Change.

Their mattress caught on fire.

Harry watched as it went up in flames—all three years of slick surrenders decorated down pale thighs, consoling caresses for haunted screams, sweat-soaked and feverish from nightmares—simply burn away.

Harry tried to hold those years together for too long, bewildered by the strain time had on the best of his intentions. No matter his clinging efforts, he was arrested by the painful stretch of change, which was bountiful to the point that it was irrational and unwanted.

Draco flourished under the shower of it, welcomed it with open arms, ravenous after so much mundanity and pain, ravished by the splendour of an illicit beauty, change.

Harry couldn't understand. He didn’t want to understand why loving Draco suddenly felt like a trap—an exercise in wanting and waiting with no promise of relief—this was change Harry couldn’t stomach. He felt useless, like an afterthought, after three years at the centre of Draco’s desperation, of his needs and wants. Harry hated the way the sunshine now caught in Draco’s lustrous hair, illuminating him like some Godly entity, hated the way pride adorned Draco's sharp consonants, how between the gaps of Draco's mistrust and anger for their world, he filled them with hope and joy, hatched from his despair. Harry no longer knew the man that writhed underneath him, with his chocolate-smeared kisses drenched in honeyed vows for even sweeter days. They tasted bitter in Harry’s mouth. Harry had to bankrupt Draco, disrupt him, remind him that he needs Harry forever. There was no way Draco could survive without him because Harry refused to entertain such a vicious thought. He would remain the brightest star in Draco’s orbit. The first, and most certainly, the only.

Harry missed Draco, missed the man he used to be. So beautifully broken, with so many tiny pieces Harry loved to pick up, turn over in his hands, and carefully slot back into place. He hadn’t meant to put Draco together so quickly, rendering himself irrelevant in the process. He hadn’t meant for Draco to want to fly free, unburdened by his past and gasping for new experiences.

Harry watched the fire eat away at their mattress a few moments longer, wary of the black curls of smoke that thickened overhead. He placed his wand back into his holster and squatted down to lift Draco’s unconscious form into his arms, his lips pressed to Draco’s wet, clammy temple where the gash from an old Beater’s bat seeped into Draco’s white linen pyjama collar. One swing had been enough to knock him unconscious.

Harry will tell the Healers Draco must've fallen asleep with a cigarette in hand, even though Harry knows he quit almost a year ago, at the first signs that the frost began to thaw inside of him. From the heart, Draco liked to say when discussing his change.

No one will question why they have to start over, not after their little home burned down, not with the injury Draco sustained, who, upon waking, was seized by smoke inhalation and passed out. Harry will cry and his hands will shake as he tells the Healers how he found Draco unresponsive on the floor of their bedroom after coming home late from work. How Draco must’ve hit his head on the corner of their nightstand in the midst of his panic and fear, something he struggled with even on his best days. The Healers will blame the memory loss on the fall and maybe even a lingering trauma from the fire, never finding the traces of the Obliviate-like spell Harry found in Grimmauld Place’s abandoned library.

No one will question Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived.

And neither will Draco. Not anymore.

Not when Draco’s so beautifully broken, full of mistrust and anger for their world. Not when he’s ready to depend on Harry, in desperate need for him to fill his days with caresses after haunted screams, feverish nightmares. Not when he needs Harry to make love to him, slick with the surrender of his desire, willing and ready for Harry to protect him from the looming stress of time, of change.