Disclaimer: The characters belong to J.K. Rowling.

Pairing: Severus/Harry.

Rating: R

Summary: Mistakes. Love. Betrayal. Destiny. Two souls. Two lifetimes. They were meant to be together. Now they get a second chance.

Author's note: A very strange sort of AU. Six chapters of five. Very quick updates. Review! Pre-HBP, but I'll see what I can do to edit it.

Author: Spirit

The Forever Dreams

VII

"Potter this is unacceptable!"

Angry eyes flashed disgust across the room. Everyone else paused. Before them the cauldrons bubbled and smoked out wisps of green and purple clouds, but no one seemed to pay their work much attention. The figure in black cut across the room to stand glaring at his intended target.

The scroll fell onto the table with a loud clatter.

"You will re-do the assignment. I want fifty more inches added and should you fail this time I will personally see that you never set foot into this classroom again."

The scroll was picked up by its owner. The large red letter at the top seemed so damning that it was all that the younger wizard could see. The more he stared at it was the angrier he got. Then suddenly the scroll was sailing across the room, headed in the general direction of the retreating figure.

"You are so unfair! I stayed up all night writing and researching this. There is nothing that I don't know about Vampyre blood that you could tell me right now. Everything in it is right. I even asked Hermione to look it over. There was nothing wrong with it!"

The scroll missed the professor's back.

By the time the student could understand exactly what it was that he had done, the room had gone incredibly silent and only his angry words spewed forth. Slender fingers, flying through the air and violently grasping the collar of his cloak, immediately marked the abrupt ending of his words. Before he knew it, he was being hauled out of the classroom and down the corridors.

"You ill-mannered ingrate. I will teach you respect and humility. Get in there!"

The door slammed shut. The student was shoved against it so hard that his head bounced on the wood causing a dull thud sound. It took a while to realize that he was not in the Headmaster's office, as he deserved. Instead he was locked in a room with his most hated professor and was about to be punished severely if the look on the professor's face was anything to go by.

"I should learn humility?" he asked the wizard who had eyes that were filled with dark and cold fury. "You're an ass Snape! Yes I said it. I'm not a first year that you can torment anymore. I'm nearly sixteen and almost a graduate of this school so I've had enough of your hatred for all these years. I'm not taking it anymore!"

The slap echoed loudly within the silence of the room. His cheek stung and his head snapped to the side from the force of the punishment. He fought the instinctive tears that clouded his eyes, with anger so deep that it felt suffocating.

"You prick! Don't you ever touch me again!" He shoved the bigger man with strength he did not know he possessed. "I don't want your slimy disgusting self near me again. I'm not afraid of you anymore and I'm not taking any more from you!"

Those slender fingers slid through his hair to grab brutally at a clump. His head was jerked violently downwards. The pain was intense. He saw red flashes beneath his suddenly closed eyelids. It took a moment for him to remember to open his eyes again.

When he did, he lashed out with his fist. "Let me go!"

The fist connected brutally and this time he found himself careening into the wall at the side. He crumbled onto the floor to stop the dizzying effect of losing control. It didn't last long so as soon as he saw the boots of his professor quickly approaching, he rose to his feet to face the wizard.

"Potter," the professor began to say in a voice filled with less anger.

He however was beyond reconciliation. He pulled out his wand, but within a split second it was in his professor's hand. That made him even more livid. He lashed out with his fist again, but again it met with empty air.

"Stop it!" came the order. "This is very juvenile. You want me to take you seriously? Then stop acting like a five year old."

He tried to punch again but this time his fist was caught. Then came the slap against his cheek. This one was more a means of bringing him out of his irrational reactions. Although it did not sting as much, he couldn't believe that he had been hit again.

A stream of angry words spewed from his lips, some of which shocked even him. He was sure that he was half screaming and the animalistic growls that he was emitting were nothing short of insanity. But he could not stop.

Something inside him was fuelling this irrationality. It was something that had been building inside of him for a while now, but he did not know what it was. It only showed itself when he was around this professor. He could feel himself being torn apart.

"Stop it!"

This time he wrenched his hand away and wrapped his arms tightly around the cloth-covered neck. He jerked the wizard against his body, wanting to merge or control or possess the one before him.

Suddenly he was trembling and panting and painfully hard in his pants.

He was still growling. He ran his fingers through the soft dark strands of hair, wondering why the grease did not bother him. He wanted to taste and touch and taunt. From his lips he could hear his voice begging for unholy things against the shell of the other wizard's ear.

"Potter stop," he heard softer this time before arms were wrapped tightly around him.

He gave in to the feeling of being cocooned in a grasp of protection.

VIII

"Oh God," Harry whispered brokenly.

His head reeled from the disorienting effects of the vision as reality came back into focus. He reached out a hand to grasp the first object that his fingers met and was almost happy for the coldness of the chair's metal arms. Gasping for breath, he realized that his legs would not be able to hold him up much longer but since crumbling to the ground as a doctor in a hospital was unprofessional his brain tried to convince his body that he would be fine.

"Here. Drink this."

Harry took the paper cup of water and drank the fluid in one gulp. It helped to stop the tremors that still tingled along his body. After a few seconds he could feel his heart rate slowing down to normal.

"You wouldn't react so strongly if you just accepted that the visions will come and there is nothing that you can do to stop them. It is my experience that they somewhat lessen in the daytime once the dreams start coming."

Harry had forgotten that his superior was still standing before him, but the words managed to get him to focus his attention once more and soon the meaning in the words broke through.

"I'm not going crazy?" he asked, turning frightened green eyes onto the molten black ones still staring at him.

Severus raised an eyebrow. "I would not presume that you are not, having only known you for a day, but I can assure you that if you are just now losing your sanity then I have long ago lost mine."

Harry turned that over in his mind. While it was reassuring that his suspicions were correct, he couldn't help feeling that he had jumped off the steepest end of a precipice and would be spiralling for a while. The vision had been so real that he could still feel the sting of the slaps across his face.

"You look like him," he said softly, voicing the only fact that made sense in his mind.

Severus sighed a breath of air before hesitantly reaching out to him. On instinct Harry took the steps needed to bring their bodies closer together. Severus fingers grazed the cheek that he had so violently slapped. His fingertips slid over the sharpness in Harry's jaw.

"And you look like him," he said just as softly. "For years I searched for you. At first it was to counter the visions. I would dream about you. Hear you. Feel you and I didn't even know your name. Now you show up in my hospital and bring this madness back upon me."

They couldn't seem to pull their gaze apart. A multitude of emotions coursed through them and there were whispers that echoed in their minds. Laughter. Sobs. Words that were shouted that made no sense but they knew the spells that each word produced. It really was beyond comprehension, but it was so real that they could not have denied what felt so intuitive.

And then suddenly the feeling faded and there was only the two of them, two strangers, standing far too intimately together.

Severus removed his hand quickly from the vicinity of Harry's face and curled his fingers at his side as if he had damaged them from touching the intern. Harry took about two steps back and blushed fiercely. He tried to meet the cold dark eyes again, but no matter how familiar they looked they no longer felt as familiar anymore.

"Be ready for surgery in fifteen minutes."

When Severus spoke again his voice was indicative of the Neurosurgeon that he was and nothing like the Potions master that his mind kept trying to remind him of being, once, long ago.

"The first forty-eight hours are the most crucial time in an intern's training. I won't have you distracting yourself with petty procedures and unimportant patients. The regular surgeons are quite capable of treating these small matters. You are a neurosurgical intern. What's more, you are my neurosurgical intern so unless I give you my permission you are not to try and perform any other procedure on your own. Do you understand me? You will scarcely breathe unless I tell you to, Potter. Learn that quickly or you might as well leave and never show your face at Hogwarts again."

"As a doctor I made an oath to protect lives," Harry dared to argue.

Severus pinned him with an unforgiving look that spoke volumes about Harry's audacity before repeating, "Be ready for surgery in O.R. 2 in 10 minutes or go home."

When he turned and walked out of the room, Harry saw black robes snap and billow. He wasn't sure if the emotion he felt was dislike or anger, but it came very close to what the wizard in his vision had been feeling.

And that was what frightened him the most.

x-x-x

IX

Long ago, when Severus had first started working at Hogwarts he came to realize that being a member of staff meant that he was going to be included as a member of one very big family, whether or not he liked it. He had fought against it. He had fought the other doctors' smiling hellos and the surgical staff's knowing glances or prying questions. He had fought like a man against a wave of friendliness with the only weapon of sarcasm and insults that he had, but in the end he had failed.

Now he simply accepted his fate and ate his meals with the other medical professionals. Which was why he didn't bat an eyelash when his intense scowl trained at the table of twelve - chattering, laughing and far too naive - new members of the hospital, was intercepted by the amused looks of the previous Head of Surgery and her side-kick.

"Hello Severus." They sat on each sides of him at the table.

"Minerva," He greeted, turning the cold scowl to each of them. "Flitwick."

Minerva McGonagall laughed in the prim and proper manner that she was known for. "I see that the other interns have finally arrived. I've been far too busy all morning to take notice of them, but it seems to be a good lot this year."

On Severus' other side Flitwick, one of the other general surgeons, made a scoffing sound. "Speak for yourself Minerva dear. Dumbledore knew what he was doing by bringing in the top three a week earlier than the rest. I don't think my forty-eight hours will go quite as well as you and Severus' night did. Already I think I'll have to limit them to the observation rooms if I am to get any work done."

McGonagall raised an intrigued eyebrow.

"Well Ron and Hermione are good students and are great at following instructions which I am highly thankful for. I have no complaints. But Severus, the nights were all a buzz in the hospital and I'm only now catching up to the gossip. Serves you right for limiting yourself to only one intern per year. In any event, how is your intern? He looks quite young to be specializing, and in neurosurgery no less."

Severus' eyes sought out the one intern he would indeed have the responsibility of training in his special art. Across the room, Harry was the center of attention as he spoke with slightly animated gestures. His laughter rang out in the room and of course everyone else laughed soon after. Even seated between his two new friends and surrounded by a group of nine eager new faces, he exuded the nature of a born leader.

"That is because he is too young," Severus finally answered in a voice low enough to be a growl of words. "He is fresh out of medical school and have no prior training in any practical work, yet he has been given to me to teach the fine art of neurosurgery. His heart isn't in to it."

"That was not what I heard," McGonagall interrupted. "I had him aid me in a liver transplant this morning. The boy knows his surgeries. I waited on the sidelines for him to make a mistake but he was meticulous. And I heard about the patient in the waiting room that he gave up his break to help. He has quite a bit of heart Severus. Perhaps it's too much for a neurosurgeon like you."

Severus glared at her dangerously.

"He never listens to anything that I say. He argues over the simplest procedures as if there is but one way to perform the tasks and meticulous as he is, I've caught him more than once day-dreaming while in the middle of performing a MRI scan. There is no room for minor mistakes when it comes to the types of surgery that he will be expected to perform. And he wants to get close to the patients. He wants to talk to them and become their best friend which is just preposterous with a patient who has spinal cord injuries or a brain tumor near their hypothalamus. The last thing a patient like that wants is to be bored by an able bodied neurosurgeon. He annoys me with his legions of questions or the way he feels it is his duty to take the most humane stand possible on an issue, as if a patient who is already permanently paralysed from the waist down will care if the sciatic nerve is properly avoided during surgery. He is exasperating. He would rather spend seventeen hours in surgery avoiding every minor nerves present than to get the patient out from under anaesthetic as soon as possible and take the faster route."

"And I bet the patient really appreciated the gesture too. I heard about the procedure with the severe Synovial lumbar cyst last night. It's a good thing that you neurosurgeons aren't restricted to nerve operations only. You learn a bit of humility, thankfully."

The voice that interrupted Severus' snarls was the newest GP on staff. Fleur Delacour had spent only a year on residency before decided that she too wanted to try specializing in neurosurgery. After spending three months in Severus' presence, the notion was quickly squashed, but the two had parted on good terms. Another year later now and no one could tell that when she had arrived, she had the strongest French accent that side of England and had spent hours repeating herself to the nurses. She had the fiery French temper to go with it too, but now had mellowed. She still didn't even look that much older than the new interns and could have joined their table if she had wanted, but instead she took the seat directly facing her former teacher.

"I don't know what all the fuss is about," Flitwick piped up the conversation again. "If all he can be is a little too careful then compared to you Severus old chap, I'm going to be sinking."

He jerked a thumb in the direction of the group of interns, indicating a plump looking man who sat enthralled as the three higher interns continued to share about their first forty-eight hours.

"That one over there, Neville Longbottom, almost killed someone this morning." Flitwick was a small man and generally excessively kind so to see him glower was saying a lot. "I don't know why I thought to pick him from the group and take him into the O.R. with me. We were performing open-heart surgery on a middle aged man. Standard bypass, you know. Well he dropped a scalpel in the wound and I tell you it was a hair's breadth away from completely severing the pulmonary artery. Everyone froze for a good minute before we could react. Gave us a damn scare too because the blood pressure dropped and if I hadn't reacted fast enough we would have had a flatline on our hands."

"Perhaps the three can help the others along. It was unfair to bring them in before the rest, but maybe it was for the best. Potter seems to have everyone's respect," Fleur commented with her French accent showing a little at last.

"He's quite the little enigma too," McGonagall said, giving Severus a look. "Young and brilliant but tight mouthed about his past. Reminds you of someone Doctor Snape?"

Severus mentally rolled his eyes at her jab. He gathered up his tray of discarded lunch and rose as regally as he could manage. He tried not to reach over and run his fingers along the inner side of his arm as it tingled in apprehension.

"There is nothing wrong with having a hidden past," he finally bit out. "Now if you'll all excuse me, and since Minerva has somewhat reminded me, I am in desperate need of making a hasty phone call."

He ignored the laughter at the table when he left and the glittering emerald eyes that trailed his every step as he departed.

Standing outside he breathed a deep breath of the fresh air. He hardly made it out of his ward and when he did he tended to forget just how bright the sun was or how cool the air could be. His fingers deftly dialled the familiar numbers on his cell phone. Free time was another thing that he had in scarcity so he usually caught up to his one or two calls once a month when he found the time.

"Severus. My old friend, I have not heard your reassuring voice in so long."

Severus frowned. "Is something wrong Lucius?"

"No, no," the voice on the line was quick to soothe. "Everything is under control now, but I must say that you have perfect timing. I do need a rather stiff drink at the moment. Do you have the time to steal away from that conniving old man whom you have sacrificed your time and freedom to? I could meet you halfway to the nearest town."

"Better my master than the one you served, my friend. " This time his fingers traced the scar he knew was there on his arm. "My freedom is more my own than yours is, but we will lay that issue to rest for now. A drink sounds well enough."

As always, when Severus hung up the phone with Lucius, it was the closest he ever came to smiling.

x-x-x

X

"Are you certain about this Nurse Chang?"

Harry had been paged from the cafeteria to the front desk about fifteen minutes after he noted Severus' departure. Standing at the nurse's station he was immediately told the reason for his summon but it left him intrigued.

"Yes I am Doctor," Cho told him with a small smile. "He is leaving now. Ask him yourself."

Harry spun around to look towards the direction that she was indicating. He was not disappointed because Snape was indeed strolling towards them and the exit to the hospital. For a second, Harry froze. His mind went blank as he tried to decipher how exactly Snape managed to get his coat to flutter like that as he walked. And then the answer came to him.

Piercing dark eyes. A scowl. The dramatic turn. Black robes billowing.

'Practice does make perfect,' he thought just as the surgeon noticed him.

"Is it so hard to follow a simple suggestion Potter?"

Harry couldn't help the smile that rose to his lips at the sound of the barely civil words.

"No sir. I just don't understand. Am I allowed to just take the rest of the day off with no strings or such?" he responded politely despite the grin. "I mean it's a hospital."

"I am aware," Severus said dryly. "You are my intern however and since I have no qualms about walking out of here I see no reason why you should not be able to follow suite. However, if you would prefer to stay here and be a nuisance to McGonagall or Flitwick then by all means go amuse yourself. Whatever you decide, I will not be here. That is why the hospital uses an 'on call' system. It does come in handy in moments like these when I am about to leave you in my wake. Now, do excuse me Potter. I have far better things to be doing and none of them includes a moment more in your presence."

If they were holding wands, Potter's own would have angry red sparks shooting from it... just before cursing his mentor.

It was a very strange thought but it was exactly what came to mind as Harry glowered. Severus didn't dwell on it for long though because just as he was about to shove both the real and imaginary Harry from his immediate consciousness, there was the unmistakeable sound of a mobile ringing.

"Potter!"

Severus looked murderous. Harry blushed. Cho handed him the illegal item that was indeed his, and Harry took that as his cue to escape before he was chucked out of the hospital on his ear. He didn't think that Severus would be there when he returned so he thought it best to savor the fresh air and lack of insults while he still had the chance.

"This is Harry. Talk."

"Mr Potter... It's been a month." There was a pause, before the voice softened. "Please sir, you know you don't have to come."

The phone went dead after that. And with it went Harry's emotions. He actually felt himself going cold and his breath catch. Reality seemed to drain away from the air around him. The words were hardly the omnious type but his reaction was the same as always. It never got easier. It just never did. Every month. And this month he had forgotten. It seemed like a twisted coincidence that Snape had given him the day off right when he needed to do this.

His mind went on autopilot from that point on.

The walk back inside the hospital. To change out of his surgical outfit. Back out the exit. To his car. Turn the key. Press the gas. Drive. Drive. Drive. Two hours of his life passed. He never noticed. It didn't even occur to him that the caller had been right and that he didn't have to be there. Because he had to be. It was why they called to remind him. Because he had to see him. Every month.

The white building rose before his eyes as he parked before it.

White outside. White inside. Shuttered windows and a maze of walls and corridors. Padlocks everywhere. Metal bars. People wearing rubber sole shoes to muffle footsteps. The reasoning was obviously faulty.

Nothing could ever stop the screams.

Harry took deep, shaky breaths. He rested his head against the steering wheel, burying his fingers deeply in the clumps of his hair. He was trembling. Already. He had to stop the tremors because once he stepped through the door and stood before him he would be vulnerable in many ways. Tremors were ammunition that could be used against him. Harry's worst fear was that one day he would end up here with him and as ashamed as it made him feel, he had no desire to spend eternity in such a man-made hell.

He managed to calmly walk through the front door and up to the receptionist.

"Hello Harry," she said softly, giving him a sympathetic look as she always did. "Draco has been waiting for you all morning."

XI

They had met in medical school six years before. Draco was the arrogant rich boy whose money was already enough power unto itself while Harry, the orphan who had paid his way through school since he was fifteen, was his exact opposite. They had clashed of course. Their fights became notorious but when they finally saw eye to eye they became inseparable.

They had been best friends long before they became lovers and even after they had moved on to other relationships they had always been there for each other.

The night Harry had found Draco lying unconscious on the dirty floor of the residence bathroom with the syringe of heroin still sticking out of his arm, Harry had gathered him in his arms and driven all night to get Draco to the hospital in the next town so that he would not be recognized. He had been there to watch him go through cold turkey and had stayed strong for his best friend when the other man was so far gone that he offered everything but his soul to get just a little taste of the drug.

Draco had paid the doctors to keep their mouths shut and had sworn to the high heavens that he would never touch heroin again for as long as he lived.

He didn't.

Six months later it was cocaine and a steady stream of alcohol. Bad combination. They were in medical school they knew that, but Harry wasn't exactly given the choice of stating his opinion. Instead Draco would isolate him from his life. There were days when the blonde's door would stay shut and Harry would sit outside pounding or begging for Draco to let him in. When he called the authorities to break the door down Harry would stand back frozen in fear because he couldn't go in. He couldn't deal with the idea that at some time in the night Draco had died from an overdose or worse, had committed suicide.

Harry knew that to the outsiders he looked the part of the distraught lover who was so stupid that he didn't know when to give over and let them take Draco away. But he couldn't let them. He would thank them politely for their help then embrace Draco like the world was infused in the slim body, ivory skin, blond hair and grey eyes. All he needed to know was that Draco was safe. And then they would tell the police that it was going to be okay and no they didn't need any further help and yes they were sure.

See, Harry had been there when Draco hit rock bottom.

He had been there to see the blood that looked like an ocean in the plateau of the huge sitting room. She was just lying there with her eyes still open and the gun held loosely in her hand. The back of her head was unrecognisable as once belonging to a human. Neither Harry nor Draco had looked. They were in medical school. They knew what happened when a person put a bullet in her own head. It wasn't the home coming that Draco had been expecting and it wasn't the view that he had in mind to show his guest but it was Harry that saw and it was probably for the best. Harry had made his own vow that night to protect his Draco no matter what.

When Draco had disappeared one night, Harry had searched the small apartment that the two had finally gotten as roommates. There was nothing there that was incriminating however. Harry had done a thorough search because heaven knew that he was well aware of all the other drugs out there and Draco could have tried anything having already done something as lethal as heroin. It just seemed to be down hill from there so Harry looked for small packets with unrecognisable white powder and was almost relieved when he found none.

He had found the letter though.

It seemed so insignificant but in the end it was Draco's undoing. Harry knew how much Draco loved his father. It was a love that bordered on obsession. So when he found the letter that had come after a year of silence from Draco's father, he understood that Draco could have withstood anything else in the world but to be blamed for his mother's death by the one person he would have given his soul for. Harry was calm as he read it. The words hurt even him, a stranger, with how brutal they were but Harry knew that he would need to be strong if he were to help Draco.

And Draco had been so broken. When he found him curled into a foetal position, Draco had been whimpering like a child on the bloodstains that no one had bothered to clean in the eighteen months. Harry didn't know what to do. So he hugged his best friend tightly against his own body and wished to God that he had the ability to piece him back together. Instead Draco had gotten worse, slipping in and out of reality. He screamed, fought, and used every emotional weapon he had against Harry to try to bring him to his level of pain also.

In the end Harry checked him into the only private mental institution that he knew. He paid for everything. It never occurred to him to ask Draco's father for money to take care of Draco. At some point he was aware that the Lucius Malfoy he had never once either seen hide or head of had gotten wind of his son's condition. He visited him, the nurses told Harry. He left Draco in a worst way after each visit. It never occurred to Harry to write and tell the man to find some other being to torture or to ask if Draco hadn't been dealt enough pain. Instead, Harry made sure to visit Draco every month.

"How is he?" he asked softly.

The nurse shrugged nonchalantly. "The same, mostly. His father came to visit as usual, so he was a bit unruly this morning. He's back into solitary confinement now but you know how he hates that too. We told him you would come see him today. As usual that calmed him down. Just in case though, we gave him a shot to make sure that he doesn't try hurting himself."

Harry nodded. They never told him what shot they gave Draco and he never asked. He didn't think it would make much difference to tell them that he was a doctor, had graduated top of his class and as a neurosurgeon in training he pretty much had a good idea what that shot was anyway. He didn't tell them that Draco would probably know too if he had been sane enough to graduate. Then again, if Draco had been sane then he wouldn't be there.

The nurse unlocked the metal door that was thick enough to render the room beyond, sound proof. Of course when Harry looked inside he could see the restraints that held Draco immobile on the bed that they had tied him to. Draco was awake but his grey eyes were hollow and there was no sign of recognition in their depth. Harry stood back when the nurse began to unlock the restraints on the thin arms and legs and across the slim waist. Draco stayed unusually subdued even after he was free to move.

"You know the rules. Just give the signal if you want us to intervene." She glanced between the fear in Harry's eyes to the cold emptiness in Draco's silver gaze.

Harry nodded as she left the room. The sound of the locks closing sent a tremor through his body. It was his rule for them to lock him in but he never got over the way nausea washed him as the iron door slammed shut.

"Draco?" He said softly, leaning slightly over to look at the face of the man that had once been his best friend. And now there was nothing recognizable behind the physical.

Draco's hand moved so swiftly through the air that Harry only felt the pain of his chin colliding with the base of Draco's palm. Harry's head snapped back so hard that it was like a whiplash. He stumbled backwards in the small room until his back hit the wall.

Draco rose from the bed with a sort of feline grace as he approached.

Harry ducked the fist that came towards him but he didn't see the other hand that moved simultaneously to grab his hair from the side. His head slammed into the wall. Harry saw stars, before his head was shoved back into solid concrete again.

"Draco, it's Harry!"

Draco stopped as if frozen between two realities. He tilted his head to the side, as his face seemed to reflect the confusion that had taken up residence inside him.

"Harry?" Draco reached out to him. Harry knew what would come next.

In a split second the cold look returned but this time it was accompanied by a twist of his lips that made mockery of a smile. Harry tried to escape the arms that formed a barricade at his sides. He silently cursed himself for notifying Draco of his identity while he had no way to escape the coming advances.

Draco had him pinned against the wall with his hips and chest. It always surprised Harry just how much strength was still in the broken man's body. It was enough to cause Harry embarrassment as Draco ground his groin against the jut of Harry's hip. When they were lovers Harry had lived to be in Draco's arms and he had cherished every moment of their intimacy. Standing in a too-small room with a camera for his own protection, the act was a cruel mimic of the love that they had once shared. They had stopped being lovers long before Draco's mother's death but the blond never remembered that part.

Harry shoved him away as hard as he could and watched as Draco stumbled. He hated the revulsion that he felt. He hated the way he felt dirty and he hated the shame he felt when it was evident to him that all Draco remembered him as, was a willing body and a punching bag.

Draco screamed at him before attacking again.

For the first time, Harry saw red in his anger. He lashed out, hitting as hard as he was hit and even harder. He laughed at the blood when Draco's lip split and he shouted just as loudly as Draco was shouting when Draco's fist slammed painfully into his gut. They kicked and screamed and punched each other and the more Draco bled was the angrier Harry got.

So he hit him more, because damn it, he had enough. Because he couldn't save him. Because the Draco he had known had been gone for two years now and Harry wasn't just some object to be used. Because Harry had loved him so much and now he didn't even remember what it had felt like to love Draco.

The years had ruined it and all that stood between them was hollow and empty and spoiled. Harry had held on too long and now he couldn't let go because he had promised. And maybe Harry's heart was ruined too.

So finally he gave the signal.

The door immediately opened and orderlies rushed in to separate them. Harry knew that he would end up with some serious bruises but at least he wasn't bleeding as much as Draco. Draco was screaming. Just screaming like his soul was being sucked out of his mouth by the evil figures in black that Harry had caught glimpses of in his dreams the night before. And Harry wanted to scream too because he was just as hurt and how dare Draco act as if he was in more pain than Harry.

He backed away to the door as he watched the men medicate Draco with another tranquilliser. He vaguely wondered why they hadn't stepped in to prevent him from beating Draco so badly, but they wouldn't have. They had watched over and over, month after month as Draco pounded Harry to a pulp sometimes and somehow it wouldn't have seemed fair to stop Harry now that the tables had turned.

"Come on Harry."

There were two nurses by his side. They led him out the room and corridors, through the door and to his car. He was just as unresponsive as always. Every month that he left the place they would think it was his last. Harry seemed to retreat into himself every time.

This time he sat in his car with his entire body violently shaking. He went through all the memories that he had of Draco. Of the Draco he had known with the flirtatious smile and the quick tongue. He thought about the years they had spent together at each other's side as friends, then more, then friends again. He thought about the screaming, fighting man that he forced himself to face every month that was a stranger now, more than ever. And when the images began to merge and blur before his eyes, he rested his head on the steering wheel of his car.

And he cried.

x-x-x

tbc