l 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 using 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 ufortably.

‘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 et 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 feltpletely 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 idental 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,e 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.

‘I promise nothing ever happened with Teddy. I’m just on edge because he went to Hogwarts. He doesn’t know a thing I swear. Please don’t take him from me.’

‘Draco don’t be silly.’ He held Draco’s face in his hands and Draco felt like he could float away. ‘Listen to me now. I would never do that. I shouldn’t have threatened you with Teddy I’m really sorry.’ He said earnestly.

‘I didn’t mean to lie so much, honestly,’ Draco began. ‘I stopped seeing my healer when the potions stopped working and I was using the labs at work to develop my own anti- anxiety solution. I kept having to stay late because I couldn’t do it during office hours and I didn’t want you finding it in the house. I shouldn’t have lied, it was a terrible idea, but I never meant to make you feel like I didn’t love you because I do love you. Did love you.’ He corrected himself quickly, but it wasn’t quick enough.

‘It’s ok, I love you too.’

Draco’s breath hitched. He didn’t know what to say to that. This was so much worse than he thought it would be. He loved Harry and Harry loved him, but Draco lied through his teeth about his issues and Harry went behind Draco’s back and used him of a potions addiction. God, this was such a mess and now that Teddy had gone to Hogwarts, there was nothing distracting them from their own issues.

Draco realised how stupid he was to be telling Harry all of this now, now that everything had already fallen apart. He should never have epted Kingsley’s offer to consult with the Ministry, he should never have made a deal with Hermione to stay for six months before moving, he should never have told Teddy he would be there when he came back from school.

He realised he’d been rocking himself back and forth like a nutter as he’d disappeared inside his own mind.

‘It’s ok Draco. I understand. We’ll get through this.’ We, Draco thought. He said we. Draco wasn’t entirely sure he was ok with the implications of that. As far as he was concerned, he was still going to be leaving in the next few months.

It was unfair, and it was selfish, and Draco would be back to his familiar self-loathing when it was done, but when Harry reached out and pulled Draco into him, he let

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