Chapter Eleven

Draco stumbled back into the house, his legs carrying him without instruction from his brain. Tears clouded his vision and he choked back the sobs that threatened to overcome him. Entering the living room, he collapsed down on the couch, burying his face in his hands, his elbows resting on his thighs.

He shifted his feet when they began to go numb and his foot contacted something soft. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and looked to the floor thorough wet, red-rimmed eyes. The plush dragon sat on the floor. He leaned down and picked it up, holding it tightly against his chest, burying his face in it's body, letting his tears flow freely.

By the time Draco once again made himself aware of his surroundings, it was pitch dark in the room, the downpour of rain echoing off the old, slightly leaky roof. He had stayed, hoping for whatever desperate reason he could think of, that Harry would return. He had not come back.

Draco's mind shifted it's focus onto Antigone. He was suddenly overcome with worry for her. Who was taking care of her? He stood quickly, bringing his hand to his forehead to try and stave off the impending head rush that came from sitting with his head down for so long. Once his head had cleared, he glanced one last time around the dark room, reluctant to leave.

He felt as if something connected him to this room. Something intangible, inexplicable that made him not want to leave. This room, this house, held Harry's aura trapped inside it. If Draco left, he might never feel that aura again.

He forced the logical part of his mind to take over, Antigone was his priority now. She always should have been. He berated himself for being so selfish, for thinking only of himself when he was the only thing his baby sister had left.

Draco wandered through the house one more time, ending up in Harry's own bedroom. The room was mostly bare, only a few pieces of furniture dotting its walls. There were no personal items to even really indicate that the room had been inhabited. Something pulled him towards the table that sat beside the bed. He opened the drawer warily, cautious of dangerous things that could be lurking there.

At first the drawer seemed to be empty but as he turned away, a flash of red caught his eye. He reached in for it, grasping the tiny item. Pulling it out, he found that it was attached to a thick silver chain.

Tears sprung once again to Draco's eyes as he recognized the charm. It was an Italian Horn, finely crafted of blood red coral, set into a fixture of silver. He wrapped the chain around his hand, holding the charm tightly in his clenched fist. A small smile peeked onto Draco's features. He had kept it.

He turned away, nothing more held him here. He pocketed the charm. He did not look back as he exited the house, and, keeping Number 12 Grimmauld place firmly secured in his mind, he apparated away.

Arriving at the doorstep, Draco only knocked lightly once before simply walking in the door. He wasn't even sure there would be anybody there. Entering the house, there was only silence. He stood for a moment and panicked. He wouldn't even know where to begin looking for Antigone again.

A shrill shriek put Draco on alert. He bound up the stairs like lightening, searching for the sound he was sure his sister had made. She shrieked again and he threw open the door to the room where she had played the previous day. The panic evaporated from him when he caught sight of Antigone, playing a game with a grizzled old house elf.

Antigone heard the door open and looked up at Draco. Her face broke into a wide grin. She leapt up and launched herself at his legs, wrapping her arms tightly around them. "Draco!" She squealed. "You're back!"

Draco smiled warmly down at her but the smile did not reach his eyes. He reached down and lifted her up, holding her tightly to himself. After a moment she squirmed to get away. Draco let her down again. She looked up at him from the floor, her eyes catching the plush green dragon, now free of any tracking charm.

"You got it back!" She smiled, hugging it to her chest.

"Of course I did. I said I would, didn't I?"

"Uh-huh." She turned back to the house elf. "I played with Kreacher all day. He made me lunch and dinner and he talked about mommy."

Draco's eyes opened wide and stared at the withered elf. "You knew my mother?" Draco asked.

Kreacher stepped forwards and nodded. "I serve the most ancient house of Black. Master Regulus was my master. Mistress Narcissa used to come for visits when she was a child. Mistress Antigone reminded Kreacher of Mistress Narcissa."

Everything fell into place then. Draco understood why this house had looked familiar, why the crests lining the walls had poked at something in his memory. This was the Black family house. His mother's cousin's home. Sirius Black's home. That must have been how Harry, and thus the Order had gotten their hands on it.

Draco looked slowly around the room, touching the carved door frame that somehow now reminded him of his mother.

He nodded down at Kreacher. "Thank you for looking after her. Have the others not yet returned?"

"What does Kreacher care for the blood traitors and the mudblood? They sully the ancient house of Black."

"Why are they allowed in the house then?"

"Because Kreacher owes Master Harry much. He was kind to Kreacher, let me keep Master Regulus' most prized possession." He pulled the locket out from under his smock. "Even in death, Kreacher owes Master Harry." Something akin to sadness covered Kreacher's face.

Draco almost laughed. "He's not dead."

"Not dead?" Excitement coursed through Kreacher's voice. He seemed to move with a spring in his step. He looked around the room. "Look at this mess. This house is not fit for Master Harry to live." Kreacher disappeared from the room with a pop.

Draco thought that House Elves were very strange creatures, this one was no different.

Antigone pulled on his pant leg. "Draco..." He looked down at her. "Are you sad? You look sad."

Draco cursed his sibling for being so observant. He tried to put on a brave face. "A little bit, Tig. Nothing for you to worry about. I think it's almost time for you to go to bed. What do you say?"

Antigone shook her head. "I was waiting for Miss Hermione and Ron to come back. He said he'd read me a story. There was a red haired girl here too, but she left before I could say hello. They left so quickly, left me with Kreacher. They looked scared."

"I don't think they'll be back tonight, Tig. Come on, it's time to go to bed." Draco cryptically replied. Tomorrow they would leave. Perhaps she would not have to learn of the horrors of this day before they did.

"Okay." She took his hand and practically dragged him towards the room they had used the night before. The room had been cleaned, obviously an attempt by Kreacher to make Antigone feel at home. "Kreacher found me a night gown." She lifted it from the bed to show him. He only smiled lightly and nodded. He envied the innocence of childhood.

Her blue eyes smiled up at him widely and Draco was struck with the sudden image of his father's dead eyes staring up at him. He paled and felt sick to his stomach. "Why don't you change, Tig. I'll be right back." He turned and fled the room before she could respond. He shut the door behind him.

He leaned against the wall, breathing heavily, his body trembling. He scrubbed his hands over his face and tried to calm himself. He reached for the charm in his pocket and took it out. He stroked it with his thumb. He slid down the wall until he was sitting, his knees pulled up to his chest. He pulled the dragon pendant out from under his shirt and unclasped the chain that held it on. Sliding the Italian Horn off its chain and on to his own, he re-clasped it around his neck. He kissed both the pendants before letting them slide back under his shirt. The contact with his skin seemed to send a calming wave through him and he breathed easier and deeper.

A few deep breaths later and he was ready to return to his sister. He put the horn's original chain back in his pocket. "Ready, Tig?" He asked before re-entering the room.

Antigone sat up under the covers, leaning back against the headboard of the bed that was far too large for a six year old. She had a book open in her hands. "What have you got there?" He tried to feign interest.

"It's Babbitty Rabbitty! Mommy used to read it to me all the time!" He sat down next to her on the bed, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, holding the book, his hands over hers. She pulled the book towards her. "No, I'll read it."

"Ok, you read it." Draco kissed the top of her head, secretly glad. His voice was shaky. He was surprised that Antigone hadn't noticed that his body was as well.

His body and mind separated as Antigone read the book. He didn't hear a word she said. He felt the pair of pendants resting heavily on his chest, his thoughts continually drifting back to Harry, those haunted green eyes burned into the back of his mind.

Antigone tugging on his arm brought him back to reality. "I'm done." She put the book aside and looked up at him. She wiped a stray tear off his cheek. "I'm sorry you're sad, Draco." She leaned up and kissed his cheek.

Draco was terrified to speak. He feared if he opened his mouth, he would begin to cry. It was taking everything he had not to burst into tears that very second. He ruffled Antigone's hair and lay her down.

"Goodnight Draco." She whispered, curling into a ball on her side, burrowing herself even farther under the blankets, her recovered toy dragon clutched close to her chest. She was asleep in minutes.

Draco was alone again, emotionally anyway. Alone, he was left to his own thoughts, their dark images and depressing feelings clouding his mind, leaving no room for anything else. Before the last few days, Draco had been surviving, he had put his past behind him, moved on with his life. He worked a normal job, with normal people; muggles even. He didn't have any stress, not the serious kind. He merely lived his day, and that was that. His thoughts would drift to Harry every once in a while, but it was becoming less and less frequent. The letters from his mother and Antigone were enough to keep him updated, but they never really expanded on the state of the world, and Draco was glad for that. His guilt at leaving would have eaten him alive if he had known how bad the world had gotten.

Now, everything had been turned upside down. The harshest blow of all had been the re-introduction of Harry Potter into his life. He had never expected that, out of all the possibilities in the universe, seeing Harry again had been at the very bottom of the list.

Exhaustion soon overtook Draco and he drifted in and out of sleep. Whether awake or asleep though, the same vision assaulted him throughout the night. Flashes of memories of the months he and Harry had spent together in Italy would not leave him be.

Harry had stayed silent for a long time. Though his physical wounds had healed quickly, his magic had been slow to return and there was something that lingered in his gaze, something haunted. He wouldn't speak to Draco, though he was the only other human contact available. Draco couldn't blame him though, after seven years of fighting each other tooth and nail. It took a long time for that first conversation to come, for Harry to finally be convinced that Draco wasn't going to hand him back to Voldemort.

He'd tried to leave at first, to go back, to help his friends, but without his full magical strength, that would take the full six months to fully recover, he gave up. He retreated into himself, blamed himself for everything. He wasn't good enough, strong enough or smart enough. He would never defeat Voldemort. That's what he told himself anyway.

Draco began to see the vast similarities between himself and the raven haired boy, and it frightened him. Their mutual silence had broken on the day when Harry had first begun to see the similarities as well. Their first conversation, as it were, the most they had ever spoken to each other at one time, had been an explosive argument.

They had argued about everything possible. Their childhood rivalry, Gryffindor and Slytherin, but most of all they had fought about Voldemort. Harry needed to vent, and he had. By the end of that fight, both had come to the conclusion that the other was not trying to kill him, nor had they ever, nor would they ever.

An uneasy peace had formed between them. They were both broken children from broken homes, both their lives had been forever altered, their paths chosen for them by those who thought they knew best. Both only wanted the same thing out of life; the freedom to choose how to live it, free of obligation.

Their friendship had grown quickly from that day, nothing holding them back, nobody there to tell them it was wrong.

The relationship had changed again, about a month in. Harry began having visions again. The first time it had happened, Draco didn't know what to do. Harry was screaming in his sleep, screams of pure terror. The sound had travelled all through the house to make it to Draco's room. Draco had raced to Harry's room, expecting to see the poor boy being murdered in his sleep, but all he found was a tormented boy clutching his forehead, curled into a ball on his bed.

He tried to shake him, to wake him, but nothing worked, nothing would calm him. Out of options, Draco had sat on the bed beside him, and carefully gathered the boy in his arms, in a desperate attempt to give him some form of comfort.

It hadn't served to ward off the visions, but had at least calmed Harry when he finally broke out of the vision. It had taken Harry nearly ten minutes to realize what was going on, that Draco was holding him. He had pushed the blond boy away, cursing him. He didn't speak to him for days.

The visions came frequently, and every time Draco would go to Harry. He couldn't pinpoint exactly when it happened or how, but soon Harry was not pushing Draco away, soon he was seeking out the comfort. He even told Draco the content of his visions.

That was the first night, and the last at that time, that Harry had cried in front of him. He cried out of grief, out of frustration, out of worry for his friends and all he had left them to. Draco had sat silently, patiently listening. It was also the first night they had kissed. They never spoke about it afterwards, there was no need to. It seemed the most natural, perfect thing in the world. Neither debated it, neither resisted it. It was meant to be.

Draco bought the pendant for Harry the next day. A charm to ward of evil spirits. It had been a joke, of course the red coral pendant was not going to ward off Voldemort, but both boys felt the depth of the meaning behind it. Neither would let any harm come to the other.

As the months went by, they grew ever closer. But something else was happening as well, Harry was changing. His eyes grew darker, he spent more hours in contemplative silence, his brooding more intense. Harry was still having visions, but denying them.

Nearly six months after their escape to Italy, Draco had felt a monumental shift in his lover, but he didn't know what to make of it. Harry acted no differently towards him, they were closer than ever, physically and mentally.

Draco should have listened to his gut that night, paid attention to the signs more closely. Harry had regained all his magic, and then some. That night had been the most passionate they had spent together. He should have known.

Draco had fallen asleep that night, content, Harry by his side. When he woke, Harry was gone. There was no trace of him, like he had never existed.

Numbness had overwhelmed him.

Just as it did now. He felt the same now as when Harry had left for the first time. He felt empty, and utterly, completely alone. He had no hope left. Harry would not come back this time. He couldn't hold his tears back any longer, and they flowed freely from him. He let out a choking sob, clutching his hand to his chest, pressing the pendants into where he felt there must be a gaping hole where his heart had once existed. He tried to hold it back, not wanting to wake Antigone, but it only made the pain worse. He slid down next to her and gathered the little girl closely into his chest.

Her little eyes fluttered open, meeting his softly. She reached up and stroked the side of his face. "It's okay, Draco, you can cry."

He wasn't able to contain it any longer and let the sobs take over his body. Draco was just as broken as the man he loved. Nothing would change that now.