AUTHOR'S NOTE: It's been quite a while since I've posted in this story, and for good reason: I've had a beta go over it and it's been restructured and rewritten slightly. If the last time you read this was when Chapter 6 was brand new, I'd suggest rereading - there have been some new additions quite aside from this new chapter here.

Someone was pounding on the door.

Draco's eyes popped open and he blinked, disoriented. Sunlight was streaming in the window and for a moment he forgot what had awoken him, and then the pounding began at the door again.

The bedroom was familiar - he'd been waking up in it every morning until two weeks ago - and so the bottom did not drop out of his stomach until he tried to sit up and found his arm trapped under Neville's neck.

His brain began slowly offering memories of the night before. Draco refusing to leave, somehow certain that something terrible would happen if Neville was left alone in this state. Neville not resisting as Draco hauled him up to bed, but not relinquishing his grip on Draco's wrist when Draco would have headed down to the sofa.

Draco relenting, allowing himself to be pulled down onto the mattress. The feel of the occasional tremor that shivered through Neville's back as Draco held him, feeling terribly out of place but sensing that his presence was direly needed.

The pounding on the door was more insistent now. Draco took a hasty inventory - boxers. That was it. He didn't actually remember having stripped down, which would have been worrying if Neville had not been in an undershirt and pyjama bottoms.

"Neville, open the door or I'll get Clay to open it for me!"

Draco's eyes widened as he recognised the muffled voice, and he yanked his arm out from under Neville, who didn't move. Either he was a heavy sleeper or he was pretending to be fast asleep. Draco suspected the latter, as he still didn't stir even as Draco got out of bed.

He had absolutely no intention of answering the door half naked, but for the life of him he could not find his shirt. He absently wondered if he'd got too hot and Vanished it during the night, which was a definite possibility - it wouldn't have been the first time he'd done it. His eyes landed on the dark navy T-shirt he'd commandeered several weeks ago; he snatched it up and pulled it over his head before heading down the stairs and yanking open the door.

Potter blinked at him, jaw dropping open slightly in surprise. "Malfoy?" he asked in demanding disbelief. "What the... what the actual fuck are you doing here?"

"Language, Potter," Draco said in his best infuriating drawl. It really was quite a clever retort, after all, and it would be a pity if no one else ever heard it.

It wasn't nearly as amusing when Potter drew his wand and pointed it at him in one fluid motion faster than Draco's eye could follow. "This isn't funny, Malfoy. You have ten seconds to explain what you're doing here."

"Ten seconds? How generous." He couldn't help himself. He stared challengingly at Potter and counted down mentally in his head - slightly faster than actual seconds, because who knew how wound up Potter was - before blurting, "Neville's my friend."

"Bullshit. Neville doesn't have friends, and he wouldn't be friends with you. You have ten more seconds."

God, he was annoying, the way he assumed he always spouted absolute truth. "Fine. I'm wearing his shirt. You draw your own conclusions." Draco crossed his arms and leaned against the banister of the stairs, rather enjoying the expression this wrought on Potter's face.

"You're lying." Potter's wand hand did not shake, but his voice was definitely unsteady. "Neville's wouldn't - he - he just wouldn't."

"Maybe I would."

Both Draco's and Potter's heads snapped around as Neville slowly descended the stairs, raking a hand through dishevelled hair and doing nothing to tame it. Draco had to suppress a highly inappropriate hum of appreciation - not everyone could make the "just woke up" look so appealing.

"You're Imperiused. That's the only explanation." Potter did not drop his wand, even when Neville rolled his eyes.

"Harry, look at me. Look in my eyes. You know what an Imperiused person's pupils look like." Neville stopped inches away from Harry, staring down intently. Draco swallowed and licked his lips as Potter looked up into Neville's face, wand not dropping so much as becoming less firm, the aim not as precisely focused on Draco's jugular.

"Then he's coercing you," Potter said finally, after several long moments of staring, during which Neville's face had softened an alarming amount and Draco had been sure that at any moment he was going to witness something he really didn't want to see. "He's - this is Malfoy, Neville. You remember him, right? Wait - did he get you with a love potion? That's it, isn't it?"

Neville sighed heavily. "Goddammit, Harry." He reached out and put his arm around Draco possessively. Draco tried to keep his face irritatingly smug. "Is it really that hard to believe?"

"Yes," Potter said bluntly. "Yes, it really is."

"Get over yourself, Potter," Draco said, rolling his eyes and leaning back against Neville. He was surprised to find that Neville was shaking, very slightly. "I don't need a love potion to get what I want."

Potter's wand had lowered completely, and he was switching his unbelieving gaze between Draco and Neville fast enough to make Draco's head spin on his behalf. "You can't be serious." It was impossible to tell which one of them he was addressing.

As though in response, Neville tipped Draco's chin up and met his lips in what was possibly the most unexpected kiss in the history of the world. It was warm and almost playful and, Draco realised, perfectly engineered to make any onlooker obscenely jealous. He could not help but watch Potter's reaction through a barely-open eye, which was an incredibly gratifying combination of abject disbelief and horror.

Neville pulled away, his expression indecipherable. "I'm going to take a personal holiday today," he said in the most practised offhanded tone Draco had ever heard. It was almost comical.

Potter twitched. It was nearly imperceptible, but Draco saw it plain as day: a flicker of fury, replaced quickly by incredulity and an expression that could only be described as "at a loss for words".

"Okay," Potter said faintly, after a very long time of just looking between the two of them. "I'll, uh, I'll just do paperwork today."

He backed out of the flat and shut the door behind him, the bewildered look on his face not wavering. Draco waited until he could hear Potter's footfalls on the stairs before placing both hands on Neville's chest and shoving. Hard.

"What the fuck are you on about?" he growled.

"Saving you from getting your bollocks hexed off, that's what," Neville responded hotly. "Harry shoots first and asks questions later, when he bothers asking the questions - that's what he's got me for."

"And sticking your tongue down my throat was the best way to ensure that? Are you completely oblivious to the notion of class?" Draco was not sure why he felt as though he'd been horribly offended. Actually, no, he was sure. The expression on Neville's face as he and Potter had locked eyes had flickered to desperation and hunger just before they'd broken it. Draco had a very strong feeling that had it lasted a bare second longer, it would have been him looking on in bafflement, not Potter.

And then, to blow off steam, he'd turned to Draco. In the clarity of sobriety, Draco was not sure he was willing to be used in quite that fashion.

"It was the quickest way to prove to him I was serious." Crossing his arms over his chest, Neville leaned against the wall and glared down. "And as I recall, you're the one who decided to use that particular ruse when you pointed out you were wearing my shirt. What, were you trying to make him jealous?"

"Bit hard to do that, as he doesn't remember he's in love with you," Draco spat. Instantly he regretted it, as Neville's jaw clenched.

"He's not - he never -"

"Admit it. You'd kick me out so fast my head would be spinning if you could have half an hour with him." He should really, really shut up. Right now. "But you fucked that up, so you'll settle for me."

"Like you're not doing the same." Neville's voice had gone flat, his arms uncrossing as he placed them on the banister of the stairs, leaning forward until their foreheads were nearly touching. "How many of your rent boys did you pretend were him?"

"At least I've been laid since him," Draco shot back.

"Yes, your roster is something to brag about," Neville said coldly. "A whole series of mindless fucks that aren't worth half a Sickle."

"Maybe if you tried it, you'd be able to look at your goddamn partner without wanting to fuck him against the nearest tree."

And there it was. He'd pushed too far. Draco managed to keep his glare in place as Neville's face went completely emotionless and blank, but only just. Any minute now he was going to be thrown out again, and this time it wasn't going to be as easy to get back in Neville's good graces, if Draco had ever really been in them to begin with -

"Fine then. Let's go."

Draco blinked as Neville straightened, his eyes hard. "What?"

"You think that'll fix me? Then fix me. Let's go, right now. Teach me how to not care anymore." Backwards, one step at a time, Neville began slowly ascending the stairs, his face set in a challenging glare.

"That's not what I -"

"Why not? If you're so good at it, it shouldn't be any trouble at all, should it?"

"Stop it, Neville. Just stop." Closing his eyes tightly, Draco pressed the heels of his hands against them, hard enough to see sparks.

"You were eager enough last night -"

"Last night was different -"

"Different?" Neville's voice was scathing and he'd stopping backing up the stairs. "What, you discover I'm an emotional cripple and that makes things different?"

"I said stop." It felt like a growl. Draco needed to turn around, right now, and walk out of this flat. Instead, he stayed stubbornly rooted to the spot, fingers going to rub at his temples, his stomach twisting as he it became more and more difficult to keep his temper from boiling over. "You don't actually want to anyway - you're just all worked up and want to do something stupid so you can blame me for it -"

Apparently to better scowl at Draco, Neville stepped down a few stairs. "I suppose now you're sober you've decided I don't meet the qualifications for your random pulls -"

"Too right you don't!" Draco wrenched his hands away from his face and glared up at Neville. "I actually give a damn whether I hurt you or not!"

An unreadable wash of emotions flooded Neville's face, smoothing the angry ridges of his brows and forcing his jaw to drop, just slightly. "I'm - say again?"

"Shit," Draco muttered, the words he had just spoken registering in his mind. "Never mind."

"Draco." Neville was at the bottom of the stairs now, mere feet from Draco. "What did you mean by that?"

It was very obvious that Neville was not going to give up. Draco huffed out a heavy sigh. "You don't belong on my roster of meaningless fucks," he said carefully. There. Let Neville read into that however he wanted. Draco wasn't sure he could bring himself to say it any more plainly than that.

"Because you care."

Dammit. "Just - shut it, all right?" Draco spun and stalked across the room. He didn't get far; the flat wasn't large, but any distance he could get would help right now.

"It's not just some - some game of seduction for you, then?" From the sound of his voice, Neville was still back over by the bottom of the stairs. Good. He hadn't followed.

"Neville, I am two hundred percent done talking about this," Draco said very firmly to the wall.

It was a mark of just how well he knew Neville that he could imagine the look of frustration that accompanied the other man's grunting exhalation. "Fine. Be done. Shut me out. It's not as though I'm worthy of having an opinion on this, after all."

"We need to talk about Potter," Draco said flatly.

The stunned silence was as profound as a thunderclap. "We really, really don't."

Draco turned. "You saw him, plain as day. He was furious."

"Only for a second."

"Yeah. For a second. Half a second. And then he was just confused." Comprehension was beginning to dawn on Neville's face, but Draco barrelled on. "You know him. Would he have just tamped down that kind of anger?"

Neville shook his head. "No. He'd have let you have it." He licked his lips. "You think it's the Memory Charm."

"No. I think it's something that would have been a Memory Charm if you'd had a wand and half a clue what you were doing." The subject change had been successful; Draco allowed himself to feel a moment of triumph. "Which you didn't, on either count, and now his mind is seriously fucked over. He's half-remembering things, but the magic's not letting it into his working memory, and it's going to rip his mind to shreds." He paused for a long moment, trying to decide how much to divulge. "I've seen it before. It's not pretty."

"What do you want me to do about it?" Neville demanded, slightly shrilly. "I don't even know what I did, let alone how to undo it -"

"An Obliviator would. Or a Healer." Draco studied Neville's face carefully; the other man looked decidedly ill.

"I'd lose him for sure," Neville said softly.

"You lose him either way." It was blunt and more than a little cruel, but this was not a time to mince words. "In both cases, it's your fault, but one is by accident and the other is by conscious choice." Draco shrugged, beginning to feel sick himself as he watched what his words were doing to Neville. "He'll be angry, but he'll probably forgive you. It's Potter, for fuck's sake."

Nodding faintly, Neville licked his lips before he spoke again. "How long?"

"How should I know? I'm hardly an expert." The sardonic slant to his words gave Draco pause. It was easy to be blunt and cocky; revealing that he didn't know was almost like admitting a weakness, and he had spent far too many years perfecting the illusion that if he didn't know about it, he didn't care about it. But... This was Neville. Something about the man made Draco want to be genuine. It was an unsettling feeling, and Draco let out a heavy sigh. "Maybe a few weeks? Even a few months? I don't know. He should start showing definite signs - I mean, he's not going to fall over drooling tomorrow." I don't think, he didn't add. "But I wouldn't take too long."

"He's going to be..." Neville swallowed. "Very angry."

"Better angry than insane." Too late, Draco remembered Neville's sensitivity to mentions of insanity, but the other man didn't even flinch.

There did not seem to be a graceful way to end the conversation, but it didn't appear to matter; Neville's eyes had taken on the too-familiar soft faraway cast that meant he was lost in thought, and he merely stepped to the side without a word as Draco passed him on the way to the stairs.

A quick survey of the bedroom proved that either someone had hidden Draco's clothes or he had in fact Vanished them in the night. Well, that didn't matter; Conjured clothing would at least get him out to the street where he could Apparate, assuming he could keep his concentration that long.

Neville was sitting on the sofa when Draco returned downstairs. His eyes flicked over Draco's illusory wardrobe for a moment, barely doing more than registering the fact that Draco was dressed, before returning to their out-of-focus contemplation of the empty air.

Draco cleared his throat. "I'm - I'll leave you to think about things."

Blinking, Neville looked up at him. "You're leaving?"

"Didn't I just say that?" There it was, that hard, mocking tone again. What was it about this morning that made it so easy for Draco to fall into it? "You've got a lot of thinking to do, and I'll just get in the way."

"You won't, actually, as most of it's about you." Neville rose from the sofa and took a step forwards; Draco took a corresponding step backwards without even thinking about it, his chest suddenly tight.

"Don't. Just - just don't, Neville. You've got to work out what you're going to do about Potter -"

"There's only one thing to do about that," Neville interjected gravely. "That was the easy decision, even if it's going to be - well, difficult to carry it out." He took another step forwards, but Draco was already against the banister of the stairs and couldn't retreat any further. "You, on the other hand..."

"Also an easy decision." Draco sidestepped and let his hand fall on the handle of the door. "I won't let myself be the person you settle for because you can't have Potter."

Eyes wide and with the colour draining from his face, Neville looked as though he had just been punched in the stomach. "I don't - that's not -"

"I've been your Potter substitute ever since you picked me up in that alley. He's constantly on your mind. I can't compete with that, and I'm not even going to try, not when the prize is to know that you'd rather have him - that there's even a competition in the first place. That I'm fighting with a person who isn't even there." Even though his hand was on the door, Draco couldn't make himself turn the handle.

"You're jealous." The accusation sounded incredulous.

"No. I'm realistic. You don't want to be some game of seduction for me? You're not. You never were." Neville's eyes flicked down to Draco's chest and Draco had the feeling that he'd lost his concentration and let his Conjured clothing fall back away into the nothingness from whence they had come. "But I'm sure as hell not going to be some stand-in because you can't have what you really want. Even a random meaningless fuck is more honest than that."

"You are unbelievably thick." Neville almost sounded amused.

Thrown off by the non sequitur, Draco blinked. "What?"

"Harry and I - he was getting married. I'd already given up on him. I was never going to have him. I was fully prepared to spend the rest of my life alone and then I come home one day and the man I've been playing nursemaid for is wearing my shirt." Neville's eyes purposefully wandered down to the shirt Draco was wearing again before popping back up to Draco's face. "I've tried being attracted to other people. Men and women. But that evening, you were the first person aside from Harry that I wanted." Somehow he had moved very close to Draco, close enough that Draco had to look up to meet his eyes. "You're not a substitute. You're not a replacement. You're the next step - a beginning of something new."

Draco's vocabulary was not cooperating with him. "You must really like this shirt."

"I like it on you."

"Um." Suddenly very aware that he was in boxers and a T-shirt and Neville was in a similar, if less revealing, state of undress, Draco swallowed. He felt feverish, and only part of it could be blamed on the obvious physiological reaction to Neville standing so close. "I don't know what you want from me," he blurted finally, and it sounded pathetic. "I mean, aside from sex. Because it sounds like you want a lot more than just that. And I don't have a lot more than that. I'm kind of married, remember? And I have a kid on the way. And even though Tori and I have reached a bit of an - unorthodox agreement, I can't be -"

"For now, I'll settle for being on your short list of meaningful shags," Neville interrupted. "And you can be on my short list."

"Do you even have a list?" Draco asked with reflexive sarcasm.

"Yes. Once I add you, it'll have two entries. That's enough to call it a list, right?" His crooked grin seemed almost shy. "Oh. And one more thing."

"And what's that?"

The crooked grin changed slightly, became more confident as Neville leaned down until their lips were almost touching. "I hope that you'll still be just as difficult to get rid of. I've got used to having company in the evenings. This last week has been just a little bit terrible."

"We'll see about that. I might be a horrible disappointment to you. You might not even want me ar-" Draco was cut off as Neville closed the distance between their mouths in a long, languorous kiss that pressed Draco against the door and left them both slightly breathless.

Heart racing and skin tingling, Draco almost didn't hear Neville's next words. "I'm going to assume that the bottoming issue is non-negotiable."

Emboldened and light-headed, Draco grinned mischievously. "For now. But my mouth's good for more than just showcasing my sparkling wit."

Neville looked surprised, pleased, and shocked at the same time. He licked his lips. "Care to show me?"

Draco felt his stomach give a little tumble in anticipation as, in answer, he pulled Neville down to sit atop him on the stairs.