Harry stands beneath the fall of water in his shower and counts the droplets as they fall from his lower lip. Each one is another bit of emotion he's been carrying around, another pound of misery lifted from 'round his neck. He's been clean for nearly twenty minutes, but the scalding water against his flesh feels too much like scarification. As he looks down, he half expects to see trails where each tear has made its way out of his body and to the floor—discarded like some unwanted thing he can't name.
Oddly enough, it's the steam collecting like dew on his lashes that tugs him out of whatever reverie he's drifted into. He shakes like a drowning dog and walks out, groping around for his wand to dismiss the water.
Before the mirror, Harry takes the time to look at himself—truly look at himself. There are scars inlaid over much older scars. He doesn't remember most of them. Perhaps he was too drunk on whatever nonsense Ginny was feeding him, but as Harry runs his fingers over them, some of them are entirely new. He's shocked when he spins and sees that they do not end in places he can reach.
"How?" The word is strained, as he's contorting himself around to try and look at his lower back.
He sinks to the ground with the towel clutched in one hand. His left butt cheek ends up on cold tile and he inhales quickly, unmoving. It warms to him after a moment, or perhaps he's just absorbed the cold. He stares at his hands, which are one of the things left unmarred by his past. Sure, there are a couple of small cuts which have healed over smoothly, but nothing like the rest of his body.
Without clothing in the way, Harry's loudly growling stomach interrupts his contemplation. He sighs, using the little bit of towel he isn't sitting on to finish wiping away the moisture.
He doesn't much mind which clothes end up on his body; he just feels the need to be dressed. When he looks around his room, his eyes fall on the table by the window; a bulge forms in his throat and he can't swallow past it. He turns away, fists clenched as he walks to his door.
The patio is empty as well. Every door he passes is closed and he doesn't see a single house elf. Harry is loath to call Tovo, so he waits out on the most frequented patio for nearly a half hour. By that time, he realizes that neither breakfast nor Draco are coming.
There is little in the way of quiet as Harry storms back to his room.
"Maybe I should go back to Grimmauld," he says as he paces between the window and bed. "Draco probably doesn't want me here."
His thumb is twitching and he grips his thigh tightly, trying desperately not to tap, but it's too much and soon his TAP-TAP matches the unsteady slap-slap of his feet across the wood floor.
As he continues to fret, the twitch gets worse. He's grinding his teeth and gnashing at words like "Voldemort" and "Horcrux."
"He's told me they aren't here. I must trust him. It wasn't Voldemort's fault Narcissa died." He shivers, his eyes shocking back in his head as he rolls it around on his creaky neck, then continues. "Maybe it was. Maybe there's a horcrux here and she took it and they couldn't stand to be around her. Maybe she was the horcrux. Oh gods, what if she was like me?"
Harry falls to his knees. He scrambles madly toward the door, an awkward tango of hands and knees and feet. He's just trying to make his way toward Draco, who might have answers to his questions.
His hand freezes on the knob.
There's a pulse. It's faint, but he feels it thrum against his hand. Again, he's scrambling, but this time away from everything he'd been moving toward. Harry cannot get to the corner quickly enough. Once there, he summons the blanket from his bed. He wraps it around him and cries into the cotton, mouth full of soppy white fly-away dreams.
Tovo doesn't check on Harry until lunch. By that point, he's murmured himself to sleep and lays awkwardly on his side—drool slowly dripping from a mouth that whispers of Voldemort, even in his dreams.
Tovo is unable to rouse Harry. In his semi-conscious state, she's unsure precisely what course of action to take, so she rushes across the hall to Draco's room. There, she's met with an equally disturbing sight. Draco's anything but sober and has spent the afternoon flinging all his liquor bottles and anything breakable at the walls, furniture—anything solid.
She squeaks and disapparates before a vase comes precariously close to hitting her left ear.
"Malve!" Tovo calls, her little feet hurrying around the elf quarters.
"What you be doing, Tovo?" she responds when her head pokes out.
"It's Mr. Harry Potter sir! I can't wakes him!" She wails, clutching at the bottom of her frayed dress. "So I went over to Master Draco's room and he be throwing things all over! Tovo almost died, Tovo did!"
Malve steps out from behind her small bed and pats the younger house elf. "You's all right, Tovo. Let's go see Mr. Harry Potter and then Master Draco. At least he's awake, even if he be killin' things."
Tovo nods and they disapparate to Harry's room.
Once there, it takes both of them to rouse him. They are able to get him in fresh clothes, sitting up in bed. He starts eating a bowl of soup that another elf brings, but pushes it away two-thirds of the way through.
"Enough. I can't do anymore."
"That's all right, Mr. Harry Potter," Malve says as she banishes his bowl to the kitchen. "You get some sleep. Malve don't want to see you in a state like this again."
Harry nods and slips beneath the heavy weight of the blanket. He's too tired to mind that he's not wearing a shirt or that he only has one sock on. He doesn't notice when Tovo and Malve slip away because he's already asleep.
Both elves walk quickly across the hall.
"Master Draco? We be coming in now. Please be stopping your throwin' so you don't hurt us." Malve's voice is gentle, but commanding. She gives Draco five seconds then pushes the door open.
It doesn't matter.
Everything in the room that could be broken already has been. Draco lays in the middle of it all with wand in hand and the very last glass of scotch held tenderly between thumb and forefinger. He stares at the brown liquid as it swirls around.
"D'ya know that glass hurts when you fall on it?" Draco holds up his hand and Tovo squeaks. Malve just shakes her head.
"Young folk. Know so much and so little." Malve steps forward, takes his wand with little more than a weak gasp of protest, and snaps her fingers. In her other hand, shards of glass begin to worm their way out of his palm, fingers, wrist, and forearm. He screws up his nose and looks like he'll vomit. "Not yet!" She snaps again and Draco's mouth is spelled shut. He panics and claws at his lips, opening an old scab there. "Done."
Down his arm are trickles of red, but the skin is intact. He's panting now and pointing frantically at his mouth. He leans forward and begins to reach for Malve when she sighs and snaps.
Draco promptly empties his stomach over the rug.
"Filthy child," Malve says once he's done. "Mistress would be ashamed."
This gets his attention. He goes to grab for his wand, to utter some horrifying hex, but she stands with hands on hips, his wand clutched in her fingers.
"Is you looking for this?"
He sits back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and spluttering. "Fuck you. What the hell do you think you know about my mother? What do know about what she thinks? Would think. Have thought." He pauses to consider his words. "Fuck. I'm going to be sick again."
Malve grabs him and disapparates them both to the bathroom, shoving his head over the toilet. When he sits back again, she stares hard at him.
"Is you done this time?" She can hear Tovo chuckle from outside the door.
"Fuck off, the lot of you."
"That'll be a yes, then."
She moves toward him then, calling for Tovo to help. With one on either side of him, they drag his unwilling, yet unresisting body into the bath.
"When was the last time you bathed yourself, Master Draco?" Malve asks.
His eyes roll back a little, but even his sneer doesn't hold its normal weight. "Day before," he looks at her intensely for a moment, "—it happened."
"No wonder you reek." Tovo giggles again and Malve slaps her. She goes quiet and helps Malve remove his clothing then begin scrubbing.
Once Draco's skin is freshly pinked by the vigorous hands of Malve and Tovo, they levitate him to bed and command his obedience in staying there.
"Is Master Draco going to work tomorrow?"
For just a fraction of a second, he looks like he'll be ill again. "No," is all they get before he tugs the sheets over his head and disappears. Malve tries one more time, but his only response is, "Fuck no. Go away," so they do.
Over the next week, a pattern emerges. The elves take food to Draco in his room, forcing him out of bed so they can change the linens. Once he eats, they remove the dishes and then the fight for his bath begins. After he's clean (because they always succeed), he dives back into bed and isn't seen until the next meal.
There are stacks of parchment cluttering his office along with frustrated owls who must return with either unopened letters or no response. Kingsley calls on the Floo several times a day, but the elves give vague excuses of illness or dire family circumstances that need tending. When friends or coworkers call, Draco turns them away without explanation.
After a while, the elves stop asking, afraid for what he might do in retaliation.
Sleep drowns Harry for the first time in a while and he tosses fitfully in bed. He doesn't wake when the door opens, nor does he stir when a drunken body fumbles into his bed. All he knows is the warmth of another person and the comfort of a hand at his back. He's missed this.
When fingers reach into his pajamas and try to grab hold of his cock, Harry kicks out and rolls toward the wall, taking the blanket with him and shooting a spell off in haste.
"Ow, that hurts, you fucker," comes the sloppy voice from above him.
Harry peeks around his blanket-shield. "Draco?"
"Yes, it's me. Why the fuck did you hex me?"
Harry is aghast. "Why?" his voice drops. "You're asking me why I hexed you when you're sneaking into my bed trying to—to—I don't know what you're trying to do!"
Draco's rubbing at his arm where the hex continues to throb and mumbling something Harry can't hear.
"What?"
"I said you're an idiot fucking wanker. No better than Blaise."
"Why bring him into this?" Harry asks. "I don't have any idea what happened between you two, but I am not him, Draco."
Draco's scowl is clumsy and sad.
"Get out of my room, Draco." Harry stands, his wand pointed at Draco, but it's wavering. He's trying desperately not to stare at the man who's lying in his bed in only a pair of pants and sporting an obvious erection.
"You don't want me to leave." He looks affronted.
"I said get out." Harry's words are less sure this time, but he waves his wand again toward Draco.
Draco throws his legs over the bed, grabs his cock for good measure and lets out an exaggerated groan. "Your loss, Potter."
Harry waits until he's out of the room to crawl back in bed and hide beneath the blanket, trying his best to ignore his own throbbing cock.