It was dark again when Draco shook off the black manacles of sleep. Longbottom was not in the chair next to the bed; by the light of the single candle, Draco could see that the other man was nowhere in the small room.

Slowly, Draco sat up, grunting as his skin pulled at the multiple bruises that made a varicoloured tapestry of his chest and arms. Every muscle seemed sore as well, and they shook with the effort of keeping him upright. Any dim ideas he'd had about escaping before Longbottom got back were stopped in their tracks by how weak he felt.

He hated it. This time yesterday, he'd been just fine, spectacular, and now, he was a mewling invalid at the mercy of Longbottom, for fuck's sake. Of all the wizards in London who could have stumbled across Draco, it had to be him.

As though thinking about him had summoned him, the door to the room opened and Longbottom walked in, a bundle of cloth in his arms. "Good. You're up. Put these on and we'll head out." He tossed the bundle at Draco, who caught it and was slightly surprised to find that it was the shirt and trousers he'd been wearing before. They looked new, no longer soaked with blood and ripped to ribbons. Draco did not stop to ask how Longbottom had managed it; he merely swung the silk around his shoulders and began to work the buttons.

"What were you even doing in Knockturn Alley last night?" Draco demanded, because it was on his mind and he felt oddly exposed with Longbottom watching him dress in silence. "Why is it that you had to be the one to find me?"

Longbottom raised an eyebrow at Draco's tone. "I was staking out Borgin and Burke's, actually. It's the sort of busy work I get to do while my partner's off on his honeymoon."

"Stakeout? You're a...?"

"An Auror, yes. Why, is that a shock to you?" There was a grim note of satisfaction in Longbottom's voice.

As a matter of fact, it was. Draco had been about to say "Hit-Wizard." At least that was conceivable, with Longbottom's size and keenness to do as he was told. But an Auror? That required actual brains and skill... which, Draco grudgingly admitted to himself, Longbottom had showcased in spades over the last day.

"So they're teaching Aurors all those fancy Healing spells now, huh?" Draco asked as he shifted on the bed so his legs hung down over the edge. He unfolded the trousers.

"No. I learned those on the side. They're handy to know, especially with Ha- ... with a partner like mine. Great lump can't go a week without breaking something." Despite the needling words, there seemed to be some real affection behind them, but Draco was too distracted at that moment to ponder that or the way Longbottom had caught himself and stuttered.

The problem was that there was no dignified way to pull the trousers up without standing. Draco was not going to flail about on his back on the bed with his legs in the air for Longbottom's entertainment. He raised himself up to a shaky standing position slowly, steadying himself on the footboard of the bed, and awkwardly pulled up his trousers with one hand, his back to Longbottom.

"You tell anyone about any of this and I will end you," Draco said, more to fill the silence than anything. It sounded pitiful, and even he knew it. He could just see the self-satisfied grin that must be on Longbottom's face now, their roles reversed and Draco the weak one.

"Seeing as how me telling anyone would mean my flat broken into and you dead, you can probably trust me to say nothing." Oddly, Longbottom didn't sound the slightest bit amused, or even annoyed by the feeble threat. What did it take to get a rise out of him? "Your shoes are at the foot of the bed." Draco found them and stepped into them, grateful they didn't have laces. He didn't think he could handle bending over just at the moment.

"All right," Longbottom said, once Draco had situated himself, "take my arm." Draco stopped and shot Longbottom a look that should have been able to shatter glass if he hadn't been so exhausted. Longbottom appeared unfazed. "You're not going two steps if you don't have something to lean against. Now swallow your bloody pride and take my arm."

"Stop treating me like a three-year-old," Draco snapped.

"Stop acting like one."

"I'm not acting like a three-year-old," Draco said, his temper leaping to take over his words. "I'm acting like my life is in tatters, I'm on the run from some very dangerous people, I've just recovered from several mortal injuries, and I'm beholden to the last person on Earth I want to owe anything to. You might try for a smidgeon of empathy and stop lording it over me." He sat back down, hard, on the bed. Even being angry tired him out.

Longbottom looked stricken. He ran a hand through his hair, standing it up on end, and sighed. "You're right. I'm sorry. I'm..." he paused, his brows furrowed as though trying to work out what to say. "I'm having trouble with old prejudices, too." He took a step closer to the bed. "If you think you can make it down the stairs on your own, let's get going. If not... well, I'm here. Either way, it's time to leave."

Draco shook his head. He wasn't sure he could walk, even with Longbottom supporting him. Going down a flight of stairs seemed as simple as flying to the moon. He pushed himself to his feet anyway, and as his balance wavered and he lurched to the side, he felt the other man catch him. When he got past the shame of it, it was oddly comforting. He'd never had anyone ready to catch him if he stumbled before. He'd never let his guard down long enough to reveal he might ever stumble.

The stairs proved to be every bit as difficult as he'd imagined, and by the time they reached the bottom. Longbottom was no longer simply supporting him but actively holding him up, having pulled Draco's arm over his shoulder and wrapped one arm around his waist to support his weight. It was all Draco could do to keep his feet as Longbottom pulled him along through the common room of the Leaky Cauldron, looking every inch a drunken patron being lugged home.

They paused outside next to a silver Muggle automobile, and Longbottom leaned him against it before digging through his pockets. It took a moment before the realisation smacked into Draco's consciousness.

"You drive?" he blurted.

Longbottom raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you want to Apparate right now?"

Just the thought of that constriction pressing his sore muscles made Draco wince. "No, but... it's so... Muggle."

The answering shrug was studiously nonchalant. "I hate Apparating. I avoid it when I can. Broomsticks and I don't get along." He fished a set of keys from his pocket and looked piercingly at Draco. "And I think you might be able to empathise with my reluctance to travel by Floo powder." He began to walk around the back of the car to the driver's side door.

The implication of the statement eluded Draco. He didn't want to admit missing the meaning, but... "What?"

The long moment during which Longbottom studied him was galling. "Fire," he said finally said, his voice oddly strained, and then continued his path to the driver's side door.

The significance snapped into place. He'd not witnessed it himself, but everyone knew how Longbottom had been set aflame by the Dark Lord, just before he'd drawn the Sword of Gryffindor and killed the snake. Draco hadn't thought anyone knew about his own anxiety around fire, born in those moments when the terrible searing heat of the Fiendfyre had threatened to consume him... before his unlikely rescue by yet another goddamn Gryffindor.

He swallowed, looking up across the top of the car as Longbottom unlocked it. "It's peculiar."

"What is?" Longbottom asked.

"Having something in common with you." He licked his lips. "Not many people know about the fire."

"Harry told me." There was a momentary introspective look on Longbottom's face. "It is, a bit. Peculiar, I mean." He gave his head a little shake and then nodded at Draco's car door. "Get in. Let's not stand on the street too long. No one was watching five minutes ago, but a lot can happen in five minutes."

Draco had never been in a car before. His father wouldn't have been caught dead travelling in such a devastatingly Muggle way, and he extended that to every member of the family. Even since his parents had left the country to start anew, Draco staying behind for various reasons, he had never considered automobiles to be a form of transport. He hadn't so much avoided them as ignored them.

He stayed very quiet, partly out of exhaustion and partly because it seemed like a complicated thing to drive a car, not at all like a broomstick, and Longbottom would probably need every shred of concentration he could muster to get them wherever they were going without killing them both. At first, it had seemed that his inference was correct, as Longbottom did not speak either and stared straight ahead, occasionally glancing into mirrors and fiddling with levers. But after a few minutes of this, he cleared this throat.

"Seeing as how I'm risking my neck for you, maybe you could tell me why you're on the bad side of the Brotherhood of the Sphinx."

Oh hell, Draco had been hoping this question wouldn't come. "I...embarrassed one of them."

Longbottom let out a long, slow sigh through his nose, closing his eyes for just a moment (which caused no small amount of anxiety to Draco - he was fairly certain that eyes were supposed to remain open when driving). "Are you serious? You blackmailed a member of the Brotherhood?"

Damn, he was sharp. "I never said blackmail."

Longbottom actually took his eyes off the road to glare at Draco. "Contrary to your belief when we were at school, Malfoy, I am not a complete idiot."

"Watch the road!" Draco said in a strangled voice.

"I am watching the road, you twit - it's been ten years since I was a naive thirteen-year-old, and I'd appreciate it if you acknowledged that I may have come a bit of a ways since then."

"Acknowledged! Just keep your eyes on the bloody road!" Draco was holding onto one of the handles on the door tightly enough to turn his knuckles white. He vaguely wondered if that was what those handles were for. To his vast relief, Longbottom turned and faced forward again.

"So. You're blackmailing the Brotherhood." He shook his head in disbelief.

"No. I just...know something they'd rather I forget." It wasn't a complete lie. Longbottom glanced over at him.

"Fine. I'll accept that - for now." He fell silent again, and they rolled to a stop at an intersection. The sound of traffic was the only noise.

"Why are you helping me?" Draco finally asked, unable to fall asleep in this Muggle death trap and made anxious by the silence.

There was a pause as Longbottom pursed his lips. "Harry vouched for you. Said you're a decent guy who didn't have any good decisions available to him. I trust his judgment."

Draco blinked. "Potter said that?"

Longbottom nodded. "Short time after your hearing at the Ministry. I was a bit put out with him for speaking on your behalf. He practically wrote me a thesis as to why you deserved it." The light above them turned from red to green, and the car began to move forward. "Defended you nearly as much to me as he did to the Ministry."

There it was again. Potter's inexplicable defence of Draco and his family, in the months following the end of the war, would probably colour how everyone saw him for the rest of his life. Draco was not sure he'd ever be able to forgive or thank Potter for it. Not that he was sure he'd ever have the opportunity - he'd not seen Potter for several years, now. Not since... well. They didn't exactly move in the same social circles, if Draco's situation could be termed a "social circle" at all.

Still... "You trust Potter's judgment? Are you mental?"

That drew a smile from Longbottom, a bit of a chuckle. "It's saved my life a few times. Nearly killed me a few times, too, I'll admit, but that's part of the job. We're a good team, and we work well together." He spun the wheel he was holding and the car turned off the main thoroughfare.

"Wait. Potter's your partner?" Longbottom nodded. Draco sank back into thoughtfulness for a moment. He'd have pegged the Witless Weasley Wonder to be the sure fit as Potter's wingman in the Auror department. He wondered where things had gone awry.

"We've been partners for two years now. He's been an Auror a year longer than me, of course. It was pure luck that we ended up partners. He's on holiday for a few weeks, I think I mentioned."

"His honeymoon, you said." Interesting. There, just the tiniest flinch in Longbottom's left eyelid. Had Draco blinked, he'd have missed it. As it was, with Longbottom's face so impassive, Draco wasn't certain he'd seen it at all.

"Got married last week. Ginny Weasley. They're in Greece at the moment." His tone was flat, studiously indifferent. Draco filed that information away as potentially useful.

"You still haven't explained why you're helping me. You've danced around it rather skilfully."

"I have, haven't I?" Longbottom turned another corner, but didn't continue.

"That's maddening."

"I know. Harry hates when I do it too." There were a few beats of silence. "We're not thirteen years old anymore."

"This is a true statement." Draco looked out the window at the buildings scrolling by. It was odd seeing a city go by like this. Muggle transport just took so much time.

"I don't think you ever really had anything against me in school." The statement was almost accusatory.

Draco shrugged. "You were an easy mark. You made yourself an easy mark. You have to know it was impossible to resist."

Longbottom's lips pressed together into a thin line. "I'll give you that. I was a right mess." Another block went by. "But we're past that. You're not evil incarnate. I'm not a bumbling wreck. We could almost be strangers." He shrugged. "And I help people in trouble. It's what I do. Really, that's all there is to it. I'm helping you because it's what I do. Harry would do the same thing, and you and him have even more history than you and I do."

"This isn't about what Potter would do. It's about what you're doing." Draco was surprised to see Longbottom shake his head.

"I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do. And if nothing else, he taught me that doing the right thing is valuable, especially when it's difficult."

Oh, yes. Clearly, there was something here. Draco didn't push at it any further, however. Now was not the time, not when his brain was moving like a marble through cold treacle. "You're putting yourself in harm's way. You should just drop me off at my flat, and I won't be your problem anymore."

"I'm not driving all the way to Bath. I'm tired." The sidelong look Longbottom shot him was an irritating mix of incredulity and smugness. "Besides, do you really think the Brotherhood's not watching your flat? When they want someone dead, they're usually good at making them dead. There's not often a well-meaning 'bloody fucking Gryffindor' around to sod things over like I did."

Draco looked sidelong at Longbottom. "I never told you my flat was in Bath."

Once again, Longbottom's look was annoyingly self-assured, one eyebrow curved in a confident arch. Draco had never noticed before today how ridiculously expressive his eyebrows were. "You're a Person of Interest for another seven months. You don't sneeze without us knowing."

"If that's the case, then you already know everything about my lacklustre position with the Brotherhood," Draco said challengingly.

Longbottom shook his head. "The Brotherhood's a blind spot. We knew you were involved with them, but anything beyond that..." He shrugged, then glanced to the side. "How's the wife?"

"No idea," Draco said laconically - Longbottom wasn't going to blindside him that easily. "I haven't seen her for weeks, as per usual."

"Should you maybe let her know you've got an organised crime ring on your trail? Seems like something a spouse ought to know about, in case they show up at her door."

The laugh that escaped Draco surprised even him. "If you were going to be searching for me, would you really look for me in my wife's company? Seriously?"

After considering that for a moment, Longbottom nodded slowly, "You've got a point. And I assume they know more about you than we do."

Draco could not suppress a small shudder. "They know more about me than I do. Take my advice, Longbottom: don't get mixed up with them."

"Well, there goes my weekend," Longbottom said dryly. He'd pulled up to the pavement and turned off the car. "We're here."

Suddenly apprehensive, Draco looked out the window at the building. "You know that they're going to figure out I'm here. They probably already know."

"The entire building's Unplottable, and it's full to bursting with Aurors and Hit-Wizards and Unspeakables. And I'd like to see them get past the doorman." Longbottom leaned over to open the car door and then paused, looking back at Draco. "Are you actually worried about me?"

"Of course not," Draco scoffed.

"Because you can't be fussed about what happens to me? Or because you've realised that I'm slightly more capable than the Neville Longbottom you remember?" One side of his mouth quirked in a grin, as though he already knew the answer and just wanted to hear Draco say it.

Well, Draco wasn't going to give him that satisfaction. At least not completely. "Yes," he said flippantly, pulling the handle to open the door and levering himself out of the car. He tried to hide the way he leaned against it for support. Bloody bollocks of hell, he was tired. His legs quivered, as though he needed a physical reminder of how long he'd been running on empty.

And then Longbottom was there, pulling one arm over his shoulder, taking Draco's weight against a body that felt very solid compared to the watery mush Draco felt his muscles must be made of now.

"There are three flights of stairs," Longbottom said with false cheer, "and no lift. Should we just give up and have me carry you now?"

Draco glared at him. "I let you carry me before because I was mostly dead. I'm not going to put up with that again."

"Oh, and you could do a whole lot if I decided to just pick you up right now." As though to prove his point, Longbottom shifted slightly and Draco felt his feet leave the ground.

"Fuck! Don't do that!" Clearly, the solidity he was leaning against was mostly muscle. Bloody hell, it was like someone had thrown a switch on the man from one extreme to the other. Whatever Auror training was like, it agreed with Longbottom immensely. When Draco felt the pavement beneath his feet again, he relaxed somewhat, still very aware of how tightly he was snugged up against the other man's side in order to continue standing upright.

"All right. Up this way. Act drunk."

"I am not going to act drunk," Draco hissed as they made their way up the pavement to the door on the ground floor of the building.

"Fine then, you come up with a reason why you're staggering about like you're pissed." He shouldered open the door at the front of the building. "Evening, Clay. It's just me and a friend."

Draco goggled at the massive doorman, hunkered on a stool. Only his eyes had moved as Longbottom had walked past, and they moved back to study the door as though nothing interesting had happened.

"Your doorman is a golem. Named Clay."

"It's what I call him," Longbottom said, shrugging.

"How droll." Draco rolled his eyes. They landed on the staircase, and his breath caught. Partly because it was beautiful wrought-iron, worked in fanciful scrolls he hadn't thought were possible with the medium. Partly because they were a tight spiral that would make it impossible for two people to walk up abreast. "You have got to be joking."

"Might be easier to be carried, you think?" Longbottom sounded entirely too smug.

"I'll sleep down here with Clay. He seems a nice fellow." Exhausted and aching or not, Draco was not going to tolerate being hauled around like a sack of potatoes again.

"Come off it. We can stand here and argue until I get my way, or we can just do it my way from the start and get you into bed where you belong that much sooner." There was an edge to Longbottom's voice that very plainly said he was running out of patience. Draco just then noticed the stubble on his cheeks and the blue shadows under his eyes. Had he not slept since the alleyway? How long had he been awake before that?

Draco ground his teeth together and let out a long-suffering sigh. "I want it known that I'm doing this under protest. This is not acceptable behaviour."

"Oh, shut up." Longbottom bent down, pulled Draco's arm around, and hoisted Draco onto his back before beginning the twisting ascent up the stairs.