Promises to Keep

They went to a pub in Hogsmeade called the Unlucky Griffin. It wasn't quite what Draco

expected, ambience-wise, although it was reasonably clean. Potter went and got the drinks, and came back to the table. He and Draco sat in silence until Draco couldn't stand it anymore. "So this is where the Gryffindors go to drown their sorrows?" he asked.

Potter stared at him moonily. Not a date, Draco thought. He wondered, a little grimly, if he ought to have left a note for Snape. Just in case Potter really was that much of a lunatic. At least then someone might find his body. "Pot--," no, that sounded awkward. "Harry?"

Potter's eyes refocused. "Sorry," he said, and smiled. His teeth were a little crooked. Draco resolutely did not find it charming. "I'm just a little nervous. I don't usually do this, you know."

"Go out and have a drink?" Draco asked, resolutely misunderstanding.

"With a handsome bloke like yourself," Potter clarified.

"Flatterer. For that, you can buy the next round." Draco was pleased; the words came out pleasantly flip. Inside, though, he was panicking. He felt like the setup for an elaborate joke--and he wasn't sure he'd like the punchline.

"For you, anything," Potter said, and he probably meant it to be light and funny, but Draco wasn't capable of laughing at things like that. He looked around. The pub's walls were covered with old Quidditch gear--old Quidditch gear, and blurry, black and white photographs of teams from the 19^th century, scorecards, autographed Chocolate Frog cards.

"Do you think they buy this stuff in bulk?" he asked. "I mean, where else would they have gotten some of it?"

Harry turned to look at the walls. "I never thought of that," he said. "Maybe they do. Maybe there's a warehouse somewhere full of it--broken brooms and muddy robes and dented Bludgers."

"And the ashes of the glorious dead?" Draco suggested. "Used condoms? Empty bottles?"

"Do you ever miss it?" Harry asked abruptly.

There was only one realistic answer to that. Of all the things Draco missed, standing up to take a piss was first on the list, and playing Seeker was something like thirty-ninth. But he could hear the ache in Harry's voice, and he knew this was something he could share. "Yeah," he said, peeling the label off his beer. "I miss it." He did, too, suddenly. Not only flight, or the feel of the wind on his face, but the cool sense of certainty: the belief that he was right, and that he would be rewarded for it.

"Things were easier then," he said when he realized he'd let the pause drag on too long. "Simpler."

Now it was Potter who looked away, and said, "Not for me." Draco had--not forgotten, precisely, but stopped thinking much about the fact that they'd been on opposite sides of the war. And he'd never thought much about what Potter's life was like, before it had begun. Unlike Draco, Potter hadn't chosen his side so much as he'd been born to it. All at once, Draco felt ashamed of himself, of the self-pity that he wore like a cloak. However bleak his future looked, it was no more than he deserved.

He caught the waitress's eye and waved her over. "Shame I can't charge this round to Professor Snape," he said, forcing a smile. "I know he'd like to buy you a drink."

Potter snorted. "I don't think they serve hemlock here. Would he buy me a pint?"

"Absolutely," Draco said, "and one for me as well. Not hemlock, Mr. Potter. Asphodel and and wormwood, maybe. Didn't you pay any attention at all in Potions?"

"None at all," Potter admitted. "Education is wasted on the young. You didn't pay attention either."

"No," Draco agreed. "And now look at how successful I am--Muggles stop me in the street and ask for my autograph, you know."

"Do they?" Potter asked, but he was grinning.

Draco's stomach twisted. Lust, he thought desperately. That's all this is, you sad crippled fuckwit. You can't possibly be falling for Potter. And whatever he wants from you, it probably isn't good. "Look, Potter," he said. "We should probably get going. I don't want Snape waiting up for me or anything."

"Sure." Potter dug into his wallet for a Galleon to leave as a tip. "I know what a hard-ass Snape is." There was a little bit of an edge to Potter's voice. He knew that Draco only saw Snape in passing, these days, and rarely at that. He'd heard Draco complain about it often enough.

Draco bit his lip, but he didn't apologize for the lie. It was better if Potter thought he wasn't interested. Maybe it was better if they weren't friends, even. "I'm tired," he said, and that least was the honest truth. "Let's go."

He followed Potter to the back, and closed his eyes while Potter Apparated them to Spinner's End. He had never got used to being without his magic, and he doubted he ever would. Tonight he was almost hoping to be splinched: it would be entirely in keeping with his mood. Disappointingly, however, they arrived completely intact. Draco leaned forward in his chair, helping Potter heave him across the drive and up to the steps. He'd gotten better at that, at least. Even if it wasn't so much a skill as a survival tactic. He jammed his key in the lock and turned it until it clicked. Snape hadn't put the deadbolt on, which meant that either he'd left it off on purpose because he'd noticed Draco was gone--or he hadn't been downstairs.

Draco knew which was more likely, and he pushed back the panic that seemed to flare up every time he thought of Snape. He was going to wind up with an ulcer if this kept on much longer. He shoved the door open and wheeled himself in. Potter followed him, which hadn't been the plan. Draco bit back a sigh and turned. "Thank you," he said. "For the beer, I mean."

Potter looked as awkward as Draco felt, hands in the pockets of his coat, eyes on his trainers. "Yeah," he answered. "I had a nice time." And then he leaned over and kissed Draco on the mouth. It was unexpected, but not unpleasant, gentle but not tentative. Draco didn't have much experience, but he knew what he liked--he always had. The hand he'd put up to shove Potter away ended up curled around the collar of Potter's coat, and Draco closed his eyes and didn't struggle. He knew what it was like to be on the losing side of a war. He knew when to stop fighting.

That was as far as it went, that night--just the one kiss, and not a particularly long one. But Draco knew it could have gone farther, if he'd let it. He didn't know what to do--he didn't even know what to think. He needed to talk to someone about it, but his choices were limited to the absent Snape and an angry Siamese cat. He said good night to Potter and went and had a bath. He thought about the kiss a great deal, and he resolutely did not touch himself.

In the morning he dragged himself up and made breakfast. Snape didn't come down for it. Draco sat at the table and read the paper from beginning to end while he nerved himself up for what he knew was going to be an unpleasant conversation. He was never sure whether procrastinating made it worse or better.

He made far better progress up the stairs this time than he had before, which meant, at least, that the physical therapy wasn't completely useless. Maybe it was his new muscles that had attracted Potter, not his pathetic helplessness. Snape's door was half-open--but then, why would he ever bother to close it? Draco went in without knocking. It wasn't as if he were quiet: Snape had to have heard him slithering his way up.

He was alive, which Draco hadn't seriously doubted, not really. Not until the last ten minutes or so. The room wasn't even much of a tip: just a tidy row of bottles along one wall, and Snape, fully dressed, lying on the unmade bed with his arm over his eyes and Lucifer curled beside him. Lucifer looked up when Draco came in; Snape didn't. He did say, "What is it?"

Oh, Draco almost said, nothing. I hauled my ass up here to see if you wanted cream in your coffee, since you haven't bothered to come down for it in two weeks or so. But years of living with Lucius Malfoy had taught him that sarcasm rarely improved any situation. "I can't do this," he said. It had the advantage, for once, of being absolutely true. Today was a day for truces: a day to lay aside arms and shields and comforting lies, and tell the truth.

"I can't watch you die," he said, "and know that it's my fault, and not try to stop it." Lucifer, who hated excess emotion, leapt off the bed and fled from the room. Draco, angry and embarrassed to be crying, already, wiped his eyes on his shirt sleeve. Somehow Snape always saw him at his worst.

At least this was enough to make Snape sit up, though. "Draco," he said almost gently. "I'm not dying. You're hysterical."

"You don't eat," Draco said, the words tumbling out in a rush. "You don't sleep. You don't do anything. You won't talk to me. You don't even yell at Potter."

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you and Potter--" and there was a hint of Snape's usual sarcasm--"But I haven't any intention of dying. Breathe, Draco, for Merlin's sake. The Blacks may have been known for melodrama, but that certainly is no reason for you to indulge."

Draco was breathing, so hard he felt sick. He didn't think it was only the stairs, either. "I can't--" he choked out. "I don't care if you hate me. I need you to be all right. I need to be able to talk to you."

And Snape was looking at him now, really looking at him, for what felt like the first time since he'd collected Draco at hospital. He was still Snape, still capable of that narrow focus that made you feel like the only other person in the world. He was too pale, and far too thin, and it looked as if he'd cut his hair with a blunt butter knife, and Draco would never get used to seeing him in jeans and a sweater--but he was Snape. It was an unbelievable relief, or it would have been, if Draco hadn't had such a terrible secret to reveal. "What's so wrong?" Snape said.

"I'm in love with Harry Potter," Draco told him. "I've tried not to be--I've tried not to think about him, and the gas man says it's probably PTSD, and I need therapy. But--."

"Fuck," Snape said. Draco had never heard him swear before. He flopped back onto the bed for a moment. "Your mother's only in France, Draco. Are you sure you wouldn't rather talk to her about this?"

Draco swallowed, hard. "No," he said, as bravely as he could. "I want to talk to you."

Snape did not say that Draco would. He got up, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. He didn't seem to be drunk, or completely out of his head, as the British Gas man had gloomily prophesied he might be. Draco felt a glimmer of hope, quite apart from the faint possibility that Snape could somehow sort out his troubles with Potter. Depression, he thought, could be dealt with, if that was all this was.

Snape went stiffly down the stairs. It was the first time in weeks, if not months, that he'd been up during the day. Draco followed him a good deal less gracefully. There was really no graceful way to go down stairs.

When they were sitting at the table, coffee in hand, Snape said, "Talk." And when Draco opened his mouth, "Start with why you thought I was dying, and why you thought it was your fault."