Draco was in the midst of one of the hardest steps in the wolfsbane potion he was brewing for stupid gorgeous Potter. He was so focused on his task he didn't even reprimand his brain for thinking for even a second that Potter was gorgeous. He had just added the finally drop of wolfs blood and was setting down the dropper with a sigh of relief, when he heard the bell he had installed to let him know if someone was fire-calling or if they had stepped through the front door to his shop. He ignored it, because he still was in the midst of a critical period for this potion, and nobody was worth botching a potion for Draco, so they could wait or come back later. Only a few moments later, when he was in the midst of stirring the potion, the door to his potions chamber opened with a click. Draco sighed and said, "Granger I gave you a key only for when I am away and a potion needs taken care of, not so that you could randomly break into my potions lab while I'm in the midst of a critical step for one of the hardest potions anyone could ever brew."

Draco didn't bother looking up from his potion, Granger was the only person who had a copy of the magical key he had created to prevent anyone from opening his door with any assortment of spells. Granger sighed and said, "Very well, I will wait upstairs, how long do you think it will be before you can leave the potion to rest?"

Draco shrugged and said, "Probably another ten minutes or so."

When Draco heard footsteps heading out, he muttered, "I don't know why I put up with people, does no one know how to nock these days?" Draco grimaced as he set to work stirring the potion clockwise then muttered, "Then she barges in, what if I was in the midst of an incantation that required utter silence, just because she's brilliant does not mean I should have to overlook breaches in common courteous behavior." Draco took a deep breath and began briskly stirring counter clockwise, "What if I had been in the middle of cutting a toxic ingredient." Draco paused and began to slowly stirring each direction alternating as he mutter, "No one bloody appreciates a potions master these days, they just barge right in expecting the world and the moon for the price of a simple sleeping drought, I should have bloody taken that job in France, it at least would have been easier on my complexion."

Draco sighed, letting his posture slacken for a moment when he was finally able to pull his ladle free of the now simmering potion. As he turned to hang the bronze ladle on the drying rack his eyes caught sight of a figure at the same moment a familiar voice asked, "Do you realize you were talking out loud just now?"

Draco felt his heart stop beating for what felt like but a second but also like eternity before he jolted and dropped the item in his hand. Potter caught it before it hit the ground and Draco nearly toppled his potion over in his attempt to back away from Potter as fast as he was approaching. The dreamy smile on the Gryffindors face faltered and dimmed a bit before he said, "I didn't mean to startle you."

Draco took in a shaky breath and asked, "You… How did you get in…? Granger!"

Draco slammed the ladle into place and was about to storm past Potter to give Granger a piece of his mind when Potter put his hands up and said, "Please don't be mad at her, I asked her if she could get me in to see you, I was worried that I might have done permanent damage."

Potter grimaced when he got a good look at the bight on Draco's neck, it looked like a savage beast had bit him, and the thought made his stomach roll. Draco seemed to take in everything from Potter's hair to his shoes before asking, "Yes but why are you really here? If you're here because you think your inability to control yourself outside the moons influence will affect my potion making skills and thus the potion that will allow you the illusion of control on the nights of the moon, then you might as well leave now, because I will complete this blasted potion."

Potter sighed and asked, "Why is it that you were able to look past your differences with Hermione but you can't even have a friendly conversation?"

Draco blinked, he had not expected such a question from Potter, and with his surprise he found himself answering at least part of the question, and with utter honesty, "Because despite her many faults in the ways of edict she is bloody brilliant and frankly most of our fights were petty to begin with. I'd like to think I've matured enough to realize just because she can keep up a conversation on the magical properties of different substances, doesn't mean that I should personally feel threatened, it helps that she has absolutely no interest in becoming a potion's master."

Potter blinked and said, "Really? That's it? You didn't have some big epiphany? I mean you were terrible to her and all because you felt threatened? That doesn't even make sense!"

Draco sighed and said, "I wouldn't expect you to understand Potter, you're the epitome of everything I ever disliked about Gryffindor, you randomly jump into a situation without logically considering all options, you assume that everything you think and say is morally above that of everyone else even when half the time you all spout just as much prejudice as the most conservative pureblood, you assume that everything is black or white and that you can place every person into one box or the other, you completely ignore all social edict, in fact I don't even think you bothered to learn what the edict is for any situation, and worst of all, you bloody snoop about, something that is rude by the way, and then have the nerve to make me into some villain. I haven't seen you making any attempts to put any old petty school rivalries behind you. In fact from what I have seen you are exactly like you were in school!"

Harry wanted to yell back, but he forced himself to take a deep breath and say, "You are absolutely right."

Draco blinked and asked in surprise, "Wait I am?"

Harry nodded and said, "Yes you are, I had Hermione come to you and basically black mail you and call in a life debt just to help me with my situation. Then I come over here and make a bloody ass of myself, judging you for the person I remember and not even considering that you might have changed or that maybe I didn't know you all that well to begin with. So for all of that I am truly sorry."

Draco opened his mouth, closed it with a frown, then asked, "Wait, did you just…?"

Harry smiled, "Apologize for being a prat? Yes, I did."

Draco could feel his brows draw together as he tried to contemplate if he had really heard what he had just heard, finally he gave up on trying to understand how someone could honestly apologize and sound so genuine, and instead decided to take it like any good Slytherin would if another Slytherin apologized, "What are you playing at Potter?"

Harry sighed and said, "I'm not playing at anything Draco, I just am trying to get past our school rivalry because like you said with your fight with Hermione, I've realized it was petty. I've changed a lot since Hogwarts."

Draco jaw tightened and he said through clenched teeth, "I may have changed enough to see past the petty fights I had with Granger and even Weasley to some extent, but a Malfoy can never just forget when someone basically spits in their face when they offer an alliance, not just once but twice. They cannot forget when someone tarnishes their image and does everything they can to make them look a fool. I cannot just forget every transgression against my person and my name that happened because of you, just because you've decided our fights were petty. I may owe you a life debt, and I may be making you a potion that is the most complex potion any master could dream of making, but that does not mean I have forgotten that I died because of you sixth year. I bled out, I choked on my last breath, I felt a coldness that was unbearable, like someone had replaced my core with ice, and I was lost in darkness that I thought would consume me and then my Godfather brought me back, but the pain and the cold feeling in my chest still lingers in the scars that you put on me. No med-witch or wizard can ever heal them because they are cursed scars. That's not just something I can forget, I might feel partially obligated to brew you this potion because you saved my life twice during the war, because you ended the war but that does not mean I have to pretend everything is jolly and well and be so grateful that Harry Potter the wizarding world's savior, apologized to me for coming over and acting like the prat he has always been to me. So you can take your bloody apology and get out of my potion's lab, get out of my home, do not try to contact me and tell Granger if she lets you in here again without my knowledge I will move, I will not notify her of my location and I will never brew a single potion for her or you, ever."

Harry stared at Draco in shock, mouth agape, he just couldn't process this knowledge. He had never really thought about how Draco saw everything, and he had very nearly forgotten about that night in sixth year, with Draco pale and lifeless on the bathroom floor, blood blossoming from his wound in rivers and pools of blood. He had nightmares about it to this day, but he had always thought Severus had fixed it, that Draco had been okay, that he had repented and gotten rid of the book that had given him the spell that had nearly killed an innocent boy who was just trying to protect his mother from the worst monster the wizarding world had ever known. Draco suddenly turned around, and his hand grasped at his chest, at the center where the spell had cut the deepest, and Harry had to explain, he had to make Draco understand, "I didn't mean to, I never realized it was that bad, I didn't even know what that spell did. I'm so…"

Draco spun around and he had never looked so angry before, even the traces of tears only somehow made him look more angry, "Is that suppose to make me feel better about it all, make me want to forgive you. You used a dark spell on me, one of the darkest and most painful curses I have ever in my life encountered, and you did it by accident? The truth is you can't inflict such a spell on someone, you can't send them to the brink of death, can't put them through such agony without at least partly wanting such an outcome. To kill someone you have to want them dead more than you want to let them live, so maybe you regret it now, but in that moment, you didn't hesitate to use that spell, your magic knew you were intent on making sure I did not leave that bathroom, and a part of me didn't. You took from me my last shred of childhood, you took away my safe haven, and it was because I did not feel safe in Hogwarts that my magic finally let me fix that blasted cupboard. I paid for that crime, I sat before the wizingot in chains for my mistakes, mistakes I regretted, mistakes I wanted to take back, ones I apologized for. While you got seats of honor, an order of Merlin, and a job as head aurora, I served nearly six months in Azkaban, I was forced to give up my ancestral home, because the Dark Lord had rested there and even though my mother and I never willingly let him into our home we were held accountable. If I hadn't been able to prove that not only was I chorused into taking the mark, but that I was also under age I would still be in Azkaban, freezing, starving, and rotting. If my mother hadn't have called in favors from some French Ambassadors and fled the country to become a protected diplomat she would still be in Azkaban, and my father, we both know, was killed for the crime of trying to protect his family. Although perhaps killed is to pleasant a word, no they ripped out his soul and turned him into a walking shell, than left him in an isolation chamber until his body just stopped working all together. Have you ever looked someone in the eye who has lost their soul Potter? Have you ever looked into the eyes of someone you love and watch as they slowly died? You won the war we never wanted and what price did you have to pay? You still have your friends, and you never had a family to lose to begin with, so it looks like you are better off than the rest of us."

At first, everything Draco said had been a hit to the gut for Harry. He had felt his guilt and his sorrow build, but then it by the time he was finished Harry felt the anger he had kept locked away bubble up like a fountain, and with it his magic began to lash out, and as he growled out his response the walls of the potions lab began to shake, "You think you're the only one who had to suffer? You think you're the only one who lost someone to the war? You act like all of those horrible things that happened to you were my fault. Like I was the one who invited the dark lord into your home, like I was the one who made you take the mark, like I was the one to threaten your mother, and I was the one who made you pay for your crimes. I am sorry for the things I did, I'm sorry you had to go through all that, but I will not apologize for things I had no control over."

Draco snarled, "You've always had the power, first you had Dumbledore's ear, you were after all his favorite, you could do no wrong in his eyes. You put my father in Azkaban and didn't even think how that would affect my mother or myself, the same with all the other who had by the way, been helping Severus keep his secret until suddenly they found themselves in direct contact with the dark lord. You did nothing to help me or my mother during the war, and then, even when we did what we could to help you end the bloody war, you didn't even have the decently to notify the ministry, who was giving you a fancy job with a fancy title and fancy meddle that my mother was the only reason the Dark Lord didn't know his spell hadn't really killed you. The job of head aurora is to make sure every fact is presented to the wizingot prior to any court case, and yet, you didn't even come forward with any of the facts, so I will likely never see my mother again in person, because I'm still on probation and she can never step foot in Britain again!"

Draco's voice broke a bit on that last word and every ounce of anger left Harry, and he didn't even notice the damage he had caused in his anger, his eyes were on Draco who had once again turned his back on Harry and was clutching at the spot on his chest once more. Harry took several deep breaths and said, "I didn't know you were still on probation, I didn't even know the wizingot put people on probation. Look, I'm sorry, I'll try to look into this and see if there is anything I can do."

Draco's voice was hoarse as he said, "I don't want your help Potter, I just want you to get out of my potions lab, and out of my home. Now if you don't mind."

Harry sighed and said, "I'll leave but I'm still going to try and help you, at the very least your mother should be allowed to visit. I'll see what I can do."

With that Harry marched out of the potions lab, and went to the nearest flow and headed to the ministry. He would have to fire-call Hermione, who had headed to work after getting him into Draco's lab, because he really did feel like this wasn't right. Draco had paid enough for his crimes.

Draco sighed as he rubbed his eyes and took a look around his potions lab. Ingredients were all over the tables and floor, and half of his potions had tipped over. His lab had never been such a wreck. Blasted Potter and his stupid sexy wand-less magic.