A/N: Hey. I'm back with another One-Shot. Yes, yes, I know that I should be working on Sleeplessness, but I'm having some blockage with it right now . . . don't hate me, please. I will have a post up by Wednesday (hopefully). If I don't, feel free to pummel me to death with whatever you have on hand. Merlin knows that it could only be an improvment . . . Anywho, I bet you're all waiting for the actual story, right? All right, all right, I'll shut up now, I swear -snicker-

'Til next time, folks.

Warning: This is a slash one-shot, that means guys on guys, people. If you don't like it, then don't read, that's all I can say.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy or Madame Pompfrey. I just like to toy around with their roles in my spare time. I also do not own anything from the Harry Potter world (i.e., Hogwart's, The Final Battle, Voldemort . . .etc.), nor do I own Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy relationship. Many others have fics with them, too. I think that covers everything . . .

Enjoy

Word Count: 2343

Breathe

Not like this . . . anything but this . . . please . . . I - I have to tell him . . . he has to know . . .

"Draco . . . " The black haired boy rasped out. The attention of the room was on him, and only him. Not a sound was made, not an eye strayed away from the frail form of the boy - no, man - before them all. No one even registered whose name he had called out; if they had, no one showed it. Not a single person moved an inch. They stared at him, Harry Potter, with sorrow in their hearts, sadness in their eyes. He was dying before them, before their very eyes, and they could do nothing to stop it. Nothing but hope for his body and magic to fight off the sheer exhaustion that was overflowing from him. They could do nothing.

Oh, how their hearts wept for the man before them. Too much responsibilities thrown on his shoulders, and now he was paying for their own misdeeds. How could they have done this to him? How could they have done such a horrible thing to someone whom practically reeked innocence? They didn't know, and they were sorry for having done it. But that wouldn't change his condition. Nor would it change his outlook of them.

They had done him wrong and he wanted them no longer. He only wanted Draco, his Draco.

"Draco . . . " He coughed once more. Where was he? A thought struck Harry without his consent; a thought he did not want to think. What if Draco was dead? Laying in the field of the Final Battle? No, no, it couldn't be. Harry's green eyes dimmed with panic and sought out the stormy gray ones he had known so well for the past year. Panicked, he tried to raise his head and torso up from his Hospital Wing bed, but found that he couldn't. He felt so, so hopeless! Lying here while Draco was bleeding to death somewhere, lying here like the pitiful fool he was. He should have just stayed next to the blond.

But he couldn't. Not when that monster of a Dark Lord had taken his best friend. Hermione had been in trouble, he had needed to help her. She would have died. But now . . . Draco could be dead. That thought did nothing to comfort the raven haired teen. Harry struggled to sit up, but it was no use, his limbs refused to move. He looked at his fellows frantically, they needed to do something, then. If he couldn't, they would. They owed him that much. Harry opened his mouth to say something, but only a hoarse rasping cough emerged. He ducked his head and curled around his abdomen, trying to make the pain lessen. It didn't help.

"Please . . ." He whispered, looking up at the closest person to him. Mr. Weasley. He pleaded with his eyes for the man to do something, but he only got a pitying and guilty look from the red head. Harry faintly heard the matriarch of the Weasley clan start bawling next to her husband as she looked on hopelessly. He looked around once more, looking for someone who would understand his plea.

There was no one.

Not a single soul understood him; not a single one of the half dozen in the room could read him.

Harry found Ron and Hermione standing in the background of the room, right before the blinding white drapery closed around Harry's place in the Infirmary and as far away from the boundary restriction set by Madame Pomfrey as possible. No one was allowed to touch him, for fear of making his condition worse. Harry cursed Voldemort for doing this to him. He needed someone to touch, someone that he knew was Draco, but Draco wasn't here. Ron or Hermione would have to do, but not even they could give him the simple comfort of touch.

Harry had no one.

A memory took hold of the green eyed man at that moment, and, no matter how much Harry didn't want to relive it, it played on anyway.

The boy sat in the tallest tower of the wizarding school he attended. It was the first night back to classes, but he didn't care. He couldn't really feel it in himself to care about anything right now. He had lost Sirius, his godfather, the only person who had loved him unconditionally for as long as he had lived. The only person that he was every really comfortable talking with. Sirius was gone, and there was nothing Harry could do about it.

No one got it, no one understood why he was so depressed and separated himself from everyone after His death. They all thought that he would be over it by now, after all he had gone on without actual parents all his life, after knowing Sirius for a few short years they all thought that he could go back that way again.

But he couldn't.

He wasn't like them, he couldn't just get over with Sirius' death that quickly, like a normal person would. They all had others who loved them and cared for them without a thought. Harry didn't have anyone like that anymore, he had no one to comfort him but Ron and Hermione, and they certainly didn't help. Ron had a huge family, so he wouldn't know what it would feel like to loose the only person who loved you. He also had Hermione, and Hermione had him. They had families and could be happy with those families, and Harry was glad for them. But he didn't have that.

He couldn't just get over it.

Harry heard a creak coming from the stairwell and sighed heavily. His reflecting time was over. He glanced up as the door opened and a blond head followed through. Malfoy stopped. Their eyes locked, each closed and distrustful. They had every reason to be, having been enemies for five years. But . . . while Malfoy's eyes were closed off and distrustful, they didn't have that same fiery hate that Harry was used to in them. His pale face wasn't turned up in his perpetual smirk, his face wasn't turned up to Harry like he had smelt something bad, and his hair hung freely around his face. More than anything though, he looked exhausted. Bags under his eyes, and weary eyes peering over at the black haired boy.

There was definitely something off about Harry's childhood enemy. He couldn't help but feeling like it was something familiar he was looking at though. Something . . . that Harry had been seeing in the mirror since Sirius had died. Depression and utter loneliness.

"Potter," Malfoy said without the usual sneer. He sounded wary and tired, like he hadn't had a good night's sleep in a fort-night.

Harry stood up, face still guarded, and looked at the blond. "Malfoy," Harry said evenly. They looked at each other for a few more moments until Malfoy spoke up.

"My Mother's dead." The comment came from no where, and Harry had no idea why the blond aristocrat would tell him this. Of course, he knew that Narcissa Malfoy had died - by the hands of Death Eaters, no less - she had died because her husband had failed Lord Voldemort the year before, for not receiving the Prophecy. Harry knew this, and was wondering what Malfoy was going to do now. Surely he thought that it was Harry's fault for his father's imprisonment.

But Malfoy did nothing. Just simply stared with his gray eyes into Harry's own emerald.

"Father hates me." Again, this comment was from the blue, without an obvious motive for their sayings. "He says that it was my fault that I couldn't protect her." Malfoy's voice was detached now, no longer wary or exhausted. Just . . . monotone; uncaring. What was going on? Harry didn't know the answer, wasn't sure he wanted to either. Malfoy didn't know either.

"I was disowned." The words rang out in the silence of the room. Neither of them moved; neither of them looked away. "I'm free." The words were spoken so softly that Harry wasn't sure that he was even meant to hear them, and he knew that he probably wasn't. But, why then? Why had Mal - Draco, spoken them out loud? And why did his voice still sound detached, but more sad now than anything?

He was sure that six months ago if Draco had been told he would be confessing his personal life to Harry Potter then he would have laughed in the speakers face and sent them off to Saint Mungo's. Harry wouldn't have blamed him either. What was going on?

"My Godfather's dead." Harry startled himself by saying the simple sentence. "His cousin killed him." Harry was sure that he wasn't meaning to say those things, but he couldn't help it. What scared him more, though, was that he wasn't at all uncomfortable telling this to Draco Malfoy, of all people. "His name was cleared last Sunday." It didn't mean anything though, Sirius was gone and Harry wouldn't get him back.

The confessions went on like that for hours. They both stood there, rooted to their spots, staring at each other. Neither moved, neither insulted the other, and neither felt uncomfortable telling their secrets to the other. The next night they did the same thing, only sitting on some crates on the opposing sides of the room this time. Each night went on like that.

Their days of school remained untouched though. They insulted each other and had gotten into detention cleaning the Owlery once, too. And so school went on; lie went on, and no other person was the wiser to the teens' whereabouts at night. They still couldn't figure out why they were telling each other these things.

They only had each other, though. Nobody else could every understand what they were each going through. Nobody would ever know, ever feel the same, ever care for one of them like the ones they had lost had. Sirius to Harry and Narcissa to her son.

And so, they cared for each other. They made sure that they didn't hurt the other too bad, and made sure that their insults steered clear of their nightly talks. By no means had they ever been friends, but they were all the other had. They were all that they would each ever need.

No, no . . . Draco couldn't be dead. He just couldn't. Harry needed him, needed to tell him that - that . . . Harry didn't know what he was supposed to tell him, honestly. He just knew that he had to see him. Harry wouldn't be able to go on without Draco. Draco was the only one who'd ever understand. Ever. Harry needed him, just as Draco had needed Harry since that night. Green eyes swept over the remaining once more.

Dammit! Where the hell was he?

The injured were being carted in by medi-wizards sent over from Saint Mungo's, but there was no way Harry could tell who was being carted in, and those surrounding him were of no real help. He needed Draco, now. "Draco . . ." He rasped out once again, only this time was answered by a faint voice as his eyes involuntarily closed.

"Harry . . . ?"

The blond stumbled into the recovery ward set for the black haired youth, his eyes searching for Harry. His Harry. A pushed people out of the way to get to the side of the bed, not caring whoever was there, whoever was watching. He needed Harry, he needed to talk to him, needed to - to do something!

He ran into an invisible ward set around the Wizarding World's savior. It caught him off guard and he fell back onto his knees, hands pushing on the magical shield. Pomfrey came bustling in, feeling the ward go off. She looked at who it was and was about to usher him out, not wanting Harry's last hours to be tainted by his childhood enemy, but found that she couldn't. Stormy eyes met hers, glazed over with want and pleading. "Please, please . . . Harry . . ." The blond rested his forehead against the barrier and gazed at the black haired man.

She looked between the two flicked her wrist. The barrier accepted the blond and he readily rushed over to the form on the bed, not hesitant to put his pale hands on the side's of a tanned face. She couldn't watch the two of the suffer, especially not when the poor boys gray eyes betrayed such emotion in them. The others had their heads dropped, and Mrs. Weasley was sobbing loudly.

There was nothing they could do for such extreme magical exhaustion, but Poppy was damned if she would willingly let those two boys suffer. They each deserved better, she knew.

Draco held Harry's head as close as he could to himself without hurting the other male. He was chanting for Harry to be all right over and over again, subconsciously knowing it was futile. He couldn't help it though, he needed Harry, needed him more than anything. "Please . . . Please . . . Harry . . ."

"Draco . . . " A frail voice rasped next to him. He looked at Harry's gaunt face and shuddered. "Draco . . ."

"Harry, I'm here, I'm here, I'll never leave again, I swear." He started rocking them back and forth. Harry stilled in his arms and his breath deepened. He coughed again. "Just breathe Harry . . ." He found himself saying. "Just breathe . . . It'll be okay, I'm here, I'll never leave. I swear . . ."

And he didn't. Harry died the next morning, wrapped in Draco's arms, of the most extreme case of magical exhaustion that Hogwarts had seen in its many years. And, right after his funeral, Draco Malfoy was found dead, leaning against Harry Potter's tombstone, by reason of an overdose of muggle anesthetics. The Wizarding World never knew that the two childhood enemies loved each other more than life itself, or that they could neither live without the other.

They had no one but the other.