The shrill sound of the doorbell was boring into his head, screaming in his dreams. Harry awoke with a start, a gummy syllable still in his mouth from the nightmare. His heart was racing. The doorbell trilled again. Harry put his hands over his ears.
Please, not the magical bloody paparazzi again!
He pressed his face into the sagging mattress, trying to block out the sound of the persistant doorbell. Go away, go away, go away… The doorbell kept ringing, someone thumping on the thick wood of his front door.
With a groan, Harry reached out his hand for his glasses, groping blindly. His sleep-clumsy fingers found nothing but his alarm clock. He knocked a glass of water – it trembled and slopped cold water over his hand. Harry swore.
The doorbell rang again, angrily.
He rolled reluctantly out of bed and stood up, yawning and rubbing the grit from his eyes. When he opened them, the tiny bedroom was a dark blur. What time was it, anyway? He peered at the digital display of his muggle alarm clock, but saw nothing but a green smear across his vision.
He lurched across to the front door, the banging becoming ever louder. Harry didn't bother looking through the peephole.
"GO AWAY!" He shouted over the din. Silence fell almost immediately. Harry sighed. It was like a balm to his ears. He was turning away when the muffled voice came through the wood, almost inaudibly.
"Harry?"
Harry turned back, unable to believe his ears. He recognised that voice. But it couldn't be! He was decieving himself. "Who is it?" He faltered.
"Please open the door, Harry..." There was a pleading note in the too-familiar voice beyond the door. He had heard that tone before, but its existence now implied too many things. Harry's knees trembled as if they were about to give way. There was a gaping hole in his chest where his heart had been only a few minutes earlier, but still the blood was pounding in his ears.
He stepped forward and fumbled with the bolts frantically, his fingers shaking. It couldn't be! But if it was…! The last bolt slid across as if coated with tar, and Harry turned the Yale lock and swung open the door, preparing himself for diappointment.
He saw nothing but a blur in the darkened hallway. He blinked, squinted. The figure in front of him stood very still. "Who…?"
He felt a warm hand grip his wrist and jerked with surprise. The hand guided his to the side, beside the door. His fingers touched the little table he kept there, groping over the wood. The stranger's hand guided his further.
Harry felt the hard coldness of his glasses beneath his hand and grabbed them, shoving them onto his nose and looking up.
He stared into the silver-cast eyes and felt the world spin around him.
Draco Malfoy gazed out from the shadow of a thick cloak's hood, changed dramatically from the last time Harry had seen him. Harry leant on the doorjamb for support, his knees almost failing him. The eyes, those once-immortal eyes, had aged. For all their pale light, there was a new darkness there. Harry couldn't help wondering what he had seen in the past six years. He looked exhausted.
"Harry," the voice that issued from what had once been Harry's archnemesis was almost too soft to hear. "Forgive me." With this, Draco seemed to give up his last reserves of strength and he crumpled, hitting the floor before Harry had time to catch him.