A/N: I wrote this a while ago for a Healers and Mediwizards contest at Quills & Parchment, but I was trying to edit/rewrite Quartet at the same time, and I just couldn't get my entry done by the deadline. I've finally dragged it back out and dusted it off. (A fanfiction spring cleaning of sorts.) No sex in this one, but I hope you all enjoy it nonetheless.

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.

~Sydney J. Harris

A hospital-issue white sheet. Common. Seemingly benign.

Not the sort of thing a person associated with nightmares.

Draco stood there, gripping its starch-sharp corner in one hand, unable to move. Or breathe.

He had to be dreaming. That would explain why the atmosphere felt artificially compressed and why the silence had begun to throb with an ethereal, high-pitched hiss.

Not real.

Swallowing thickly, Draco closed his eyes and told himself to wake up—not real, not real, not real—but when he opened his eyes, the body, shrouded beneath it's macabre white sheet, stubbornly remained, appearing even more stark and stiff than it had before. Too real.

Oh gods, way too real!

He lunged for the bin attached to his supply cart and grasped its metal rim with one sweaty hand. Retching, he expected to see a repeat of his lunch, but nothing emerged except a wad of stringy mucus.

After two more dry heaves, the tension faded to a dull ache, and Draco pressed a hand to his stomach, gingerly testing for any adverse reactions. When the acidic roiling slowed to a churn, he spat the bitter coating from his tongue and wiped at his sticky mouth.

Draco breathed in deeply, and the heat flushing his face drained to clammy relief. Thank Merlin no one had seen that. Only rookies gagged, and being the most senior mediwizard in the morgue, everyone expected him to be the coolest.

And, usually, he was.

But finding Potter under that sheet had been a shock. The kind of shock that could leave a wizard confined to the Janus Thickey ward for the rest of his life.

Draco turned his head, side-eyeing the body, praying the man was just an uncanny look-alike, nothing more than a case of mistaken identity.

Except it couldn't be anyone else. Only the savior of the wizarding world would dare leave the house with his hair looking like that. And those glasses—they hadn't changed since Hogwarts. Draco would recognize them anywhere.

Fingers trembling, Malfoy reached out and pushed back the corpse's black fringe but jerked his hand away when he saw the faint remains of a jagged line. That ghost of a scar slaughtered the last of his hope.

Pressing his fist to his mouth, Draco fought to maintain his composure, but the prickling behind his eyes proved too hot to withstand. Clutching his tender stomach, he doubled over in an attempt to smother the howl before anyone heard. But he needn't have bothered. His throat had closed too tightly for any sound to emerge.

Harry Potter couldn't die, not the Boy Who Lived. Living was right there in his title. And wasn't that the rumor, that he'd survived death in the Forbidden Forest, that he'd come back to save them all?

Well where was all that resurrection now?

Malfoy curled his hand into a fist and slammed it into his thigh. He hated feeling lost, hated needing help and knowing it would never come. The worst moments of his life all shared the same pitted punch of isolation.

Stumbling over to the chair by the worktop, Draco collapsed into it, holding his head in his hands. The tension in him snapped, and the sobs that had been trapped in his throat erupted in a crackly bawl.

A stack of fresh towels had been left by the cupboard, and Draco grabbed one off the top. The cotton muffled his hysteria and helped stem the snotty tide pouring from his nose. Jesus, how he hated crying and the mess it left.

He preferred to save his emotional breakdowns for the shower, where he could pretend that the wetness in his eyes had been caused by the spray. It was a ridiculous game he played with himself, as he lived alone and had no cause for subterfuge, but feigning serenity was the only way he knew how to survive.

Now here he sat, in broad daylight, bawling in St. Mungo's cellar like a little girl. Because of Harry fucking Potter. Christ! Even in death that bastard could make him look like a fool.

For a second, Draco's crying swerved to a deranged laugh, the madness clawing for a foothold. He could just see Potter on his broom, glancing over his shoulder one last time and grinning when he realized he had Draco beat. A final win.

Gods, what Draco wouldn't give to be back on his broom, chasing after nothing more important than a Snitch.

Part of him wished he was still naïve enough to care what colors someone wore and what common room they called home. Ignorance really could be bliss. But living in the real world was a far cry from Hogwarts. His tribe no longer wore Slytherin green; they wore St. Mungo's lime. And the only colors he cared about were the color-coded forms he had to fill out in triplicate for each body.

He wished he could have told Potter that, because, more than anything, he wanted Harry to know he'd changed, that he'd come out of the war a different person.

That he'd been worth saving.

And maybe that was why he felt so adrift that he couldn't catch his breath. The person he'd most wanted to prove himself to had gone. It wasn't that he needed the praise or attention; he just wanted someone to see him for who he was, who he'd become. Potter of all people would see how much he'd changed, and he'd understand why. Because the war had changed Potter, too.

At least Draco assumed that was what had happened to him. He appeared fairly easygoing in the papers. The Chosen One gave few interviews, always brushing off the reporters with a small smile, as if he found their interest vaguely silly. He didn't get upset when the paparazzi snapped his picture outside his house or followed him to restaurants. Nothing seemed to faze him anymore. Not the papers. Not the fans. Not even his stressful job.

Over the years Draco had seen at least fifty articles about Potter going beyond the call of duty and committing acts of extreme bravery. He'd been awarded about thirty medals of valor from the Auror Department, and although Harry dutifully stood at Shaklebolt's side for the photographers, Draco could tell he found the pomp and spectacle embarrassing. He just wanted to do his job and to be left in peace.

Much like Draco.

But all the world demanded a piece of Harry Potter; they all wanted to believe they knew him, that he was their close, personal friend. The mass delusion that Potter belonged to the people justified their invasion of his privacy.

Beneath the tears, Draco's face burned with chagrin, knowing he was no better than the common mob. The memory of offering his hand to Potter on the train—and being denied—sprang into vivid detail, the embarrassment and hurt he'd felt in that moment just as fresh as the day it had happened. What hubris.

Unfortunately, maturity hadn't totally demolished his ego. The little boy in him still wanted to be included in Potter's inner circle. He wanted to be wanted. But, more specifically, he wanted to wanted by Potter.

That desire had only become more complicated as he got older. Whoever said there was a fine line between love and hate had been more right than Draco could ever admit—at least out loud.

In light of Potter's death, all those daydreams he'd had suddenly seemed wrong. Inappropriate. Depressing.

No longer cold he imagine bumping into Potter and striking up a conversation. No longer could he speculate on how he might ask him out. No longer could he pretend there was any chance, no matter how farfetched, that the man he'd been dreaming about for the past ten years might want him back.

It had all been make-believe, an imaginary world where he lived happily ever after with his boyfriend, a boyfriend who found him irresistible and funny, who loved him even when he messed up, who saw past the scar on his arm. That was a lot to ask, but Draco needed someone to counterbalance all the self-loathing and doubt he battled on a daily basis. He needed someone full of goodness to remind him what life was really about. And who else but the amazing Harry Potter had enough light to outshine the monsters of Draco's shadowy past?

Malfoy wiped his face with the towel and took a deep breath, staring at the Harry-shaped sheet in the middle of the room. Slumping to the side, he rested his head on the frigid steel worktop, a cold compress for his fevered brow.

His heart felt both too fast and too heavy in his chest. He rubbed at it with one hand, urging it to slow with the power of his mind. Perhaps if he concentrated on keeping his heart beating at a normal rate, his thoughts wouldn't stray into such morbid territory.

He just needed to think of something else. Anything else.

But telling himself not to think about Potter was like telling a starving man not to think about food. No amount of wishful thinking could deter a decade's worth of obsession.

"It's not an obsession," he whispered to himself.

And that was at least partially true. He wasn't stalking Potter or plastering his image all over the walls of his flat; he just had a fictitious romance with a wizard who probably hated him.

Really it was more sad than crazy.

He'd tried to find someone real, an actual living, breathing human being, but the only people who showed any interest in him were the sex fiends who thought all Death Eaters were sadists just looking for the right slave to abuse.

Draco snorted to himself, but the overflow from his sinuses made him choke, and he sputtered and coughed, his eyes streaming with every hack.

When he calmed down, he cleaned himself up and leaned his head back against the wall, studying the ceiling so he didn't have to look at the body.

He doubted Potter was into that sort of thing. He didn't seem the sort to dress up in leather trousers and carry a whip. Although … it did conjure some interesting mental pictures.

And it would explain why he'd been seen coming out of Hannibal's, a gay Muggle club in London that drew a fair amount of BDSM devotees. Draco had almost fallen out of his chair when he'd seen the picture pulsating at the top right corner of Witch Weekly's July '04 cover with the caption: Has Harry Potter come out of the closet? He'd torn through the magazine right there in the Healer's Lounge, desperate for an answer.

Sure enough, inside were full-size photos of Harry exiting the back door of the club, his head ducked down but still completely recognizable. He had most assuredly not been wearing any leather in that picture—but his jeans left very little to the imagination.

That was the only picture of him Draco had kept. He hid it in his sock drawer, and it made him smile every time he got dressed. Not because of the tight trousers—that was just a nice bonus—but because it was the first time in over twelve years Draco had felt the hand of good fortune tap him on the shoulder. Potter liked boys. And Draco was a boy. So even though his fantasies were long shots, they suddenly had the possibility of becoming reality, and that gave him something to hope for.

Draco went still, holding his breath. Hope. He'd never given the word much thought before, which seemed strange seeing as how hope had sustained him through the darkest times of his life.

Hope that he would fix the cabinet in his sixth year and keep his family alive.

Hope that he would survive his seventh year.

Hope that he could turn his life around and do something meaningful.

Rebuilding his reputation and finding his own way had taught him a great many things about what kind of person he wanted to be, but what really kept him going, what gave him the energy to tackle his shortcomings and overhaul his life, that was all Harry. Harry-hope.

But in the blink of an eye, all that hope, all that possibility, had been ripped away. And he felt so empty.

Never again would he leave himself open to such pain. There was too much risk when other people were involved. If he wanted to survive, he'd have to go it alone, because he couldn't take another loss like this. It would kill him.

Draco opened his eyes and immediately rose. He needed to say goodbye and let go of the past once and for all. He needed to stop lying to himself. Harry Potter didn't want him … Well, couldn't want him—not now.

It was time to move on.

Stepping up to the gurney, he cleared his throat.

"Hey, Potter. I know you can't hear me, and my timing's for shit, but I just wanted to say ... I'm really sorry. For everything—you know, when we were kids. I always thought I would get the chance to tell you, but now ..."

Draco had to stop and wipe his eyes. When he could see again, he looked Harry up and down, wanting to reach out to him, but the closest he could manage was the edge of the sheet, his frozen fingers trembling against the white cotton.

"I was a prat," he confessed in a whisper. "An evil prat. I wanted to make you pay for … I don't know … not shaking my hand, I guess. Gods, that sounds stupid when I say it out loud." Draco ran his finger over a loose thread, plying its frayed edge with his nail. "You probably don't even remember that, do you? Me offering you my hand on the train? Fucking hell, I must have replayed that scene in my head a million times. And every time I thought about it, I just got more and more furious."

Sighing, he tugged at the thread to see if it would loosen. "But truthfully? You humiliated me. And if there's one thing a Malfoy can't tolerate, it's disrespect. Or, you know, that's what I thought at the time." Smiling weakly, he shook his head. "What a crock of shit. I can't believe I wasted, like, five years of my life plotting ways to embarrass you."

The thread unraveled another inch. "Pretty pathetic, huh? You know what's really strange? The time I should have despised you and been the angriest, I wasn't." His hand went to his chest and traced the scar that lay beneath. "When you hit me with that curse, I couldn't believe it. I was too shocked to be angry. In some ways, I think it made me like you more. How fucked up is that? You weren't Dumbledore's perfect little Potter anymore. You were flawed. It made you more human to me. I could understand an enraged attack. Even if I was the target. I've still got the marks, by the way."

He rubbed at the ropey line through his robes. "Is it wrong that I don't hate you for that?" he whispered. "I thought it was hideous when it happened, and I was pissed off that you'd scarred me, but now … I look at it in the mirror … and I see you. It's like this weird connection between us. We were both forced to do things we didn't really want to do, and we both came out on the other side completely different than we went in. We both survived."

Draco's hand dropped to the gurney with a dull pfft. "Now that I think about it, we're kind of alike in other ways, too. We both took jobs that involve public service, we both despise dark wizards, we're both targeted by the press—for entirely different reasons, mind you." He broke into a grin. "And we both secretly send money to Granger's Help the House-Elves Fund. I saw you sneaking in that cheque at the last charity ball."

Wrapping the thread around his finger, Draco stretched it out straight. "And we're both bent." The stitching suddenly went, and at least five inches unwound with a plucking pop. "I've been following your escapades in the gossip rags; your dismal luck with love seems on par with my own. Dating's a nightmare, isn't it? I mean … ah ... well, I guess you don't have to worry about that now. Silver linings and all."

Several more seams pulled free, but Draco couldn't stop destroying the sheet one stitch at a time. "I thought it would be easier to tell you how I felt now that you can't reject me, but honestly, it's still nerve-wracking. I've never even admitted it out loud to myself. I guess I thought that would make it easier to live with. And maybe it did, but … regret might actually be worse than humiliation. I should have said something while you were alive. There was so much I wanted to say. You'll never know how much I wanted to thank you for pulling me out of the Fiendfyre." The tears came faster then; Draco used his free hand to push them away, unwilling to give up his hold on the thread. "I'll never get to tell you that you pretty much changed my life."

His face folded, crumpling like a ball of paper, and he lost track of his breathing. "I'll never bump into you and have some awkward conversation where I try to tell you all these things I've been wanting to say for years but I just wind up sticking my foot in my mouth and looking like an idiot. And you won't see through my act and call me back as I turn to go; you won't say, 'Do you wanna go out sometime, Draco?' And I won't get to say yes."

With a sharp snap the thread ripped, and for a second, Draco stared at it, startled by the loss. He'd needed something to focus on. A lifeline. It felt as if he'd been betrayed by that bit of useless string. Disgusted with himself, and the unreliable tensile strength of the hospital bedding, he dropped it and frisked the sheet's edge, seeking out the torn end. But unable to see through his tears, he was forced to abandon the search in favor of finding his nose-blowing towel.

After he cleaned up his face, he spent some time staring at the supply cabinet, his back to the body. He felt absolutely insane talking to a dead man, but at the same time if felt good to finally get everything off his chest. Words had power, even if no one else heard them, and he knew he'd never get the chance again. It was the best he could do.

Tucking the towel into his robe pocket, he turned around with a resolute sigh. "Sorry. This is just freaking me out a little." He walked up to the gurney and forced himself to look into Harry's eyes. Potter's face had been cut and burned in several places, as if he'd been blown up just before they brought him in. It looked awful.

And wrong.

He deserved to look like a hero.

At least that was something Draco could fix. He turned to the cart and picked up a wet cloth, folding it into precise triangles the way he always did. The familiar action calmed him, and he was grateful for the brief sense of control.

Leaning over, Draco started to blot and swipe at Harry's cheek, soaking away the soot and smudges.

Potter's injuries didn't look much better when they were clean, but Draco could seal them up once he'd made note of their severity and placement on the medical chart. Flipping down the sheet to see what he was in for during the exam, Draco almost heaved. He spun on his toe, turning away, one hand clamped over his mouth until the tidal wave in his guts quieted to a gurgle.

"Holy fuck!" Draco whispered into his palm. "What the hell did they do to you?" He staggered to the foot of the gurney and fumbled for the chart. Underneath all the scribbled procedural notes, someone had written: Auror attack—curse unknown. Partner says he dove in front of bystanders into heavy cross-fire. Multiples? Full spell damage work-up needed. Contact CR ASAP.

Having worked Curse Reversal for six months, Draco scanned the pages that followed for more clues, but he saw no further notes. Emergency always did the shoddiest paperwork. They claimed they were too busy, but those prima donnas just thought proper procedure beneath them.

Draco peered over his shoulder, better prepared for the carnage the second time.

Harry's robes lay shredded in four huge gashes, the skin beneath bloody and serrated like raw meat. But even more disturbing, the bone on Potter's right thigh had punctured the skin, and it emerged from the torn leg of his trousers like the broken prow of a skeletal ship. Further down, his foot hung at a terrifying angle, obviously fractured.

Blowing out a mouthful of air, Draco's brain riffled through his old training manual, but before he'd decided what to do, his wand appeared in his hand, and, as soon as he saw it, everything came flooding back.

It took only a minute to document the visible injuries on the grey "Morgue Use Only" form attached to the chart, and by the time he'd finished, his mind had settled into its professional groove. He had a job to do. And while he still wanted to bawl his eyes out, he felt compelled to do this last kindness for Potter.

Draco touched his wand to Harry's Auror robes and muttered a seam-splitting spell. His clothes might be needed for evidence, so Draco repeated the procedure and watched as they lost their shape and fell into pieces.

Peeling off the top half, Draco exposed the body beneath. "Bloody hell."

Dressed in only his boxers, Potter looked even more broken and sad. The wounds stood out in high relief, disturbingly stark against the chalky skin. Draco's stomach gave another little hop but, thankfully, nothing tried to escape.

He went back to the grey form, noting all injuries he saw, then set aside the chart and cast a quick diagnostic at the leg. A ghostly recreation of Harry's appendage appeared in the air above it and slowly split into layers, revealing that the break had been clean through the femur and, lower down, through the tibia; the fibula was hanging on by the skin of its teeth.

Draco healed the ankle with a quick spell; he'd mended about a thousand ankles in training, and bone work had always come to him naturally. The thigh would be easy as well, but he'd have to repair the muscle and skin afterward, which tended to be a bit more difficult postmortem.

The bone slid back into place, setting as smoothly as he'd expected, and Draco spent the next five minutes casting healing charms at the muscle and tendons until everything looked the way it should.

"There," he said to himself. "I'll just get the Skin Restorer and start wrapping you up. You should be back to your old self by the morning." He stopped short, realizing what he'd just said. "I mean, your skin—the wounds should be mostly healed."

That wasn't really better; he was still talking to himself. But he often talked to himself while working, so that didn't concern him. The morgue could be a lonely place, and a person did what he could to fill the silence. Walter, who worked nights, could often be found bopping along to the wireless, humming under his breath as he cleaned and cataloged the bodies.

Draco took comfort in the fact that he hadn't started serenading Potter with golden oldies yet.

As he covered Harry's wounds in pink salve and wrapped them in gauze, he thought about his earlier revelation and what it would mean for him in terms of daily life. Thinking about Harry had become a form of therapy, something Draco did to get his mind off his day. How did a person break a habit they'd been nurturing for so very long?

Even though he knew his fantasies weren't real, he found comfort in them as if they were. He'd read that the brain didn't really understand the difference, and Draco considered himself a prime example of someone taking advantage of "perceived reality."

What he needed was some real reality, someone who could help him forget himself for a moment. A lover. Or just a quick shag. He needed the physical touch of sex to feel human, but he didn't dare become too intimate. Not now. There could be weakness in wanting something too much.

Perhaps it was time for a holiday. He could lose himself in a string of strangers who wouldn't know who he was, fuck himself raw until he forgot all his foolish dreams of love and redemption. There would be no expectations or commitment. Just one and done—a new admirer every night. Someone to want him.

Draco looked up at Potter's placid face, and another lurch of regret gripped his insides. He didn't want to be wanted by just anyone. He'd been holding out for the one person who might understand him and what he'd been through.

"I kind of don't know what do now that you're gone," Draco said, his voice echoing oddly in the silence. "Isn't that stupid?

He paused and stared at the abrasion on Harry's side. "It's hard when you don't know who you can trust. The whole time I was growing up, I could never tell if people really wanted me or something I had. Slytherins can put on a good show when they want to, and they have all kinds of reasons for the deception." Draco smiled fondly and glanced up at Harry. "I can't tell you how weird it is working with Hufflepuffs who go around saying and doing everything with absolutely no pretense. It's actually a relief to know exactly where I stand with them—even if they hate me."

His roll of gauze ran out, so Draco crouched down and rummaged around the cart's lower shelf for more. "I guess you know all about wondering whom you can trust, don't you? Is that why you frequent so many Muggle establishments?" He popped up and gave Potter a little smirk. "You were trying to meet men who didn't know you were famous, weren't you? I can understand that. I'm thinking about going on holiday someplace where no one's ever heard of me. I need a clean slate."

Using his pinky so he wouldn't get salve on his gauze tape, Draco dabbed some blue paste over the cut lining Harry's left pectoral. "But then I'll have to explain to some stranger that I might wake up screaming in the middle of the night—and, oddly enough, that tends to turn some people off. At least around here I can just say 'war nightmares,' and everyone knows what I'm talking about."

With a smoothing swipe, he pressed the tape over the gauze and scanned Harry's torso for further injuries. Finding none, he reluctantly moved above the neck. He'd been avoiding those cuts, dreading the idea of being face to face with a death he wasn't ready to accept.

"I'll try to get your hair clean before they come to collect you," he said softly, still avoiding those eyes that had haunted his dreams for what felt like his entire life. "I don't know if you'd planned to be buried or cremated, but the people at the funeral home usually just style it for the viewing. And, not to be rude, but it looks like someone doused you in soot. I'm guessing you were chasing someone through the Floo earlier. I got it off your face, but getting it out of your hair might take me longer."

Sighing, Draco scooped out some more salve with his pinky and dotted it on Potter's cheek. "I'll spend some extra time working on your face tomorrow morning to make sure you're presentable. Anything the Skin Restorer can't fix, I'll hide with a glamour. Sometimes the Restorer has trouble healing cuts when the skin is ... not alive. It'll seal it, but it leaves a mark."

Draco's hand started to tremble, the palsy traveling up his entire arm. Gritting his teeth, he strove to ignore it, but denial had a way of breaking the man who abused it. He could talk till he was blue in the face, pretend Harry was still alive, pretend he would find something else to look forward to. But the truth always came out in the end.

Resting his hand on the gurney to stop its shaking, Draco took a deep breath and made himself face that truth.

The truth was Harry Potter wasn't a savior; he wasn't a superhero. He wasn't perfect, and he wasn't going to swoop in and save Draco from his past. He was just a man, a normal, everyday bloke with hangups and fears and hopes and dreams. And those dreams, whatever they were, had been cut short.

The tragedy wasn't that Draco had lost his imaginary friend; it was that the world had lost an honest and good person who only wanted to protect those he loved.

The truth was simple. And beautiful.

But that didn't make it any less painful.

"I'm really sorry, Harry," Draco rasped. "You didn't deserve to die like this. I mean, maybe you didn't mind dying in the line of duty, doing what you felt you had to, but, after everything you've been through, you deserved more. Something good. A family. Love. I don't know what you wanted, but it should have been yours."

A surge of rage began to build in Malfoy's core, pent up anger at a world that sometimes seemed overly cruel. "It was wrong of me to want your forgiveness; that was greedy. You've already given more than anyone should be expected to give. I wish I could thank you for everything you've done for me. But that's life, isn't it? We never see how the things we do affect people in the long run."

Harry's eyelids drifted lower, and then, in a short spasm, lifted.

Draco stared, slightly horrified by the timing of the tic. He'd had dead bodies do all kinds of spooky things—wiggle their fingers, get an erection, moan at him—but to be blinked at after confessing his deepest secrets felt like a message from beyond the grave. "For instance, you'll never know that I might never sleep again after seeing that."

The eyelids shuttered down again and fluttered back up.

Draco bolted upright, taking a step back. "Okay, stop that now! It's seriously creepy."

The tic came again, twice in a row.

Draco's hand went to his head, as if he could hold in his sanity. "It's just an involuntary muscle spasm," he whispered. "Stop scaring yourself."

Several more twitchy flutters followed and, all at once, Potter's lids snapped wide open. Draco pressed a hand to his heart, pleading with it to stop pounding, and he'd almost talked it into slowing when those green eyes slid to the side, finding his own, and Draco almost fainted.

Harry blinked. First once and then a second time. At Draco.

"Potter?" The name had no sound, just an question made of air.

Harry's body responded with a purposeful blink.

Overriding his feet's desire to run from the room, Draco pulled out his wand, his fingers so numb he almost dropped it. In a quivering voice he cast a basic heart rate charm, double-checking for signs of life.

It showed no rhythm.

Draco's blood went cold. "What the … ?"

One black eyebrow jumped, and the blinking became frantic.

Totally disoriented by fear, but unable to turn away, Draco leaned in, praying he wasn't about to get his face eaten off by an Inferious-ed Potter. "Harry, stop blinking."

The eyelids went still.

"Oh gods," Draco breathed. His head spun, too stunned to think. "Blink twice if you can understand me."

Close. Open. Close. Open.

"Shit!" Stumbling over his own feet, Malfoy ran to the supply cupboard and started tearing items off the shelves, searching behind rows of beakers and specimen jars for an object he hadn't seen in over five years—but he could swear was still in there.

His fingers closed around cold metal, and he yanked out the dusty stethoscope with a crow of triumph.

Jamming the ends into his ears, he ran back over to Harry and pressed the circular diaphragm to his chest. Draco held his breath, listening as hard as he could. A lethargic, but undeniable, beat thumped in his ears, and Draco's eyes locked with Harry's. "Bloody hell, you're alive."

In what he could only describe as a fugue state, Draco began casting diagnostic charms on Potter's body, robotically following the procedure he'd been taught while working Curse Reversals. Thoughts racing, a slew of possible curses, hexes, and jinxes fought for consideration, but he dismissed them quickly, knowing it had to be something obscure to have gotten past the healers upstairs.

Which proved to be exactly the clue he needed.

"It's the Paralyticus," he whispered to himself. "Sweet Salazar, who were you chasing!"

Draco looked into Harry's eyes and smiled. "It's all right. You're going to be fine. Someone hit you with a Paralyticus curse. It paralyzes the body and blocks any magical means of resuscitation or detecting life. It's like an Imperius that mimics death. I know how to reverse it, but it'll take some time to work. Fucking hell, you could have been buried alive! This is seriously dark magic. Who the hell did this to you? Never mind, never mind! I'll find out later."

Draco placed his wand at the top of Harry's head and traced it down his body, following the invisible circuitry of magical meridians that lay beneath the surface, concentrating on re-opening them with a steady recitation of the counter-curse. To reverse the effects, he had to keep his magic flowing steadily through Potter's inner channels, essentially holding open the pathways with sheer willpower and intention so Harry's own magic could flow again.

After twenty minutes of constant chanting and mind-numbing concentration, Draco's forehead glistened with sweat and his mouth was so dry it felt as if he'd been sucking on a cotton ball. His muscles trembled from the prolonged exertion, and when the cramp in his shoulder got so bad he couldn't lift his arm for the next pass, he knew he'd have to call for backup.

"I have to go get some help," Draco rasped, leaning against the gurney with a grunt, his arm limp. "I can't do this alone. I'll be right back."

The corners of Harry's mouth curled in tired smile, and Draco almost burst into tears.

"Oh, bloody hell! Yeah, that's great! I've never seen such a perfect fucking smile! Just sit tight, all right. I won't be a minute."

Harry's lips moved, and Draco knew his name when he saw it. Leaning down, he put his ear next to Harry's mouth so he could hear. "Yeah?"

Potter's breath was warm but ragged, his lungs still partially immobilized by the curse. "Thank you," he puffed.

"Yeah," Draco whispered back, throat tight. "You're welcome."

Something touched the side of his hand, and Draco glanced down to see Harry's fingers coming to life, reaching out for him. Malfoy turned his palm up, open and welcoming, and shifted his hand over in an upside-down handshake.

"The train. I do remember," Harry whispered.

Draco forgot how to breathe, his gaze fixed on Potter's shoulder as the edges of his vision blurred with panic. Had Potter heard everything? The room started to fade.

"But that was before." Harry's icy fingers flexed around Draco's wrist. "People change."

Draco's lower lip began to tremble, and he had clamp his teeth together to make it stop. Brushing his thumb along Potter's forearm, he answered with his own squeeze, unable to speak with his jaw locked.

"When I'm better"—Harry paused to swallow, out of breath—"maybe we could go out to dinner. Talk."

Closing his eyes against the stinging overflow, Draco nodded.

"But first, maybe you could do me a favor?"

"Yeah," Draco breathed. "Anything."

"I think my balls are currently somewhere near my liver; could you possibly turn on the heat in here?"

Draco sputtered wetly, his nose too clogged to snort. "All I've got is a bunch of sheets. But I'll cast a warming charm on them and bring you a pile of heating pads when I come back, I promise."

"Hurry."

Laughing, Draco nodded and stood up, turning quickly so Potter wouldn't see he'd been crying.

Shaking out every sheet he had, he laid the thick stack atop Harry's paralyzed body, and, tucking them around him, cast a warming charm to take off the chill. "I've just got to run up to the Curse Reversal wing. I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere."

Harry's mouth pulled into a wry, lopsided smile, and he blinked once.

Draco grinned back, the cramp in his heart finally loosening after more than a decade of constriction.

In that moment, hope gave way to reality and—oddly enough—reality turned out to be so much sweeter than hope had ever imagined.