The Fortunate Fall, 4/6- for twistedm

[lomonaaeren]

Draco had never known such hatred could exist in the world.

He had been unsure, when he first heard Raphael Morgan’s voice, of more than that it was familiar. But as the git had spoken, and spoken, and spoken again, Draco had forgotten how to breathe.

That was the voice that had spoken those words of loathing and contempt two years ago, when the unknown wizard burned the scar onto Draco’s face and so destroyed his life.

“That gives you a scar you can’t hide like you can that Mark. And to make sure that you don’t cover it up with a glamour, even when you get your wand back—“

And then pain, and fire, and darkness.

Draco clawed his way back to sanity, only to find that Harry was holding him, his arms clasped tightly around Draco’s shoulders and his cheek resting in his hair. He was humming beneath his breath, a soft, soothing, wordless sound. Draco grabbed Harry’s forearms and held on, shuddering. He wanted to keen, to curl up and drive everyone away, but that came from still not being used to warmth and comfort like this. He forced himself to believe that here was someone who wanted to hold him, instead.

Slowly, the shadow lifted from his mind.

“Will you tell me what happened now?” Harry whispered.

Draco did, in whispers of his own. Harry’s grip grew steadily tighter as Draco recited the details of his kidnapping, scarring, and the Permanence Charm, but never unbearable. Draco thought hazily that he really should become a spokesman recommending Harry Potter’s hug to every wizard or witch who had suffered similar injuries from the war.

Almost immediately, however, a flash of jealousy turned his vision yellow. No, let them suffer. Harry’s hug was his.

When he finished, Harry rocked him and cradled him for a long moment. Draco swallowed back the offended pride that told him he was too old to be held like a baby. He’d already seen Harry had good control of the wards around his garden and would warn Draco if someone approached. He could live with comfort like this so long as it was private.

Finally, Harry whispered, “It seems so unlike him. Raph is stupid and thoughtless, but he’s not malicious.”

Draco shivered as pain went through him like a lightning stroke. “So you don’t believe me, then,” he said flatly, and set about trying to detach himself from Harry’s arms.

Harry snarled. Draco jumped. He sounded like a wolf. Do I know that he didn’t get bitten by a werewolf since I saw him last? What proof do I have?

“For God’s sake, Draco.”

No, not a werewolf; just ordinary anger, then. Except that it wasn’t ordinary anger to Draco, not when Harry was the only person in the world who believed in him right now. He strove to keep his chin up as Harry gripped his shoulders and turned him around so they were face-to-face. It wasn’t easy looking into those green eyes and watching them flash at him, though. Draco supposed he would have to concur with Harry’s pronouncement of Morgan’s stupidity.

“Listen to me.” Harry’s voice was low and very intense. “I don’t disbelieve you as such. For all I know, Raphael did do that.” One of his hands rose from Draco’s shoulder and ghosted up to touch the scar on his right cheek, but dropped and held him again a moment later, just as strongly. “My main point is that you can’t accuse him just off a memory of his voice. We’ll look about, and see what evidence we can uncover. He hasn’t told me much about what happened to his family during the war. Maybe he did want to take vengeance on any Death Eater who didn’t die or get sent to Azkaban.

“Understand this, though. I am going to protect you. I’ll protect you from Raphael, if he’s your enemy. I’ll protect you from anyone else who comes after you to renew the scar or the Permanence Charm. I’ll protect you from the dangers of investigation into an Auror’s past. You are not doing this alone.”

Harry’s face grew both fiercer and more tender, like the expression of a hawk gazing at its mate. Draco swallowed. Lovely as the expression was, he didn’t think he wanted to hear the words that came next.

And he was right.

“I’ll also protect you from yourself,” Harry whispered. “I won’t let you creep back into the shell you endured for the past two years. You are not less than you were just because of your face. I happen to think that any man who jokes and eats and makes love like you do is far more than a pretty face, or a scarred one. I want you to get back into wizarding society and show everyone that Draco Malfoy cannot be brought down.”

Draco shook his head so fast his neck hurt. He could feel his eyes blurring with the tears he had fought so hard not to shed. “No,” he whispered. He tried to turn away, or bend down so he wouldn’t have to meet Harry’s gaze any longer. “No, you don’t understand—“

Harry pulled him upright again, and held him there, as much with the terrible, coercive force of his eyes as with his hands. His words cut into Draco without pity, leaving him sick and shaken.

“You’re the one who doesn’t understand, Draco. You’ve let your terror of other people rule you for too long. What’s the worst they can do? They can stare at you. They can whisper. They can laugh. Will you really let that, the weak weapons of weak people, ruin the rest of your life for you?”

“Call it vanity, then.” Draco’s voice was thin and desperate; he hated the sound of it. He lunged backwards against Harry’s grasp, seeking escape, but there was nowhere to go. He was being flayed, he was being flayed alive, and Harry was too merciless to notice. “Call it whatever you like, but don’t make me—“

“Don’t make you what?” Harry’s voice leaped as quick as scorn. “Live?”

“Fuck you!” Draco hadn’t screamed like this since the night he was scarred. He surged forwards and tried to hit Harry, though with the moisture in his eyes it was even chances he’d hit anything. Harry caught his arm and held him easily, effortlessly motionless, while his words slid on like acid.

“I reckon you’ll ask me what I know about it. And the answer, Draco? Is an awful lot.

“I had the choice of remaining a recluse after the war. I could have done it, too. I’d done my duty to wizarding Britain. What more did they need me for? If I went outside, the world was an endless stream of reporters and well-wishers and people who assumed they had the right to claim a share of my time and attention just because they recognized my face. Those gaping mouths… I had nightmares that they might swallow me, or just tear pieces off me until there was nothing left.

“But I realized I couldn’t allow them to control my life, and I couldn’t wish what I’d done undone, either. I lived. I stepped outside and cast spells that reduced their voices to buzzes in my ears. I ate where I liked and refused to budge just because there were reporters swarming around me; when it was necessary, I compensated the owners of the restaurants and the shops they crowded. I ignored their requests, even the ones that tugged at my heartstrings. I was a hero, once. That doesn’t make me a hero for all time. Once I accepted that, it was a lot easier to make other people accept it from me.

“You’ll go through the same process. As long as you allow others to—to brand you, you’ll just be a Death Eater. The lowest of the low. The black sheep cousins even paupers won’t touch. You told me this wizard—“

“Raphael—“

“Whoever he was, he wanted to give you a visible mark to replace the Dark Mark. And don’t you see what he did?”

“Ruined me.” Draco thought he had mastered the tears. At least a blurry image of Harry came into focus when he looked in more or less the right direction. “The cases aren’t comparable, Potter. You have that scar, yes, but it never destroyed your beauty—“

“Flattered as I would be to hear you sing my praises,” said Harry, in a tone that indicated he wasn’t flattered at all, “you’re not understanding, Draco. He branded you. He tried to ruin you. And that’s exactly what you let him do.”

Rage reared up in Draco. He tried not to meditate on the fact that it was the most life-giving emotion he’d felt in two years, excepting whatever he felt when Harry held him. He took a step forwards and shoved with both hands at Harry’s shoulders. Harry rocked on his heels but didn’t retreat, for all that he was half-a-head shorter than Draco. He was too solid.

“I didn’t let him do anything! I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t—“

“You don’t control what he did to you.” Harry grabbed Draco’s wrist and surged up into his face. “You only control your own reactions. So why the fuck are you doing what he wants? Why are you cringing, hiding away, as if you were a criminal, when he should be the one agonized with shame over what he’s done? You are the one who should be able to walk free and look whoever you want in the eye. But you’ll never do it, as long as you’re cowering behind closed doors. You’ll be his slave, a slave to the fear he wanted to cause, when you deserve every freedom and every shaft of sunlight he tried to deny you.”

Draco stepped back. He needed room for the yell he was about to give, because he didn’t want to deafen Harry, for all that the prat deserved it.

“Malfoys are not slaves!”

“Excellent.” Harry leaned forwards, eyes shining again, and Draco thought he should have yelled harder after all, because Harry did not look at all put out, which had been the purpose of Draco’s shout. “Then show him that. Come with me into public spaces where everyone can stare at you, and then ignore them. Make them work for your attention, instead of causing you to fear theirs. Demonstrate that you’re still master of whatever part of the wizarding world you want to walk all over.”

Draco was breathing fast enough to make his throat hurt. His head was spinning with fear so wild it was close to exhilaration. He lurched towards Harry, silently impressed that he didn’t measure his length on the garden path, as he was dangerously near to doing.

He seized Harry’s face and pulled it close to him. A moment later, they were kissing, and it was nothing like the kisses, both sensual and chaste, that Harry had given him last night. This was a messy smushing of lips, an inexpressive inarticulate tangle of tongues, the kind of kiss Draco thought they might have shared when they were eleven, if they had known what they wanted then.

Harry laughed into his mouth, laced his hands through Draco’s hair, and tugged. “Yes,” he said.

“I didn’t even ask if you’d be part of the wizarding world I’m master of,” Draco whispered.

“You didn’t have to, I could see it in your eyes.” Harry tugged on his hair. “But just because I’ll support you and help you get over your fear doesn’t mean I’ll lie down and let you do whatever you like to me, you know.”

Draco cupped Harry’s cheek and the back of his neck, unable to calm down, but not wanting to dash around in circles, either, because that would require him to let go of Harry. He flexed his fingers back and forth in an attempt to relieve some of his excitement. Then he leaned his head into Harry’s shoulder and bit the base of his collarbone. Harry accepted this with no more than a slight jump.

“I know,” Draco whispered. “But we’re going to show him, aren’t we?”

“We certainly are,” Harry murmured.

“And do research on Morgan’s background at the same time?”

Harry’s muscles tightened for a moment, as if to show that he still thought this was a bad idea, but his nod was firm all the same. “We are. All I really know about Raphael’s past is that his family went to France during the first war with Voldemort and he attended Beauxbatons. They came back to Britain a few years before the second war started, though, and he began studying to become an Auror. There are probably records in the Ministry of Magic…”

“I know how we can get to them,” Draco said, thinking, for the first time in years, of the letter he’d received from Theodore Nott the same day the Wizengamot had decreed he could not use his wand. Theo’s mother had attained high rank in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, her ties to the Death Eaters never suspected, since she’d discreetly divorced Theo’s father a decade earlier. Theo had childishly hinted that he could call in favors from the Ministry now which Draco could only dream of.

And it just so happened that Draco knew a few secrets about Theo Nott that the passage of time would only make him more eager to bury.

“Then we’ll start this investigation as soon as you can get access to the documents,” Harry promised. “And you’ll go shopping in Diagon Alley with me a week from tomorrow.”

Draco swallowed, the sudden flush of triumph vanishing into the prickle of fear along his spine. “Glamoured?”

“For now,” Harry said.

It was only then that Draco realized he hadn’t thought about his scar for nearly ten minutes. It was the longest period of time he’d concentrated on something else since he received it.

*

Harry looked through the records Draco had owled him. He really had retrieved them with impressive speed.

Slytherin speed.

Harry shrugged. He was dating a Slytherin; he should get used to his lover acting like one. And if he played his cards right, Draco would continue to use his Slytherin prowess to benefit himself, looking more to his ambition than to his self-interest.

Draco had neatly organized the documents into several piles. Some concerned Raphael’s scores during his training to become an Auror; others were medical records, covering his wounds in the field; others were transcripts of interviews and past history. Harry shook his head again. No, he didn’t think he would ask why Draco had thought it important to acquire all of these, or how he had. A relationship could thrive just as much on the silences as on the sounds.

Draco had underlined and circled several phrases on a piece of parchment titled simply “Applicant’s Family.” Harry picked it up and scanned it.

Auror trainee Raphael Morgan was asked if he had any family members who had been involved in the Dark Arts. He took some time to answer the question, but admitted that he had a twin brother who became infatuated with Dark magic when they were both fifteen. Thanks to more relaxed laws concerning such spells in France, Gabriel Morgan was able to become a fairly accomplished Dark wizard. He also learned Defense against such spells, so his family was not overly concerned.

Auror trainee Morgan appeared somewhat emotional in speaking of his brother. He would not reveal his ultimate fate, saying only that he was “lost,” and that it had been the fault of someone else and not himself. He did assure the Auror training program that his brother was no longer in a position to cause trouble, and that the French Aurors knew more, if the committee deliberating his entrance wished to contact them.

Harry frowned and leaned back in the chair. He could figure out Draco’s line of reasoning from here. Voldemort had been recruiting heavily in other European countries during the first war; that had come to light during the Death Eater trials the summer after Harry defeated him. It wasn’t out of the question that loyal French adherents had lain low when he vanished after his attack on Godric’s Hollow and begun recruitment efforts again some years later. They could have made contact with Gabriel Morgan, enchanted him, and then led him into the Death Eater fold. And it would be like Raphael to decide that Death Eaters had been responsible for his brother’s demise, or imprisonment, or whatever had happened to him, instead of Gabriel himself. The last serious argument he and Harry had had before their breakup concerned Raphael’s mother Lucy, who didn’t accept her son’s sexual orientation. Raphael had screamed himself hoarse, claiming that that wasn’t Lucy’s fault, but rather the fault of his grandparents, who had made sure to raise her with as many prejudices as possible.

Raphael might have decided to target the remaining Death Eaters who had got off with light punishments—in his eyes—and could have scarred Draco out of revenge.

But that was a long chain of suppositions to hang guilt off the end of. And just because Draco and Harry could both see a possible reason Raphael might have blamed Draco and sought revenge on him didn’t mean that was what had happened. Really, they could not be sure.

Harry shook his head and scribbled his own refutation in the margins of the parchment. He would need more evidence before he condemned Raphael for losing his twin brother.

Raphael had never spoken of Gabriel.

But then, there was an awful lot that Raphael had never spoken of, wasn’t there? And most of the time when he spoke, Harry had wished he would shut up.

Harry rubbed a hand over his face and turned back to the Ministry records. He had a new lover now, and he had refused to change his life to the blank sketch that Raphael approved of. His ex-boyfriend should not occupy such a persistent place in his head.

So what if he laughed at you, Harry told himself brutally. So what? You told Draco that he ought to get over the laughter of others. Aren’t you willing to do the same yourself?

*

Draco rubbed his hands together, until he realized that only increased the amount of clammy sweat between them, instead of wiping it away. He tried to look down Diagon Alley directly, but found himself turning his face away each time. His hand rose, for the seventh time in a minute, to touch the glamour that covered his scar.

Harry caught his fingers and kissed the back of his hand. “It’s fine, I promise,” he whispered. “Come on. We’ll walk past a few of the shops and then go into Flourish and Blotts. No one I know works there. No one you know works there. It’s all fine.” He put his hand on Draco’s shoulder and tugged him along.

With a deep breath, Draco stepped out of the alley where Harry often brought his flowers and into the center of Diagon Alley.

No one seemed to notice him at first. Then a few people noticed Harry and waved. And then a few people saw him and stared.

Draco’s skin crawled and his breath came short. He had to stop himself from simply Apparating on the spot. It was not as though Harry could hold him there if Draco didn’t want to stay. If he Apparated, Harry would be dragged along with him. And then Draco could pin Harry to the mattress in his flat and demand more of that talented mouth. Or he could finally see about exploring Harry’s arse or offering him his own, something Harry had explained he was waiting on because “he didn’t want Draco to feel that he wasn’t special.”

Draco felt special enough just at that moment, with more than a few people gathering in small groups to discuss him. Their gazes swung to follow him; he was their topic of conversation, no doubt about it. More than a few people pointed. Someone, an elderly witch with even less taste in clothing than Harry, giggled behind her hand.

It was instinctive. Draco drew back his head and shot her a polished sneer. She dropped her hand and gazed down at her robes for just a moment, before she seemed to figure out his game and shook a small fist at him.

He’d done it. He’d intimidated someone else. He’d embarrassed a woman who had tried to embarrass him.

And it hadn’t hurt at all.

Draco was still sick and shaking, and he wasn’t sure he’d want to make these shopping trips a feature of his daily life. But he was out in public, and he was still alive. The Tempus Charm chimed reassuringly in his head, telling him he still had most of an hour before the glamour wore off.

He was alive.

“Oi! Harry!”

Draco turned sharply. Heading towards them down the middle of Diagon Alley was a figure with long limbs and red hair. Weasley, Draco knew, though from this distance he couldn’t tell which one.

Then he remembered which Weasley brothers had kept a shop in Diagon Alley.

The twins. And this one will probably blame me for the death of his twin brother, as people have a habit of doing.

He lifted a hand to his cheek again, and moved closer to Harry. It was a small movement, he told himself. No one who was watching could see it, and no one would know that it signified he wanted protection.

*

Harry felt Draco’s arm start trembling in his hand the moment he caught sight of George. He shot Draco a reassuring smile—though he wasn’t sure Draco saw it, so focused was he on the approaching Weasley—and slung an arm around his shoulder. He saw George slow and stare. He might have assumed the blond man with Harry was Raphael, until he saw the arm. George, just like the rest of his family, knew that Harry and Raphael hadn’t been an item for several months now.

Cautiously, George approached. Harry did his best to ignore his own consciousness of the empty space walking at George’s side. Fred wasn’t there and never would be again. Harry was only grateful that Hermione had made him face those realities during his own months of depression and mourning after the war, or he might have slipped into delusions, as George had for a while, that Fred was only on a journey and would soon return safe and whole.

But George had recovered, and Harry smiled at him, ignoring the way George gawked at Draco. “Good morning,” he said. “I don’t reckon you need another load of foxglove for the shop already, or you would have asked me, wouldn’t you?” A running joke between him and George was that one day George would wake up, realize Harry’s supplies weren’t actually all that good, and buy from a different gardener or herbologist.

“Not foxglove, no,” said George, and turned to face Draco. That was one thing that had changed about him since the war, Harry thought; George had become more direct, less playful and teasing, and he was grateful for it at the moment. “But I might need some pomegranate juice for a Strengthening Solution. Do excuse me if I faint dead in the street.”

“Oh, yes,” Harry said. “You would recognize Draco Malfoy, of course, and I don’t think a formal introduction is necessary—“

George moved near so quickly that Harry had to fight not to take a step back. “No,” he hissed under his breath, “but an explanation as to why you’re walking around with that bloody snake holding your hand sure as hell is.”

Harry merely raised an eyebrow, and went on standing like that until George began to look a bit abashed. Then he said, quietly, “It’s my choice as to whom I date, George. Draco’s probation has passed. He can use a wand again now—“

And George’s wand was in his hand.

Harry’s shoulders stiffened, but he reminded himself that he couldn’t constantly intervene between Draco and the Weasleys without damaging the intimacy he hoped for from both of them. He flicked his wrist, catching hold of the end of the holly wand up his sleeve, but he would only interfere if matters actually came to hexes. For now, he waited, glancing from one face to the other.

*

Draco breathed shallowly, every muscle in his body quivering with the need to run. This had been a lesser reason for his reluctance to venture into public: even if no one saw or everyone ignored the scar, there was sure to be at least one person who would hold his past against him.

But Harry stood there, unconcerned.

The remaining Weasley twin was more terrifying to Draco than any member of his family had ever been. Armed and glaring as if Draco had personally killed his brother, he could hurt him badly, in a blink, before Draco could do anything about it. He prided himself on the quickness of his spells and how many Dark ones he knew, but he had never had any illusions about how he might measure up to the twins. They were cleverer, more malicious, and, above all, faster.

But Harry stood there, unconcerned.

Draco put his chin up and endured. Those were perhaps the hardest four heartbeats of his life, with the tension between him and the Weasley building like a fire and all his Slytherin instincts screaming at him to get the first curse in; if he hit hard enough immediately, he wouldn’t have to hit again.

But he ignored his instincts, and he stood there, refusing to be the one who would bring magic into the battle.

With a loud exclamation of disgust, the Weasley brother put his wand away and turned on Harry. “Why do you want to date him?” he demanded.

“Well, you see,” Harry began in a brightly condescending tone that Draco would never have used on anyone who’d been glaring at him like this man had, “when two wizards are attracted to each other, they sometimes want to go on dates. That’s called—“

“Bollocks, Harry,” the Weasley said, with a shake of his head, but he had actually calmed down. Draco swallowed. Apparently jokes can tame the wild Weasley. Best wait before you try that strategy, though. “Tell me the real reason.”

Harry was quiet. Draco turned to add the force of his stare on his lover, rather interested in said reason himself.

“You’ve asked me to describe something I’ve never been good at describing,” Harry muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. It didn’t escape Draco’s notice that he’d started speaking only when Draco glanced at him. It was comforting to know that there were some things Harry wouldn’t do at the behest of a Weasley. “I know when I saw Draco again—when I gave him back his wand, I mean—he had a spirit in his face that I’d never seen before.”

“You’re right,” the Weasley interrupted. “You’re not very good at describing this.”

Draco shot him an irritated glance. He wanted the git to be quiet so he could listen to his own praises. Good words for him had been so rare in the last few years that he wasn’t willing to give up Harry’s.

“Shut up, George,” said Harry, which at least let Draco know which of the identical menaces had died. “I meant what I said. With his magic back, he looked as if he could take on the world, when just a few minutes earlier he was so dejected I could have passed him in the street without recognizing him.” He turned around and faced Draco. There was a small, solemn smile on his face. He reached out and tugged on a lock of Draco’s blond hair, which Draco couldn’t even scold him for. “I wanted to know what kind of man he’d become, especially when I saw his eyes light up. And maybe, just maybe, I wanted him to look at me the same way.”

Draco took a step nearer. “If I haven’t yet,” he whispered, “it’s only because you haven’t done quite enough to merit it.”

“Arrogant Malfoy,” George Weasley muttered.

Draco cast him a haughty glance. There was only one person on this street who had just been told he was wanted by Harry Potter, and he wasn’t him.

“You know he wasn’t involved in Fred’s death,” Harry said quietly, with a seriousness of tone Draco hadn’t expected. He looked back to see Harry leaning forwards, his arms folded and his eyes keen. “I can understand if you don’t want to see him. But I won’t have you accusing him and attacking him for crimes that weren’t his, and I won’t give up dating him just to please you.”

George pursed his lips and looked thoughtful. Then he nodded. “I won’t take issue with your choice of boyfriends, Harry,” he said. “On one condition.”

“Which would be?”

“That you invite me over when you plan to introduce him to Ron.” Weasley’s grin was wicked. “I want a ringside seat for that explosion.”

Harry grinned back. “Agreed.”

And then he and the Weasley shook hands, and the Weasley wandered down the street on whatever aimless errand he’d been on in the first place, while Harry guided Draco towards Flourish and Blotts with a hand on the small of his back.

Draco let the stunned silence stretch until he realized that Harry had no intention of breaking it, and it was once more up to him to do the work in this relationship. “Why did he just—accept it?” he asked.

Harry leaned over to kiss his cheek. Someone in the small crowd following them gasped. Draco felt his skin itch with self-consciousness, but he refused to look around and try to identity the culprit. He concentrated instead on the soft, chapped feeling of Harry’s lips and the warmth of the arm around him.

“Because,” Harry whispered, “not everyone is like the wizard who cursed you, Draco. Some people have managed to grow up and accept their losses.” He paused long enough that Draco knew the next declaration was going to be terribly significant, because Gryffindors liked the dramatic effect of silence. “Can you?”

Draco deliberately didn’t lift his hand to touch his cheek, but he did cast a Tempus Charm. Half-an-hour left on the glamour.

“Maybe,” he said.

Harry grinned blindingly, as though he’d just received a confirmed promise, and drew him into the bookshop.

Part 5.

Comments

[twistedm.livejournal.com]

i really liked the interaction between harry and george.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thanks. That scene was one I rewrote two times; I never get the tone of interaction between Harry and the Weasleys quite right the first time.

[tatiana708.livejournal.com]

A relationship could thrive just as much on the silences as on the sounds.

I loved that line. So beautiful and so true.

He wanted the git to be quiet so he could listen to his own praises.

THAT made me laugh! So very Draco.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Draco would have liked to be able to shut Harry up in a room somewhere and have him write poetry that is nothing but praise of Draco's virtues.

[vwalk.livejournal.com]

Lovely chapter. I REALLY like this new confident Harry. His interaction with George was good. I liked the fact that Draco didn't cower away or attack. Your description of what his instincts were telling him and his struggle not to attack first was brilliant. I am really impressed at how you're able to maintain a very measured pace for the story with so few words. The plot doesn't seem rushed or lagging. Draco's healing is coming along slowly as is his relationship with Harry - and yet we're already at part 5 of a 6 part fic. You are a truly gifted author.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

It took a while to get that interaction between Harry, Draco, and George right, especially from Draco's POV. I'm glad you liked the struggle with his instincts. (I don't think Draco would be quite at ease around any of the Weasleys the first time he met them again, no matter how much time had passed).

And thank you so much!