Potter!

Harry woke with a start when the door opened. Draco was still sleeping soundly in his arms, so he knew there was an intruder approaching, and not him.

"What the hell?" Ron's voice drifted into his dazed ears and he sprung to life, shooting across the room, waking Draco in the process.

When he looked towards the door, Ron, Hermione and (Merlin forbid) Ginny, were standing at the door, their jaws nearly reaching the floor.

"It's not what it looks like-" Harry stuttered coarsely.

"Right." Ginny muttered.

Harry finally caught up with everything that was going on, "And what did you think you were doing anyway, just barging into my house?" He demanded, raising his voice.

Draco was cowering in the bed, wishing he could go back to his uninterrupted sleep, resting on Harry's comfortable chest.

"Ron and Ginny wanted to check up on you both." Hermione insisted, emphasising the words 'check up' with her two fingers and rolling her eyes.

"He was upset. I was being a good friend." Harry was infuriated by the two of them, acting as if they suspected something was going on, like for Draco to have murdered him.

"Right." Ginny muttered again, even more sarcastically than the last time.

"If you're going to be like that, you can get out of my house! I know you hate Draco, that you can't simply forgive him like 'Mione and I have. I get that. But you don't have to be so awful to him. He's just trying to get over the war like everybody else! He's my friend. And sometimes I feel like he can be a damn sight better as a friend than you are sometimes." Harry's temper boiled over, most of it being aimed at Ginny. Poor Ginny, he thought quickly. He knew acted over the top sometimes.

He was about to apologise, the feeling of regret pulsing through his body when, keeping up with her standards she retaliated, "Harry Potter. You are so bloody oblivious to everything and everyone. Can't you see that I've never got over that we drifted apart during the war! I love you, and I still want to be with you, and you're over here sleeping with a damned Death Eater who probably wants to murder you like he murdered Fred!" The flames that came out of her mouth matched her red hair, which seemed to move around her like fire as she shouted back at Harry.

But unfortunately for her, this time Harry had not felt sympathy for her, an instinct to protect kicked in. "How dare you call him that! And how dare you say that he murdered Fred. I murdered Fred, he died for me!" Tears of frustration were filling his eyes now, "I don't care if you still want to be with me. The reason we drifted apart is because I didn't want to be with you anymore. I love you like a friend, nothing more."

Ginny scowled at him, tears brimming her eyes, she stormed out of the room, giving Draco one last vicious look as she did so.

The room was completely silent as everyone gawked at Harry, who was breathing rapidly, adrenaline coursing through his veins almost the same as the day he had killed Voldemort.

"She kind of has a point, mate." Ron coughed, earning a filthy look from Hermione. "What? She would be a better love interest than Malfoy." He spat the name out like it was poison. "After all that he did to you, how are you protecting him against someone who stuck by you since the start?"

Ron did have a point and the whole room silently agreed with that. Harry glanced over at Draco, who was shaking as he looked at Harry with tear stained cheeks and the eyes of a hunted animal.

Ron sighed loudly and left the room, and could be heard apparating in the distance.

Hermione shrugged, her face pale and her expression apologetic, "I'm sorry, Harry." And she was gone too.

Harry fixed his eyes back on Draco who was now staring silently at the floor. "I think I should go, Harry." He murmured, his lips trembling.

"What? Draco?" Harry rushed forward to sit beside him.

"You're going to lose your friends over me. You're going to lose your adopted family over me. And I can't let you do that." He shook as he spoke, the tears delicately trickling down his smooth, ashen cheeks. "What they said was true. I am a death eater. I killed Fred. I don't deserve to be defended. Why do you choose to protect me from their words? The ones that stayed by you, when I taunted you and tried to hurt you."

Harry breathed deeply before answering. "Draco. Do you really think I'd protect you if I really thought you were still a Death Eater and about to murder me? Anyone with eyes can see you've changed. You're a much better person now. You didn't kill Fred." Harry's stomach still convulsed at the name. "And yes they're probably right that they stuck by me and now it seems I'm betraying them. But I know it'll blow over, they're just grieving, they need someone to blame. If they care about me, which I'm certain they do, they'll be okay. I feel bad for Ginny, but I can't reciprocate feelings that I don't have. I care about all of you, so they're just going to have to live with that, aren't they? Don't blame yourself, if anyone, blame me."

He was silent, though his lip had stopped trembling. Harry wondered if he was more broken than he had previously thought. Maybe he was still very good at hiding it.

"I'll get Kreacher to make us some dinner. Don't worry about them for now, I'll send them an owl in the morning and visit them at the Burrow if I need to. Really it serves them right for randomly coming into my house uninvited. It wouldn't be the first time, especially for Ginny. It's one of the reasons why I can't be with her." Harry chuckled, moving his hand to Draco's cheek and cupping it. A smile played on his lips, a blush creeping onto his cheeks and he new he had succeeded in making him feel a lite better.

They are dinner together in the kitchen, laughing again, trying to forget what had just passed. For now, they had each other and tomorrow they would mend everything else in their broken lives.