A/N: Okay. *Scratches head* Wow. This is hard. Really hard. Announcing the end to this beautiful piece of magic I had originally started as a crack one shot a year ago at writer's camp. I'm glad you guys have enjoyed this little fic as much as i have, even if I have stressed you out with heart attack inducing cliffies. (ahahahahahaha... i regret nothing. xD) I'll have y'all know, this wasn't the ending i was expecting, as i literally changed my mind five minutes before writing it. Always happens. what can ya do? Anyway. I'd like to thank you all for hanging around and sending praise for my writing and hopefully we'll see each other soon with more Harry/Draco shenanigans in a much fluffier circumstance... :) Til then, enjoy. ^^

ack! god damn it! and i forgot! warnings for man on man action. it's brief. blink and you'll miss it. or you know, with the blatant profanity, maybe you won't. ;)

"My parents have a doctor. They say he's very good," Hermione offered between bites of take out. She may have been a witch, but her muggle habits died hard. "I mean, on occasion, we'll even take the kids over there if we felt uncomfortable with the healers. Very rare though."

"Well, of course!" Ron sniffed, still halfway through chewing his latest mouthful of chow-mein. "I mean… what can't magic do?"

"Save Draco," Harry winced, his heart constricting in his chest as he thought of it. Hermione shot her husband a glare. He shrugged, slumping down further in his chair, more for comfort than out of shame.

"That's rotten luck, mate," Ron shook his head to make up for his slight. "To be honest, I don't know what you see in him."

"Ronald!" Hermione hissed, giving him a swift kick in the shins. "Harry's entitled to be in love with whomever he likes!"

"And break my sister's heart?" Ron retorted, shooting Harry a deathly glare. Harry squirmed in his seat. "Not bloody likely."

Harry decided at that moment that his shoes were far more interesting than anything else. He fumbled with his hands. "I understand the consequences of my actions, Ron. And this is nothing against you or your family but I just… I don't feel the same way about Ginny anymore. I still love her- just not… in that way. I've changed."

"Yeah? And you just had to run around fucking the ferret behind her back?" Ron's retort was thick with venom and accusing. His hands gripped each arm to his chair, his fingers digging in. "You couldn't even find someone decent to do it with! It had to be Malfoy!"

An ache was beginning to form at the front of Harry's head. He squeezed his eyes shut in regret. He should have known he'd get the worst of it from Ron. He hadn't even considered telling him about the affair at all and now…

"I love him," Harry admitted in a small voice. "I love him, Ron and I know it's hard to believe after everything we've been through, but it's the truth. And I can't ignore it anymore. He makes me happy. Really, genuinely happy. And if anything happens to him…" He sucked in a shuddering breath. "I… I don't even know how I'd make it through this."

"You have us, Harry," Hermione assured him, smoothly changing the topic before Ron flared up again with a spiteful comeback. "We're here for you. No matter what happens."

~.~.~.~.~

Draco felt a distinctive change in the atmosphere around him. Everything was shifting, jerking, and he knew his body wasn't lying still. He was being careened forward, too fast to adjust to. Oh, sweet Merlin, how he ached. But he couldn't open his eyes. For all of the movement and all of the pain… he'd rather just lie here, unaware, trapped in this bittersweet ignorance of what was happening to him. He felt disconnected from himself. As if he were watching himself from above; an aerial view. Only what he thought he saw wasn't pretty.

Lights were flashing, dials blinking and sirens shrieking in every which direction. Everything. Everything about him screamed emergency.

This was surely hell.

His body thrashed against its unknown bindings (for they were there, he just couldn't comprehend them fully) Someone was attempting to force him down where the bindings didn't tug at his torso and legs. He could feel himself slipping.

His breathing slipping.

Perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad thing…

His head was clearing.

Emptying.

Dissipating.

Into nothing.

~.~.~.~.~

Harry stood and stared, hand clasped over his mouth, his jaw aquiver, as he witnessed Draco give up. He'd never seen him so battered before. So defeated. So… resigned.

He wanted to keep telling himself that Draco still had a fighting chance. That he could still fight this. That he could still fight it and win.

There were tubes drawing blood, tubes feeding him oxygen, tubes connecting him to the CCG monitor on his bedside… Everything was so artificial… so sterile here.

Harry hated it. He hated that this was their only choice left. And hated it even more knowing it could do even less for Draco.

He watched with blind, unblinking eyes as the neon green line on the monitor dipped into one last plunging spike before flat-lining completely.

~.~.~.~.~

Draco had entered that shop, one of many shops that day, accompanied by his father. He attempted to match his father's manner stride for stride, hoping that maybe if he could be just like him, he could make his father proud. Just maybe.

He'd needed new robes for school. Hogwarts, Father said it was called. The same school he and Mother had gone. They'd discussed it often enough. Said it was up to him to uphold the Malfoy family name in the noble house of Slytherin. Granted he get in, of course. But there was no doubt of that. After all, it was in his blood.

There had been another boy there, at Madam Malkin's that day. Draco had to admit, he was pleased to see another boy his age he could talk to. Perhaps they might even end up friends. No doubt he was going to Hogwarts too- Father said Durmstrang boys didn't dare shop at Diagon Alley. He was quick to make his acquaintance. Made small talk ("have you ever played Quidditch?") and generally made quite the impression of himself, thank you very much.

All he wanted was a handshake. Some acceptance from the first person he would ever meet at this new school of his- this place he would call home for the next seven years. All he wanted was a friendship that might have lasted throughout his academic life.

When his hand was flat out refused, Draco knew it would be his fate to forever haunt the Potter boy until the day he said yes.

~.~.~.~.~

He was sixteen. A year away from finishing school forever. A year away from entering the real world. A year away from becoming a man. And here he was, set to take on a quite impossible task that he could not deny. Not to save his life.

At first he took it as an honour that the Dark Lord would choose him. But killing someone- murder was something he couldn't possibly carry through. Merlin knew he tried. Cursed necklace, poison sherry… Anything so long as he didn't have to do it himself.

He was a coward.

He heard it from Potter every day. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day, the git's words were in his head. Coward, they mocked. Shove off, they leered. He's not worth it, he pressed.

And each time, it stung. Like a dagger twisting in his gut. Rejected. Again.

He knew that if he went through with this, he would never be able to face him again. There would never be a chance again to gain Harry Potter's acknowledgement as a friend.

The wardrobes weren't working. Everything he had tried had failed. He couldn't do this anymore. Tearing at his collar to loosen his tie, choking at his neck, he lowered his head against the sink in the boys' loos. His face twisted and he could hold it in no longer.

He couldn't. He couldn't do any of this. Not now. Not ever. What was the use?

To make matters worse, Potter was there. Great bloody Boy Who Lived and Rejected Draco Malfoy, shoving his way into his life like it was his business.

He shot a curse at the git before he could try anything. In his mind's eye, it would have happened differently. In his mind's eye, the duel would not have escalated. He would not have ended up sprawled on the floor, bleeding half to death at the hands of Harry Potter.

In his mind's eye, something else happened entirely.

Harry came in, unannounced, rudely disrupting Draco's outpour of emotions. He did not lift his wand and neither did his companion. They simply stood there, watching each other intently, with nothing but their breathing to accompany them. They would stagger around each other for a discomfited moment before Draco could take the tension between them no longer.

In his mind's eye, they lunged at each other, fists acting on their own, acting upon their usual habits. Harry hit him square in the jaw before he could anticipate it. But he managed to shove Harry back with a knock to his chin, throwing his head back against stone bathroom tile.

They pushed and shoved and kicked and pulled until there was nothing left to do but what was unspoken. Hands reached up and tugged at hair and they gripped each other, close and shocking, yet absorbing all at once. Panting, they collided, body and soul, tongues lavishing one another in a great quest for dominance. Robes tore away and they thrust up against each other, thoroughly needing this.

Draco moaned, tossing his head back in the ecstacy of it all. Harry fucked him, right there against the cold bathroom floor.

And in Draco's mind, that's how it went.

~.~.~.~.~

Things were fuzzier. Less consistent, less comprehensive from there on in. Draco had been vaguely pleased at his father's choice in a bride for him. Her hair, ebony- black as pitch- like Potter's. Her eyes- hazel, but he could easily daydream them up to be the very shade of Potter's. There was little curve to her hips or swell to her breasts, giving her a boyish figure he could easily appreciate as Potter's. And when he was forced to make love to her, he thought of Potter.

He'd married the Weasley wench. Draco had spent that whole miserable day drowning himself in his sorrows, drink after drink after drink until he was numbed. Until he was no longer humiliated enough to hold his tears at bay. And Astoria let him.

Ten years later, he defied everything he ever was and approached Potter, wives be damned. He would no longer hate himself, take pity on himself. He would have Potter. One way or another. And this time, he wouldn't take no for an answer.

~.~.~.~.~

Draco jolted upright at the very epiphany, his head reeling with recent dreams. Astoria let out a small moan from beside him, seeking him out in the dark when she no longer felt him at her side.

He ignored her, comprehending now what he had to do. Take Potter. Now while he still had the chance. Slipping quietly, yet stealthily out of bed, he escaped to his study, where he paced, plotting out the beginnings of a seduction Potter could never refuse.

Because he knew, now and as always, Potter would bring him his final liberation.

A/N: Kay just cuz i know i've confused a few readers and i understand the ending's complicated but here's a little clue: it's cyclical. It's up to interpretation whether he's dreamed the whole thing up and decided that this is an excellent idea or whether we've entered an alternate reality or whatnot... really it's whatever you see of it. but um... I like to think because he's still married to Astoria at the end, whatever happened in the rest of the story might not suffer a repeat the second time around.