Desclaimer: The Harry Potter universe belongs to JK Rowling, lovely, lovely lady that she is. I claim ownership on Harry's teddy bear, though.
Big thank-yous to all those who review, it means the world to me. You are lovely, lovely people. Just like JK Rowling.
A/N: I made a mistake with Harry and Draco's ages. Please read the author's note at the end after you finish this part. Thank you.
Harry opens his eyes, blinks, groans. The sunlight is hurting his eyes, his mouth is dry, and his muscles feel stiff, as though he hasn't used them in quite a while.
Where am I? He thinks, as he registers the room he is in. It is a small room, with a polished wooden floor, and two windows. The curtains on the windows are of a floral design, and secured to the sides with faded ribbons.
He is in a bed. A hospital bed, at that; he spent enough time at the Hogwarts infirmary as a child to recognize the harsh, plain metal frame and the crisp white sheets.
On the small table next to the bed there is a green glass vase, with red and white lilies in it. Harry touches a petal, wondering. They seem fresh. Someone must have been here recently.
He sits up, clutching at the iron frame as a spell of dizziness attacks him. When it passes, he notices the teddy bear sitting on the foot of his bed. It is a brownish-yellow, with big, sad button eyes and uneven ears. There is a Gryffindor scarf tied around its neck, and Harry smiles. Ron, he thinks, or Hermione. The flowers must be from them, too.
He listens. No sound reaches his ears. He is alone.
He slides his legs from under the covers, shivering when they touch the cold floor, and stands. Well, he thinks, as he shakes, at least my legs support me. Sort of.
He is wearing a light green robe, and is barefoot. He searches for his glasses, finding on the table next to the lilies.
Ignoring the broken glass, he puts them on. The room comes into focus. "All righty then" he says, wincing when his voice grinds out like sandpaper "to find someone, then".
Harry walks to the door, opens it, closes it behind him. He finds himself in a long corridor, lit by hovering bubbles shining a sterile white. There are doors here and there, and after a few steps he notices a sign.
Permanent Ward he reads, then frowns. Why would I be in a permanent ward...? Just how long am I here
He continues to walk, supporting himself on the wall. When he reaches the door at the end of the corridor, he hesitates. The door is made of thick glass, with a white frame, and on the door he can make out the silver lettering written backwards: DRAW TNENAMREP.
He pushes it open. It creaks loudly.
He is in a small room, a waiting room of a sort. There are a few benches, a small coffee table, another door, and a coloured clay mask on a wall. A pretty, dark-haired woman wearing green healer robes and holding a steaming mug is sitting next to the table, reading a parchment. She looks up when he enters.
Her mug crashes to the floor, pieces of porcelain swimming among the tea.
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Harry blinks at her. Her hand is pressed to her mouth, her eyes impossibly wide. He smiles weakly "hi?" he tries.
"You..." she says. "How...?" she tries again, still gaping. He frowns "what?"
Not taking her eyes off him, as though he is just an illusion that will disappear if she blinks, she back away, until her back touches the wall. She puts her hand on the mask's nose, and a bored male voice rings in the room "main reception speaking".
"This is healer-in-charge Annie Greenclover, Permanent Ward. He's awake. Harry Potter's awake". The male voice sounds tense now "what? I must have heard you wrong- I thought you said-"
"You heard me right" she snaps.
"He's awake, in fact, he's standing here in the room with me-"
"Oh, oh!" the male voice breathes "yes, yes, of course. It makes perfect sense. He is Harry Potter, after all. I'll, I'll just send people along, shall I? I need to inform everyone, call the Daily Prophet..." the voice drifts off.
"I'm sorry, "Harry says "but what, exactly, is going on here?" he feels he deserves an explanation. He feels, that considering the fact that he is the one who woke up in a strange room in a hospital, and that the first people he sees act as though he's just risen from the grave, he is handling the situation extremely well.
"I'm sorry," Annie the healer says, still staring at him with the eyes of a deer caught in a light. "Please sit down, I... it's just that..." she gestures helplessly to a bench.
He sits down "yes?" he asks. She sits as well.
"Do you remember what happened? What's the last thing you recall?" he thinks. Flashes of faces spring up, lights, a snow blizzard, figures in dark robes shooting spells at them. Ron going down, his blood staining the snow. Blonde hair, and an unbelievable pain...
"I got hit," he says eventually, with some difficulty "that's why I'm in here. How's Ron? Ron Weasley, he got hit, too..."
The healer frowns "tall, red hair?" he nods. "He's fine. He was here for a while, but got released a week or two ago," she says, and he lets out a breath in relief. "And Hermione? Granger, she took a short course here..." the healer shrugs "never hospitalized in the first place".
"Mr. Potter," she says, a tad impatiently, but at least her eyes are back to normal "how are you feeling? Any dizziness, hunger, pain?" Harry shakes his head "I was dizzy when I woke up, but I'm fine now. No pain, either".
She shakes her head in wonder "this is... a miracle. I can't think of any other word for it" he looks at her, confused "why?"
"Well, to be frank, we didn't think you'd wake up. It was impossible enough that you survived the killing curse, again, but that you'd wake up?"
He flushes, feeling uncomfortable, and changes the subject "how long was I here?" he asks.
She thinks "more than four months, if I'm not mistaken".
"What!?" now it's his turn to stare "how-how is that possible? What day is it?" she glances at the second door "Wednesday. The twenty-three of December" "December" he repeats, in a hollow voice "it was August, when we had that battle..."
Images are playing themselves in his mind, fast and blurred. But, he doesn't remember all of them. Not really.
"Did someone visit me, when I was..." he swallows "it's just that, I remember, a voice, talking. Something about flowers, and the battle, and Hogwarts..."
She smiles "flowers, you said? Yes, someone did visit you. A young man, very handsome, if I do say so myself. He brought you flowers every time, always the same flowers" her tone turns sly "is he your boyfriend?" she asks "he left barely half an hour ago".
"What? No, no!" he leans back "I had someone, once, but she... she died, in the beginning..." the healer averts her eyes "I'm sorry" she says, "I was out of line".
He waves his hand "never mind. The man, what did he look like?" her eyebrows knit together "about your height, slim, blond".
He thinks. Seamus is- was- he won't go there- and Zacharias is blond, but certainly not slim, not with his shoulders, and much higher than Harry. Justin Filch-Fletchly, maybe?
"He dressed very well- expensive and elegant" the healer supplies, trying to be helpful "a very light blond, almost white"
Harry is taken aback. Surely, not...? It couldn't be. Why would he...
"Arrogant looking, was he?" he asks, "his face sort of pointed?" "Yes, that's him!" the healer says happily "friend of yours, was he?"
"No," Harry says shortly, masking a pang "he wasn't. We weren't on the best of terms, him and me".
The healer looks bemused, now, her pretty mouth pressed thin "then why did he come?" she asks. "He brought you flowers. He bought you a teddy-bear, for Merlin's sake!"
Harry shrugs. He is wondering the same thing.
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After the team of healers dispatched has examined him, over and over, fussing and saying things like "my god, Franklin, he's really awake" and "on my word, this is... this is very unusual, isn't it? Don't think I've ever heard of anything like this, just waking up like that...", even after the pretty dark-haired healer winked at him, slipped a floo number into his hand and said "call me, some time", he finds himself changing his hospital robe into muggle clothing, and leaving.
Hermione and Ron are waiting for him in the main reception. He smiles when he saw them. They burst into tears.
Ron is very pale, leaning on a crutch, but he gives Harry a big, wet grin and hugs him. But Hermione is very thin, much thinner than he remembered her, and she won't meet his eyes. He frowns at her. "Hermione," he says "look at me".
She raises her head, and her eyes of full of guilt. "I'm sorry," she whispers.
"What for?" he asks. She hangs her head "I- I never came to see you. They said you wouldn't wake up, and I just couldn't- I didn't believe in you. I'm so sorry..."
He hugs her "don't be an idiot. The healers told you I was finished. No one could have known-""That's not true" she interrupts him, her voice fierce "Draco did. He came all the time, and yelled at me when I refused to come, too. He said I would have to face you sooner or later. He was right"
She lifts her head to look at him "you do know he visited you?" she asks, and he nods. "I don't know why, I think it was his survivors guilt-"
"Survivors guilt?" he asks. She looks taken aback "yes. Because you saved his life? Pushed him out of the killing curse's way and got hit yourself?" when he blinks at her, she says sharply "you don't remember?"
He tries to. He remembers the snow, though it was August, so it makes no sense. And he remembers blond hair. He tries harder.
Snow, so much snow, in the air and on the ground, and so cold. Ron would freeze if they wouldn't get him to a safe place soon. Hermione on his left, her hair flying around, her eyes blazing, shouting curse after curse in a terrifying speed. Trees, before them, dark, and deadly, because of the Death Eaters they hide. He can barely see them through the snow.
"Wait," he says.
Yes, Draco on his right, his light hair smeared with mud, his face with blood. He is shouting, too, and hitting the trees more then the enemy. They all are. It's so hard to see, you just have to aim and hope.
"Bloody hell" Draco says, between hexes "I'm freezing my arse off" his voice is hoarse, from the shouting and the cold, and he is sick, not yet healed from his pneumonia. Still, he brings a grin to Harry's face.
"I think..." Harry says.
A movement between the trees catches Harry's eye. Too late, he recognizes the green light. "Duck, Draco!" he yells, too afraid, too horrified to realize he's called him by his given name.
But Draco is sick, and slow, and the blizzard is deafening. "What?" he yells back.
"Fuck!" Harry screamed, and flings himself at Draco, pushing the blonde to the ground, to the snow. He can still hear, for a moment, Draco's surprised yell, before the curse hits him, and he drowns in darkness.
"I remember," he says.
"Why did you do it?" Hermione asks "why did you save his life?"
Harry mulls this over. "Because he made me smile, during that battle" he tells her at last "because I thought it was worth something".
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As they leave, people gawk at them, stopping to watch him pass by. Ron rolls his eyes and teases "can't get enough of the boy who lived, can they," but his happiness is genuine, and overwhelming.
Harry feels stupid, walking with a big, fluffy teddy bear under one arm and a vase with flowers in the other. Still, at least he's walking.
A thought suddenly occurs to him "where is my wand?" he asks.
His friends shake their heads. "Don't know" Hermione answers "you dropped it, apparently, when you-fell" her breath catches, and she takes a minute to compose herself before continuing "and we were so concerned with getting you and Ron help that we didn't stop to look for it. And after, well... it seemed you wouldn't need it anymore, anyway, so there was no point in looking for it".
He had expected this already, of course, but it still dampens his spirits. "Right," he says "never mind".
Hermione stops suddenly, turning to him "when are you going to visit Draco?"
He startles "what?"
She puts her hands on her hips, glaring at him "he came to see all this time. He spent hours there- I know for a fact that he was late to work a few times. You have to go see him, even if just to ease his guilt. You owe him that".
"All right, I'll go" he mutters, feeling irritated. He doesn't want to see Draco, not now, not later, not sure what to think about the fact that the stuffed toy he is holding now was given to him by Draco. That Draco came to see him, time after time, talking for hours- because he is starting to remember, snatches of a voice, and a hand on his forehead.
"When?" Hermione demands, and he shrugs "later". She sighs "don't get your dislike for him get in the way. For some reason, he has come to care about you. Come with us back to my flat- you can floo from there".
He isn't letting his dislike for get in the way. He knows this, because he doesn't dislike him. On the contrary. Why else would he keep seeing his face, sharp and pale, with snow in his hair? What else could've made him save him?
Cares about you, Hermione says, and his heart skips a beat.
Instead of answering, he asks, "why was there snow, that day? It was August" Hermione wraps her coat tighter around herself, quickening her footsteps "the Death Eaters created the blizzard, to blind us. Worked, too, in addition to freezing us".
She reaches a tall building, its front door made with smoked glass and painted in peeling black, and rummages in her pockets, producing a key.
She opens the door, ushering them in. Harry drops the bear and Ron picks it up and hands it back to him, smiling. He thanks him.
They climb a few sets of stairs, and stop next to another peeling door. The whole building looks as though it'll fall down any moment. Harry isn't too optimistic about the flat.
He is surprised when the flat, though small, looks pleasant and homey. There are books everywhere, of course, and parchments, a tattered sofa, an overstuffed red armchair. The fireplace is quite small, but the fire inside is burning merrily, warming Harry to the core just from looking at it.
"There's floo powder in the jar on the mantle," Hermione says briskly, and when Harry protest, ushers him impatiently towards it. Ron's objections are overruled.
"Just say Malfoy Manor" she instructs, throwing a handful of powder in the fire and half-pushing him inside. The Fire roars, high and green.
"Malfoy Manor" he sighs, giving up, and is shoved into the emerald flames.
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Harry has always hated traveling by floo, and this time is no different. He hates the spinning, and the soot he breathes when he opens his mouth, and the fact that he has no control over himself during these excruciating minutes. At last he slows, then stops completely, and falls out of the fireplace onto an expensive Persian rug. He is disoriented, and dizzy, and his elbows are scratched and painful, because as always, he forgot to tuck them in when he stepped inside the fire. To make things worse, a pair of elegant, pristine shoes stop before him, and a familiar, disbelieving voice says "Harry!?"
Harry looks up. This isn't how he wanted his first meeting with Draco to go, after all that has happened. He wanted to step out of the fireplace gracefully, smile pleasantly at a familiar, arrogant Draco, and talk. Draco would smirk, drawl something along the lines of "living up to your title, I see, Potter", Harry would reply with a smirk of his own, saying "can't disappoint anyone, can we?" and everything will be as it was, comfortable, and most important of all, well-known.
Tumbling gracelessly out of the fireplace, covered in ash and dizzy, isn't what he had in mind. Having Draco call him Harry, white and obviously trembling, and look at him like Harry was a ghost, is even farther than what he has imagined.
"Er," he says, feeling stupid and slow "yes?"
Draco is still staring at him, drained of colour and frozen. Harry gets up, swaying slightly, and dusts himself off. Soot settles like snowflakes on the pale carpet, and he winces.
"Hi," he tries.
Draco opens his mouth, looking bewildered, and then his face tightens. He glares at Harry, says "bugger off", and leaves the room, his back stiff and his moves rigid.
Harry blinks after him "what the..." he hurries after him "Malfoy, wait!"
The blonde stops. "What" he says sharply "did you just call me?"
Harry, feeling more confused every minute, gapes at him "I called you Malfoy" he says "your name, if I recall correctly, and I'm pretty sure I do. What is wrong with you, exactly?"
Malfoy, his eyes still hard, takes three longs steps until he is an inch from Harry. Harry leans back, making a face "Malfoy," he says, trying not to breath through his nose "Ugh. Have you been drinking?"
Draco roles his eyes "ye-es" he says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. Harry thinks it was a bit daft to ask, as the man is positively reeking of alcohol. He narrows his eyes "why else would I be seeing you?"
"Merlin, just what have you been drinking?" Harry says "it's awful!" then he registers the second part of Draco's words. "What?" he says, feeling dafter by the moment. Then comprehension dawns "I'm real, Malfoy".
Draco shrugs, flowing and a little wobbly "of course you'd say that" he tells Harry, and he does sound more than a little tipsy "I admit, calling me Malfoy instead of Draco was a stroke of brilliance, I nearly fell for it. But the real Harry Potter is lying in St. Mungosdead to theworld, and to me more than anyone. This" he gestures at Harry and nearly falls over "is just a figure of my aching imagination, of my lust and hunger for him. He is not going to wake up, ever, I just have to learn to live with it-"he stops. His eyes look wet.
Aching imagination, Harry's mind repeats. Lust and hunger.
"Wait," he chokes. Everything is moving too fast for him, suddenly "you... "
"Can I kiss you?" a voice asks, foggy and far away. Harry closes his eyes. "Well, here goes" the same voice says, drifting by, and a soft pressure on his mouth...
"Oh," Harry says, his mouth faster than his brain "oh, oh, oh..."
Draco sighs impatiently "will you just go away? It's not healthy, you being here. It's called denial, and it's painful, too".
When Harry doesn't moves, he grinds his teeth "I though hallucinations were supposed to go away, when you realize they're not real. Figures you'd be as stubborn as him" he shuts his eyes, jaw clenched tightly, and hisses "go away! Leave me alone. You're not real, you're not here-"
Lust and hunger, Harry's brain insists. A smile against the snow, gray eyes, and a kiss...
Merlin, Harry's brain says, you're really dense, aren't you?
"Oh!" Harry breathes, to himself "yes, yes, I am".
"No, you're not!" Draco shouts "look, I'll prove it to you-"and he grabs hold of Harry, and kisses him.
"NGK" Harry says, to the room.
Draco stumbles back, staring at Harry with horror "oh my god" he whispers "you're real".
Harry thinks this beats his oddest dream, the one about Dumbledore and Crookshanks dancing the tango in a great, round fishbowl.
"Yes" he says "I've been trying to tell you that for the past ten minutes".
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Draco seems rooted to the spot, gray and almost washed out in his dark clothing. His light hair is messy, strands sticking around in every direction and falling into his eyes, and his face is sharper than Harry remembered it; the nose and chin jutting out painfully, the hollows under his cheekbones deep.
He looks older than Harry remembers, too; as if not four months has passed, but four years.
"Harry," Draco exhales, one word broken and hopeful at the same time.
Harry smiles at him. He can hear his heart hammering between his ribs, tattooing patterns on the bones.
The blonde reaches out a hand, hesitatingly. It hovers next to Harry's face, trembling.
Harry takes a step closer, puts his hand on Draco's face. It's cold under his palm, smooth and dry.
Draco doesn't even blink, as though he's afraid Harry will vanish into thin air in the half-moment he won't be looking.
He angles his face into Harry's hand, a wondering expression on his face. His own hand has finally settled on the back of Harry's neck, icy fingers curled against his spine and dipping into his shirt collar.
Harry shivers.
They stand like that for a few minutes, watching each other. Draco's eyes are pale, wide, his lashes only a shade darker then his hair. At the moment, they are frightened, and awestruck.
"Why..." Draco whispers, and though Harry isn't sure what the question is, he is sure of the answer.
"Because," He says, and leans in to kiss him.
A/N: To all those who wondered (if anyone did, that is) Harry is nineteen years five months old. The war started in June, before his eighteen birthday, and lasted for a year and two months. He was in comma for four months. Draco's birthday is in October, making him nine months older than Harry, and therefore already twenty.