'Wait, Draco,' Harry caught up with him mere seconds later.

'Don't try and talk me out of it,' Draco warned him, wearily.

'You cant do this!'

'Why not?'

'You cant do this. To me.'

Draco turned around, suddenly cold and distant.

'I'm doing what I have to do.'

'Goddamit, Draco! I screwed up, I admit it, but why do you have to go and do... this? Its suicide!'

'I might come out of it alive,' Draco shrugged, his entire manner indicating he did not really care.

'Might? MIGHT? Draco, I won't survive it if you die! I've lost too many, much too many! Are you blind? Deaf? Stupid? Can't you see I love you, insanely, desperately? Wrongly, perhaps?'

'Harry,' Draco's face softened, 'I've done so much wrong in my life. I must understand that I see this as a way to find redemption. I've never done anything to help before, I've caused more wrong than right. I need to... to do something. Anything. I cant just live knowing that when I could have made a difference, Is at backed out like a coward.'

'So you're just going to let them use you as bait?'

'Its as simple as that. No, Harry, don't say anything else. I have some hours, maybe – probably – my last. Lets spend them together, not fighting, but just... together. Please?'

Harry lost all the anger in him when he heard these tenderly spoken words. He knew he could not talk Draco out of it – just as he knew that he should not.

The afternoon drew to an end, and the tiny, sharp-edged crescent moon rose magnificently in the sky. One by one, the speck-sized stars were lit, until the sky was a huge stretch of dark velvet littered with glitter.

The two did not see this. They saw, heard, thought about – nothing. It was just the two of them, the soft Egyptian cotton under them, the heat, the desperation. Both knew this might be their first, last and only night together, the only chance they would have to experience real closure.

There were hands, hands mapping out backs and sides and thighs, soft and hesitant, trying to remember every angle and every texture and every curve. There were mouths, kissing and tasting, drawing red-hot paths here and there, warm and moist an heavenly. There was skin, tanned and ivory. There were eyes, silver and emerald, ablaze with passion and desire. There were legs, entwined and weak, trembling with every touch and kiss. There was hair, platinum and ebony, damp with sweat and sticking to faces.

They lay next to each other for the last precious minutes, afraid to draw apart, afraid to lose each other. This one night bonded them stronger than a lifetime could, and both felt an infinite, overwhelming, wholly consuming love for one another, a love that was highlighted by the prospect of possible loss of it all.

What could they do? What could they say? What WAS there to do? They did not say anything. There was no need for words, no need for anything but them. Just there. Just in that moment. Each silently praying, toe very god imaginable, that this would not be their last night.

It seemed as though it was years – sunlit, beautiful, joyful, perfect years – later when Draco sat up and began pulling on his clothes.

There was a look of marble-hard determination upon his beautiful face, as he placed his wand in the holster upon his upper arm. This was it. The time to say goodbye.

'I wont say anything,' Draco spoke, quietly, not turning around. He could not bear to see the distraught Harry sitting, stark naked, in the tangle of sheets. 'Because I am coming back.'

Harry tried to suppress a sob – a failed miserably.

'Don' you see?' Draco continued, 'Harry, you've given me something to live for. Something to keep fighting for. By – by just being here, with me. And it's more than anyone ever gave me.'

Tears were now streaming freely down Harry's cheeks.

'Come back,' he managed, quietly and hoarsely.

'I will,' Draco smiled to himself, 'I will.'

'Swear to me!'

'I swear. You trust me, don't you, Harry?'

'Yes. I trust you.'

Draco turned to face Harry for the briefest moment, gave him a watery smile and Disapparated. In that moment, Harry's heart broke a million times.