in truth, he could be found dressed in a black tux with matching tie, entertaining the rich heiress of one prominent pure blood family or the other more than he could be found on the dance floor.

Something like tonight was rare for him, made even more so by the fact that he had danced in the arms of Harry Potter, the man who had captured his gaze so many years ago and still frequented his dreams. Now that he found himself standing in front of the intoxicated man, staring into slightly glazed yet still brilliant green eyes, he had to wonder whether everything that had happened tonight—no, everything that had happened today—had really just been another one of his dreams. But the more he contemplated the possibility, the less he wanted to know.

Harry was in much the same boat. He couldn't help but think that this situation was like something out of one of his books. It was too good to be true. He was convinced that soon the page would turn and it

would all go away, if it had even been there at all.

He glanced around the apartment, sweeping his gaze over his many books, the dingy white walls, the old worn couch, at anything except Draco's piercing steel gaze. He was afraid of what he would do if he looked into those icy orbs that had such an unnerving affect on him. They were able to lull him into doing things he would never do on his own, make him sway from his comfortable routine. It scared him, their ability to make him do new and exciting things. Their ability to make his body move with the music. Their ability to make him feel. To make him live. But, this drunken Harry liked living…

Gathering all his courage, Harry met Draco's gaze and felt himself falling. Falling into something that he couldn't control, something wonderful and thrilling, something erotic and passionate. He began slowly moving forward, being pulled to Draco by that something he couldn't explain. He got closer and closer, deeper and deeper. Draco too began moving forward, inching closer to Harry, wanting nothing more than to kiss the beautiful man in front of him. They were so close that they could feel each other's heated breath on their damp skin, still sweaty from their night in the hot and sweltering club.

According to the faded words on the well-read pages of Harry's beloved books, this was where they were supposed to kiss. But this wasn't a book. This was his otherwise dull life. His boring life. His safe life. Safe.

And with that thought, Harry was seemingly shocked out of his drunken haze and thrown roughly into reality. Everything that had happened that night, everything he had done—everything he had done with Draco—it all came back to him. As if stung by some invisible flame, he leaped backwards, startling Draco who seemed to break out of his own trance.

"I...I...Um," Harry stuttered unintelligibly, turning away from Draco as what he was about to do registered in his mind. He sighed, feeling the alcohol practically evaporate from his system as panic and

fear settled in.

"I can't do this," Harry muttered, ashamed and incredibly lost.

Draco too had come to his senses. He stumbled backwards, looking away. What am I doing! He screamed in his head. This…he couldn't do this. He couldn't kiss Harry. Not now. Not after seven years. It was all too much. Everything…everything he had ever wanted had been bestowed upon him in one night. This couldn't be real. Nothing is ever as it seems rang Lucius's voice in his head. Damnit! Draco thought, the bastard's been dead years but he's still the proverbial voice in my head.

"I have to go," was all Draco said in a composed voice that betrayed nothing of the turmoil in his head. He gave a discrete bow to Harry, then apparated back to his own flat.

Harry stood there for some time after, the scene before playing over and over in his head, as if he was stuck on the same sentence. What if he had kissed Draco? What if they had done more? Did he really dance like that? Did any of this really happen?

Completely overwhelmed and confused, Harry shuffled his way to the nearest piece of furniture, which just happened to be his couch, and collapsed, quickly succumbing to a deep and dreamless sleep for the first time in months.

~*~

"Why am I on my couch?" Harry asked himself aloud in a dry voice when he woke the next day, opening his eyes and wincing as they adjusted to the light. He sat up gingerly, finding his body sore and stiff, partially from sleeping on the cough, and partially for a reason he couldn't remember. He looked around for his glasses, then realized that he still had them on. He glanced over to the clock hanging above his TV, then quickly regretted doing so as a stab of pain made itself known in his head. Looking once again at the clock, much slower this time, he gasped when he read the time. 2:30 in the afternoon! What? He questioned incredulously in his head. Moving to lay back down, he yelped when he felt something poking him in the back. His wand. What the hell did I do last night?

He rose from his couch and wandered into the kitchen to fix himself a pot of coffee to cure the pounding headache he now had. Standing over the sink, clutching his head, he tried to figure out what the hell had happened last night.

Draco…the bid…the club…drinks… He couldn't remember anymore. Oh well, he sighed. He figured that Draco and he got drunk last night, then Draco was nice enough to bring him back home.

"Yes, that's a perfectly acceptable explanation," he said to no one in particular, tying to justify the odd circumstances he now found himself in. Yet there was still a nagging voice in the back of his head that wouldn't let him believe that everything was that simple.

After he had his cup of strong black coffee, his head had cleared up enough to realize that he was a wizard and could obviously just cast a spell on himself to be rid of this horrible headache, which he now ascertained must be a hangover. Reaching for his wand, he tried to remember the proper spell.

"Come on…what is it," Harry muttered, trying to think through the heavy fog in his mind. "Oh yeah! Caputdoleoabsum!*" and with that simple word he felt a cool surge wash over him, starting at his head then slowly rippling down through the rest of his body, leaving a tingling sensation in it's wake.

Harry sighed, feeling considerably better and decided to take a shower after having figured out that he had already taken out the trash the previous day, and that horrible stench that was invading his senses was indeed himself.

~*~

"And I said to her, yes I said, 'Veronica, darling, fuscia just simply isn't your color!' and did she listen to me? Oh no, of course not! It could be dreadfully too much to listen to your own mother, isn't that right Veronica darling?" Veronica simply nodded and looked shyly at Draco as her mother rambled on about how fucsia just wasn't her color.

Draco sighed, counting the numerous ways he could kill himself at the moment. His favorite thus far had been 1) Insert pencils into nostrils, 2) bang head on table. If he deduced correctly, he would die of a bloody and painful frontal lobotomy.

"Mr. Malfoy, don't you think Veronica looks just adorable in lilac?" asked Mrs. Underwood, her ringing soprano voice shaking Draco out of his devious thoughts.

" Oh yes, of course. She looks absolutely stunning," said Draco in his most charming voice as he eyed said girl with a painfully fake smile. Well, She is stunning, he thought, In the sense that whenever I look at her I feel as though I've been shocked with a neon purple stun gun. Draco hated these Saturday lunches. Each one played out in much the same manner. Instead of closing a deal like he had hoped, almost every meeting would end in him having to politely turn down dinner dates with the young daughters of his elderly clients. Mrs. Underwood was an incredibly nice old lady, but she was no exception. In fact, she acted as though they weren't here to discuss business. Not the type of business he was interested in anyway. Throughout the duration of the meal all she had done was chatter about her teen-aged daughter Veronica, who just sat there, occasionally glancing at Draco underneath mascaraed eyelashes, before quickly looking away, her cheeks tinted scarlet.

Draco thought it was funny, all their fruitless matchmaking. If only they knew, he chuckled in his head. Yes, if only they knew that the wizarding world's most popular bachelor was indeed gay and pining over said world's lost savior.

While he sat there, pretending to listen to the kind old Mrs. Underwood twitter on about Veronica this and Veronica that, his mind wandered to the previous night. He had been so close to finally having everything he had dreamed, so why had he panicked like that? Mentally sighing, he wondered if Harry even remembered any of it. He wouldn't be surprised if it was all a blur to him. After all, Harry wasn't used to going out and drinking like they had last night, so Draco assumed that his alcohol tolerance was fairly low. He felt sorry for him; his hangover must have been horrific! Draco himself had suffered quite the headache when he awoke that morning, only to find dressed in the same clothes from the day before, but he was able to cope with the pain better than he suspected Harry had. He simply cast a sobering-spell(which come in handy after galas where red wine is involved), then had gotten ready for today's meeting, where he was now, not paying any attention at all to his client.

"Oh that's a wonderful idea, Veronica darling! Draco, dear, why don't you take Veronica out to dinner tonight, while I talk to my husband about the deal? Hmm, what do you say, Mr. Malfoy?" she asked with hope shining in her eyes. Draco could almost see the wheels turning in her head. Have her daughter marry one of the richest businessmen in the wizarding world, then be ten times richer, and able to socialize with the biggest names of society. He mentally sighed, wondering if these people ever thought about any other than money and fame.

"Oh, I'm so sorry Mrs. Underwood, but I have a previous engagement for tonight that I simply can not cancel. Well, it seems we're all done here. Check!" and with that Draco payed for the outrageously expensive meal and made his way to a back alley to apparate to Hermione and Ron's for said 'previous engagement'.

~*~

"So," Hermione said after seeing Draco in and explaining that Ron was at his parent's house. "How'd it go?" she asked anxiously.

"Fine, I suppose. He gave me a reasonable price and we decided that he would start next weekend," Draco said, leaning back into the couch. He was still a bit sore from last night.

"That's good and all, but what happened later!" she asked like a giggling schoolgirl.

Draco merely raised an eyebrow in response to her bouncy behavior.

"What do you mean, 'later'?" he asked suspiciously.

"You know, later. At the club!" she prompted impatiently. Draco sat up straight from his reclining position on the couch.

"How do you know we went out?" he demanded.

"Because I arranged for your meeting to be canceled and I knew you wouldn't pass up an opportunity to spend more time with Harry," she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"I should have known," he said, shaking his head in mirth. "Well, later was interesting. We talked. We drank. We danced. We—"

"You danced?" Hermione said, shocked that Draco had actually gotten Harry to do such a thing.

"Our dear Harry seems to have a low tolerance for alcohol. It was actually quite an easy task, once he had a few drinks in him. And a delightful one at that," smirked Draco, his eyes dancing as he recalled the feel of Harry's body pressed against his own.

"Why you little devil!" she exclaimed. "I should have known you had a hidden agenda," she said, laughing at Draco.

"I do not have a 'hidden agenda', thank you very much!" huffed Draco, feigning indignation.

"Still suffering from your schoolboy crush, I see," Hermione said in her know-it-all voice. " Really now, I thought you would have gotten over that. It's been seven years, after all."

"I did get over it. It's just that seeing him again—Wait a minute! How did you know?" blurted out a shocked and embarrassed Draco.

"Come now, Draco! It was so obvious, the way you were always looking at Harry. I'm surprised the entire Order didn't know, the way you went on, practically drooling over him!" she joked.

" I didn't drool per say. Just…okay, so I drooled," he admitted, then continued, "but good lord, Herm! Have you looked at him?" Draco asked, getting a lustful look in his eye.

"Not in that way!" she said reproachfully, even though she knew Draco was right. Harry was quite handsome, not that he was even aware of it.

"Well, I have. Quite a bit actually. But, I highly doubt anything will come of it. He's not even gay," Draco said in a disappointed tone.

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure of that," hinted Hermione in a way that reminded Draco eerily of Professor Trelawny.

"What makes you say that," he asked skeptically.

"Well, for starters the fact that he's always reading gay romances. Then there's always the fact that he hasn't dated since Cho, or even looked at another woman that way," she listed.

"Really?" Draco asked before she could go on. "He hasn't dated anyone since Cho?"

"Well, technically he has. There were a few small affairs here and there, but nothing serious."

"Wow. That's just pathetic," he observed.

"Not really; not when you think about it. It's not as though he's had the easiest past. He's probably afraid of losing another person he loves. And I know Harry's my friend, and I probably shouldn't be saying this, but he's got issues. Big issues," she sighed, shaking her head. Issues? Thought Draco. Well, he must have some major baggage if he's done this to himself. Living alone for the past seven years? Good lord!

"Care to elaborate?" he asked cautiously, acknowledging that it was a touchy subject.

"Well…he's terrified of going back. He's convinced that if he comes back, people will only see him as the Boy Who Killed You-Know-Who. I personally think he's being childish about the whole thing, but I guess that after seven years it would be hard to have to start over again. He's gotten himself into a comfortable lifestyle that would be hard to break and I suppose he's just afraid of what would happen," she said, shrugging her shoulders. To Draco, that just seemed stupid. Harry was a wizard. He belonged with his own people. There had to be more to it than what Hermione was telling him.

"That's not all, is it?" he asked, wanting to know more about this confusing man.

"Well, no not really…" she said apprehensively, hesitant to share something so personal with Draco.

"Come on, Herm, you can trust me," he pleaded on his own behalf.

"I know, Draco, I do…It's just…" Draco could see Hermione wasn't comfortable yielding such private information.

"Don't worry, Herm. You don't have to tell me," he conceded.

"Thank you, Draco. Harry's my friend and I just don't feel right talking about him like this," she tried to explain.

"Really, Herm. It's fine," he reassured her.

"So, did anything else happen last night," she asked, changing the subject. Draco tensed.

"Um…well…" the usually eloquent man bumbled. Unlike Harry, he remembered exactly what had happened.

"Aha! Something did happen! Spill!" she demanded, her eyes lighting up and leaving no room for argument. Draco sighed.

"Well, we got back to his flat really late last night, and we were both drunk, and he just looked so amazing, and I just wanted to kiss him so badly, and then…I dunno, Herm. We got so close, but then he freaked and then I freaked and then I didn't know what the hell to do, so I just left," he finished in an uncharacteristic rush, sagging back into the couch.

"Oh my…" was all she could say. Draco coughed awkwardly, avoiding Hermione's gaze.

"Draco," she started, " I'm not sure it's wise to start something with him so quickly. This is all very sudden. You're the first wizard he's interacted with, other than Ron and myself, since he left," she warned.

"I know, I know!" he said. He was quite aware that this was all very new for Harry. But he also knew that Harry couldn't keep living like he was. As if reading his thoughts, Hermione said,

"He does need a change though. I just think you should take it slow, you know, so as not to scare him or anything," she with concern.

"Yes, you're right," he agreed. Neither of them spoke for a few minutes, for neither of them really knew what to say. They both cared for Harry. Even Draco, who hadn't been a part of his life for seven years. But, they both thought that Harry was being just plain stubborn. He needed to go back to the wizarding world and have a real life. He needed to see that it wouldn't be as terrible and as horrible as he thought it would be. But neither of them knew how to open his eyes.

"Well," Draco said quietly, breaking the silence. "I best be off, then," he said, rising from the couch.

"It was lovely seeing you again, Draco," said Hermione as she followed him to the door.

"As it was you, Herm. And do tell the Weasel that I said hello," he joked, using Ron's old nickname.

"Of course I will," she laughed, kissing him on the cheek. "Come again soon!"

"I will, worry not," he assured her, returning her kiss. As he made his way into the hall, he felt a small hand on his arm. He turned around, and saw Hermione looking at him with imploring eyes.

"Draco, do be careful, will you?" she pleaded softly. He knew what she was talking about.

"Don't worry, I will be," and with that, he apparated softly into the night.

A/n: Aaaaaannnnnd that's all folks. Terribly sorry for the wait. But, here you go. This chapter took forever, but at least it's nice and long. I'm not sure whether or not I like it, actually. Eh, I dunno. You really should thank Gabri (I hope I got that right, I accidentally deleted her e-mail) for this udpate. See people, that's what happens when you actually send me emails, asking me for updates. You get them! Okay, it's 2:21 in the morning. Im out.

*Caputdoleoabsum literally means head suffering gone.