A/N; It's been a while, but I'm not done with this fic yet.

Thanks bunches to The Dark's Desire, kumak, deedee10, miadragonlover, Lucius Sikilmituile, cookie gestapo, Destiny Entwinements, hey, akuma-river, Dybdahl, BlackCherries, lucius, AniD, Harry Slytherinson, lunefin, JadedSecrets, lilylupin, Nataleechan, ssjmiraitrks, Ch3rryphr34k (lol. Diru, really? But Sebastian is so not Kyo! ), Sophie Malfoy, Leland, Bibayb, Mags, angel, Chocola (lol... there is no LMHP re-hab... i have made it my mission to obliterate such things. evil laughter), Lanfear1, sotty-chan, Megan13, Purple Raveness, Bezzie, sanzo, Goldensong, gorgeousbowneyes, Eowyns Entity

When he awakens, Harry is shocked to see Lucius in bed beside him. He supposes that he hadn't really expected Lucius to stay the whole night. A part of him is glad that Lucius stayed. A larger part of him is panicking about what happens when Lucius wakes up. Harry silences that part of himself for now. He's too old to be afraid of Lucius, but Lucius is the only real villain left. Perhaps he was worse than Riddle. Riddle was insane. Lucius had done unspeakable things in with the same cool detachment with which he read the morning paper. Did that make him evil?

Harry looks at Lucius. Once again he sees Draco in Lucius' face—in the sharpness of his features, in the paleness of his skin and hair—but Lucius possesses something Draco had not, just as Draco possessed things Lucius has not. Whatever it was, it has momentarily vanished from Lucius' sleeping face. Though like Draco, even in his sleep, he looked guarded. Apparently, he had never developed Harry's occasional habit of sleeping with an eye open. He never had to; Lucius was always the hunter.

Then again, Harry's fear of Lucius has nothing to do with evil and everything to do with the way Harry's body betrays him every time Lucius is nearby. Harry refuses to give in, fighting himself doggedly every halting step he took closer to Lucius.

You want him.

I'll be damned before I'll sleep with Lucius Malfoy.

You're already damned.

Then I'll continue to be damned before I sleep with Lucius Malfoy.

You want him.

He was on their side of the war.

But he was on Draco's side, too…

And somehow it always seemed to come back to Draco.

He sits, watching Lucius sleep, fighting a private war within himself. He had been alone too long—he knows that, but does that explain the urge he has to slide closer to Lucius, to slide under his arm and kiss him and feel the weight and warmth of Lucius' body on top of him? The urge grows strong enough to take up its own physical space and push Harry closer to Lucius, to bend his neck and press their lips together. Lucius' hand cups Harry's face tenderly and the kiss was dreamy, eerily soft and unreal. Harry kisses Lucius again and Lucius kisses him harder this time, his hand sliding down Harry's arm and pulling him closer.

His body isn't warm. It burns.

Lucius' skin against Harry's burns the way his kisses did, the way his eyes did when he looked at Harry in those days after school had ended. Harry's fingers entangle themselves in Lucius' hair. Lucius kisses him again, his tongue slipping into Harry's mouth. Harry's nails dig into Lucius shoulders, anchoring himself in some physical reality as the kiss overwhelms him. When their lips part, Lucius whispers something almost lost in Harry's mouth.

Almost.

"Harry," he whispers. Harry goes rigid. His eyes meet Lucius' own. They are wide with shock.

"What?" Harry whispers, as shocked as Lucius, who raises himself on one elbow.

"I'm sorry. I was only half-awake… and your kiss." Lucius blinks slowly. It is the only time Harry can recall seeing him amazed. The blonde raises his hand to his lips in a state of awe. "You kiss like Harry Potter."

Harry scrambles out from under Lucius, grabs his things and flees through the fireplace.

It is a testament to Lucius' hangover cure that the blur of traveling by floo powder doesn't make Harry sick all over himself. He steps out of the fireplace to come face to face with Hermione. He resists the sudden urge to duck back into the fireplace. At the moment, he considers possible discovery by Lucius the lesser evil. That is probably wise, since the look on Hermione's face is strongly reminiscent of McGonagall.

"G'morning, 'Mione," he says in what he hopes is a pleasant voice. She glares at him, which isn't entirely unexpected since he is standing in just a pair of obviously slept-in dress slacks, his lips probably swollen from kissing.

"Oh, good. I'd feel awful about giving you what for unless you were well-rested," she says coldly. Harry sighs, putting his glasses on and dropping the rest of his belongings in a heap. He is suddenly feeling strangely nostalgic for the days when he had no one to anger or hurt.

"What is it?" he says, sinking into a chair by the fireplace. If he is going to get taken to task, he might as well be comfortable.

"What is this?" she asks, dropping the Society section of the Daily Prophet in his lap. Harry glances at the headline: Hornby-Malfoy Heir Debut a Smash.

"It looks like a party." Harry says.

"Read the caption," Hermione says through gritted teeth. Harry flips the paper over. Sebastian Hornby (left) with his chaperone Jonathan S. Scryer, professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"Oh," Harry says.

There is a moment of dead silence in which Hermione simply gapes at him.

"Have you gone mad?" she demands, snatching the paper back from him.

"'Mione, don't," Harry whines.

"Don't what? Don't ask why you're accepting employment from Lucius Malfoy? Don't ask why you decided to baby-sit Nicholas' older brother? Don't ask why you've allowed yourself to play the role of glorified nanny in one of the oldest traditions the people who kept us down for years have left? Don't ask why you're suddenly chummy with war relics when you used to avoid them like the plague? What exactly am I not supposed to ask? There are so many questions that I'm not even sure where to not start!" She throws the paper down in disgust. Harry stands.

"That's exactly what I'm talking about. Why does everything have to be an issue? Why does everything have to mean something? Why can't I just be accepting a job or doing a favor for an old friend?"

"Because you already have a job and Lucius Malfoy was never your friend. Sebastian wasn't your friend either and…"

"And what?" Harry prompts, livid.

"It looks bad, alright? From every angle it looks bad. As Harry Potter, it looks bad, you falling in with the old regime and working for Lucius Malfoy. As Jonathan Scryer it looks bad because you were lovers with Sebastian's brother and he and Nicholas share an uncanny resemblance."

"People who are related tend to do that," Harry replies dryly.

"Harry, please. This isn't you."

"And I suppose you're the expert on what is and isn't me?" Harry says, closing his eyes briefly.

"As your best friend, yes, I hope so."

"Since when have you been interested in being my friend?" Hermione's nostrils flare and Harry is reminded strangely of Norbert, Hagrid's former pet dragon.

"Since always, Harry James Potter, and if you don't change your tone with me, by God I will hex you blind!"

Harry felt a grudging amount of respect toward Hermione. Not many people ever had the nerve to stand up to him, especially not after he defeated Voldemort.

"I don't understand, Harry. You've changed so much."

"People do that."

"Not the way you've changed. Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to a stranger, when I get a chance to talk to you at all. Half the time I can't even find you."

"War changes people, Hermione."

"Not me and not Ron."

"Well congratulations on being the only two people in Britain thick enough to miss the horror that was Voldemort."

Harry has enough time to dodge the jinx Hermione cast at him, but only just barely. The smell of singed hair fills the room.

"We haven't changed to the point of becoming someone completely different," she says coldly, her wand still pointing at Harry. He shoots her a half-hearted glare.

"Lucky you." The bitterness in his voice is much more genuine. Hermione lowers her wand, shoving it into her pocket in a gesture that momentarily reminds him of himself ages ago. A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth, but not hard enough to effect any change in his expression.

"I don't understand why you can't seem to escape that family. Is it the hair? Do you just like blondes? I know it may come as a surprise, but blondes occur outside of Draco's family tree-" Harry snorts.

"It's not about the hair," he says, throwing himself back into his chair.

"It's Malfoy isn't it? You haven't been the same since Draco died. Ron and I always thought it was Lucius, but we were wrong." Harry sighs tiredly.

"Drop it, Hermione. It won't do you any good."

" Maybe it will do you good, then," she says. Harry recognized the gleam in her eyes as the self-righteous kind that he had always hated, particularly because when it appeared, she tended to have a point he didn't want to hear. " In your head, you've built up Malfoy to be some kind of saint, a martyr. I have news for you: he wasn't! He had his moments, yes, but he was by nature self-serving, cold, calculating--"

"Don't you dare!" She falters momentarily at the anger in his voice, knowing that she was treading a fine line with him. Harry doesn't believe in speaking ill of the dead, especially those that had died in service to the Order and Harry rarely can stand to speak of Draco at all, ill or otherwise. She presses on.

"Any good qualities he had were learned from you and all he's left you with are bitterness and the same brittle edge he had until he died."

"Stop it!"

This pleading has nothing to do with speaking ill of the dead. Now he is asking her to stop for his own sake because he doesn't want to hear anymore, doesn't think he can stand to hear anymore. She looks at him gripping the seat of his chair so hard his knuckles have gone white, and she sees through the glamour and the years to Harry the last time she remembers looking at him and knowing that Harry was looking back at her—the moment before Draco's coffin was lowered into the ground, when Harry was wringing his gloves in his hand so tightly his knuckles were white and the glove seams made angry red lines against his palms, threatening to draw blood, but he didn't seem feel it. She caught his eye once and when she met him outside the gates after the coffin had disappeared completely under the dirt, the Harry she knew was gone.

"You were in love with him, weren't you?" she says. There is anger in her voice—anger at herself for not knowing, at Harry for not telling her and for letting something like this be the thing that defeated him.

The accusation slams Harry squarely in the chest, leaving him breathless and unable to respond. He wants to deny it. Of course he can't. But to be forced to confront twice in less than a day the same unhappy truth he has managed to avoid for years is nearly too much for him. Hermione sees the scars of the war blazing in his eyes, across his forehead, across his soul.

"Fine, if you insist on hanging around the half-dead and the broken, go ahead. Perhaps they're fitting company for you." She makes it to the door before she turns around and addresses him for the last time. "For the first time in our lives, I feel sorry for you," she says. The door slams shut behind her.

Hermione saw the scars, but she failed to recognize that scars are among the first visible signs that a wound is healing.

My hope is that more will follow soon, but at the very least more will follow eventually.

Love always,

J. Silver