Draco went back upstairs and found Hairy sniffing the red and gold scarf. "Not for you, darling," he scooped her up and looked her in the eyes. "Daddy is going to go away for a while. Auntie Millie will take good care of you, okay?"

The cat blinked and swiveled her ears. The white slash of fur in front of her right ear twitched. He dropped her onto the sofa and picked up the t-shirt. Closing his eyes he focused on it with his inner eye, picturing Harry Potter wearing it, how he felt. He sensed sorrow, pain, and isolation. He sensed the frantic urge to escape, to hide.

He took the shirt, scarf, and letter into his bedroom and placed them on the vanity. It was time for supper but he still didn't know what he wanted. Nothing sounded appealing. He considered fire-calling Millicent Bulstrode and seeing what her plans were, before remembering that she had a date planned. She would always make time for him, but he respected their friendship too much to interrupt her evening.

He lifted the blue T-shirt again and stroked the soft cotton with his fingertips. He raised it to his nose and inhaled deeply, drawing in the scent of the previous owner. It had been six years since school, and nearly a year since it had been worn, but he knew that scent. Knew it well. His heart ached.

He set it down and yanked his own shirt off. He then drew the blue T-shirt over his head and shoved his arms through. It was a little too big for him, which meant either Harry liked to wear his T-shirts baggy or he had bulked up since school. He turned to the side and inspected his reflection. The elaborate sleeve tattoo that covered his left arm from shoulder to wrist was complemented nicely by the modern muggle style.

He was suddenly sick of the wizarding world, sick of the pressures of being important. He wanted to get away, far far away. It was the influence of the shirt. He had keyed into Harry's mind and it was drawing him along a path. He was Tracking.

He closed his eyes and plunged deep into the memory that lay trapped between the fibers of the fabric. He could hear the sound of traffic, the hustle and bustle of shoppers, the ringing of tills. In his mind's eye he could see himself dressed in a long, green apron, arranging cucumbers on a produce stand. His glasses slipped down his nose as he reached into a crate and pulled out a short vine of tomatoes. He was satisfied with his work, proud of his perfect pyramid of peppers. He showed an elderly lady to the lettuces and smiled broadly when she didn't know his name.

Draco took a deep breath and Disapparated. He arrived in the produce section of a muggle greengrocer's and quickly cast a generalized Obliviate to erase the memory of his sudden arrival. He looked around at the mounds of vegetables and knew with certainty that Harry had been here. He walked between the bins and waved his hands across the surfaces, looking for traces of recent residence, but any signal was long gone, dispersed among the throngs of shoppers.

"Can I help you find something?" a voice behind him spoke up. He turned and met the friendly smile of a muggle girl, chestnut hair tied back in a ponytail, clad in a green apron that hung past her knees.

"I'm looking for a friend," Draco said. "I think he used to work here. Name's Harry."

"I only started last week," the girl shook her head. "I don't know of any Harry. Have you checked the Employee of the Month wall?"

She waved for Draco to follow and led him to a stretch of tile beside the butcher counter. A long row of photos extended from end to end, stacked five rows high. Draco immediately noticed that none of the pictures moved.

"There's a Harry, is this him?" She pointed at the bottom row, nine photos from the end.

"That's him," Draco nodded. He stared at the photo in wonder, stunned by the change in his former school rival. The photo was nine months out of date, but that still made it five years more current than Draco's last memory of him.

His hair was still a mess, a thicket of short black spikes that he had trimmed closely around the back and sides. His glasses were still round, burnished dark frames encircling eyes that were as green as his apron. His smile was still goofy and sincere as usual. But that was where the familiarity ended.

He was ruggedly handsome, no longer the scrawny, gawky boy he's been in his youth. His shoulders were broad, much broader than they had been in school. His neck was thick, muscular from his years training at the Auror Academy. And his scar was faded, almost nonexistent, just a thin silver lightning bolt above his right eye.

"My manager will be in tomorrow afternoon," the girl interrupted his musing. "She could probably tell you where he went after he left here."

"That would be great, thank you," Draco nodded. He could feel her eyes on him, inspecting his tattoo and checking his hand for a wedding ring.

"I get off in an hour," she said boldly. "Come by I'd you'd like to have a drink."

"I wish I could," he lied. "But I'm late for a supper engagement. Thank you for your help."

"Suit yourself," she winked saucily and went back to the produce department.

Draco checked around and then grazed his fingers over Harry's photo. He gleaned nothing from it. Harry hadn't interacted with it so he'd left no signature behind. Draco would have to come back tomorrow in the hopes of learning anything new. He lingered just for a moment longer, then with a quick swipe of his thumb down Harry's cheek he turned and left.

oOo

Draco awoke early. He always woke up early, usually after fitful dreams. In the six years since the war he had not yet figured out how to put the haunting memories behind him.

He stared at the fresco on his ceiling and tried to remember last night's dreams. He could recall blackness, an inevitable rising tide that threatened to swallow him whole. Little more than the amorphous sense of dread that had entered his life at age sixteen and hadn't left since.

He rolled over and ran his hand over the blue muggle T-shirt that lay on the pillow next to him. He drew it to his nose and inhaled deeply, once again catching the faint scent of its former owner. He slipped his hand beneath the covers and rubbed his thumb across the head of his cock, the image of Harry's employee of the month photo fixed in his mind's eye.

The memory of a warm spring day, a furtive touch, the soft glancing of hands swam to the surface. It was the smallest possible memory one could form, barely an event. But one whiff of that T-shirt and it descended upon him like a tidal wave. He pressed the shirt to his nose and came with a gasp beneath the sheets. He hummed softly to himself as a small smile crept across his lips. Maybe he should convince Hermione to let him keep the shirt.

"Draco! Are you awake?"

"I am now," he called back.

"Can I come through?"

"I don't know, Millie," he groaned and cast a clean-up charm over his sheets and lofted the T-shirt over to the vanity. "I'm not really put together yet."

"I'm coming through."

The Floo in the parlor whooshed and a breath later Millicent Bulstrode stood in his doorway, eyes sparkling and clothes rumpled as though she had slept in them.

"Come on," Draco Scourgified his breath and patted the mattress beside him. Millicent climbed over him and curled up on the pillow. "You look like the cat that swallowed the canary."

"Good date," she grinned.

"Must have been," he plucked her sleeve.

"What did you do last night?" she asked. Hairy jumped up onto the bed and sniffed her hair before nestling into the crook of her elbow.

"Went to London for supper," he paused before continuing, employing some effort to keep his voice neutral. "Got a Tracking job yesterday."

"Who?" Millicent absentmindedly stroked Hairy's back.

"Just some nosy, owl-eyed, Gryffindor prat," Draco waved a negligent hand at the vanity, where the red and gold striped scarf lay neatly folded before the mirror.

Millicent's eyes bugged out, "No."

"Yes," Draco nodded. "Seems our resident savior has departed."

"And of course you took the job."

"Don't look at me like that."

"It's been six years. We've all changed," Millicent poked him in the side. "Maybe he's changed, too. He might not hate you anymore."

"That's not why I'm doing it," Draco said. "It seems his life may be in danger, and if I can bring him back it will pay my life debt."

"That's a good cover story," Millicent smirked.

"Millie."

"You can't lie to me, Draco," she said. "Trust me to know your tastes." She nodded pointedly at the sleeping cat.

"Don't you want to know who hired me?" Draco let the question dangle. "Granger and the Weasel."

"No," Millicent's eyes bugged out again. "They're still hanging out together?"

"Worse. They're married. And they have a baby," Draco loved her reaction. They didn't often talk about school, not having been friends during the later years, but when they did it was nice to commiserate.

"Blaise and Pansy are back together, Ron and Hermione are married, are we the only ones who have moved on with our lives?" she asked. "Are we the only ones who are happy to put those sodding miserable school years behind us?"

"I wish they could have seen you," Draco smiled. "Weasley expected me to be exactly the same as when I was fifteen. Imagine how shocked he would be if you showed up."

"The next time you see them can you at least work it into the conversation?" she asked. "Mention that I'm a healer. Use the word successful. You can even tell them I shagged a very handsome bloke last night."

"I can't imagine how I would work that into the conversation."

"Mention that I lost weight. Tell them that university was very good for me," she sat up, disturbing the cat.

"Millie, darling," Draco patted her arm. "You don't need their approval."

"I know," she cocked her head. "But it would be nice to show them that everyone was wrong about me."

"I know," he squeezed her hand. "Me, too."

They were both quiet for a moment, each pondering their school days. Finally Millicent sighed.

"If Harry is still friends with Ron and Hermione, and they're still stuck in their schooldays mindset," she said, "then he's probably stuck, too."

"Which means he still hates me," Draco finished her thought. He shrugged, "that seemed pretty bloody likely anyway."

"Nothing lost, nothing gained," she said.

"Nothing lost, nothing gained," he echoed.

He thought back to that distant spring day, down by the lake, fingers threading together for the briefest moment. A glance up into green eyes and then the moment gone. He'd never shared that memory with Millicent. They hadn't become friends again until two years out of school. So there was no way to explain to her that she was wrong. As long as he had that memory, he had something to lose.