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When it's clear that they'll be overwhelmed, Harry gives the order to retreat. Some people are able to Apparate away, but Harry is bleeding so heavily that he's afraid he'll kill himself if he tries. Running isn't easy, but he's fast, and in the midst of the chaos he somehow manages to escape. There are screams, and he tries not to assign them to people: Hermione? Ron? Or was it Neville who made that sound like he was choking on his own blood? He keeps running, holding his side, his own blood flooding over his fingers. He isn't even sure what sort of curse hit him, something that was designed to strike like a knife if it bounced off or didn't take full effect. He thinks, in one wild moment, that he can feel one of his organs pressing against his palm, and he topples to the forest floor to vomit. When he's worked up the nerve to investigate, he looks down to see that what he was feeling was only the ripped edge of his sweater.

He sits in place, trying to catch his breath. Everything aches, especially his chest, even more than the wound at his side. The forest is quiet but not silent, hooting and twittering softly as the last of the sun disappears. It will be very cold soon.

Harry lets his legs fall out in front of him and his head loll back against the tree he's leaning against. It makes no sense that he was able to escape. Perhaps he should have stayed behind to die with the others. But no, they can't be dead. They Apparated, they got away, too. Still, he shouldn't have run. He shouldn't ever trust his instincts; they've misled him so many times.

He's failed. He feels it all through his body, in the thinning flow of his blood, which has blackened the leaf-strewn floor of the forest around him. He'll die here, alone, and hasn't he always known that he would? He tips his head back to look up at the swaying canopy of the trees. The sky is a dull, purplish color, smoky, as if it's been marred by the burning of a nearby town. It's possible that this is the case. Voldemort and his Death Eater army are winning. Harry is a poor excuse for a general, or whatever it is he's supposed to be. They should have kept him caged, wrapped up and guarded until the time came for him to be presented to Voldemort and fate took over. He shuts his eyes and tries to envision killing the man -- monster -- who has ruined his life. He's never really been able to imagine it, least of all now.

Something makes him stand, some memory of the people who have trusted their lives to him, now and before. He groans tremendously, struggling to pull himself up against the trunk of the tree, the bark scraping against his raw fingers. For a moment he thinks he'll black out, and then he does, and he's face first in the leaves.

Part of him is waiting for the blackness at the edges of his vision to take him, to free him of this fruitless uphill battle to even stand, but the release never comes. He gets to his feet, huffing every breath and barely able to see in front of him as the sun disappears, his glasses smudged and dirty. He takes up his wand and mumbles a spell to clean them, but this only causes them to slide off, and the quest to recover his glasses and replace them on his face feels as if it takes several days, though it must not, because the sky is still so black.

The air gets icy as he stumbles through the forest, crashing into trees in a way that begins to seem almost comical. He would laugh at himself if his jaw didn't ache so terribly, from one of his crashes to the ground, probably. His stomach is whining and hurting very sharply; he'd been stranded in the forest with his friends for weeks after the Death Eaters planted their trap, enticing them with orchestrated rumors of a Horcrux in the area. They ate what they could find or kill, and Harry had withheld from partaking in plenty of makeshift meals for the sake of Ginny and Dean, who were weak with some type of sickness that even Hermione couldn't discern, and who needed the energy more than he did. Harry begins dreaming madly of waffles and hot buttered rolls, the great Welcoming Feast spread out before him at the table at Hogwarts. He does manage a laugh at the thought of Hogwarts. That world, the one that saved him, is gone, and maybe the wizarding world didn't really save him after all. It only showed him a new way to turn out hopeless and lost, alone.

His teeth have begun to chatter by the time he hallucinates the cottage. It's just a dark shape up ahead, the stones on its walls shining in the moonlight. Harry falls over just from the sight of it, not sure if this is a sign of the end or not. He crawls toward the door and casts the unlocking spell, but it doesn't work. The house is either not there at all, just a bank of jagged rocks he's come across in his delirium, or it's a wizarding dwelling, protected by magic that the unlocking spell can't break. He slumps down beside the door and stares at the knob, trying to imagine what Hermione would do. He falls to wondering if she's even alive, and curls to a heap on the ground.

It's thoughts of Hermione that set him in motion again. He imagines her standing before him in the forest, furious at the sight of his resignation, his embrace of defeat. You've come this far, she says, and now you give up?

"I can't," he says to no one. His voice is an empty croak. He waits for someone inside the cottage to throw open the door and either save him or kill him, but no one comes. The cottage was probably abandoned months ago as the War moved into the area, or maybe its inhabitants are inside, but dead.

"Try Apparating," someone who sounds a bit like Hermione and a bit like McGonagall says. Harry opens his eyes, but he's still alone. He knows it's dangerous to attempt Apparation without a clear picture of the intended destination, and in the state he's in he'll almost definitely splinch himself. But it wasn't his idea, so if it goes terribly wrong, he won't have to blame himself.

Just the attempt at Apparating causes him to black out, but when he revives he's on a thickly carpeted floor, not a bed of leaves. He rolls onto his back with a groan and stares at the ceiling, which is arched and criss-crossed with wooden beams. Maybe I'm dead, he thinks, but he's still in far too much pain for that to make any sense. He shuts his eyes again. It's cold inside the cottage, but at least he's out of the wind. If he is hallucinating, perhaps he's simply crawled into a cave.

He opens his eyes an indeterminable time later, his head pounding with dangerous intensity. His mouth is dry and his whole body feels hollow. As he crawls through the cottage's neat little rooms searching for the kitchen, he begins to wonder if the curse that was intended to strike him actually did take full effect, or if this is what regular dying feels like. It can't be, it's too horrible. When he locates the sink he screams in agony at the effort to get himself up high enough to reach the faucet and drink from it. When he finally has, he collapses to the floor again and weeps like an infant, ashamed of himself.

After drinking from his hand, he lacks the energy to try to find food. Consenting to his body's roaring desire to finally give up, he crawls through the house, pulling himself along mostly with his arms, wanting to at least find someplace soft and warm to die in. He passes two bedrooms, one far too severe looking and the other far too pink, and then comes to another bedroom at the end of the hall. It looks like the right sort of place to die: clean and neat but not quite sterile. Something about the smell of the room is welcoming, and Harry drags himself into it. Getting into the bed will be a feat, but he won't be made to die on the floor like a dog. He imagines his Uncle Vernon roaring with laughter at the idea and hoists himself up into the bed with a groan.

And then it comes, finally: the end. The smell of the sheets wraps around him, their softness against his cheek like permission to turn it all in. He lets out his breath and sinks into the mattress, wishing he had the strength to wrap the blankets around himself. Here lies Harry Potter, he thinks, pulling off his glasses. A poor solution to an impossible problem. Once, he was a boy, too.

*

Draco Apparates to the cottage with the sound of his mother's screams still ringing in his ears. He's out of breath, and when he lands kneeling on the floor in the sitting room, he sees blood pooled around him and gasps. He doesn't remember being struck during his escape, but it had all happened so fast, his father shouting out the signal to go, his mother hexing the guard. Draco runs his hands over his shirt and then down along his trousers, but he can't find blood anywhere. He realizes with alarm that the blood on the floor is half-dried: it's not his.

"Mum?" he shrieks hopefully, getting to his feet. Maybe she managed to get away after all, maybe she's here waiting for him. His father -- well, no, he won't think of it. His father can hold his own against those simpering bastards and disgusting freaks who have overtaken the Death Eaters since Draco's failure to kill Dumbledore. But no, he won't think of that, either.

He tears through the house, searching for his mother and knowing that he won't find her. His wand is out ahead of him, just in case the blood on the floor belongs to someone who was sent ahead to kill him. But no one knows about the Malfoys' cottage, at least according to his father, and his father is never wrong about these sorts of things. Still, as he's following the trail of blood down the back hall toward the bedrooms, his hand is shaking horribly. He's still yet to kill anyone, and his darkest fear is that, even if his life were threatened, he's got some great defect that won't allow him to.

Draco comes to the doorway of his father's room and peeks inside. It's untouched, the royal blue sheets on the bed still perfectly pressed and tucked. He moves on to his mother's room, which is also immaculate, except for the blood stains on the carpet in the doorway. Finally he comes to his own room, where the trail of blood winds its way around and through the doorway. Draco swallows a whine and considers Apparating away, but where else can he go? He has no friends, since he fell out of favor with the Death Eaters, and this is the place where his parents told him to go, to stay safe until they can join him. He shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath, pointing his wand ahead of him as he prepares to turn the corner and enter his bedroom, where he used to play with a worn wooden train set that had belonged to his grandfather when he and his parents came here on holidays as a boy. It was always their secret place, just the three of them, where his mother and father could get away from the demands of their social obligations for a weekend, and where Draco would have them all to himself. Now it might be the place where he dies. As he turns the corner, he thinks: that's not so bad. It's a peaceful place, and if his parents don't follow soon, he doesn't want to go on living, anyway.

What he finds in his room makes him startle, and he backs up against the wall out in the hallway. There is a bloodied man slumped across his bed, his feet hanging off of it. For a long time Draco stands in silence, staring at the man and trying to determine what he should do. Should he kill him? Tie him up? Or is he already dead? Draco's stomach turns as he considers his options for the removal and disposal of a dead body. He'll have to levitate it out the door, but then what? What if it crashes into things? What if the head falls off as soon as he tries to move it? A wave of nausea rises through him. He really wasn't meant for this war business at all, that's clear.

Time passes, and the body on the bed is motionless. Draco walks forward just a bit, his wand still raised. He's not sure what to do: should he say something? What if the bastard then springs up to attack him? He chooses to remain silent as he creeps closer, shaking with the effort of being so near to someone who is probably dead. There's no smell of decay, and the blood, though drying, looks relatively fresh. God, what if he isn't dead? Draco leans close and discovers that he most definitely isn't: his back is rising and falling weakly with his breath.

It's something about the color of the sweater he's wearing that makes Draco finally realize that the man in his bed is Harry Potter. He fights this realization, because it's quite impossible, and moves around to the other side of the bed to try and see the man's face. It's mostly buried in the bedclothes, but there can be no mistaking it now: that scar is visible on his forehead, wet with Harry's perspiration, making it look like it's been torn onto him afresh.

Draco reels backward, and he falls onto his arse before he can find the wall. Harry Potter -- sent here to kill him? But that wouldn't make any sense, and anyway it seems as if someone has done a pretty good job of killing Harry Potter as it is. The last of his life could be leaking out of him at this moment. The thought makes Draco panicky, and he's not sure why. How often has he wished Potter dead since that first meeting on the train? He's got no reason to mourn Potter's passing; Potter very nearly killed Draco, after all, during their sixth year. He ought to be cheered by the sight of Harry bleeding to death before his eyes, but something about the way Harry is clutching his glasses in his fist makes Draco's eyes burn.
"Potter," he says, very lightly. Harry doesn't move. Draco stands, his knees trembling. Perhaps this is some kind of trap. Maybe Voldemort has nearly finished Harry off and he's using him now to lure Draco . . . where? Draco's head is spinning as he tries to make sense of the circumstances. He considers making tea and sitting quietly for awhile to contemplate all the horrible events of the day. But what if Potter is dying before him? What is he supposed to do about it, and what will it mean if he does nothing? Draco growls in frustration and reaches up to yank at his hair. That's when Potter coughs.

It's just a tiny, half-dead thing, like an animal's last suffering breath. Potter's whole body shudders with it anyhow, and his fist clenches tighter around his glasses, as if they are the last thing binding him to the earth. Draco stands before the bed with his wand clutched in his hand. He knows a few basic medicinal spells, mostly taught to him by the Death Eaters to prepare him for battle. He would have to find the source of Harry's bleeding to find the only one that currently comes to mind. That would require rolling him over, which would require touching him, unless of course Draco uses his wand. His nerves are so shattered that he's afraid he'd blow another gaping hole in Harry if he tried so much as a spell meant to shove him over onto his back. But why should he be afraid of doing that? It would serve Harry right for not only making Draco's life a constant misery at school but being here now, on the worst and most harrowing day of Draco's life. It's some nerve.

Draco sighs and walks to the bed. Harry's body is so warm that he can feel it before he places a shaking finger against Harry's shoulder to poke him. Harry doesn't respond to the poke, and Draco grits his teeth in frustration. This is too much, really, it can't be happening to him. He won't be a nursemaid to Harry Potter, God, why is he even considering it? He rolls Harry over with as much force as he can manage, and Harry moans. Draco flees, returning to the wall, but Harry just flops over and lies there, spread out like a corpse. Draco can see the source of his pain now, a large gash on his left side. He wonders how Harry received it. There have been plans for months about a sabotage attack, but Draco didn't know the location; he wasn't allowed in on those sorts of secrets any longer. And then things went to complete hell, and he wasn't sure if the attack was even planned at all anymore. But it must have been successful. He nods to himself madly, not sure what to do next.

Wanting to leave the room and the grisly sight of Harry's mangled body, Draco heads down the hall to the bathroom, where his mother kept -- keeps -- the medical supplies. He opens the cabinet below the sink and finds a variety of medicinal potions, most of which he is familiar with, as far as effects and potential combinations that won't result in poisoning, and some of which he's not. He gathers an armload of them against his chest and hurries back down the hall, breathing heavily. Oh, why hasn't his mother come? He allows his eyes to water for just a moment, then blinks the tears away.

The next several hours are a tense series of movements of Harry's body and Draco's nervous attempts to at least clean him up, if not cure him. He bandages Harry's side as best he can, which is to say, quite sloppily. When he's through, Harry is lying on his back and breathing in shallow huffs, his ruined shirt disposed of and his torn trousers removed as well. Draco even cleans Harry's shorts so that he doesn't look quite so horribly done for. The bruises were easy enough to heal with a simple potion that Draco's mother used to apply to his knees when he knocked into the coffee table during play duels with his father. Some of them, of course, are deep enough to leave behind green-yellow skin, but that will heal in time. Draco has no way of knowing if Harry has any broken bones, but he didn't scream in pain when Draco moved him around in order to tend to his more obvious injuries, so he's either so far gone that he can't feel the snag of a jagged bone or his injuries were mostly external.

The gash on his side is troublesome, but Draco has done what he can to stop the bleeding and apply potions that will help the wound to heal. When Harry's skin doesn't knit back together the way that Draco's always does when he uses the same potions on himself, he remembers something that Snape once mentioned in class: that healing potions won't work properly if the injured party is malnourished. Sighing with exhaustion, Draco plucks himself from Harry's side and goes toward the kitchen. It's been particularly well-stocked in anticipation of the Malfoy family's departure from Voldemort's lair, and Draco puts together a healthful meal of porridge and fruit, then pours Harry a glass of milk and magics the tray back into the bedroom, walking behind it and feeling extremely ridiculous. Waiting on Harry Potter, for the love of God. Perhaps the idiot will reward Draco with some kind of begrudging loyalty if he manages to recover from his injuries. Not that Draco needs a friend like him. What a fool he was to ever think that he did, even at eleven years old.

Though it is true that he hasn't got any friends anymore. He hasn't got anyone at all.

Draco sets the food on the table beside his bed -- his bed, which Harry was presumptuous enough to crawl into, though Draco suspects that if he'd known who it belonged to he would have rather slept on the floor -- and picks up Harry's glasses, which he'd put aside while he worked. He cleans them and repairs a tiny crack in the right lens, and then, for some reason, he opens them and slides them onto Harry's face. Embarrassed, he begins to back out of the room slowly, as if he still has reason to suspect a surprise attack at any moment. Which is ridiculous, considering the fact that he's stolen Harry's wand and hidden it in his father's room.

When he's satisfied that he's done all he can to prevent Harry from dying, Draco walks through the house and cleans the mess that Harry has made, not stopping until every flake of dried blood has been removed. He's still out of breath, and still waiting to hear the sudden pop of one or both of his parents Apparating into the cottage. The only sound he hears is that of thunder rumbling in the distance as the storm that has been threatening all afternoon moves closer. He makes himself a sandwich but can't bring himself to eat more than one bite, though his stomach is nearly empty. Exhausted, he walks into the sitting room and collapses onto the antique sofa, removing his shoes before tucking his feet up underneath him. He turns his face into the sofa cushions and sobs. The cushions smell, absurdly but undeniably, like his mother.

*

Harry wakes up to the same agonizing headache that pulled him under. His eyes are so dry that he can barely get them open, and his muscles feel like they've been replaced with sharp pieces of gravel. He tries to move and groans with the effort. When he does, he feels his bare thighs scrape together and realizes that he's undressed, down to his shorts. He lies still, wondering if he should be upset about this; did he tear his clothes off in his sleep? He looks around the room, which is dark. A sound that he belatedly recognizes as rain beating the window behind him is the only noise in the cottage, but he can see a light shining from the other end of the hall. Did he put that light on? Terror begins to creep back into his worn out body very slowly. He spots his clothes folded neatly across the room, and this more than anything sends screaming alarms ringing through his head. He's not alone here, and his wand is nowhere within reaching distance.

He tries to get out of bed to check his folded trousers for his wand, knowing that the chances that whoever has been in the room has left it there are very slim indeed. Moving is difficult, especially with his head pounding so hard that he can see white bursts of light behind his eyelids. He knows he needs to be quiet, and it's very hard not to scream when he falls over the side of the bed and lands hard on his left knee. His breath is labored and rough, and he inches across the carpet, sure that he'll lose consciousness again at any moment. His whole mouth is so dry that he can't decide if he'd rather search for water or his wand. He's finally made it over to the chair against the wall where his clothes are sitting when he hears footsteps in the hall. Frantically, he scrambles at the clothes with his throbbing hands, and as he expected, there is no wand to be found.

"What are you doing?" someone snaps from the doorway, in a snotty voice that sounds an awful lot like Draco Malfoy's. When Harry turns to see Draco standing there frowning at him, he's fairly sure that he's seeing things.

"Get away," Harry snarls at the hallucination. The person who looks like Draco laughs.

"You're in no position to make demands of me," he says. And it's so like Draco, to add the of me. Harry shakes his head, because it can't really be Draco standing there, staring at him with the usual disdain, as if they've only booked the Quidditch pitch for the same evening practice. He won't die at Draco Malfoy's ineffectual hands, it's too awful. He'll kill Draco without his wand if he has to. Slumping to the floor as the pain in his head gives way to nausea, Harry waits to come up with a way that he could possibly put up any kind of fight.

"Get up, you idiot," Draco says, moving toward Harry as if he will wrench him up from the floor. Harry grunts and jerks away, and Draco steps backward as if he's afraid.

"Fine then," Draco says. "Stay on the floor and growl at me like a dog. I've only saved your life, it's not as if you owe me any respect."

"Water," Harry says, barely about to get the word out.

"Excuse me?"

"Water!" Harry rasps, trying to shout it. "I need water."

"I've left you a whole meal over there," Draco says, pointing, but Harry doesn't turn, not willing to take his eyes off of Draco. He wonders how many other Death Eaters have arrived; Draco is certainly not man enough to travel anywhere without a posse. Harry just wants a drink of water before they kill him, and maybe Draco is stupid enough to bring him one.

Draco groans in annoyance when Harry only stares up at him from the floor, waiting. He breezes out of the room while Harry faints back onto the floor, shutting his eyes against the pain of his headache and wondering frantically if he should try to kill himself. The Death Eaters will torture him, that's definite, and then deliver him to Voldemort for further abuse. He can't stand the thought of being helpless inside a laughing circle of tormentors that includes Draco Malfoy, who probably did save him from dying only so that he can enjoy watching Harry suffer at the hands of Lucius and the others.

When Harry hears footsteps approaching he flinches and cracks his eyes open; he shouldn't have let himself fall backward, because now he can't seem to sit back up. But it's only Draco walking back into the room, bearing a ridiculously ornate goblet. He kneels down beside Harry and scowls at him, not seeming to know what to do next.

"I've got your water here," Draco says impatiently when Harry only stares up at him, the pounding of his head feeling as if it's all of his hatred for Draco and everyone like him, all that they stand for, concentrated into pure pain and killing him slowly. So these are the people who will run things from now on, these are really the people who have won? Harry should have guessed it would end this way, bullies keeping him weak and smirking at his attempts to duck their blows. The world could only fool him into thinking that things turned out fairly for good people for so long; he'd learned as a boy that they didn't. Funny how easily he'd allowed himself to forget.

"Can you sit up?" Draco asks, and for a moment he actually looks concerned. Harry is too humiliated to even try to speak. He feels as if he can smell the water that is sloshing in the goblet, and he wishes Draco would just dump it on his face and save him the indignity of being helped to drink it. Draco sighs, and when he puts his hand behind Harry's head to help him lean forward, Harry doesn't have the strength to fight him. Draco tips the goblet to Harry's lips, and Harry forgets all of his reservations and forgets who Draco is entirely as he gulps the water, making horrible little noises of appreciation that he can't seem to contain. He finishes the goblet and flops down breathlessly to the carpet, Draco boggling at him.

"More," Harry croaks, and Draco gets to his feet with maddening slowness, even pausing to straighten his robes. Harry hates him more than anything in the moment, but when he returns with more water and again helps Harry to drink, Harry wants to weep against Draco's robes in gratitude. The feeling passes quickly.

"I've got porridge over there if you want it," Draco says when Harry lies back on the floor, his head still throbbing and his lips so cracked and dry that the moisture on them burns. "It's gone cold by now, I'm sure," Draco mutters uselessly.

"My head," Harry says, the weakness of his voice like a kick to the arse, as if he needs another humiliation. But if Draco is going to do him favors, he'll keep asking until Draco's superiors find out. Perhaps he'll even be punished for helping him. Harry actually feels guilty, thinking this, and he hates himself for it.

"What do you want?" Draco asks. "A potion? Oh, fine, I'll see if I have anything," he says when Harry only lies there in silence, his eyes closed. He opens them a crack to see Draco rooting through a messy assemblage of supplies that have been dumped onto the bureau across from the bed. When he comes up with the dull purple headache reducing potion, Harry's eyes water. Hermione is never without a bottle of the stuff, and he usually takes it from her, listening to her chide him about the lack of sleep or improper diet or monstrous stress that led to the headache in the first place.

"Have they killed my friends?" Harry asks when Draco comes to him with the potion.

"What?" Draco frowns. "I can barely understand you. Maybe you'd better shut up for awhile and get some rest." He stares at Harry for a moment, looking a bit queasy, then sighs and lifts Harry's head again to help him drink from the bottle. Hermione never would have allowed this; she always made Harry take the potion in carefully measured spoonfuls. He gulps as much of it as he can before Draco tears it away.

"You'll make yourself sick," he says, dropping Harry's head to the floor again. He stands and returns the potion to the bureau, then loiters there as if he doesn't know what to do next. "Shall I levitate you to the bed?" he asks, muttering.

"Where are the others?" Harry asks, trying to make his rasping voice as clear as possible. Draco's shoulders go tense, and he turns to sneer back over his shoulder at Harry.

"I don't have to answer your questions," he snaps, and suddenly he has his wand pointed at Harry, who shuts his eyes with dread. Already the potion is beginning to soothe the horrible tightness between his temples, but Draco is liable to Crucio him at any moment, so what does it matter? He feels himself begin to float up into the air and braces himself for the first jerking stabs of pain, but when nothing comes he opens his eyes and sees that he's being floated back into the bed.

"I could tell Voldemort where you are at any moment," Draco says, the curl of his lip exactly the same as it was at eleven years old. He rolls back his sleeve to show Harry the Dark Mark that has been branded onto his arm. He must have received it some time ago, but the skin around the black edges of the symbol still looks red and sore, as if it never really took.

"So you'd better just do as I say," Draco says.

"He doesn't know I'm here?" Harry asks, astonished.

"Not yet," Draco says, and something about the pettiness of his threat puzzles Harry greatly. Why wouldn't Draco brag to Voldemort that he knows the location of Harry Potter as soon as possible? He's never wanted anything more than accolades from the powerful, from those in charge. Has a faction of Death Eaters split off from the Dark Lord? Are they holding Harry here to leverage him against Voldemort somehow?

Harry has nothing more to say to Draco, regardless. He shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath, then lets it out in a shudder. Draco lingers in the room for a few moments more, then stalks out with a scoff, shutting the door behind him. When Harry opens his eyes again he surveys the dark room, checking for things that could be used as weapons. There's plenty: candlesticks, statuettes, an old Quidditch broom leaning in the corner. Harry's eyes fall on the porridge that is sitting beside the bed and he licks his dry lips, his stomach whining at the sight of it. It seems to have been poorly mixed, looks too watery, and the fruit that has been sliced and laid out around the bowl is browning already. There is a glass of milk beside the bowl that Harry doesn't dare drink, knowing that it will upset his ragged stomach, but he does grab the bowl and begin to take tiny, cautious spoonfuls of the cold, watery porridge. After he's eaten half the bowl he already feels shredded by the effort and the introduction of something as foreign as food to his body, and he sets the bowl aside, the spoon clattering noisily against the rim. He listens for the sound of muttered conversations or the swish of robes outside the door, but he only hears the rain.

The stillness of the house is startling. He doubts very much that, whoever Draco is working for, he'd be entrusted to guard Harry alone. There must be others here, and he waits for hours for the door to be flung open and his real tormentors to enter, his eyes beginning to droop when no one comes. The darkness of the room, the steady sound of the rainfall and the thick feeling of the headache potion coursing through him all begin to pull him under as he tries to sort things out. He's afraid to sleep and tries to fight it, but ultimately he can't. Mercifully, he has no dreams.

*

Even with Harry's wand hidden safely away, Draco sleeps fitfully in his father's bed. Harry's wand is beneath him, tucked under the mattress, and he's keenly aware of its presence, as if the wand itself will begin casting curses at him during the night. Stranger things have happened where Potter is concerned. Draco rolls onto his back, sighing with defeat and wondering if he should take a sleeping potion; Lord knows his mother has plenty of those stocked up throughout the house. But he must stay alert in case Harry tries something. Perhaps he should have tied him to the bed, or perhaps he should just kill him after all. The way Harry looks at him, as if it's been Draco trying to kill him all along, as if he and Voldemort are one and the same, makes Draco want to prove him right, in a way. In another sort of way he wants to shove all he's done for Harry in the past hours in his face, to make Harry finally see himself not as the selfless hero that he wants to be but as the sanctimonious arsehole and violent bully that he actually is. Draco is lucky that Harry is so weak from his injuries, or he'd probably have killed Draco hours ago.

He gets up at first light and takes a long bath in very hot water, still trying not to think about the fate of his parents. It's easier to feel pissy about Harry and wonder what to do with him. He considers actually touching his wand to his Dark Mark and alerting Voldemort to Harry's presence here, as it might be enough to win back the Dark Lord's loyalty and perhaps free his parents. The thought that they might be dead already halts the formation of this plan and seems to turn the steaming bathwater to ice. Draco shivers and climbs out.

It's still raining lightly outside, and the early morning sky is darkened by clouds. Draco feels as if he's living inside a mushroom house, everything damp and shady and hidden. He makes himself breakfast and sets some aside for Harry, begrudgingly. When he can't stand waiting any longer, he goes to the room that Harry is staying in -- his room -- and throws open the door with a flourish, his wand raised, hoping to catch Harry by surprise.

Harry doesn't even stir, still deep in sleep. That or he's died during the night. Draco isn't sure why he doesn't like the idea, but it's something more than the unpleasant thought of disposing of Harry's body. If Harry dies, Draco will be truly alone. He already is in every since but the literal, and he never thought he'd value the presence of probably the last person on earth, aside from Voldemort, who he'd chose to be stranded with, but the thought that he at least has infuriating exchanges with the ailing boy hero to look forward to is, horrifyingly, a bit comforting.

"Wake up!" Draco shouts, walking to the bed. How could he have died, after Draco's bandaging and care -- has he been afflicted by some curse? How did he come to be so injured, anyway? He knows there's no point in asking these questions aloud, not unless he can get his hands on some truth serum, but his parents never kept the stuff around, it made them nervous. Draco grabs Harry's shoulder and shakes him, and Harry moans. Draco steps back, trying to catch his breath. It's unnerving, continuing to come to this room and preparing himself to encounter a corpse.

"What the fuck is it?" Harry asks, his eyes still shut. He's turned onto his side, away from Draco, and he's again clutching his glasses in his hand.

"Are you bleeding again?" Draco asks, searching the sheets for fresh stains.

"Get out," Harry says.

"I won't be told what to do in my own home!" Draco shouts, because this is the closest thing he has left to a home, of course. The Manor will have been burned to the ground by now, or occupied by the likes of that werewolf and the other unsavory sorts who have been allowed free rein within the circle.

Harry doesn't respond to Draco's indignation, which makes him angrier. He thinks of lifting up the mattress and dumping Harry onto the floor, but doesn't. Harry is shivering, and Draco hates him for it, because by some sick instinct he wants to throw a blanket over him.

"Do you want to dress or eat?" Draco asks. "You can't just sleep until you wither away."

"Why can't I?"

"Because you're too valuable to me. As a potential, you know. Hostage. They want you alive. So get up if you can, because you've got to eat. I see you've barely touched this porridge, and this milk's gone bad --"

"God!" Harry groans with surprising stretch. He lifts his head and looks back over his shoulder to glower at Draco hatefully. "Could you be any more bloody ridiculous?"

"I'm being ridiculous? Fine, don't eat! Or perhaps I should Imperio you, go out to the garden for some grubs and make you eat those? They'd keep you alive, anyway. Remember that I've got a wand and you haven't."

"So you're the one who took it," Harry says, gritting his teeth. "I thought I might have dropped it -- I'll have it back from you, you fucking arse."

"I'd be very entertained to learn how you're going to manage that!" Draco says, still pointing his own wand at Harry. Draco is boiling with anger in the way that only Harry has ever been able to bring out of him. Even when Harry saved Draco's life last year, Draco had hated him so much for being there to see him like that, weeping with fear and needing help. It's as if Harry was put on the earth chiefly to drive Draco out of his mind, whatever his business is with Voldemort in the meantime.

"Now get up," Draco says. "You can't just lie around my house half-naked."

"You're the one who stripped me," Harry says, and Draco makes an awful, embarrassing noise in the back of his throat, the angry red on his cheeks deepening.

"Only to save your life, you bloody --"

"And I'm supposed to be grateful about that, as you've saved me so that you can turn me over to Voldemort? Oh, God, I can't stand speaking with you like this, please, just send in whoever's in charge."

"I'm in charge here!" Draco bellows, thrusting his wand forward in a threatening manner. Harry doesn't flinch, just gives him that same expression of stony hatred.

"You're lying," Harry says.

"I'll hex you," Draco says, his teeth gritted.

"Go ahead." Harry lies back, and something about the helpless way he's flopped across the bed is so obscene that Draco has to look elsewhere.

"Fuck you," Draco says weakly, defeated. He storms out of the room and slams the door behind him. His eyes are wet with frustration, and he's so humiliated he wants to die. This can't be happening, not now, not with Harry, the worst tormentor the world could offer Draco when he's at his most vulnerable. Why shouldn't he hex that smug look right off of Harry's face? His inability to do so makes him shake with fear and embarrassment. He doesn't want to fight with that fucking bastard; he hasn't the strength, not while he's dragging himself around wondering if his parents are even alive. He wants to cry and be comforted, like the weakling that he has proven himself to be, and fuck it all. He goes into the kitchen, grabs the plate of eggs and bacon that he'd set aside and smashes all of it to the floor. Naturally, his first thought is of how disappointed his parents would be with this display. His father would sigh in that way that he does, heavily, as if Draco is bearing him down with the weight of the worst sort of burden. His mother would mourn the shards of the plate, an antique. Draco uses his wand to repair it, then levitates the mess of the food into the bin. If Potter wants to eat it he can stick his head in there with the rest of the trash.

He walks through the house, peeking out of the windows at the dripping forest. Thunder rumbles somewhere off in the distance, and there is nothing to see but trees and fallen brown leaves. The house has grown cold, and when Draco tries to cast a warming charm it comes out weak and ineffectual. Like everything he does. He takes another hot bath, pulling his knees up to his chin and curling his whole body into a tight, tense ball. He wants to go away from here, but there's nowhere as safe as this place where his parents have cast powerful spells meant to protect him. So how did Potter get inside? Feeling renewed by this curiosity, Draco climbs from the tub and wraps himself into his father's robe. He then dresses in his father's clothes, using shrinking spells to fit them to his proportions, and stomps down the hall to Harry's -- no, his -- room.

Harry is under the blankets now, a lump beneath them with only some wild black hair sticking out onto the pillow. The room has been ransacked as well as he could manage, probably in a vain attempt to search for his wand, as if Draco would hide it in here. The remainder of the porridge is gone. Draco sniffs, pleased by this. There is something submissive about Harry eating food that Draco has prepared. He clears his throat, but Harry doesn't move.

"Get up," Draco barks. "I've got some questions for you."

Harry doesn't move. Draco walks to the bed with a growl and grabs the blankets that Harry has pulled over himself, throwing them back and expecting to see Harry shivering beneath them. Instead he finds Harry fully dressed, in the clothes that Draco mended and cleaned, and brandishing a candlestick, which he promptly connects with Draco's jaw. Draco blacks out as he crashes to the floor, but he's conscious enough as he falls to know that Harry will kill him now. Harry's various triumphs over him flash through Draco's mind as the end comes: the insult on the train, the stupid Quidditch victories, the house cup going to Gryffindor, the laughter of Harry and Weasley in the Potions Dungeon. Draco understands his purpose in life then, as the last of it trickles away. He was just a foil, meant to be beaten and bested. What a fruitless struggle it had been to try and be anything more than that.

*

As soon as Draco is down, Harry grabs Draco's wand and puts him into a full body bind. The spell comes out so strongly that he can hear Draco's ankle bones clack as his limbs snap together. Draco is bleeding from the spot where Harry struck him, and he seems to be unconscious. Harry flies from the room, panting, and moves into the hall stealthily, listening for the sounds of footsteps, Draco's wand raised in front of him. It occurs to him that he should probably try to escape without his own wand, that he doesn't have much time and that this opportunity is more than he deserves after his failure in the last battle, but his wand, by its very specificity, has saved him in the past, and he can't leave it. He creeps into a hall bathroom and searches the cabinet under the sink as quietly as he can, looks under the bath mat and even checks the tank of the toilet. Next he sneaks into the pink bedroom and turns over cushions and rugs, opening drawers as slowly as possible and waiting always for someone to come looking for Draco and discover what's happened. No one comes, and as he moves into the third bedroom he begins to suspect that Draco might have been telling the truth. The cottage feels empty and it's so quiet. Still, he sneaks into the third bedroom as silently as possible, and that's where he finally finds his wand, stuffed under the mattress of the bed. Leave it to Draco to be so terribly uncreative.

Once he has his wand in hand, he stuffs Draco's into the back pocket of his trousers and prepares to Apparate away. He starts to feel the usual pulling feeling in his chest, but other than that, nothing happens. He's still standing in the middle of the bedroom, in the exact same spot. He tries again, and nothing. Something is blocking him, or maybe he's still just too weak? Which wouldn't make sense, because he was able to Apparate into the cottage when he was nearly dead and had not even a bowl of porridge on his stomach. Frustrated, he goes to the window to yank it open and leave the old fashioned way; perhaps once he's far enough from the cottage Apparating will work. But the lock on the window won't budge, as if it's rusted shut. Groaning inwardly and beginning to feel panicked, afraid that whoever is staying here with Draco will surely return to the cottage soon, Harry steps back and casts an unlocking spell on the window as quietly as he can. Nothing happens, just as nothing happened with the door when he tried to use the same spell to get inside the cottage. Harry tries the room's other window, and the effect is the same. He doesn't want to risk sneaking to the front door, so he retrieves a poker from the hearth by the bedroom's large fireplace, walks up to the window, shuts his eyes tightly, and swings as hard as he can. The poker bounces off the window as if it's rubber, and Harry narrowly avoids being smacked in the face with it as it bounds back at him.

His heart begins to race. Something's not right here; the Death Eaters must have put a spell on the cottage that prevents him from escaping. He begins to beat against the window with his fists, but they only bounce off the way the poker did, the window undulating against them, the glass unbroken. Groaning with fury, the adrenaline rush that had buoyed him as he tried to make his great escape morphing into utter panic, he runs out into the house's main room, risking the onset of an entire den full of Death Eaters. But there is no one there, and why should there be? The house is containing him well enough without the help of the people who put these locking spells upon it: the door responds to no amount of clawing or pounding or kicking. Defeated, Harry sinks to the ground in the foyer, panting his breaths. His headache has returned, and the wound at his side is burning as if it's been reopened by his struggles. He shuts his eyes and puts his head against the door.

"I just want it to stop," he cries brokenly, as if he can beg his way out of the spell that's keeping him imprisoned. He thinks again of killing himself, but he knows that he wouldn't be able to go through with it, even with the promise of long days, weeks, or for all he knows years of pain and humiliation at the hands of Voldemort and the others. For some reason, the sight of the neat little cottage with its arched ceilings and stone fireplaces is more cruel than any dungeon or prison cell he could imagine being locked into. Perhaps they left Draco here to "guard" him only so that they could have a great laugh when Harry thought he'd bested them by outwitting his witless warden. Harry hits the door with his fist, a weak, pathetic gesture of protest. He wonders how much longer he has until his real enemies arrive.

Harry sits on the floor by the door for a long time, a low, keening cry that he won't allow past his lips humming at the pit of him. His jumper is again soaked with blood, and he feels as if the top of his head has been sliced off and his brain is throbbing vulnerably in the cold air that seeps in through the crack beneath the door. He holds his wand in his hand, hating its uselessness. His stomach growls and he thinks of going to the kitchen, but he can't bring himself to stand until he hears a strange sound emanating from the back hallway.

Tensing up, Harry pulls himself to his feet with as much strength as he can muster. He raises his wand, sucking in his breath and telling himself that there must be some reason, currently unidentifiable to him, not to give up yet. He moves toward the sound, which is high pitched and irregular. The spell that's been placed upon the house must have some way of being broken, some way for Draco to enter and exit. He cheers at the thought that he may be able to get it out of Draco, who certainly wouldn't stand up to torture for very long. Not that Harry is relishing the thought of torturing someone, even Draco, but perhaps he would respond to the simple threat of death. This is Draco, after all. Still, Harry doubts it will be that easy. Anyone who knows Draco would realize this, and would not entrust him with the secret of escaping the enchanted cottage for fear that he would surrender it for his own benefit. He wonders if Draco is perhaps trapped inside the cottage as well.

He follows the sound all the way back to the end of the hall, and by the time he arrives at the bedroom where Draco had been keeping him, he's realized exactly what it is he's hearing. Draco is crying. Harry can barely contain a groan of disgust. As if he has the right to be upset. Probably he's afraid his father will return and spank him for allowing Harry to get the best of him with such a simple trick. Harry prays he won't have to witness that.

"Draco," he says sharply, standing in the doorway. Draco gasps and turns his wet face to Harry. He looks dreadful, with blood streaking down his neck and a giant bruise beginning to form on his jaw. His eyes are very red, as if he's been crying for quite awhile.

"I thought you'd gone," he says, his voice so small and pinched that Harry feels embarrassed just hearing it.

"You know perfectly well that I can't," Harry says. "But you're going to tell me how to break this spell. Get up!"

Draco doesn't move, despite the fact that Harry has his wand trained on him and Draco's in his back pocket. He only sits there like the worthless arse that he's always been, shuddering with the effort of stopping his tears.

"I mean it, Draco," Harry says, his jaw tightening and the pounding in his head slamming him harder with the pressure. "I will kill you, I swear."

"You're bleeding," Draco says, his eyes traveling down to Harry's side.

"Tell me how to get out of here!" Harry roars. He reaches down and grabs Draco by the front of his shirt, yanking him up from the floor. The motion nearly knocks Harry over, and he sees red for a moment, but Draco only wilts in his grip, staring up at him with bloodshot eyes.

"Go if you want to," Draco says. "I don't care anymore."

"I can't, you daft shit, everything's all locked up and I can't Apparate! If you know how to break the spell you'd better tell me --"

"I don't know anything about why you're here," Draco says. He rips himself from Harry's grip and walks to the corner of the room, standing with his back to Harry and his arms crossed over his chest. "I Apparated here after my parents -- there was a struggle. I think they might be dead. I was to go here and they were going to join me when they could, but. They haven't come."

Harry stands in place for a moment, bewildered, then his headache completely overtakes him and he curses, sinking to the bed to shut his eyes for just half a second, his wand still pointed at Draco. When he can see straight again he goes to the bureau and grabs the headache potion, tips it back and drinks down the remainder of the bottle. Hermione would be horrified, but it soars straight to his head, and after a few minutes of bracing himself against the bureau, his headache has mercifully evaporated. Blinking, however, is difficult, and he feels everything in his body beginning to slow down. Draco is still in the corner, wiping at his face and sniffling.

"Voldemort killed them?" Harry asks, his breath beginning to grow labored. Perhaps Hermione had a point about being careful with this potion.

"I don't know," Draco says bitterly, doing his best to glare at Harry. His face softens into something more like open fear. "Essentially -- probably. Whatever happened, they've been detained somehow. We turned on him, you see," he says, puffing up a bit as if Harry will be impressed by this.

"Will you let me out?" Harry asks, gulping his breaths now. "Through the front door? Can you open it?"

"I'm sure I can, but you look as if you're about to die."

"I probably am," Harry says, his knees going weak. Well, at least that bloody bastard of a headache is gone. He feels as if he's floating, as if he could float right into his death this way. "But fuck it, anyway. Let me out, alright, and I'll give you your wand." He doesn't mean this, of course. He's not sure what game Draco is playing but he doesn't trust a word he says.

"Fine," Draco says, moving listlessly out of the room. Harry follows him, having trouble walking. The potion is curling through his system like smoke, clogging him up. It felt good for the first few minutes, but it's beginning to make him nauseous as he moves toward the front door, the image of Draco blurring up ahead of him. What a moronic thing that was, drinking the potion just before his escape. But he'll sort things out, he will, somehow, he just has to get out of his goddamn cottage.

He watches Draco try the door and frown when it won't open. Then a window, then his fist against the windowpane, which bounces just as it did when Harry tried to break it. Draco curses and pulls at the doorknob, bracing one foot against the wall and yanking as hard as he can. Harry wants to laugh, and then he's falling over.

"Give me my wand," Draco says, as if he's hardly noticed that Harry is on the floor, struggling to keep his eyes open. The taste of the potion he drank is so thick in his mouth, and he can't remember the last time he had real food. Draco rips his wand from Harry's back pocket, and Harry hears him trying the unlocking spell and cursing when it won't work, then everything goes dark.

*

Draco spends another ten minutes trying to get out of the cottage while Harry lies on the floor behind him like the pathetic excuse for a revolutionary that he is. Draco tries Apparating, but he can't do it, and he wouldn't be surprised if this is some type of precaution his parents put on the cottage to keep him in place until they arrive. But what if they never come? And how in God's name was Harry able to get inside in the first place? Draco moans and drops to the floor, his own head beginning to ache, and of course Harry gulped down the last of the only potion in the cottage that would soothe it. He crawls across the floor toward Harry, his jaw still throbbing with pain. On his belly beside Harry, who is stretched out on his back with his stupid mouth hanging open, drool at the corner of his lips, Draco puts the tip of his wand against Harry's neck.

"Avada Kedavra," he says lightly, nowhere close to meaning it. Nothing happens. Draco shuts his eyes and rolls onto his side, necessarily toward Harry, so that he won't crush his injured jaw. There are potions in the next room that would heal the injury Harry has given him, but for some reason he still doesn't have the energy to take one. He thought, when he woke from the blow, that he was alone, that Harry had escaped after the attack, and the feeling had been worse than he'd anticipated. It's almost a relief to have Harry trapped here with him, even if it only means more blunt objects to the face. But at least he's got his wand back now. He thinks of taking Harry's again, but why should he bother? Harry stands to gain nothing by killing him now. They're stuck together until Draco's parents arrive, which may never happen.

He falls asleep on the carpet, Harry snoring beside him and waking him intermittently. The rain intensifies outside, thunder rolling over the roof. Darkness falls, looking not very different from daylight. Harry chokes in his sleep and Draco rolls him onto his side. He's limp and feels a bit feverish. Unable to get back to sleep, Draco hoists himself up with a groan and rubs at his face, his eyes still stinging from his earlier tears. Harry must think him a complete waste of time, a nothing, a mummy's boy who can't do anything on his own. Well, of course he does, and what does Draco care. He stands and walks into the kitchen, feeling numb.

Harry wakes as Draco is toasting himself a sandwich. He uses his wand and gets the bread too crispy, then tries to untoast it and ends up with a soggy mess. When he turns around Harry is standing and staring at him, looking half-dead with his eyes barely pulled open. Draco jumps at the sight of him and curses.

"Who brought you here?" Harry mumbles, and something like a laugh bubbles up in Draco's throat, coming out as more of a scoff. He wonders if Harry is talking in his sleep.

"I Apparated," Draco says. "I told you."

"I don't believe anything you say," Harry says, slurring and falling to a seat at the kitchen table. This time Draco does laugh; he seems incredibly drunk from the potion he idiotically chugged. Harry puts his elbows on the table and moans.

"Laugh it up," he says, and Draco does, harder for every word out of Harry's mouth. He's still drooling a bit, or anyway his lips are wet.

"The real question is how did you get here," Draco says. He dumps his sandwich into the bin and starts over. It's probably not a smart thing to do, but they're going to run out of food eventually, and he might as well eat well in the meantime. He imagines Harry, in a fit of selfless posturing, offering that Draco could kill and eat him, and snorts at the idea. None of this should be funny, but Draco has worn out every emotion but amusement in the past forty-eight hours, and this, in his delirium, is what he has left.

"There was a battle, in the woods," Harry says. "Were you there? They wore masks as usual, the cowards."

"In case things don't go the way they hope, they don't want to be identified in the aftermath," Draco says. "And no, I wasn't there."

"Have you any news about my friends?" Harry asks, and the dumb hope in his voice makes Draco sick. To have friends at a time like this. Of course, Harry has no family to worry about.

"I don't keep tabs on your friends, no," Draco says. "Anyway, I was -- rather out of the loop before my parents helped me escape."

"Escape?"

"Yes, they were going to execute me," Draco says, turning to look at Harry. "I'm sure that news would have cheered you, had they actually gone through with it. My father was asked to prove his loyalty to the Dark Lord by sacrificing his only child for the sake of some complex spell that Voldemort is trying to work. Turns out he wasn't willing, though he pretended to be until the last moment."

Harry says nothing, and they stare at each other for awhile. Draco turns back to his dinner and takes a bite, moaning when his jaw aches terribly. He glances back over his shoulder to see that Harry has put his head down onto the table.

"Are you still dying?" Draco asks. "You look -- ashen."

Harry doesn't answer. He drags himself up from the table with a groan, the blood on his side still wet. Draco wants to seal his wound again, at least for the sake of not allowing him to drag his filthy blood all over the carpet again. Harry walks to Draco and stands before him, his eyelids still heavy and his mouth turned down into a tired frown. He's just a few inches taller, but he seems massive to Draco, a shadowy threat. Draco scowls, and Harry reaches down and takes the sandwich from his hands. For some reason, Draco does nothing when Harry takes a bite, and then another. He just stands there and watches Harry eat the whole thing and then wipe his mouth with the back of his head, never breaking eye contact with Draco. It makes Draco's heart pound, and he doesn't realize why until Harry has sloped away with his limping, zombie gait. Harry eating the food Draco has prepared is not a gesture of submission at all: it's the exact opposite.

*

Harry spends most of his time trying to figure out how to escape. He tries the chimney, but it's blocked with the same sort of magic that protects the windows and doors from being broken. He combs through every book that he can find in the cottage, but they're mostly hateful tracts about why Pureblood wizards should be able to kick every other living creature on earth around. The books he finds about magic don't offer any clues, but he reads them a second time, falling asleep between the pages. He still feels light-headed and achy all the time, and he's pretty sure he wasn't hit by just a run of the mill slicing spell; the after effects are lingering. He finds it hard to think straight, and harder still when Draco creeps out of the room at the other end of the hall to pout and drag himself around the cottage with his shoulders slumped. The only thing he's good for is surprise attacks: Harry won't eat anything unless it looks as if Draco is preparing to eat it himself. It's the only way he can be certain that he's not being poisoned, or as certain as possible in his condition, anyway. He's thankful that Draco doesn't seem smart enough to figure out Harry's method for eating safely: every time Harry appears to suddenly snatch Draco's fork out of his hand Draco just gapes at him as if Harry has depantsed him and he doesn't know what to do next.

One morning, when Harry is sitting at the kitchen table with a book about protective charms open in front of him, wincing as his wound begins to seep yet again despite the healing potions he's been taking regularly that are close to running out, Draco appears and slams a bottle of reddish liquid onto the table in front of him. Harry glowers up at him.

"Take that," Draco says. "You're getting blood everywhere and I'm sick of it. I feel as if I'm living in a butcher shop."

"What the hell is it?" Harry asks. His side begins to throb and he has to shut his eyes for a moment, hating that Draco is witnessing this weakness that he can't seem to shake.

"It's a cure for the slash on your side," Draco says. "I've had nothing to do for the past however many bloody days we've been here and I've determined that you were hit by a Regimentium curse. It's a wound that won't close unless you take this particular potion."

"And you just happened to have the ingredients lying around your prison cell cottage?" Harry says. He knocks the bottle aside, and Draco gasps and catches it before it can spill.

"I did!" Draco says, cradling the bottle to his chest. "And it was neither easy nor inexpensive to brew, so I'd appreciate it --"

"It's poison and I won't drink it!" Harry puts his head in his hands and huffs down at the table as his wound begins to open further, the blood soaking the side of his shirt. Well, it's actually Draco's shirt, probably, since Harry found it in the room that seems as if it was once his.

"Why would I poison you?" Draco shouts, and Harry's regular headache takes the opportunity to begin. He ran out of headache reducing potions long ago.

"Because you don't have the balls to AK me!" Harry shouts back.

"And why would I want you dead, exactly? So I can spend eternity in this hell with a rotting corpse?"

Harry doesn't have an answer, so he tries to get up from the table. His side suddenly feels as if it's made of sand that is rapidly leaking from his body, and he sinks to the floor with a whine, trying to prop himself on his hands when he lands there but instead flopping onto his stomach like a drunk. This tears the skin at his side open further and he cries out in pain.

"Fine, writhe around on the floor like a fucking worm," Draco says, his voice trembling as if he's about to cry. He slams the bottle onto the table again and leaves the room. Harry lies on his non-injured side, trying to get up. It's a trial, and when Draco reappears with a groan and hoists him up, Harry doesn't have the energy, physically or emotionally, to fight him.

"How -- did you know?" Harry asks, panting out his breaths. "How to make -- that potion?"

"You're not the only one with nothing to do but read."

"I want to see the potions book you got the recipe from," Harry says, struggling to lean forward, out of Draco's grip.

"Then you can get it yourself," Draco says, going stiff. "It's in my father's room."

"I don't know which fucking room you're talking about," Harry says, though he can guess that it's the one Draco has been sleeping in, at the end of the hall.

"Just take the potion!" Draco grabs it from the table and removes the stopper. Harry shudders away from it.

"The book," he says. "Bring me the book."

"Get it yourself!" Draco says, suddenly angry again. He replaces the potion on the table and leaves Harry to slump onto the floor again. Harry stares at the ceiling and considers giving himself over to the pain, which comes and goes in waves, only abated by the various healing potions he's been able to get his hands on, of which only a few bottles remain.

"Help," he says, very deeply under his breath. Before, something has always come, some person who knows more than he does, someone braver or with better timing. Now he's alone, unless Draco counts as his help. He scoffs weakly at the idea.

In a struggle that feels much like the one Harry made across the cottage upon arriving, he manages to make it to the bedroom at the end of the hall with the dark blue bedclothes and drapes. Draco is nowhere to be found. Panting, and trying to keep his headache from blasting him so hard that he'll lose consciousness, Harry stumbles around the room in search of the book Draco was referring to. When he can't find it, he checks under the mattress, in the same spot where Draco hid his wand. The book is wedged there; Draco is so dreadfully predictable and uncreative. Harry yanks the book out from the mattress and looks up, awaiting sounds of Draco approaching, but he seems to have disappeared. If only. Though actually, the thought is terrifying.

Harry puts the book on the floor and leans against the bed, opening the book to a page that has been marked. It's for a potion to counteract the effects of the Regimentium curse that Draco claims Harry has. Harry reads the symptoms and they do sound like his: a wound that won't close and that is resistant to most healing potions, intense headaches, general weakness. He scrolls his fingers down the list of ingredients for the potion that will dispel the curse, not sure what this will prove. Even if they seem like things that Draco is likely to have on hand, it won't mean that he hasn't added some other, lethal ingredient. Harry stops reading when he comes across an ingredient that he's sure he's misunderstood, but upon several additional examinations it still says the same thing: blood of willing human donor.

He gets the sudden feeling that someone is staring at him and looks up quickly, the hair on the back of his neck rising with prickling fear. But instead of a new tormentor he only sees Draco leaning in the doorway, looking forlorn and petulant as always.

"Are you going to take it now?" Draco barks. He gestures at the blood that Harry has tracked across the carpet. "I'm tired of cleaning up your filth."

"Why would you?" Harry asks, beginning to feel dizzy, either from the knowledge Draco is willing to bleed into a vial in order to soothe Harry's injury or from the injury itself. "Why --"

"Haven't I just told you? I'm tired of the blood! And -- it didn't require much of mine, just a few drops."

Harry had thought he'd read that it did require quite a bit more than that, but when he looks down at the page to check again, Draco swiftly crosses the room and rips the book out of his hands. He replaces it with the bottle of reddish potion, and now that he knows what it contains, the color of it makes Harry queasy.

"Drink it!" Draco demands, and for some reason it's the desperation in his voice that makes Harry decide that the potion won't hurt him. He takes away the stopper, his hand shaking, and drinks the foul-tasting potion down in three gulps, breathless as it sinks through him. He can feel it in his throat and moving down toward his stomach, snaking through his veins. He's not sure what he was so worried about. Even if the stuff does kill him, what could be worse than the life he's currently leading, locked into a hopeless prison with Draco Malfoy?

Harry sinks to the floor, his whole body pulsing as the potion courses through him. It's not an unpleasant feeling; Harry has certainly swallowed more painful cures. Draco stands staring at him as if he's enjoying the show, but for the moment Harry doesn't care about him. He can feel the skin at his side finally beginning to work back together in a way that feels as if it will last. He prays that Draco was right about the curse that struck him and that he brewed the potion correctly. He was always one of Snape's favorite students, but more for his sniveling deference than his talent.

At some point, Harry falls asleep. He wakes up in the big bed with the blue sheets, and at the thought that it belonged to Lucius he shudders. He hopes that Draco is right and that Lucius and Narcissa are dead, then feels horribly guilty. Maybe it would be alright if Narcissa survived. But if Lucius returns home to this cottage and finds Harry in it, Harry has no doubt that he'll be killed, whether Lucius is still loyal to Voldemort or not.

He tries to get out of bed but feels too weak, though mercifully not in the same way that he did before he took the cure. He feels more as if he's been running laps all day and his muscles are simply tired, burning a little and throbbing in a nice sort of way, as if they're proud of themselves. He can hear noises out in the kitchen, and he adjusts himself on the pillows until he can see Draco through the doorway. He's using his wand to heat a bowl of soup. As he watches Draco eating it at the counter his stomach begins to growl. His appetite seems to have returned, not just as a guard against starving to death but as something with the force of real desire behind it. He wants to eat pie and tarts and roast beef and buttery croissants. Knowing that none of those things are available here, and that Draco is a dismally awful cook, and that Harry himself will probably prove worse, he feels hopeless all over again.

Draco comes to the doorway after eating and Harry pretends to be asleep until he leaves. The bed that Harry is lying in doesn't smell like the other one -- it's faintly perfumed and harsh, whereas the bed he was sleeping in before -- Draco's, presumably -- was warm and mellow like a familiar thing. Funny that Draco's bed wouldn't just smell and feel exactly like his father's, since Draco so clearly wants to be like his father in every single way. Funnier still that Draco's potion hasn't seemed to have killed Harry yet, and may have actually even cured him. Harry's eyes get wet at the thought of days without headaches that roll in like afternoon thunderstorms to blast him with lightning-sharp jolts of pain.

He gets out of bed and goes to the kitchen, still feeling weak, but hungry enough to make the trip. He eats stale bread and half a cucumber and drinks milk. Just this exhausts him, and he makes for the sofa in the living area, collapsing onto it and falling easily back into sleep.

Something wakes him late in the night, a scratching, squeaking little sound, like mice in the walls. The thought of mice breaking into the cottage fills Harry with hope of escaping, and he's wide awake in an instant. But as he comes to he recognizes the sound and knows that it's not mice. Draco is crying again.

Harry sighs and sits on the sofa for awhile, listening. The idea that Draco is back there crying exhausts him in the same way that walking across a room or slicing up a cucumber makes him wonder why he's bothering with any of it. He wonders again if this is a test or a trick, something designed by the Death Eaters, but Draco isn't this good of an actor. He's never been good at lying or hiding his true intentions. Harry has always seen through them, knowing that the pride Harry wounded when they were only eleven years old was at the heart of Draco's every vicious attack.

He stands up, feeling heavy and old, his bones seeming to creak with his steps like old floorboards. The cottage is dark except for the light Harry put on in the kitchen, and he runs his hand along the wall in the hallway, guiding himself back toward the bedroom where he'd been staying before. Draco has left the door open as if he wants an audience for his crying. Harry wouldn't be surprised if he does. Draco doesn't have much pride left to protect.

Harry stands awkwardly in the doorway for awhile, and Draco's crying winds down, but then it starts up again, his body jerking with quick little sobs as if he's being poked again and again by some invisible assailant. Harry walks into the room, trying to stay quiet. Draco is lying on his side and facing the wall opposite him, fully dressed in clothes that are much too fine for bed. He finally hears Harry's footsteps and sits up with a gasp, scrabbling for his wand and pointing it at Harry half-heartedly. Harry doesn't bother to reach for his. He waits for Draco to scream at him and tell him to get out, but Draco only lies there, his hand beginning to shake as he keeps the wand pointed at Harry.

"My parents," Draco says. The sound of his voice makes Harry's throat hurt. "I think they're really dead."

Harry actually opens his mouth to say Join the club but then clamps it shut, ashamed of himself. He can't remember the last time he had a thought that wasn't either hateful or terrified. Sighing, he goes to sit on the end of the bed. Draco lowers his wand and rolls onto his back, still staring at Harry with his eyes wet and ruined. Harry stares back, as if this is some kind of competition. He feels embarrassed for both of them.

"Do you want your bed back?" Harry asks, hoping Draco will return to the room at the end of the hall so that Harry can have this bed, which he feels far more comfortable in.

"Yes, thank you," Draco says, but he doesn't move, and Harry realizes he thought Harry was talking about the bed they're in now.

"We've got to get out of here somehow," Harry says, the words feeling so hopeless and bitter on his tongue. It's just the sort of thing he's come to expect himself to say: determined and heroic and flying in the face of the odds.

"Why?" Draco asks. "What's waiting for us out there but death? We're both lucky to be alive."

"Not if we're only going to shrivel to nothing inside this cottage."

"My mother designed the protective spells on the cottage. She's very good at that sort of thing. I'm sure she accounted for the fact that I might have come back here alone and would run out of food eventually. I'm sure the spell will -- reveal itself fully in time."

Harry groans in annoyance and stands from the bed. He sulks there for a moment, his shoulders sloped and his whole body aching for the rest he needs to finish healing.

"Thanks," he mumbles as he walks from the room.

"What was that?" Draco snaps, and Harry doesn't repeat himself, because he knows that Draco heard him.

*

There's nothing to do in the cottage but avoid each other. Harry spends a lot of time sitting at the windows like a cat, watching the trees go brittle as it grows colder outside. Snow begins to fall on a regular basis, and the sight of it makes Draco want to give up on everything, as if he hadn't already done that. He eats very little and loses weight, something he can barely afford to do. Harry, meanwhile, continues to steal his food as if it's a game that Draco has forgotten that he agreed to play. Something about it is still a comfort, however: Harry appearing suddenly at his shoulder to grab whatever he's eating and begin shoveling it willfully into his mouth. Draco always watches Harry eat his food with listless bewilderment, wishing he had something to say about it.

They rarely speak and even less frequently do they make eye contact. Draco leaves his door open all the time, even when he's dressing, and he tells himself that it's because this is his house and he should be able to do what he likes and behave as if no one else's experience here matters. Harry's door is always closed, and he only leaves his room to eat and use the hall bathroom. When Harry uses the shower, Draco is tense and resentful, as if he's discovered a poisonous snake in the cottage and must carefully work his way around it. He takes three baths a day and he's cold all the time.

One morning, Draco leaves his room for breakfast and finds Harry poking through a chest in the living area. Draco has become accustomed to Harry's attitude that he is entitled to rifle through the Malfoy family's personal effects, and to his complete disinterest in Draco's presence while he stands staring at this phenomenon, horrified.

“What the hell are you doing?” Draco asks, not really expecting Harry to respond. Harry doesn't look up, and continues to poke through the chest, which contains some of Draco's childhood toys. The sight of them in Harry's hands makes Draco's face burn, and he wants to grab Harry and pummel him until he's bloody again, but that's nothing new. He's not sure why he bothered to heal Harry. Maybe part of him was hoping that Harry would be grateful and finally show some respect. That was idiotic of him, of course.

“I'm looking for something to do,” Harry says when Draco sits on the floor beside the trunk. “I'm starting to go out of my mind and I need – something to do.”

“And your answer is Exploding Snap?” Draco says with a snort, though it's not as if he has any better ideas. Harry gets to the bottom of the trunk and discovers the old chess board, his eyes lighting up at the sight of it.

“Here,” he says, lifting it out.

“You're going to play chess with yourself?” Draco says, scoffing as Harry pulls the velvet bag containing the pieces out of the chest.

“No,” Harry says, shutting the chest and scooting back to set the chest board atop it. “I'm going to play with you.”

Draco is so taken aback by this that he can't come up with a response. He simply sits in place as Harry moves the trunk so that it's placed between them. Harry takes the pieces out and sets them up on the board, cursing when he finds the white queen and the black rook missing.

“We can use stand-ins,” Draco says, too loudly, as if he's announcing this to an auditorium. The prospect of a chess game with Harry is the first thing he's had to look forward to in what feels like years, and he doesn't want it spoiled by a few pieces he carelessly mislaid as a child. He hops up and grabs an ornamental bird from a table beside the sofa to act as the queen and a tiny vial of vanilla from the kitchen to play the rook. Harry laughs and shakes his head.

“The pieces won't be fooled,” he says, and he's right. They immediately attack the impostors, and Draco wants to weep at the sight of the little bird when it's smashed to pieces by the white king. Harry scoops up the shattered china and uses his wand to put it back together. Draco snatches the repaired bird out of Harry's hand and cups it protectively.

“Well, that was a stupid idea,” Draco mutters, not bothering to denote which idea he's talking about: the substitute chess pieces or the idea of playing chess in general. Harry sighs.

“I'm shit at chess, anyway,” he says. “I wish Ron were here,” he adds, making Draco again want to bludgeon him. “Mrs. Weasley used to say that Ron could have fun in a box.”

“Yes, I'm sure he'd have a grand old time, considering that a box was probably the only toy he had as a child.”

“That's still more than I had,” Harry says, and Draco groans.

“Oh, you've had it so hard,” he says, glowering at Harry.

“Fuck off,” Harry mutters. He picks up the vial of vanilla and tosses it up and down in his palm as if it's a ball. “I dare you to drink this in one swallow,” he says.

“I dare you to,” Draco says, annoyed. Harry shrugs and pulls out the stopper on the vile.

“Don't!” Draco says, not sure why, and then he watches Harry throw back all of the vanilla in one gulp, wincing and gagging as it goes down.

“'Ho, God,” Harry says. “That was unpleasant.” He sticks his tongue out, and the slickness of it makes Draco squirm away with a frown.

“You're an idiot,” Draco says, staring at him in bewilderment. Harry just laughs and throws the empty vial across the room. It bounces onto an expensive heirloom carpet, spilling drops of sticky liquid. Draco considers shrieking about this, but then he doesn't have the energy.

“Should we play Exploding Snap, then?” Harry asks, and Draco can't think of anything he'd like to do less, aside from returning to his room to sulk in ignored silence for the remainder of the day, so he opens the trunk and retrieves the Exploding Snap set.

They play a few joyless rounds of the game, getting overly competitive, shouting and accusing each other of cheating. It ends in Harry picking up a handful of the pieces and flinging them across the room. They scatter everywhere, some of them skittering into the cold fireplace.

“God, you're like an infant!” Draco shouts. “Or an ape, throwing his shit about in his cage.”

“That's exactly what I am,” Harry says. “Thanks to you.”

“You still think I'm part of the reason you're here?” Draco asks, standing. “You still think I actually want this, that this is part of some plan?”

“Apparently it was a plan of your mother's, and it's not working very well.”

“You shut up about my mother!”

“Why should I? You've called mine a Mudblood, so why shouldn't I say whatever I like about yours? It's her fault we're rotting away here, according to you.”

Draco crosses the room with a growl, running at Harry and slamming into him before Harry has a chance to reach for his wand. Harry falls backward with a surprised yelp, and Draco isn't sure what to do once he has Harry on his back beneath him. He knows that Harry is stronger – he's taken virtually every one of his recent meals out of Draco's hands – and he waits to be thrown off or rolled onto his back. Harry just lies there as if he doesn't even have enough interest in Draco's affairs to fight him when provoked.

“You shut up about my mother,” Draco says, trying to keep the word mother from bringing the shake back into his voice. He wonders, all the time, what the Death Eaters did with his parents' bodies.

“I have shut up now, haven't I?” Harry's deflated resignation is like the worst kind of attack. Draco wants to be thrown across the room more than he wants this endless parade of indifference and quiet and listlessness. He pushes Harry's shoulders down harder, dimly aware of a frustrated, futile little whine building in the back of his throat.

“You've gone madder than I have,” Harry says lightly, and it's the first time in years when he's looked at Draco with anything but open disgust, though the look on his face is not quite sympathetic, either. Draco wants to go limp atop him and just lie there for the rest of the day, feeling Harry's stomach push up against his. It's the only thing that's made him feel as if he's not the last person on earth since he arrived at the cottage. Before, Harry had only felt like a resentful ghost who came along with the house.

“Just – don't say anything.” Draco isn't even sure what he's talking about. He meets Harry's eyes and holds his gaze, staring down at him and waiting for him to blink first. Harry looks oddly harmless with his chin pushed down against his neck, not so angular and battle ready.

“Get off,” Harry says finally, softly, as if he's helping Draco to stand. Draco rolls off of him, hating the weightless feeling that returns when he's not pressed up against someone else, the only available person. He feels as if he'll float away, but he only lies there on the floor, flopped over onto his side like a spoiled fish. Harry leans beside him, watching him as if he's trying to decide whether to chuck him into the bin or eat him.

“What if we're here for the rest of our lives?” Draco says.

“Then the rest of our lives will be brief,” Harry says. “We'll run out of food.”

“You've certainly been eating like you're not too concerned about that.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do? It's my only joy left in life.”

“Stealing food out of my hands?”

“Yes, that.”

They lie there for awhile longer, Draco with his back to Harry, who surprises him by lingering. It's almost as good as lying pressed together, the heat from Harry's body and the noise of his breath reminding Draco that he's not sharing the cottage with a ghost.

“Why do you do it?” Draco asks, not wanting the conversation, which is far more thrilling than any of the games from the trunk could be, to end. “To further drive me mad?”

“I don't care if you're mad or not. To me you always have been.”

“Why?”

“If I say so you'll just be on me again for talking about your family.”

Draco curls up at the sound of that: On me again. He wants to be, there's no denying it now. He wants another excuse.

“Tell me why then,” Draco says. “Why you keep taking everything I try to eat. Just so I'll starve first?” This is his chief theory, but he has several.

“I can't tell you,” Harry says.

“Why not? What have you or I got to lose anymore?”

“That's just the sort of attitude you'd take in a situation like this.”

“A situation like what? What is our situation exactly? Even if we do manage to leave the cottage, there's nothing for me out there but capture and execution. And your side is losing, you'll have it worse than me. They'll want to string you up in front of a crowd and poke holes in you –“

“Alright!” Harry bellows. “Don't you think I've imagined it? I thought, when I woke up here – God.”

“You thought what?”

“That you'd be standing by laughing while they tortured me! And why shouldn't I think so?”

Draco says nothing, still slumped onto his side. When Harry reaches over to grab his shoulder and flip him onto his back it's like being knocked over by a wave. He feels as if he's at the mercy of some force of nature or gravity, something huge and dangerous. He stares up at Harry as if he's not afraid.

“Tell me you wouldn't have laughed while I suffered,” Harry says, his teeth gritted and his eyes narrowed on Draco's like a snake's.

“I wouldn't have,” Draco says. He's not proud to admit it, but he simply didn't have the stomach for that aspect of Death Eaterdom. “But I wouldn't have saved you, either.”

“Then I suppose that's the difference between you and me,” Harry says. Draco scoffs. As if Harry's rescue of him last year was really anything much. Draco only happened to be there on Harry's way out. Harry didn't risk anything for him. He was only preserving his undeserved reputation as a saint.

“Yes, I suppose that's why I bled myself to stop your suffering,” Draco says, and then regrets it. Harry's face softens in a way that makes Draco's stomach ache terribly.

“I still haven't quite figured out why you did that,” Harry says.

“Well, it's not all that difficult, you dumb arse. You're all I have left.”

Harry stares, his eyes wide. Draco is surprised himself. But why not adopt a policy of disclosing everything, or at least stating the obvious? It's not likely that they'll escape the cottage before the food runs out. Draco's mother was always overconfident in his father's ability to successfully execute complex schemes. Perhaps she didn't account for complete failure after all.

“You don't have me,” Harry says. “I'm not something you have.”

“Yes, you are,” Draco says. He reaches up to grab Harry's ears for emphasis, hoping he'll fight back this time. Harry only flinches and blinks. “Yes, you are,” Draco says again, closing his fingers more tightly around Harry's ears. Harry reaches up to remove Draco's hands from his ears, and he pins them to the floor. Suddenly Draco is breathing so hard.

“Stop it,” Harry says sharply, and Draco isn't sure what he's being asked to stop. Harry is the one holding him stiffly against the carpet, not letting him up. Not as if he's trying to get up, but.

“Oh, fuck,” Draco says, his voice coming up very weakly. “Who even cares?”

Harry takes his cue like he was waiting for it. He's so good at knowing what to do, he's famous for it. He kisses Draco as if he doesn't trust Draco not to bite him. Draco lies there limply, still a dead fish. When it's done they stare at each other, and it's much more intimate, more damning, than the kiss.

“I don't know why,” Harry says, his voice different already, huskier. He sounds angry. Of course.

“You don't know anything,” Draco says, feeling drunk, and as if he has the upper hand somehow.

“Whatever." Harry sits back, and he's halfway straddling Draco, probably on accident, one knee between Draco's legs. "This is stupid," he says, which makes Draco snort with laughter, because he's right. But he wants to kiss Harry again, so badly, already. Harry is red-faced and almost huffing in indignation as he stands up, his eyebrows furrowed like he's going to figure this out and it's going to turn out that he was right all along.