Salvation & Sacrament

EVERYTHING HENCEFORTH TAKES PLACE AFTER THE WAR BUT BEFORE HARRY POTTER DROWNED IN THE COOL, BLUE-GREEN WATER OF THE URUBAMBA RIVER STILL SEAT-BELTED ON A BUS THAT HAD GONE OVER THE GUARD RAIL OF A SMALL BRIDGE IN NORTH-WESTERN PERU, ALONE BUT WITH TWENTY-TWO OTHER LOCALS HE HAD NEVER MET BEFORE BUT HAD HOPED TO; THINKING, FITTINGLY ENOUGH, OF DRACO MALFOY. IT WAS A BLUE AND CLOUDLESS DAY, THAT DAY, AND THE WIND WAS STRONG AND TO THE NORTH, CARRYING THE SMELL OF FOREST AND YESTERDAY RAIN, AND IT WAS PLEASANT, IT WAS GOOD. A GOOD DAY TO DIE.

Salvation&Sacrament

by AbbyCadabra

Africa, as Harry quickly learns, can easily be split down the middle, divided into two parts: 1) tropical and flat, with red clay that sticks between the grooves of your boots when it's wet and stains absolutely anything it touches beyond repair; and 2) golden, sun-washed desert, where the sand is fine like sugar and gets into everything: hair and clothes and particularly your mouth if you were talking or if you were breathing, or especially if you were shouting to the clear white-blue sky, at the top of your lungs from the summit of the tallest sand dune that you could find, arms wide and palms up, IS THIS ALL?

- -

"I just can't forgive myself for loving you," Draco says to him once, when he thinks that Harry has already fallen asleep, the sheets rustling with his movement.

Harry has to fight to keep his breathing even.

And he is awake the rest of the night, waiting for Draco to continue, waiting for a further explanation. But it never comes.

- -

The airports are a mess here; all crumbling concrete and flaking, dull beige paint and travelers who refuse to form queues and seem to conform to some other, uniquely African way of passing through the airport prerequisites. And the air is hot and muggy, uncomfortably stale, with open windows and ceiling fans rather than air conditioning, and the sun is bright even indoors, garish on the dark, shiny faces of the airport employees behind their computers. They seem impervious to the heat, these employees, with their shirts buttoned to their necks and their sleeves rolled up crisply, the men all with gold watches on their left wrists and the women with piles of thin, loud bracelets stacked to their forearms.

The woman at the counter before them wears silver while most of the others seem to prefer gold, or maybe it was brass. She has a long neck and turquoise earrings, and her voice sounds practiced as she reminds Harry, "The computer is still searching for your vehicle, sir."

"I told you we should have just Apparated," Draco whispers harshly into Harry's ear. His cheeks are pink from the heat and there is a small crowding of sweat beads at his hairline that he would probably be shocked to discover. "This place is worse than St. Mungo's with the barmies let loose. Which I have seen, for the record."

Harry rolls his eyes and turns away, refusing to explain to Draco yet again the dangers of Apparating someplace where one has never been before, due to the pesky issue of exacts and details--the necessity of them and their lack thereof in this case. And did he even need to mention the dangers of doing a General Apparation in Africa, where the odds of stumbling over landmines or guerilla warfare were terminally high at every turn, let alone somewhere random in the general vicinity of wherever you were trying to go? Nothankyou, the rental car will be just fine. Speaking of which--

"Excuse me, miss?" Harry cranes his neck around the large computer screen as he tries in vain to catch the attention of the woman, who never seems available to them unless she wants to be.

She is tall and thin, with eyes and skin the color of the espresso shots that Draco sometimes takes in the morning before he meets with Ministry Officials. Harry sometimes calls them his parole officers, but the joke is completely lost on Draco, and anyway, Harry doesn't think it's as funny as it had been at first.

The war ended just over five years ago, with everything being resolved in almost exactly the way that had been expected, that people had always said it would: with Harry Potter defeating Voldemort unaided, and gaining even more acclaim the entire world over.

But there is still that 'almost,' because no one had ever told Harry about the smaller battles that had to be fought before he could win the war. No one had mentioned casualties, which is a word that has never sat well with Harry, who sees none of the names on the Memorial Stone and what they sacrificed for him as casual. No one ever told him that Ron would be killed, or Dumbledore, or Cho Chang, or any of the hundreds of others, nor did they mention just how much killing that Harry would do himself. And it's because of this, Harry thinks, this exclusion of details that has become dead weight on his shoulders, that Draco Malfoy is with him today.

Draco similarly followed the beaten path laid out before him, having been inducted as a Death Eater shortly after Hogwarts, and Harry has heard rumors that he was indeed very high up in the rankings, very prestigious in those circles and all that, but Harry doesn't like to believe the gossip. It helps him to sleep at night thinking that the man who sleeps in the room just beside his hadn't spent the entirety of the war scheming his demise. But Harry reasons, if Draco hasn't pulled anything in the previous four and half years of this arrangement, he isn't likely to do it now. There are only six months left of his generous sentence, which was bestowed upon him only after the testimony given by Harry in his favor: that Draco Malfoy was a good person caught on the wrong side during the war, largely in part to the manipulations of Lucius Malfoy, and was undeserving of the punishment of Azkaban.

And Harry lays his head down to sleep every night just as Draco does in the next room over, knowing that it hadn't mattered whether or not he believed the words of his testimony. What mattered to Harry was Draco, was the heart that beat beneath the chest, the life that could still be saved, because Harry had taken so many, and had been unable to save so many more.

Draco avoided the Dementors by being given into the custody of Harry Potter, a suitable enough wizard if anyone had ever known one, they had all said, to "rehabilitate" Draco until his release. And in return, Harry was given the pleasure of Draco's companionship for five years, to keep him company in situations such as this one, waiting in a hot, uncomfortable airport in East Africa while the great-great grandfather of all computers searches for their reserved rental car.

The woman behind the counter smiles mechanically at them, revealing two rows of perfectly straight, brilliant white teeth. "The computer is still searching for your vehicle, sir."

Her voice is thick with an accent that Harry has never heard before coming here, but that he finds he likes the more he hears it, in the broken conversations of the people passing behind him and the two security guards flanking either side of him and Draco. Each guard holds his own gun, the stock in one hand and barrel in the other, index finger resting lightly beside the trigger. Draco asks after the guns, and while Harry isn't familiar enough with Muggle weaponry to know the technical name, he knows that in telling Draco they are "machine guns," he isn't very far off.

Harry fishes around in his pack for a moment before producing a slip of paper and offering it to the woman. "See here? I've already reserved a car, so shouldn't it be waiting for us, or something?"

The woman doesn't even glance at the paper. "The computer is still searching for your vehicle, sir."

Draco says snidely, "Yes, thanks so much for the update." He sighs, throwing his head back dramatically. "I knew this was a bad idea."

Harry pretends that he hasn't said anything.

The computer finally locates their car after what seems like hours, and they make to leave the airport, but first Harry stops in the terminal to speak with a large family of natives who have no luggage and whose clothes have been faded by the sun to almost nothing, to almost white thread. The woman holds the hand of her husband too tightly, and her wrists look as if they might snap from the stress.

So Harry gives them all of the cash he has on him, about 300€, and has to write them a check for 50,000€ because there isn't a bank anywhere nearby.

- -

"And you're sure about this, Harry? Africa is quite a... different place."

To this day, Remus Lupin is still the only person who can prepare a cup of tea just the way Harry likes. He smiles gratefully at Remus when he hands him his cup, letting his eyes fall closed as he deeply inhales the warmth and spicy scent.

"There's a lot to consider with a trip like this," Remus continues, taking the seat opposite Harry in the parlor of Grimmauld Place.

Harry turned the old house over to Remus shortly after Sirius' death for safekeeping while he finished Hogwarts, as well as for some other, more personal reasons. Sirius' death took a heavy toll on Remus, one that Harry suspects he still pays his dues on every night when he turns into the bed the two had once shared. Sometimes Harry thinks he made the wrong decision in handing Grimmauld Place over to Remus, thinks it might have been too much on him too soon, but he doesn't think that there is anyone other than himself that Sirius would have wanted his home to go to. And Harry thinks that Remus secretly shares in this opinion, even though the shadows under his eyes have always grown when Harry comes to see him.

"Where will you stay when you're there? How safe are the cities? And are you actually taking Draco with you?"

Harry laughs. "I have to, no way around it. The Ministry says he has to be under my observation at all times, so I don't think they'll look too highly upon my leaving him behind whilst I visit another continent."

"But I don't imagine he's overjoyed by your plan?"

Harry shakes his head as he smiles, saying, "I haven't exactly told him yet."

"Harry," Remus begins in a warning tone before Harry starts again.

"I know Draco has his opinions," he adds hurriedly, " that's for sure, and he still has his snide comments, which I don't think he'll ever be rid of, but he understands the state of things." Harry brings the teacup to his lips. "Draco will be fine with it. He has to be."

Remus looks at Harry for a moment over his cup of tea and blows gently over the steam. "Yes, so he does," he says, the steam dissipating slowly in the air between them. "And you've taken the proper safety precautions? Studied up on your current events and the places you're going?"

Harry gently waves him off as he sips his tea. It's too hot, burns from the tip of his tongue all the way down his throat, but it's been ages since he's had a decent cup. (Neither he nor Draco can manage to safely boil water, and Draco's wand was confiscated.)

"I've had travel agents handle all that," Harry says. "They have all this information on the current 'situation,' all this rubbish they were telling me and newsletters they wanted me to take home and read, but it only confused me more, everything about passports and regulations and whatnot. So I just told them what I was doing and let them see to it. They've bought all my plane tickets and rental cars, and scheduled the whole thing for me. We won't be in one place for more than two or three days, and they wouldn't send me anywhere too dangerous. They're very up to snuff on all the goings-on over there."

"Yes. They have to be, I suppose," Remus says distantly, as if to himself.

"I'll only be gone three weeks," Harry says. "Hermione's due the first of August and I can't very well miss that."

Remus' eyes go wide and he smiles, and it's genuine and seems to warm Harry's chest, or perhaps that is the tea. "Oh, yes, I had almost forgotten," he says, enthusiasm glowing the edges of his voice. "I have to remember to send her and George something nice for the baby."

"Nothing plastic," Harry says, smiling. "Hermione throws a fit over plastic toys; won't tolerate them in her household she says. Has it in her head that newborns are prone to swallowing only plastic items and choking."

Remus smiles gently as he leans back in his chair, crossing his legs. "All mothers go through a phase where they become paranoid. I wouldn't worry." He sets his tea aside and clears his throat, saying, "But back to this Africa business. The money?"

"I'm giving it all away," Harry answers immediately. "The basic idea is just to go through as many rundown, deprived cities as we can and get rid of my money."

He nods slowly, and Harry can't tell whether or not he approves. "I don't know how that will be possible, Harry; you have so much," he says, an amused lift to his tone, and Harry feels reassured by it.

Smirking, Harry drinks the last of his tea and says, "I'll just give it away in bigger pieces. More often."

But the lightness of the moment has already passed by, and Remus looks at him seriously. "I think, Harry, that you will find this all to be much more complicated than you could have anticipated once you get there. What may not seem like a lot of money to you is life changing to them. You're talking about playing God with these people's lives."

The reference to Muggle religion briefly throws Harry, but he recovers quickly and says, in a steady voice, "It isn't like that. I mean, it might seem to be, but you know that isn't my intention. I just..." He sighs. "I just want to be sure that the money finds its way into good hands."

The look on Remus' face is doubtful, but he doesn't say anything else on the matter.

- -

The first place that Harry takes them is the rural districts in Southern Uganda, where the terrain seems to be made entirely of mountains and tropical forest, and the horizon is a jagged green line, sharp against the deep blue sky. It seems to always smell of rain here, though Harry can see no evidence of this from the cloudless sky, and he doubts that it has ever rained a single day here at all.

"Where are we going?" Draco asks, investigating the glove box of their rental car, an old Beemer with no paint and a sunroof that doesn't close. He undoes the latch and it flops open, giving him a start as maps and pamphlets fall onto his knees and the floorboard. "This thing is dangerous!" he exclaims.

Harry grins. "We're headed to wherever is east of here. I don't know exactly."

The man who had handed Harry the keys to their rental car had warned them that northern Uganda was dangerous and steeped in rebel revolts against civilians, so the first thing that Harry had done, after giving the man a bundle of money, about 25,000€ (and the expression on his face when he touched the money was overjoyed, perfect, exactly what Harry had hoped for), was buy a compass and plan to stay far from that direction. He reasons that as long as they don't go any farther north than they are now, or too far east into the Congo, which he had already been warned keep far from, they should be fine.

Draco rolls his eyes as he stuffs the papers back into the glove box. "Sounds like you know exactly what you're doing, Minister Yorkershire."

Harry looks at him. "What?"

"Minister Yorkershire, you know, he was--" Draco glances at Harry and shrugs. "Nevermind; it would take too long to explain." His gaze drifts to the window, and to Harry his image in the glass seems flat and white, as if Draco had been drawn onto the glass instead of something real and tangible, reflected there. "Halfblood," Draco mutters under his breath, and Harry catches it, just barely.

"What was that?"

Harry glances to his side, but Draco won't look back at him. His fingers twist at the last button on his shirt as he refuses to answer.

And Harry is satisfied to let the conversation drop. They are winding smoothly through the African hills and untouched plains like curses cast in water, and it feels wrong to Harry, arguing amongst all of this, to even speak in the presence of such natural simplicity.

The wind that rushes through the sunroof feels damp and cool, and Harry is thankful for the relief from the heat. The roads are no longer made of asphalt this far out of town, but clay, tightly packed and the rich, gingery color of pumpkin pie. The sun shines dazzling and polishes everything vibrant and deep: the green grasslands and forest-covered mountains that surround them and the sapphire sky above their heads. His eyes hurt from the vividness he can still see in negative reds and oranges behind his eyelids when he closes his eyes, and he wants to throw his head back and laugh and he wants to ask Draco if he feels it too, feels this humming in his bones.

But before he has a chance to do either, he spots a small shack in the distance as they come over a hill, and then another and another as they descend further. Harry grins and looks at Draco, who is already looking back at him.

"We've found some," Harry says, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.

Draco nods and glances through the windscreen, at the shacks that are fast approaching. "Have you got the money ready?"

Harry can feel the weight of the Ugandan currency in his trouser pockets, and his shirt pocket, and also his left shoe and his backmost belt loop (he has split the money up, in case something is to happen), and answers, "More than ready."

His fingers are tingling on the steering wheel as he comes to a stop in the middle of the small village, which consists of only five or six identical straw huts scattered over an area that is mostly clay. There is a group of native women huddled outside one of the shacks, four or five, all of them tall with long necks and straight backs, observing the two of them curiously. Harry smiles broadly and shifts the car to park, opening his door.

Draco grabs his forearm. "You're getting out?"

Harry glances at Draco's hand on his arm, where he has bunched the rolled up sleeves of his shirt into a wrinkly mess, before looking at him strangely.

"Uh, obviously."

Draco tightens his grip. "Don't you think you could hand the money over just as well through the window, from the safety of an automobile with decent acceleration if they try to, you know," he makes a slashing motion with his free hand, "cut you?"

Harry snorts. "These are women, Draco, I don't think they usually wield the family machetes." He shrugs his arm free and says, "You've been in my Muggle DVD collection again, haven't you?"

Draco slumps back into his seat. "I have not."

Harry leaves the driver side door open and slowly approaches the women with his hands halfway in the air and what he hopes is a harmless smile on his face. They smile at him and then look at each other and begin to laugh in low, rich tones. The woman closest to him steps forward and, in an accent that is similar to that of the woman from the airport, but somehow different, greets him loudly-

"Hello! How is you doing?"

And Harry feels like a complete ass, and he can almost see Draco smirking from the passenger seat, that same nasty sneer from Hogwarts. Harry drops his hands to his side and grins widely in relief and excitement, because this is really happening, he is really here.

He walks up to the women, who are all smiling at him but more so at each other, sharing in some joke that Harry isn't a part of and doesn't necessarily want to be, because that would somehow spoil the moment, rob them of their mystery. And Harry doesn't want that, thinks that they are perfect just as they are now, here, in the middle of the deep green Ugandan grasslands, dark and mysterious and beautiful, eyes bright and bold as they watch him.

"Hello there," he says with enthusiasm. "You speak English?"

"I is speaking little," she says, smiling, and Harry thinks that he will never stop being shocked by the smiles of the natives here, so white and straight and perfect.

Her head is wrapped in a long, colorful scarf, something soft and sheer that hangs down her back, with red and orange and amber paisleys. Her eyes are large and slanted, darker than onyx. She is wearing a long summery sort of dress that wraps behind her neck and leaves her arms and shoulders bare. It falls to just above her ankles, this dress, and it is carried easily in the light breeze that's blowing, and Harry thinks it must be made from the same fabric of her scarf, and the other women look to be wearing something similar. On her hip she rests a large wooden bowl that holds some sort of gray mush, and she is glorious and flawless and this is heaven, Harry thinks, and he has fallen in love with her in that instant, fallen in love with all of them.

Harry extends his hand. "Harry Potter, pleased to meet you."

She looks blankly at his hand and then back, meeting the likewise blank expressions of the other women. Her brow is furrowed when she looks back at him, a single crease in her high, smooth forehead.

He drops his hand and points to himself expressively. "Ha-rr-y Po-tter," he says, overemphasizing each syllable.

Her brow smoothes over instantly and she throws her head back, her free arm coming up just a little as she does so. "Aaaah," she says, her mouth forming a perfect O. She points to her breastbone and says slowly, "Kway-er-a."

Harry's jaw is becoming sore from smiling so hard, but he doesn't think he will ever stop, because this so much better than he had thought it would be, than he had ever planned for.

"Pleased to meet you," he says.

"Pleased to meet you," she repeats, but the words are transformed on her tongue by her accent, shaped into something that is, Harry imagines, altogether more genuine.

He feels as if no one has ever been as pleased to meet him as the Ugandan woman standing before him with the bowl on her hip, as Kwayera is in the moment.

Suddenly Harry remembers the money, and his hand unconsciously drifts over his shirt pocket. He wants to give it to them, give all of it to them. He likes these women, loves them even, Kwayera the most, but he hesitates because he hasn't done this before when he actually knew the person, had stopped and spoken with them first, had learned their name, seen where they lived, and he isn't sure how to go about it. Does he just hand them the money, or does he try to explain himself? She speaks some English, but if the introductions took this long, he isn't sure he has time for moral justifications.

And he suddenly realizes that he doesn't want to give them the money. He wants to give them something more. He wants to give them everything in the world they have ever wanted, happiness and love and good health and absolutely everything, but--

But they look as if they already have that, Harry thinks.

He can't give these women something as cheap and meaningless as money when they are so obviously rich in every other way. They had never asked for anything. It would insult them if he threw his money at them now. It would taint everything that had just passed between them, between himself and Kwayera.

His hand drops from his shirt pocket, and he smiles one last time at them before saying goodbye and turning back, walking to the rental car. He gets into his seat and can feel Draco watching him as he buckles his seatbelt.

"What happened?" he asks.

Harry runs the palm of his hand over the top of the steering wheel. He sighs and says, "I couldn't do it."

Draco doesn't say anything else as they drive through the small village, passing the women who are watching them, their smiles still in place.

Kwayera waves as they go by, and Harry can just hear her through the open sunroof as they drive away exclaim, "Pleased to meet you!"

- -

"We're closer to Heaven here," Harry tells Draco once.

They are somewhere in the south, close to the water, where it is cooler and the sky is bluer, and the clouds are enormous and white and you can almost touch them with your fingertips if you stand on your tiptoes and reach.

He traces the tips of his fingers over the inside of Draco's arm and leaves gooseflesh in the wake of his touch.

"See how close the sky is? This is the closest we'll ever be before we die."

But Draco doesn't understand, Draco doesn't know about Heaven or about sacrament, thinks the soul aught to be powerful rather than pure, and a part of Harry knows that he isn't able to forgive him for it, even though he has never thought of himself as religious, never believed in God.

- -

Harry gives away a total of 500,000€ in Uganda, which is short of his intended number, but satisfying enough for the look on Draco's face when Harry tells him how much money he had witnessed being given away.

On the second day they drive south and find nothing but farmland, cows and goats and some tall hybrid animal that is between an ostrich and a dog, and Harry had been surprised because he had thought that the only animals in Africa were only the wild and the exotic ones: lions and zebras and giraffes, of which he had admittedly so far seen none, but Draco says that they're bound to come across them sooner or later, this being Africa after all. And because there had been no one to give the money to and it would have been a wasted day if they hadn't gotten rid of some of it, the idea occurs to Harry to put various amounts money in envelopes and tape them to different animals. Harry reasons with himself that the money will eventually find someone that way, attached to this cow and that goat, and that he or she will be a good person, probably an old, hard working farmer who had more children and wives than he could handle.

Draco shrugs when he suggests it, and that had been all he needed.

They find some tape in the trunk (which Harry doesn't want to consider too deeply, why there should be duct tape in the trunk of his rental car), but they have to make the envelopes themselves because Harry has forgotten the spell for transfiguring something as useless, or so he had thought, as an envelope. So they use the papers from the glove box and Harry teaches Draco how to fold them after a method that he had learned as a child from one of his Muggle teachers, and Draco makes a snide remark about his Muggle upbringing and then gives himself a paper cut and Harry laughs at the justice of it.

On the third day they don't have a chance to do anything because they wake up late and have to catch their flight, but it's okay because Harry gives an entire day's worth of 160,000€ to the boy who helps them carry their bags from the hotel lobby to the rental car because he does so without being asked, and because he doesn't hold out his hand afterwards.

Later, on the plane, with the setting sun peering in through the window and making the cabin glow golden, Draco turns to Harry and smiles and says something that Harry has now forgotten, because Draco's smile had been so private, so gentle, so different from any that Harry had seen before, as the light of Africa's setting sun had shone through the window and made the entire cabin glow golden.

And Harry can't decide which feeling he likes more: the satisfaction of have saved so many good people from poverty and providing them with opportunities they never would have had before, or the way his throat tightens when Draco smiles at him, and Harry knows that he was the one to put it there.

- -

"Why are you doing this?" Draco asks him once, and his voice is tired. "You'll never be rid of it all. Once you get home, Harry, there will be another ten checks waiting for you, royalties for your book deals and payments on patents."

There is no wind tonight. The air is still around them, warm and soft like an embrace.

"Checks from the candy companies and the toy companies and Merlin knows who else, for the rights to using your name and image to sell their rubbish."

A slow sigh comes from Draco's lips, and the sound is tired, defeated. Had Africa brought this out of them, Harry wonders, this marrow-heavy weariness, or had it always been there?

"I don't think you're doing this for them, Harry. I know you like being the savior," he pauses and smiles distantly, privately, "and if I remember correctly, you always loved the white horse bit a little too much." He hesitates before continuing. He quickly wets his lips and says, "But I don't think you're doing this just for them. I think you're doing this for your own salvation. You're waiting for those people to save you."

He sighs again.

"But they can't, Harry."

Draco looks at him, and he takes a step forward, rests his hand on Harry's chest, between his collarbones, over the tanned expanse of skin that peaks from between the undone buttons of his shirt. The tips of his fingers just brush the hollow of Harry's neck. His skin is warm, not hot like everything else he has found here, but perfectly warm, and Harry knows that the human heart is not found directly between his clavicles, that it is lower, that it is slightly to the left-- this is biological fact. And yet he still finds himself doubting it, feeling otherwise.

He places his hand on the small of Draco's back and wonders what salvation truly is, if this might be his.

- -

After Uganda they are in Senegal for two days, then Zambia for three. Harry gives away almost 1,000,000€ and has never felt so rich.

He gives a little over 30,000€ to an old blind woman whose hands are callused at the joints and warm when she grasps his hands and whispers, "Thank you, thank you, thank you," over and over again, eyes closed and head tilted back, face towards the sky. One man insists that he repay them, and he invites them into his home and attempts to make them coffee. They don't drink it but the man doesn't notice, and they talk for what seems like hours because the man can speak passable English and has an interest in football. And Harry laughs when Draco joins their conversation, because he seems to have invented his own language for conversing with the natives.

"And is you going to be seeing any football here?" Draco asks loudly, and the man looks at him brightly and smiles and Harry laughs harder, and he feels content.

He feels happy, he thinks.

And when he goes to sleep at night, it isn't alone, but with his arms around Draco and his face buried in the curve of his neck, breathing in his scent and heat and Africa.

- -

The day before Gregory Goyle is to be Kissed, Draco asks Harry if he might attend, as the two were old friends, and Draco didn't want Greg to die surrounded by only the people who hated him, the people who would whisper to him as he passed by in invisible chains that the Kiss was too good for him, who were only there for "justice" (and he says this with only a slight sneer).

It is the first time that Draco asks Harry for anything since his sentencing. Harry considers saying yes.

But then Harry considers the people who would be there: the families of the people Greg had killed, the most upstanding citizens in the community, the Minister himself. The list goes on. And the press would also be in attendance, with their charmed quills and phonetic recording devices, and the next day on the front page would be a picture of him and Draco as they ran from the courtroom with Harry's jacket over Draco's silver-blonde hair and the cries of outrage chasing them down the hallway. Harry can see the headline now. It would read:

DEATH EATER MALFOY ABUSES BOY WHO LIVED'S GOODWILL,

UPSETS ALL

DRACO MALFOY SHOWS HIS CONTINUED ALLIANCE WITH HE WHO WILL NOT

BE NAMED BY MAKING APPEARANCE AT FELLOW DEATH EATER'S KISS

And Harry doesn't want Draco to go through that, wants to protect him from it as best he can.

So he tells Draco that he can't go, that it would look bad if he were to show up because of who else would be there and because of who Greg had been and especially because of who Draco was. Harry says that Draco should never forget his new place in this new world, where purity of blood is the equivalent of dust, and that this was borrowed time; that Draco was living on the graces of other's at this point, and surely, Draco understands?

Draco looks away and says that he does.

- -

Harry dreams of all the people he has saved in Africa.

They are all hiking up one of the green Ugandan mountains to get to him, to where he sits at the very highest summit and can see everything, can see the entire world from that spot, and their hands are clasped in front of them as if in prayer. They are soaked in rain even though the sun is out bright and warm, and Harry can feel it on the back of his neck.

They are climbing and going as fast as they can, but the peak keeps raising higher, the incline keeps sloping steeper, and when the slope of the mountain becomes almost completely vertical, they claw at the soil and roots to continue climbing, to continue on their path to Harry, but suddenly the mountain turns to sand, and it is sifting through their fingers like water and they are falling backwards, all falling away, and he panics, reaches out to them--

And he catches them in the palm of his hand.

But they are so small now, so fragile looking, but it's okay, it's all right, because they're safe, because Harry was there to catch them. They try to thank him and they call him their savior but the word doesn't mean what it's supposed to, instead means something wrong and ugly, and Harry is hurt, Harry is insulted.

They all go mute and fall to their knees and melt into the sun.

Harry wakes up sweating and panting, unable to shake this feeling of uneasiness.

- -

"I don't see why you love it here so much," Draco says to him once.

And Harry doesn't understand, thinks it should be obvious, says so as he draws small circles onto the small of Draco's back and smiles into the slope of his shoulder.

"There's nothing here," he continues.

And Harry realizes that Draco is looking at all of the wrong things, studying what is missing rather than what is here, tangible, under his feet and above his head and all around, holding him close, warming his skin.

Draco is missing the entire point.

- -

When they arrive in Guinea, it's monsoon season, and the skies are the same color as lead and seem equally heavy, undulating thickly with rain clouds that Harry thinks will reach into the upper stratospheres, into outer space.

They get their rental car, a jeep with four wheel drive and oversized tires, and they check into their hotel. Draco tells Harry that he wants to stay, wants to not go out in the rain looking for people in poverty driving in a jeep with zip up windows and a tarp roof, but Harry tells him that he doesn't have a choice. After that, the arguments are short. They leave after lunch and head east, towards Côte d'Ivoire, because Harry has heard of Côte d'Ivoire, and from what he's heard he thinks there will be lots of people there, lots of people in need of his help.

He feels like the money is burning through his hands, and he needs to get rid of it as soon as possible, needs to get it into someone else's hands as quickly as possible. He gives a man at a gas station 15,000€ just because he doesn't want to hold on to it any longer, just wants it gone, just drops the wet mess in front of him at the counter and walks away, not even waiting for his thanks. He dumps another 20,000€ in the driver seat of an old, rundown flatcarry lorry as he walks by, while the driver, an old native man with gray hair and shaky hands, fills up the tank and doesn't even notice.

As they drive away, Harry wants to watch in the rearview mirror for the moment when the old man opens his door and discovers the money. But he doesn't, and he isn't sure why.

As they drive, the rain is almost solid on their windscreen; they are almost swimming over these roads. The wipers squeak with every swipe and Harry is on edge, anxious, can feel the same thing radiating from Draco in the passenger seat.

Some of the roads and bridges are washed out, and Harry follows the arrows of the diversion signs until he loses direction, forgets where he has come from. And everything looks the same here, the steep green mountainsides and the dark clouds and the rain pouring on top of everything.

Harry's grip on the steering wheel tightens. They're lost. He has gotten them lost in Guinea in the middle of monsoon season in a leaky jeep with bloody zip up windows. Lost.

"We're lost, aren't we?" Draco asks, and he has to raise his voice for Harry to hear, because the pounding of the rain on the roof and the squeak of the windscreen wipers is almost deafening.

"We're not lost, Draco," he lies.

Draco points out his window. "This is the third time we've passed that diversion sign."

Harry narrows his eyes and keeps his voice steady. "All of the diversion signs are the same, Draco. It's just an orange sign with an arrow."

"But obviously, if we keep passing the one that directs us to the right, we'll have been going in a circle," he says evenly, with just an edge of ridicule, but it's enough.

Harry bangs a fist on the steering wheel. "Goddammit, Draco, would you just shut up? We're lost, okay? We're fucking lost in Africa, okay, but I can't very well get us found if you're mouthing off in my ear about the signs."

"Well, you're ignoring all of them," Draco remarks, keeping his voice level.

"What are you talking about? I'm following every single one of them!"

Draco rolls his eyes. "Think outside of the box for a minute here, Harry. I don't mean just the literal diversion signs, but all the other signs we've been given since we got here." He looks at Harry, and his eyes are dark and gray, like the storm clouds in the sky. "We shouldn't be here."

Harry scoffs. "Oh, you mean the metaphorical, intangible signs? Like the joy on these people's faces when I hand them the money, or when they cry and kiss the back of my hands?"

"No, Harry, I mean something more along the lines of your obvious addiction to this," Draco says, turning in his seat to face him. "The way you're using your money, thinking that you're making these people's lives better, it isn't right."

"Thinking I'm making their lives better? Draco, I am."

"The money--" he begins, but Harry cuts him off.

"Is all that I have!" he exclaims, frustrated. "If there was something else, Draco, anything else in the world I could give, I would, in a second."

"All that you have?" Draco repeats disbelievingly. "So, what, you've just forgotten all about the magic wand in your pocket now?"

Harry lets out a short bark of laughter. "You think I don't want to use magic? That I haven't thought of it? Almost done it? But that would be false. Magic would be a quick, instant fix to them, Draco. It would give them false hope in something bigger that'll never come around again."

Draco looks at him closely. "And what do you think walking by and dropping money into their lap is doing?"

It is silent in the jeep for a moment; the only sounds are those of the rain and the wipers and the gravel road crunching under the tires.

"But what does it matter afterward, right, Harry?" Draco continues. "You're not interested in what happens with those people after you've walked away and had your fill of them. You use their gratitude as some sort of quickening for yourself, as something to fill your void."

"So you're saying that feeling good when I help someone is bad?" Harry asks, disbelief rounding his words.

"It is when you do it just for that feeling. You don't help these people because you're compelled to, Harry. There isn't some greater good inside of you that has brought you here, of all places. You're the same as everyone else, just with a scar on your bloody head." Draco's voice is cold. "You're playing the savior to these people just to feel like one, just for that high, because people have been feeding it to you your entire life: The Boy Who Lived, our savior in spectacles and whatnot, and you don't know what to do now that that's started to taper off with the war finished. You're using them, Harry, so you can still be the hero, still get that rush. And that makes this no different than any other drug."

"Whatever," Harry says, shaking his head. "I'm trying to save people here, not that I expect you to understand." He sneers at him. "You were a Death Eater, Draco, through and through." He looks at Draco hard. "I know it. And the things I've heard about you, they're things that- that-- You're the vermin who killed all of the good people in the war, all of my people, and I wouldn't expect you to be able to comprehend something as simple as human decency."

"Human decency?" Draco repeats. "Human. Decency? You killed people, too, Harry, people with families and husbands and wives, who had hearts just like those good people you call yours."

"I KNOW!" Harry finally explodes, the tension in his spine breaking open. "And do you think I don't try my hardest. every- fucking- day- to repay that?"

The rain continues. The wipers squeak.

Harry breathes deeply and glances at Draco, who is looking at him with eyes that are gray and brimmed with sadness, and Harry feels his anger slide away in the same way the rain glides across the windows in the wind. He looks back at the road and is certain that they are now completely and utterly lost, as Draco takes one of his hands from the steering wheel and holds it closely in his. He presses a kiss to Harry's knuckles and sighs against his skin and Harry has trouble breathing.

"It was a war, Harry," he says softly. "There's always two sides to it."

Harry looks at him and nods, and he knows that Draco is right, he does. But it doesn't change anything, and everything is the same as it had been before.

- -

One night they are lying in bed in their hotel room, arms and legs tangled together in a way that doesn't seem at all tangled to Harry, but arranged carefully and with great care.

Harry presses his lips to the corner of Draco's jaw and says absently, "I don't see how these people do it. How they just live like that."

It is quiet for a moment, and the moonlight that splashes on the walls and the foot of their bed is bright, lights up the entire room soft silver.

"You would be amazed at what people cope with," Draco says, untangling himself from Harry's arms. "What we learn to live with."

Harry looks at Draco, but his eyes are covered in shadow and Harry doesn't have any idea what he might be thinking. He rolls over and pulls the comforter over his shoulders.

And Harry doesn't sleep for the rest of the night, because there is something in the way that Draco had spoken that leaves him unsettled, something in his words that had seemed more personal, more painful, than Harry thinks should have been.

- -

Being lost in Guinea isn't so terrible, as Harry comes to find out. They never quite make it out of the rain, even after an hour of driving in the direction that Harry hopes is the right one. They come to a stopping point at the summit of one of the smaller mountains, near a cliff, and Harry pulls off because this is the perfect place, he thinks, the best place that they're going to find.

He takes most of the money out of his pockets and shoes and other hiding places, leaving enough to give away if they come across anyone else, and he asks Draco if he's coming, and Draco says that he isn't. Harry glances away, at the rain that pours on the grass and soaks the ground into a black, muddy mess. He asks again, if Draco will please do this once thing with him, and Draco hesitates. Harry thinks that his reluctance isn't wholly because he doesn't want to get wet, privately thinks that that isn't the whole reason. But then Draco agrees and he smiles and it doesn't matter anymore.

They jump out of the jeep before Harry remembers that a drying spell would have been helpful and they run towards the edge of the cliff, but Harry slips and falls sideways into the mud before he takes five steps. He laughs wildly at himself, at the mud that has gotten all over his clothes and into his hair, and he slips again when he tries to stand. Draco has to help him back up, with his hands locked under Harry's arms, as he curses the mud and the rain and Harry, Harry most of all.

They stop at the brink and they look at one another. The rain has soaked Draco's hair, matted it down to his forehead and cheeks and the back of his neck, and small drops hang from his eyelashes that look like tears. His skin looks like fine porcelain in the rain-light. Harry wants desperately to kiss him at that moment, fiercely, in the middle of an African thunderstorm on the brink of a cliff, and he can almost taste the way the rain would have tasted on Draco's lips.

But they are both muddy and Harry knows that Draco wouldn't have it, and Harry doesn't exactly fancy the mud either, but the almost of the kiss is almost enough.

And then Harry suddenly turns and flings all of the money over the edge of the cliff, and he knows that he might be doing just that, he might be just throwing money over the side of a mountain for it to be lost and trampled over by animals and rain for years, but maybe not.

And maybe it doesn't matter, because the gesture is all the same, the notions of freedom and flight that are inherent in rushing over the edge.

But the money never frees itself, and it never flies. It is already wet and muddy from Harry's fall when he throws it, and the bills stick together in a clump that arches and plummets, gets beaten down by the rain before it has the chance.

Harry hates Guinea and he is glad when they board their flight.

- -

Draco is asleep, and this makes it easier for Harry.

"My whole life, it seems as if everywhere I go, I find the nowhere in somewhere, or make it of anywhere. But this..."

His hand hovers just over Draco's shoulder, and Harry wants so badly to touch him that it hurts, actually makes his bones ache, but he won't. He watches as the sheets rise and fall evenly over Draco's chest.

"This is something for me. It's good. It makes everything else more tolerable. And it may not have been what either of us had in mind, but things so rarely do turn out like we thought."

Harry clasps his hands together and holds them tightly, to make sure that he doesn't reach out.

"There's no predictable answer to what will make us happy."

- -

When they leave Guinea, they are in Kenya for three days and Angola for three after that, and Harry begins to lose count of how much money he's given away, and how much he gives to each person.

But he does remember the woman with the baby in her arms, looking at him as he passed by on the street with eyes that were so full of despair that he had turned back after he continued walking and given her half of what he had left. And then, two streets over, he had spotted a different woman, with a similar expression of desperation, and she had looked directly at him and begged for money, and Harry had realized that she was holding the exact same baby as the other woman had before, wrapped in the same dirty blanket and wearing the same appearance of sleep.

And he remembers the young man who had unloaded their luggage from the airport and held out his hand all too readily, and had looked at Harry cruelly when he had given him only an ordinary tip. The man had said that Harry had just given his brother a large sum of money for putting his luggage in his taxi at their hotel, and so he knew that Harry had money, and so he came all this way to unload his luggage and so he had. So why hadn't Harry given him more money?

He begins to wish that he had just thrown all of the money over the cliff.

- -

Harry steps to the side and allows Malfoy to enter first. He closes the door behind them both and looks at Malfoy, who is not looking at him.

"So this is it," he says, coming around Malfoy, holding his arms out.

Harry is proud of his flat. It is simple and spacious while not being too overbearing, with hardwood floors, clean lines, muted colors. It is comfortable but stylish. Anybody would have loved it.

"What do you think?" he asks, regretting the words the moment they leave his mouth. He braces himself for the worst.

But Malfoy surprises him when he says, simply, "It's nice."

Harry falters. "Thank you," he says, after a beat.

He gives Malfoy the tour, which is much shorter, he had tried to joke, than what he assumes a grand tour at Malfoy Manor would be like. But this elicits nothing from Malfoy, who seems to still be locked away in Azkaban for all the emotion that Harry is able to get out him.

Harry shows Malfoy to a room at the end of the hallway.

"This'll be your room," he says as he opens the door for both of them.

Malfoy looks around briefly before he takes a seat on the edge of the bed, and Harry suddenly feels like an intruder in his own home, which he finds an unwelcome feeling, this being his home after all; this being his room. He is torn between asserting himself before Malfoy and reminding him that he's here, in Harry's guest bedroom, sitting on Harry's Egyptian cotton bedspread instead of Azkaban because of Harry, because Harry saved him-- and the shameful expression in Malfoy's eyes that begs him not to and tells him that he already knows far better than Harry ever could.

He sighs. And Harry isn't sure why he does it, the maybes and possibilities as endless as they are, but he chooses to give Malfoy that small reminder as he walks out and closes the door behind him.

"Five years, then."

And the click of the door as it closes sounds to Harry like an ending, like a metal-snapping conclusion or death, but Harry knows that this is only the beginning.

- -

They arrive in Niger seven days after leaving Guinea, and the first thing Harry notices is that most of the airport employees are white, with English or French accents, and almost all of them are sunburned. The woman who helps them at the hire car desk is short and blonde, with dark eyebrows and a double chin. She tells Harry that the company has given his car away by accident and that there is nothing they can do about it and that they are terribly sorry, but won't he please step aside so that the next in line may be helped?

Harry wants to leave before he has even stepped outside of the airport. Already he doesn't like it here.

"Look, it's not that big of a deal," Draco says as he tries to comfort him. "We'll just pay someone to drive us around. That way we'll have a car and get rid of some money. It's win-win, really."

Harry feels wary about this place. He is seriously considering walking back into the airport and getting on the next departing plane that will take them somewhere else, some other African city where the people needed him just as much.

"Draco, I'm not sure--"

"Look, there's one now," Draco offers. "He looks trustworthy." He points across the street to a gas station, where a native young man in an amber Florida tourist t-shirt is leaning against an old lorry that might have been white once, but most of the paint was eroded off. Draco quickly checks the traffic and crosses the street, calling behind him, "The sooner we get rid of the money, the sooner we can leave."

By the time Harry catches up with him, Draco is already in the midst of negotiating in his own language of African-English with the man, who is really closer in age to a boy, possibly no more than seventeen or eighteen.

"You is driving us to out of city in car, yes?" Draco says, his voice rather loud, his huge smile painfully fake. He is leaning in close to the boy, as if that will help him understand.

"Yes, yes," the boy answers, "I is driving for you."

He seems overjoyed by this proposition. He holds his hands together in front of his chest like a small child asking for candy and smiles broadly, which makes his ears stick out awkwardly. There is a dusting of black freckles on the tip of his nose and cheeks, and his skin looks clean and smooth. He glances at Harry, and his good humor seems so genuine that Harry finds himself smiling back.

"To places where the poor is living?" Draco asks loudly.

There are other people at this gas station, tourists, Harry estimates, if their rucksacks and visors are anything to go by. They look at Draco oddly.

The boy appears confused. "Pour?" he asks.

Draco looks to be considering this. "No money," he says after some thought. "To where they is having no money and is living bad."

That much the boy understands, and he nods his head emphatically. "Yes, they is being very poor there."

"What is they calling you?" Harry asks, before he can rearrange the words in his head. Draco smirks at him.

The boy's smile widens, which Harry hadn't thought would be possible.

"They is calling me Yerodin," he says.

"Yerodin," Draco says, "we go now?"

Yerodin smiles and brings the keys to the lorry out of his pocket. He is all smiles and big ears as he climbs into the driver seat and starts the engine. Harry and Draco sit in the far back, in the flatbed, which is surprisingly clean for being so old, and easily large enough to fit two or three more back there, and they sit on almost opposite sides.

Niger is pure, red-golden Sahara desert. The ground is a deep, thick carpet of sand, and the air is hot and dry like nothing Harry has ever felt before. He imagines that this is what the surface of the sun would be like, and the landscape is amber-orange stained and rolling sand dunes for as far as the eye can see. The sky is a clear expanse of white-white-blue from one horizon to the next.

The wind is hot, and it burns Harry's cheeks and lips and dries his throat, and he has never wanted a drink of water so badly before in all of his life. He thinks his throat might be covered in sand, because it's everywhere else, in his eyes and hair and mouth and just everywhere.

Draco's hand suddenly comes down clumsily on top of his, and Harry turns to look at him through squinted eyes.

He says something that Harry can't make out. The wind and sand steal the words away before they can reach his ears.

"What?" Harry yells.

"I want to go home!" Draco repeats.

Harry nods in agreement and takes Draco's hand in his despite the fact that they're hands are like sandpaper, dried and coarse, and the friction between the two is uncomfortable and abrasive. Harry would have withstood it and held on forever if Draco had wanted him to.

The lorry begins to slow, and finally Harry can open his eyes without the immediate threat of flying sand to his vision. Draco pulls his hand away and turns round, towards the approaching destination. There is a village just ahead, which is bigger than Harry had expected, than he has so far experienced, with more shacks than he can automatically count, and he has to estimate how many there might be; anywhere from 25 to 35, he guesses. A sinking feeling comes over him inexplicably as the lorry rolls closer.

Draco bangs on the rear window and tells to Yerodin to stop, and Harry suddenly feels right again, because he thinks that Draco is going to tell him to turn around. He thinks Draco is going to demand that he return them to the airport, and they will purchase tickets to Nigeria or Zimbabwe or wherever, and finally leave this place and its hot air and sodding sand behind.

But instead Draco turns to him and says, "This is all yours, Harry." He climbs out of the flatbed and gets into the passenger seat beside Yerodin. His door bangs shut, a loud and rusted clack, and Harry feels all of his hopes fall to the desert floor.

The lorry begins to roll forward, and they're almost there, and the people are starting to notice them, are beginning to move towards the vehicle. Harry gets slowly to his feet, touching his pockets to make sure the money is ready, and he tells himself that this won't be so bad, that he'll just hand out the money as they pass through, and there are plenty of people so he'll be sure to get rid of it all in one day, and then he and Draco can be on a plane by tomorrow morning, or tonight if there were any available.

They are only about fifty meters out at this point, and some of the natives have started running towards the pickup. The first to get there is a boy, no older than 10 or 11, who walks along side the lorry as it keeps moving, dressed in a tank top and khakis that are about five sizes too big, held up only by a piece a rope through the belt loops. He holds his hand out to Harry and says something in a language Harry that doesn't know, but he understands the desperation in his voice, can see it in the boy's huge almond-shaped eyes, and Harry gives him the entirety of the first lump of cash. The relief in his eyes is almost enough for Harry to drown in.

But then another boy, this one older, sixteen perhaps, grabs Harry's forearm and says something to him with narrowed eyes that sounds like it might be an accusation, motioning to Harry's shirt pocket, from which he had just removed the money. Harry looks at him coldly and tries to snatch his arm away, but the boy has a good grip, and he's strong, stronger than Harry remembers he or Ron being at that age. Harry tries again, pulling as hard as he dares while trying to avoid a dislocated shoulder, but the boy's grasp on his arm holds hard, and suddenly Harry feels that he is the one being pulled, being yanked down, and this boy has eyes are that black and cruel. Harry stumbles and almost pitches forward and suddenly becomes very aware of the exact distance between himself and the ground, when his survival instincts kick in and he slams down to his knees on the flatbed to give himself more leverage, and it's down to a game of tug and war between himself and this boy, this sixteen-year-old who is looking at Harry like he is the one personally responsible for all of this, from the scar across his cheek to the dirty, tattered shirt on his back to the sand in the desert and the heat of the sun and the holy injustice of it all.

They struggle for a moment more before Harry gives one final yank and falls backwards, banging his head against the tire well. His vision swims briefly in darkness before clearing, and he sits up slowly, rubbing the back of his head, thinking that that will smart later. A hand reaches for him from behind, clasping onto his collar briefly before falling away and wrenching at his shoulders. Harry turns his head, and sees that they have reached at the interior of the village, and what seems to be every single inhabitant has come out to swarm their lorry and beg for money. There has to be over fifty of them, Harry guesses, four or five deep on all sides of the flatbed, and they reach for him and grasp at whatever they can, as if their hands themselves are hungry for Harry's skin, his shirt, his hair, and he has to move to the middle of the flatbed so that they can't touch him. And then he stands up, to put more distance between himself and the people.

They look at him like he might be the Second Coming or the prime minister or the president or whoever answers to their problems; whoever is their answer. They hold their hands out to him, palms up and open, the sleeves of their faded and threadbare t-shirts riding up, so loose that Harry can see their ribs protruding from the skin on their sides. They are calling him, screaming at him from all sides, telling their stories to him in languages he never thought existed as they crowd the flatbed, chests to sun-eroded paint and metal, and he feels suffocated by their need, swallowed whole by it.

Their eyes are wide and shockingly white against their black skin. Their voices break as they cry out to him. Their teeth are perfect.

And it's wrong, Harry suddenly realizes, it isn't right, the way they look at him, the people here. Desperate and hungry and seeming to say Save me, save me, isn't that what you're here for? as they grasp at the ends of his cream linen shirt, which Draco had insisted he buy at the airport gift shop to keep cool, and even though it was painfully expensive, he did, yes, he bought it just to see the smile on Draco's face when Harry wore it the next day, and the people's hands are so dark and so dry that Harry becomes suddenly so thirsty he thinks he might die of it, might crumble to pieces right then and there, as stone and sand. And this isn't just the wrong place or the wrong time, it's the wrong idea, the wrong bloody notion.

Who was he to think he could save these people, even a few, two or three or four?

Who was he to think he could save anybody?

Harry yells to Yerodin not to stop, to drive until they are far from here, and he avoids Draco's eyes when he looks back at him from the passenger seat. Harry takes a seat at the far end of the flatbed, his back to the tailgate, and the reflection in the lorry's rear glass window is of the Nigerans running after them, arms extended, and of himself, in his linen shirt, crisp and clean, the unassuming color of sand, as he does nothing.

- -

The skies here are a thicker gray than Harry remembers ever seeing before, having become accustomed to England's rain clouds, white-gray and high up as they were, so high up that they seemed far beyond any matter that would have to do with Harry, or with anyone else. The sky over England, and over the rest of the world, it was untouchable, indifferent to everything that happened below.

But it was different here, as everything seemed different. The clouds in Africa hang low, close to the ground, so close that Harry thinks he can feel them brushing the top of his head and wetting the palms of his hands. And they are deeper here: darker, fuller, and the thunder makes the ground shake and rumbles of something other than a mere scientific reaction to lightning.

Harry thinks that this is perhaps why Africa has remained so untouched, so sacred still, this closeness.

- -

Harry has this dream later that night:

He is standing on the same cliff in Guinea they had been before, and he can hear the rain as it beats on the leaves of the trees and falls on the ground, but he is dry and there isn't a drop coming from the dark clouds over his head, and he doesn't think that this is odd, that this is out of the ordinary in the least. He peers over the edge of the cliff and there are thousands of natives clinging to the side of the mountain, their grips slipping as they call out to him, cry for his help in a thousand languages that he doesn't understand.

He falls back from the brink and stumbles into something, and when he turns he sees Draco standing over him, and he is drenched in the rain that isn't falling, and there are drops rolling off of his cheeks like tears.

"Don't push me," Harry says, and he has to shout because he can barely hear himself over the sound of the non-rain. "Draco, please don't push me over."

Draco looks confused. "Push you?"

Harry glances over his shoulder, and it's such a long way down, such a very, very long way to the bottom. He turns back but Draco has disappeared, and suddenly the rain arrives, pouring over his skin and hair and soaking his clothes, and the sound isn't that of rain, but of the voices of all the people he hadn't been able to save, their cries of help and accusations of neglect, echoing with every drop that falls. The ground beneath his feet becomes unsteady and slick with the pouring rain and he slips, and he is falling backwards, falling over the edge, and it is nothing like flying or being free.

It is only falling.

- -

"I know you wanted to save me," Draco is saying, and Harry wonders if this is a dream, if this has perhaps never really happened, because nothing exists except for them, no time or place or detail.

There is only Draco, and the way his hands tremble when he holds Harry's hand so tightly he thinks the bones will break.

"I know you wanted to save me," Draco is saying, "But I feel like you've killed me instead."

- -

"We have to leave here," Harry says. "Go someplace else."

"What?" Draco asks, turning to look at him.

It is the middle of the day, and they are still in Niger, having lunch at an outdoor café, and the existence of such a thing in such an unbearably hot place baffles Harry, makes his head spin, or maybe that is the heat.

He sets his drink on the white tablecloth and leans forward. "Africa is choking me," he says, voice low and harsh. "I can't stand another day here. We'll go to Asia, or Western Europe, or South America or something."

Draco's mouth drops open.

"There's still plenty of money that I have to give away," he continues, "But I can't do this here anymore. I'll die."

"Are you mental?" Draco asks.

Harry feels defensive at his tone. "What do you mean?"

"We'll leave here tonight if you like, or right now, fine by me. Just pay the check and tip the waitress and let's go. Hell, I'll even throw the parade," Draco says dismissively before becoming serious, "But do not think for one minute in that silly head of yours that I am ever going on another one of these- these- excursions ever again."

This catches Harry off guard, and he is unable to think of a reply before Draco continues.

"I'm through after this, Harry," Draco says, and he looks at Harry in that moment as if the two have just met, as if he were no more than a stranger to Draco, with a cool disconnectedness in his eyes that shoots right to Harry's heart. "Finished."

And the finality in his voice is frightening to Harry; the idea that Draco will leave him is frightening.

"You can't leave," Harry says, panicking. He feels himself pulling at straws, mentally ticking off this reason and that reason until he finds one that has always worked before, that Draco has never been able to stand up to.

"Your five years isn't up yet."

Harry doesn't look at Draco when he says it, not wanting to see the way his shoulders will go rigid and his eyes will harden. He means to put it gently, because it is always hanging over their heads, this silent understanding, always tarnishing every moment and every thing, this actuality of circumstance.

And no matter how many times they neglect to mention it, or try to forget it, or hold each other's hands or kiss each other's lips, it's always there, this shadow of reality: Harry being the jailor and Draco the inmate. And it makes Harry's throat clench to think of it that way, to be reminded of the real reason why Draco is with him now, why Draco has yet to leave him, because it takes what exists between them and cuts it off at the legs and leaves them with raw, bloody emotions.

And it doesn't mean that Harry loves Draco any less. It only means that that love is more painful.

He looks at Draco over the single red carnation that rests between them on the tablecloth, and rather than seeing defeat, as Harry had expected, he sees defiance burning in Draco's eyes.

"I'll leave," Draco says plainly.

Harry only stares in response.

"I will," he threatens coolly, and Harry wonders how he can still manage to be so cold while it was always so hot here, so stiflingly hot everywhere they went. "I'll walk out while you're sleeping. Steal some of your money and catch a flight or train. I don't have to stay."

There is something in the way Draco's eyes shine that borders on mania, on suicide, and reminds Harry of an animal cornered, whose only way out is to kill or be killed. And Harry wonders if Africa had really been that awful for Draco, that damaging that it would become a matter of life and death.

Or is it himself that Draco would die to be away from?

"You don't have to stay?" Harry repeats. "The Ministry--"

"We're in Africa, Harry, what is the Ministry going to do about it?" Draco interrupts.

"Well, they might try to find you. Do you honestly think that they would just let a convicted Death Eater, let alone a Malfoy, escape and go missing in a foreign country?"

Harry feels rather than sees Draco's eyes boring into his, because the midday sun makes his hair almost too bright to look at, and it's painful, looking at him. Harry has to squint.

"You wouldn't tell them that I was gone," Draco says, confident in himself.

And Harry realizes that pride had always been Draco's most guilty sin. He had lived his life for it and arranged his alliances around it, and he suffered for it now, that Malfoy pride that came attached to the name. And yet, without it, where would Draco be? Who would he be? It was Draco's pride that had made these four and a half years so excruciating for him, but it was the only thing keeping him sane now, that saves him now.

And Harry suddenly understands that there is nothing for them after this. 'This' being not just Africa, but the past four years and six months, and all of the things that had passed between them in that time and all of the things that hadn't, that were no more than imaginings and dreams that became lost when you brought them into the light of day.

Harry looks at Draco and Draco is broken. Harry knows this, is sure of it like he's sure that the sun will rise tomorrow, and that sometime thereafter, it will set. Because it was Harry who had done the breaking, Harry who had felt the snap under his thumb.

How could Harry have thought there would be an after with Draco when living through it must have been so unbearable?

"...I know you wouldn't," Draco is saying, and Harry is unsure if Draco has continued talking this entire time. He feels as if years have passed in these few seconds, and in them he has grown old and unspeakably weathered.

Draco holds his gaze defiantly, and Harry is the first to break away because looking at Draco hurts more so now, in more ways than one.

Something pulls at Harry and tells him that he can stop this, that Draco won't leave if he gives him the right answers, says the right things. But what that might be, that right reason-- it's like the Saharan sand beneath his Nikes, pouring through his fingertips as he grasps at it. He can't find it and so Harry has to give up, and he closes his eyes as he realizes this.

The red silhouette of Draco burns negative into the back of Harry's eyelids, into his memory. He tilts his head back and the sun is hottest on his eyelids and the bottom of his jaw.

"And you would go where when you left?" Harry asks. "Be where?"

Draco's voice is sure when he answers. "Anywhere."

Harry brings his head back down and lets his eyes flutter open, and he takes a look around. Everything is white after keeping his eyes in the dark, everything so white, the sand and sky, and there is only this small café in this small town, and beyond that, in every other direction, nothing. Desert and sun and nothing. Draco had said himself, once, that there was nothing in Africa.

"More like nowhere," Harry says.

They leave shortly after, and Draco doesn't say anything the entire ride back to their hotel. He is unusually quiet the remainder of the night, and Harry does nothing to pull him out of it, to stop this or hold onto him, because he knows that Draco will do it, he will leave. Draco will do it and Harry will not stop him because Draco is owed that much after four and half years; Draco has earned that right.

Harry knows that one morning he will wake up and he will feel a chill for the first time in Africa because the bed will be empty and Draco will be gone. Harry knows that he will not notify the Ministry, and in six months, when the five years are finally over, he will tell them that Draco has decided to stay in Africa, that he has bought property on the beach and plans to build himself a bungalow with a large deck facing the water, and that Harry speaks with him regularly and not once have they talked about magic, about the war. He will do this to protect Draco. He will always protect Draco, until the day he dies.

Harry knows that there is nothing he can do to stop Draco for the simple reason that he shouldn't, and he knows that he will do nothing about it after he's gone.

Except, perhaps, miss him.

- -

The first night that Draco comes to Harry, they are camping in the middle of nowhere after driving for hours over dirt roads that never lead them to any hotels, only more wilderness, more of this endless African wilderness. The hard red clay is their carpet and the sky their roof, and Harry is nervous and can't sleep because he thinks that he has gotten them lost, lost somewhere in the Serengeti, where a lion or cheetah or something is going to come up in the middle of the night and eat them while they are sleeping.

So Harry tells Draco to sleep in the car, and he lays out a thin blanket that Draco had snatched from some hotel on a clearing of dirt, surrounded by the tallest grass that he has ever seen. And he tries to sleep, but the stars are too bright and all of the sounds seem too close.

And then at some point Harry hears the car door open and close, and he thinks that Draco is getting up to take a piss and so he closes his eyes and pretends to be asleep, but the sound of Draco's footsteps directly approaches the spot that Harry has made for himself. Draco stands over him for a moment, his figure casting a shadow over the blue and purple African starlight behind Harry's eyelids. And then he asks in a soft whisper, Harry?

And Harry considers ignoring him, weighs the options between continuing to keep his eyes closed until Draco has left and opening them. And while keeping them closed seems to be such a promising proposal, when Draco says his name again, in a whisper so quiet and unsure that it hurts to ignore him, Harry realizes there might also be something promising, in an altogether different way, in Draco.

So Harry slowly opens his eyes, letting them adjust to the brightness of the night. Draco is standing over him, awash in the silver starlight, and he looks so beautiful like that, with his hair falling into his eyes and the shirt he wore from the day before wrinkled and unbuttoned almost to his waist, falling off of his left shoulder, that Harry thinks he would do anything that Draco asks of him in that moment, would have abandoned Africa forever, or walked straight into the bush and never came back, or loved Draco until those stars fell down on both their heads.

But instead Draco asks, hesitantly, and in a soft voice, if he may lie down?

And it's awkward, the way he asks and the way he makes a half-motion with his right hand to the blanket, and Harry wishes that he had just done it without asking. But he only nods and smiles gently and makes room.

Harry shushes him when he tries to give his explanations, that the car was too cramped or that it smelled too much like sweat that wasn't his. And then, with a smile to Draco's back, Harry has to privately quell the urge to tell Draco that they have to be quiet or else the lions will hear them, because he doesn't want to scare Draco. He only wants to lie here with him in the middle of nowhere and to observe the way the starlight falls on his skin, casting shadows on places that Harry has never looked at properly before, like the nape of his neck and the curve of his lower back beneath his shirt. It's new and invigorating and quickening Harry's pulse, these discoveries he has made, but he is hungry and he wants more, and his hand is coming up and his fingertips are tracing the perfect line from Draco's neck to the edge of his shoulder and Draco is turning around, he is sparkling and beautiful and here, kissing him back.

Harry wraps himself around Draco, breathes deeply the smells of the grasslands and the night and this moment of Africa, suspended.

- -

The following day they are scheduled to return to London.

Their flight is at 7:00 a.m., so Harry sets the alarm for 5:30, but the next morning he is awake by 5:00, because something pulls him from his sleep, because something is not right.

Because he is cold.

- -

"The exchange rates will be preposterous," Harry is saying, "By the time I get there and exchange the money, I'll have to give away fifty times as much."

Remus laughs, saying, "Damn Britain for being so wealthy. Whatever will you do, Harry?" he asks as his laughter fades into a small smile, which, Harry thinks, disappears altogether far too quickly.

"I'll just have to work a little harder to find the most devastation, I suppose," Harry says jokingly.

It's quiet for a beat before Remus speaks. "Be careful with yourself, Harry," he says earnestly.

Harry smiles easily. "I know, I know, Africa is dangerous and whatnot. A whole other world. But don't worry, I'll be fine."

Remus looks at him with unguarded eyes for a moment, and the doubt and concern that Harry sees in them runs so deeply that he is positive he has misunderstood Remus' meaning, that he was not talking about the dangers of Africa at all, but something else entirely.

But just as suddenly as it had come, the moment is gone, and Remus is standing and collecting their teacups, Harry's empty and his own untouched, as he says, "I hope that you will be, Harry. I hope that you will."

Harry smiles at him as he shrugs on his coat. "I'll come to see you as soon as I'm back, and I'll tell you all about my wonderful and sordid African adventures," he says with a wink.

- -

Harry arrives at the airport early and alone.

He waits for his flight in the hard, straightbacked terminal chairs, which remind him of children's playground chairs, gaudy plastic things in red and orange and bright blue. He has his legs propped up on the chair opposite, slowly going numb from the hip down, and his rucksack, which is almost completely empty by now, is stuffed behind his head. He is slumped in his seat with his eyes closed, unwashed and unshaven going on days now, but he thinks he still looks good for a man coming apart at the seams.

The only activity in the terminal is in the Starbucks to Harry's right as the espresso machine whirls and whooshes and Harry wonders whatever for, because he hasn't seen anyone order any coffee just yet. He has only seen the woman who works there, probably a native, tall and dark with an Ethiopian neck, sitting silent at one of the tables in her khakis and black collared shirt. Her legs are crossed to the side of the table and she is reading an African magazine with the photo of a woman holding her child her arms, when Harry realizes with a start that he hasn't yet bought a gift for the baby, who is due in two days.

He wonders how Hermione would react if her child's first present from his or her godfather were an African Tribal mask. While Harry foresees it as not favorable, he thinks George might get a kick out of it. But Hermione would look at him sternly and remind him that he or she is just a baby, artwork is really not on the agenda yet, and didn't Harry think that one of those nice, educational books with the sound effect buttons would have been more appropriate and beneficial? But she would hang the mask in the baby's room anyway, because she does like it, she would reassure him, it's just she wouldn't have picked it out, and Harry thinks her child will probably grow up to have some weird phobia of it, of masks or puppets or whatever.

He rubs his forehead, pinching the skin at his brow. Once he got home, he would just Apparate to Diagon Alley right quick and find one of those books with the sounds and--

Apparate. Harry sits up suddenly, cursing his thickness. He could just Apparate home, of course. It would be as easy as visualizing his flat, his favorite chair in the sitting room, right besides the window. He feels like an idiot for not having thought of it sooner.

He gets up from the plastic terminal seat and grabs his pack and tries to find somewhere secluded, although he doubts that anyone in the terminal would have noticed. He finds the nearest restroom, but there is a native man emptying the rubbish, wearing a jumpsuit with what Harry assumes to be the Nigeran word for janitor on the back. The man nods once at Harry, and he notices that the whites of the man's eyes have become dull with age, and that his left eye is clouded over by a cataract. Harry returns the nod as he heads for the sink, a viable excuse, he thinks, given his present appearance. The man quickly replaces the old rubbish bag with a new one, and then he is finished, and he is pushing his cart of cleaning supplies out of the bathroom and letting the door swing shut silently, leaving Harry to himself in the small loo.

He turns off the tap, dries his hands, and tries to recall the image of home as his eyes fall closed. But what Harry sees is not his kitchen, or his bedroom or his favorite sitting chair or any other part of his flat. He sees Draco. Draco, smiling at him on the plane to Senegal; Draco, sitting on the edge of the bed in Harry's guest bedroom with a captured look in his eyes and a defeated posture; Draco, as he turns to Harry on a small blanket they share in the middle of the savanna, under an arm's-length sky, and puts his hands on either side of Harry's face and kisses him softly, tasting of hesitance and spearmint and all of the good things that Harry remembers about Africa.

Draco fucking Malfoy.

Harry sighs and opens his eyes, runs a hand through his tangled hair.

But Draco is gone now.

He avoids looking at himself in the mirror as he pulls his ticket from the back pocket of his trousers. The word LONDON is written in bold, red ink, and it brings forth images of crowded rain-soaked streets and gum stains on the pavement and people, so many people in London, all in a hurry to get somewhere, to do something. Everyone has his or her own agendas and priorities there, and Harry wonders, when had his own changed from being the same as everyone else's, from getting to work on time and doing the grocery shopping and preparing dinner before it got too late, and maybe meeting someone along the way, someone to spend his time with and make him happy? When had he stopped wanting that? When had his priorities evolved into something else?

Harry had thought he came here to find something, that somewhere within everywhere. He had thought that that was what he needed, that that would make him whole.

He had tried to save these people, save all of them with his money, and he likes to think that maybe he succeeded most of the time. But it was only money, only paper and ink and a little bit of metal, and it stuck together in the rain and was good for nothing. But happiness, or love, or whatever you wanted to call it, whatever was real salvation-- that didn't come from money, whether you were receiving it or giving it away.

Harry had thought that this was his sacrament. He had imagined something like security in numbers, the more he helped the better off he would be. That he would earn his own salvation by passing it out to others, to those in need, but he had done nothing to keep his from leaving in the middle of the night.

And so it left him here, alone in a men's room in central Niger holding a single first class ticket to London, with nothing to call his except the empty rucksack on the counter and this ticket. He smells of unwashed tears and sweat and doesn't even know how to rescue himself. He doesn't know what will work. Because when he had tried to control it, tried to dictate where and to whom salvation went, it still hadn't come, and when he had done nothing, it had walked away from him and left the sheets cold.

He tucks the returning ticket back into his pocket and walks out of the bathroom just as the old janitor is passing by out of the women's restroom. He nods at Harry again, smiling, and his teeth are straight but not the perfect white they probably once were, and when he walks away it's with a slight limp, and he reminds Harry so sharply of Remus then, gentle and kind and older now, more tattered, but so were all of them. Harry is overcome, and he checks his pockets for money, nothing there, and as he reaches for his shoe he suddenly remembers the stash in his pack. He pulls it out and goes after the man.

"Sir," Harry calls out, hoping that he will speak some English. "Sir!"

The man stops and turns, looking concerned. He has a scar under his left eye shaped like a crescent moon.

Harry puts the money into the man's hand and smiles at him, saying, "Here. Take this."

The man looks at the money. He shakes his head and looks at Harry and tries to hand it back, but Harry won't take it.

"I want you to have it," Harry says, and his heart twists with sincerity.

But the man doesn't take it. He firmly but gently seizes Harry's wrist and pushes the money into the palm of his hand. There are calluses at the bottoms of his fingers and his joints. His skin is warm, and so is his smile as he shakes his head at Harry and motions to his cleaning supplies, as if to say, No, you see? I don't need your handouts, I work; I earn my money, and I'm proud of that.

Harry folds his fingers closed around the money and nods shortly. The bills crumple in his hand.

The man walks off, steering his cart around Harry and holding his head high as he limps away, but he turns back briefly and waves, smiling. Harry finds himself smiling back. And he hasn't saved this old man, hasn't given him the money to quit this job and retire somewhere along the beach or on patch of land somewhere. Harry hasn't given him anything, and yet--

Yet he feels like this man has given him something, that the warmth of the man's smile and the gentleness of his hands have saved some small piece of Harry himself.

And Harry realizes that salvation is not a scale to be balanced, or a weighing of one deed against another, this versus that. It comes from the way you live, judges you by the decisions that you make from day to day, moment to moment, in the things that you do to make life tolerable, before there was no life left at all.

Harry knows he doesn't have all of the answers. He may not even have any. And he may have lost a few.

But he knows that this is just a piece of something bigger, something greater, only the beginning of an end that he can't be sure of but thinks--hopes-- believes is the answer. And this searching, this blind gathering of small salvations such as this, is exhilarating, is better than discovering magic, better than anything else in the world that he can think of.

And in that moment he makes his choice.

He goes to the gift shop and buys a post card to send to Hermione, apologizing for missing his godson's or goddaughter's birth, and he dearly hopes that she will understand and he wants her to know that just because he isn't there doesn't mean that she'll never hear from him or again, or that he doesn't love her dearly. Then he buys a leaf of note writing paper, which is light blue with the word "Africa" watermarked across the middle in a large, tropical type, to write a letter to Remus, because he made a promise and doesn't intend on breaking it. And he buys a clean shirt for himself, linen, cream, and it makes him smile when he passes his hand over the fabric.

And then he exchanges his London ticket for a one way to South America, which also makes him smile.

- -

Harry thinks, once, that this must be the only place in the world.

He tries to prove himself wrong by ascending to the top of the tallest sand dune he can find, but all he sees from there is more of the same nothingness, more of the same cloudless, white-blue sky and rolling desert. There, he can find no reason to believe that anything else might exist beyond where the sky meets the sand, no reason to remember that he is not the only person left in this world.

He tilts his head back to the sun and shuts his eyes and holds out his arms, and with his palms open to the sky and his throat tight with sudden emotion, he howls:

"IS THIS ALL?"

And there is no answer.

Finis