Chapter 1: Beyond the Wreck

A/N: Here's my loverly first chapter. Read, enjoy the tension and the anger. It's lots of fun.

Draco Malfoy was not having a good day.

Or month, now that he thought about it.

Two months, really.

And as his eyes fluttered slowly open to find a pair of uncomfortably vibrant green orbs on his face, he knew it wasn't going to get any better.

"Fuck," he muttered eloquently.

Potter's face remained closed, though Draco thought he saw the hint of a smile tug at his lips.

"Actually, I'm Harry. Or did you forget that?"

Perhaps he had hallucinated the smile. Draco didn't actually think the Boy Wonder's voice could get that cold; he sounded almost like Draco's father did when he was mad, and even more like the Dark—he shuddered. Merlin, he couldn't even think the man's title anymore. Though 'man' was probably too strong a word.

"I didn't forget," he whispered, thinking of far more than the name and the face, though the face had haunted him. The terror and the horror in those eyes as he had threatened to kill Dumbledore, and the fury and relief as his wand had lowered, and the renewed shock when Snape had appeared.

Potter nodded, and swallowed. "You look like shit."

The effort to be light-hearted was rather dismal, Draco thought, but it was better than remembering.

"I guess that finally puts us at the same level then, Potter."

The Gryffindor opened his mouth, and Draco was relieved to see a spark of anger in his eyes. That at least was better than the cold.

"Harry, what's going on down here?" Both boys turned their heads as a voice spoke from the top of the stairs. The werewolf man, Defense teacher—what the fuck was his name?—stood very still, his eyes on the two of them where Harry sat close to Draco, his hands carefully folded in his lap.

When Potter replied, his voice was surprisingly matter-of-fact. "Draco Malfoy is here, Remus."

The werewolf's eyes remained remarkably calm, though Draco could practically see the gears turning in his head and the suspicion snapping across his thoughts.

Remus's eyes ran over him. "He looks awful. Haven't you bothered to clean him up at all?"

Draco rolled his eyes. And now they were talking about him like he wasn't there.

The Boy-With-a-Stick-Up-His-Arse frowned. "He only showed up a few minutes ago, and he's been passed out for most of that time. And I didn't really want Draco Bloody Malfoy to wake up to me tending his injuries. He'd probably try to kill me. " The green eyes ran over Draco's broken body and a hint of pity came into them. "Not that he could do much right now."

"I'm still here," the Slytherin hissed angrily. "You will not talk about me like I'm not here. And you," he spat, whirling on Potter. "If I ever seen pity in your eyes again I will fucking kill you."

Potter's eyes snapped with fury, but he drew in a deep breath and Draco watched as the brilliant eyes dulled again.

Grey remained on green as Draco wondered where the annoying, perpetually loved boy had gone, and where this shell of a man had come from.

"I suggest you clean him up." Remus's voice broke the spell, and Draco managed an expression of disgust.

"Aren't you worried about contaminating your precious savior?" he asked, nearly succeeding in his old drawl. "And I don't want his filthy hands touching me. The man can't even use a comb, Merlin knows what the rest of his hygiene is like."

Draco saw the spark of anger again and thrilled in it. He wanted to see that rage again—so familiar, so safe in a way, so full of life. That expression reminded him that he was alive, that the Death Eaters hadn't managed to squash all his resistance. Not that they had wanted to kill him anyway, at least not at first. They just wanted him to know that he'd failed. Well, he knew that already, thanks.

He was suddenly very aware of a pair of quidditch-strengthened arms hauling him up from his position on the sofa. Potter was lifting him up, his expression again blank, though his brow was creased in a slight frown.

"What are you doing, Potter?" His voice was not as sharp as he had meant it to be. It was lower, softer, vulnerable.

"Remus is right." Draco glanced to the stairs, but the man had disappeared while he was lost in his oh-so-pleasant memories. "You need to be taken care of, cleaned, your wounds healed. So that's what I'm doing."

Draco had little energy left to protest, and let himself be half-carried, half-dragged up the stairs to a large bedroom, helping little though he did try, and then taken through a door opposite the bed to a spacious bathroom. He was stripped briskly and placed unresistingly in the deep tub and Harry muttered a charm to fill it, not bothering with a wand.

Draco blinked. "You can do wandless magic," he stated, for a moment forgetting that he was supposed to hate this wizard.

"Yes. Ever since I was little, though I didn't know what it was then."

Draco didn't bother to process this reply, for the water was hot and soothing, though it seared his open wounds and he had to grit his teeth from crying out. He shut his eyes tightly and breathed, trying to drive out the pain.

A warm, slippery hand made contact with his back and he froze, his eyes lifted to find green eyes that were slightly less cold than they had been.

"I'm going to wash you now. Your hands look a wreck so I don't think it's a good idea if you use them just yet. Hold still."

Draco's breath caught in his throat as those hands began moving over him. It had been so long since he'd had soap with which to wash himself, and longer since he'd been touched like this, if he'd ever been touched like this.

His eyes fluttered shut as Harry's strong hands moved to his chest and stomach. Unconsciously he arched into those hands, into the slippery soap and the callouses from years on a broom, into the firm pressure and the gliding strokes. It wasn't that the touch was particularly sexual, nor should Draco's body have been responding like it was. But his breathing quickened, his hands clenched into fists, and he firmly decided that it was his current weakened state that made the blood pool in his groin.

Draco didn't want to open his eyes for fear of what he would see in the other man's. He could have died right at that moment and been perfectly happy. In fact, dying in general didn't seem like the worst thought. He couldn't think of anything he really needed to live for.

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Harry's entire body was on fire. He could of course attribute that to the stifling heat in the room from the hot water, or the fact that he was exerting himself washing Malfoy in the humidity of the room, but the truth was that he hadn't felt such a barrage of sensations in—he couldn't really remember.

Pain in his knees from too long on the tile floor. A tingling in his hands as they smoothed over the hard lines of Malfoy's body. Heat in his cheeks that he didn't think was entirely due to the temperature in the room. And he couldn't take his eyes off the naked man that he had been sure up until a half hour ago he hated.

But when he had seen Malfoy there at the door, so broken and lost, just like he himself was, barely standing, he'd remembered him lowering his wand, how human he had looked then and when he was in tears in the bathroom. How vulnerable.

Now, he looked equally vulnerable, but—Harry swallowed—in a completely different way.

With his body arched toward Harry's talented hands, his limbs and chest glistening with droplets of water, his hair wet and falling across part of his face, and his eyes closed tightly in an expression near pain but more like pleasure, and his lips parted slightly as his lungs took in soft gasps of air, he stirred something in Harry that before the Gryffindor had been unaware he could feel.

Malfoy slowly opened his eyes, as if noticing that Harry's hands had stilled just below his navel. The grey was clouded, but with pleasure this time instead of the hazy shroud of pain, and his half-closed eyes held an intensity that made Harry's heart beat faster.

"Well, Potter?" Malfoy's drawl was nearly perfect, but there was a slight hesitance, as if he were less than sure of himself.

Suddenly it was much too close in here, and the sound of Malfoy speaking in that low, husky voice caused a painful tightening in Harry's pants. He pulled his hands back and stood abruptly, saying, "You can rinse the rest of yourself and not drown, right, Malfoy? I'll return in a little while so we can heal you." He turned to go, but not before seeing a flash of —was that disappointment?— in Malfoy's eyes.

The strange thing was, he rather felt the same.

A/N: You know you want to review. All of that sexual tension, how could you resist? I love reviews. They make my day. So please, make my day. :)