Draco went weak in the knees as soon as he felt the ground underneath him again. He had to grab the first massive object in his vicinity - the sofa - to avoid falling down.

"God damnit, you could have told me you were going to do that!"

Harry was already halfway to the open kitchen.

"What? Apparate?"

"Yeah, apparate ! Are you aware you shouldn't do that drunk?"

Harry was opening up all his cupboards, presumably looking for something to drink. He chuckled.

"I'm not quite that drunk, you know?"

The after effect of the side apparition - something between sea sickness and muscle soreness - was starting to fade, and Draco managed to sit down on the sofa. It'd been years since he'd last Apparated.

"Here you go."

Harry handed him a glass of whiskey.

"Great," he said grumpily, but he grabbed it and drank it all in one gulp, taking in his surroundings for the first time. The apartment looked brand new and impersonal, as if Harry had gone ahead and bought it off a catalog already furnished - which he wouldn't put past him for some reason, except for the fact that the sink was full of dirty dishes and random magical objects were scattered throughout, like a golden snitch half hidden under the coffee table. One single lamp dimly lit the entire room. The place looked expensive, and that without accounting for the neighborhood; he didn't know where they were, but assumed somewhere central, since Harry worked at the ministry. Or at least that's where he thought he worked.

"Feeling better?"

With a glass of his own, Harry sat down close enough for Draco to get a whiff of his cologne. The bottle of whiskey was already refilling his glass, suspended in mid-air. He took another gulp as soon as he could. He hadn't yet entirely processed that this was really happening to him.

"Yeah."

He was trying not to look at Harry, but he could feel Harry's gaze on himself. His throat was suddenly very dry. Without saying a word, Harry scooted over even closer, until his knee touched Draco's thighs. Dumbstruck by Harry's forwardness, which seemed to only intensify as time went by, Draco laughed nervously.

"So no foreplay, then? A man of action through and through?"

Harry smiled - not in a cheeky way, but sweetly, as you would if you were trying to put at ease an apprehensive stranger - , grabbed Draco's chin and kissed him slowly on the corner of his mouth. A current went through Draco's entire body.

"We can do foreplay, if that's what you want."

Draco laughed nervously once more, but this time Harry shut him up with a kiss on the lips before he could retort with some stupid remark.

Draco woke up the next morning alone in Harry Potter's bed, by far the last place he'd ever imagined himself to ever end up. He was wearing one of Harry's t-shirts, which for some reason felt straight up illegal. He endured the same feeling when he realized Harry had effectively locked him up in his apartment and didn't want to start looking through his drawers for a spare key. Already picturing the tabloid headlines - Former Death Eater searches through the Saviour's things - , he considered jumping out the window until he realized Harry lived on the fourth floor. In the end, he found the key by the door in a box full of unopened letters. He slid it back under the door, wondering how many other wizards would have trusted him alone in their apartments and then deciding the most likely explanation was that Harry simply didn't consider him even the least bit threatening. Once outside, it took him around five minutes to realize where he was. The train journey home lasted around one hour, and so for one hour Draco kept replaying last night's events in his head. He kept remembering snippets - glances, words, touches - but the meaning of the situation still escaped him. It'd been… very good . That was clear at least. But in a very bizarre way, as if what'd made it so good was that it was not supposed to ever happen. He'd fantasized about it, sure, who in the wizarding world hadn't at that point? But the reality of it - the reality of Harry - was simply mind boggling.

He'd missed the inorganic chem lab that morning, which he never missed, so after a quick lunch and an aspirin for the hangover, he made his way to university. He planned to track down a classmate or two at the library to catch up on the work, but he kept getting distracted by memories from last night and walked to the wrong part of the campus.

God damnit.

Whatever had happened last night, it would not happen again - Draco had to tell himself that. Whatever had gotten into Potter the night before must have been a singular sort of feeling, that happens once and then never again. Yes, Harry must have scratched an old itch and soon will move on to the next thing. Or maybe he just got off on finally making Draco admit - indirectly - that their whole rivalry had been an act, the act of a selfish, egotistical child who never could accept that he wasn't the center of everybody's life, and that Draco's always been simply waiting for Harry's approval.

Stop.

He had to concentrate on school, because school was his only option going forward. So he turned around, went to the library and found his classmates. Next day he went to work, then to the classes and then again, more of the same.

What made things a bit more complicated than he would have liked them to be was that every time a person walked in the bookstore he'd instinctively turn around to check if it was Harry. When he had to go look for a book in the storage room, he'd remember the day Harry walked in with that guy, and start obsessing over who that guy could be. When he'd walk by the reading table he'd recount to himself their conversation, ruminating on every word that had been said.

To cope, he took on the project of reorganizing the second floor children's section, which provoked zero Harry-related memories and also had no view over the door. After a week had passed and things were starting to feel normal again, he returned to the main floor, slowly falling back into the familiar routine he's held for almost two years. It was a routine he cherished over everything else, despite how tired he was everyday, because the last few years before that were still as fresh as ever in his mind. And, above everything else, he had to avoid going back to that.

He was off that Wednesday, so he immediately pictured the worst when he saw his manager's name appear on the screen of his phone, at 8 o'clock in the evening.

"Hi, Sarah, is everything alright?"

"Hi, Draco, sorry to bother you but there's someone here who asked to speak to you."

Draco's heart skipped a beat. It couldn't be.

"What? Who?"

"Wait, I'll - here..."

A short silence as the phone changed hands was followed by Harry's voice.

"Hi, it's me."

"Are you actually insane?"

"Sorry, I thought you were at work today - "

"So when you saw I wasn't there you thought you'd just get my boss to call me? Do you realize how inappropriate this is?"

Draco was mainly doing his best at hiding how incredibly happy he was feeling.

"Er, yeah, I don't know…Uhm, anyways, I was just wondering if you have any plans tonight."

His heart had moved all the way up to his throat.

"Not particularly, no. I'm home, though. In Stratton."

Draco had said that to indicate that he was far away from where Harry lived, but he didn't expect Harry to actually take it as an invitation.

"I can come to Stratton, no problem."

"Uhm…OK, why not. It's … it's 34 Abott's Road. D7."

"Got it, see you soon!"

He apologized again to Sarah for the trouble, then hung up and looked around at the 10 square meters apartment he inhabited. He didn't usually have people over, except maybe his social worker. Half the place was occupied by a giant desk full of folders, papers and instruments. The other half was occupied by his bed. He opened the window and tried to tidy up whatever objects were out of place, all while feeling spectacularly out of place in his own home, wondering what Harry will say when he'll realize where he lives. By the time the buzzer rang, he had washed a perfectly clean pair of glasses twice.

"I've brought wine. To apologize. For your boss."

Harry was smiling like a child who had gotten in trouble, but who knew he'd be forgiven right away. His demeanor was, like always, utterly disarming.

"How very kind of you."

Harry stepped in the apartment while Draco took the bottle to the farthest corner of the room, which contained the sink, to uncork it. When he turned around, glasses in hand, Harry was sprawled up on his bed looking at ease. He didn't appear phased in the slightest by the size of the place.

"Thank you," he said as he took the glass from Draco's hand, while with the other hand he dragged Draco next to him, "now let me make it up for you."

Unlike Draco, Harry didn't sleep over. Around midnight, he got out of bed and started getting dressed. Draco put on a t-shirt as well and waited under the covers, not knowing what to say.

"Well, I guess I better be going then."

He thought Harry might offer an explanation, but apparently he didn't feel the need to.

"OK."

He'd almost reached the door when he suddenly turned back.

"Ah, yes! Give me your number, that should make things easier."

As if compelled by a spell, Draco complied to his request. Content, Harry took back the phone, said "Great, see ya", then Disapparrated right then and there. Which, Draco was sure even a muggle who'd learned about magic that day would be able to deduct, was extremely rude.

Completely sobered up by Harry's sudden departure, Draco got out of bed and turned on his desk lamp. At least things were clear now.

What followed was many more evenings just like the last one. Sometimes once a week, sometimes twice, and sometimes not at all, Harry would text Draco. Soon, a pattern emerged. If it was very late, Harry'd ask if he could drop by Draco's place. He almost never slept over, unless he'd come particularly late, or unless he was really drunk. If it was earlier in the evening, he'd come pick Draco up from work and, occasionally, university, and then they'd go to Harry's place, where Draco always slept over because he had no way of getting home. But that was very rare. What happened most times was that Harry came for a couple of hours in Draco's apartment, they shagged, and then Harry left. It felt like they barely even talked during the hours they spent together. They did speak, mostly during sex, about sex related stuff, and about things that were in their immediate vicinity. But they never spoke about themselves: Draco didn't know if Harry was still an Auror or not, if he was seeing other people as well, or what he did each day before meeting Draco. At the beginning, he'd tried. But if he asked Harry how his day went, Harry would simply say "Fine" and then immediately drag him to bed, or something similarly deflecting.

For his part, Harry never asked him anything. Draco thought surely Harry would be curious why he was back in London after what had happened on Diagon Alley, or how he could afford to attend muggle university with a bookseller's salary, and had prepared an explanatory speech. But he never got the chance to say it. Even when the unopened letter that Harry'd given him fell from between two books right in front of him, he didn't ask a thing, which Draco was partly grateful for, partly intrigued by, as he had known Harry as pretty much incapable of not getting involved in other people's business. And they most definitely did not speak about the past. Harry hadn't even acknowledged the fact that Draco couldn't use magic once.

It wasn't the ideal relationship, Draco was well aware. But he couldn't bring himself to put a stop to it. In fact, he'd done the opposite: he'd stopped seeing anybody else. Everytime Harry was around, he felt as if that was the ultimate proof that he couldn't actually be that horrible person everybody seemed to have agreed he was, that if someone such as Harry could actually stand to see him again and again, could touch him, and hold him, and caress him, maybe he wasn't all rotten from the inside. It was the complete opposite of how he used to feel next to Harry before, which made it even more intoxicating. And then, despite the lack of communication between them, they were somehow getting closer. They'd started to spend more time in bed, curled up into each other's arms, teasing each other about nonconsequential things, like the way Harry was very ticklish or how Draco couldn't stand it when Harry was freshly shaven. They'd also grown comfortable to be silent around each other when, say, Draco would prepare them something quick to eat after sex. They never kissed hello and goodbye, but they kissed a lot in between, sometimes for very long times, sometimes very slowly and tenderly. It was all very confusing for Draco, especially when they'd spend the whole night together and then Harry would vanish for a whole week or more, with no way of knowing if he'll ever even call again or simply disappear, just as suddenly as he'd re-appeared in his life.

And so every instant he wasn't with Harry or at work, he studied. He had been a hard worker before, but lately he'd become effectively obsessive - otherwise, he wouldn't have coped. And so the unexpected silver lining of this monstrous situation was that Draco had the grades to apply to several apprenticeships in France and Belgium, where a branch of potions that integrated the non magical scientific studies of chemistry and physics was rapidly emerging. Thankfully, people there didn't seem to care who he was and where he came from as long as he had an undergraduate degree in inorganic chemistry and a NEWT in Potions - which he'd passed the year prior, at Durmstrang, after finally managing to gather the money for the trip - and by late April he had received a couple of acceptance letters, including one with a prestigious Parisian potioneer.

The day he'd received that particular acceptance letter it'd been more or less a week since their last meeting, and so, like clockwork, Harry texted him early in the afternoon.

Hey, what are you doing tonight? I'll be free around 10.

Draco replied, as he always did : Come over if you want .

And so Harry came over around 11, sliding silently through the door that he knew had been left open for him. He found Draco sitting at his desk, hunched over a particularly difficult problem.

"Just two minutes," Draco said, absorbed by a variable he couldn't understand.

Putting a hand on his shoulders as he walked past him to get to the bottle opener that lived by the sink, Harry said absent-mindendly:

"Take your time."

And just that touch was enough to make Draco feel as if his entrails were on fire. Abandoning the exercise, he looked over at Harry, who was opening the bottle of wine he'd brought with a pained look on his face.

"Everything alright?" he asked, almost in spite of himself.

"Yeah, brilliant," Harry replied before chugging one glass of wine in one single motion.

It was acutely obvious he didn't want to talk to him about whatever was bothering him, and it was precisely this sort of exchange which frustrated Draco the most. He'd had casual relationships - he'd only had casual relationships - before, and they hadn't felt quite like that.

But then again, he told himself over and over again, those other people he used to see didn't know what he'd done, while Harry did. If it was just sex that Harry needed from Draco, then that was because that was the only valuable thing Draco was capable of offering. So he let the matter go, forcing himself to just be in the moment, to enjoy Harry's presence, until he was gone not even two hours later. Alone in his bed, surrounded by Harry's smell, Draco remembered how lonely he'd felt at the beginning, after the trial was finally over and he'd been released back into a world in which he had no more family, friends or money. Why did this feel so much worse than that? Of course it wasn't worse than that, he knew that. But it felt so, so much worse.

That night the nightmares kept him up again. They'd been getting more frequent since he started seeing Harry regularly, as if his mind didn't have the time to forget anymore now that he was in constant contact with a wizard again. Lately, barely a night went by in which he didn't revisit in his sleep the dungeons below the Ministry of Magic where he'd been held for almost a year, or the Manor while Voldemort lived there, or the halls of Hogwarts as they were falling around him. Sometimes he'd dream of his parents - he read about their suicide in the papers -, sometimes about the people he'd hurt. By next morning, after having barely slept at all, he'd decided he had to go to Paris next fall, if not because it was his only chance of making something out of his life, then for his sanity. He was sure in any case that Harry would get bored by whatever that was until then, despite how much he wished that not to be true.