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LIFEFORCE

By passing the floo, Harry ran to the infirmary, arriving out of breath at Malfoy's door seconds later. He ran inside to see his patient convulsing on the bed, held down by the Headmaster and Madam Pomfrey.

"Step back." Harry said softly but authoritatively. Snape and Pom threw him incredulous looks before looking back to each other. With a shrug of her shoulders Pom reluctantly stepped back from the bed at the same time as the Headmaster did. As soon as he was free Draco's convulsions worsened. Harry watched clinically as the other man's body started to draw up.

He whispered the charm that would allow Draco to breathe through the seizure that Draco was now fully into. His hips were raised into the air where his shoulders and feet were pressed into the bed. His face was a snarling mask and the muscles in his neck were taut with the strain.

"Harry..." Pom whispered as she watched the man seize.

Harry spoke gently in a detached but calm voice. " Not everything can be helped by magic, Pom. Some things have to work their course." He turned sad eyes to the medi-witch, "he will be fine."

"Let me cast the charm to stop this, Harry." She pleaded.

Harry slowly shook his head no, "you can not."

"You're killing him Potter!" Snape snarled back once again as the greasy git of a Potion's Master who had always hated Harry Potter.

Harry smiled sadly and said gently, "he is too far gone into the seizure for the charm to work Headmaster. He is in pain, yes, but he will not die. If we cast the charm now his body will go into shock and he will likely die."

Suddenly Draco's body went slack and Harry stepped forward and as he did he stopped the charm he had cast earlier to help him breath through the seizure. Taking out his wand he settled it over Draco's chest. With his palm over the wand Harry closed his eyes in concentration. His wand began to glow and it slowly lifted from Draco's chest. Harry whispered an incantation as the wand slowly raised. When the glowing wand met his hand the glow reached to engulf it.

Madam Pomfrey had never seen this before, she was only a level 5 medi-witch after all, but she did know what Harry was doing. She walked to the doorway and stopped motioning the Headmaster to follow her. They stepped out of the room and turned to watch as the glow from Harry's hand slowly engulfed Draco's body. The tension visibly left Draco when the glow had grown to engulf his whole body and it was obvious he was now sleeping peacefully.

"What just happened here?" Snape demanded.

"I have never seen it before Headmaster but I have heard of it." She didn't even try to cover the awe in her voice.

"Damn." Snape sighed and ignored the medi-witch's amused look. "He just saved his life again, didn't he?"

"Of course." Pom said with a chuckle. They watched as the strain appeared on Harry's face as the glow continued to get brighter. They could see his hand shaking but they could tell from the look of determination on his face that he would keep it steady.

"He likes to combine muggle techniques with magic." She said quietly. "I never would have let him ride out the seizure. I would have performed the charm and possibly killed him."

"Muggle techniques?"

"Muggles do not have our advantages, Headmaster. But they do have their own way of dealing with certain things. Sometimes, the result is better than anything that we could do." Pomfrey explained.

"For example, we cast a charm to get rid of a high fever and in the process we kill off antibodies that help fight off infection. So, then we have to give them a potion to restore those antibodies. Muggles let the fever rise, while the antibodies multiply to stop the infection, then they get rid of the fever. Those casts we had on Mr. Malfoy were muggle inventions. They are used to hold the bone together until it can heal. Takes longer than skele-grow I know, but it a damn sight less painful."

Snape looked shocked as the older woman's language but shared a grin with her anyway. Neither of them saw Ron walk up and stand behind them listening intently to what they were saying.

"What is he doing?" Snape asked curiously.

"Well, Headmaster, feast your eyes on something only one other healer in the world could do." Pomfrey said smugly.

"Who?"

"Merlin."

"I see, so what exactly, is he doing?"

"Harry is sharing his lifeforce with Draco, Headmaster."

Snape turned wondering eyes on Harry. "How?" He marveled.

"Because he loves him." She replied simply with a look that meant that that should have been obvious.

"That's impossible!"

"Why is that?"

"He would have had to break every barrier in his mind." The tone that the Headmaster used was one of disbelief and some anger.

"Yes." She agreed in a soft tone.

Snape sighed painfully, finally realizing the pain this boy had faced, and faced mostly alone. "When?"

"Final Battle."

"Voldemort?"

"No."

"Dumbledore?"

"No."

"Then what?" He asked exasperatly.

Madam Pomfrey eyes Snape with a hard glare before turning back to watch Harry. Her eyes and voice softened. "He's a healer Severus. A healer who has killed."

Her tone when she spoke after a few seconds of silence was filled with sadness for the one she considered her son. "Imagine killing the person who had made your life a living hell for the last 8 years and feeling remorse for even that death. Imagine turning and seeing the man who was like a father to you cold and gone. So much death and pain and you can feel every bit of it. Weighs you down, screams at you to join it, but you didn't."

"Then, imagine seeing the man you have loved for years laying there with the smallest spark of life left in him. Screams and tears won't save him. All your knowledge that you crammed into your head won't save him. So you break." She could feel the tears flowing down her cheeks but she did not wipe them away. She knew that Harry did not know that she knew what had happened and she let him continue to think that for his won piece of mind. Harry hadn't faced his own demons yet, she didn't think he could handle the fact that she could face them with him if only he would let her.

"You break all the way down until there is nothing left but the want in you that your love survive. Not you, though, you never expected to live past this day. But he did, he deserves to live. When that becomes all that you are, when you break that much, there are no more barriers, Severus. When Harry took the dying Draco in his arms he made the choice. His life for Draco's. He made it willingly."

She turned to Snape surprised to see tears in his eyes. He had kept enough reign on his emotions that they had not fallen. But it was close. She laid a hand on his arm and her voice cracked under the weight of her emotions. "Imagine waking up and still being alive when all you wanted to do was die. He didn't speak for the longest time. Now, he can barely raise his voice."

"The only way that all could happen is if the love was returned." Snape said flatly.

"I know." Madam Pomfrey said bleakly, "but he doesn't."

"I see." Snape's tone showed that he did indeed see. Time wasted, was all that he could think.

Madam Pomfrey sighed, "when he woke he went to see him. Mr. Malfoy, in his defense, had just found out he had lost his son. He was very upset...he screamed at him. Cursed him. Harry couldn't handle it. He didn't know what he had done, to this day I still don't think he knows how he saved him just that he did. This," she said indicating what Harry was doing, "is told to them how to do it but no one has been able to do that for centuries. I only know because I was there through his nightmares. I researched and found out what he had done but have never told him what I know. He panicked when he woke up. He-"

Ron spoke harshly for the first time since he had arrived causing the two to whirl in surprise to face him. "There is a reason for the saying: Healers heal, killers kill. You made him into a killer! What did you expect him to do? Why do you think he gave up?"

Madam Pomfrey drew him gently into a hug as she calmed him down. He was shaking with a fury he couldn't control. Standing there listening to her talk about what Harry had gone through made him realize he had not been there for his friend like he should have been. Just accepting Harry's feelings for Malfoy wasn't enough, he should have talked to him about it. He looked into the room and watched as Harry stood there over a glowing Draco.

"When he told me he was leaving I was angry. He was never the type to run from things. I could tell there was something really wrong so I held my piece. He has hurt enough, don't you think?" He pleaded with them.

"He has." Snape agreed.

"Malfoy will kill him over this you know that don't you?" Ron said bitterly.

"Ron, you listened to us right?" Madam Pomfrey asked. She waited for him to nod his head yes before continuing. "You heard what I said about what happened after the battle?" Another nod of his head was waited for. "And what did the Headmaster say after that?"

Ron furrowed his brow as he remembered the conversation between the two. They could see the exact moment when he realized what it all meant. His face broke out into a grin and his eyes lit up. "In order for what Harry did, and is doing now, to work Draco has to love him back."

Madam Pomfrey opened her mouth to say something in reply when she was stopped by a low cry from the infirmary room. They rushed into the room to find Draco sitting up in bed looking around in confusion and panic and Harry sprawled, unconscious, on the floor.

With a cry Pom ran to Harry and with Snape and Ron's help, lifted him onto a bed that she conjured. Muttering she checked him over and sighed in relief when it was apparent that he had passed out from exhaustion and magical drain.

Their relief was cut short by a cold voice spoken from behind them, "what the bloody hell is going on?"

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Well, thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed this story. I appreciate each and every review that I get.

I have another story titled HURT and one I am working on called BROKEN VOW. Check them out and let me know what you think.

And also, the link to WISHMASTER'S didn't work so just try the search and go read it. I think it is very good, though it is not something that I normally write. Not good with song fics.

Once again that you to everyone that reads!

ENJOY!

LMG