Title: Unseen Threads

Author: mintapotter

A/N: Well, that's all folks.This isthe end, and thank you to everybody for reviewing.

Enjoy.

Chapter 28 - Life and Love

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Moments like this one come along very, very sparsely in life.

I am so scared right now, so very terrified of what I'll find once I enter St. Mungo's that I'm not sure if this fear is worth facing.

I'm terrified of Draco still being sick, and having killed Voldemort for nothing.

Well, not nothing, but not the reason I was in such a haste to do it.

And I'm terrified that he will look at me as a murderer if he is still alive; that he'll stray away from my touch and won't be able to look me in the eye anymore because he'll only ever think of my hands as those which strangled the life from another person. I'm afraid that he'll look at me differently now.

But on top of all those fears are those that Draco's spirit isn't there anymore. That it didn't make it back to his body. I'm afraid that I'll kiss him one last time and it will be cold and dry and unmoving.

I'm afraid that the rest of my life will be spent alone, one huge 'what if' of what would have happened if Draco had lived.

And my mind is whirring even though my body is shutting down. I'm too scared to get to his room, so instead of taking the elevator, I take the stairs. And I'm shaking; my hands are dripping Voldemort's metaphorical blood everywhere, spreading it on the stairs behind me, my robes, and my skin.

Maybe Draco can see it? Maybe he can see it too and he'll never let me touch him again and he'll hate me for killing and he'll take one look at me a scream in disgust-

And then I think that Draco's screaming right now maybe, dying with no-one­ there. Nobody to even soothe his fears or hold his hand.

My throat hurts because it wants to sob with worry and I'm running, shaking and running with all the adrenaline my body can produce. I'm running two steps at a time, leaping the stairs and barely counting the floors until I've reached his floor and his room is only a few hundred feet away.

The hallway is empty. Silent as death itself, clean and clinical as anything.

It's because everyone's families here have left. The other patients are all dead and gone, and their families left with them. I'm the only one here.

Because there's one more patient still here…right?

A Healer turns a corner and stops dead, watching me with an astonished look of awe on her face.

"Are…are the rumors true?" she whispers, dropping a stack of parchment and quills and charts on the floor in her haste to reach me.

"Is it true, what happened in the Ministry? Are the rumors true?"

I shake my head in denial of anything and keep my eyes locked on the doors as they flash past me, because I'm running past her and her screamed questions.

I'm counting the doors down to 1.

17…15…13…

"There's no one down there! Where are you running?" the Healer yells at my back, but I'm not listening to a word coming from her mouth. She doesn't know this floor; she doesn't know that of course there is one patient left.

9…7…5

My lungs feel like they're burning themselves, I've been running so long and so hard. My legs are shuddering and my arms are trembling but I won't stop running until I've reached my goal.

3…1.

The moment of truth.

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Pain has become less of an occurrence in my life, and more of a feature.

I wake up, my eyes burn from the light that comes through my lids. I try and move and muscles bruise nearly by themselves. A door opens and closes because someone is visiting someone else down the hall and I hear it.

At least, people used to visit.

Now, I'm starting to think that I'm the only one left on this floor. It would only make sense that I was the first to be brought in with this terrible, horrible disease Voldemort created and then be the last to leave.

It would be only fitting, I believe.

But since the last time Harry was here…I know I'll be last of the infected to die, but I don't know if I'll live long enough to see him again or not.

It's a toss up every day; live or die. Linger or perish. Pain or sweet, sweet release.

And I woke up, not long ago, as though I had had the most peaceful sleep in my life. As though I had slept for weeks or months without tossing or turning. It might only have been minutes ago, perhaps hours. It's hard to tell in here.

And a Healer was at my bedside, checking the gold watch at his wrist and jotting down the time, not caring for the world that every rustle of his clothes was making scratching noises I could have heard down the hall. Seeing as how I long ago lost the ability to speak, I simply stared at him until he looked up from his paper and noticed me.

And man, did I make him jump. He looked fit to scream like a little girl, but luckily caught himself at the last moment. How fitting that would have been, to have been killed by a high pitched scream.

His shock wore off quickly enough, and he stayed only long enough to mouth the words 'Hang on' and smile.

After he left, I pieced together the scenario slowly in my mind, and realized quite dimly that I might have died there. If only for a minute, I was really gone. Out of body. I was a silent, cold, unmoving corpse there for a second.

But it felt so calm.

And that's the thought I keep coming back to. What if I 'hang on' here long enough to set some kind of record, what if I just live on like I am now…and it's all for nothing?

What if Harry's dead and no-one gives enough of a shit about me to tell me? What if they're alldead, from whatever plan they ran off to complete? I could just linger on, waiting for him like some kind of damsel in distress and never give up hope in seeing him come back…and it could all be for nothing.

Maybe the calm's worth the chance.

However…the pain's not so bad now. Perhaps that is simply the last stage of life; the absence of pain. Maybe my brain is so addled by everything that it can't process torture anymore.

But no…this isn't the lack of pain that I feel, it normalcy again. I can open my eyes and they don't just not burn and ache, they process what's around me for once. And my hands with holes in them that never stop bleeding, well they still hurt. But they're not cold! I can feel the tips again and-

I'm far too excited over this. So the agony is lessening; the permanent damage is still done. There are still cuts and bruises and sores and so much fucking damage that even if I really wanted to jump out of this goddamn bed and jump for joy, I'd probably break something.

So I wait.

And I'll wait for an explanation of all this.

Maybe I'm better because Voldemort's dead…

Maybe it's all an illusion.

So in the end…all I can do is wait. All I need is one solid piece of evidence that this is all, one day, going to look like a bad dream.

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Stepping into Draco's room and hearing the familiar whir sound of the purifying space around me feels like hours in time. It keeps all the dust from aggravating him, it keeps me sanitized enough that bacteria on me won't kill him in minutes. The spells are a precaution, and a comfort. But the damn thing seems to be taking so long, and now that I'm here I just can't wait and what if I'm too late because I'm standing here and-

The spells stop. I can walk right on through the door before me, but instead I run to Draco's bedside and with all the strength in my whole body I don't grab him. I don't kiss him. I don't caress his cheek or lay beside him.

I watch him instead, the only condolence I'm allowed.

And he's lying still as death and the same washed out white colour as his sheets. But …he's breathing! And his eyes, with great trepidation open slowly to look at me, and then in a panic they close again.

NO. Please no, don't let him be able to see the blood too! Don't let him know me as a murderer instead of a lover, please, if anything today goes right just don't let him look at me with revulsion…

His words are low and very, very soft, but they manage to break through my brain's relentless tirade.

"You're not real, are you? This isn't real, I'm dead, aren't I?"

I thought that words would come easy once I was in here, once I could see him alive and well again, but they clog and get blocked up in my throat. I can only sigh in relief, and try and push sounds past the growing lump in my throat.

"No, I'm here. I'm real Draco, I swear to you. I'm…back."

He shakes his head, his delicate face scrunching against my voice. "It can't be real. I'm dreaming or I'm dead, it can't be real, I won't be fooled…"

"Draco please! It's me, Harry! I'm here." I want to scream but that would cause him more pain than my life is worth so I pour all the emotion I can into my pleading whispers instead. Tears leak through his pale eyelashes even though his eyes are still resolutely closed, and that's when it hits me.

He's talking without a rasp. His hands are clenched closed, but they're not bleeding. His cheeks aren't quite so ghastly pale as I had thought; they even managed a tinge of pink.

He's not just alive, he's well. He's better…

"It can't be…" he murmurs, tears streaming down his face and he just won't open his eyes!

My words won't get through to him; even he thinks that this is too good to be true. Actions always speak louder than words; that's what they say. I take up on the advice.

"I'll prove it to you, then." I say the words loud and clear and his eyes open at the sound, but they close again because I've shut him up with a kiss.

And god, a kiss was all we needed.

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I'm crying so stupidly now that I'll probably regret it if I live to remember this moment.

I can't believe that the pain that seemed so everlasting and constant, is gone. I can't believe that Harry's back and whole and in one piece, and standing right there next to me. I can't believe that he's alive, that he came back, that I'm better all at the same time.

Some things are just too good to be true, and this is one of those moments.

"It can't be…" I murmur, I want it to be. I want this to be real. I want to have Harry back, I want to be better again. I want this so bad that it can't be real.

"I'll prove it to you, then."

I have to open my eyes to chance a look at Harry then, because this is first sound above a whisper I've heard in so long. And it's his voice, loud and strong and clear, even though I can tell that he's close to crying too.

And then he kisses me and my eyes flutter shut of their own accord, because this is real. This isn't something I could dream, this isn't something that my mind could make up.

And I've needed this and so much more, for so, so long.

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Kissing Draco seems better than even I can remember. And my hands don't care about rules or sickness or anything, and they caress his face just the way I've wanted to do. Our lips won't break apart so I crawl up on the bed beside him and let my hands touch the cool skin of his cheeks, his neck, his shoulders.

I can scarcely breathe by the time we break apart, my hands draped behind his neck and his holding my head close still. Our foreheads touch and or noses are millimeters away and when I open my eyes to look into his they nearly cross because we're so close.

"He's gone, isn't he." Draco says this without a questioning tone in his voice. It's a statement. He doesn't have to tell me that the he in question is Voldemort either.

"Yes." I answer quietly, neither of us moving away from each other.

"And you're still here, and so am I." he adds this again, and I simply answer 'yes' again, both our voices getting stronger as the seconds tick by.

"And before anyone can interrupt, or anything else goes wrong I want to be with you."

I can barely breathe out 'yes' that time, because Draco has the knack for saying something unexpected. He has a talent for knocking the breath right on out of me.

We don't share words but simply unfold our legs from his bed and begin to walk out of his room, the silent, quiet, secluded place that it is. We can't stop holding each other, even if we were just holding hands, because I think that a little bit in both our minds thinks that this is all somehow a dream.

When we got to the stairs I realized that even if Draco is better, that the curse had been lifted along with Voldemort's death, he was still not perfectly healthy. The long trek downstairs would tire him more than I could bear to watch, so I swept him right off his feet and began to carry him down the flights as carefully as I could. He doesn't have to thank me, his warm breath on my neck is thanks enough.

This is bliss. This is happiness and love and everything I've ever wanted, and one of the darkest days of my life is slowly turning around to be one of the most beautiful.

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Harry, ever the gentleman, carried me down however many flights of stairs without a word passed between us. Like the time he left me all those white roses in my room, I didn't have to ask for him to treat me like I was something special. He always did it because he wanted to, and that made me love him for just what he was. Harry.

The pull of apparation was only a little startling after we had left the confining walls of St. Mungo's, but our destination was clear.

Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

Where so much had occurred between us, it was where we were meant to be. I hadn't wanted to stay a moment longer in my hospital room because it only represented death and suffering. It was a place I never wanted to return to, not for as long as I lived.

And now, here we were. Harry let me stand on my own two feet and held my hand as we ascended the stairs to the house, together. We were silent all the way from the front door to his bedroom, which in and of itself is nothing spectacular. Its room with a bed and sidetable, like any other. It's a room which was always just four walls to Harry.

And now it'll be ours. When the Order no longer has a function and everyone else has moved out, this will always be our room.

And this is our time together, time we will not waste thinking about others.

We stand shoulder to shoulder in the doorway, and Harry still won't let go of my hand when he moves to shut the door. He turns to face me and lowers his eyes until I can't hide my gaze anywhere else.

"Are you sure Draco? Are you sure that you're not still too hurt or-"

"Harry, I've wanted this for so long you could not believe me. I've been treated like a china doll for much too long, and I haven't been touched by another person since I fell ill. I want this. I want you, from now until the day that we die. And if we die tomorrow, I want to have done this, even if it was just once. Please. Trust me."

Harry can tell that I'm not lying to please him, that this is something that I want as much as he does. We don't have to be awkward with each other because we're closer than any two other people on the whole planet, if just for this moment. He kisses me again and we move as one to the bed, not caring about the outside world in turmoil and panic.

Harry knows me better than I know myself now. He knows that I don't just want him; I need him.

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Making love isn't something that I could have imagined. Sure, I had thought that it would be fantastic, but not like this. Nothing like this. Imagination can't even compare to the real thing

Like how when we take off each others clothes it isn't something that embarrasses us; it's something liberating. Like how I can't hear anything but Draco's voice and his soft, deep breathing. Like how our bodies have to have been made for each other because we fit together so perfectly.

And Draco beneath me is the single most sensual, sexy, beautiful thing in the whole wide world. I can feel his heart beating through the bone of his ribs and the thin layer of his skin and mine which are the only things that are separating us. I can feel his breath go from soft to hard and warm to hot on my neck as he pants my name and sounds that sometimes aren't even words. His hands find strength when they scramble and scratch a little at my back, or pull my head forward into a kiss.

His voice lowers and sounds husky when he tells me yes or no, faster or slower and my body obeys his every command. I want to do anything he tells me to. I'd die now, if he asked me to. I'll do anything to please him, forever.

And it's more than just using his body to get off with. It's so much more than just a fuck, or something forgettable. I want to pleasure him the same way he wants to pleasure me, and that's love. Unconditional love.

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Harry is careful, so, so, so careful with me. He treats me with an ultimate sort of reverence, and seems to revere every inch of my skin. His kisses a trail from my neck downwards, carefully undoing buttons and touching everything he can get his hands on. He's careful with me.

And once Harry's actually inside me, I can't help but to thank him for his patience, because he doesn't let me hurt. It's something new and breathtaking and it shatters all my expectations, but he won't let me hurt. He stops almost the moment before I ask him to because he can read my feelings almost through my skin. We heat up and the pink flush on his cheeks turns a bright crimson red as time passes. His hair and mine is damp with sweat, some of the black hair from his fringe sticking to his forehead and to the back of his neck. I notice only vaguely that his scar is faded but still there, as it probably always will be.

Harry bites his bottom lip until I think it'll bleed and turns his face away from mine, into my shoulder when he comes. He can't help but break down a little bit, and he bites my shoulder only lightly, not even hard enough to leave a mark. Harry has the self restraint of a saint when it comes to keeping me from harm. His breathing is so ragged that I think he's sobbing, but slowly he calms down and looks up at me with that same reverence in his eyes, but says nothing.

He keeps on staring at me long after he's pulled out of my body, and still long after his hand starts to stroke my own erection and leads me to my own orgasm. This isn't jacking off. This isn't a hand job, a one off.

This is special.

I come only some moments after Harry does, but it doesn't have to be at the same time to make it perfect. For all he did not to hurt me, I'm pleasantly sore and wouldn't do a thing to change it. I didn't even realize that I had closed my eyes because when I open them, Harry's emerald ones are staring directly into my face with a tender smile on his face.

"You're gorgeous Draco. I love you."

I relax my shoulders and lay back into the pillows propped behind my head, Harry lying beside me, stuck skin to skin because of our sweat and mess. We don't care. Never will. The single sheet draped over us doesn't keep out the chill of the air on our cooling skin, but we're happy as we are. Together.

"Thank you Harry. For coming back. I need you…I love you too."

Harry's grip around me tightens for a moment, and then relaxes. The look on his face tells me that he has something to say, something important.

"I've got a world of things to tell you Draco. And once we leave here, the whole Wizarding world will need my story too."

I nod and he closes his eyes, losing the need to jump up and save the world from panic once again. "Just stay here a minute, and tell me what you must when you want to. We'll leave together and explain together, when you're ready. Rest Harry. It's well deserved."

I can feel the tension building in him again, and then it bursts like a dam.

"I killed Voldemort Draco. With my own hands, I killed him."

"I know." I whisper, breathing deeply. "Not all the details, but I know. It's hard Harry, it must be hard for you, but you're not what you think you are. You're not a cold blooded killer."

Harry breathes more raggedly because I think that he's going to cry, but I lay a hand on his back and rub small circles to calm him again. The tension in him dissipates again, slowly.

"You did it because you had to, not because you wanted to. You're not like him Harry, you never will be. You're not a murderer in my eyes. I still love you, and I'll fight with you against anything in this world that means to do you harm now."

"Thank you Draco. I need you and I'll never leave you. I swear that I'll love you and never harm you. I swear."

"I know Harry. I know. And you'll always know that I love you too."

And so we lay in silence and understanding. We love each other, and the whole world couldn't pull us apart. Our families couldn't, our friends couldn't, Voldemort couldn't and neither could the uproar of the public.

We love each other.

And nothing and nobody could pull us apart.

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A/N: Well, the final chapter took me forever to write, but I'm happy with the results. I'm sorry to see this story end, but thanks for all the reviewers who stuck with it up till now:

MimiTaylor, Dhowler, Tsukiakari-hoshi, ravendreamer04, Tosha, Alison, Mystiqal Neko, iamanevilgenius, Julia, brionyjae, Crysania Fay, YamiYama, txcalbud & Raping Time! This was a joy to write because so many people read and reviewed it. Thanks to everyone!

Love,

mintapotter