A/N: Thank you for reviews! Here's another chapter. There's quite a bit of angst in this one but it was inevitable - even Harry can't be tough all the time! Anyways, I hope you like it!

Thank you AcadianProud for informing me about the mistake with the dates in chapter 4. It seems that after I changed the dates a century later I have missed one - that will be corrected later.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

Draco woke up feeling cold. It took a few minutes for him to figure out why, till he realized that the warm body that had been sleeping next to him was missing. Muttering a Tempus charm he saw that the time was nearly 3.30. He looked around and saw a faint light coming from the slightly open bathroom door attached to his and Harry's shared room. He got out of the bed wrapping his arms around himself as the cold hit his half-naked body. He walked to the door and pushed it slightly more open so that he could see inside to check that everything was okay with Harry – from the coldness of the bed he deducted that Harry hadn't been there for a while.

Harry was sitting on the bathroom floor next to the toilet clad only in his boxers just like Draco. He was incredibly pale and his skin glistered in sweat, glamours non-existent revealing the dark circles under his eyes. Draco could smell the vomit and it didn't take a genius to guess that Harry was having one of his worst nights. Draco watched as another wave of nausea hit him and for the first time he truly realized the toll Harry's disease was taking on him. He always put on a brave face around his family and smiled and joked around, but this, this was what he went through almost every day. All alone.

It finally sunk in for Draco – Harry was really dying.

Suddenly Draco felt a huge surge of protectiveness towards his former rival. He wanted to make him better – do anything he could to help him beat his disease. Only there was nothing he could do. If the healers couldn't find a matching tissue, there was no hope for Harry.

But there was one thing Draco could do for Harry. He could make sure that Harry didn't have to go through everything alone.

Draco backed out of the doorway back to the bedroom and looked around searchingly. He found what he needed and walked back to the bathroom this time entering it. He approached Harry's shivering form and wrapped a warm blanket around him before straightening and handing Harry a glass of water.

"Draco?" Harry croaked in surprise as he felt something warm wrap around him.

"Here." Draco said and gave him the water.

Harry sipped at it gratefully before looking at Draco apologetically.

"I'm sorry if I woke you up." He said quietly and Draco pushed down his frustration. Harry had nothing to apologize, it's more like he should have woken him up – there was no need for him to suffer alone.

Draco opened his mouth to tell him just that when Harry turned back to the toilet puking his guts. Draco hurried to help him, wrapping his arms around Harry to keep the blanket in its place. He handed Harry a piece of paper to wipe his mouth without removing his arms from his waist. Harry accepted it gratefully before once again sipping at his water. He relaxed in Draco's arms leaning into his chest, breathing heavily. Draco could see he was exhausted and wondered how long he had been there before he had woken up. They stayed like that for a long time, Draco holding Harry in his arms while they sat on the bathroom floor.

"How are you feeling?" Draco asked quietly after a while. "Any better?"

"Mmmm." Harry mumbled sleepily.

Draco decided to take that as an affirmative and scooped Harry up bringing him back to their bed. He laid him to the bed and tucked him in brushing his fridge away from his face. He lied back next to him and pulled him close sleepily kissing him on the temple before drifting off to a peaceful sleep.

Harry yawned as he made his way towards the kitchen. He was truly exhausted after the night he had had but hadn't been able to fall back to sleep after waking up more than half an hour ago. He felt slightly embarrassed that Draco had seen him like that, at his weakest but truthfully he had been too exhausted to care. His disease had really started to take its toll on him.

Harry entered the kitchen but stopped short for a second.

"Good morning Scorpius." Harry said his eyebrows rising in surprise as he saw that he was not the first one up even though it wasn't even 7 yet. "You're up early."

"Morning Mr. Potter." Scorpius said not raising his eyes from the coffee cup he was holding.

"Really Scorpius, enough with the Mister." Harry said fondly. "You have been practically family since Al dragged you to visit in your first year, not to mention I'm gonna marry your dad soon – I think you can call me Harry."

Scorpius nodded wordlessly, still not looking at him.

Harry frowned and sat down next to the boy.

"Hey, everything alright?" He asked and Scorpius shrugged. "It's the marriage isn't it? You don't want me marrying Draco." He guessed.

"It's not about that… not exactly." Scorpius murmured. "I don't have anything against dad marrying you, per se…

"Oh?" Harry asked.

"It's just… I don't want my dad getting hurt." He admitted.

"You're afraid that I will hurt Draco?" Harry frowned in confusion. Why would Scorpius think that?

"I'm not saying you'll hurt him, at least on purpose, but with your illness and…" Scorpius trailed off frustrated trying to find the right words. He took a deep breath. "Has dad told you about Sebastian?"

Sebastian? Harry thought with a raised eyebrow having never heard the name.

"No, he hasn't." He said and Scorpius nodded resigned clearly having expected the answer.

"It's not my place to tell you about him, but a long story short, he hurt dad and dad hasn't dated since. And now suddenly he's getting married to you and you have history together and he has always cared about you and then you're dying…"

Suddenly it dawned on him what Scorpius was afraid of – he was worried that Draco would develop feelings for Harry and then Harry would die and leave Draco heartbroken… again it seemed. Harry felt a wave of anger at the thought of some other man having hurt Draco, but pushed it aside concentrating on Scorpius. It was a valid fear the boy had – one that Harry had for himself too.

"I understand your concern with this Scorpius and I can promise you that I will not deliberately seek to hurt your dad. I however, cannot promise to not to die on him – nobody can. But ever since I found out about my illness I have learned not to live in fear of what is to come. I live one day at a time, trying not to think about whether I'm going to be alive on the next day or not. Yes I'm ill and my chance of survival at this point is less than a zero, but today I'm still alive and if the love of my life would walk through that door right now I wouldn't hesitate to embrace it because you can never know what happens in life next. It is highly possible that he would die in a simple accident before me, leaving me heartbroken even though I'm the one with a terminal illness.

"What I'm trying to say Scorpius, is that you shouldn't be afraid of possibilities life might bring. Your dad is a smart man and I'm sure he will think through all the outcomes before he gets into anything."

"I know that." Scorpius said. "I just can't help feeling worried. It's stupid."

"It's okay to feel worried Scorpius." Harry said putting an arm around him. "And it's not stupid. No feeling ever is. It's just human."

Scorpius nodded.

"For what it's worth, I hope you get better and marry my dad." He said. "I think you would be good for him… Harry."

Scorpius gave Harry a quick hug before dashing out of the room, not allowing Harry a chance to say anything.

But Scorpius saying that to him – it was worth a lot.

Harry was avoiding him, Draco thought as he wandered through the house in search of the right room. He hadn't seen the raven-haired man other than briefly during the whole day. The kids had decided to spend the day exploring Florida and Oliver had Quidditch practice, leaving only Harry, Draco and Ginny in the house as none of them felt like joining the kids.

Draco had decided to spend his time researching leukemia so that he could better help Harry and know what to expect. Now though, he was in search of Ginny to find out what treatment Harry was getting, having come across several in his search.

Draco knocked on the door of Room 1 where he knew Ginny was staying with Oliver. After a few seconds he heard noise from the inside and soon the door opened.

"Draco?" Ginny asked surprised.

"Ginny." Draco nodded, for the first time using her name instead of calling her 'Weaslette'. He deemed it better not to be insulting if he wanted to get information from her – not that the name was an insult anymore, more of a habit, and to his knowledge she hadn't really minded it anymore. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah, of course." She said with a slight frown as she stepped away to let him in. "Is everything okay?"

"Fine, everything's fine. I was just wondering if you could tell me what kind of treatments Potter's getting for his disease." Draco said getting straight to the point.

Ginny looked surprised but not totally against telling him.

"Why do you want to know?" She asked.

"I'd just like to know so that if something happens I know what to give him." Draco said slightly evasively. "It is potions they are giving him, right? I haven't seen him leave to the hospital for treatments." He added hoping that it would distract Ginny from inquiring more of his reasons.

No such luck. The woman was too bloody perceptive.

"Really Draco." She said raising an eyebrow at him. "Clearly you have done some research on Leukemia if you know about the treatments used for it. Now, the truth please." She said.

"Fine! I want to know because I want to help him." Draco exclaimed. "Happy now?" He glared at her.

"Quite." Ginny said grinning happily.

"Well?" Draco rolled his eyes.

"He has three potions. One – blue – to help with nausea, one – yellow – to boost his immune system and one – green – to generally help his body fight back. He keeps them in the drawer in your bedroom. He needs to take them once a day." Ginny said. "He also has checkups with Angelina twice a month."

Draco nodded.

"Thank you." He said turning to leave.

"No, thank you for caring."

That night Draco woke up barely an hour after he had fallen asleep to the sound of the toilet flushing. He stayed in bed for a few minutes waiting to see if Harry would come out, but when he didn't he made his way to the bathroom. Draco opened the door and found Harry once again sitting on the floor next to the toilet seat, this time though not throwing up, but leaning to the cold wall his eyes closed, looking completely exhausted.

"Harry?" He asked quietly as he approached the other man as to not to startle him.

Harry opened his eyes tiredly halfway but said nothing. Draco once again put the blanket around his shivering body.

"Have you taken your potions?" He asked and Harry moved once his head from side to side, which Draco interpreted as no. Draco nodded mostly to himself and headed back to the bedroom straight to the drawer where Ginny said Harry kept his potions in. He grabbed the blue one, which should help with nausea and went back to Harry.

"Drink that." He said and gave the potion to Harry, who weakly took it to his hand while Draco poured him a glass of water to wash down the horrible taste of the potion. Seeing Harry struggle with the potion he helped him drink it along with the water. Harry closed his eyes again for a few seconds and Draco busied himself with taking the vial away.

"Thank you." Harry said quietly, his voice not louder than a whisper. "You know you don't have to keep doing this."

"You don't have to do this alone Harry." Draco said slightly exasperated at the stubborn man. "You have a house full of people who would do everything to help you if you'd only let then."

Harry closed his eyes again and Draco saw a single tear fall down his pale cheek and not a second later his body started shaking even more. Draco felt his heart break as he saw the strongest person he knew break down completely under the pressure his disease caused him. Draco highly doubted Harry had even once just let it all out after finding his fate.

He did the only thing he could and went over to him pulling Harry into his arms and holding him tight. Harry sobbed even harder as he felt Draco's arms wrap around him. They stayed like that for a long time until Harry quieted down some.

"I'm just so tired." Harry cried quietly. "I just want it to end. Why doesn't it end already, Draco?"

Draco felt like Harry had stabbed him with a knife straight to his heart. He was horrified by the thoughts going through Harry's head. He had clearly lost even the tiniest hope of getting better and now wanted to just die already so that he wouldn't have to suffer anymore. Draco couldn't – wouldn't – allow that. But before he had the chance to open his mouth to counter him Harry continued.

"I can feel my body shutting down." He whispered. "Every day I feel worse and worse."

Draco shut his eyes tightly to keep his own tears from falling.

"Is that why you don't take your potions?" He didn't really want to know the answer but he had to ask. He had to know.

"They only help a little." Harry said. "They make my suffering last longer."

Draco did not know what to say to that. How could he make Harry understand that he shouldn't give up yet? He still had time. The healers would find a match for him. He had to do something. He couldn't let Harry keep thinking like that. If he did then there truly was no chance for him to get better – willpower was a huge part of his recover. Without it, Harry would just fade away.

Draco knew that trying to reason with Harry wouldn't work. He needed to use a different approach.

"You're a coward." He said working up a little bit of the old Malfoy bite into his voice. It seemed to have worked as he felt Harry tense in his arms. "The Potter I know wouldn't let some Muggle disease get the best of him. The Potter I know would fight tooth and nail, like he did against Voldemort and the Death Eaters even when he knew it was most likely a certain death waiting for him. But still he wouldn't give up. He and his friends together fought against the enemy and against all odds won the fight. I don't know what happened to him, but you're not him." He said fiercely. "You're just a sorry excuse…"

Suddenly Draco felt a hard shove as Harry pushed him away from himself to the hard clod floor and stood up his whole body shaking with anger. And anger was good. Any sign of weakness was gone and Harry's emerald eyes were shining with so much emotion. Draco found he had missed that passion in Harry's face, and was glad to have it back.

"You know nothing Malfoy, nothing." Harry spat at him before storming off the bathroom, leaving Draco lying on the hard floor. Draco looked after him for a moment, his face breaking into a huge smile.

That went better than he had thought.

The next day was the day when everyone went to the Disney World. Harry was as excited about it as the children and for once Draco could see that he wasn't faking the emotion. His eyes were shining with happiness as he led the group with his daughter under his arm listening to the children chatter about all the places they wanted to go there. Draco was content to just stay back and observe them.

This time around Harry wasn't exactly avoiding him, but not acknowledging him either.

"You did something." A voice from his left said suddenly. Draco turned his head to see Ginny walking beside him looking at him with a mixture of curiosity, suspicion and happiness. "You did something to Harry."

"What makes you think that?" Draco inquired.

"Because he's different. Better." Ginny said trying to find the right words. "He's… He's more like the old Harry. It's like… like his passion was missing from him and now it's not."

Draco said nothing happy that someone else had noticed too.

"So what did you do?" She prodded.

"I just gave him the push he needed." Draco said not saying anymore on the subject.

"Fine, keep your secrets." Ginny huffed before breaking in to a genuine smile. "But thank you." She said squeezing his hand slightly before jogging to catch up with her boyfriend.

Draco felt an odd warmness spread inside him as he watched the people around him. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad being part of this family.

Another night came and this time Draco himself was exhausted as he made his way into his and Harry's shared bedroom. The Muggle amusement park had been exhausting, but if Draco was honest he had had a really good time. The kids had dragged him from device to device and he had truly enjoyed spending time with all of them, not just Scorpius. Now however he wanted to just fall into his bed and sleep.

Unfortunately for him it was not in his cards as when he finally reached the bedroom, he found Harry sitting on their bed this time wide awake and clearly waiting for him.

"Hey." Harry said as he entered the room. Draco nodded at him too tired to speak.

"Did you have fun today?" Harry asked as Draco tiredly stripped his clothes.

Really, small talk now? He thought and raised an eyebrow at Harry, but answered nonetheless.

"Yes, I did. It wasn't as bad as I'd originally thought." He admitted.

Harry grinned at that and Draco waited for the 'I told you so' but it never came and he turned back to look at Harry who looked like he was contemplating something.

After a few seconds he seemed to come to a decision and took a deep breath.

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry for yelling at you last night. You were right, I was being a coward. I let it all pile up and it came crashing down. I don't really want to die." Harry grimaced. "So thank you… for dragging me back up."

Draco nodded. "You're welcome. Just don't let it happen again. You're not alone in this, Harry. You're allowed to ask for help."

Harry nodded and they both lied down on the bed in silence. It wasn't long till both of them fell asleep.

A few hours later though, Draco woke up to a bright light shining on his face. He had to blink many times before his eyes adjusted into the brightness and he recognized the source. It was Harry's deer Patronus. Draco glanced at the side of the bed not surprised to find it empty. He watched as the Patronus moved and walked through the bathroom door. Quickly he followed it and a few minutes later he was once again on the bathroom floor trying to help Harry get over his nausea.

"Did you take your potions?" Draco frowned.

"Yeah." Harry breathed after the nausea passed. "It's just more of the long term effect that gives the help." He grimaced.

"You're an idiot." Draco said lifting him into his arms.

"I know."

Draco carried him back to the bed and tucked him in.

"Could you bring me something other than water to drink?" Harry asked carefully, clearly still uncomfortable asking Draco for help. "Juice maybe?"

"I'll do you one better." Draco said. "I'll be right back." He said and left the room heading to the kitchen. It took him ten minutes to prepare what he wanted to, but when it was ready he went back to the bedroom where he found Harry leaning to the headboard his eyes closed.

"Harry?" He asked quietly testing if he was asleep, but the emerald eyes opened at the sound of his name and he gratefully accepted the steaming cup.

"What is it?" Harry asked taking a sip, sighing happily as the warm liquid went through his body. "It's good."

"It's an herbal tea. It's supposed to sooth the stomach and help to sleep better." Draco said falling quiet for a minute. "Dobby used to make it for me when I was little for all the times when I was sick." Draco continued quietly with a small sad smile.

"Dobby?" Harry asked surprised.

"Yeah. He was like my… nanny or something. He was the one charged with taking care of me when I was small. Well, at least until Lucius decided his son needed to be toughened up when I turned six." He shuddered.

"What about your mother?" Harry asked carefully.

"Lucius kept her in check. I was taken from her right after I was born. She had certain times she was allowed to see me during my childhood or he would beat her up." Draco said tonelessly.

"I'm sorry." Harry said sadness in his voice as he squeezed Draco's hand.

"He's gone now. Thanks to you." Draco said with a small smile at Harry.

Harry nodded shortly absently.

"I buried him myself, you know." Harry said lost in his memories. "Dobby, I mean. His grave is at the Shell Cottage, where Bill and Fleur live, by the beach. I could take you there some time if you want."

Draco turned to look at him in surprise.

"I'd like that."

The two sat in silence for a while before Harry gave a deep resigned sigh.

"I think we should have the wedding as soon as possible." He said. "Just in case."

Draco paused for a second surprised at the abrupt change of subject before nodding in understanding a wave of grief washing through him. He knew what Harry was saying, or more likely not saying. They were running out of time, not because of the contract, but because Harry was getting weaker by the day, succumbing to his illness no matter how hard he'd try to fight it. There was no denying that. The bad days were getting more frequent and while Harry was now actually taking his potions they could help only so much.

"How soon?" Draco asked.

"Preferably tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? How did you think we are going to arrange anything by tomorrow?"

"Not much to do." Harry shrugged weakly. "We have the rings, Oliver can marry us and James can go get your mum and Blaise here. We don't really need much decoration as we agreed that a small affair is enough, unless you have changed you mind about that."

"No it's fine." Draco said.

"So tomorrow then?"

Draco nodded numbly not really able to grasp the fact that he was going to marry Harry in less than 24 hours.

"Tomorrow."

A/N: Thank you for reading. Please review and tell me what you think of the chapter/story.

- Dalnim