A/N: This is for Caroline, because she is stupid enough to put up with my whining every day, for Emma because I think she was the one who told me to finish this, to gbheart because she is, as always, an amazing beta and to all of the Glued-readers for waiting for the next chapter, but getting this instead – I'm sorry, but I'm working on chapter 16, I promise.

Disclaimer: No, I don't own either of them, however, if you happen to know someone who can steal them for me, send me a PM.

Warnings: Sex. A little bit of angst. And a Flowerpot.

Can you count the stars where you are?

Is it dark, where you are?

Can you count the stars where you are?

Do you feel like you are a

thousand miles from home?

Are you lost, where you are?

Can you find your way when you're so far?

Do you fear, where you are?

A thousand nights alone

-The longest night – Howie Day

It was dark, and the remains of the bridge felt cool to his skin, even through his thin pair of cotton trousers. Even though it was one of those summers the news labelled with headlines like HEAT WAVE and WARMTH RECORD every other day. Even though his heart was beating like he had just finished a marathon.

The breeze was too warm to be cooling, and the water beneath his dangling feet was too still for this time of night. It was a little past midnight, and he stared out over the unofficial graveyard of hundreds of lives.

He wasn't sure why he came here – why this was the spot he had chosen as his own. Why he spent every night here remembering every second of it. Not the bridge collapsing, per se, but the incidents that had followed.

Two years ago, Draco never thought he would ever find himself in Muggle London, on that same bridge that had been destroyed beyond repair and had taken so many lives of people that had no idea that they were all targets in a war. People he never knew. Never cared about.

The low crunching noise from feet on the smashed remains of the stone blocks reminded him of the reality, that there were others suffering from the same reasons he was. The same post-war depression. He knew whose feet they were, who that tousled black hair belonged to, and he knew how many steps, how many breaths it would take before he could see the loose-fitted shirt and trashed jeans out of the corner of his eye if he just turned his head slightly to his left.

Harry Potter sat down on the damaged stone bridge remains, close enough to make Draco certain that he had seen him too, but too far away to say something that would be audible over the crushing distance of silence between them.

He had been there for every night the last month, arriving some time after Draco had been staring out over the water long enough to make his eyes hurt. He always forgot to blink. They had never spoken a word. Draco was sure that they were both painfully aware of the other person but pretended otherwise.

Draco knew Potter was suffering badly. It was all over the newspapers. Not in words, not in a confession, but every picture of that haunted face told him so. Told him there was someone else with insomnia, with nightmares, with tremendous amounts of guilt buried somewhere inside.

He looked down on his dangling feet, because he couldn't bear to stare directly down into the water surface below. He was afraid that he would see their eyes staring back at him, blaming him for what happened, hating him for choosing the side of their killers. He knew it was stupid and not rational, but it didn't help. It wasn't like he hadn't been anything but stupid and irrational for years. And there he sat for hours, hearing Potter leave, feeling the first rays of sunlight dance across his closed eyelids, until he knew he had to leave because if he didn't leave, he couldn't come back.

His apartment was naked-grey, sparsely furnished in white, because that's the way he liked it. Clean, without personality. He had always thought people in depression dressed and decorated in black, or perhaps dark brown or navy blue, but instead he had found himself doing the contrary. His apartment reminded him more of a hospital than a home.

Today's Prophet was laying half-read on his spindly kitchen table, left there with a picture of Potter staring back at him. He remembered the pictures shortly after the war when every headline was about their great hero, followed by a picture of Potter's best brave smile. There was no smile now. He seemed blank. Empty somehow.

Draco traced the outlines of the face with his fingertip for a short second, as he held the teacup in his other hand, wondering what Potter did now – if he was like Draco, keeping a brave face, pretending as if he had adapted perfectly to the post-war world. No one blamed him anymore. He was forgiven for his mistakes, for the deaths he had caused years ago. He had a job, spent his days figuring out better ways to keep their existence from Muggles, Obliviated some if he had to, laughed in the right places, smiled politely, greeted with steady handshakes. Then he stared into a grey wall from the moment he sat his foot inside the door to his apartment, until the second he couldn't stand it anymore and went to spend the rest of the night sitting in the ruins of genocide.

His heart beat rapidly behind his ribs, creating music with his shallow breathing, his lip-chewing, and with his panic pushing through his veins like a drum beat. Potter was already there. Too early. And he was sitting in Draco's spot. Draco's own broken stone block. It felt like he stood there staring while oceans of time passed between them. He knew Potter was aware that Draco was standing there, staring at his careless back, at his washed-out, once-blue t-shirt.

He tried to understand what Potter wanted from him and an endless row of scenarios rushed through his head, but none made any sense. For a short heartbeat, he considered leaving – fleeing – but, before his mind could decide, his body had already started moving towards Potter.

Seconds later, Draco found himself sitting next to that overused t-shirt and worn out jeans, trying not to pay too much attention to what was in them. As his eyes glanced sideways without permission, he found that Potter's face seemed tired in the dim light. He looked as if his shoulders had been carrying too much weight the last century. He seemed lost. Broken.

"You took my seat, Potter," Draco heard himself say.

"Yes," Potter admitted tonelessly without looking at him. Without even nodding.

"Why?"

"I wondered if it all looked different from here. If that's why you come here every night. If this angle makes you see anything beautiful with this place."

"Does it?"

"No. It's all the same."

Draco wasn't sure if he should break the solid silence that sank down like a brick wall between them, but he felt like he had been breaking a treaty already, so his mouth stayed shut. The chest-deep sounds of Potter's even breaths filled the stillness between them, chasing away the guilt in Draco's stomach. As the warmth from the body next to him reached his own, Draco felt his heartbeats adapt to the rhythm of Potter's breathing. Like their bodies lived in unison for a while.

He searched for the hostility that he had spent years building up for Potter alone, but it wasn't there anymore. And it didn't even bother him.

"Don't you ever sleep?" Potter's voice rasped a little as the words tumbled over his lips. It seemed as if he was as surprised as Draco of the sudden sound in their silence.

"Occasionally," Draco admitted and stole a glance sideways, catching Potter's broken profile.

"Nightmares?" Potter asked knowingly.

"Whenever I manage to actually fall asleep, yes." He was wondering when his brain was going to realise that he was sitting there, speaking about things he never spoke to anyone about, with Potter.

"The insomnia is the worst part," Potter muttered and nodded as if he knew exactly what Draco was talking about.

"I don't know. I've sort of accustomed to drinking barrels of coffee to function properly." Draco shrugged. He feared the nightmares more than he disliked his disability to sleep.

"Barrels, huh?" Potter quirked a questioning eyebrow towards him, without completely meeting his gaze.

"It might have been a slight exaggeration."

Draco thought he saw the corners of Potter's mouth turn slightly upwards, and he felt a little smile tug on his own lips in response.

"I always took you for an exaggerator," Potter said and turned to look over the water again.

"You always took me for any dispraising adjective, Potter," Draco answered with a shrug.

To his surprise, he heard the other man laugh softly. A very short laugh, but it sounded so unfamiliar to Draco's ears. He'd heard Potter laugh before, of course, but in the same demeaning way Draco always laughed at him. It sounded as if they were sharing a private joke now. Thinking about it, they probably were.

"True," Potter admitted quietly. "Old habits die hard."

"Indeed." Draco agreed with an absentminded nod as his gaze wandered over the soft, mirror-like surface beneath them. He could see blurry reflection of the sole of their shoes, when he looked more closely, and could make out the lighter jeans fabric in Potter's trousers if he tried hard enough.

"Are you afraid?" There was a softness to that voice that he didn't recognize.

"Of what?"

But they both knew what the question referred to.

"Of where we're headed. Of when we're going to break. Of when we're mental cases at St Mungo's."

"Only if they put me in the bed next to Lockhart."

Potter laughed again. His soft, unusual laugh. A little longer than before. Perhaps a little louder, too, Draco thought.

"Yes, that would be a worst case scenario," Potter agreed.

"I heard that he's a real lunatic these days," Draco informed and glanced sideways, catching a glimpse of a pair of remarkably green, yet dead, eyes before they looked away.

"You could say that. I found him more pleasant than when he was sane...-er," Potter added just as Draco was about to say that Lockhart probably never had been completely mentally stable.

"You've met him?" He caught himself with the tiniest hint of curiosity in the pit of his stomach and decided to listen more carefully to what Potter had to say.

"Yes. Very shortly, during fifth year. He is…more likeable as a nutcase." There was something warmer in Potter's voice, as if he remembered something he hadn't thought about for a long time.

"I have a hard time imagining that he could be less likeable in whatever way he would've changed since second year," Draco said wryly and thought of how easy it all had been back then.

"You know what?" Potter said after a few heartbeats of silence.

"I probably do," Draco said lightly and traced the contours of the rugged surface of the stone rock beneath him.

"I highly doubt that," Potter muttered.

"Try me."

"I don't dislike you as much as I thought I would." As the words were blurted into the cool air between them, Draco felt a slightly pleasant feeling prickle beneath his skin.

"Knew that one." A lie, of course.

"You're just saying that."

"I can be quite pleasant at times. And speaking as the one who spends more time with me, I should be authorized to have a say in this matter."

"I forgot that you have a thing for fancy words."

"It seems as if you've forgotten a lot of things about me, Potter," Draco breathed, suddenly aware of a strange tension that felt like electricity in the air between them. He turned his head completely sideways, looking at the other man properly, scrutinizing his profile before Potter too decided to create direct eye contact.

"Or I might have decided to put it all aside."

Draco felt as though his soul was pinned to the outside of his body, an open display to Potter's eyes with all his secrets and wishes flashing brightly in neon lights. But he kept staring back as haunted eyes bore into his.

"I think you have forgotten a few things about me, too," he said after a while, when Draco didn't seem able to answer properly.

"Like what?" Draco breathed after blinking a couple of times to break their eye contact enough to get his brain functioning again.

"Like my first name."

Draco swallowed, suddenly nervous for no reason at all.

"I know it's Harold," he answered, narrowing his eyes at Potter, who laughed for the third time. A fraction longer, still.

"I thought we had a moment."

"Now you're delusional, too." But he couldn't suppress a pleased smile.

A comfortable silence cradled them long enough for their heart-rates to turn back to normal.

"It's getting early," Draco said finally, as he watched a few confused rays of sunlight start to find their way from the burning horizon towards them. A sign for them to get up and leave.

"You're right," Potter said heavily, as if the remains of the bridge suddenly had been placed upon his shoulders.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" Draco heard himself say and felt as shocked as Potter looked when his head snapped up to connect their gazes.

"Why, is that a thermos in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?" Potter smirked, obviously way too pleased with himself.

"Haha," Draco muttered but glanced down at his trousers quickly, to reassure that something hadn't happened that he wasn't aware of. Unfortunately, Potter caught this too, giving him his fourth laugh of the evening.

"I'm sorry. That was low." He sure didn't look very sorry.

"Definitely," Draco agreed, but couldn't fight the melting feeling in his stomach as Potter smiled at him. Looking quite alive. It was probably the sunrise.

As Draco got up and brushed the dirt off the back of his trousers, he felt Potter's eyes on him. Intense. Making him self-conscious. He raised his hand a little in a gesture of goodbye as he started to walk off the bridge, but didn't dare to completely look at Potter, who remained seated. Something weird was happening to him. He didn't know how to handle it. The strangely comfortable prickling sensation in his skin were still there. It felt as if his whole body had been asleep and was now waking up in that slightly uncomfortable, yet pleasant, way.

"Draco?" Potter said tentatively.

Draco stopped in his track, completely dumbfounded over the fact that Harry Potter had been calling him by his first name. He wasn't even sure if that had even happened before. Ever.

"Yes, Harry?" The after-taste from using Harry instead of Potter was sweet in his mouth. He didn't turn, didn't move, but he could hear Harry scramble to his feet, could feel the ray of the other man's body-heat growing more intense as he stepped closer.

"A cup of tea would be nice."

It felt weird, watching Harry Potter in his apartment, seeing him scrutinising the place as he looked around. Draco felt as though he was being judged. He wasn't sure what Harry was looking for, but he found himself hoping it was there.

"You just decided to move St Mungo's into your home, so you'd feel more at ease when we finally end up here?" Harry said after too-long moments of silence.

"Something like that." Draco shrugged, feeling a little uneasy. He knew his apartment was somewhat naked, but it made him feel less bad for spending so little time there.

"Is there anything living here?" Harry's gaze lingered on the empty window-sill for a moment, before turning towards Draco.

"Except for you and me? I sure hope not."

Harry laughed quietly and nodded, as if he confirmed something to himself.

"Not a vermin-person, I take it?" Harry asked and sat down at the kitchen table without an invitation. Draco was glad that he had thrown out the Daily Prophet with Harry's face all over the front page, as he turned towards the cabinets and put two ash-grey tea cups on the counter.

"Should I be offended that you decide to even ask me that question?" he asked over his shoulder as he poured water into the cups, effectively drowning the tea bags.

"No, since I was joking, obviously." Harry had a smile in his voice, but Draco couldn't see if he had one on his lips too.

"Obviously," Draco agreed sarcastically. "I would know, since I've spent so much time sharing jokes with you."

Harry was sitting relaxed in one of the two chairs, when Draco turned around with the cups in his hands. He felt like an odd contrast of colour against the surroundings, and he was smiling broadly at Draco.

"Point," the other man said with a small sparkle in his eyes behind the glasses. He took the cup Draco held out to him and blew on the hot tea before hesitantly taking a sip. "My favourite. How did you know?"

"Really?" Draco blinked at him as he sat down.

"No, never had it before, actually. I just thought I should make polite conversation."

"I'm not sure I like this new, humoristic, polite side of you," Draco muttered and grimaced as the tea burned his lips and tongue. But he did like the person he saw on the opposite side of the table from him. He had seen the broken side of the other man at that bridge so many nights by now that he could see the power radiating from him even as he sat relaxed at a table, drinking tea with a tired look on his face. It was not the uncomfortable person on the front page of the Daily Prophet. It was not the boy Draco used to hate back in school.

It was someone that made Draco feel at ease. A feeling he had not had for many years.

"How's Weasley and Granger?" Draco asked after a few moments of tea-drinking silence.

"Married," Harry answered and gave him a small smile. "To each other."

"I'm not surprised." Draco didn't care much about what Weasley's and Granger's lives looked like. There was one he was more interested in. "Are you...are you still with his sister?"

Harry's smile widened for some reason Draco didn't understand.

"No," he said simply.

"No?" Draco repeated.

"No."

"Why?" Draco blurted out before he had the chance to stop himself. "I thought you were going to get married, have a bunch of Gryffindor kids, and live happily ever after."

"Yeah, turns out that I'm gay. So I doubt that would have been a very happy 'ever after'." Harry said it with the same indifferent tone that one used when speaking about the weather, but the sudden cautious glint in his eyes told Draco that he was awaiting a reaction.

"Oh."

Harry Potter was gay? If that had ever been in the Daily Prophet, Draco must have been in coma at the time.

"Yeah."

"You didn't know until recently?" Draco had always cursed the way Harry seemed to cause words to jump out of his mouth without permission. It had been the same way back in school, only now the words weren't insults.

"I guess I had the time to think about it for the first time, when the war ended. I concentrated more on surviving before that. Why?" Guarded curiosity was lit in Harry's eyes now.

"I just never...found you...especially gay." Draco felt his face heat. For a few seconds, he wished that he had never invited Harry for a cup of tea, but then he heard the soft laugh and decided that it was the best thing he had done in forever.

A few hours later, Draco found that it was time for him to get to work and for Harry to leave, even though he would have preferred to owl in sick and spend the day talking over cups of tea. On the other hand, work didn't seem that much of a misery this morning. He felt almost as if he had woken up from a sleep he had never gotten, and there was a smile on his lips that he hadn't plastered there, for once.

He didn't even feel like complaining about the usual meetings with the rest of the employees on his department, or about the ridiculous amount of work he had to deal with. He somehow never stopped to be amazed by the ignorance of some members of the Wizarding Community, and how they, for some reason, didn't care very much about keeping the Muggles in the dark.

Draco had to spend his afternoon knocking on Muggles doors and Obliviating them. But it didn't feel quite as pointless today.

He had a hard time concentrating on anything but replaying the conversation from his morning with Harry in his head, and it felt like forever went by three times, before it was finally time to leave. His apartment felt even more colourless than ever, without Harry there. Draco hadn't even washed the cup Harry had been drinking from this morning. He didn't even know why.

TheDailyProphet was laying unread on the kitchen counter. It had arrived just after Harry had walked out the door and just before Draco had left for work. He leafed through it in hope of making time pass faster.

Nothing ever seemed to happen anymore. It was like all catastrophes and big crimes had been used up during the war, and what was left was just the mistakes when a Muggle spotted someone performing magic, or when one of the Wizarding-world celebrities said no to having a photo with a fan. The Prophet seemed to become more and more likeWitchWeekly every day. On page nineteen, Draco found the mandatory picture of Harry. The headline said: HARRY POTTER ON NIGHT WATCH, and the picture showed Harry walking down a street in the middle of the night. Draco knew he either must have been heading towards their bridge, or just left, because he recognized the jeans and the shirt from a couple of nights ago.

The article below seemed to repeat the same information that they usually did. No new heroic deeds from Harry Potter, apparently.

Draco glanced at the watch above the kitchen table and decided that it was time to leave. Finally. Somehow his inner organs had managed to switch places with one another a number of times, before he reached the bridge. The sun had just set, but the sky still held a thin strip of pink along the horizon.

His place was empty, and there was no Harry was in sight. For some reason, the bridge felt lonely and eerie for the first time, and he shivered as the August wind crept under the hem of his shirt. Looking down from his spot, small waves made it impossible to see the usual reflection in the water below.

He could wait. Harry usually didn't show up for another couple of hours. Hours that seemed to pass utterly slowly as Draco sat there, trying to remember why he used to go here in the first place. Before yesterday.

The pink strip along the horizon quickly darkened as the orange August moon conquered the sky. The stars paled in comparison, barely visible against the velvety blue background. It would have been beautiful, Draco thought, if he would have had the patience to take it all in and not constantly glance towards the beginning of the bridge, expecting Harry.

But no Harry came. Even though Draco waited so long that he had to leave directly for work. He was confused. He couldn't see any reason for Harry to avoid him. He had thought that the other man had been sitting in his spot to make contact last night. Harry had been at the bridge every night for months. Draco knew this, even though he had no real reason to remember. However, Draco didn't know why Harry hadn't showed up this night.

Work was exhausting. It was as if he had been functioning without his mind the past years. Not very exciting or giving, but not very demanding either. Yesterday, his brain had been connected to the rest of the world again, and it had been as if all the colours suddenly had flooded back in a picture he hadn't even known was in greyscale.

But today. Today was a completely different matter, Draco decided. It was as if he watched the colour drain from the picture again, but his memory of how it was supposed to look was still fresh. Still agonizingly clear. And this was when he wished that the colour had never come back to him at all.

The question to why he even cared at all, to why last night had been such a turning point, was running on repeat in his mind. It had been a cup of tea. A short conversation and a cup of tea. Nothing more. Yet, it felt as if Draco's world had been turned upside down forever and somehow had been brought back in order again. Suddenly, everything had made sense. For a day.

As Draco crossed empty streets that night, he couldn't help but get his hopes up. Perhaps Harry had fallen asleep yesterday and would be waiting for him now, apologizing for his no-show. Even though Draco knew that it was stupid to get his hopes up, just like he had when he had been a kid and only had one Christmas present left – one that looked suspiciously similar to a book, but still kept hoping for a Crup puppy. This was the same rapid heartbeats and shallow breaths. He found himself walking faster, thinking that he didn't want Harry to wait for him forever. But his heart quickly sank to the soles of his shoes as the buildings of the city parted around him and the emptiness of the bridge slapped him over the face.

Somehow, Draco just knew that Harry wasn't going to show up this night either, but he still kept glancing around. He wasn't hoping, he was just minimising the risk of being surprised if the other man would suddenly stand beside him without warning. But for some reason, even though he wasn't hoping that Harry would show, he was still sitting there for too long and had to leave for work without stopping by at home first.

It was later than usual when he arrived back home that evening, and he prepared his usual cup of tea in the half-darkness of the room. He didn't even bother to turn the lights on, knowing that he would be heading outside as soon as he had finished his tea, even though he didn't really want to.

A sudden knock on the door made him frown. He never had visitors. Truth be told, few people knew where he lived at all. With the cup still in his hand, heart beating rapidly for some reason he wasn't able to figure out, he opened the door.

Strangely, Draco hadn't counted on seeing Harry standing on the other side with a flowerpot in one hand. He looked his usual self in jeans and a washed-out t-shirt, hair all over the place.

"Hi," he breathed when Draco couldn't find any words to greet him with. "Can I come in?" he added when Draco still made no attempt to say anything.

Draco's head spun rapidly. Harry didn't look sorry or worried at all. He looked like everything was in order, perhaps slightly more out of breath than usual, but not like someone who had just ignored Draco for the last couple of nights.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked and frowned, as if he was trying to figure out why Draco was standing there without saying anything.

"Why are you here?" Draco suddenly choked out, even surprising himself a little bit with the hostile tone in his voice.

"What?" Harry's eyes grew wider, as if he genuinely had no idea what Draco was talking about and rocked slightly back and forth on his feet.

"I haven't seen you in two days." Draco blushed as he realised how ridiculous his words sounded. Two days was nothing. Harry hadn't made any promises. He hadn't even done something that would make Draco assume there were any unspoken promises either.

"I know. I've been away. I told you." Harry chewed on his lip but didn't look as if he thought that Draco's accusing was stupid at all.

"No, you didn't." If Harry had told him, Draco wouldn't have been sitting on that bridge waiting for him for the past couple of nights.

"Yes, I did," the other man said and squared his shoulders stubbornly. "When we were talking at the bridge, I told you I was going away for two days. That I wouldn't be around."

"No, you didn't," Draco said again, but tried to remember their conversation back at the bridge. He had been tuning out a lot. He always did when people spoke to him, and he found a thought more interesting than their words.

Harry opened his mouth as if to protest again but closed it. He shrugged slightly and nodded to himself as if to confirm something Draco didn't know about.

"Fine," he said and pulled his fingers through his hair. "I guess I'll just leave." And then he turned around walked swiftly down the stairs, two steps at a time, leaving Draco standing in the doorway. A sudden panic came with the realisation that he was pushing Harry away, when he had been waiting for him come back.

"That's a flowerpot," Draco said in panic, not able to find words that sounded more intelligent. He just knew that he had to stop the other man from leaving.

Harry halted in the middle of the stairs and looked up with the corners of his mouth curling slightly upward.

"It is," he said.

"Why did you bring a flowerpot?" Draco watched cautiously as the other man slowly began to make his way up the stairs again.

"I thought you needed something living in there." Harry shrugged just as Draco's heart made a back flip.

"And you thought a flowerpot would make a huge difference?" he asked breathlessly as the other man suddenly stood very, very close. Their breaths moulded into one.

"I thought that it was a start. I thought that I could bring paint next time and a couple of brushes so we could paint your chairs." Harry sounded out of breath again, his voice nothing more than a whisper.

"I like white chairs," Draco mumbled, as he slowly backed into his apartment with Harry following him, kicking the door shut behind them.

"I can paint my chair." Harry's body pressed Draco's up against the wall, his lips slowly brushing against the outline of Draco's jaw.

"Your chair?" Draco choked, failing to sound offended and curling his fingers around the other man's neck, intertwining his fingers with strands of black hair. His eyes were half-lidded, his breath shallow, his heart beating uncontrollably behind his ribs.

"Mmm," was all Harry said before his lips gently brushed over Draco's, forcing his eyes completely shut.

When Harry put the flowerpot down, Draco didn't know, but suddenly the other man's hands were all over him, tearing at his clothes, exploring his skin, pushing their bodies together over and over. Driving Draco slowly, but surely, out of his mind.

And then they were laying naked on the floor, gasping for breath and Draco found himself begging for more. His hands all over Harry's smooth skin, his own being covered inch by inch by Harry's mouth. He thought that he would lose it completely when fingers slowly, but determinedly started preparing him, but instead he started pushing back, moaning Harry's name again and again.

Harry's lips were on his again after what felt like a divine fraction of a second, and Draco gave in completely, hanging on for dear life as Harry pushed inside him. And God, it burned. And God he felt so complete, so alive with Harry's lips whispering his name in his ear. Giving him everything.

It's enough, just to find love

it's the only thing to be sure of

So hard, to let go of

A thousand times or more

I was close to a fault line

Heaven knows, you showed up in time

Was it real?

Now I feel, like I'm never coming down

The longest night – Howie Day