There Is Always the Moon - Chapter 13 (of 13)

[firethesound]

Title: There Is Always the Moon
Wordcount: 159k
Rating/Warnings: M - body horror, blood, mild gore, no sex
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Harry Potter characters and this is written purely for entertainment purposes.
Summary: Draco's life after the war is everything he wanted it to be: it's simple, and quiet, and predictable, and safe. But when a mysterious curse shatters the peace he'd worked so hard to build, there's only one person he can trust to help him. After all, Harry Potter has saved his life before. Now Draco has to believe that Potter will be able to do it one more time. (A remix of If the Sun Goes Black by pasdexcuses)

As Draco had known he would, Weasley leapt straight into action. He and Granger and Draco take the Floo to the Ministry, and Weasley leads the way to the Auror Department where he goes straight to Head Auror Robards and informs him that Potter’s missing under suspicious circumstances.

All available Aurors are immediately mobilised. More Aurors are called in. And at first Draco thinks that they’re reacting like this because their famous Boy Who Lived is in danger. But it’s not until he sees the way everyone looks worried that he realises that all this fuss is for Harry.

Amid all the running around, Draco gets shuffled off to the side, and he ends up sitting in one of the hideously uncomfortable chairs in the little waiting area by the front desk. His hands won’t stop shaking, so he tucks them under his knees and watches everyone else scramble. He’s never felt so useless in his life and, Merlin, this is his fault. This is all his fault. After a while, Granger comes and sits down beside him.

“They’ll find him,” she says, and he’s got no idea how she can sound so perfectly calm.

Potter is missing. Potter might be dead. And it’s Draco’s fault. He dragged Potter into this, selfishly hoping that Potter would save him, and all he’d succeeded in doing was handing over another victim to whoever’s trying to kill him. And the only reason they were able to get to Potter was because Draco tried to kiss him, Draco tried to press for more and then Potter had been distracted and upset when he went outside. If Draco hadn’t tried to kiss him, this wouldn’t have happened. His breath hitches.

“I’m serious,” Granger says. “Harry’s got himself into far worse scrapes than this. He’ll be fine.”

“You’re right,” Draco says, and tries to believe it.

He must not sound convincing, because Granger gives him a stern look and says firmly, “I mean it. He will be. He survived a whole War with Voldemort trying to kill him. He’s not going to get himself bumped off by some garden variety arsehole.”

Draco stares at her, a little shocked. He’s not sure he’s heard her swear before now. And now that he’s looking at her, he sees the fear in her eyes. How she’s holding herself together through sheer determination to believe that she’s right about this, that Potter really is fine.

“You’re right,” he says. “You’re absolutely right.”

“Of course I am,” she says.

They sit for a while, and Weasley comes by with periodic updates. A while later, a young Auror trainee comes by with two paper cups of tea, and Granger smiles and thanks him.

“This stuff is horrid,” she tells Draco after the young trainee walks off. “But it’ll wake you up.”

“Cheers, then,” Draco says, and taps the rim of his paper cup against hers before he takes a sip.

She’s right. It’s quite possibly the worst tea Draco’s had in his life.

He’s made it through about half of it when there’s a sudden commotion across the room, and Draco and Granger both look up. Weasley comes hustling over with another Auror close behind.

“Here,” Weasley says, pointing at Draco. “Here he is.”

“Draco Malfoy?” asks the Auror. “You’re listed as Harry Potter’s emergency contact.”

“Yes,” Draco says, heart thudding. “Yes, that’s me.”

“We’ve located him,” the Auror says. “He’s alive.”

* * * * *

Located turns out to be a bit of an exaggeration. Whoever kidnapped Potter left him right outside St Mungo’s. A young Healer about to start her overnight shift practically tripped over him on her way inside.

Draco and Weasley and Granger are whisked away to St Mungo’s, and then Granger and Weasley are asked to wait outside while Draco alone is allowed back into Potter’s room. It’s on the tip of his tongue to insist that Weasley be taken back instead of him. Weasley is Potter’s closest friend, and Draco is only here because of a whole stack of lies. But he’s still scared out of his mind and desperate to see Potter, and at his core Draco is enormously selfish. He cares more about seeing Potter than he does about doing what is right.

The Mediwitch ushers him inside and tells him that the Healer will be with him shortly, then she shuts the door, leaving Draco alone with Potter.

They’ve put him in a thin hospital gown before they tucked him into bed. He lies unnaturally still, stretched out on his back, arms straight at his sides. Draco watches the steady rise and fall of Potter’s chest for a few moments before he can work up the nerve to approach his bedside.

Potter looks strange to Draco without his glasses. He hasn’t been without them long, Draco guesses. He can still just make out the fading pink indentation on the bridge of his nose. The glasses are folded neatly on the small bedside table, and Draco cleans the smudged lenses with a spell before he reaches out and brushes Potter’s fringe back from his forehead, gently smooths his eyebrows, and then traces that famous lightning bolt scar with one careful fingertip.

The door swings open and Draco startles, snatching his hand back guiltily. The Healer looks up from his chart and gives Draco a polite smile.

“Mr Malfoy?”

“Yes,” Draco says. “Do you know what’s happened to Harry?”

“He’s asleep,” the Healer says, and Draco bites his tongue lest he snap that he can see that very well for himself, thanks. The Healer continues, “It’s not natural, we know that much. But he’s uninjured. We’re running some tests to see what spell is affecting him, and we’ll know more once we’ve analysed the results.”

“And when will you know that?” Draco asks.

“We’ve received the results back from the initial set of tests, and unfortunately they’re inconclusive,” the Healer explains. “The second set should give us more of an idea of what we’re dealing with, but they take several hours to run.”

“Several hours?” Draco echoes.

“Several hours,” the Healer repeats. “I’d suggest that you take this time to go home—”

“But,” Draco interrupts. “What if he wakes up?”

“He won’t. We’re keeping him in an enchanted sleep until we know more,” the Healer says. “Not that we think that it’s necessary, but we’re not taking any chances.”

“But,” Draco says helplessly, and then has no idea what to say beyond that.

“I know this is difficult for you,” the Healer tells Draco. “But there’s nothing you can do here. My advice is go home. Try to get some rest.” He flips through the chart and nods to himself. “You’re listed as his emergency contact. Keep your Floo connection clear and I’ll contact you the very moment there’s any change in his condition.”

Draco looks at Potter lying in the hospital bed. There’s a chair beside it that looks as hideously uncomfortable as the ones in the Auror Department, but Draco will gladly sit his arse in it if that’s what it takes to stay at Potter’s bedside.

“I’d rather stay here,” he says.

The Healer nods. “If that’s what you’d prefer,” he says.

“It is,” Draco says.

When the Healer leaves, Draco takes a few minutes to comb his fingers through Potter’s hair. He tugs Potter’s collar straight and brushes a wrinkle from the blankets.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, then turns and leaves the room to inform Weasley and Granger what he’s been told.

After he fills them in, Draco goes down to the lobby while Weasley and Granger are in with Potter and takes the Floo back to his house. He throws some things into a bag: several books, a change of clothes for him, and another change of clothes for Potter. Then he steps through the Floo and returns to St Mungo’s.

* * * * *

It’s midmorning the following day before they learn anything more about Potter’s condition.

“Amnesia,” Draco repeats, stunned.

“I’m afraid so,” the Healer says. “He’s had a very serious memory charm cast upon him, all of the tests are very clear about that. I’m afraid we won’t know how much of his memory has been affected until he wakes up.”

“And when will that be?” Draco asks.

“We’ve already brought him out of the enchanted sleep,” the Healer says. “But he’s still sleeping naturally, and it’s best to let him wake on his own. His mind is working to restructure itself beneath the memory spell he’s under, and it will happen faster while he’s asleep. In most cases, this can take a day or two.”

“Oh.”

The Healer gives him a sympathetic smile, and Draco wonders whether that’s part of what they learn in their training, to smile like that. “You should go home,” he says. “Get some rest while you can. We’ll contact you as soon as we know more.”

“Thank you,” Draco says faintly. He glances at Potter again. “I think I will.”

He doesn’t want to. He wants to stay right here at Potter’s side. But they have no idea how much of Potter’s memory is affected. If the amnesia goes back further than eight months, Potter will wake up and have no idea at all why Draco is in his hospital room. And that, Draco thinks, is likely an experience that neither of them need to have. Potter doesn’t need the stress, and Draco is afraid Potter might lash out at him. He doesn’t think he could bear to see that.

“I’ll see you in a while,” he says, keeping his voice light and cheerful even though Potter’s not awake to hear him. He gives Potter’s hand a pat. “Wake up soon.”

He goes down to the lobby and takes the Floo to his shop where he gives Zelda an update on Potter’s condition and sends Balan off with a note to Weasley. Then he goes home and gets right to work, because he’s in desperate need of something to distract himself.

The very first thing he does is go straight up to Potter’s room and open his wardrobe. Potter has four pairs of shoes lying in a jumbled heap at the bottom of it, and Draco casts a strong Tracking Charm on every single one of them. If they’re ever separated again, if something else happens, Draco wants to be able to find him fast.

Down in the kitchen, the two mugs of tea are still sitting on the table, awaiting a conversation that will likely never happen. The spellwork on the mugs is only intended to keep a drink warm for an evening, and the tea is barely lukewarm by now. Draco dumps them both out, washes them, then puts Potter’s away in the cupboard and brews himself a fresh cup.

When it’s finished, he sits down at the table and cups his hand around the hot porcelain. If he closes his eyes and concentrates, he can feel the strong threads of Potter’s magic woven throughout it, humming steadily.

He keeps his hands around it even after he’s drunk the tea.

* * * * *

Two days later, he receives an owl summoning him to St Mungo’s. Potter is awake.

There’s no other information than that, and even though Draco had tried hard to not get his hopes up too high, had tried hard to prepare himself for the worst, it’s still a rude shock when he gets there and the Healer briskly informs him that Potter remembers nothing of the past two years.

He’s not proud that he loses his temper and raises his voice, because there’s got to be something else they can do, some spell they can try to get his memories back quickly. Three nights ago, Potter was in love with Draco; that can’t just be gone. Panic seizes Draco, and it’s hard to breathe. That can’t be gone. Draco doesn’t have time to get it back.

“Draco!” Hermione says sharply. “That’s enough.”

Draco turns on her, and sees his own expression reflected back at him: bone-deep fear poorly hidden beneath a thin veneer of composure. He realises it distantly, and it’s not enough to stop him from opening his mouth because how dare she when he’s only trying to make sure that everyone is doing everything they possibly can for Potter—

It’s for the best that before he can say anything, a desperately grateful voice calls out, “Hermione?” from behind the white curtain around Potter’s bed.

The curtain whips back and then there he is, and the fear in Draco releases in one vicious backlash that leaves him weak-kneed. Potter is sitting up, and oh, thank Merlin, he doesn’t look afraid. He looks uncertain, a bit unsettled, but not scared or in pain. When he catches sight of Weasley and Granger, he breaks into a wide, relieved smile. Granger catches Potter in an enormous hug, and Weasley pokes a bit of fun at him, and Draco hasn’t felt this much the outsider since his first Sunday at the Burrow.

Then Potter notices him. And the way he looks at Draco is exactly what Draco was most afraid of seeing. There’s no hostility to his expression, no anger or resentment. Just surprise and a vague sort of curiosity, as if he’s still working out why Draco’s here at all.

It’s terribly awkward for a few seconds, then Granger pastes a big bright smile on her face and announces, “Ron, let’s go find some tea,” before she loops her arm through Weasley’s and practically drags him from the room.

They stare at each other for a long moment, then Draco takes a deep breath and says, “So…”

“Why are you listed as my emergency contact?” Potter asks.

His tone knocks Draco off-balance. It’s the tone he takes on when he’s in Auror mode, when he’s looking for answers. It’s brisk and businesslike, and Draco hadn’t realised how much warmth Potter’s voice held for him until it’s suddenly gone.

“I… You suggested it,” he says helplessly.

Potter’s brow furrows. “Why would I do that?”

Why indeed. “You really don’t remember the past couple of years?” Draco asks instead to buy himself a bit of time. In his panic, he’d selfishly been focusing on how Potter’s amnesia would affect him, how alone it would leave Draco. How Potter wouldn’t remember his feelings for Draco.

And now, with Potter looking to him for answers in a St Mungo’s hospital room, it strikes Draco that there’s one more thing he’s alone in: Draco is now the only one who knows that their relationship is a sham.

“Not a single thing,” Potter says evenly, watching him.

“Right,” Draco says, and his heartbeat thuds through his veins. His palms grow damp and his hands won’t stop shaking as he rubs them against the thighs of his trousers, and he can hardly believe his own ears as he very earnestly says, “We’re living together, Harry.”

He doesn’t bother lying to himself, to try to explain this away as the path of least resistance that he’s taking out of necessity. That it would be better to go along with this until he can get Potter home and sit him down and explain about the curse. They have their emergency papers hidden away in the book on the coffee table, a whole letter penned in Potter’s own hand explaining exactly what is going on.

Draco knows he’s not going to do any of that.

He could convince Potter. He has the photographs of his second transformation and the emergency papers and the wounds on his back that won’t heal. Draco knows if he showed all of that to Potter, that Potter would believe him. And he knows that then Potter would do everything in his power to help. And Draco doesn’t want that. Two weeks aren’t enough to get Potter up to speed on everything, and quite frankly, if they haven’t been able to solve the case in this many months, how can they expect to do it in fourteen days? No. Draco would rather have a stretch of quiet, uneventful days with Potter at his side. And perhaps that’s selfish of him, but in a couple of weeks, there’s a good chance it won’t matter anymore.

“So we’re…” Potter begins and trails off. He frowns a little as he peers curiously up at Draco.

Draco takes two slow steps to the side of the bed and, telegraphing his movements, reaches down and takes Potter’s hand. “At the moment, Harry, we’re nothing but what we want us to be.”

His voice comes out steady, because he means that. He means that with every fibre of his being. He won’t take advantage of Potter, he won’t take a single thing that Potter’s not willing to give him. If for the next two weeks they only act as housemates, that’s fine. Draco will take that and be glad of it. But he’s hoping that perhaps over the next two weeks, they might get to the point where he could have a bit of physical affection from Potter. Nothing further than what they’d already done with each other dozens of times by now. A bit of hand-holding. Perhaps an arm around the shoulders. A few more dinners, a quiet night or two on the sofa. That’s all.

And all of that is comfort that Potter would freely give, Draco rationalises. That’s where he’ll draw the line. He won’t do anything that Potter hadn’t previously consented to.

For a moment, Draco lets himself believe that it will be just that easy. Then Potter tugs his hand free of Draco’s fingers and says, “I don’t even know you.” He’s not mean about it. It comes out a little too bewildered for that, but it still hurts. Potter notices and winces. “That was—”

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Draco blurts out before he can go on. He has no idea what he’s apologising for. All of this, he guesses. Getting Potter hurt. Pulling Potter into this mess in the first place. All of it.

“It’s not your fault,” Potter tells him. He says it quickly, like a reflex. Even from a hospital bed, Potter’s first instinct is to take care of others, and oh, Draco hadn’t known he could feel any lower, but apparently he can.

“We had a fight before you went missing,” Draco says. He can’t bring himself to look at Potter. “If I hadn’t—” He pauses, swallowing down the rest of that sentence. If he hadn’t been selfish. If he hadn’t tried to take more than he was allowed to have. If he hadn’t pulled Potter into this mess in the first place.

Potter doesn’t say anything, just watches him like Draco might finish that sentence if he waits him out.

Instead, Draco inhales and says, “They’re letting you go tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“Right,” Draco says awkwardly. His hands are still shaking. He tucks them into the pockets of his trousers.

“We’re really living together, then?” Potter asks after a moment, and when he looks at Draco, his gaze turns faintly appraising.

Draco can feel his cheeks going pink. “It was your idea,” he says, looking away, then again, softer, “It was all your idea.”

“I…”

“I think you need rest,” Draco says decisively. He needs out of this conversation. He needs to leave. His lungs have gone tight and he can feel his panic beginning to get the better of him.

“Malfoy,” Potter says.

“You know, you haven’t called me that in months.” The lie pops out of Draco’s mouth before he can think to stop it. Because if he’s going to pretend that he and Potter truly are in a relationship, he might as well get all he can out of it. He wants to hear Potter say his name.

“I’m sorry,” Potter says.

“No, it’s…” Draco begins, then gives him a weak smile and says, “You’re taking this much better than I would have.” Hell, he’s taking this much better than Draco is.

“I wish I could remember,” Potter says, then then looks startled by his admission.

“You’re too noble, Harry,” Draco tells him, and looks away. “I…” He takes a breath. “I’ll come by tomorrow.”

He gives Potter a smile and then slips from the room and into the hall where he nearly bumps into Granger and Weasley, who are carrying four paper cups between them.

“Leaving already?” Granger asks, glancing at the door to Potter’s room.

“Yes,” Draco says. “I explained our relationship, and I.” He clears his throat. “Well. It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it? I thought it best to give him a bit of space right now.”

Weasley nods understandingly.

“Well, here,” Granger says, offering one of the cups to Draco. “We thought you’d be around a bit longer, so we brought you tea.”

“Knowing how notoriously awful St Mungo’s tea is, I’m not sure whether or not I should thank you,” Draco says, forcing a smile as he takes the cup. That gets a small laugh out of Granger.

“You should definitely thank me,” Granger says. “I got you chamomile. I could have got you that awful one that smells like rotting rose petals.”

“Well in that case,” Draco says, and manages a bit of a smile. “Thank you.” He licks his lips and glances back at the door to Potter’s room. “Take care of him for me, all right? I’m going to go get the house ready for him.”

Weasley gives him an odd look. “What have you got to get ready? He already lives there.”

“Yes, but, all things considered, I think it’s best if I move my things into the guest room,” Draco says. “I think we’ll both be more comfortable with me in there.”

Granger and Weasley exchange a look, awkward and sympathetic, and Draco forces a smile before they can say anything and trap him here in more uncomfortable conversation.

“Well, I suppose I’ll see you around,” he says, then nods, toasts them with his paper cup, and strides away down the hall.

* * * * *

Draco does his best to keep himself busy until it’s time to go collect Potter from St Mungo’s the following day.

When he gets home after speaking to Potter after he’d first woken up, the very first thing Draco does is go through their house room by room, top to bottom, to make absolutely certain that everything related to his curse is safely hidden. All of the books in the library upstairs are Charmed with false covers, and Draco collects all the files Potter’s made about the other curse victims and hides them under his mattress. Draco keeps the book of Chinese mythology in his room, and that in and of itself is not incriminating, should Potter happen to see it. Which, frankly, Draco doubts will happen. Potter has no reason to set foot in Draco’s room, and he’s always been very good about respecting Draco’s private space, just as Draco has always respected his. He has no reason to believe that’ll change just because Potter doesn’t remember a couple of years.

Satisfied that Potter won’t come across anything that will raise questions, Draco goes through the regular chores. He casts Cleaning Charms and does the laundry, makes a grocery list, and hangs a fresh tea towel over the handle of the oven. He changes the sheets on Potter’s bed and his own bed and puts a bunch of fresh flowers in the vase by the door. He ends the afternoon tending to the back garden. Mrs Field comes to the fence to say hello, and Draco very seriously explains that Potter’s had an accident, that he’s hit his head and is having some memory troubles, and yes he’s fine, he’s coming home tomorrow, but he might be a little confused and his doctors have said it’s best for his recovery if everyone tries to keep things as normal as possible for him.

Draco contacts his parents later that evening to update them on Potter’s condition. He explains that the Healers have said that Potter needs time to settle in before he reintroduces them, that he needs to rebuild his routine one step at a time and Draco thinks it’s best if he waits a few weeks before he starts bringing Potter round for dinner on Mondays again. To the Weasleys, Draco says that Potter needs peace and quiet and calm, and that after he’s had a few weeks to recover they’ll resume their Sunday dinners at the Burrow, he just wants to get Potter settled in at home again first.

Guilt prickles at him as he spins these half-truths. But in two weeks, it very likely won’t matter anymore, will it? It’s down to the flip of a coin.

Everyone is very sympathetic and very understanding, and Molly even gives Draco a hug when he sees her the following morning.

He’s stopped by the Burrow to drop off Potter’s motorcycle, which the Weasleys have agreed to store in the broomshed behind their house until Potter’s recovered the memory of how to operate it. He’d only got it working again less than a year ago, so the memory of how to safely operate it is lost along with the rest of his memories.

“I just know that if he sees it, he’ll try to ride it,” Draco says. “You know how he is.” He shrugs, sheepish, and adds, “You know how I worry.”

Molly nods along. “He’s never met a challenge he didn’t want to face straight on,” she says, then lowers her voice and says, conspiratorially, “He’s so like his godfather. The motorcycle belonged to Sirius, you know.”

“Oh,” says Draco. He hadn’t known, but that certainly explains why it’s so precious to Potter. He’s even more glad, now, that he didn’t go mucking around with the enchantments on it when he added the Notice-Me-Not Charm.

“You wouldn’t believe the grey hairs I got from watching him and Ron fix it up.” She shakes her head, exasperated, and Draco nods sympathetically. “Especially when they got around to testing the flying charms on it. My heart nearly stopped when Potter tried to take it up into the air the first time and fell.”

“I can imagine,” Draco says, and he can.

Molly insists on feeding him lunch, and she sends him home with a couple of pies. Draco thanks her and drops the pies off at home before he takes the Floo to St Mungo’s to pick up Potter. He’s running a bit late and he feels frazzled and exhausted. He hadn’t slept well at all without Potter in the house. It felt too big and too empty and too quiet, and Draco stayed up too late reading books about recovering from memory spells gone wrong. Eventually he’d gone to bed, and then lay awake and wondered whether this was at all close to how Potter felt each full moon while Draco was gone.

Potter comes with him agreeably enough as they sign him out and walk outside. But he stops short when Draco opens the door of the cab he’d called for them, utterly baffled that Draco would know what to do with it. He looks even more baffled when the cab delivers them to their Muggle house. He greets Mrs Field, who’s out for a walk and thankfully doesn’t press for details about Potter.

Draco leads the way up the path to their front door, and unlocks it and steps inside. He feels stiff and uncomfortable around Potter, in a way that he hasn’t since the very beginning. He’s unsure what to say or do, afraid to push him too hard, but also afraid of putting too much distance between them. It feels as though there are dozens of paths branching out before him, all tangled together, and Draco has no idea which one leads back to where they were. Which one he should take to make Potter love him again. If there’s even time to make that happen.

Tea, that’s always a safe option. They should have tea. Maybe talk for a while. Get to know each other again.

“I can make us both—” Draco begins, then breaks off when he sees Potter staring at the photographs.

They’d added more after that first one, and now there are about a dozen different pictures of them together, smiling, laughing, with others in the picture or just the two of them. Potter’s arm is around Draco in one, and Draco’s holding Potter’s hand in another. They’re always by each other’s sides, even when other people are in the photographs as well.

“I thought about taking them down,” Draco says, moving to stand beside Potter. He lets his shoulder brush against Potter’s. He wishes Potter would put his arm around him. “But I read somewhere last night that things can help trigger memories.”

Potter reaches out and picks up one of the framed photographs, the one Arthur Weasley had sent home with them the night of their birthday party, and Draco can’t bring himself to look at it. He watches Potter’s face instead. He looks almost awed as he stares down at it. It must be a shock to see how in love with each other they look.

“When was this?” Potter asks softly. He glances up at Draco. “Malfoy?”

“About four months ago,” he answers. He tries to keep his voice calm. “Joint birthday party for us.” He takes a deep breath, and says, “I can show you around the rest of the house.”

The house is small and there’s nothing here that Potter wouldn’t have been able to figure out on his own, but it helps Draco to have something to do. He takes Potter around and shows him room by room. Downstairs is fine, but he can practically feel the nerves radiating from Potter as Draco shows him the library and the upstairs bathroom, and he knows what he’s expecting.

He holds tight to the doorknob of his bedroom. “I moved my things in here,” he explains, and Potter looks surprised.

He’d expected them to share, Draco realises. And there is a small, shameful part of Draco that regrets not taking advantage of that.

“I have to get to work,” Draco says, and then adds, “I own an apothecary in Diagon Alley.”

It’s not until after Potter says, very eloquently, “Oh,” that Draco realises what a stupid thing that was to say. Potter’s only lost the last two years of his memories; Draco has owned his shop for nearly four.

“There’s Floo powder next to the fireplace downstairs,” Draco goes on quickly. He shuts the door to his bedroom and pushes past Potter, careful to not touch him. He heads downstairs, going on, “Mrs Weasley sent over some pies, it’s all in the kitchen. And…” He pauses and glances back at Potter. “If you need anything, let me know.”

It’s not until he’s outside that it occurs to him that he didn’t call for a cab. Frankly, he should have told the cabbie who’d driven them from St Mungo’s to wait for him, but he’d thought he’d be here for longer than this.

Seeing Potter look around the home they’d made here together without an ounce of recognition had shaken Draco. He’d known about the amnesia. He’d seen how Potter looked at him yesterday at St Mungo’s. But it wasn’t until seeing him here, following Draco from room to room and looking around with the polite curiosity of a guest being shown his host’s home, that it really sunk in. He doesn’t remember anything.

Draco starts walking, heading for the small park nearby. There are a few people at one end of it, where a small playground has been set up. He recognises Mrs Field sitting on the bench with another young mother, chatting while their babies play together on a blanket. She doesn’t notice Draco, and he hurries along the path to the gazebo at the far end before she can catch sight of him.

As he’d expected, there’s no-one around, and the gazebo affords him some amount of privacy. He climbs up the two shallow steps and stands in the middle of it, peering around to make certain that no Muggles are within eyesight before he takes out his wand and Apparates.

He lands in the middle of the living room of his flat. It’s strange to see it like this, stripped of all his possessions. His bed still sits in the window alcove, and his sofa looks forlorn there all by itself against the wall. They’re using Potter’s sofa at the house, and Draco’s armchair and coffee table have joined it. His vintage wizard’s wireless has gathered a thick coating of dust, and the air smells stale. Draco casts a few cleaning charms around before he leaves the flat and goes downstairs.

Zelda’s got the wireless in the potions lab playing quietly while she works, and she jumps a bit when she notices him come up behind her.

“What are you doing here?” she demands.

“Well, last I checked this is my shop,” he tells her dryly as he rolls up his sleeves and walks over to the chalkboard to see what needs to be done today.

“You know what I mean,” she says. “Did they need to keep Potter at St Mungo’s for longer?”

“No,” Draco says. “He’s at home.”

“And you left him there?” she asks, as incredulous as if Draco had just announced he’d put Potter on a raft and sent him out to sea.

“Well he does live there,” Draco says peevishly.

“You know what I mean,” she tells him, then picks up a glass stirring rod and dips it into the cauldron before her. “He’s lost his memory. Shouldn’t you be there helping him settle in?”

“He doesn’t remember any of our relationship,” Draco says, turning away to read over the chalkboard. “Two years ago, we were barely on speaking terms. This is all a bit overwhelming for him, and I think we’ll both benefit from some time away from each other to let it sink in.”

“Draco!”

“I told you—” he begins.

“No, not that. Your back is bleeding.” Zelda drops her stirring rod on the worktable and hurries over.

Draco freezes, then turns to put his back against the wall. He rolls his shoulders and, oh, fuck. Yes. His shirt is sticking uncomfortably to the wounds that never seem to heal anymore.

“What happened?” Zelda asks, trying to get around him for a better look at it, and he turns with her to keep her from seeing.

“Nothing,” he says. Then swallows down his nerves and takes a page from Potter’s book. “Look, it’s fine. It, ah. It’s a long story that involves Potter and. Well. Not a lot of clothing.” He can feel his cheeks going pink, but that can only help his case here, can’t it, if he seems flustered?

“Oh,” Zelda says, stopping short. “Well. You should go take care of it.”

“It’s from earlier this week,” he blurts out. He doesn’t want her to think he’s taking advantage of Potter.

“No,” says Zelda, slapping her hands over her ears. “I don’t want details. Go, go take care of it.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you—”

“La-la-la-la-la-la!” Zelda says loudly, hands still clamped firmly to the side of her head. “I can’t hear a single word you’re saying about your kinky sex life.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Draco says, then shouts at her, “Keep stirring your Elating Elixir or your cauldron’s going to boil over.”

“Shit,” Zelda says, darting back to the worktable and snatching up the stirring rod. The potion has frothed up and she gives it a couple of brisk stirs, and the bubbles subside.

Draco leaves her to it and heads upstairs, unbuttoning his shirt as he goes. The tiny bathroom of his flat feels even more claustrophobic now that he’s used to the bigger one of his Muggle home. Draco shrugs out of his shirt, pulls off his undershirt, and twists to look at his back in the mirror.

The two big gashes look terrible, raw and oozing blood. Draco doesn’t even bother trying to treat them with potions. Those have stopped having any effect, so Draco’s moved on from trying to heal the wounds to merely treating their symptoms. It takes some finagling, but he manages to seal both of them with a charm Potter had taught him last month. It’s one he learned in his Field Injury & Triage class, a way to seal up wounds until the injured person can be taken to St Mungo’s. Then he carefully spells the bloodstains from his clothes and dresses again before going back downstairs.

When he returns to the lab, Zelda doesn’t say a word about his back. She’s turned up the wireless a little and is singing along under her breath. Draco pulls out a copper cauldron and begins to gather up the ingredients he’ll need.

And it’s nice. The routine and order of brewing helps to ground him. The tangled mess of feelings in his chest loosens a little as he loses himself in slicing up ingredients and stirring them together. He brews a series of headache potions and a muscle relaxant, and then Zelda stops him before he can start on another.

“Go home,” she tells him. “You’ve been here all afternoon.”

Draco sighs a little. “I should,” he says. He can admit to himself that he’s been hiding here. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“I can run the shop without you, if you need some time away,” Zelda says.

“I know you can,” Draco tells her, and thinks of the papers he’s got filed with his solicitor. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Zelda waves at him, and Draco Apparates back to the gazebo in the park. No-one’s seen his sudden arrival, though a Muggle man with a puppy on a leash is peering confusedly up into the sky. Draco nods to him as they pass each other on the pavement a minute later, and heads for home.

The house is still and quiet when he lets himself inside, locks the door after himself, and drops his keys into the bowl. Did Potter go out? But no, his keys are there in the bowl, right beside Draco’s. Frowning, he quietly takes off his shoes and then tiptoes forward on socked feet.

He takes a peek into the living room and, as he should have expected, Potter is stretched out on the sofa, fast asleep.

Draco goes into the kitchen for a glass of water to wet his throat, which has gone suddenly dry. Because finding Potter asleep on the sofa is familiar. And he has to go wake him up in a moment, but until then, it feels as though everything is all right. Selfishly, he wants to prolong that feeling as long as he’s able.

He opens the cupboard to get a glass, and then stares because they’re not as he’d left them. The glasses ought to sit in perfectly straight rows, and here they’re uneven. The mug handles are pointing the wrong way. The dishes and bowls are pushed too far to the back of the cupboards, and Draco is afraid to look at what sort of chaos might be lurking in the silverware drawer.

“Merlin,” Draco mutters to himself, still staring at all the dishes in disarray. He can’t see a single thing that hasn’t been moved into the wrong place. “All this time I’ve been accusing you of doing it on purpose, and here it turns out it was natural bloody talent all along.”

He flicks his wand and the plates and bowls and glasses all shuffled themselves obediently back into place. He gets his glass and fills it with an Aguamenti, and drinks it in long, smooth gulps. Then he puts it in the sink and goes to wake Potter.

Even though he’s tried to prepare himself for it, he’s done this so many times that habit takes over. He strokes his fingers through Potter’s hair.

“Harry,” he says gently. “Harry, wake up.”

Potter’s head lolls a bit to the side, then he blinks his eyes open, frowning a little as he shakes off sleep. And all of that is familiar. But instead of the frown easing into a smile, it deepens. He looks almost disappointed to see Draco, and although Draco knew this would happen, it’s surprising how much it hurts.

“Sorry,” he says, taking his hand away from Potter’s head. “But sleeping on the sofa will give you a crick in your neck.”

“Right,” Potter says, sitting up.

And then Potter asks him, “How was your day?” with just a touch of awkwardness, as if they’re a pair of old acquaintances who’d unexpectedly bumped into each other and didn’t know what else to say. They’ll probably end up discussing the weather, next.

He ends up suggesting a trip for groceries, and Potter agrees. He still seems bemused that Draco is so adept at moving through the Muggle world, and Draco tells him a little bit about their life together. And it’s fine. All of that goes fine. It’s not until they’re back home and putting the groceries away that it goes bad.

Potter had gone quiet on the walk back to the house, and has remained so as he is takes things out of the bags and stacks them on the kitchen counter for Draco to put away. Whatever he’s mulling over, Draco leaves him to it.

“You hated Muggles when I last saw you,” Potter finally says, apropos of nothing.

“I wouldn’t use the word hate,” Draco says, trying not to sound nearly as shaken as he feels by Potter’s question. It’s been so long since he thought like that that it’s a bit of a shock to have Potter be surprised that he’s changed. He picks up a bag of peaches.

“Whatever word you would use, I doubt anyone who knew you would’ve thought you’d end up living amongst Muggles,” Potter goes on.

Draco finishes putting the peaches in the refrigerator and closes the door. He leans his forehead briefly against the stainless steel and takes a deep breath before he straightens again. He should have expected this.

“Circumstances change,” he says quietly.

“Yes, but you’re like a completely different person!” Potter says. He sounds angry about it, frustrated and almost disappointed. As though, what, he’d prefer Draco to be the same stupid child he’d been back at Hogwarts.

Draco clenches his jaw to keep from shouting back. It will do neither of them any good for this conversation to escalate any further. “Is that really so bad?” he asks.

“No, but—”

“I’m sorry if I’m disappointing you by not cursing Muggles left and right,” Draco cuts him off, the threads of his temper fraying. “I’m sorry if that’s confusing for you. Shall I go out and bring you the head of one of your neighbours? Would that make it all right?” He’s angry but not angry enough to verbalise the rest of his thoughts. I can cast a Morsmordre or two, and you can cut me open from neck to navel and leave me to bleed out on the floor. It will be just like the old days, because weren’t those just so much better than this?

They stare at each other, wands in hand. Potter has shifted his feet into a duelling stance. And abruptly, Draco is so, so tired of all of this.

Two weeks, two weeks, echoes through Draco’s head. And this, all of this, feels impossible. He’d wanted to spend his last days with Potter, but this isn’t his Potter. This is Harry Potter, and Draco doesn’t know him at all.

He raises his wand to put away the rest of the groceries, and Potter snaps his wand up and smoothly shifts his stance from a neutral position to an offensive one.

“For Merlin’s sake,” he mutters, and stabs his wand at the groceries piled haphazardly on the counter. Fruit and veg fly through the air to deposit themselves neatly into the refrigerator, boxes of pasta and cereal and a canister of oats slot themselves into the cupboards, and the empty paper bags fold themselves up. “I’m going to bed,” he says, and leaves the kitchen without waiting for a reply or looking at Potter.

He doesn’t stomp as he goes up the stairs and locks himself in the bathroom. He turns up the water as hot as he can stand it, then takes off his clothes and gets into the shower. His skin stings and turns pink, and Draco stays under it until thick clouds of steam swirl against the ceiling, and the worst of his anger has been washed away.

Tugging the shower curtain aside, Draco steps out of the bathtub and dries off, and dresses in a clean set of flannel pyjamas. He brushes his teeth and washes his face, and then goes into his bedroom and shuts the door, and gets into bed to read for a while. He thinks for a moment about going downstairs and getting something to eat, but his stomach is in knots and he thinks putting something in it will only make his nausea worse.

Near midnight, he sets aside his book and sits up, swings his feet out of bed and then stops. He hasn’t heard Potter come upstairs yet, and force of habit had Draco getting ready to go get him. But then he thinks of waking up Potter from his nap this evening. He thinks of the disappointed way Potter had looked at him, and how contemptuously he’d glared at Draco down in the kitchen when he’d raised his wand against him.

Draco swings his feet back into bed and pulls his duvet over himself. He turns out his lamp, and leaves Potter down there to his sofa and his stiff neck.

* * * * *

He has the Prometheus dream again. Draco’s been having it once every couple of weeks since he and Potter did all that research on mythology. Except this time Draco is not Prometheus. This time he’s the eagle. Potter is Prometheus, chained down and helpless while Draco rips into him over and over, tearing into his liver and swallowing each bloody piece whole while Potter cries and screams and begs him to stop.

Draco wakes up choking.

He jerks upright, and nearly retches. His mouth tastes like old metal and spoiled meat. He’d bitten into his tongue at some point last night, and there’s a bloody patch of drool staining his pillowcase. He rubs at the corner of his mouth, and dislodges the gummy clots of brown blood that had dried there.

“Ugh,” he says, and is answered by a tap at the window. “For fuck’s sake, go away,” he says without raising the curtain, then goes into the bathroom and scrubs the foul taste from his mouth.

Draco skips his shower this morning since he’d taken one the night before, but he freshens up with a few charms and dresses neatly for the day. It alters his routine enough that he doesn’t quite expect to see Potter stumbling from his room with soft bleary eyes and a rumbly, “Morning, Malfoy,” and therefore Draco isn’t quite disappointed when it doesn’t happen.

Potter never made it up to his bed last night. He’s fast asleep, with his face mashed into the sofa cushions, his neck bent at an angle that makes Draco cringe just looking at it, and one hand trailing onto the floor.

Sighing, Draco uses a very gentle Wingardium to lift Potter’s hand back onto the cushions so he won’t wake with pins-and-needles in his fingers, and then leaves him there. He hasn’t quite forgiven him for what he’d said last night, and Draco refuses to reward bad behaviour with bacon and eggs. He’ll stop by the coffeeshop on Diagon for a drink and a croissant. His stomach’s still a bit tetchy, anyhow. He’d best have something lighter this morning.

Draco puts on his shoes, takes his keys from the bowl by the door, and slips outside. Mr Tillman, who lives on the other side from Mrs Field, is outside watering his roses.

“Good morning,” he calls out, and Mr Tillman waves.

“Where are you off to this fine morning?” Mr Tillman asks when Draco draws nearer.

“The shops,” Draco tells him. “I have to pick up a few things before going to work.”

“Well, have a good day,” Mr Tillman tells him. “Enjoy this lovely weather! It’s supposed to turn soon.”

“Thank you,” Draco says. “I will.”

Indeed, the day is clear and bright, the sky a perfect blue stretched above, and Draco takes a deep breath of fresh air as he walks down the pavement. He’ll Apparate from the gazebo again, the thinks. That will be the easiest way for him to get to Diagon.

There is a congregation of starlings clustered in the branches of an oak tree, and as Draco passes beneath them, they all burst into flight.

* * * * *

Draco doesn’t know why he’s surprised to come home to find Potter there. He wouldn’t have been surprised to come home and find that Potter had gone for a walk or something to minimise the amount of time he has to spend with Draco. He also wouldn’t have been surprised to find that Potter had packed up his things and gone to stay with Weasley.

But for some reason, it’s surprising to walk into the kitchen and find Potter putting on a kettle, enough that Draco blurts out, “You’re here.”

Potter glances at him over his shoulder. “Tea?” he asks instead of responding to Draco’s ridiculous observation with something like, Are you sure you don’t need glasses? or even just a simple, Well, obviously, delivered along with a roll of his eyes.

“Please,” Draco says and takes a seat at the kitchen table. He can feel Potter’s eyes on him as he fiddles with his cuff. He wonders what Potter’s thinking.

When the kettle is hot, Potter gets out their mugs and pours their tea, and Draco watches him. He’s unsure how to ask for the green one. Which is a bit ridiculous, isn’t it. Both mugs are the same. The green one won’t disappear if Potter drinks from it, and the yellow one is just as good. But the green one is his.

Potter sets it in front of him on the table, and Draco picks it up and says, “Hm,” small and pleased as he takes a sip. And it’s not until after he swallows that he realises that Potter never asked him how he took his tea.

Across the table, Potter is tracing the tip of his finger around the rim of his mug. He’s working himself up to something, and Draco takes another sip of tea, giving him time, until finally Potter clears his throat, calling Draco’s attention.

“About last night…” Potter says at last.

Draco looks up. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry,” Potter tells him, then swallows and shakes his head a little. “I wasn’t trying to—”

“You know,” Draco breaks in, “for the ridiculous amount of planning we’ve done, this particular scenario never quite made it into our contingency plans.”

Potter frowns at him. “What sort of plans?”

“Oh, this and that,” Draco tells him, and takes another sip of tea.

He expects Potter to press the point, and Draco prepares a line about how, given their respective pasts and a healthy fear of potential public backlash, Potter had insisted on making plans for every worst case scenario they could think up.

But he doesn’t ask about it. Instead he watches Draco for a long moment.

“Are you all right?” Potter asks, and Draco looks up at him. “You look like—” He hesitates, and Draco can just tell he’s swallowing back something rude before he finishes, “like you haven’t slept well.”

Last week, Potter wouldn’t have hesitated to tell Draco he looks like shit. “I have trouble sleeping sometimes,” Draco tells him. He can’t look at Potter without thinking of that dream. The phantom feel of liver sliding over his tongue, smooth and body-warm, makes his stomach twist.

“You know,” Potter says after a moment. “I didn’t mean anything last night. I was just…” He rubs at his shoulder, then finishes, “confused.”

Draco manages to dredge up a smirk. “I tried to warn you about the sofa,” he says. Then sighs a little and figures he may as well address it, otherwise Potter will just keep bringing it up over and over. “And to be honest, I’m rather surprised your outburst took so long.”

Potter’s brows knit together as he frowns a little. “What do you mean?”

“You’re not exactly what I would call patient,” Draco says dryly. Then he stands and walks over to the refrigerator. “Are you hungry?” he asks. Dinner sounds good right now, even though his stomach is still unsettled from nerves. But he’d really like something to do with his hands.

“Sure,” Potter says, leaning back in his chair.

Draco busies himself setting out ingredients, tomatoes, onions, garlic, oregano. He sets the spice aside and charms a knife to chop the rest. Potter doesn’t bat an eye at it, nor does he say anything when Draco swishes his wand and a pot comes sailing out of a cupboard, or when Draco fills it up with an Aguamenti. And it’s not until Draco charms a wooden spoon to give the sauce pot an occasional stir that he realises he’s waiting for Potter to say something about no magic in the house, Malfoy, we agreed.

Another swish of his wand gets out the package of pasta while Draco waits for the water to come to a boil. The wooden spoon jumps up, stirs the pot, and puts itself back on the counter.

Potter laughs, and Draco glances back to find him reading the label on the package of pasta.

And the way Potter’s smiling feels like an arrow to the chest all over again.

“Where did you get that?” Potter asks.

“Same Muggle shop where I get the wine,” Draco says. He doesn’t dare turn around. And speaking of…

Draco looks through the bottles, and passes over the merlot in favour of a nice cabernet sauvignon. The merlot is the pig-in-a-wig bottle, and Draco doesn’t think he can stand to hear Potter laugh over it right now. The one he picks out has an eagle on the bottle. It’s the last of four, which Potter had brought home several weeks ago. They’ve already gone through the bordeaux, which had a lion, and the pinot grigio, which had a snake, and the chardonnay, which had a weasel.

“They didn’t have any with badgers,” Potter had explained as he’d set them on the counter. “But weasels are in the same family as them, along with polecats and otters,” and Draco had given him long and incredulous look before he replied, “I’m honestly curious how much of your brain is utterly wasted on useless bits of trivia. Polecats, really?” And Potter grinned and shrugged and they’d shared the Hufflepuff bottle that night.

“Plates, please,” Draco says without thinking, and it isn’t until Potter’s up and walking to the cupboard that he remembers that the agreement about magic in the house is functionally nonexistent now, and he could have got the plates himself. “Thank you,” he says when Potter sets them at his elbow.

Draco charms the utensils to serve up a couple of plates, then he takes the bottle of wine and a couple of wine glasses to where Potter is waiting at the table. He pours them each a glass, then downs his because fuck this. He’s going to need a good head start with the wine to make it through dinner.

“You might want to pace yourself,” Potter says as Draco’s pouring a second glass for himself.

He blinks across the table at him, but there’s no recognition in Potter’s eyes for what he’s just said. And it’s a strange sort of torture, to have him be so like himself while also being so unlike the Potter that Draco’s used to that he might as well be a total stranger. And Draco has no idea whether he wants to laugh or cry. He takes another sip of wine and manages a small laugh.

“What is it?” Potter asks suspiciously.

Draco can’t look away from him. “Nothing,” Draco says. “Just, you’re so you. Even when you’re… Well. You know.”

Potter lapses mostly into silence for the rest of the meal, and Draco finishes off most of the wine by himself. He’s a little tipsy by the time they finish eating. Normally when they have wine with dinner, they pace themselves, and end up taking the remainder of the bottle out into the living room with them. So Draco’s feeling it a little more than he usually does when he stands up and picks up his plate, and reaches out to take Potter’s, too.

“I can get it,” Potter says.

“I don’t mind,” Draco tells him, hand still outstretched. He gives his fingers an impatient little waggle.

But Potter doesn’t hand over the plate. Instead he picks up his wine glass, too, and takes both over to the sink. “No, really. You made dinner, I can clean up.”

He starts running water into the sink, and Draco reluctantly sets his plate and glass on the counter. “I’ll dry and put away,” he says.

Things are different now, and it’s so hard for Draco keep that in mind when they’re like this, settled into the easy routine of cleaning up the kitchen together. He nearly reaches out to steady himself against Potter’s back as he leans around him to grab a tea towel, but he snatches his hand back just in time. They haven’t touched each other at all since Draco woke Potter up after his nap on the sofa, and Draco’s a little afraid to try, now. He tries not to think of the look on Potter’s face when he’d seen Draco, but sometimes it pops into Draco’s head unbidden.

“Dish soap?” Potter asks, glancing over his shoulder.

“Oh. Here,” Draco says. Potter steps aside as Draco opens up the cupboard under the sink and retrieves a clear bottle of blue goop that Muggles use to wash their dishes with.

Potter pours a generous dollop in the bottom of the sink and plugs up the drain, then sets the bottle aside. Suds begin to pile up in a mound around the stream of water jetting from the faucet. Potter sniffs, then frowns and sniffs again. He looks utterly baffled.

“Is something wrong?” Draco asks.

“No,” Potter says, leaning over the sink and sniffing again. “It’s just… Well, it’s a bit silly, I guess, because it’s not even yellow. I don’t know why I expected it to smell like lemons.”

* * * * *

It doesn’t take long to fall into a new pattern. And though Draco still longs to have his version of Potter back, this one isn’t so bad now that they’re getting used to each other. It’s still tremendously frustrating, though. It feels a bit like reaching the exciting part of a story and then having to start back at the beginning. Now that he knows where it leads, he’s eager to pick up where he left off.

But he forces himself to be patient. Draco goes off to work each morning, and each evening he arrives home before Potter, who spends each day with Weasley and Granger, and comes home when Draco is halfway through cooking dinner. Potter usually lingers in the kitchen, and Draco can usually persuade him to help by opening up a bottle of wine or setting the table while Draco finishes up with their meal.

It’s the first week of November when Draco slips. He’s distracted, going over an experimental potion that’d gone horribly wrong today at work, when he squeezes between the table and Potter, who’s at the counter wrestling with the corkscrew. He unthinkingly puts his hand against the small of Potter’s back, something he’s done dozens of times before, and feels how Potter goes tense.

“Just need to grab these,” Draco says lightly, waggling the pair of tongs at Potter. He removes his hand as quickly as he’s able to without seeming suspicious, then he retreats to the other side of the kitchen, heart pounding.

Draco would have let it go at that. He would have clamped down on the sharp yearning that lances through him at finally, finally touching him again. He would have done his best to put it from his mind and kept his hands to himself from now on, if it weren’t for the way Potter kept sneaking looks at him.

So the next night, Draco does it again. He leans around Potter to get a measuring cup from the cupboard that he didn’t strictly need for the meal he’s cooking, and steadies himself with a brief touch of his fingertips to Potter’s arm. And that time, Draco could swear that Potter leaned into his side as he did it.

And so he keeps doing it, until he’s back to doing it as he was before: naturally, and without thinking. Sometimes Potter watches him afterward. Sometimes Draco could swear that Potter leans into the touch, though it’s always subtle enough that he questions himself afterward.

One time, Potter touches him back, coming up beside him at the counter and bumping Draco out of the way with a hip so that he can get out a teaspoon, and Draco’s left struggling to contain himself, to keep his expression something carefully neutral so as not to give himself away.

It’s difficult. He’s close to his next transformation and he’s exhausted. He has nightmares every night, and for the past two days he’s had a vicious headache that potions will not touch. His back keeps bleeding. He’s barely hanging on, and it’s only because of the steady predictability of his routine that he’s able to keep putting one foot in front of the other and pushing himself onward one day at a time.

All of that goes right out the window on the day before the full moon.

Draco had taken the files Potter made for the other curse victims and hidden them away in his room. He’d been very careful of that. He hadn’t realised that Potter had copies of them at his office at work. He’d brought them home the other night, and Draco had thought he’d done a convincing job of shrugging it off. But apparently it hadn’t been good enough, because he comes home on Saturday evening to find Potter sitting at the kitchen table with those files stacked up in front of him.

And Draco is tired. He’s so tired, and his head hurts, and his back has already begun aching faintly, and he’s probably going to die tomorrow night. All he wanted was one last quiet evening at home. He wanted to have dinner with Potter, and he wanted to touch Potter one last time as they moved around the kitchen together, and he wanted to spend a few hours afterward in companionable silence on the sofa in the living room. He wanted to hear the words, “Goodnight, Draco,” before he went up to bed. He wanted.

Instead he got an argument. He’d seen it coming, as inevitable as an ocean wave bearing down on the shoreline, and tried to deflect. He’d said he wasn’t feeling well, that he wasn’t up to this tonight, that he didn’t recognise those files. But Potter pressed and pressed, and the wave crashed down.

“Stop lying to me!” Potter shouts after Draco tells him he’d never seen those files before. “Stop pretending you give a fuck! What is it, did you trick me into dating you so you could get some twisted revenge? Or maybe your Death Eater buddies bribed you so you could all have a good laugh? Or maybe—”

“Fuck you,” Draco tells him, then again, louder, “Fuck you, Potter.”

And then he turns around and leaves Potter in the kitchen.

Draco goes up to his room and slams the door shut and wards it heavily. He hasn’t eaten and he hasn’t showered and he hasn’t brushed his teeth. But what’s the point, what’s the point of any of it? Why on earth would he bother brushing his teeth when he’s going to die tomorrow night? He strips off his clothes and pulls on his pyjamas, crawls into his bed, and then because he’s alone and he’s scared and, oh Merlin, he’s going to die, he cries into his pillow until, utterly wrung out, he drops suddenly into sleep.

* * * * *

To his surprise, Draco wakes up the following morning without having dreamt at all. He feels strangely at peace. He feels curiously light with the remnants of that smooth-edged hollow feeling that comes from a good cry.

Draco goes into the bathroom to clean up, then goes back to his room and dresses for the day. Potter’s door is ajar and Draco can hear him breathing, deep and slow and even. He smiles a little to himself as he passes by and goes downstairs.

He’s feeling much calmer about their argument this morning. Potter’s Death Eater accusation doesn’t cut quite so deep in the light of day. He was angry, and he lashed out and said horrible things that he didn’t mean. And it’s fine. It’s nothing that Draco himself hasn’t done a thousand times in his life. He understands. Potter’s under a lot of stress. He’s missing his memories and adjusting to a life with Draco, and for all Potter knows there’s a murderer after him.

There’s not. If whoever had taken him and erased his memories had wanted to kill him, they would have. They got what they wanted—Potter off their trail—so why would they need to kill him?

Draco makes and eats toast for breakfast, then cleans his plate and butter knife and mug with a series of spells before he takes the Floo to work.

He can’t hide the fact that something is very, very wrong from Zelda, so Draco ends up tells her the closest thing to the truth that he has yet.

“I had a fight with Harry,” he says. “And I think I need to go away for a little while.”

Zelda puts her hand on his shoulder, and Draco leans into the touch. To his horror, it’s nearly enough to make him cry. He blinks hard a few times and manages to swallow it down.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, and he can hear that she means it. “This has got to be so hard for both of you.”

Draco nods. “It is,” he says honestly. “It really is.”

He hadn’t known how much he’d needed to hear that until she’d said it. Because everyone is so concerned with Potter’s wellbeing—as they should be, he’s missing two years of his life!—but that doesn’t mean it’s easy for Draco simply because the spell didn’t hit him directly. It still disrupted his life. He’s still dealing directly with the fallout.

“Take your time,” Zelda says. “Don’t worry about the shop, okay? We’ll be here when you get back.”

“Thank you,” Draco says.

He wishes he knew how to tell her goodbye. But he’s got no idea how to even start, so he doesn’t.

Instead he goes home and he walks straight past Potter without looking for him. He goes up to his room and closes his door in Potter’s face, and ignores it when Potter knocks.

His back is aching fiercely when he casts the spells around the house that will keep the neighbours from noticing anything amiss, and Draco misses his Potter right now more than ever. He’s not used to going through his transformations alone. He misses Potter’s steady presence at his side and gentle fingers in his hair and how a Confundo makes it all go away.

Draco waits as long as he’s able and then opens the window.

Cool air floods into the room, and Draco’s skin erupts in goosepimples as he disrobes. It’s windy that night, the branches of the elm tree outside his window making strange shapes, backlit by the sodium-yellow of the streetlight across the street. Draco casts a spell over the floor that will clean up the blood he knows he’s going to get on it, then he ties his Portkey around his wrist and tucks his wand beneath his pillow for safekeeping.

Maybe he should have answered the door when Potter knocked. Maybe he should have said goodbye. But then he’d have had to explain. And Potter wouldn’t have accepted it, especially not in so short a time frame, and Draco hasn’t got the energy to argue with him.

In any case, it’s too late now. He thinks briefly of leaving a note, but decides against it. It’s better this way. He’ll simply vanish, and that will be that.

The ache into his back explodes into a sharp itching, and Draco resists for as long as he’s able. He clenches his teeth to keep from screaming, but a long pained groan forces itself out. He can’t help it any longer. He staggers to the window as he twists his arm up behind him, fingernails digging deep into the gashes that never healed this month. His fingers dig in deep, tearing into flesh, and warm blood runs over his hand, trickling over his wrist and down his arm. He has a split second of bristly feathers poking up through the wound, and Draco bites back another scream, and then the pain swells to a blinding crescendo and everything goes fuzzy, and then everything goes dark.

* * * * *

When Draco opens his eyes, he nearly cries. Because he’s alive. He’s still alive. He spent the last two weeks preparing himself for this to be over, and it’s not. It’s not over. He’s still here.

And that means he’s got to go through all of this again next month. The only blood on him is his own. There’s still one other victim, and the murderer is still out there, and it’s not over.

Draco shivers and swallows down his nausea. He doesn’t vomit this morning, small mercies. And when his stomach settles down a bit, he activates the Portkey and lets it carry him away.

He lands heavily on the floor of his flat and stays there for a minutes, just breathing and trying to accept that he’s alive. Merlin, he’s going to have to go home and explain this to Potter. Leaving without so much as a note was so much simpler when Draco didn’t think he’d have to face the consequences for it.

After a while he pushes himself to his feet and stumbles into the bathroom where he’d left a change of clothes and a spare wand on Sunday. It’s chestnut and unicorn hair, and requires a bit more effort to use, but it works for him readily enough. He deals with the bloody wounds on his back and Vanishes the feathers stuck to him. He gets in the shower and scrubs dirt and blood from his skin, then gets out and dries himself off and dresses in grey trousers and a warm black jumper. And then he might as well face the music.

Taking a deep breath, Draco activates the other Portkey and appears in the living room of his house. Midmorning light slants through the windows and pools on the floor. The knitted afghan is rumpled on one side of the sofa, as if someone had slept under it and then kicked it off when they woke up.

Draco goes up to the library and gets out the enchanted map of London he’d charmed, and activates it. There’s a large glowing dot where the house is—that would be the shoes in Potter’s wardrobe—and then a smaller, dimmer dot over the Ministry. Draco sighs and deactivates the map and puts it away. He can only assume that Potter will be home at the usual time.

He tries to keep himself occupied until then, but doesn’t succeed very well. He tends to his herb garden and chats briefly with Mrs Field before he pleads a headache and goes back inside. He casts a few charms to straighten up the place, and washes all the dishes Potter left in the sink. He makes a cup of tea, forgets about it for thirty minutes, tosses out the overbrewed mess, and then makes another and doesn’t drink it. Since he’s home, he might as well make something nice for dinner, yeah? Something that takes a little more time than he’s usually got. He and Potter will both deserve something nice after the terrible conversation they’re about to have. But he’ll have to go to the store, he hasn’t got anything here, and—

He’s so caught up in his own thoughts that he doesn’t realise he’s not alone until someone shouts, “Expelliarmus!” and Draco’s wand wrenches itself from his hand.

“Bloody hell!” he exclaims, whirling around to find Potter in the doorway.

Whatever else he means to say goes flying right out of his head. The naked relief on Potter’s face tugs painfully at Draco’s heart, and then Potter crosses the room in three large strides and crowds Draco up against the wall. His hands come up to cup the sides of Draco’s face, gently, as if he’s something wonderful and precious, and Potter leans his forehead against Draco’s own, and Draco can feel Potter’s breath ghosting across his lips. And Draco wants, he wants so much to lean in just a little bit further.

For a moment, Draco wants this more than breathing. His eyes close and he tips his chin and waits for the soft press of Potter’s lips to his own.

But this isn’t what he wanted. Not like this. Potter doesn’t remember, and ever since he lost his memory, it hasn’t been the same. Aside from that last fight, things between them have been gentle. There’s been a little bit of teasing, mostly on Draco’s part. But there’s been no bickering. No name-calling. No winding each other up for the sheer fun of it.

Because Potter’s been trying so hard to make this work, and Draco’s been trying so hard to make it easy him, and it’s absurd, isn’t it, that they’re both trying so hard to be this thing they never were. They’ve never been polite to each other; that’s not who either of them are.

“I’ve been so worried,” Potter says, and Draco can practically taste the words, they’re so close together.

Pushing Potter away is one of the hardest things Draco’s ever done in his life.

“Draco,” Potter says, and hearing his given name only reinforces that this isn’t real. None of this is real and he can’t do this. “Please.”

Draco shakes his head. “No, not like this,” he says, and it’s horrible being forced to repeat Potter’s own words back to him because Draco how much it hurt when Potter said it to him, and here he is saying the exact same thing: “We can’t.”

“Why not?” Potter demands. “Look, I may never get my memory back, but I—”

“Don’t,” Draco snaps at him.

Potter reaches for him, takes Draco’s hands in his and rubs his thumbs in slow, soothing circles. Draco yanks his hands free.

“What’s going on?” Potter asks, and Draco has to tell him. He can’t let Potter go on believing this. He never should have lied to him in the first place.

“I…” Draco begins, and his voice cracks. His courage deserts him and when he forces himself to say, “It’s not real,” the words come out scarcely louder than a whisper.

Potter frowns. “What?”

“We… We’re not real, Harry,” Draco repeats.

Potter doesn’t believe him. Of course he doesn’t believe him, because when has Potter ever made anything easy for Draco? Merlin. He knew this whole sham of a relationship was a fucking terrible idea. He never should have let Potter talk him into it. He never should have gone along with any of it, because look where he is now.

Draco thinks about going to get the note Potter had written, explaining the situation. But fuck it. Seeing this the first time was enough to convince Potter.

“What are you doing?” Potter asks as Draco stands up and begins to unbutton his cuffs.

“I have to show you something,” Draco says. He unbuttons his shirt and lets it fall away.

And then he turns to show Potter his back. He knows it’s grotesque. The wounds from today are still fresh, still raw and bloody, and the rest of his back is scarred.

“I’ve been growing wings,” Draco says into the stunned silence that meets his reveal. He can’t bring himself to turn around. He’s afraid of what might be on Potter’s face. “I’ve been growing wings, and you’ve been helping me figure out why.”

He explains the rest. He tells Potter about the curse and how he wakes up covered in blood. He explains about the feathers and how he can’t remember any of it.

“I need to get out,” Potter says abruptly.

“What?”

“I need to get out,” he says again, and then he’s going for the door and he doesn’t stop when Draco calls after him, and then he’s gone.

Draco sighs, then he puts on his shoes and gathers his keys, steps outside, and locks up behind himself. He doesn’t need to consult his map to know where Potter’s gone.

He’s barely left the house when the first raindrops begin to fall. An Impervius keeps him dry as he walks to the park where, sure enough, he finds Potter in the gazebo. He’s sprawled across the floor of it, limbs akimbo and soaking wet. Merlin, how dramatic.

He clears his throat, and Potter sits up, shivering. Draco flicks his wand to get him warm and dry again.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, and he doesn’t sound accusatory. He sounds hurt.

“I don’t know,” Draco says, looking away. “I was scared, I guess.”

“That I’d leave?” Potter asks.

Draco’s hands are shaking. “That you’d still want to help,” he says.

* * * * *

He eventually convinces Potter to come home again, where he explains the rest. He shows him all the books they’ve collected, the research they’ve done. He explains about going to look at the other victims and then, well. Draco should have foreseen what happens next.

He wants to bring Weasley and Granger into this, and Draco panics.

“You are not telling them about this, Potter!” he snaps. Good Merlin, Potter just had the last two years of his life erased because of this mess. He can’t put anyone else in danger.

“Why the hell not?” Potter demands. “They’re my—”

“We are not getting anyone else involved,” Draco interrupts. He stares at Potter for a moment, and then turns away because this conversation is over. He feels a touch to his back and it’s hard to tell because of the Numbing Charms, but he thinks it’s over his wounds. “What are you—” he starts, turning back, and then catches sight of Potter’s hand.

“You’re bleeding,” Potter says, holding up his bloody fingers.

Well, fuck.

“It happens,” Draco says.

“It happens?” Potter echoes, and makes a grab for Draco’s elbow when he tries to get away. “Just—Stop moving! I’m getting my friends.”

“I just said—”

“I don’t give a rat’s arse what you just said,” Potter snaps at him, and Draco rolls his eyes.

Potter turns away and goes for the Floo, and it’s clear that he’s made up his mind and won’t be listening to another word out of Draco’s mouth. Which means either Draco can go along with this, or he’ll have to physically stop Potter.

As he doesn’t fancy duelling the Boy Who Lived in their Muggle living room, Draco gives up. He drops down onto the coffee table and puts his head in his hands. He’s done. He’s done arguing, he’s done fighting. And if Potter wants to drag his friends into this, then on his head be it.

And so that’s how, thirty minutes later, Draco finds himself stretched out on his stomach on the sofa, with Granger kneeling on the floor beside him, picking out broken feathers with a pair of tweezers and dropping them one by one into Draco’s favourite mixing bowl. It turns out that the wounds weren’t healing because each month, some of the feathers would break off below the skin, building up until the wounds weren’t healing at all and no potion Draco tried could help.

Draco was unable to clearly see his own back, and that’s his excuse for it. He’s got no idea what Potter’s might be. He was so smug about those Field Injury & Triage classes he’d taken but clearly they hadn’t covered everything.

Well. He still doesn’t hold out much hope that they’ll be able to help all that much, but at least the wounds on his back will heal. At least he’ll spend the next few months until the blood moon more comfortable, this way.

* * * * *

The break in the case comes a week later. Draco and Potter had agreed that it seemed likely that the final victim would be killed on the blood moon. Draco mentions as much to Weasley, who immediately remarks that it doesn’t make sense why a curse and a set of murders based on the legend of the sun crow would culminate on a lunar phenomenon.

When Draco looks into it a bit further, he realises that there’s an upcoming solar eclipse. And oh, that makes much more sense.

The only problem is it’s just three weeks away. That’s not nearly enough time to do anything about it.

Granger clasps a hand over her mouth when he and Weasley break the news. Draco can’t bear to look at Potter to see how he’s taking this.

“Then it’s a good thing we found who’s behind this whole mess,” Potter says.

And Draco looks up to find Potter looking grim and determined, and Draco can’t help it. Despite everything, a little flutter of hope stirs in his chest.

For all of a minute, Draco believes that they can save him, that this will all be okay, and then they reveal the murderer.

Her name is Lucinda Long. Her parents owned and operated a farm on the border near Wales, and during the War, Death Eaters attacked and burnt the house and greenhouses to the ground, and Lucinda’s parents right along with them.

Draco already knew all of that because he’d been there that night.

He hadn’t wanted to be, but they’d forced him. He hadn’t participated in the destruction or the murders. His father had sent him to stand guard, keeping him safely away from the worst of it, and Draco watched from a distance as the silver-masked figures cast spell after spell, sending huge gulfs of fire sweeping over the property. The flames leapt and twisted, and half a dozen Death Eaters watched it burn, backlit in a wash of orange light with their long black robes flapping in the wind.

“You haven’t done anything,” Bellatrix had scolded when they were getting ready to leave. The smell of smoke clung to her hair and clothes. “We can’t have that, Draco. Everyone must pull his weight.”

She’d grabbed his wand hand, her fingernails cutting into his skin, and wrenched him around until he was pointing his wand up at the sky. She made him cast Morsmordre over the burning ruins of the house. At the time, Draco had been grateful. He’d only made some lights in the sky. He hadn’t actually hurt anyone.

And it’s ironic that if he’d joined in on the mayhem, he’d have been safe. Fire tends to corrupt a magical signature, but the very point of Morsmordre is to linger. Draco’s magical signature would have been well-preserved for Lucinda to analyse.

The other poor Muggle victims might have been random, but Draco certainly wasn’t.

He doesn’t say that out loud. He doesn’t explain any of it, because what good will it do? It won’t help them break the curse, it won’t help them stop Lucinda. And Draco doesn’t want to see how Potter will look at him when he finds out that Draco deserves this.

And so Draco, a coward to the end, doesn’t say a word.

* * * * *

All four of them contribute to developing a working tracking spell, but it’s Granger who makes the breakthrough with it. Since they can’t put magic on Draco, they’re going to have to weave a spell over an area. This was a problem that Potter and Draco had run into before, when they were trying to come up with a way for Potter to find him. The locations he woke up in were scattered too far, and weaving a spell over all of England is impossible.

But with this many victims, they have enough data points that, using the location of the burnt farm as a constant, Granger’s able to untangle an exceedingly complex Arithmancy equation that leaves them with just three options, each one small enough to place a spell over.

Potter is optimistic, but Draco is afraid this won’t work. He’s afraid the tracking spell will fail, that Potter will be unable to find him, that Potter will be too late to save him.

(Even at his most pessimistic, Draco does not allow himself to consider that Potter might be hurt, or even killed. He won’t be. He can’t.)

So Draco does the only thing he can. He withdraws. He shies away from Potter’s touch and he hides in his bedroom each evening. He tries to put space between them now, so that when he’s gone, perhaps it won’t hurt Potter quite so much.

A part of Draco knows that it’s a shit plan. That in trying not to hurt Potter later, he’s hurting Potter now. But he doesn’t know what else to do. And as the days drag on and he draws nearer and nearer his final transformation, he’s too exhausted to care.

On the day of the eclipse, Granger and Weasley join them at the house. Draco doesn’t want them there, but Potter’s still determined that they can save Draco. The ache in his back grows steadily worse, and for a moment Draco is tempted to tell them about how Potter used to cast a Confundus Charm over him on the nights of his transformations, to spare him what pain he could. He thinks about how nice that would be, peaceful and quiet for him. An easy goodbye.

But he doesn’t deserve easy. He resists the pain as long as he’s able, and then when he’s unable to stand it any longer, he turns to Potter.

“It’s starting,” he says, just before the sharp itching in his back explodes into something unbearable.

Draco’s last thought before everything fizzles away in a wash of agony is that he should have let Potter kiss him, just that once.

* * * * *

Draco wakes up screaming.

He’s not in a forest; he doesn’t know where he is. He struggles awake, away from the unidentifiable horrors that burrowed through him in sleep. He drags himself up toward consciousness, trailing nightmares in his wake.

There’s a loud crash and people shouting, and Draco’s magic crackles beneath his skin, rasping like sandpaper, sparking like flint. It lashes out and a window shatters, lashes out again and a chair overturns, and a small, distant part of him knows that he’s safe, knows that he’s in St Mungo’s, knows that he needs to calm the fuck down. But that small part of him is drowned out by the shrieking terror, and Draco screams and screams and screams.

The sound of Potter calling out to him in a panic gives him a point to focus on, something to hold him here, to centre himself around. Two Healers are holding him firmly to the bed. Potter is holding his hand and speaking to him.

“It’s okay, Draco,” Potter says, and strokes gentle fingers through Draco’s hair. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

And slowly, slowly, the panic releases him. His heart stops pounding, his breathing slows, and he sags against the mattress, exhausted. Eventually the Healers step back, and Potter keeps talking to him, and Draco’s eyelids are so, so heavy.

He slips back into sleep.

* * * * *

That was the first time, but it wasn’t the last. And each time he woke screaming, Potter was there. He held Draco’s hand and stroked his hair and calms him down until Draco falls back asleep, Potter’s hand wrapped tightly around his.

After a week, Draco’s recovered enough that he’s able to stay awake for several hours at a time. As soon as Potter’s sure he’s lucid, he explains how they found him. And he explains about Lucinda. He tells Draco all about what happened that night. And then finally he tells Draco that he found the spell that’s causing Draco to transform.

“So we can counter it?” Draco asks, confused. Because if they found the spell, that’s good news, isn’t it? He can’t figure out why Potter looks so somber as he’s giving Draco good news. This is good, isn't it? Potter shouldn't look like he's delivering a death sentence.

Potter swallows. “No, Draco. We can't,” he says softly. “I’m sorry.”

He hands over the sheet of parchment and Draco reads. It’s meant to be a healing spell, cast on patients with severe cases of PTSD. It’s why so many of the Muggle victims were veterans, and once Potter dug into it, he found that all of the rest had a history of trauma. There’s a woman who’d been caught in a house fire and narrowly escaped with her life. One man was in a severe car accident. Two more were victims of assault.

The only way to break the curse, Draco reads, will come from within Draco himself.

“Hermione thinks it will break itself when you’re better,” Potter says like an apology.

Most people afflicted with this spell, Draco reads, end up killing themselves before they recover.

“I’m tired,” Draco says, handing the parchment back to Potter. “I’d like to go to sleep now.”

“Okay,” Potter says as Draco turns over onto his side, facing away. “I’ll be here.”

* * * * *

St Mungo’s can’t do anything more for him, so Potter takes him home.

It feels strange to return here with Potter. He’d tried to argue about it earlier this morning. Potter’s obligation to him is finished. Draco should return to his flat and try his best to deal with this, and Potter is free to return to his own house and his own life.

“Don’t be stupid, Malfoy,” Potter said when Draco had tried to tell him that. He threw Draco's clothes across the room at him. “Now put on your trousers so we can get out of here.”

Draco hadn’t pressed the point when Potter escorted him downstairs and out of St Mungo’s and bundled him into the waiting cab. Potter had run interference when Mrs Field tried to chat, and now standing in the entryway of their home feels like walking into someone else's life. The house is too quiet, the steady tick-tick-tick of the clock in the kitchen echoing oddly in the silence. The flowers in the vase have begun to drop petals all over the table. Draco ought to clean that up. Put in fresh ones.

The sharp clink of Potter dropping his keys into the bowl on the table startles Draco from his thoughts.

“Potter,” he begins, trying again to talk some sense into him.

“Go on and sit down,” Potter says, talking over him. “I’ll make you some tea. You’re probably exhausted.”

“Potter,” Draco says again. “We need to talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Potter tells him. “I said I’d be here, so I am.”

“So, what. You’re going to give up your life for me indefinitely?”

“It’s not indefinitely,” Potter says. “It’s just until you’re better.”

“And Merlin knows how long that will take,” Draco says. And Merlin knows whether it will even happen at all, he doesn’t add. “You don’t owe me that.”

“I don’t owe you anything,” Potter says very seriously. “I’m not here out of obligation, Malfoy. After everything we’ve been through, haven’t you figured that out yet?”

And then he turns and goes into the kitchen. Draco can hear him clattering about with the kettle. And he’s tired, he’s so tired and he doesn’t want to argue. Truthfully, bundling himself up in the afghan on the sofa sounds rather nice, a small and tempting comfort. So Draco does as Potter says.

The afternoon passes slowly. Potter watches a football match on the telly, and Draco dozes beside him. Potter wakes him up for dinner, and then it’s time for bed.

Tucked beneath his own sheets and blankets, with the familiar shadows of his darkened room around him, Draco has no problem falling asleep, but barely two hours later he wakes up screaming. Potter comes rushing in and calms him down, and casts Silencing Charms around Draco’s room so that the second and third times he wakes up screaming no-one will here. In the morning Mrs Field asks Potter what had happened, and the second night Potter tells Draco to sleep with him.

“What?” Draco asks blankly. He’d spent another afternoon dozing lightly on the sofa, and his brain still feels muddled.

“It makes sense,” Potter insists. He steers Draco into his room and nudges at him until he gets into Potter’s bed. “It’ll be easier if you’re already here when you wake me up. And it’s not as if we haven’t shared a bed before, yeah?”

If anything, that should be a point for why they shouldn’t do it.

But Draco’s too exhausted to keep arguing about what a terrible fucking idea this is. Because Potter’s bed is warm and it smells like him, and Potter slides in and spoons up behind him to hold him tight. And when Draco wakes up screaming from nightmares a few hours later, it takes Potter much less time to calm him down again.

This is everything he wanted, and it’s not how he wanted it at all. They're in love, and Draco spends each night in Potter's bed, and nothing can ever, ever happen. Because it’s not fair to Potter, is it? Even this isn't fair to Potter. He shouldn’t have to give up everything for Draco like this. Draco had gone to him in the hope that Potter could help him break his curse. He’s already gone above and beyond what Draco had expected of him.

And frankly, if it comes down to Draco saving himself? Well. Draco hasn’t got much faith in that happening. He knows himself. He’s not strong. The description of his curse was very clear that most of the people upon whom it had been cast hadn’t been able to break it. They continue to transform, month after month after month, until it eventually drives them mad and they kill themselves.

And Draco can’t make Potter watch that happen to him. He won’t. Potter deserves so much more than that.

Draco takes the two weeks until his next transformation to enjoy this. He makes Potter dinner and spends quiet evenings on the sofa with him. At night he wraps himself in soft blankets and falls asleep to the steady sound of Potter breathing beside him.

And then on the next transformation, Draco does the bravest thing he can do.

He leaves for good.

* * * * *

This is familiar. Draco wakes up naked in a forest, bleeding from his back. He shivers, throws up, and then he activates his Portkey.

It takes him to the flat above his shop, where he cleans himself up and changes into proper wizarding robes for the first time in months. Then he goes downstairs and tells Zelda that he's sick and needs to leave her in charge of the shop for a while. He hands her the papers he’d drawn up and explains that should he not recover from his illness, the shop is hers. Zelda very carefully reads over the entire document, her mouth firming into a thin line.

When she finishes, she looks him straight in the eye and tears the papers right in half.

“I appreciate that you trust me with your apothecary,” she says, “but this isn’t necessary. You’re going to break the curse. You’re going to be a pain in my arse for years to come.” Her eyes are shining with tears and her chin wobbles alarmingly, but she doesn’t quite cry. “But I’ll watch the shop for you in the meantime. Don’t worry about anything.”

“I’m not,” he tells her. “I know it’s in good hands.”

And then he goes home to the Manor, where he’ll stay until he breaks this curse or dies trying.

His parents are surprised to see him, and when Draco explains about the curse, that surprise turns to shock and horror. Narcissa had holds him and cries, and when she finally releases him, Lucius had sweeps him up in a desperate hug. Draco can't remember the last time his father had hugged him. As with everything else, Draco wishes it were happening for any other reason than this.

“Draco,” Lucius finally says. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

And Draco just shakes his head, because he doesn’t have an answer to that. He should have told them from the very beginning. He should have told them everything.

“Well,” says Narcissa briskly. She dabs here eyes dry with a handkerchief and squares her shoulders. “No matter. We know about it now, and we’ll figure out how to break the curse.”

She looks strong and determined, and Draco is abruptly reminded that this is the woman who dared to defy the Dark Lord for his sake. There is nothing she won’t do for him, and Draco doesn’t yet know how the curse will break, but in this moment he feels more certain than ever that it will.

“All right,” he says. “Let's get started, then.”

After all, he’s got a life to get back to.

 

 

 

 

EPILOGUE:

 

It takes six months to break the curse, and in the end, he isn’t even sure how it happened, or why. It might've been one of the endless counter-curses his mother and father tried to apply to it, or it might've been the expensive Mind Healer who's been working extensively with Draco. It might have been something else entirely, something deeper from within himself. All he knows is that one full moon, he doesn’t transform. He goes weak-kneed and giddy with relief, and rushes straight to his parents, and even as they embrace him, all Draco can think is that now he's free to return to Potter. It's been so hard to be without him. He hadn't realised how much a part of his life Potter had become until Draco had abruptly cut him out of it. So many times over the past months, he's been tempted to owl Potter. But from his understanding of the curse, this was something Draco had to do for himself. As much as he missed Potter, he couldn't let Potter become the reason for his recovery.

As much as he wants to go rushing off to Potter, he makes himself wait until the next full moon, just to be sure. And when he doesn’t transform a second time, he can't wait another moment. He takes a deep breath, and Apparates.

He's enormously reassured to find that Potter still lives in their home but even so, Draco can’t quite bring himself to go inside. He’s still got his keys, and Muggle locks aren’t enough to keep a wizard out. But he's been gone for a long time, long enough that going into the house would feel like overstepping. As eager as Draco is to see him again, Potter should have a choice about it, too. So instead Draco goes down to the park nearby. He sits down in the gazebo, the weather worn wood of the bench creaking softly as he settles his weight upon it.

Something rustles in the treetops, and Draco looks, but can’t make out anything through the darkness. He whistles, high and sharp. Feathers rustle, and a crow swoops down and lands on the railing. It looks at him, and Draco offers his hand.

“Come on,” he says. “Up you get.”

The crow hops onto his hand, tips its head to regard him with one beady black eye.

“Go find Harry,” he tells it. “Bring him back here.”

The crow launches itself from his hand, wings rustling sharply as it takes flight. Draco watches it sail off into the night, illuminated briefly in the light of a streetlamp, and then the darkness swallows it up.

Then he lets out a slow breath, and he settles back to wait.