A/N: Thanks for reviews! Here's a bit longer chapter for you today where we find out what's wrong with Harry as well as some info about Ginny (I know you were curious!) :) Hope you like it!

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

The weeks went by and Draco and Harry continued their research on Betrothal contracts whenever they could get away from their jobs. They had finished reading the diaries with a few more awkward moments and problems (their ancestors sure had dirty minds), but had found no mention of the actual contract they had formed and the two men had begun to get a bit desperate. June was fast approaching and they were no closer on getting rid of the contract than they were on the day they found it.

On another note, Harry was feeling more ill by the day. He was constantly pale and tired and often woke up with sweaty sheets, which most of the time had nothing to do with dreams, though he had those too at times, featuring some pale blonde – not that Harry admitted it even to himself. Sometimes Harry also felt a wave of dizziness and was really beginning to think he should go and see a healer – which was saying a lot as he usually refused to go anywhere close to hospitals even if he was clearly injured.

Nevertheless Harry decided it was time to let go of his Gryffindor stubbornness and made an appointment with a trusted healer at the Saint Mungos, which was why Harry now entered the hospital room, dropping the disguise he had used to enter the hospital unnoticed. After all, the press would have a field day, if Harry was seen in there meeting a healer, which Harry of course didn't want.

"Good afternoon, Mister Potter." The healer said with a smile offering her hand.

Harry rolled his eyes at the formality. "Hullo, Angelina." He said. "Or do you prefer Healer Weasley?" He smirked.

Angelina laughed and hugged her old friend.

"It's good to see you Harry. I haven't seen you for a while. You've skipped all the Weasley dinners lately." She said.

"Yeah, I've been busy…" Harry said grimacing. "And well, you know how Molly is… She still hasn't accepted Ginny and my divorce, even after all these years."

"I know, but still, we'd love to have you there more often. Married or not, you're still family." Angelica said.

"Thanks Ang." Harry said.

"Anyway, what brings you here? From what I know you hate hospitals, so for you to come willingly…?"

"Yeah, well, I haven't been feeling very well as of late, so I thought maybe it was time to get a checkup." Harry said.

"Okay, well take a seat and I'll make a scan on you. So have you any symptoms or in what way have you not felt well?" Angelina asked as she took out her wand and started scanning Harry.

"Well, for like the past three months I've been feeling very tired most of the time though I have slept well and I often sweat a lot in my sleep. Sometimes I get dizzy just out of the blue and I think I have lost some weight too. And then there's the paleness." Harry said waving a hand on himself and dropping the glamour he kept on his face to cover the sickly paleness.

"Oh my, well it's good that you came to me." Angelina said. "Hmm… My scans show nothing out of the ordinary, but I'd like to take some blood from you, if that's alright."

"Sure." Harry said and rolled up his sleeve. Angelina took some blood from him with a syringe and healed the small wound when she was done.

"I'm gonna take this to the lab, I'll be back in a bit." She said and Harry nodded.

Five minutes later she returned to the room.

"We should have your results back in twenty minutes." She said. "Do you wanna grab something to eat at the cafeteria while we wait? I have a lunch break."

"Sure, why not." Harry said and the two old friends left. They took a table at the small cafeteria Harry drinking coffee and eating a sandwich while Angelina took some salad and water.

"So how's George?" Harry asked.

"Oh he's good. He's very excited about going abroad with the business. It was his and Fred's dream to make the WWW known all around the Magical world and now there's a lot of offerings and request coming from many countries.

"Yeah, I heard about that." Harry said recalling reading about it in a paper. "So he's gonna travel a lot this year."

"Yeah, well a bit. Mostly though, it's gonna be Lee, who travels from country to country, so George won't be away too much, which I'm grateful for as I wouldn't be able to go with him with work and it's get a bit lonely when all the kids are at Hogwarts."

"I know what you mean." Harry said.

"Ginny's still on tour is she?" Angelina asked.

"Yeah though, she's coming back next week just before the kids arrive."

"There's a rumor going that's she's dating another Quidditch player… Any truth in that?" Angelina asked her eyes twinkling mischievously.

Harry smirked. "Yeah, I heard that too, but I wouldn't know…" He drawled.

"Come on Harry, I know you do. She always tells you everything. You're like Fred and George were before Fred died. You know everything about each other." Angelina pouted.

"Well, she did mention something about some Quidditch player, who's a complete fanatic that made his team players wake up in ungodly hours to train back in Hogwarts… I believe he's currently the Captain of Puddlemere United…" He grinned.

"You mean she's dating Oliver!?" Angelina gaped. "Really?"

"Yeah, well, I could have understood wrong from her letters where she described how amazing and sexy and funny and brilliant he is."

"Merlin's beard." Angelina said. "They do make a cute pair though. I just always thought Oliver as a bit of a player… He had a quite a few flings back in Hogwarts and he has almost always a new girl with him when there's a picture in the paper."

"Yeah. But maybe Ginny manages to tame him down." Harry said.

"Yeah, let's hope so. It's time for him to settle down."

The two friends continued their light conversation and finished their lunch before going back to the hospital room where Angelina found Harry's results on her desk.

"Well, let's see…" She said looking at the papers while Harry observed her facial reactions.

"What is it Ang?" Harry asked a worry creeping on him as Angelina said nothing and just stared at the papers with a concerned frown. "Just tell me."

"There's some change in your chromosomes…"

"And?"

"It appears that you have a disease called chronic myelogenous leukemia. It's a Muggle disease and very rare on wizards." Angelina said looking at Harry with concern.

Harry stared at her for a moment.

"Leukemia? That's like a cancer, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's often called the blood cancer. Your case is characterized by the increased and unregulated growth of predominantly myeloid cells in the bone marrow and the accumulation of these cells in the blood. It's often symptomless, but can cause the symptoms you described to me earlier."

"So… is it treatable?"

"I – yes, it is." Angelina hesitated.

"I sense a 'but' there." Harry said.

"There are potions that can treat it in the early stages, but we haven't found potion yet, which could cure it when it's gone past the stage."

"And in my case, I'm past the stage the potion would have any effect, right?" Harry said already knowing the answer.

It was just his luck.

"Yes." Angelina said sighed. "But there is a possibility of the bone marrow transplant."

"What does that require?"

"We need to find you a willing donor, who has the same tissue type as you and then we can perform a surgery where we transfer some of the donor's healthy tissue to you." Angelina explained.

"There's a lot of risk in surgeries, isn't there?"

"Yes there is, but not as much as in Muggle ones as we have our magic to help us."

"Okay, so how do we find me a donor?" Harry asked.

"I will add you to the list of leukemia patients and search for a fitting type."

Harry nodded.

"Now, I'll need to scan you and find out what type you are and to see how far your disease has really gone. Then I will give a few potions that you need to take every day. They should help with the symptoms that come with the illness." Angelina said in her Healer mode, but being an Auror, Harry could see the anxiousness behind the professional façade. "Just take off your shirt and lay down on your stomach."

Harry proceeded and Angelina started scanning him, muttering under her breath. It went on for a few minutes and Harry started to get worried.

"Ang?" He asked turning his head to look at her. Seeing her face he said: "It's bad, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry Harry." Angelina said and Harry closed his eyes.

"Tell me."

"I – it can still be treated, but it has gone so far that if the surgery isn't performed soon…" Angelina couldn't say it, but she didn't need to.

"How long do I have?" Harry asked with a surprising calmness.

"I – A year or less." Angelina said trying to keep her tears from falling.

Harry nodded in acceptance and got up from the bed, putting his shirt back on. Turning to look at Angelina he got a feeling there was something she wasn't telling him.

"There's more, isn't there?"

"I'm sorry Harry, but your tissue type is very rare. It can only be found in a handful of people in both Magical and Muggle worlds."

Harry sighed and rubbed his face on his hands. It was just his luck. A rare tissue type and a rare illness for wizards. And less than a year time to live. 'I guess I should've seen it coming. I have gotten 24 years of peace; it was time for something bad to happen.' He thought.

"We will do anything we can to find you a fitting donor, Harry. I swear, just don't give up hope." Angelina said hugging her old friend.

"I know you do, Ang." Harry said hugging her back. "I know you do."

Later that day Harry sat deep in thought in his London apartment nursing a glass of Firewhiskey. He was thinking of everything that had happened during the past few months, the contract with Malfoy and now his illness. To be honest, Harry wasn't that shocked to hear he was basically dying. Of course, he didn't want to die, but death wasn't something he was scared of.

No, not anymore.

Not after everything he had gone through in his life. Harry had accepted death twenty-four years ago when he walked into the Forbidden Forest and let Voldemort hit him with the Killing curse.

But still, that didn't mean he wanted to die. No, he wanted to live to see his kids really grow up and start their own families. He wanted to see his grandkids and play with them.

But most of all, he wanted to fall in love.

Harry loved the people around him; his kids, the Weasleys, his friends, but what he really craved for was to fall in love with someone. He had always loved Ginny, but she was more like a sister and best friend to him, even when they were married. No, Harry needed someone he could love romantically and had yet to find that person, whose only requirements were that he was a male and didn't care about the Wizarding world's Savior –crap. So basically, it was a mission impossible.

Even after all these years people came after him for his fame and money, which was why Harry didn't even, try to find someone from the wizarding world – he could never know if they were sincere or not.

Now though, with less than a year to live, there was no point even trying. Now he'd only concentrate on finding a way out of the Betrothal contract, so that the kids didn't have to get married.

No time like present, Harry decided sighing and took another sip from his whiskey before Flooing to the Malfoy Manor, where he had agreed to meet Draco.

"Evening Potter." Draco greeted him from an armchair by the fireplace.

"Hullo Malfoy." Harry nodded to him.

"You okay, you look a bit ragged." Draco asked taking a good look at him.

"I'm fine." Harry said dismissively.

"You sure?" Draco asked looking at him almost concernedly. "You really don't look very well."

Harry felt like snapping at the blond to mind his own business, but that would only raise more questions, so he decided to use another approach:

"You were worried about me, Malfoy?" He asked cocking an eyebrow in a very Snape-like manner.

"I was not!" Draco said defensively.

"That's what I thought." Harry muttered under his breath before continuing out loud. "So, have you found anything?"

"No. We're running out of books." Draco said with a sigh.

'And time.' Harry added mentally as he flopped on a chair next to Draco.

"There's bound to be something on the contract." Harry said taking the old parchment into his hand. "I still can't believe there was nothing on the diaries."

"Yes, that is a bit odd." Draco mused. "They wrote about everything else."

"Do you think it could be under a password or something? Or written in an invisible ink?" Harry mused aloud.

"That's it!" Draco exclaimed making Harry jump. "Moonlight writing! It was common thing used in the late 1700s."

"What's moonlight writing?" Harry asked having never heard of it before.

"It's the earlier form of the invisible ink. The writing can only be read in moonlight." Draco explained clearly excited. Harry couldn't help but think he looked very cute when he was excited about something.

"That's handy." Harry said. "Well, let's check it out." He continued and handed the two books to Draco, who performed a moonlight charm on them. The two men waited for a few seconds to see if it worked, but nothing happened. Sighing in disappointment Draco sank back to his chair.

"Well, it was worth a shot."

"What about the papers which were between the diaries?" Harry asked.

"What papers?" Draco asked frowning.

"There were a few empty papers and envelopes between the diaries." Harry said. "Maybe they were letters or something."

"Could be. Where did you put them?" Draco asked.

"I think they're still on the table in the library at the Castle." Harry mused before calling out. "Sneezy!"

"What can Sneezy do to Master Harry?" The elf asked with a bow as he popped into the room.

"Can you bring me the stack of papers on the table in the library?" Harry asked and the elf vanished only to return seconds later with the required papers. "Thank you Sneezy, you may go." Harry continued and with a final bow, the elf left. "Here." Harry said and gave Draco the papers.

Draco muttered the charm again and a few seconds later writing appeared on the papers.

"Yes, it worked!" Draco exclaimed. "They are letters they sent each other during the summer after their final year at Hogwarts." He continued looking at the dates before giving Harry half of the letters and starting to read.

"It looks like they were having a bit of problems to meet each other." Harry mused after a while.

"Yeah. And it looks like Septimus father is on to them." Draco said. "Listen to this."

"Dear Marcus, as I feared my Father has somehow found out I am seeing someone, though I'm certain he does not know it's you. Nevertheless, he has decided to arrange a marriage between me and Cruella Black. I am holding out a hope that my Mother interferes as she is not very friendly with the Black family, but I fear she will keep silent regardless. Fear not though, my love, I shan't marry that girl even at wand point. We must find a way to be together in a way that no one can stop us and soon. I only hope my Father doesn't find a way to prevent me from seeing you. I miss you so much and wish to feel your arms around me again. Maybe we can meet at some point tomorrow. Yours Forever, Septimus." Draco read.

"Well, that's interesting." Harry said. "So that's why they came up with the Betrothal contract."

"Yeah, here it is. Marcus writes about the contract saying it's a secure way to make sure they have to get married regardless of their parents' wishes. He says he has made sure there's no way out of it as, if it's not fulfilled in time both parties' whole family will lose their magic. He asks Septimus to meet him so they can sign it. I guess they planned to hide it somewhere Marcus' father would find it and the magic in the contract would activate." Draco said.

"But why didn't it?" Harry asked. "They never got married. Something must have happened."

"Let's see." Draco mused flipping through the letters, trying to find something that would explain it. "Here are a few letters from Marcus that have been returned to their sender."

"Let me see." Harry said and Draco handed him the letters. "It seems he can't get in contact with Septimus and tries to reach him, but for some reason the letters keep coming back." He said after reading the letters. "Do you think his father found out and stopped him from receiving the letters?"

"Could be." Draco said looking thoughtful for a second. "Let me check something." He continued and disappeared into the Malfoy library. After a few minutes he came back with a thick tome and put it on the table flipping through it. "This is a self-updating book about all past Malfoys. There should be all of their basic information like birthdate, profession, death etc." He explained seeing Harry's curious look.

"Here it is, Septimus Draconius Malfoy." Draco said. "Read this."

Harry looked over the book and read:

"Septimus Draconius Malfoy, Parents: Desmond Septimus Malfoy & Miriam Fiona Zabini, Date of birth: 6th August 1781, Profession: none, Death: 8th July 1799, poison. Well that's tragic. So the contract wasn't fulfilled because Septimus died."

"I think it's more like he was killed." Draco said grimly.

"Killed?" Harry asked raising an eyebrow. "You don't think his Father would have killed his own son?" Harry continued shocked as he realized what Draco was implying.

"That's exactly what I think happened." Draco said.

"But why would he kill his only child? He was his heir, wasn't he?"

"I think this explains it." Draco said pointing at the name under Septimus.

"Lucifer Desmond Malfoy, Date of birth: 22nd November 1899." Harry read. "So, Septimus' mother was pregnant with another son for him, so Desmond decided to kill his first born for falling in love with a Potter."

"Pretty much." Draco said looking a little disturbed, himself.

"Your family is totally messed up, Malfoy." Harry said shaking his head, fully prepared to hear Draco defend his family, but it didn't come. Harry turned to look at his old rival and saw he was deep in thought. Guessing what he was thinking he said:

"You don't think Lucius would have…" He trailed of.

"In a blink of an eye." Draco said tonelessly.

Harry didn't know what to say to that. An awkward silence fell upon them and Harry felt like he wanted to comfort Draco somehow. Tell him that his father wouldn't have done that to him, but the truth was that he would have. Forcing him to take the Mark was enough evidence of that.

"Shouldn't the contract have transferred into Lucifer after Septimus died? I mean it didn't add only to Marcus and Septimus." Harry said after a while.

"Not if Marcus' father never found it." Draco said. "The contract doesn't say who has to marry who as long as it's a Potter and a Malfoy by blood."

Harry nodded thoughtfully.

"Well now we know their story and why they never married, but we're no closer in finding out a way around this." He commented.

"We just have to keep looking." Draco said with a sigh and poured himself more whiskey.

"We can do that on weekend." Harry said yawning. "I'm gonna head home."

Draco nodded to him.

"So your apartment on Saturday then?"

"Yeah. Just come through the Floo around ten or something."

Draco nodded in acceptance and Harry left the Malfoy Manor his mind still on the tragic story of their ancestors. Their story was almost straight out of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet apart from the fact that they didn't kill themselves. Harry was also curious of why the contract was never found and so he decided to research the Potter family and see what it said about Marcus and his parents. But that could wait till tomorrow he decided. Now he only wanted to sleep and let his mind process all the happenings of the day.

Harry spent the rest of the week processing and coming to terms with his illness, scrupulously taking all the potions Angelina had given him. He had also researched his family and found out that the Potter family had moved out of the Potter Castle having built the Potter Manor, and so the Betrothal contract had never been found till Harry came across it and activated it.

What plagued Harry's mind constantly for the whole week though, wasn't his illness or the story of their ancestors, but a thought that had come to him when he had awoken in the middle of the night, after leaving the Malfoy Manor.

Draco's statement of how the contract didn't specify who had to marry who as long as they were Potter and Malfoy and the wording of the contract bothered him greatly till he found a way to get at least their children out of the contract. But the question was; could he do it?

Harry spent the rest of the week weighing pros and cons till he reached his decision. Now he only had to go through with it and hope that Malfoy was cooperating…

Not bloody likely.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Please review and tell me what you think!

A little note to say that I'm sorry for any mistakes regarding leukemia, I'm not familiar with the disease and my medical knowledge equals pretty much zero. Everything I found was from the internet, mainly Wikipedia and we all know how reliable that is. :D

- Dalnim