The Man Who Forgot

Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairing: Harry/Draco

Warnings/Tropes/Etc: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Mpreg, Past/Referenced Child Abuse, Past/Referenced Character Death

Chapter Length: 15,700

Summary: After ten years of marriage, Harry forgets.

The more things change, the more Draco Malfoy is still up to something.

Chapter Nineteen

Harry woke up slowly, just a few hours later. The sun was fully up now, an unwelcome cheeriness shining in through the window. It made him feel awful in a twisting, echoing way where it was not immediately clear what had happened: only that something had, some immense, shattering thing he did not want to remember.

At least he wasn't particularly pink or gummy this morning. Actually, he wasn't at all. That was weird. Even now that his potion was done with, shouldn't the pink gumminess still have been around? It had been there with him since the beginning, even back when all it might have meant was his memories trying to come back on their own...

Oh. His memories weren't trying to come back, if they ever really had been. That was done with too.

The things Harry had not wanted to remember about yesterday came lurching back in all at once, consuming in their awfulness. The memories he was on the outside of, playing out in front of him one by one; the ones he was on the inside of, playing out before that, inevitable and...

Had he ever thought this was meant to come out any other way? It didn't seem possible that he could have done. The him that had thought he might get his memories back seemed to be as far in the past as the him that had thought it was insane for him to have married Draco Malfoy.

He stayed in bed for a long while, thinking he ought to get up, but unable to convince himself about this until he realized that Draco, too, might be up. Might have got up hours ago, even. Might be around here somewhere, or might have gone now, after all...

It was this thought that spurred Harry into action. Out of bed and into clothes, the first things he pulled out of his dresser. Down the hallway to Draco's closed bedroom door. Harry put his ear to it for a long minute, picked up nothing. It could have meant Draco was still sleeping, could mean he was up. When Harry cast Somnum Revelio, the door glowed green at the center, fading to yellow and a rusty sort of red around the edges--not the scarlet of injury, but more of a brownish color. So Draco was still sleeping, but rather likely to wake up in the next hour or two, and to still be upset when he did. That made sense. Harry was still upset too.

Thinking about Draco being upset wasn't helping. It settled deep inside him, a dark and heavy weight. Harry didn't see flashes from Draco's memory pretty much only because he didn't let himself see them, Draco kicking the other Harry's thigh with his heel and Draco kissing the other Harry at their wedding and Draco sneering at the other Harry in that small dark bathroom. He stared past them, instead, the same way he stared past everything else on the Quidditch field. Only this time he wasn't looking for the Snitch, there wasn't going to be one.

He trudged down the stairs and into the kitchen. It was habit, well worn in after four months of coming down the stairs and into the kitchen for his breakfast. Today, the wicker basket, usually long-since Vanished by this time of day, was still on the table. Harry went up to it and looked in: it was a lot bigger on the inside than it was on the outside, not plates stacked on top of each other but next to each other. He took them out, carried them one by one over to the kitchen cabinet where they belonged.

This was not a habit, and yet it was still familiar: being up before everyone else, getting breakfast ready. Harry didn't have to waste time wondering where it felt familiar from. It was older than his life with Draco, older than his years at Hogwarts. Older, even, than learning that magic was a thing that existed, his to grab hold of. The only thing really new about this was that he didn't have to resent it, or sneak a strip of bacon or a bite of eggs in case everything got finished off before he had his turn. Or, not the only thing new about it. The other new thing was that Draco had been the one doing it, all the other times. So Harry didn't have to, maybe. To make him feel cared for, probably. It was a miserable, unsatisfying thought.

Harry finished getting the lunch and dinner plates put away, then set the breakfast ones out on the table. It was beans on toast for him this morning, a full English breakfast for Draco. 

Today's Daily Prophet was on the counter. He paged through just in case there was anything about them in it. Nothing today; they must have got lucky yesterday. Just yesterday? Yeah, his memory appointment really had only been yesterday. Harry had missed basically the entire trip there in the pink gumminess, so must also have missed that they had for once managed not to be spotted by any reporters. At any rate there was nothing about them in the paper today, so Harry set it down next to Draco's plate, then crossed back to sit in front of his own plate. He looked at his beans and toast for a long time before pushing them away.

He waited. It was easy. There was nothing else he could think of to do, and so sitting there wasn't agonizing the way it normally would have been. He waited some more. It was terrible. There was nothing he could think of to do, nevermind anything that would help, and so every moment dragged out excruciatingly.

Eventually, Draco came down the stairs in a series of low, whispering thuds. Harry turned to look at him, and for several very intense moments could have cried at the sight: this was his Draco, with shadows under his eyes he hadn't had in the Pensieve memories, and a roundness that had been no more than a maybe by the end of them. Harry felt like he hadn't got to see him in years.

"Morning," Harry said, carefully and with a strange, swelling joy.

Draco shoved into his seat, not looking at Harry, and started on his food.

"Did you, er, sleep alright?" Harry asked. It felt at once like a stupid question, considering all the Somnum Revelio s he'd cast, but at the same time also a really important one. How Draco thought he'd slept mattered too, right? Whether he'd even answer Harry about it, that mattered as well, didn't it?

Draco didn't answer this for a minute. At first possibly because he was working on his sausage, but then when he was done with that he went on to his eggs, shoveling them down mechanically while still not looking at Harry. Finally, just as Harry was thinking of prodding him again, everything else he'd felt at seeing him having begun to dissolve into a maelstrom of panic, Draco swallowed and said, "The fucking Sleeping Draught works."

"Oh," Harry said. "That's good," he added, though he wasn't sure it was, really. That anything good could have been said in the tone Draco had said so in.

Draco finished eating. Harry still couldn't imagine trying to eat.

"Listen," he said. "Can we talk?"

Draco froze, a stillness that meant...Harry didn't have the first idea what it meant. "About?"

"Er," Harry said. He had not managed to work this out yet. It was like he'd been frozen, too. Even before Draco had got down here. The whole time he'd been in the kitchen, the whole time before that, ever since... "I guess about yesterday? And, er, what we're going to do now. Going forward, and all that."

Draco froze, less a stillness than a temperature this time. "No," he said shortly. "I don't want to talk about that."

"Don't we kind of have to? I mean, we can't keep on like we have been, can we?" Harry said, reasonably enough he thought, and probably not betraying how much of a relief it was that he hadn't had any of his beans and toast. He'd have been sick all over the table, if he had. That was how much his stomach was churning suddenly, a sickening, acidy feeling.

Meanwhile, Draco's face had drained of color. "Harry," he said. "I can't--not yet, alright?"

"Why not?"

"I know you--I realize we have to," Draco went on, seeming to try for a sort of reasonable himself, and landing in somewhere that seemed instead to be wide-eyed and manic. "At some point, we--but it doesn't have to be yet, does it? And it--it probably shouldn't be. We've got Teddy to think of, haven't we? We should wait until the case is over, at least."

Harry thought about it. He didn't have to think for very long. They were weeks past when Ron had thought it would all be done with. The case could be over tomorrow, or it could be over a month or two from now. It could hit a hideously complicated snag and go on another year. It could be one moment longer, or it could be ten thousand, and every moment that was left was a moment Draco wouldn't have the chance to say that, no, actually, he'd had enough of this version of Harry, so if he wasn't getting his first one back, then he'd be cutting his losses, thanks. More time could be a good thing.

"Right," Harry said. "Alright. We can wait on it. We really do have to talk then, though!" he added firmly, as much to himself as to Draco.

"Yes. Alright."

Draco finished his breakfast, then went back up to his office and didn't come back out for the rest of the day.

*

Harry couldn't believe it at first. He'd thought Draco would want to--he didn't know what he'd thought, really. That Draco would want to hang about with him as though nothing had happened? As if it were all still the same, and they were still waiting on him to remember things, so they could go right back to the way they'd been before?

At first he couldn't believe it. Then he went on a walk, a very long one in the woods, of which there were apparently hundreds of acres that belonged to him. It had become overcast, and was very windy out. Before long he was cold enough that he'd have turned back, if being cold hadn't been a much preferable thing to think about than anything else. It seeped into his jumper and into his skin and into his bones. He let it, until the cold was all there was, a welcoming numbness.

Eventually, it got to be dark, which led to more stumbling around than was tolerable. So Harry went home. Ate his lunch, and then, half an hour after that, his supper too. 

Draco was probably still in his office. If he was somewhere else, if he had actually taken the chance of Harry's absence to leave, there wasn't anything Harry could do about it anyway. He told himself this several times, and then told himself more firmly several more time, and then went to knock on Draco's office door.

"Yes?" Draco called, in such a faint voice it was impossible to say what he might have been feeling.

"Er. Just wondering if," Harry started, and, not knowing what exactly he'd started out wanting to say, floundered for moments before going on: "You're going to have your supper, right?" Draco's lunch had been gone from the kitchen cabinet, but his supper had still been in there, the same steak and kidney pie Harry had had. It was good, probably, though Harry hadn't managed to actually taste his on the way down.

"...Yes, I am planning to, and, no, you can't have it," Draco called back, and in a very snide tone too. "You wouldn't be so ravenous in the first place if you'd had the sense to eat your breakfast."

Irritation flashed through Harry, a welcome distraction from all the other feelings he didn't want to have about Draco right now. "I just wanted to make sure you were going to eat it! Git!"

He regretted this reaction immediately. It didn't, though, seem to get a corresponding reaction from Draco. Or at least Draco didn't say anything, the silence behind the door growing more deafening by the moment.

"I'm going to bed," Harry said, after there had been enough moments to make it obvious that Draco wasn't working on a response, or making Harry wait for it, or anything else. "So I won't be around. Thought you'd like to know, in case you wanted to avoid me anywhere else!"

He stomped down the hall to the stairs, stomped down those too and into his bedroom, and slammed the door. This was actually very satisfying, so he re-opened the door in order to slam it again, and harder this time.

He couldn't stomp while stripping down to his pants or climbing into bed, but he would have if he could. He lay there in the dark for a good long while, waiting to fall asleep. It was not too surprising that this took some time, considering how stomp-y his thoughts were, and how cold he still was, his hands and especially feet taking ages to warm up under the thick blankets. It was a bit more surprising that, even when he was finally completely warm again, and the stompiness of his thoughts starting to slow down, he couldn't quite get all the way there. He should have been able to sleep, he'd eaten and had had plenty of exercise and had barely slept at all the night before, but it just didn't seem to want to happen. 

It kept not wanting to happen, long past the point Harry would have got up and done something else, if only it hadn't been for what he'd said to Draco. He'd said he was going to bed, he'd basically said too that he'd be staying there, and so there was no way he was going to get up and go see if Draco had left his office yet and might want to talk to him.

It had been, he'd figure later, at least three or four hours of this when there came a tentative knock at the door.

"Harry?" called Draco in a low voice. "Are you still awake?"

For a second, Harry thought about pretending not to be. It would have been easy, might even have been satisfying in a petty way. But he wanted Draco to talk to him more than he wanted to punish Draco for not talking to him. So in the end, he said, "Yeah."

Silence from the hall for a moment, tentative too. Then: "Can I come in?"

"Yeah," Harry said again. He sat up in bed, up against the headboard as if he'd been that way all along.

The door opened. Draco stood in the doorway, with the end of his wand lit, casting a light that only seemed to reach his own face. For a long moment, neither of them said anything. Harry found within himself the decision that he was not going to go first, even to ask Draco what he wanted. Draco was the one who'd been hiding from him. Draco was the one who'd come here, everything was in his court now.

In the light from his wand, Draco's face twisted and fell. "Sorry," he said at last. "I shouldn't have--I'll go."

"No, don't!" Harry said, abruptly re-deciding on his previous decision. "What did you want?" he asked quickly.

"I, just," Draco said, and swallowed. "Ironically enough, I'm having trouble--I can't sleep." It was very unclear what was meant to be ironic about this, but he didn't leave Harry room to ask. "And don't say 'Just take your Sleeping Draught again,' I hate it. I mean, I really do, it's not--I wasn't making that up. I can't actually stand Sleeping Draughts. I was on them for a while after the war, and--they worked alright, but they left me feeling...it wasn't bad, or anything. Or, it wasn't at the time. But I don't like feeling that way now. It makes me feel like I'm back there. So I don't like them."

This was a lot of information, or maybe a little information parceled out into a lot of words. Either way, it seemed to grab onto something inside Harry's chest and twist. "Sorry," he said, a lot more softly than he'd done anything else today. "Anything I can, er, do to help?"

"I, just," Draco said, and swallowed again. "Um. I thought maybe I could--with you, instead..." He trailed off. "--It's really very stupid. Sorry, I'll just--"

It was then Harry noticed Draco had on boxers along with a baggy T-shirt which was not as baggy at the bottom as it was at the top; he had a pillow tucked under his arm. "You can sleep with me, I don't mind," he blurted. His face heated up as he heard how that had sounded. It only took a second for him to decide not to try and walk it back. "I want you to sleep with me," he added, and didn't care how it sounded, he wanted it to sound that way.

"Oh." Draco's boxers had things moving on them, snitches or dragons or something, it was too shadowy to say exactly what. Something about this seemed to reach into Harry and twist some more. "Well. I mean, I suppose I could consider it. If you're certain."

"Yeah, may as well have a think about it. Since it was your idea and all," said Harry dryly. He budged over and threw down the covers to make some room.

Draco came over from the doorway, hesitant in the steady light from his wand. He stood on the other side of the bed, looking down at Harry. It was harder to tell what he was thinking now, with his wand angled away from his face. "Alright," he said, and seemed possibly to frown in the shadows. "Are you certain you haven't got any business to take care of first?"

"Er, like what?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Draco, sneery and superior now. "Just, anything you've got to take in hand before you head off to sleep?" At what must have been Harry's puzzled expression, he added, more superior still, "We've been married ten years, Harry, it's not my fault I know things about your libido."

What must have been Harry's puzzled expression went up in flames. "I don't need to have a wank first!" he said, which was pretty strictly true. Whatever Draco thought he knew about Harry's libido, he hadn't actually had much of one until lately; and what he did have, he generally woke up in the middle of the night with. Not that there was any way for Draco to have known that. There certainly was no chance Harry would enlighten him, even if he was suddenly convinced the chances of mid-night humiliation were much higher than Draco could have guessed at.

"Right," said Draco, in a voice that meant he had definitely gone a bit pink too, even if his wand was currently still aimed away from his face. "Sorry. I just didn't want this to get...awkward, or whatever. I can still go--"

"Yeah, don't," Harry said. "Unless you, er, want to."

Apparently, Draco didn't want to; he plopped down his pillow and climbed into bed, putting out his wand as he did--though not before Harry had noticed something.

He processed what he had seen as Draco shifted around next to him, getting comfortable. Then, when Draco had lain back against his pillow with a sigh, and his own face had returned to a normal temperature, Harry said, "Have you got Pygmy Puffs on your boxers?"

He'd only seen them clearly for a second, but they were really unmistakable: about a dozen of them, purple and pink and fluffy and rolling all around...

"No," Draco said. "Well. I mean. Yes, I suppose, but they're not--um."

"They're not what?" Harry asked, laughing and turning toward him, ready to have a lot of fun about this.

Draco didn't say anything for a moment, and when he did, it was very quietly. "They're not mine."

Harry was ready to pivot and ask, still hilariously, whose they were, then. Then it occurred to him whose they must have been. His body didn't seem able to decide how to react to this idea. Something in his chest twisted some more, while the rest of him went hot indeed.

"Oh," he said, after what might have been ages of looking down at the shadowy expanse of his blankets, or might have been only a few seconds. "Don't you have your own clothes?" he added, not because he really was irritated by this, but because of all the things he might have said, this objection seemed the least likely to have to be explained.

"Nothing nearly as classy as these are," Draco said, with a sneeriness that sounded initially as if it might have been on shaky ground, but soon seemed to recover. "They're so, I don't know, breezy," he went on, stretching out in the dark to take over approximately two-thirds of the bed, if not more. "The former owner broke them in for me pretty well, he--" He crashed to a halt, and the lazy stretching did too, leaving him frozen next to Harry.

"Yeah, alright, think that's enough about anyone's underpants!" said Harry loudly, very glad it was too dark to see Draco's face and know for sure if that stricken, awful expression was on it again.

Draco took a moment to answer, and only after he'd started fidgeting again, movements which seemed as if they might have involved his pillow. "I'd be remiss if I didn't point out it was you who started it."

Harry thought Draco had started it by. By stealing his underpants, apparently. It did not seem worth it to point this out, on a hilarity level. Or any other one, really. "Yeah," he said instead, and was again lost for what else to say. "Yeah," he said again, and lay back down.

Next to him, Draco shifted around a little more, then was still, or at least stiller. Once Harry's eyes had readjusted to what little light was coming in through the window, he could see Draco was curled up and facing away from him. One of his arms was under his pillow, the other under the blanket, reaching for a destination it was not very difficult to guess at.

Now he was in here, Draco got to sleep very quickly. Or at least he didn't seem to be faking it. His breathing was slower than it was when he was awake, and steady. A peaceable aura seemed to be coming off him, which surely would have been broken with some sneering remark about Harry's staring if he had been awake (somehow, it felt as if Draco would always know when Harry was staring).

Maybe it had always been this easy, Harry thought. Maybe having to sleep alone was what had kept Draco awake all along. It was a thought that rattled around in his head, and twisted in his chest, and sent his stomach dropping as far as it could go. It was a thought that kept him awake, until a while later, when he wasn't anymore.

*

Someone there was crying.

Harry was in the attic again. The light was different than it had been before. Greenish, seeming to radiate from everywhere, or from nowhere. Draco was sat on a Christmas tree box, facing away from him. Was he the one who was crying?

"Draco?" Suddenly, Harry was sure it was him. He walked closer, hesitant, not sure if it wouldn't be better, after all, to leave again. "Draco, are you..."

He walked closer, and closer still. Slowly, to give room for...something. But nothing happened. The green light stayed the same. Draco stayed the same, too, hunched over himself. Harry stopped walking. He was close enough to Draco now to touch him. The space between them was a vast gulf, which could never be bridged by something as easy, as simple as reaching out a hand.

"Why are you crying?" Harry asked. The question seemed an eerie one in that green light, shadows being cast in ways they shouldn't be. He still did not know where the light had come from.

"Why do you think?" Draco asked, at once a sneer and a snarl and a sob.

It was enough, it was sad and terrible enough to decide Harry. He reached for Draco's shoulder, desperate, now, to cross the gulf--

The tips of his fingers brushed the fabric of Draco's shirt--

And he woke up, a heavy breath pushing its way out of him. He wasn't in the attic, not surrounded by green light. He was somewhere else: his bed in his bedroom in the dark, lying next to--

Draco, who was still curled up facing away from Harry, still with one arm under his pillow. But he sounded different now. Not the soft, steady breathing to before, that Harry had got to sleep listening to. This wasn't exactly an unsoft sound, but there was nothing steady about Draco's quiet crying, interrupted every few seconds by a larger gasp or sniffing noise. It came off like the sort of thing that had gone on for a while, and meant to go on a while longer.

"Draco," said Harry, voice rough with sleep, or with having woken up from the kind of dream he'd been in, or something. "Hey, Draco."

For a moment, there was no answer, and he thought maybe Draco was in the throes of his own crying dream. Before he could decide whether he ought to try and wake him up, Draco sniffed again, louder this time.

"What?" he asked, in a way that was again not at all steady, while sounding as if it were very much trying to be.

"Are you..."

Draco's slightly heaving crying breaths had quieted so completely he must now have been holding his breath. Now he made a sound, not exactly a laugh, and not exactly a sob, but something that seemed to lie somewhere between or around those two things. "If you ask whether or not I've been crying--!"

"I wasn't!" Harry said, though really he had been about to. "I just--er. Did you have a nightmare?"

It occurred to him, a flash out of nowhere, that Draco must certainly have nightmares too. That they must have gone back to the war, the same as Harry's did; that in this it hardly mattered that they'd been on opposite sides. Part of Voldemort had lived in Draco's house, a greater or lesser part of him in Harry's head. It seemed like an obvious comparison now, even if it had never occurred to him before. Harry had nightmares, so of course Draco must too.

Draco sniffed again. "No. It was actually--it was a very nice dream. It's over now, though." In the dark he made a motion that most likely meant he was wiping his face.

"Oh," said Harry stupidly.

Draco took in what sounded like a deep, steadying breath. Then he took another. Then he took a shallower, wetter one. And then he was crying again, more obviously trying to hide it now...

Harry couldn't stand it. He couldn't. It didn't matter if who Draco must have been dreaming about was burrowing its way into him, twisting more painfully than before, seeming to strangle him. The only thing that mattered was that Draco was upset, and that he, Harry, had to do something. He hadn't before, when he should have. He had to now.

"Draco," he said, and reached across the vast gulf. Until his fingertips were on Draco's shoulder, until his palm was against the firm, warm curve of it. "Draco, hey," he said, and wanted to say, too, that it was alright, or that it would get better, or any of the things the other Harry might have said. But it wasn't, and here in the dark it seemed more likely than ever that it wouldn't; and while he must have been the other Harry not at all long ago, he was a different Harry now.

"Hey," he said again, and ran his hand down Draco's arm, over the fabric of his shirtsleeve until he came to skin, and then to Draco's elbow, and then back up again. When there was no protest about this, Harry crept in closer beneath the blankets, until his chest and belly were brushed up against Draco's back. He kicked in closer, too, until his bare feet found Draco's, their legs brushing staticly against each other. "Hey," he said again, and gave Draco a little tug, meant as more of a suggestion than anything else. Either Draco agreed with it or it had been more of a tug than a suggestion after all, because then Draco leaned back against him. At first he was very tense, and still obviously crying. Harry could feel the vibration of it now, in his chest, beneath his hand. He didn't know what to do other than this, what he should do, what might actually help, and so he said, "Hey," again, and again after that, and then again some more after that, feeling it was time for a change. He rubbed Draco's arm some more, up and down, slowly.

After a while, Draco seemed less tense against him. After a while longer, his crying slowed down, with longer and longer stretches in-between the quiet bursts of it. After a while longer than that, he seemed less tense still, and ironically louder as he wiped more at his face. He sniffed snottily, in the wet and literal sense.

Finally, Draco got out of bed. Harry's hand on his shoulder tried to go with him, up until the point where it couldn't.

"I need the loo," he said, before Harry was over the shooting panic of this enough to ask. "And to blow my--to clean up, a bit."

"Right," Harry said. "Alright."

Draco's silhouette by the bed seemed to stiffen, abruptly tense again. Harry wasn't touching him anymore, but he could still feel him, under his fingertips. "I didn't mean to--I'll go back to my own room afterward. As I'm sure you'd prefer, after--after all that."

"No, I wouldn't," Harry said, and very firmly.

"Harry--"

"Don't be too long, or I'll have to come looking for you," he added warningly. "The bed's nice and warm, I'll be upset if I have to leave it."

"I," Draco said, and turned to glance down at Harry. There was no way there in the dark to tell what his face looked like. Whether he actually wanted to come back or not. "Alright."

When Draco had left, and a door down the hall had shut, Harry wiped off his own face. He didn't remember having worked to breathe quietly while Draco was crying, but must have done, after all; over the next few minutes, his own breaths seemed shakily loud in the now still and lonely darkness, only gradually quieting down to something more like normal.

Harry had only just achieved semi-normalness when Draco came back. He'd left the door open while he was gone; now it clicked closed behind him, a soft and careful sound. He didn't say anything as he got back into bed, and pulled up the covers, and messed with his pillow. Finally, he stopped with his fidgeting and settled down, not with a sigh but with something that felt more like the absence of one.

Harry didn't decide to touch Draco again, to go back to what they'd been doing before. It just happened. His hand on Draco's shoulder. Nudging in closer to him. A careful tug, more of a suggestion than anything else--

"Harry," Draco said, his voice dry in the not-wet sense. "I don't need a cuddle. I mean, I don't expect you to--you don't have to."

Harry suggeste-tugged on him a little more. "I want to," he said. "Unless you don't."

In the seconds it took Draco to answer, Harry got himself convinced Draco actually didn't. That he was here because he had to be if he wanted to sleep, but couldn't actually stand to have Harry touching him unless he was too upset to stop him. That this meant Harry should move away from him now--only he couldn't, somehow he couldn't do anything but freeze where he was at, unable or unwilling to move until Draco came out and said he should.

"I suppose," Draco said. "I mean. If you insist."

"I do insist, yeah," Harry said.

Soon they were settled in, just like before, except Draco wasn't crying this time. Somehow, this didn't make the panic in Harry's chest any less. It actually seemed to have gotten worse. He didn't know why, or what to do about it, and so at first he barely noticed the way Draco felt against him. Only a little tense this time, and only at first; then he was leaning against Harry, into him, as if Harry were a cushion and he intended to have a good long nap against him. Harry was happy to be a cushion, might even have been ecstatic about it if it hadn't been for everything else. The things he had lost, and the things Draco had lost too, and everything Harry didn't have to give, because he wasn't the one who'd been there...

That was depressing, that wasn't what Harry had meant to think about. There was no point to it, was there? He didn't remember, he wasn't going to remember, none of it belonged to him or ever really would. Not even this, that was happening right now. And meanwhile there was Draco, who it all did belong to...

He realized, horrifically, that he was the one on the edge of tears this time. Not quiet ones, not anything that could be missed by anyone lying in the same bed as him. No, this would be something else, a volume of crying that could have, would have called Draco into his room from across the house, the way his crying dreams must have done, those other times...

"Harry?" Draco said, in a low, rough voice that might have held anything from pity to grief. Harry tried to say something back, 'yeah?' or 'what?', anything like that, but nothing came out except a breath. "Are you still awake?"

Harry could have laughed, if it hadn't seemed so likely to turn into something else straight away. "Yeah," he managed, with just enough room to be pleased that it came out at least as sleepy-sounding as anything else. "What is it?"

Draco's hand found his, beneath the blanket. Guided it lower than it had been resting, until it was pressed against Draco's firm, round stomach.

"I don't think you'll have to--" Draco said, and something moved beneath Harry's hand. "--Go digging around this time," he finished, as something jabbed at Harry's hand.

The jabbing seemed stronger than it had the other time, weeks ago; it seemed somehow more. More real, maybe. More wonderful, and more terrible, too. This thing had happened without Harry, and was going on without him, as well; and there was so much of it he'd missed. He felt as if he were missing it right now, or might as well have been.

"That's amazing," he said, very roughly.

He felt as if he ought to say something more. Surely there was loads more that deserved saying. That Draco deserved to hear. But it wasn't him Draco wanted to hear it from. It couldn't be, even if Draco was in Harry's bed right now, wanting to show him this.

"It's amazing," he said again, when it had been a minute between jabs and then he had felt another good one, so that even without knowing what he should say, or whether Draco wanted to hear it, there was no chance whatsoever of his being able to stay quiet. "Feels like he's about to kick his way through my hand."

Draco snorted. "Through my liver, you mean. He gets his violent tendencies from you, clearly." His hand had come back over Harry's, so that at first it seemed belly-touching time was meant to be over now. But Draco didn't try to move Harry's hand. Below his hand, the baby jabbed beneath Draco's roundness; above it, Draco's hand rested, his thumb running back and forth across Harry's knuckles. Lightly, absently, so that he might not have realized he was doing it.

Harry definitely realized Draco was doing it. It was almost too much. It was definitely too much. He kept his breathing steady and quiet, so that he wouldn't ruin this moment, which was a perfect one no matter who it might have been meant for.

After a while, the jabbing stopped. Somewhere in there, Draco had relaxed into him even more, and rested his head on top of Harry's other arm, which had got flung out that direction at some point. His thumb had stopped rubbing against Harry's hand, too. Draco was asleep, and he was still being held by Harry. Harry was still holding him, and it was perfect, again.

Harry didn't move his arm under Draco's head, even when he started losing feeling in it. He did move his hand from Draco's stomach to Draco's waist instead, then felt weird about this and moved it to Draco's hip, then panicked about this and moved it back to Draco's stomach. That was where Draco had put it in the first place, so probably leaving it there would be alright...

He didn't mean to fall asleep too. This felt like something he ought to stay awake for, a series of moments he ought to commit very firmly to memory. It might never happen again, and he was the only Harry here to remember it. Even Draco wouldn't remember this part, since he was now lightly snoring. Harry was the only one who...

At some point his hand slipped, so that his arm ended up draped over Draco's middle somewhere. This was very nice. It was so nice Harry was going to wake back up in order to enjoy it some more...in just a moment...

*

When Harry woke up, he was overheated beneath his blankets, and once again not remotely pink or gummy. He was also very contented, and content to lay there for a few minutes before he remembered: Draco was here. Or, he had been. There was no one else in Harry's room now, though the other side of the bed was mussed up enough to prove it hadn't been a dream. Draco must have thrown his blanket over Harry on his way out of bed, which explained the extra warmness. This must have happened some time ago, for the space where Draco had lain was cool to the touch.

Hopefully, Draco had got up and left before Harry had got an enormous erection. Or had somehow managed to avoid noticing it on his way out. It was possible, right? Though of course it was also possible that he had noticed it, and what it had done was put him off. Certainly it was putting Harry off things. Important ones, like getting out of his room to find out if Draco would want to hang out with him today.

Harry had never wanted a morning wank less. He threw the blankets off and glared at his big, stupid erection. Thankfully, it turned out not to be of the sort that wanted to persevere in the face of adversity; between the cold and general sense of stress, it soon wilted back down again.

He got dressed in record time and headed out. Downstairs, in probably the greatest relief of Harry's life outside of actual life and death ones, Draco was at the breakfast table.

"Hey," Harry said, lightness filling his chest at this good omen.

"Hello," Draco said. He was just finishing up with his breakfast, his fork in one hand and the Daily Prophet in the other.

"Did you sleep alright, then?" Harry asked, leaving 'until my dick might've poked you in the back' left unsaid.

"Yes, it was fine," Draco said, nose still in the paper. Actually, he hadn't looked at Harry at all yet. The lightness in Harry's chest seemed poised on the edge of becoming overcast with a chance of rain.

Harry sat down in his chair, across from Draco. It was a full breakfast this morning, minus eggs, with no beans on toast to be seen. He wasn't sure yet if he felt hungry, and left his fork where it was. "So, er. What did you want to do today?"

Draco still didn't look at him, not even a raised sneery eyebrow over the top of his paper. "This and that, I suppose," he said, less idly than...flatly? Flatly trying to sound like idly? Harry wasn't sure, other than it seemed to be something in that neighborhood.

"Look, are you going to talk to me today or not? Or are you just going to go hide in your office all day again?" Harry only barely left out, 'And then come in for a cuddle later tonight, or whatever, just to make things as confusing as possible!' mostly because pointing this out in the way he sort of wanted to seemed likely to keep Draco from coming in for any more cuddles. "It'd be really good for me to know, so I can plan out my schedule."

"You don't have a schedule," Draco pointed out. His hand holding the paper seemed to spasm. "You haven't in months."

"Yeah, because it's hard to do when I don't know if you're speaking to me today!" Harry said, louder than he'd meant to, he hadn't meant to raise his voice at all.

"I'm speaking to you right now," snapped Draco, and finally looked at Harry, a blazing fast glare soon extinguished by a darker, more hollow-eyed expression. "Harry," he said, setting down his paper and reaching up to run his hand over what was left of his hair. "I just don't think it's a good idea."

"What isn't?"

"I don't think we should keep on..."

Draco trailed off. Harry waited. If Draco wanted to be done with him now, Harry wasn't going to help him do it. If Draco wanted to be done, he was going to have to say so.

Draco went on: "It's just, it's got to be a bad idea for us to still be--I can't be your--"

He cut off again, looking stricken.

"My what?" Harry asked, not so much forgetting about not helping Draco with this, as not being able to stand not knowing what he'd been going to say.

"Nothing," said Draco. "And stop--don't look at me like that."

"Like what?" Harry asked, wondering abruptly what his face actually would look like, if he were to get a look at it in a Pensieve just now.

"You couldn't care less about all this," said Draco. "Yet you're looking at me like I've kicked your--fuck, what's the Muggle phrase again?"

"Like you've kicked my puppy," said Harry.

"Ugh, no, that can't be it. What's wrong with you, you're supposed to know these things. Fine, like I've kicked your baby owl, then," Draco said, apparently not noticing the fact that a baby owl sounded a lot more squishable than most puppies. "You're looking at me like you're--and you don't--and I can't--"

Draco was getting more and more wound up, his face going red and blotchy, his voice high in the way it did when he was on the edge of panic.

"I'm not actually sure I could care very much more," Harry offered carefully, feeling that sense of freefall again, though this time it felt a lot less like he'd leapt off it to catch the Snitch, and a lot more as if he were leaping not knowing for sure if anything were there at all, nevermind if there was any chance of his fall being broken from several miles up.

"Yes, I know, that's what you--God," Draco said, letting Harry fall to his death. "Why must you--no. No, we're not talking about this, we've already established that much. You promised!"

"I wasn't trying to talk about it!" said Harry.

"This is why it's a bad idea!" Draco said. "Or, it's one of the reasons, anyway. You can't keep quiet when you've got something on your mind. And I can't--I just, I'm sorry, I can't."

They stared at each other for a long moment. Harry became aware of how hard he was breathing, and how loud Draco's breathing was too, across the table, so close and yet so far.

"I won't try to talk about it," Harry said, because he didn't really want to anyway, he thought maybe he was going to want to a little less every day until they had to. "I promise I won't," he said, when Draco's face twisted in disbelief. He no longer felt as if he were in any sort of freefall; what he was in was much closer to a plummeting terror. "I don't even want to, honest! But can we just...hang out, or something? Please?"

There was something about this last bit that seemed to break Draco. His face fell, less a descent than a caving-in. He swallowed, very hard, and said, in a much smaller voice than before, "Alright. If you really want to. I suppose."

"Yeah, I really do," Harry said, and couldn't even point out, this time, that it had been Draco's idea. Because of course it hadn't been.

*

Draco spent the morning in his Leaning Chair, answering his letters. Harry spent the morning pretending not to be watching Draco answering his letters. Every so often, Draco's quill would stop moving, and he would glance over at Harry, and Harry would quickly have to return to pretending to read the book he'd brought down. It was something about Defense, though what about it he couldn't have said after multiple hours of holding it. 

None of Draco's pauses or glances involved him reading out the hilarious bits of his letters. Maybe there weren't any, Harry thought; he didn't think he could have been funny right now if his life had depended on it. Maybe it was the same for Draco. Or maybe it was just something he didn't want to share with Harry, now that...

Harry wasn't going to think about it. Or at least, he was trying very hard not to think about it. If he thought about it anymore, he was going to explode. Out of his mouth. An explosion to which Draco would listen just long enough to interrupt him and put an end to it. To the explosion, and to the rest, too.

Harry exploded off the couch, grabbed a blank sheet of parchment off Draco's stack of them, and jotted down a quick note. He sent Herbert off with it, left the window cracked open for when he got back with an answer, and sat back down, feeling roughly a thousand times more relaxed than he had before. He picked his book back up again, and found that it was readable now, and actually kind of interesting.

He'd got through the Preface and a couple pages into the first chapter when Draco cleared his throat. Then Draco cleared his throat again. Then Draco said, "A-hem."

"Want a cough drop?" Harry asked.

"No. What was that?"

"What was what?"

"That note. That you just sent off."

"Oh, that," said Harry, finding that, yes, winding Draco up a little actually was still enjoyable. "I wrote to ask Teddy if he could go out later. I know it's not his usual night, but I'm going to go barmy if we have to stay cooped up here..."

This announcement did not seem to bring the same relief to Draco that it had Harry. He gave Harry a blank look, then said, "Alright. I suppose. Where were you thinking of going?"

"I dunno. Out. Anywhere, really. As long as you come too."

Draco's blank face became something much more complicated, and then became something that Harry didn't know what it was. "Alright," he said. "I suppose we could. Though if it's anywhere wizarding, we might have to deal with reporters..."

It had not failed to occur to Harry that they might have to deal with reporters. They had mostly avoided this since the Prophet's pregnancy reveal story, mostly because they had stayed in most of the time, and stayed out of wizarding spaces the rest of the time. "So we'll go somewhere Muggle," he said. "Like we usually do anyway."

"That's not what we usually do at all," said Draco, and pretty sharply. "We usually vary it up rather a lot more."

"Fine, we'll go to Diagon Alley," said Harry, sharply too, and stung. "Maybe the Leaky. I'll have a few Firewhiskys while we get stared at, and you can stared at without having any. That sound alright?"

"Harry--"

"There'll definitely be a photo of us in the Prophet tomorrow, but who cares, right? If we're lucky, maybe it'll go into how you went out and got drunk and I didn't try to stop you! Wouldn't that be brilliant?"

"That is," said Draco, so coldly a sneer would have frozen to death by the time it had finished taking its coat off, "incredibly..."

Harry abruptly became aware of how hard he was breathing. He wasn't, really, sure why they were having a row, all of a sudden. He wasn't positive they'd actually stopped having one since they'd got back from St Mungo's yesterday.

"Sorry," he said. "I don't why I...we can go somewhere wizarding, if you want. Or we don't have to go anywhere. If you don't want."

Draco's face had twisted into something less nasty and more just upset. "I didn't mean to--we can go anywhere you like. I don't care if it's Muggle or wizarding. It's just--I really..."

It swiftly became clear he did not intend to finish this thought.

"It's fine," Harry said.

It didn't feel fine.

*

They ended up compromising, Harry choosing the area and Draco the place. They ended up in a little used bookstore they'd passed a few times before, but that Harry could not remember ever having been in. It was charming and very dusty, with labyrinthine aisles and no apparent sorting system. At first it was unclear to Harry whether Draco would be able to fit in the narrowest of the aisles without magic, or be able to navigate around the piles of books stacked randomly next to various bookshelves; but by the time they had left again, Draco had managed to get into every aisle he wanted to, no matter how unlikely it seemed. Harry didn't even have to help him, other than carrying around an increasingly tall number of Muggle romance books.

"Research, Harry," Draco said, as they left with two large paper bags full of the books in question, both of which Harry was carrying. He sounded cheerful, except for the way it sounded forced.

"Yeah," said Harry. It didn't occur to him for another minute or two that he ought to have said 'Yeah, right.'

Next stop was a Muggle pub, the first one they'd eaten at, back in October. Harry had the fish and chips again, Draco the chicken tikka masala. Draco ate all his, but this time he didn't try to steal Harry's chips to dip in his leftover sauce. This seemed like another omen. A bad one, which put Harry off trying to eat the remaining seventy-five percent of his food.

"If you weren't hungry, we didn't have to stop," said Draco irritably.

"I didn't know I wasn't," said Harry. "Let's just go home."

Maybe today had just been a bad day, he thought. Maybe tomorrow would be better. Harry wasn't sure he believed this--was more or less positive he didn't, that the problem went a lot deeper than that--but it was better to imagine tomorrow might be an improvement than it was to know it would be as bad or worse.

*

Once they'd Apparated home, Draco said, "I've an idea of where else we could go."

"Where's that?" Harry asked, dumping the bags of books on Draco's Leaning Chair. Now they were his problem instead of Harry's.

"Come on." Draco walked into the den and up to the fireplace. He threw a handful of Floo Powder into the fire, and stepped in saying, "12 Grimmauld Place."

Harry was very much not in the mood for visiting. There didn't seem to be much to do but follow, however. Not unless he wanted to sit around at home, thumbing through Muggle romance books while waiting for Draco to get back.

When he stepped out of the fireplace at Grimmauld Place, Draco was already talking to Hermione, who in working robes. Well, it was a Thursday; they were lucky anyone was home in the first place, probably. Ron didn't seem to be, in fact, not until Harry heard a loud snore from his left, and turned to find him lying face-down on a couch. He was in working robes too, very wrinkled-looking ones. As Harry watched, he snored again, a somewhat relieving sign of life considering how deeply he had his face buried in a pillow.

"Oh, hello, Harry," said Hermione in a low voice, not quite a whisper. "As I was just saying to Draco, let's do our best not to wake him; he's home for a nap for the first time in days."

The case, Harry thought. It was the only thing it could be. To him it had felt like it was slowing down again, but in reality Ron must have been working at it nonstop this whole time...

"Glad to hear he's just having a kip. I won't worry about the state of your marriage, then," said Draco, dryly, tiredly. "Not that I'd planned to, you know, but..."

Hermione looked from Draco to Harry and back again. "Is everything alright?" she said.

"Absolutely," Draco said. "Harry just wanted a visit. Given he's had some news." Before Harry could jump in to say he didn't actually want a visit, or to talk about his memory news, Draco added, "Best done in private, now I think of it. Ta!"

Then he left, as decisively as he'd led the way here in the first place, skirting past Harry and tossing another handful of powder into the fire before Harry could work around to what had just happened. Once he had, he didn't know whether to be more pissed off about it, or more something else. Draco had more or less dropped him off here, like a sad, droopy stray that had had to be left at the dog pound; he might have done it because he was sick of Harry, or might have done it because he thought Harry wanted to talk to someone. He'd as much as said he didn't think Harry was able to shut up about anything for very long...

"Harry?" Hermione said, peering at him. "Has something happened?"

The misery of the last day and some seemed to hit Harry, all at once. He dropped himself into the nearest armchair, and his head into his hands. "Yeah. Something has."

"Is it the baby?" Hermione asked.

"No," Harry said. "That part's going fine. He's really strong and everything, it's all going well. It's just, er."

Some flailing came from the couch where Ron was. He sat up, arms flailing out some more. He looked at Harry blearily. "Is Harry here? What're you doing here?"

Harry looked up, expecting to see at least a flash of exasperation on Hermione's face. He hadn't been meant to wake Ron up, after all. But all that seemed to be there was concern. "Harry's had some news," she said to Ron, catching him up.

"Yeah?" Ron sat up, rubbing at his eyes. His robes were wrinkled enough to suggest he might not have changed them in days, either. "What's up?"

"I had an appointment," Harry said. He looked down again, at his hands this time. He did not want to see the looks on Ron and Hermione's faces when he told them about this. "At Mungo's," he added, and it was only later that he'd think that was what Draco always called it, but not what Harry did. "Er, the other day. For my memory stuff." Neither Ron nor Hermione said anything, letting him go on. It was a listening sort of silence, one that made his skin itch a bit; it was the kind of silence that had always come when he was telling them about things at the Dursleys', even back when he'd been eleven and hadn't yet realized just how bad it had all been. "They said at my last one that if I didn't remember anything by four months, I won't remember at all. It's been four months now, and I haven't got any of my memories back. And now they think I won't. Probably," he added, not hedging because he believed this was actually likely to be turned around, but because as awful as it was to pass along bad news, it was somehow that much worse when the bad news had to do with him.

The silence went on, a second or two longer than it felt like it ought to have. Harry looked up again, in time to catch the tail end of one of those married people looks between the two of them. It didn't bring with it the jealousy of months ago, or at least it didn't in the same way. They were a unit, and that was--it was a bit wrenching, still, but he thought distantly that it was the kind of thing that was alright. Or that it must have been, before now.

"Harry, are you--" Hermione started, at the same time Ron said:

"Right, but are you upset about it?"

"Yes, or worried we'll scold you if you're not upset in the right way?" Hermione added. "We won't, Harry. We just want to know what you need."

Harry looked at them, his best friends for so long, his best friends still. They at least were asking. They at least seemed to care. That they even wanted to know in the first place seemed a large step up...

"I'm upset, yeah." The words sounded a bit surreal, coming out of his mouth. They seemed way too small to encompass everything he felt about it. "I mean, really upset," he said. "It's all fucked now."

They exchanged another glance about him before Hermione said, what seemed very carefully, "What is?"

"Everything," Harry said. "My whole life." Another glance between the two of them suggested this still wasn't specific enough, somehow; as if it wasn't immediately obvious to other people as it was to him that his life had spent the last weeks narrowing down to be about one person. "He doesn't want to talk to me. He doesn't even want to look at me. Now I'm not going to get my memories back, he's done with me." In case this part hadn't been entirely clear in every way, he added, "Draco is, I mean."

It felt awful to say. Maybe slightly less awful than it was to experience by himself, and in the privacy of his own head. 

"Oh, Harry," Hermione said. "I really doubt that's true."

"I don't," said Ron. "He can be a right--" Harry put his head back in his hands. "--uh, I meant, definitely it's not true, he worships the ground you walk on and all that rot."

"I think I'm in love with him," Harry said into his hands, and wasn't at all sure why he was hedging around this, too. He didn't just think it, he knew it, it was just... "I know that's, er, not what I was saying before," he added quickly, hoping he would not be called upon to defend this in any great detail. "I didn't, you know, get it then."

There was a jostling sensation to one side of the armchair, and then to the other. Someone's hand ran down back of his neck; someone else's, bigger and rougher, clapped him on the shoulder.

"Draco loves you, too, Harry," Hermione said softly. Harry felt strongly that there should have been more hedging there, all things considered. "I really don't think you need to worry about this."

"Yeah, mate. He'll come around. 'Specially now that you have."

Harry wasn't so sure. He wasn't sure at all. They hadn't seen the way Draco had been. They hadn't seen him crying, up in the attic. They hadn't seen all those moments, the private and sweet and joyful and awful ones, that Draco had put aside in the Pensieve for him. They didn't know how great the chasm between them was, how dark and how deep. They must always have been on the outside of things, the way Harry was on the outside of them. Now they were on the outside of them again, even further away than Harry was.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Hermione asked.

For a moment, Harry was tempted to tell them about everything, in as much detail as there needed to be. The stuff with his potion, the stuff with his appointment, the stuff with Draco. How snappish he'd been today, how snappish Harry had been in return. Maybe even some of the stuff from the Pensieve. Probably it would have made him feel better. He'd been eleven and they'd been his first friends when he'd learned how much better it felt to be able to share the worst of things with other people. Ones who cared about him, who minded if he lived or died. He could tell them all about it now, an unloading, and he would feel better.

But...if he told them about it now, then they might choose a side in the whole thing. There could be sides now, his or Draco's, in a way that hadn't been true in the fall, back when Harry had first thought it was. They'd choose Harry, for certain; he wasn't entirely clear how he'd ever doubted this. But he didn't want them to choose him. He didn't want there to be sides at all. Not if he was meant to be on one, and Draco on the other.

"No, thanks," he said. "I'd better be getting home."

He half-expected there to be an argument on this. Instead, Hermione sighed, and Ron said, "Typical."

"What?" Harry asked.

"You're always very closed-mouthed when the two of you are at odds," said Hermione.

"Yeah, you always say you don't want us to turn against him," Ron said. "Joke's on you, I've been against him since first year. Twenty-eight years and counting. You'll never catch up to my record again."

"Ha, ha," Harry said, cheered by this for reasons he couldn't have said just what they were.

A minute later, he got up again, and was swiftly pulled into a tight hug--by both of them, so that he was unsure who had started it.

"We're so sorry, Harry," said Hermione.

"Yeah," said Ron. "You don't deserve this shit."

When they let him go, Hermione kissing his cheek and Ron clapping his shoulder again, Harry gave voice to the awful idea that had just occurred to him: "Is it going to muck things up with the case? Me not remembering things, I mean."

"Nah, mate," Ron said, so casually it was almost certainly true. "If it'd been personal, then yeah, but we haven't found anything to point that way. You weren't intended to be involved at all--just bad luck you were subbing in that day."

He sounded much more sure of this than he had the last time they'd talked about it. Harry didn't know how to feel about this, or what to do with it, and so he tucked it away for dealing with later, or never.

"Right," Harry said. "Alright. I don't want to leave him alone too long, I've really got to go..."

"We understand," Hermione said, and hugged him quickly again before letting him go. "Write us, alright? In as much detail as you can, I'm sure I can find some resources for you..."

"Alright," Harry said, not at all certain he would do this, or if he wanted resources to begin with.

Goodbye took a few more minutes, with them saying they'd have to get together once things had settled, and him saying, yeah, of course, and stuff like that.

As Harry stepped into the fire, he heard Ron saying, "I've got to get back," and Hermione saying, "Yes, I suppose you should. And I still need to pick up Alice..."

There was something that seemed very comforting about this, their normal lives going on.

*

Harry spun around and around, and told the past echoes of Draco and the other Harry that he was Harry Potter, and was spat out into the drawing room.

Once he was there, he no longer felt very comforted. He did, though, still feel a bit better than he had before. Steadier, somehow.

He went into the living room, and Draco was there. He was sat on his Leaning Chair as usual, with a Muggle romance book open in his hands, and a tall, leaning stack of them on the side table next to him. As Harry came into the room, he looked up, regarding Harry over the rims of his reading glasses. Harry had got more or less used to this sight over weeks of having Draco read to him from his letters, but it still made his heart do a clenching thing inside his chest about half the time. His heart did a clenching thing now.

"That was quick," Draco said, very neutrally.

Had he thought Harry was going to vent his entire spleen, or something? Harry still wasn't entirely certain what that had been about. He was also, he realized, too tired to try to try and work it out. "Didn't have a lot to say," he said. Draco opened his mouth, but before he could say anything snappish again, which seemed likely, Harry said, "I did tell them some stuff. About, like, my memories. They didn't, you know, seem very surprised." This was the first he'd realized he'd noticed this; he wondered briefly how often Draco might have been writing them about him, then wondered something else. "Do you think this happens to a lot of people?"

Draco hadn't said anything snappish, but also wasn't looking at him anymore.

"Sorry!" Harry said. "I'm not trying to talk about it, I know you don't want to."

Draco swallowed. "That's not what I didn't want to talk about." He pinched the bridge of his nose, displacing his glasses in a funny way. "I think--from the literature I've read, and so on. I do think it's happened to a lot of people."

This was not a very happy thought. It also wasn't one Harry could do anything about, right now or probably at all. "Right," he said. "That's a bit shit, isn't it?"

"--A bit, yes," said Draco. His face seemed to pass through multiple emotions, but since he was still pinching his nose, there wasn't much chance of making any of them out. "Well. I've got work to do. I don't mind if you keep me company, but if you've got to hover, at least don't stare."

Somewhat cheered by this invitation, Harry sat on the couch cushion not taken up by Muggle romance books, which seemed to take up a lot more space outside of the paper bags than they had inside them. He flipped through a couple of them, then got back to the Defense book he'd been reading before. Presumably this was all considered hovering, but at least it didn't count as staring; he managed not to glance at Draco very often at all over the next couple hours. This was not all that easy, largely because Draco spent a lot of time muttering to himself, and scratching things into the margins of books, and sometimes tearing pages out of them entirely. It was a spectacle begging to be stared at.

A week ago, Harry would have been laughing, wouldn't have been able to resist asking what Draco was actually doing. Tonight, he didn't ask, and he didn't laugh. He kept reading, quietly, for a good long while, until he was too tired to take in the words on the pages--though it was unclear why, since it was still pretty early, and he hadn't gone for any long hikes in the woods either...

He turned down the corner of the page he was on, and set the book aside. He stood up, which resulted in the slightest pause in Draco's margin-scratching before he started it up again.

"I'm turning in," Harry said, steadily as he could. "Don't stay up too late, you wouldn't want to wake me when you come to bed," he added firmly.

Draco's head came up very quickly then, a wide-eyed stare. Harry stared back for a moment, then tore his eyes away and headed up the stairs. By the time he was under his covers, he was more or less convinced he'd embarrassed himself awfully. This thought had him tossing and turning for what seemed a long time--but he really was very tired, and eventually landed in a sort of fugue state that wasn't quite sleep, but exactly quite being awake either.

It was then that his bedroom door must have creaked open, which he didn't notice until a voice nudged him slightly closer to waking again: "Harry?"

"Mmmwha?" said Harry.

"Was that--did you--I'm unclear as to whether that was an invitation," Draco said, very stiffly.

An invitation about what? Harry wasn't awake enough to figure it out, and didn't want to have to. He flailed around at the covers, moving them as far out of the way as he could without having to wake up anymore. "Mmeughhhhh," he said, firmly patting the part of the bed Draco was meant to lay on.

"I--suppose," Draco said. "You're always so very eloquent at moments like these. You had better not be an arsehole about this in the morning."

He got in the bed, a dipping down of the mattress followed by a flapping around of the blankets.

"M'not an arsehole," Harry managed, eyes still tightly shut against the threat of waking up any more than he had to.

Draco fidgeted around for a while, then quieted. Harry reached for him, which wasn't intimidating the way it had been the night before. Draco was warm, easy to be drawn in to. It was easy to drape his arm around Draco's middle again, equally as easy to let the back of his head tickle Harry's nose.

"Git," Harry finished, sleepily, fondly, and didn't hear what, if anything, Draco might have said back.

*

In the morning, Draco seemed steadier too, or at least less likely to start off any rounds of snappishness. He had disappeared before Harry had woken up again, leaving nothing but wrinkled sheets to indicate it hadn't been a very nice dream of Harry's own.

When he got down to breakfast, Draco was there waiting for him. This time, he greeted Harry with a small smile, quickly tucked away, but definitely there to start with.

"Good morning," he said, a little stiff, but not unfriendly.

"Morning," Harry said. "You sleep alright?"

"As well as could be expected with a barnacle attached to me," Draco said snidely, which Harry took to mean he hadn't woken up with any secret crying dreams Harry hadn't noticed. "Honestly, Harry."

Harry was unwilling to be embarrassed about this. At least, he wasn't openly, though his face did feel a bit warm. "Yeah, well," he said embarrassedly. "You're very, er, boatlike."

"Really."

"If I'm a barnacle, that makes you a...er," Harry trailed off, feeling this metaphor wasn't quite doing what he'd wanted it to. Whatever that had been. He sat down and began shoveling food into his mouth, with no idea then or later what, exactly, it was he'd eaten this morning. "What're your plans for today?" he asked when his plate was clean and the boat remark had possibly, hopefully, been forgotten.

"I don't have any, as such," said Draco. 

It was very unclear whether this was an opening for Harry to suggest something. Considering how horribly most of yesterday had gone, he figured he was better off not trying to take any openings right now. "Sounds relaxing."

"I suppose." Draco put his paper down, drilled his fingertips on the table. "I'd rather not go out anywhere today," he said finally. "I'm really not feeling it, honestly."

"Alright."

"Now, If you were going to go on one of your walks, I could keep you company. If you wanted. I assume you don't, since you've never--it's fine, if you don't."

It didn't sound as if it were fine, but Harry was too busy reacting to this idea to point it out. It would actually be really nice to walk around the woods with Draco. Why had he never thought of it before? Months ago it would have been an awful intrusion, but lately...

"Yeah!" he said eagerly. "Yeah, that'd be great. So long as you made sure to cover up," he added. "It's been really cold and windy out lately..."

"Noted," said Draco, sneering. "I'm a wizard, so of course I've never heard of Warming Charms."

Harry left off the chance to point out that Warming Charms were for when you wouldn't rather be cold or even numb than otherwise. He did not feel Draco would understand this, or take it well if Harry took the time to explain it.

A little after noon, Harry had on a bright red jumper, and was waiting for Draco by the back door. Draco joined him with a jumper on too, the Hungarian Horntail one from the Pensieve memories.

"That's a Weasley jumper," Harry said, managing this observation very calmly compared to how wildly his heart had started going. "Isn't it?"

Draco looked down at himself. "I," he said. "Yes? I get one every other year, just like you," he added defensively. "It was every year until the population explosion, before you think I'm less valued than--and it doesn't matter if it stretches at the bottom, that's what tailoring charms are for. I, as a wizard, wouldn't know any, but I'm certain I know people who do."

"I just meant," Harry said, sticking his hands in his pockets. "It's nice you've got one. Or ten. Or however many. And it, er, looks good on you. Really good," he added, a little manically. "I like the dragon, and the blue is, er, good too..."

"Yes, it brings out my eyes," Draco said dryly, which was when Harry noticed it did, actually. "It's really a pity I wasn't Sorted into Ravenclaw."

"You definitely do enough reading," said Harry, feeling this was diplomatic. Too diplomatic, he couldn't actually stand it. "Though, I think Ravenclaws usually read a little more, you know, nonfiction stuff."

"Do they," Draco sniffed as they went out the back door. Harry went first, and held the door open for him, and then wondered if holding the door open for him made him look like a twat, but it was too late by then to not do it after all. "I suspect only the ones who are convinced knowing a bit of everything is better than having a deeper grasp of a single subject," Draco went on, seeming to have missed the entire door-holding dilemma. "Which is all of them, I'm sure. Which is why Slytherin was and remains the superior choice."

"Yeah, obviously," Harry said. "Slytherins, they sure do like knowing stuff, so they can use it against you."

"Strategically, Harry," Draco said snidely, as they walked across the Quidditch field over to the woods. "What's the purpose of knowledge if you don't have plans for it?"

"Dunno," said Harry, who wasn't actually a huge fan of knowing tons of unusable stuff either.

"I'm not convinced you know of any purpose for knowledge at all," agreed Draco happily.

Too happily, Harry thought, and took a guess: "Because I don't actually know anything?"

"Precisely."

They made it across the Quidditch field and out to the woods. Harry had not noticed before that the faint trails he'd followed on all but his most pissed-off walks were wide enough to suggest that two people might often have gone out together. He wondered how many other things he'd missed, that had also been missing from the Pensieve memories...little things that must have recurred hundreds of times, but that hadn't made it in.

He didn't mean to brood, but that didn't stop a hazy cloud from dispelling the lightness that had been in his chest on the way out here. It had been too cautious a thing to stick around long, probably.

Leaves and twigs crunched under their feet, which together sounded about five times louder than Harry's solo walking usually did.

"We've got a lot of snakes around, you know," Draco said after a few minutes, breaking the crunchy non-silence. "I don't know if you've run into any since--anyway, there are loads of them, I fully believe you attract them with your you-ness."

"Yeah?"

"Um. I just mean--if you've been coming out here for the quiet, you'll have very little of it, come spring."

"I don't need it to be quiet," said Harry. "And, I did meet some snakes in the fall. Probably not as many as you're thinking of..."

"Oh, good! I'm glad you've had the chance to--there was this one, you know, you apparently had the most bizarre conversation with..."

"Oh, the adder?" asked Harry, brightening. It hadn't occurred to him that he could have told Draco about her.

"Maybe? The pregnant one, right?"

"Her, yeah, I met her," Harry said. "I guess I told her to keep her babies around? To make sure they'd be okay." This did not seem to be news to Draco, but the next part surely would be: "And she did, she's got about seven or eight of them holed up in an old stump for the winter...they're driving her crazy, she's really mad at me about the whole thing. Think I might've ruined her life."

"Oh, I can imagine."

Harry had a thought, a pretty great one. "If you're up for a hike, I could show you," he said. "It's pretty funny. I bet it still would be even if you don't understand what they're saying..."

"I have a translator, don't I?" Draco said. "Lead the way."

They left the bigger trail for a smaller one, then a nonexistent one. Harry wasn't following landmarks so much as he was the sense of where the adder had been. There was probably something magical about this; something that might, now he knew they owned miles of these woods, have had less to do with the adder or the magic he'd done for her than it did with her being on property that belonged to him. That belonged to them.

Eventually, after a couple breaks for Draco to catch his breath ("You wouldn't do any better if you had an interloper crushing your lungs."), they came to the stump. Harry crouched beside it, listening. The voices hissing up from the stump weren't complaints this time; they were sleepy sounds, made up not so much of words as they were of what would have been, in a human, snores. Except they weren't exactly the equivalent of that, either, because snakes in the winter slept much more deeply than people did...

"Hello?" he called, on the off-change they were just taking a breather. "Is anyone awake in there?"

There came no answer, not even an increase in sleepy sounds. 

"Er," Harry said. "They're really fast asleep. I could try to warm them up, though! But it might take a while..."

"Oh, no," Draco said. "Absolutely not. If you're wanting to provoke a new mother of septuplets, you can do it without a human shield."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Alright, git. You do know adders are only a little venomous, right?"

"I really don't care," Draco said. "I can't believe you'd wake up a poor snake from her beauty sleep, just to show off!"

"Pretty sure you love being shown off to," Harry said, grinning (and honestly a little relieved not to have to wake the adder up).

"I do not!" Draco said. He then turned to the stump and said, "Ssss sssss sssssssssssssssssss."

"Er," Harry said. "What're you doing?"

"Telling your snake friend I'm looking out for her interests, of course," said Draco archly. "Someone's got to, with so-called friends like you."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. Did you want to head back?"

It really was very chilly out. Warming Charms only went so far, which was probably why Weasley jumpers got made in the first place.

"Only once you've told me what I just said," Draco said.

"Er, that I'm a bad friend?"

"Once you've told me what I just said in Parseltongue," Draco clarified.

"Uh, think it was, 'Ssss sssss sssssssssssssssssss,'" Harry said. "The exact translation is, like, 'Blah blah bleughhhhhh.' It's not anything. If an actual snake said it to me, it'd be because they had heatstroke or something. I'd have to bring them home and put them in a bowl of water for a bit."

"You know what I think?" Draco said, posing sneerily. "I think I must have stumbled upon the dirtiest joke you've ever heard, and now you're too embarrassed to repeat it."

"Just don't go joking around with any snakes," Harry said. "They'll want me to take you home and put you in the bathtub..."

"Harry," said Draco sharply. 

The sneer had been wiped from his face. He was looking at something over Harry's shoulder; his face, formerly red from the cold, had gone pale.

Harry turned to look too. In the distance there was a small, silvery animal. It glided toward them at speed, so that by the time Harry had recognized it, it was standing right in front of them, a wiry little terrier.

"Harry, mate," it said, in Ron's voice. "It's over. We've finished making our arrests. We'll be pulling Teddy out of Hogwarts as soon as Minerva's got a replacement lined up--but you don't need to wait for us to do as you like. I'll let you in on more of the details later, just thought you'd want to know the moment you had your freedom back. No need to thank me, unless maybe you want to try answering your Floo once in a while!"

So saying, the terrier dissolved. Harry's feet seemed frozen in place, so that he could turn no more than his head to look at Draco, who must also have heard all of this.

Draco looked back. Bleakly, for a moment. He lifted his chin, and drew his wand.

"Draco--" Harry said, starting to be alarmed.

He should have started sooner.

With a loud cracking sound, Draco Disapparated, leaving Harry to look at the empty place where had been.

Fuck.

*

For a minute, Harry stayed there, waiting for Draco to come back, or, failing that, for him to feel calm or at least together enough to Apparate for himself. Neither of these things happened. He stayed frozen until he wasn't; then, still not steady enough to Apparate, he took off running instead. Through the woods for what seemed like endless minutes; across the Quidditch field for what seemed like a lifetime; and into the house through the back door.

"Draco?" he called.

There was no answer.

No Draco in the kitchen, the drawing room, the living room. Harry ran up the stairs, calling his name some more. Still no answer. Frantic, he started searching through every other room in the house by wrenching open the door to Draco's bedroom.

Draco was facing the bed, his back to Harry and the door. On top of it was a large suitcase, which he was in the middle of packing.

"Draco?" Harry said. The relief that had flooded through him at finding Draco still here was quickly replaced by something much heavier and more awful. "What're you doing?"

Draco didn't even pause in his packing. "I'll be staying with my mother," he said, calmly, devastatingly. "For the next while, at least."

He couldn't be leaving. Not now. It wasn't fair for him to try and leave now. They'd just been...joking around, moments before, and...hadn't Draco said they could...?

Levelly as he could manage--what could not, really, have been very levelly at all--Harry said, "Thought you said we could have a talk about it. You know, when the case was over. Which it is now." Draco didn't turn, not even to look at him. "Think you owe me a conversation."

"What's there to talk about?" Draco said, reasonable and awful. "We both know what you're going to do. There's no use in drawing it out any more than we have to. Honestly, I'm doing you a favor. Otherwise it'd just be terribly awkward for you, wouldn't it?"

This was true, or at least too close to true to be denied. There was really only one thing worth saying.

"Please don't leave," Harry said. His voice when he said it came out so small and careful it didn't even sound like him.

Now Draco did pause, setting the stack of robes he'd just picked up back down on the bed. "Harry," he said. "You'll be alright. I do realize you've gotten attached--"

"That's one word for it," said Harry in a much larger voice, which did not stop Draco from ignoring him.

"--but you don't need me here. You'll be fine. An order form comes with the food basket on Sunday mornings, just fill it out and you'll be alright there--there's a Floo address on the baskets, too, if you need to amend the order during the week." This was too completely insane for Harry to process at first, nevermind respond to. Draco picked up the stack of robes again, and set them down in the suitcase. "And you shouldn't--you needn't worry I'll keep him from you. We'll have shared custody, or whatever, you'll see him all the time--"

"What?" Harry asked. "I don't get what you're talking about, what are you--why are you--I don't understand..."

He'd thought it was possible, even likely that Draco might leave...he didn't get this, though, Draco talking about food baskets and shared custody and how Harry would be fine, like he didn't care, like it didn't even fucking matter to him. Worse: like he'd been thinking about it, planning it all out ahead of time...

"Harry," Draco said. "I don't want to leave--"

"So don't!"

"--but like you said, we can't go on the way we have been."

"Yeah, but--"

"It's for the best," said Draco. "Even if I can't--fuck. I can't believe I'm doing this." His voice broke a little, the first and so far only sign that he actually gave a shit.

"I can't believe you're doing it either," said Harry coolly. "Running away, like a coward. Doesn't seem like you anymore."

Draco did not seem willing to be provoked by this. He didn't even seem willing to say anything more. He was adding more things to his suitcase. This Weasley jumper and that one, a handful of parchments tied together with string, what looked like a old-fashioned transistor radio...

"I looked in the Pensieve," Harry said.

Draco turned around. His face was wet, like he'd been crying; his eyes were red and squinted and awful, like he was crying right now. Had Harry really thought he didn't give a shit? "You," he said in a very small voice of his own. "What? Why would you..."

"I wanted to know," Harry said. "About what we were like. You know, before. I found out I wasn't going to get my memories back, and I...had to know."

Draco swallowed. "It wasn't--I hadn't actually finished it yet. How much did you...?"

"Er, the whole thing," Harry said. When Draco flinched, he added, "Sorry if I wasn't meant to!"

"No, it's alright," Draco muttered, in a way that suggested it wasn't, really. "It's just, if I'd known you were going to--I'd have taken some bits out, and...the thing on your birthday, especially--I couldn't stand to take it out, if it was just for me. But I wouldn't have wanted you to be..."

"I wasn't," Harry assured him, before Draco could find the word 'uncomfortable,' and even though he really had been. "It's, er, alright," he said, which didn't really sound any more true than when Draco had said it.

A few moments later, Draco squared his shoulders. "Well," he said, maddeningly reasonable again, which was not nearly as believable when Harry could see his face as it had been when he couldn't. "Now you've seen it, you understand."

"...Yeah?" said Harry warily, not at all sure he trusted this tone, or where Draco might be headed with it.

"You've been--lately, I mean," Draco went on. "You've been very kind--"

"No I haven't, I've just been me--"

"--and I appreciate it more than you know. But we can't go on like this. Or, maybe you could, but I--God, Harry, I can't. I can't be your friend. I, just--I'm sorry, I just can't."

"Good," said Harry eagerly, feeling they were finally getting somewhere. "I don't want to be friends either!"

Draco's face went from red to gray. He made a sound, a strangled-sounding scream, and whirled back around to his suitcase.

"Fuck!" Harry said. "That's not what I meant!"

"Wasn't it?" Everything on the bed flew up and hurtled itself into the suitcase. "By all means, don't keep talking." The drawers on Draco's dresser squealed open, their contents rushing across the room and into the suitcase at dizzying speed. "Next you know, you'll be inviting me around to tea, only to casually mention that you don't care if I die!"

"Draco--"

"No! Shut up!"

"But--"

"No!" The closer door flung open too, more robes gliding out, a whole long line of them, hurtling into the suitcase one after the other. Harry didn't even know the spell Draco was using for this, if he even was using a spell. "No. You don't get to make me out to be the one who--fuck you," Draco said, sobbing openly now. "Fuck you, you left me first. You went to work one day, and then you--you didn't--you never--you did it first." The suitcase slammed closed, the zipper's teeth closing at break-neck speed. Draco picked it up, and turned around, and walked toward the doorway where Harry still was. "You vowed you'd never leave me, and then you left anyway, like it was nothing. To you, it was nothing." His face was the most awful thing Harry had seen. "We're done. Get out of my way."

"It's not nothing," Harry said. "Draco, it isn't."

"I don't care. Move."

Draco drew his wand. Harry didn't reach for his. Didn't even think of it, couldn't.

"Draco," Harry said, softly, carefully, with shaking hands. "What did you think I was going to do? When the case was done with?"

Draco's wand stayed pointed at him for a long moment before it lowered again. Maybe he couldn't have cursed Harry any more than Harry could have cursed him.

Draco whirled around again. Not toward the bed this time, but toward the far wall. He tapped his wand against a section of it, so that it opened into a dark square in front of him. He reached in, and for a moment Harry thought he was reaching for the marble thing, for some reason...

But when Draco turned around, he was holding something else. Harry didn't recognize it for what it was until Draco had come back over and shoved it into Harry's hands, a shining silvery cloth that ran over his hands like water.

"My invisibility cloak," Harry said. "I don't get it..."

"Told you I'd give that back," said Draco, so coldly it almost sounded like hatred. Maybe it would have, if it hadn't been for the understanding Harry thought, hoped, he was starting to have...

"I don't think you have any idea what I'm going to do," Harry said, dry-mouthed. "I don't think we're actually, you know, up to date on all that stuff."

"Fuck you," Draco said. "Get out of the way. I won't tell you again."

"Don't think I will, actually," Harry said.

He waited to see if Draco actually would curse him. But Draco didn't even bother to raise his wand this time.

"Fine. Have it your way," he spat, and took a step back, and raised his chin. His expression turned to the same one he'd worn in the woods, in the moment before he'd Apparated.

In another moment, he would be gone. In another moment, Harry would be left alone. He didn't know what he could say to stop it happening, or what he could--

Harry panicked. There was only one thing there was time for, only one thing he could think of to do, only one thing he'd been wanting for weeks without ever quite daring--

He let his cloak fall, and took a step toward Draco, and took another, and, panicking still, kissed him.