Green and Gray

Disclaimer—All I own is my insanity. I don't own HP and Co.

Part 1: Forever Ago

He stared at the blankets draped over his lap, the wall, the floor—anywhere but at the mirror on the bedside table. For days, the healers had been pestering him to look at himself and come to terms with what had happened to him. His perfect face was no longer perfect. Why look in the mirror? It would only make him wish harder for what he could never possess. Absently, he lifted his hand to the bandages. They really weren't needed anymore, as he had been healed as much as he ever could hope to be, but he couldn't stand the thought of taking them off. This was his life now, no matter how much he yearned for things to be different. Now or never.

Surpressing the little voice that cried never, he gingerly began to remove the gauze one layer at a time. Violent shakes ran through him as the last one fell. Lifting the mirror with both leaden hands, he took a long, hard breath and turned it over. "My God!"

His cry and the crash of the glass echoed through the room.

"Draco!" A thin, dark haired woman burst through the door. Concern lit in her eyes, but not shock. She had seen him before.

"Don't look at me! Please, Hermione, don't look at me," he pleaded. Tears fell over his once smooth cheeks.

"Draco, it's all right. I'm your friend," she assured him with emotion in her own weak voice.

"How can you say it's alright?" The border between anger and despair was now so thin that it was indecernable. "How, Hermione, can you look at me and say you're my friend? How can you even look at me and say anything?"

"I love you, Draco, no matter what you look like. I love you, Neville loves you, Harry loved you, Ginny loved you and even…even R…he loved you. You are all I have left. We have to believe that it will be alright, because if it's not….what did any of it matter!" Sobs racked through her tiny body.

For the first time in weeks, Draco looked at his friend and saw her pain. She had lost far too much weight and her skin was as pale as paper. Grief had killed the spark in her eyes. Taking her in his arms, he sighed. "Do you always have to be right? I love you too, Mione. But I don't know if I can go back to living like I did before."

"I know I can't," she admitted. "I've been living on Sevrus' couch for the past two weeks just so I wouldn't have to go home."

The image of the Weasly's small flat came to mind. Warm, cozy, sparsely furnished with well-loved pieces taken from Ron's parents. Hermione and Ron had been married the day after they graduated from Hogwarts in a small service. Despite the darkness of the times, it had been a joyful affair. It was the last day of true happiness they had all shared. That day was the first time he had seen Hermione look truly beautiful, but his eyes had drifted longingly in another direction. Harry—it hurt so much to remember him—had looked a mess in his dress robes standing next to a red-faced, red haired man. He swallowed hard, they'd barely been married a year when Ron died in a vain attempt to save Ginny from Lucius.

His stomach turned. He could see the look in those cold eyes, even now. No, he didn't regret killing him. Family be damned! He would not regret it. Lucius Malfoy had sold his soul to the darkness long before Draco had been born. Growing up, there were times when he wondered if his father had ever had one. The battles between Death Eaters and Aurors had been fierce, and it was pure fate that lead father and son to opposite sides of the field. He remembered how his skin had burned from Lucius' curses. Crying out, he forced himself to stand and fight. There was a second, that seemed to last forever as Draco stared into those cold eyes, watching them die.

He had passed out after that, and awakened hours later in St. Mungo's with Neville sitting by his bed. No one would have recognized the Griffindor as the joke he had been in his younger years. "Draco," he said softly, "it's over Harry finished it."

"Harry?" he had managed to croaked out over his burnt lips.

"He left you and Hermione with me, before going against Voldemort. No one has seen him since," Neville told him.

Holding back tears. Draco asked, "who else?"

"Dumbledore, Ron, Ginny, McGonagall, Tonks, Remus, Charlie, and Seamus. All dead."

"Harry will be back," he said for his own benefit as well as Neville's. But Harry hadn't come back.

Shaking away the moment, he tightened his grip on the bony body. "What do you say we leave magic behind us?"

"Draco? You don't mean it?"

He nodded. "I do. This place isn't for me anymore. I'm the scarred remains of the Malfoy family—a dark family. I don't want that name, or that notoriety. But I'm not so sure I could handle muggle life on my own."

A wan smile appeared on her lips. "We can't have you hexing the toaster, now can we? I'll just have to go with you."

A week later, Hermione began to move their things into a two bedroom apartment in muggle London. It did wonders for her outlook to be out and doing something constructive. Draco would be out of the hospital soon enough, and he had no plans on visiting his childhood home—or hell, as it should have been called. The house elves had packed what few items he asked for and sent them over already. Not once did he question his choice. He didn't think he could stand the stares, the gossip all surrounding his face and his name.

His face. He still had a hard time looking in the mirror. The burn scars were deep, and sprawled across most of his face. Nothing could take them away, or even lessen their appearance, the healers had told him.

His mind waltzed back once more to days when he had been unmarred. Harry had been with him then, even if not in the sense Draco had hoped for. They had become steadfast partners in the order. Their lives had been on the line many times over and each time they had managed to save each other…until that final day.

He remembered how beautiful the dawn of that day had seemed to him, staring out his window from the safe house. Lost in reverie, he hadn't heard Harry creep up behind him. "What if I had been a dark wizard?" he asked with amusement sparkling in his eyes.

"Bad enough, you're a bloody Griffindor." Draco couldn't stop staring at the seductive smirk on Harry's lips.

"Mmm, at least I wasn't a no good Slythrin." For a moment, something flashed in Harry's eyes. Draco was sure he'd imagined it, but then he licked his lips and shifted. "Draco, there's something I have to tell you."

The blond nodded. He could feel his heart pounding.

"I…I…All this time, I've been afraid of you."

"Me? I'd think you'd have bigger problems than me."

Harry shook his head. "Who said it was a problem? No matter what I've felt for you, it's been as strong as anything could be. And now…" He paused for a moment.

"Now what?" Draco prodded.

"Now, I can feel that this will be over soon and if I don't tell you now, I might never get the chance…"

"Don't say that," he interrupted. Harry looked at him with a fierce desire in his eyes.

"I have to say it, because it's true. Everything in my life rests on 'if.' I have to be the one to fight him, Draco and I might not survive, but if I do. If I live through this, I want to be with you."

Draco didn't realize that he'd been holding his breath. "Harry, I've been in love with you for quite some time, but I didn't think that you felt anything."

"I feel everything, but I have to do this and I don't want to hurt you. I love you. Will you wait for me to finish this?"

"Oh God, Harry. I want you now." He crushed the dark haired man with a passionate kiss, and found that Harry returned it full force. When the embrace broke, Draco found himself staring into eyes so green they put every other shade to shame.

But that was a forever ago.