Harry had already turned away and gone back to making tea. Draco realised that Harry remembered Draco didn’t drink coffee first thing in the morning because it gave him a caffeine crash too early in the day.
Harry turned back and set both mugs on the counter before motioning to the potion.
‘Take it.’ He said coldly.
‘Where did you get this?’ Draco asked him lowly.
‘I took it. From your flat. That day you weren’t well.’ Harry said nonchalantly as if it didn’t matter at all.
‘You stole from me.’ Draco said flatly. He was furious. Did Harry have any idea how many days he’d set Draco back because he’d been a dose short.
‘I didn’t steal. I borrowed.’
‘Oh!’ Draco forced a hideously cold laugh. ‘Is that what you did? And I suppose all those criminals you put behind bars were just borrowing those illegal potions ingredients and just borrowing ancient magical artefacts, were they? Oh right, you’ve been Mister Hot-Shot Head Auror for so long you probably don’t remember such lowly people. Especially since the rules, such as GETTING A WARRANT, don’t apply to you!’ Draco had never been so angry in his life. He’d spent an entire weekend not eating or sleeping or showering because he’d had an attack and didn’t have the right amount of potion. Yes, his new batch was ready a day later but by then he’d relapsed.
‘What the hell is your problem? Every time I try and find out what’s going on with you, you start attacking me like I’m some sort of social pariah!’ Harry yelled at him. Oh shit. Draco hadn’t meant to set him off, he always ran his mouth and then couldn’t handle the consequences.
‘Harry, please, I’m sorry I didn’t mean that. It’s just, that’s not fair. You can’t walk into my flat and take my stuff and think that’s ok.’ Draco would discuss this like the adults they were, not the children they behaved like.
‘If you weren’t lying to me and hiding things from me, maybe I wouldn’t have to resort to desperate measures.’ Harry growled. Anxiety crept up Draco’s spine and sat heavily on his shoulders.
‘That’s not fair I—’ Draco cut himself off. He didn’t even know what to say. It was true, he’d lied to Harry for a long time, but that didn’t justify Harry thinking Draco owed him an explanation.
‘Take it.’ Harry said, gesturing to the potion once again. ‘Go on.’
Draco’s mind was fogging again. He didn’t like to be put on the spot. He slid onto one of the stools at the breakfast counter before it became obvious he was crumbling again. He wouldn’t be weak, he wouldn’t. He was a grown man, he would not be reduced to a snivelling child just because someone shouted at him.
‘No.’ He said quietly, forcing his breathing to remain steady.
‘So it is drugs. You’re disgusting. Do you have any idea how disgraceful it is to be on this stuff when you’re looking after our son?! How dare you? Where did you even get this stuff? If I’ve brought you in on an official Ministry case whilst you’ve been off cavorting with dark wizards I swear to God I’ll—’
‘Stop Harry. You need to stop.’ Draco was shallow breathing and the further Harry’s voice rose, the worse the buzzing in his ears was getting.
‘No! I won’t stop! This is unbelievable. I can’t believe you fucking lied to me. It’s like I don’t even know you anymore and I—’
‘IT’S FUCKING MEDICATION!’ Draco screamed. Harry stopped mid-rant and stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
‘What.’ He said breathlessly, but Draco couldn’t answer him. He was already desperately trying to get air into his lungs, but he couldn’t remember what to do. He gaped at Harry who was looking at him worriedly. ‘Draco? What’s going on?’ Draco scrabbled for the vial on the counter although it was probably useless by now. His lungs were screaming for air, but he couldn’t make them work. What was breathing again? Panic was clawing at the inside of his empty chest like a white-hot poker.
Harry pushed the vial into Draco’s outstretched fingers and Draco desperately tried to pull the stopper off, but his hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t do it. He heard a sob and he belatedly realised it was his own, but Harry was already taking the vial back out of Draco’s hands again. Draco cried out thinking Harry had changed his mind, but instead Harry tilted Draco’s chin up so that he was forced to look him in the eye.
‘Draco. Listen to me. You need to breathe, ok?’ I CAN’T, Draco was screaming inside his mind. DON’T YOU THINK I WOULD IF I COULD? ‘Watch me. In…and out, in…and out.’ Harry kept his grip on Draco’s chin as he showed Draco how to take a breath in and let it go again.
Finally, Draco gasped in a lungful of air. He’d almost relaxed until he realised he couldn’t let it go again, but Harry was still there. ‘In…and out, Draco. You can do this.’ He told him calmly. He released his breath and slowly he tried to find a normal breathing rhythm.
‘Ok.’ He breathed.
‘Christ, Draco,’ Harry said as he grazed a thumb across Draco’s cheek, ‘you’re scaring me.’ Harry pressed a chaste kiss to Draco’s lips but pulled away again to let Draco’s breathing even out.
‘Harry, no.’ Draco pushed him to arm’s length and reached for the potion. He needed to get himself under control. He downed the potion in one and set the vial back down on the counter.
‘Draco, darling, please tell me what’s going on. Are you sick?’ Draco couldn’t handle Harry worrying about him, he felt like a cavernous pit of guilt and despair opened up inside him.
‘Yes, and no. I’m not dying or anything.’ Draco got up from the stool and staggered over to the sofa. He was feeling light-headed and drained and he needed a better support. He sunk onto the soft cushions of the sofa and wondered how he’d managed to get himself into such a mess at such a young age. He felt like an old man on the inside.
‘Ok, then what’s going on?’ Harry asked him. He was watching Draco intently with an expression full of concern and Draco wanted so much to hate him for accusing him of an addiction, for betraying his trust and for stealing from him, but he couldn’t because despite all that, he still loved him.
‘You remember when I told you about my Aunt Bella casting the Cruciatus Curse on me during the war?’ Harry nodded.
‘Of course I do. Do you still take those potions for your circulation?’ Harry asked him. The Cruciatus had damaged some of Draco’s nerves and he couldn’t regulate his body temperature. It also meant his anxiety caused more physical shaking that it did with most people, although he supposed anxiety affected everyone differently.
‘Uh, yes. I make my own now though and I only need one dose a month. No, wait, that’s not the point. The point is, they put my trial back because I wasn’t well.’ If he was going to do this, he wasn’t going to let Harry distract him.
‘Draco, I’m your—was your husband. I know this.’ They both winced at the slip and Draco’s heart twisted uncomfortably.
‘Right. The thing is, the Wizengamot pretended I had stomach flu but actually, I had...’ He paused, feeling like once he said it Harry would never look at him the same way again.
‘You had what?’ Harry pressed. Draco closed his eyes, so he wouldn’t have to see Harry’s reaction, and fiddled with the sleeve of his shirt.
‘A psychotic episode.’ He whispered. He bit his lip as it started to tremble, and he wished more than anything that the floor would swallow him whole.
‘A-a-a what? You’ve got to be kidding me. Draco, why didn’t you tell me? They shouldn’t even have put you on trial. The ruling doesn’t stand if the council weren’t aware of your medical history.’ Harry became frantic, as if the ruling from the bloody Wizengamot bothered Draco now, it was a decade ago.
‘Harry, please. That’s not important right now.’ Draco said. He suddenly felt very tired, as if the adrenaline from his panic attack had left his body all at once.
‘Sorry. I’m so sorry. Shit.’ Harry raked a hand through his already messy hair and it stuck up even more. ‘There’s more though, isn’t there?’ He said eventually. Draco nodded.
‘Harry you have to understand, I—’ Harry shook his head and Draco cut himself off.
‘No Draco, I don’t have to understand anything. I’m sorry for what I put you through, even if I don’t know exactly what it is I did. I want you to know before you tell me anything that I’m sorry either way. You must know by now that I care. Please tell me you know I care about you.’
Draco turned his face into the sofa, the same way Teddy had when Draco had taken him out to Diagon before he went to Hogwarts. He couldn’t look at Harry anymore.
Harry didn’t like that very much. He pulled Draco into him like he was nothing more than a pile of feathers. Draco was assaulted with the signature cedar and grapefruit of Harry and engulfed in the warmth of his—mostly naked—body heat. Draco wanted to hold onto him for the rest of his life, but he knew that wasn’t healthy and it wasn’t the right thing to do. He’d done the wrong thing enough times to know that now. He had to tell Harry the truth.
‘The thing is, that ever since the war, I’ve had this really bad anxiety. Sometimes I can’t leave the house and some days I can’t get out of bed. I forget to eat, and I can’t always sleep and sometimes there really isn’t any good reason why. Before you start shouting at me, I didn’t tell you because you were struggling with your nightmares and your excess magic and I felt so awful dumping all my problems on you too.’
Harry opened his mouth to cut in, but Draco wouldn’t let him interrupt him now that he had started. Harry’s grip on him tightened and Draco buried his face into his shoulder before he told him the one thing he’d never told anyone else before. He knew that telling him wouldn’t fix what had broken, but if he could keep this feeling for a little longer, then nothing on earth would stop him. Harry might have been a bit of a rubbish husband, but he was a good man.
‘I didn’t feel like I deserved you. Everywhere we went people would look at me that way, I know you know what I mean, and it didn’t matter that I knew they were wrong about me, I just knew that you could do way better than me and it wasn’t fair that you had to deal with that every time we tried to go somewhere just because of me.’ Draco refused to look anywhere near Harry throughout his little speech. He scrunched his eyes tight shut, even though the only view he had was of Harry’s bare shoulder. He felt completely exposed, and not just because of the copious skin on skin contact.
‘But Draco I don’t understand. If you were worried about that, why didn’t you just tell me? The whole point of a marriage is you share all of that with each other. I got over my nightmares and I got my accidental magic under control long before the divorce. You kept staying at work late and spending all your time in your lab and every time I tried to ask you about it you gave me bullshit excuses. Is that what those potions are about? What about Teddy, does he know about this? Have you had an episode in front of him?’
‘Harry, please,’ Draco’s voice wobbled, ‘not so many questions at the same time. I’m having really bad time being around you all the time and Teddy leaving.’ Draco jumped as Harry unwound his arms enough to take both of Draco’s hands in his own.
‘Draco.’ Draco refused to open his eyes. ‘Draco please look at me.’ Draco didn’t want to. He shook his head like a petulant child and pressed his lips together to stop himself crying. ‘Draco, come on. I’m on your side here.’ Draco took a deep breath and opened his eyes.
He was blown away by how much Harry’s eyes glittered in the morning brightness. The beams of sunlight cast an extra shadow across his jawline. His skin was still as perfect as ever and Draco ached with how much he missed him, even though he was right in front of him.
