Checkmate

Part III - Endgame - Chapter 18

You and I
We've seen it all
Chasing our hearts' desire
But we go on pretending
Stories like ours
Have happy endings

Lyrics from "You and I" from Chess by Benny Anderson, Tim Rice and Björn Ulvaeus

* * * * *

Harry felt the sudden restoration of the Ti'kira binding as a surge of emotional warmth that poured into his heart and flowed outward, spreading out through his body in waves of tingles he felt down to his fingertips. It was a flood of warmth and love and comfort so familiar and cherished and essential to him now, that it made his breath catch as it washed away his fears, filling all the empty loneliness he'd felt in its absence.

For the most fleeting second he envisioned what he would see through the Aurascope, and knew it was true as certainly as if he could actually see it, that the thin diaphanous cord that linked him with Draco was now a two-way connection, with shining beads of gold running from himself to Draco, and a second stream of crystal white beads, like tiny prisms, diamond-bright, flowing from Draco into himself. He couldn't help feeling a rush of joy, even while blinking back the tears of profound relief that welled up when Draco moved and sighed.

Harry rose up on one elbow to look down intently into Draco's face, waiting, hoping, barely daring to breathe.

Then Draco opened his eyes.

"Harry?" Draco's query was nothing more than a hoarse whisper, barely audible, but both wonder and confusion sounded in it. "Where . . . ?"

For a moment, all Harry could do was simply gaze, speechless, with his lower lip caught behind his teeth, into those beloved gray eyes. A deep thrill went through him at the sight of them for he'd almost despaired of ever seeing them again.

"We're in the hospital wing," said Harry, at last, his voice choked with emotion. "You were . . . hurt." He remembered that Madam Pomfrey had readied a dose of the Reviving Potion for if Draco regained consciousness and he sat up. "C'mon," he said gently. "Try to sit up a little. There's a potion here you need to drink."

Draco winced with pain when he tried to move, so Harry slipped one arm behind Draco's shoulders and slowly and carefully helped him sit up, propping the pillow behind them so that he could lean back and let Draco lean against him.

Suddenly Draco drew a sharp intake of breath as memory came crashing back. "My father . . .?" he asked in alarm.

"The Aurors took him," said Harry, holding Draco tightly within the circle of his arm. "You're safe."

Draco nodded and closed his eyes for a second, obviously relieved, then he looked back up at Harry, slightly startled again, his gray eyes filling with dawning astonishment as more memory surfaced. One trembling hand came up to hold weakly onto Harry's arm. "How did I . . . ?" he whispered.

Meeting Draco's questioning eyes with his own, Harry wondered where in the world to begin to explain. There was so much that he didn't understand himself, and looking into Draco's eyes, he felt his awareness of all of the connections that had been severed come flooding back, almost overwhelming in intensity. He felt their magical auras rejoin and the reconnection of the Ti'kira binding, both so wonderfully welcome, but in this moment, suddenly frightening too. Their loss and restoration were a very vivid revelation of the contrast between his life before Draco and what he had gained . . . and nearly lost.

Harry was suddenly overcome with the magnitude of all that had happened. Abruptly his arms went around Draco's neck as if in reflexive response to an impulse he was scarcely conscious of, and he pressed his face against the side of Draco's face. "We almost lost you," he breathed, agonized, into Draco's hair. An edge of accusation that Harry had meant to keep to himself lay revealed in the sentence, exposed by the tone of his words to hang suspended in the air between them.