Paris

"Misfortune was my god."

-Authur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell

- - - - - -

Prologue: Before the Curtain

I guess that, if you'll want to hear the story, you'll want to know a little something about it first.

The whole world was coming down, and, sure, you could say that it was partially my fault. You could say it was partially anybody's fault. But the fact is, whole cities were being flooded and burned, big cities. Tokyo and London and Los Angeles, and it seemed as if everybody who didn't have a Dark Mark on their arm was falling to their knees and dying on the spot. And so, naturally, the queue from the Ministry building poured out onto the streets with people in line to get one.

But of course there were exceptions. There were always exceptions.

Voldemort was finished, that much was for sure, and the prophecy was fulfilled. But if we thought that something like that, something like the death of one man would keep the world from buckling, well, then we were all of us fools.

The Death Eaters kept coming, because they had come too far to go back now, and it was only a matter of time. We circled the globe to find some place safe, city after city, but it turned out to be a death toll, as body after body was collected. We wanted to find some place safe, but what we found was an international state of emergency, and a body count that had gone too high.

We were the only ones left.

I'd heard that Paris was one of the few cities left relatively untouched, so that was where we went.

- - - - - -

Paris

"Do you even know where we're fucking going, Malfoy?"

Malfoy glanced back at him harshly, but all Harry could see over the pulled-up lapels of his thick winter coat were Malfoy's grey eyes, narrowed and cold. There was snow stuck to his lashes, and the colors were frighteningly similar.

"Why don't you just announce it to the whole world that we're here, Potter?" he snapped, turning back and picking up his pace. Harry struggled to keep up with him without breaking into a run. Malfoy's legs were much longer than his own. "I'm sure there are some people in the West Indies who didn't hear you."

"Look, I'm tired, can't you just tell me--"

Harry cut himself off as Malfoy abruptly disappeared through the revolving glass door of whatever building they happened to be walking in front of at the moment. Harry cursed under his breath and quickly followed, putting his head down and pulling his coat closer around his shoulders. He glanced up, expecting to see Malfoy glaring at him, and almost tripped over his own feet at what he saw, which was decidedly not Malfoy himself, but more along the lines of where a Malfoy belonged. It must have been a hotel lobby, and an expensive hotel at that. The ceilings were arched like the ceilings in churches that Harry had seen in Muggle pictures, high and round with paintings of angels that lounged and hid behind fluffy white clouds, their faces flushed with innocent delight. Harry had seen ceilings like this before, in a wizarding district in Rome, but here the cherubs did not fly about the painting, and the clouds did not roll with the wind.

A crystal chandelier hung from the painted ceilings, and Harry had never seen one so big, so bright, so expensive looking in his twenty-two short years. There were three sets of square pillars lined up in the lobby to make a sort of foyer leading to the front desk, the bases of which were decorated with ornate designs in gold, similar to the gold trimming on the walls. There was a lounge to his left, where various pieces of antique-looking scarlet furniture surrounded gold-encrusted tables, and there was a man dressed in a tuxedo with long coat tails who held a tray of champagne with white-gloved hands. To his right, a--

"C'mon, Potter. It's late already, and I need a hot shower. Bloody Parisian winter."

Malfoy grabbed a hold of his elbow and steered Harry to the left, past the vermilion and gold furnishings and the man with the coat tails, towards an alcove of elevators just ahead.

"What?" Harry spluttered. "Malfoy, we can't stay here."

"Of course we can," Malfoy said, looking rebuffed. "I've already checked us in." He waved a plastic card under Harry's nose as he pushed the button on the wall with an arrow pointing up. It lit up an orange color.

"It isn't safe," Harry whispered fiercely, looking around. The lavish décor seemed to leer at him, to trace cold fingertips over his scar and say his name. "It's too high profile. They'll think to look for us here. This is the sort of place you would go."

"Not unless they think that I've already thought of that," Malfoy said with a smirk as the elevator behind them dinged and opened its doors. "In which case," he continued, stepping into the elevator, "they, having thought they outsmarted me, would begin looking in every dirty hidey hole andunwashed crevice in Paris, whilst you and I are staying at the La Bristrol presidential suite, enjoying the complimentary spa treatment." Harry hovered just outside of the elevator. The doors began to close, but Malfoy stuck his arm out to catch them. He looked at Harry sharply. "Potter--"

"But what if," Harry started, "they've already thought that you would think that they would think you thought of... of that?"

Malfoy looked as if Harry he had just confessed an undying love for Professor Snape. "What?"

"What if they thought--"

"Potter, just shut up," Malfoy said suddenly, taking on a tone he hadn't used with Harry since Bombay. It was cold and abrasive, like the frozen streets just outside, or the cobblestone sidewalks that were iced over with melted snow. Malfoy's jaw was set as he said, through gritted teeth, "Get into the fucking elevator."

The doors began to close again, but this time Malfoy didn't try to stop them. Harry blinked and when he opened his eyes, the moment had somehow changed, and the doors were almost closed. He had a sudden feeling that, were those doors to close, he would never see Malfoy again after that. And Malfoy was all that he had left in this world, a world that was crumbling and falling away by the wayside.

He stuck his hand out suddenly, right before the doors closed, and they sprung open again. Harry stepped onto the elevator and didn't say another word.

- -

London:

It was the middle of the night, and the streets were wet with the springtime rain, and the only light came from the fires that had been set to shops along the street. There were explosions at various points and at various times, and Hermione was falling behind, which Harry found somewhat odd, because she had never been one to fall behind on anything. And he would have called out to her, would have said something had he the breath to spare for it, but the fact was that he hadn't.

One usually didn't when one ran through a street that was on fire, bounding over bodies that still had their eyes open.

"Hermione!"

It was Ron who called for her. Harry looked sideways, and he could see Ron starting to fall behind, too. He was watching Hermione more than he was watching where his own feet fell, and he was calling out for her, urging her forward. Harry took Ron's arm, because it was all that he could do, but his friend wrenched his arm away and stopped and Harry ran right past him. When he looked back, Ron was holding his hand out for Hermione.

Harry began to slow down, because he couldn't leave them, and, surely, there was at least a moment to spare.

But there hadn't been, and just as Ron's hand closed around Hermione's, the ground rocked upwards in an explosion just under their feet, and Harry was thrown backwards from the blast. He was dazed, and the world seemed far away and deadly quiet, and the only sound was the quick-paced footsteps of the others as they continued running.

Slowly, Harry sat back up. He looked down the street for Ron and Hermione, but there was only fire.

- -

Harry didn't know how long they would stay. A few days, a month, six months: none of it mattered that much anymore. How long they stayed didn't matter, like the money didn't matter, because Malfoy had come into his family's fortune as of late, or the location didn't matter, because nowhere was safe anymore.

Sometimes Harry found himself hard pressed to find something that did matter, because the fact of the matter was, not much did.

The days bled into each other, the bluish hue of Mondays into the green tilt of Tuesdays into lavender Wednesdays and so on and so forth, until they were only left with one indefinable color that looked like every color in the rainbow at the same time, and yet was none of them.

It reminded Harry of Malfoy's eyes.

They watched the telly every night at six, because, Harry said, that was when the evening news came on. They both knew that the evening news was now the twenty-four hour news, but Malfoy only nodded and let Harry hold the remote as they watched because he didn't know how to work it, and Malfoy translated everything for Harry because Harry didn't know a word of French. It was a routine, and they had others.

They had one for everything.

A routine for waking up in the morning, a routine for ordering room service, a routine for showering and sleeping and dreaming: Harry would always be the first to wake up screaming from one of his nightmares, and it would wake Malfoy from one of his own, and together they would wake up room service and share a cup of tea together in silence. Sometimes Malfoy's nightmare would have him so worked up he would come in sweating, and he would mop his hairline with a damp cloth as they sat together. They drank their tea from champagne flutes because those were the only glasses left unbroken, and then Malfoy would leave for his bedroom, and Harry would follow shortly after to his own, where they would both lie awake until the sun came up.

Uncle Vernon used to say that routines were a comfort, and Harry actually found himself agreeing with his uncle partially on the matter. He liked their routine of eating breakfast in the sunny parlor, and even the nightmare routine of tea and silence. But there were other routines. Like the ones they used automatically for covering their tracks, and the ones they used to memorize and crosscheck the face of everyone within striking distance, and even the one where they spent late nights studying maps of Paris so that they would know the blueprint of the city like they knew the back of each other's hands. It was routines like those, which come as second nature, that didn't comfort Harry at all.

But comforts were few and far between, and Harry had learned to live without them, just as he had come to live without his parents, and his godfather, and even his best friends. He wasn't guilty about it, about them, because he wasn't sure he could be. It would have killed him, he was sure of it. He knew it like he knew the feel of his own glasses, round and light and achingly familiar, and Aunt Petunia had always said that it was never safe to swim in the parts of the ocean that you couldn't see to the bottom of.

And every night, Paris' city lights were winking out one by one in the distance and never lighting up again. Another city was dying.

- -

"No new updates from the UN debate, of course. It's their tenth day of collaboration, and they haven't come up with a single plan to stop the Death Eaters. They haven't even declared war, because they don't know who to declare it on."

Harry looked sideways at Malfoy from across the sofa they were seated on. His legs were propped up on the glass coffee table in the center of the living room, looking intently at the television screen and listening to the French newscast.

"They still have no idea what they're capable of," Malfoy continued. He scoffed and glanced at Harry, "Seems like the term 'anything' hasn't come to them yet."

Harry shrugged. "They're Muggles, Malfoy. They don't know anything about wizardry other than what Voldemort showed them, and that certainly wasn't very helpful. And there isn't exactly a rush of wizards at their door willing to help them." He felt Malfoy tense on the plush sofa next to him, but ventured on despite the warning. "We could--"

"No, Potter."

"They're on our side, Malfoy--"

"Just drop it."

"They could--"

"They're Muggles, Potter--"

"No, Malfoy, they're people, just like you and me. People who are fighting for their lives. People who are fighting against the cause Voldemort left behind."

Malfoy didn't look at him. "I'm not fighting against the cause."

"No, you're just running from it."

"You don't know everything there is to know, Potter," Malfoy said lowly.

Harry looked at him hard. "Then tell me."

Malfoy still wouldn't look at him.

Harry clenched his fists and stood up suddenly, knocking his knees against the coffee table. He cursed loudly, though he wasn't sure if it was from the pain in his knee or the pain in his side that was Draco Malfoy.

"Why won't you fucking tell me anything?" Harry asked, his voice almost to a shout. He whirled on Malfoy, who was still lounging back casually on the sofa, feet still propped up, and said, "We've been all over this damn globe for ten months now, and I still don't know why you're here! We've come this far since London- why not just tell me?"

Malfoy looked at him calmly, almost serenely, as if waiting until Harry was finished. He wasn't.

Harry threw up his arms. "If you're so eager to stay away from the Death Eaters, then why not go all the way? Why not help the Muggles, when they're all that's left of our side? You can't stay neutral forever! There's still a war to fight, Malfoy. Maybe we don't have to keep running. The Muggles--"

"Would cut us up like little lab rats, Potter," Malfoy cut in. He hadn't moved, but his back was rigid on the settee, eyes burning into Harry's and hands curled into fists at his sides. "There's no co-existing with Muggles. You either hide from them, or you dominate them. The human race has never been one for willing submission or cooperation with those more powerful than itself." He looked away and said acidly, "Anything more powerful than themselves that the Muggles can't make submit, Potter, they break."

Realization dawned on Harry. "So you want us to keep running? To run and hide? Until when, Malfoy? Until they win or lose? Forever?"

Malfoy held his gaze for a long time. Finally he looked away and said, softly, "Until we die, Harry."

All of the steam left Harry then, at this small admission. So that was all there was left. He supposed a part of him had suspected it all along, but he had still hoped...

And now even that was gone.

He crumpled onto the sofa and laid his head back, staring at the vaulted ceiling. This was one of the few rooms without a chandelier, and Harry was thankful for the simple white paint, because nothing seemed that simple anymore.

"I'm sorry," he said suddenly. He was surprised at how raw his voice sounded, and it felt like gravel in his throat.

Draco's hand brushed against his, and neither of them moved away.

- -

Bombay:

In London it was fire, but in Bombay it was disease that took the city. The Death Eaters had developed a plague that spread through human contact, and it was merciless and it was wholly successful.

Gloves were handed out to those who could not afford them. The Muggle government may not have had a cure, but they did have means of prevention.

It was no longer safe to be seen with a wand.

Harry thought he had seen it all, but as it turned out, you never have unless you've watched a young boy die in the arms of his mother, watched until the breath gave out from his brown, malnourished belly, and his mother closed his eyelids with her fingertips. Harry tried to look away, but the scene was everywhere, sometimes in reverse; it would be a young child closing the eyes of their mother or father or grandparent. Sometimes he saw the corpses of young lovers curled around each other in a final embrace. Sometimes entire families. Everyone was staged in a scene of death, and everyone had lesions on their skin. After a certain point, the government no longer tried to move the bodies from the street, and so they piled high, higher than the Taj Mahal it seemed.

There were five of them left: himself, Dean Thomas, Terry Boot, Ginny Weasley, and Draco Malfoy.

Malfoy had caught up with them in Berlin, and Ginny had wanted to kill him on the spot.

"Death Eater!" she had cried, and she had pummeled her fists into his stomach and face and anything else she could find, and he had let her. "Murderer! Scum!"

Malfoy's lack of defense had alarmed Harry, and he had pulled Ginny off before she inflicted any serious damage.

"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" he had asked, holding Ginny by the shoulders as Malfoy didn't even try to get up off of the ground. "Come to kill us the nice way?"

Malfoy had to take a moment to catch his breath. He put his hand up to his chest and closed his eyes, as if it took all of his strength to breathe. Eventually, he said, "I'm here same as you. I don't want to be a part of... of that. Never have."

Harry had narrowed his eyes. "But why would you wait until after the war to defect?"

Malfoy had looked at him steadily. "Circumstances," was what he had said, but Harry had understood that he meant, 'My father's dead.'

Ginny had gone still in his hands, and Harry had nodded. "Get yourself cleaned up. There's bandages in the back. Don't use magic; they can track it."

At first, it was the same as it had always been. Malfoy hated Harry, Harry didn't care, and Dean, Ginny and Terry hated Malfoy because he used to be a Death Eater. They all fought with Malfoy, because Malfoy was proficient at getting under everyone's skin. But there were other moments, moments that seemed to linger a little longer every time they appeared. The city was dying of disease, after all, and they couldn't stay mad at each other forever, nor could they leave. The city was in quarantine as the government waited for it to die completely.

Sometimes Malfoy would rest his hand on Dean's shoulder, or laugh with Terry, or smooth down Ginny's hair. He and Harry would simply sit in silence together for hours. They came to care for each other as only those on the cusp of disaster can.

Swiftly and completely.

And then one day they were walking the bazaar when a woman dressed in red stopped them, and she had gold hoop earrings in her ears the size of grapefruits, and she put her gloved hand on Harry's forearm, and she told them in a hollow, vacant voice that one of them was touched with the disease, and then she was gone.

They all thought it was Malfoy. He had come down with a fever the day before, and they had all been a bit sad, but mostly relieved that it hadn't been one of them. But it turned out it hadn't been Malfoy after all, but Terry. When Harry spotted the lesions on Terry's neck, he found himself wishing that it had been Malfoy. And then he was sick in an alley from the guilt of having thought that at all.

London was fast, fire and heat and rush, but Bombay was slow and thick with disease.

Terry Boot did not die quickly, and the four of them stayed in Bombay until the last petal in the Hanging Gardens fell. Malfoy traded his father's ring for a Portkey from a man with only one eye, and they left with one less than they had arrived with.

- -

The snow was coming down outside in slow and gentle tendrils, and the flurries danced like royalty in the window. The fire was hot and crackling in the hearth, and it made the room glow golden. Draco leaned forward. The fabric of his shirt was cold and wispy-soft, like a wash of cruel words whispered from a lover's lips.

"Are you going to kiss me now?"

And the answer was yes.

- -

Harry learned things about Draco, more than he had ever expected to.

Like the fact that Draco tired too easily, or that he was lactose intolerant, but had a fatal love for ice cream, and that he ate the stuff regularly, despite the fact that it always came back up an hour later. Or the fact that he was left handed. Harry was surprised to learn this, after all the years they had spent dueling, and he had never once noticed that the wand Draco had pointed at his heart had always been held in his left hand. Or the fact that he favored his right leg when walking, which was another story that Draco refused to tell. He was full of those. Harry was beginning to lose count.

He learned that Draco's favorite place to sit at night was the window ledge in the living room that overlooked the city, but during the day he preferred the chaise lounge in the parlor that was nearby the window, overlooking the hotel's courtyard. He asked Draco, once, why he never went outside, if he so obviously longed to. Draco had answered him by not answering at all.

Harry also learned that Draco like to be touched. This, however, was a painfully slow education. It began as just a few and sparingly placed shoulder brushes and lingering taps on the forearm. Harry was surprised at the cool temperature of Draco's skin at first, and he initially thought it might not be normal. But then, what was normal about Draco? So Harry tried harder. He made the touches more obvious. He pressed a little harder when they brushed against each other on accident, sat a little closer when they shared the sofa in the living room, lingered a little longer in his personal space. He pressed himself upon Draco firmly, evenly, entirely, until finally Draco began to press back.

He learned that Draco was not a morning person, not in the slightest, and that he should keep his distance before Draco had had his morning cup of coffee. He learned that Draco had earned the same number of NEWTS as Hermione, and that he was terrified of moths, and that he had never fallen in love and never planned to.

At some point, he supposed, he even learned to love Draco.

And if, somehow, Harry had thought that that should have made everything all right, or should have made everything more tolerable, he should have known better.

- -

"What about this one?"

Draco held a black shirt up to his chest. Harry looked alarmingly at the other three back shirts that Draco had draped over his arm. Was Draco asking him which he liked better, out of the three? Because they all looked the same. Were they actually the same shirt, or different shirts? If they were different, was he expected to know the difference? And had Draco already gone over all of this, when Harry hadn't been paying attention?

He wasn't very good at shopping, especially not in these expensive-looking French boutiques Draco swore to.

Harry finally said, "I like it."

Draco seemed pleased with his answer. He smiled and laid the shirt atop the rest, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh, look at this one, Harry," Draco said, holding a dark green jumper over the worn gray one Harry had on. "The color is perfect for your eyes."

Harry pulled up the sleeve and checked the price tag. Had he been chewing something, he'd have chocked on it to death. "I can't afford that!"

Draco gave him a look that said, quite simply, Duh.

Harry took the jumper from Draco and put it back on its rack, noting that the hanger itself looked far too expensive to even be handled by untrained salespeople. "I won't let you buy that for me. It's outrageous."

Draco looked at him blankly. "It's Armani."

"It's a rip off."

"It's a gift."

"It's a stupid gift."

Draco snatched the jumper off its rack and said hotly, "It isn't stupid." He looked to be struggling in the attempt to keep himself from saying, You're stupid, Potter. "It's unappreciated." And then he stalked off to the register to pay for the gift.

Harry frowned and cursed to himself, shooting a glare at the cool off-white tile flooring of the boutique. He wished desperately that he had put up more of a fight that morning when Draco had announced that he was going shopping, and that there was nothing Harry could do about it but go with him.

Suddenly Draco brushed right past him, knocking him off balance. Harry glared but didn't say anything. He caught up to Draco quickly, just at the door, where he gently grabbed Draco's sleeve and pulled him around, forcing Draco's to face him.

"Look, I'm sorry for what I said, I--"

But he was cut off when a streak of red light soared just past Draco's head and instead collided with one of the boutique's giant glass display cases, shattering it into pieces that flew in a million different directions. In what would seem later to be all one motion, Harry seized Draco's arm, pulled him flush against his chest, and drove to the ground, covering as much of Draco as he could. There was a scream from somewhere in the back, from the general vicinity of the register, but Harry ignored it as he reached for his wand and turned--

"Don't move."

The words were bitten out and alarmingly close, stilling Harry's hand where it was.

"Get up and turn around, both of you."

Harry put his hands in the air, because it seemed like the right thing to do. But looking at Draco, who had his arms dignifiedly at his side, Harry felt himself blush.

"I said, don't move."

Harry put his hands back into the air.

There was more commotion from the back. A Muggle woman in all black was crouched behind the register, shouting in the direction of the storage room door, "Marie, Marie! Appelez la police! Ils ont des baguettes magiques! Appelez la police!"

Harry looked back at the man before him, who held his wand level to Harry's chest, and it was black, like the smoke from the London fires. He wore Muggle clothes: baggy jeans, a faded red jumper and brown boots. His hair was a little overgrown, and it fell into his eyes and curled over his ears. He was calm and collected, as if he had expected this or planned it out. Harry wondered how long he had been following them. He wondered where they slipped up.

"Who are you?" Harry asked suddenly. "Are you a Death Eater?"

The man smirked, a gesture that looked smooth and hard around the edges. He looked at Harry as he spoke, but it was Draco he addressed.

"How're you feeling, Malfoy?"

When he answered, it sounded to Harry as if Draco had just run a very long way, and was out of breath. "I'm fine, thanks for asking."

"Delightful," the man said, and grinned widely, his eyes still on Harry.

A wand suddenly appeared in Harry's peripheral vision, similarly black and undoubtedly Draco's.

"Avada-"

Harry wondered if Draco had said these words often. The way they rolled off his tongue, smooth and effortless, like Dudley's glass marbles across Aunt Petunia's freshly mopped hardwood floor, seemed to tell Harry that the killing curse was a second skin to tip of Draco's wand.

"-Kedavra."

And the man dropped instantly, with the same stupid grin on his face, but a dawning of terror in his eyes. It hurt to look at, and Harry had to turn around before he became sick. He looked to Draco, but Draco was looking at his hands with an expression on his face that Harry would never forget. It was the purest form of terror he had ever seen.

Harry followed Draco's gaze to his hands. They were covered in blood. He took a step forward, bringing his hands to Draco's. "What--"

"Don't touch me," Draco said quietly, transfixed by the blood on his hands.

Harry stepped towards him unconsciously, reaching out-

"Don't touch me!" Draco exploded, stumbling backwards hastily.

Harry's heart dropped. He kept his hands at his sides, but he couldn't keep himself back. "Okay, all right. What happened, Draco? Are you all right? What happened?"

"It's the glass," he said, more calmly.

Harry cast a glance at the glass, which was indeed splattered with blood.

"You have to tell them not to touch the glass," Draco said. He was looking at Harry with ice-cold clarity, and even the gray edges of his eyes seemed sharper. "Tell them that, Harry. Nobody can touch this glass." He suddenly looked at the sales woman stooped behind the register. "Ne touchez pas ce verre!"

"Okay, Draco, okay," Harry said, nodding. "Just let me..." he gestured to Draco's hand with his wand.

Draco nodded firmly. "Yes, quickly. Before anyone else comes."

"Curatium," Harry said softly, and then finished with a quick cleaning charm that Draco insisted on. "Let's go," he said, taking Draco's healed hand in his before he had the chance to pull away.

Harry pretended that he hadn't felt him flinch.

- -

Rome:

Rome was dry when they got there, and flooded when they left.

The water was blue at first over the cobblestone sidewalks, but as it rose and rose against the walls of the city, it became gray and dense. Holy idols were lost and drowned in the water, and Malfoy used the money his father had left him to buy them all a boat. Harry was oddly touched.

"Have you seen this?" Dean had asked one day. He came up beside Harry and dropped a thin stack of papers on the table he was seated at.

Harry took one look at them. "Wanted posters?"

Dean claimed the seat across from Harry. "We're wanted by the International Board of Wizarding Affairs."

"The what?" he asked, staring at Dean disbelievingly.

"The new government that the Death Eaters implemented," he explained. "They've moved past just England; they've gone international now. And we're public enemy number one."

He looked down at the papers. His was on top, a picture of him from school that had been taken with Ron and Hermione. But someone had burned them out of the picture, and now Harry was the only one left, his grin out of place beside the burn marks where his best friends had been. There was one for Dean and Ginny, and even one for Terry that made his throat constrict, but there wasn't one for Draco.

"Did you not find one of Draco?" he asked, looking up from the posters, which were painful to look at and reminded him of Sirius.

"No."

"Not one?"

"Not one."

Harry sat back. "What do you think that means?"

"Well, it obviously means that they aren't looking for him."

"Right, but why?"

Dean looked serious. "Maybe he isn't what he says he is."

Harry shook his head right away. "No, it doesn't make sense. If the Death Eaters had sent him, then they would know he was here, and they must have known that we would find these eventually." He picked up the posters and looked through them quickly. "They would have made one of Draco, too, if only to throw us off. They didn't win the war by being careless."

Dean did not look appeased. "I don't trust him."

Harry thought for a moment. "I do."

The corners of Dean's lips turned up, and he said, flippantly, "You just want in his trousers."

Harry had rolled his eyes, but the moment had stayed with him, and it was that moment between them, that single moment of simple harmony and gentle camaraderie that Harry would always think of when he thought of Dean Thomas, who died that very night when Death Eaters raided their hotel room. It was a simple killing curse, and the next day he, Ginny and Malfoy transfigured the leather bracelets around his wrists to lead, and they laid him to rest in the Coliseum, where he sank to the bottom and joined the spirits of the other fallen gladiators.

There were only three of them left, and Harry had begun to think of it as a countdown.

- -

Harry began to notice things after the incident at the boutique.

They had been careless, he and Draco both, and it had only taken the Death Eaters three weeks to find them this time. They were too wrapped up in a world that was their own to remember that the one they lived in was falling apart, and would take them with it if they weren't careful.

He noticed the faces that passed them on the street more closely. He watched the way other people watched them more carefully. If one look lingered a moment too long in their direction, or if someone's expression was on the wrong side of friendly, or if someone so much as breathed in their direction the wrong way, Harry took firm hold of Draco's forearm and led him out the nearest exit.

Eventually they just stopped going out.

They relied on the maid and room service for almost everything. They brought the food, changed the sheets and the toiletries, cleaned their messes. They were living in the hotel, and hardly living at that, but it was fine, and it was okay. They had each other to hold at night, to whisper to and fall asleep with, and that was all the comfort they thought they needed. They were safe.

Being cooped up seemed to take the greater toll on Draco, who began to sit in his chaise lounge in the parlor, under the white winter sun, more and more often. He had lost weight, and Harry didn't believe him when he said that he hadn't, because he could see the proof. It was in the flesh of his sunken cheeks, and the bones of his ribs, which were far too prominent beneath the fair lay of his skin. When he came down with a fever, Harry had almost broken down and taken him out, to a small café on the corner for a cup of coffee, like he had asked.

But it was too risky.

If he hated Harry for it, for imprisoning him, he never showed it. And Harry didn't notice until it was too late that Drao never fought with him over it.

The world was dying anyway, Draco had said, why shouldn't they?

- -

"Come sit with me, Harry."

Harry looked over his shoulder. Draco was sitting in his parlor, reclining in the scarlet rays of the setting sun. He waved his hand in a general direction of, Come here.

Harry smiled and took a seat at the end of the chaise, beside Draco's bare feet. "Yes, dear?" he mocked.

Draco said, in the most self-affected tone he could muster, "I find I enjoy your company, Potter, and therefore grant you the high privilege of conversing with yours truly."

Harry playfully thwacked him in the stomach.

"Careful!" Draco said, looking wounded.

Harry instantly sobered. "Sorry! Are you all right?" He gently put his fingertips to Draco's temple and looked him over. "I'm so sorry. What did I do?"

Draco looked at him gravely. "You've killed me," he said seriously.

Harry rolled his eyes, but smiled despite himself, unable to prevent the feeling of relief that rolled over him. "If only..."

"You wound me, Potter, you really do."

Harry shifted and leaned over Draco. He kissed the corner of his mouth and said, softly, "Scoot over."

Draco pretended to be annoyed by the request, making a big scene out of having to move to the left a few inches and place his book on the floor, but Harry could see the smile he tried to keep from emerging on his lips, and he could see the glint in his eyes.

Harry settled in next to Draco, both of them on their sides, facing each other. Harry draped his arm around Draco's waist, and Draco flung his leg over Harry's, who slid one of his own around Draco's calf. They were tangled and it was perfect, warm and safe and perfect.

Draco's hair had grown out some, and he let it fall into his eyes and never pushed it away, because Harry was always there to do it for him, and Harry liked doing it. His eyelashes were needle sharp and long, and Harry had memorized the curve of his mouth so perfectly that he thought he could paint it in the dark.

"I find you," Draco said after a moment, "to be very..."

"Irresistible? Charming? Handsome?"

"Annoying. Ungrateful. Gay."

Harry laughed and kissed Draco between the eyes. When he pulled back, Draco caught him with a hand behind his neck and held him in place, his face just centimeters from Draco's. His eyes were oddly bright for the darkening light in the room, as the sun had already slipped behind the horizon and it was now twilight. The air was stiff in the parlor, a sign that it was going to begin snowing at any moment.

Draco leaned forward and brushed his lips against Harry's just so at first, and Harry shivered at the light touch. Then he moved his entire body forward, pressing himself into Harry and sealing his lips over Harry's. His tongue swept against Harry's bottom lip, and Harry opened his mouth willingly. He wrapped his arms tighter around Draco's waist and moaned when Draco's tongue curved around his. He trailed his fingertips beneath Draco's shirt, and felt goosebumps rising on the skin of Draco's arms and stomach in response. He smiled and deepened the kiss, leaning closer as his fingers dipped further down, beyond the waistband of Draco's trousers, when suddenly Draco twisted away, breathing heavily, eyes lowered.

Harry sighed and leaned back. He repositioned himself onto his back, with his arms crossed behind his head, and he stared through the window at the darkening sky.

"I'm sorry," Draco said softly.

Harry sighed again. What else had he expected to happen? "It's fine."

"It isn't fine, Harry," Draco said sternly. "And it isn't fair."

Harry certainly couldn't argue with that.

The sky had taken on the shades and undulations of nighttime, and finally it had broken. A single flake of snow drifted down from the folds of black, swirling with the wind, and Harry was riveted by it in the way that only the first flake of snow can capture your attention so completely. It landed soundlessly on the window, where it melted as if it had never existed in the first place.

"Harry?"

"Hmm...?"

"There's something," Draco began softly, so softly that Harry wondered if he didn't want to be heard at all, "that I should to tell you." He stopped for a moment and took a breath. "I'm sort of..."

"Annoying?" Harry offered, watching closely as the snow began to fall more heavily. "Ungrateful? Gay?"

"Dying."

Harry let out a short laugh. "Oh, that's very funny."

"You're right. It sort of is."

He looked down at Draco, but Draco wasn't looking at him, and the only part of his face that Harry could only see clearly were the pale lids of eyes, and his silver lashes as they quivered against his cheek. Harry suddenly felt as if something had struck him in the throat, something hard and solid and with deadly aim.

He managed to choke out, "What?"

This time Draco did look at him. He lifted his eyes, and they shone like glass, and Harry could see himself reflected in them. He looked as if he'd been Stupefied.

"I'm dying."

The world seemed to swim before him, and he hadn't the strength in his neck to support his own head, so he let it flop back against the chaise. "What?" he asked again.

So Draco talked, and he listened. But all he could think, as he watched the snow fall against the black sky and collect in icy splotches on the window was that it was winter in Paris, and Draco wouldn't live to see the spring.

- -

It was a brain tumor, or brain cancer, whatever it was you were supposed to call it when it was in whatever stage Draco had advanced to.

Not that it mattered what Harry called it. It was mostly a cruel breed of tragedy and irony, and it was inflicted on him by the people he had fought next to for four long years towards the sole purpose of shaming and then killing him with a Muggle disease. It was inoperable. It was advanced, and it was fatal. But as long labels were being mentioned, Harry thought it should be noted that he only called it The Most Fucked Up Thing Ever.

And it was. It was vengeance for being his father's son. For rising too quickly in Voldemort's ranks. For being rich and beautiful and intelligent. For his name. For everything he stood for.

But the funny thing, Harry thought, was that Draco had never stood for anything in his entire life. Not really.

So now you know everything, Draco had said. You know why I came to you in Berlin. The Death Eaters hated me. There was nowhere else to go.

But everything that they had hated him for, Harry thought, that they had betrayed him for, that they had killed him for, had been pushed onto him in much the same way that smaller children in the playground are pushed around for their lunch money. His position in the Death Eater's ranks, his looks, his money, his name--what out of that had Draco chosen for himself? What had he actually gone after, and sweat and bled and hoped for?

Certainly none of that.

And so Harry wanted to rage, oh how he wanted to kill every breathing soul that had ever looked the wrong way at Draco, or had ever spoken an ill word about him, or had even thought for one second that the world might be better off without Draco Malfoy, and that included himself. He wanted to find the people who did this to Draco, who had thought their treachery through well enough to find the one thing what would hurt and shame Draco the most--a Muggle disease with no cure and hope for one--and he wanted to make them suffer, and in doing so redefine the word "suffer" and all of it's connotations. He wanted to uncork all of that screaming power within him, to overrun Paris with his magic and bring the entire world to its knees in a flurry of Gryffindor scarlet and Slytherin silver, and then kick it in its teeth when it was down. Because that was what it did to you.

Living in this world hurt. Harry wanted to hurt it back.

- -

Moscow:

So they went to Moscow, and Ginny spent all of her time crying, and Harry and Malfoy gave each other knowing looks that were filled with apprehension and fear.

They knew who would be next.

And something about the way Ginny looked at them through her tears, as if she might never see them again, and the way she drew patterns with her bare fingertips in the fogged up windows of their hotel room all day long, told them that it wouldn't be long at that.

"She's like the snow," Draco had said once, when they were alone together. He had been watching a snowstorm through the window all morning. "White. Falling."

And when they woke up one morning to find her bed un-slept in and her window wide open, neither of them was very surprised. They left her where she lay on the sidewalk below, and they piled snow atop her twisted body, because neither had the strength to move her.

And that left only two.

- -

"Well, have you got it out of your system yet?"

Draco was looking at him as though he were a new puppy who had just soiled his owner's favorite mink coat. But mostly he looked tired, and Harry wondered why he hadn't noticed it before.

"Well?"

Harry took a look around. He had been quite thorough in his damage of the presidential suite, and there seemed not one thing left unbroken, overturned or scattered everywhere. He had even slashed the walls and ripped down what wallpaper he could. Wherever there was glass, now laid a pile of broken shards; where there was furniture, it now laid overturned; where there was a book or a stack or papers, it was now torn to pieces, and the pieces lie scattered over the rest of the wreckage. But he hadn't touched Draco's parlor. He wouldn't.

His knuckles were bloody, and his hair was matted down to his forehead with sweat, and he had thought that he had made the problem better somehow, that he had spent what rage he could. And yet, looking at Draco, who wore all the signs of a man not well, who was losing far too much weight and who had moved past being angry, into something that tasted bitter in the back of Harry's throat, like defeat or acceptance, the same fury rose in him again, and he realized that there was no stopping it, or quelling it, or spending it.

Just as there was no cure for Draco.

"Do you feel better now?"

And Harry had no answer.

- -

So he tried to stop being angry about it.

He tried to accept it. He tried forgetting about it. He tried hiding from it.

None of that worked.

Because Draco was always there. He was always nearby, always within reach. Always so close, with his thinning wrists and dark circles under his eyes, never giving Harry a reprieve from the reminder that this was really happening. And truth be told, Harry couldn't bear to be away from him. Sometimes Harry just had to reach over and touch him, to smooth back a piece of his hair or pick an invisible piece of dust off of his jumper, just to make sure he was still there.

When it came right down to it, Harry couldn't stop being angry for one reason: there was nothing else to be. Absolutely nothing.

- -

"Stop looking so frazzled. Everything'll be fine."

Draco smiled at him brightly, and Harry wanted to smile back, but he found that he couldn't.

"I know," he lied.

Draco was about to smile at him again, but Harry looked down before it was fully formed, pulling one black leather glove onto his left hand. He tried the other, but it was more difficult when the other hand was already gloved, and he couldn't get the seams to line up right. He fretted with it for what seemed like several minutes before Draco's own gloved hands came up to halt his progress.

"You have to promise me one thing though," Draco said as he straightened out Harry's glove with the ease of long years' practice.

"Anything," Harry answered without thinking.

"You have to enjoy yourself, too. Don't spend the entire time looking over your shoulder, or mine either. Let's just forget about the world for today, okay?"

Harry hesitated. He wanted to give Draco what he wanted, and more than that he wanted to enjoy himself and he wanted to let himself be swept away with Draco and the time they had left together. But he didn't want to jeopardize their safety. What it came down to, plainly, was this:

Did he want to keep Draco alive, or did he want to let him live?

Draco was looking at him expectantly, still holding his hand within his own, and Harry saw in his eyes that Draco had finally allowed himself a little bit of a hope for the day. It wasn't big, and it was certainly hard to sift out in all of that perfect gray, which reminded Harry so painfully of thunderstorm skies, but it was there. And the thought of crushing it made Harry's heart restrict painfully.

"Okay, yes," he said finally.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

"I said I promise."

Draco beamed at him. "Good."

Harry looked at him reproachfully. "So where are we going exactly?"

They went everywhere, they saw everything. Some of the streets were on fire, but they didn't care. They had been in Paris for a little over a month, and had hardly "seen the sights," as Draco had put it, so they did all of those stupid tourist things that Draco said he had always hated, and they forgot about the rest of the world, because that was what Draco had asked him to do. But the day was like a negative image at the back of Harry's eyelids now. He could see the outline of the Eiffel Tower, and of the Arch and the towers of Notre Dame, but the depth and color of the day had long since been washed out, and now he only saw outlines and figures in black and white.

Which was a shame, because it had been the best day of Harry's life.

Draco was laughing as he fell against the wall beside the door of their hotel room. Harry was laughing too, as he searched his pocket for their room key, but he had long forgotten what it was they were laughing at. He laughed because Draco laughed, and that was enough. He finally found the key and slipped it into the lock, and Draco tumbled in first, still laughing, and the perfection of the day had reached his eyes, and Harry was struck by how young he looked. But, then again, they were all of them so young.

He let the door close behind him and took Draco into his arms, and he kissed him with all of the passion he had kept hidden, all of the underlying emotion and intensity that was burning a hole into his heart. He memorized the press of Draco's body against his, the texture of his eyelashes against his own cheek, the taste of liquor and freedom on his tonguetip.

When he pulled back, Draco's eyes were still closed, and his lips slowly curled into a smile. "Thank you," was all he said.

Harry smiled and turned towards his bedroom, when suddenly he stopped cold. The shadows of the room were falling the wrong way across the moonlight, and something was wrong. There was a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, and Harry turned just as a man, a man of no extraordinary bearing, of no recognition to him or importance, stepped from the shadows and raised his wand to Harry's chest.

"Avada-"

- - - - - -

Epilogue: Curtain Call

I buried Harry under a weeping willow in the hotel's courtyard, in an unmarked grave. I didn't dare give him a headstone, should the Death Eaters come upon it sometime later and... and do whatever it was they would have done. I don't like thinking about it.

Paris didn't fall for another three weeks. It was strong.

After that I went to the states. The list of safe cities was a short one, and I didn't think I could handle such a long trip as the one to Rio de Janeiro, which was my first choice. So I settled on New York. It didn't matter where I was anyway. It was just another city, another place to die.

That's what they all were. London, Bombay, Rome, Moscow... Paris. Large burial grounds, where you had your pick of the lot.

- - - - - -