Notes: Here is the optional, somewhat fluffier ending for this story. Let me tell you, they were NOT ok with my original ending. Harry was very unhappy that I didn't let him go after Draco, and Draco just sat around sulking until I finally wrote this up. As a warning, though it ought to be obvious, it gets really very sappy at the end. So, um. This is your last chance to turn back.

Also--all the cursing? I blame tigersilver, who forced me to stop being a wuss when she betaed one of my other fics, and changed "fooling around" to the much less awkward "fucking around".

Chances Past - Optional Ending

Someone is banging at his door.

Someone. Is banging. At his door. Loudly.

Draco casts a Tempus—it's five in the morning—and rolls out of bed to hex his visitor into a crippled toad covered in oozing boils. He is not in a good mood, he does not wish to be awake, he does not like being conscious enough to think, and he has no desire to speak to anyone for the next week or so. He figures he'll recover after about a week, on a healthy diet of alcohol, sex friends, and making other people cry.

When he finally reaches the door and opens it, his first thought is that he really should have known, but then, he'd assumed Harry would just go back to his girlfriend like the good little Gryffindor he was. Obviously, he's underestimated just how Gryffindor Harry can be. He figures the git probably wants to apologize, and say that he never wanted it to be like this, and all that rot.

"I don't want to hear it, Potter," Draco snaps.

Harry's eyes widen. "…What?"

"I don't want to hear it."

And then they narrow. "What exactly don't you want to hear?" he demands, voice soft with danger. Draco ignores the warning and sighs.

"Whatever half-true clichés you're here to throw at me, Potter. 'I'm sorry it had to end like this.' 'It just wouldn't have worked out.' You know, the things people say when they break up with people they never cared all that much for anyway." Surprise flickers momentarily through Harry's eyes before it fades from the still-narrowed gaze.

"Is that what you think I'm here to do?"

"Well, obviously, Potter, when you're about to get back together with your Weasley girlfriend. Should I expect something else?" There is a painfully long moment, as Draco waits for the inevitable. Suddenly, like the sun rising, a benevolent, shy smile creeps over Harry's face.

"I didn't know you'd—I mean, you weren't supposed—I was going to tell you. In the morning." He scratches his head in embarrassment. "I mean, I guess it's morning, so I might as well tell you."

"What are you on about?" Draco demands waspishly. Harry takes a deep, long breath and looks away.

"Ginny wanted to meet me today, to—well, to talk about things. We'd sort of split, you know, when she left to travel with the Harpies. And, well, everyone was saying how great it would be if we got together again, so I got to thinking. I know you said that-that you and I weren't serious or anything, but I just…I just—"

There's a pause, as he struggles a little for words.

"I didn't want to leave," Harry says finally. "I was going to tell you in the morning."

At this, Draco's head snaps up and he meets Harry's eyes. "I thought…"

"Last night, I almost felt like you might have realized, but then I woke up and you were gone and there was that note—"

"I thought you wanted to go back to her."

"Why?" Harry asks, moving forward, "Why?" And he grabs Draco in nearly-suffocating hold, still afraid Draco will vanish again.

"She's normal," Draco protests, but his arms are creeping around Harry's body. "She loves you."

"And you don't?" asks Harry with a whispery smile.

"We don't have that kind of a relationship." Draco stubbornly repeats what's familiar, what he knows he can trust. He doesn't want to accept what Harry's saying, because he's tired of wishing for things he isn't supposed to want. "You were supposed to marry the Weasley girl and leave me alone."

"Then what gave you the right to tell me what to do?" Harry demands, a trace of anger still not quite vanished. "You wrote that stupid note, saying not to talk to you anymore, and made out like you were looking out for me—"

"What? That's not what I meant to—"

"You sounded like you were going to languish away miserably while I pranced off and magically un-ponced myself so I could marry someone else. How could I not come after you, you bloody fucking wanker, even at bloody five o'clock in the bloody morning?"

And Draco wants to argue, he really does, but it's always been hard for him to do it with Harry's tongue in his mouth. He's knows this is ridiculous, because this is a relationship that will never work, really, and they're snogging on the bloody stairs at fuck o'clock in the morning, and Draco feels like he's never going to stop smiling ever again.

When they finally break apart, Harry begins pushing into Draco's flat. "I assume I can stay here, then," the prat says with a brilliant smile, shoving Draco towards the bedroom.

"Only if you promise to stay here forever," Draco replies, in a petulant tone that hasn't seen use since before the war.

"Am I allowed to go to work?" Harry asks, unfazed, already peeling at their clothes. A sloppy grin starts to slip through Draco's smirk, and he gives up trying to hold it back.

"I'll think about it."