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Sorry for the slight lateness. I really am trying to keep to my "schedule." But this chapter is a pretty long one, so hopefully it will make up for that. ^_^
Title: The Road (15/?)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rurounihime
Rating: hard R when all is said and done…
Pairing: H/D eventually
Summary: In the midst of a disintegrating war, Harry awaits the arrival of the Order’s last hope.
Warning: violence, character death, spoilers for all books
Disclaimer: The HP characters and most of the spellwork do not belong to me.
A/N: Thank you to April for her fabulous and attentive beta-ing, and to Coffee for constantly letting me bounce ideas off of her. The other major pairing in this is Blaise/Seamus, but there are minor het pairings as well.
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ETA: Artwork for this chapter done by the wonderfulnaadi. Thank you so much, dear! ... Please Don't Leave (H/D, rated G)
No music for this chapter.
…
**ETA 2: THIS CHAPTER HAS RECEIVED ITS FINAL EDIT**
Previous chapters
Chapter 15: Draco at the Door
“Luna!”
Harry tore through the door, shirt in hand. Luna sat there plucking at a lute and humming softly. Her eyes had been closed, but they opened to reveal curious ocean blue.
“Where is he, Luna?” Harry said urgently.
Luna opened her mouth and let a high note float out like a bell chime. At the front door.
Harry’s mouth went dryer than cracked earth. “Leaving?”
Oh, no. He can’t. Luna tilted her head and strummed the lute strings.
Harry took a split second to let the relief crash over him, then spun and made for the door again. He called over his shoulder. “Don’t let him out, Luna!”
He’s very angry with me. He could hear the grin in her voice.
He raced down the hall toward the staircase, leaping the top four steps before catching himself against the railing. The next floor tilted crazily and Harry slowed. It would help nothing to fall down the stairs and break his neck. But his hands were trembling.
He hadn’t known what to think. He’d just looked over and seen the empty side of the bed. He’d reached out, and his mind had barely registered the cooled sheets before he was sitting up and pulling on his trousers. Searching for his glasses and finding them inexplicably next to his bed. But there was no time to wonder. He didn’t bother with Draco’s room; the only one who would know instantly was Luna, and he’d been terrified of what she might tell him.
The night before was clear as glass in his mind, though he couldn’t remember exactly what had prompted him to grab Draco, to kiss him like that. He’d had no right, that was certain, and yet Draco had lurched back into him and sent him reeling with an embrace Harry hadn’t imagined in his deepest dreams. His body still tingled with the aftershocks. One thing was plain: He didn’t know what he’d do if Draco got away into the wastes of the war. Like some sort of spirit, haunting him for a single, burning, glorious night, and then vanishing into the foggy past.
Even with his brain screaming caution, Harry took the stairs three at a time, barely clinging to his balance. The castle was quiet except for Luna’s singing; doubtful that anyone else was up yet, though watery sunlight spilled across the steps he clambered down. It didn’t matter to him if he should meet anyone. The only thing that mattered was stopping Draco from leaving the castle.
* * *
Draco’s wand poked at his thigh where he’d shoved it into his trouser waist. He pounded the door with a fist. The morning sun struck in stripes across the wood and iron braces, but the warmth it gave was not nearly enough to calm the shudders that threatened.
The castle was quiet, save for his pounding and the haunting lilt of Lovegood’s lute. Draco cursed her through gritted teeth. It was her doing, her fault he couldn’t open this door. He was weak with hunger, thirsty, and utterly crushed under the weight he’d carried for so long. He struck the door with the flat of his hand and paused to breathe. His own heart throbbed in his ears.
He was tired. So very tired. He’d been going solely on nerves for the past four days.
He’d woken that morning, expecting the cold ground of some cave, Weasley a few meters away, because his good dreams were never the reality.
It had been a shock to see Harry’s smooth back before him, rising and falling with barely audible breaths. Draco stared for several seconds before the enormity hit. And then he couldn’t get enough air.
His... his body hurt. Muscles ached in ways they hadn’t since Theodore. His thighs were stiff. His back felt deliciously stretched, and between his legs—Draco squeezed his eyes shut, air hissing in and out through clenched teeth.
He could remember Harry’s hands on him. Cradling his hips. Sliding around to knead the muscles of his lower back. Pressing hot points into his shoulders with his fingertips. Every stroke burned into his flesh as though Harry’s hands still moved over his skin. He could recall every touch.
Harry’s back rose and fell gently with each inhalation. Red tracks marred the skin of his shoulders. Draco swallowed. His fingernails. His stomach writhed and for a lasting second, he thought he would be sick.
Draco pushed himself up slowly, careful not to jar the bed, then hung his feet over the edge, trying to find his equilibrium. But he had no idea how to do that anymore. There was just movement, escape. He cast around and found his trousers in a heap toward the end of the bed. His filthy sweater, draped over the far post. And his cloak, a sad huddle of black fabric near the window. Draco stood hurriedly, halting in his tracks when he heard his bedmate sigh. Harry rolled over, one hand trailing across his chest, lips parting and then closing once more. His eyelids flickered but did not open.
Watching Harry the whole time, Draco gathered his trousers up and pulled them on, then snatched at his pullover and dragged it over his head. He made for his cloak and nearly tripped sideways over his pack where it rested neatly against the bedpost. He stared at it.
He’d dropped it… out in the hallway. When he’d—Draco dashed a hand over his face, tasting bile. House-elves. Gods, they’d known he was here and not in his own room.
The very idea made him moan. Draco scooped his cloak from the floor, then grabbed the strap of his bag. Harry moved again, one bare leg bending restlessly beneath the sheets. Draco caught himself looking and jerked away. He let himself out of the room as quietly as he could.
And now here he was on the ground floor, trying to break through solid oak with nothing but his hands and listening to the sickeningly sweet music of the very person who was keeping him from his goal.
He wiped at his eyes and cursed himself. What the fuck was wrong with him? He didn’t cry. He hadn’t even cried when Theodore died, not for the right reasons anyway. There was no reason why he should be crying over this.
Where had his strength of will gone? Had it finally been kicked out of him back in the woods, in the damp caves, staring down the length of that Death Eater’s wand? He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the protest of the muscles in his back and legs. Such a steady ache. And he knew where each tiny hurt had come from, could name the stroke or the thrust that had given each one to him. His left shoulder felt as though it still bore the print of Harry’s fingers, five lasting bruises to keep him from forgetting what he’d done.
And what had he done? He’d given in to the last thing he wanted, and the first thing. He’d let it become just another dark night in an endless river of dark nights.
You couldn’t be content, could you? You had to take it further. The tears welled yet again. Draco slumped against the door.
He’d never felt so lost, as though he’d been ripped at the seams and shaken apart. He had what he’d longed for, what he’d imagined every night for the last two years, and it had been so brokenly perfect, and now where was he? What in Merlin’s name was he going to do?
He’d never realised until now how much the dreams, the anticipation, of what had just happened had driven him. And now...
Now what?
The war had eaten up yet another part of him, and he’d just stood there—no, lain there, for fuck’s sake—and let it happen. Thrust into it until it died a slow death, bloody well welcomed it, pulled himself up against it, and let his senses explode into a frenzy off of it. Had he no self-control at all? Obviously not; he could even remember the sounds he’d made, the words he may or may not have spoken aloud with the night’s blackness pouring in through the windows, and where was Weasley? Had she known? Had she been waiting for Harry while the two of them had both taken a little solace from the war, a dirty-quick thrust and release and a few scant hours of peace, until the next avalanche fell upon them?
Except he hadn’t just taken solace. He’d never had the ability to do something so simple with Harry Potter. No, he’d taken what he’d been yearning for, for months, and now it was carving him up with slow, deadly knives because he’d given it more meaning that it was meant to have. Than Harry meant it to have.
Just another night. Another tryst to be filed away and, in time, dismissed.
And wasn’t he just the expert on that?
Draco’s stomach jerked, threatening to relieve itself of what little it held, but it wasn’t the sensation of purging. If he gave in, the heaves would go on and on until he collapsed or died, whichever came first. The door felt cool against his forehead, but there was nothing that could steady him, and all the while, Lovegood’s music flowed over him, carefree and mocking.
Never fall in love with an idol.
He’d lost himself somewhere. Forgotten that his first duty was to himself, because even if he wanted to be altruistic, Salazar forbid, there was nothing he could do for anyone else if he himself were not whole. And he was breaking, doing it alone this time because there was only one person left in this world who he could call family. The rest were dead or vanished, and he’d fooled himself into thinking that he could cut a different niche for himself.
He’d lost them all by trying to save them when he was not fit to save anyone. Pansy and his mother, his father, Theodore... All the rest.
Did you think you could save Harry, too? Hysterical laughter threatened. Draco pushed away from the door and stared at up it. Surely behind it lay the answers to all of his problems, if he could just get through. Harry didn’t need saving, especially not by Draco Malfoy. It was Harry who saved, and maybe that was it: the previous night had been about trying to rescue himself from the mire he’d slogged into, to cleanse his body inside and out with something he would never really be worthy enough to deserve from Harry Potter. One night was all he’d had a right to, if he’d had a right to anything, and he’d wasted it pretending it was something else.
He knew then that he couldn’t stay in the castle and watch. Assist. He was almost sick at the thought, and barely railed against the flood.
“Draco?”
Silence thudded through him. Surely not. But he knew that voice. Just the night before, it had uttered his name in a way he’d never, ever thought he would hear. Impossible to pretend it a dream. He suspected that he would only be granted nightmares from here on out anyway.
Draco turned, uncertain whether he would fall or remain standing as he did, and saw Harry standing at the bottom of the staircase. His hair was a wild, nymphish tangle of deep black. A shirt was clutched in Harry’s hand and his bare chest heaved under the assault of heavy breathing. Draco choked. Such glorious imperfection housed in one perfect body. Harry stared at him through eyes that Draco could only remember in the shimmer of low candlelight and sliding sweat. The same rich green roiled in them now, the same fierce presence.
Tell him to fuck off, a feeble voice piped in his head. But the words died in his throat. He couldn’t say that to Harry. Not after they’d—
Draco swallowed hard.
Harry came closer, crossing the sun-lanced floor on bare feet. Even in this, the man was all elegance. Such self-possession. Draco resisted the urge to press back into the door, to get as far away from Harry as he could. He stood ramrod straight, without the door or the walls for balance, and watched the boy saviour approach. There were marks on Harry’s chest and throat, reddish bruises. Their presence sent his head reeling, knowing he’d been the one to put them there. But it was like some misted dream.
“Are you alright?” Harry asked. Soft words, meant only for him. Draco was suddenly afraid of who else might be awake and listening, watching. Witnessing the state of Harry’s body and knowing just how it got to be that way. Draco drew himself upright inside as well as out.
“I’m fine.” His throat was dry. He licked his lips without thinking, and Harry’s eyes flicked to follow. Something rebellious inside coiled and Draco shoved it down. “Just wonderful, in fact. Good morning.”
He tried the door again before Harry could respond, but it remained steadfastly shut and he could still feel the other man’s presence behind him like a shadow. There was movement as Harry shifted.
“No.”
It was biting, not in tone but because of what it meant. Harry’s calm flowed into that one word and Draco’s hand slipped right off the door ring. His palms were sweating. He sighed, feigning an exasperation he was nowhere near feeling, and turned to face Harry again. But Harry had come even closer, only a few yards away now, and Draco was not prepared. His eyes skipped down of their own volition, to Harry’s stomach and the naked hollow of his hipbones above the line of his trousers. The memory of being held against that stomach, his own thighs sliding up to grip those hips, rocked him. Draco shut his eyes, but the sensations remained, called into existence by each horrid little thought. He remembered the warm flush of Harry’s skin beneath his trousers and the slick flex of muscle as he—Something small and delightful curled deep in Draco’s loins, threatening to shoot out through his body, and he felt heat begin to climb up his spine.
Merlin. He couldn’t even look at Harry now. His nights with Theodore had never done this to him. In the end, his friend had always been staring back at him in the morning, comforting and knowing, quiet with what they had done yet again. Draco had been able to pretend Theodore’s eyes were a touch greener. But now there was no need to pretend and the painful, sharp reality of it speared his innards.
He jerked up and stared Harry right in the face, searching for his composure there. He’d always known that face, even if he hadn’t known that body until now. He could face the countenance of the Boy Wonder if nothing else. “No?”
Harry’s mouth opened and shut, and Draco caught the ripple of his throat as he swallowed. Harry glanced down, obviously reaching for composure of his own. But when he met Draco’s eyes again, there was little of the uncertainty Draco’d counted on. “No. I don’t think you’re alright.”
Draco sneered. “I assure you, I’m fine.”
Green eyes flicked down and up again. “You haven’t eaten, Draco.”
“Well. Then I’ll remedy that situation in the near future. Now if you don’t mind?”
He gestured toward the door and a strange look crossed Harry’s face. Amusement? Relief? Well, then. Potter didn’t want him to go. Hoping to make something of a nasty situation, no doubt, drawing all of his lackeys back into the fold before the final battle. Of course he’d never let Draco out. But even Draco’s anger couldn’t stand against the desperation tying a sour knot in his throat.
“It only opens for Luna,” Harry said, his voice equally strange. Draco found real hatred in his heart for the odd, flighty girl, and seized upon it.
“Tell her,” he gritted out, “that I’ve places to be. She can’t keep me in here. Moody’s orders.”
Harry’s expression flickered and Draco felt a quick twinge of triumph. Let Potter make what he wanted of that; by the time the mistake was discovered, he’d be far enough away to stay away. And there were plenty of people out there to take his mind off of his troubles, perhaps permanently. But Harry’s eyes narrowed, and Draco’s wild hope sank into nothingness.
“Draco, you don’t have to leave,” he said.
Don’t I? He wished he could just say the words. But they were netted by the remembered scent of Harry’s skin and the concern in those eyes. Draco pursed his lips, dangerously close to teetering off the edge. He had no idea what lay below him. “I haven’t time for this,” he said at last, horrified at what he heard creeping into his voice. Still Harry stood there, close enough to touch if Draco just reached out, felt for the slope of that shoulder. There was warmth there that he could no longer ignore, now that he’d tasted it—felt it ripple within his body, succumbed to it, you bloody fool, give it the name it deserves—but the idea that it wasn’t meant for him and had never been snapped the noose taut. It hurt to breathe.
Suddenly it was impossible to be that close to Harry. Draco put a few feet between them, and Harry stopped.
“Draco—”
“What do you want from me, Potter?” It was cold enough to surprise even Draco, but he drew himself under the cowl of his frustration. For a split second, the old mantle felt natural again.
Harry’s eyes widened. He raised a hand in front of himself. “Nothing. I don’t want anything from you.”
Why did it cause so much pain when he’d already known? He barely kept from biting his lip by sneering at Harry instead. It didn’t feel successful; Draco had to get out of Harry’s presence before more pieces fell away.
“That’s just fine,” he spat. Exhausted tears threatened anew, and he spun toward the door, wrapping a hand around the iron ring. “Tell Lovegood to let me out.”
Fingers slid around his wrist before he’d finished the last word. Harry’s warmth flamed into his body, familiar. Draco shuddered.
“Let go. Let go and look at me.”
Draco wrenched his hand away. “You can’t tell me what to do.” But there was no force in it, and Harry’s hand encircled his with a gentle grip. He turned Draco around at last. Draco saw his face slacken in surprise and knew that he’d noticed the tears welling. Hated Harry for seeing it, for causing it, but he could only stare back miserably. Harry’s hold on him tightened and Draco felt the touch of Harry’s other hand on his arm, running up and down in cautious sweeps.
“Draco,” Harry breathed.
Gods, let me go. He must have whispered it, because Harry shook his head. His hold became firmer, kneading into sore muscles, and Draco wilted under it. His knees buckled; he rode his momentum slowly to the floor. Harry bent with him, easing him back against the oaken door, and settled down beside him, drawing his knees up. His hand remained clasped round Draco’s wrist.
“Please don’t leave,” Harry whispered.
Draco slipped into silent sobs, shaking from the force of them. Harry just sat there in the empty front hall with him, Lovegood’s voice wafting around them like a breeze, and let him cry.
* * *
Blaise crouched in the shadow of several bushes, eyes trained on the landscape below. The waters of Loch Ness shimmered like sapphires, and the cloud-studded sky carved periwinkle over the hills. The Muggle visitor centre down the slope was dark and caved in, all tumbled pylons and cracked roofing. Wind whipped through the new ruin, bearing ash trails away as it reached into hidden nooks and crannies.
Beyond, Castle Urquhart waited in the sunlight, deceptively peaceful. Its walls were a crumble of mossy stone. Blaise could see the remnants of fallen rooms and towers.
He’d come across several snare hexes as he’d approached, but to his trained eye, they were easy to see. Half of them were the invention of the Glenfallons, an ancient Wizarding family who had come to an ugly end centuries ago during the plague years, and standard classroom fodder for any sixth year Defence student. Severus Snape had been careful with his Slytherins; they knew the Glenfallon bewitchments like they knew their own heritage, and how to dismantle them.
The other spells had been the stuff of nightmares. Literally. Blaise had managed to avoid setting off the deadly curses they contained, but he’d also been unable to find a way through them. Several times he’d had to reroute, into the icy waters of the loch or up around three hills before switching back to continue his approach. Voldemort had been more than careful, he’d been absolutely murderous.
Blaise sensed the strange deadness of the land surrounding the castle. It stretched for miles, leaching the inherent magic from the soil and water. Everything had been sucked clean out. To Apparate anywhere within a mile was to court certain and sudden death; there was no natural magic left to cloud such a potent spell. Blaise couldn’t begin to imagine the price that Tom Riddle had paid to achieve such a vacuum.
It would have required sacrifices. Hundreds. And not all of them Muggle. And what had Riddle become as a result? It was unknown territory to the Wizarding world, but Blaise was certain that Voldemort was no longer fully human. If he ever had been.
He only hoped that his seeking spells had not been sensed by whoever dwelt underneath that castle.
He doubted there were many Death Eaters left in the stronghold. With Hermione, Hannah, and Ginny running around in the wilds, and Harry Potter vanished like a slip of fog, their attentions would doubtless be focussed elsewhere. But the only thing keeping his magic from being detected was probably the twisted, black draw of the new wards over the castle itself, and those were more than enough to make Blaise pause.
He could get inside. Getting out again would be the real question. Then again, Blaise had always known that the importance of his mission didn’t lie in his escape.
The most disconcerting part was not the impending doom. Blaise shivered in the weak sunlight, hunching back into the hillside and wrapping his cloak tightly around himself.
It was that no one really knew where he was.
In all his days of fighting, running, hiding, and killing, Blaise had never had time to just sit and think about what the end might look like. He’d imagined a huge battle, with plenty of potions-slingers and a hundred or more Death Eaters. Spells whipping the air into static, the shouts of a thousand other people through the smoke. He’d never pictured it as a solitary event, bunkered in the hillsides of an ancient lake with no one near enough to see. He was alone, and this was the end, or at least the beginning of it. That snake, the one he’d trumped up into a monstrous behemoth in his dreams, was the doorway to the finish line, and his part in it began in solitude.
Only Harry Potter knew where he was. And Pansy. But Pansy was dead. Blaise hadn’t even been there to see it. His friend had been inside the walls of the fortress below him, underground in the dank and mould, passing through corridors that seeped the waters of the Ness, and finding her way back to the light again and again to tell them all what she knew. It was thanks to Pansy’s efforts that Blaise had the layout of the fortress memorised, a cold and empty tableau in his mind.
He would need it before he ever saw daylight again.
It was the fifth day. Blaise had been careful to double-check, to keep his watch dry and his dates straight. The fifth day since Draco had walked off into the darkness with Ginny behind him. The fifth day since he’d seen Seamus, or anyone that he knew, for that matter. He had only to wait until night fell to find a way inside the castle’s new wards and breach the inner chambers.
He hadn’t allowed himself to think about how many Death Eaters might still be in residence. It had been enough of an intrigue to wonder how the Muggles would have felt to know that their delightful historical site had been transformed, warped into the very thing that might end the world for everyone, wizard and non-wizard alike. It was an old ruin whose significance to the Dark Arts had been lost to time, and frankly, Blaise couldn’t give a shit about what that significance was. It had nothing to do with the magic he’d have to face once the sun set. That were all Voldemort’s, sinister and razor-sharp. It would cut just as deeply as a razor, but not nearly as cleanly.
It would take time, but every ward was surmountable, especially the types he felt eddying through the air below. Pansy had given him enough to combat a third of what lay around the castle, and Draco’s ancient and dusty texts had been most helpful once devoid of their curses. If Blaise never looked at another tome again, it would be too soon. He’d lost more sleep than he wanted to admit committing the ponderous ward-breaking spells to memory. It was bad enough that he’d have to shed and use his own blood to get through them.
Would Potter come after him if he never came back? Blaise thought about eating what was in his pack, but he still wasn’t hungry. He doubted that Harry Potter would come to find him. They all had enough on their plates without worrying about one man lost in some Death Eater’s stronghold. But it curled his stomach. More than ever, Blaise felt his isolation. He would have to get himself out if he ever wanted to get out; there weren’t going to be any heroes waiting to smash the gates down.
And that, of course, just left the strength of will to get himself in.
Pansy had done it, over and over. That was comforting, in a weird sort of way. And Blaise was much more prepared than she had been. Still, the most primal part of his body knew exactly what he was facing, and his instincts screamed at him to get the fuck up and go, further away, not closer like he planned.
The hours wore on and the sun slipped into the soft gold of late afternoon. Blaise knelt on his knees and dug into the earth with both hands, piling the loose soil to the side. He hollowed out a shallow trough and then pulled three candy bars and his jumper from his pack before settling the bag carefully in the hole. He’d already memorised the landmarks, the specific angles of the castle. But in all likelihood, he’d be leaving his bag here, buried in this hillside. There would be precious little time for escape, much less retrieval.
Blaise stuck one of the candy bars in his mouth, and tucked the other two into his trouser pocket alongside his wand. He hardly tasted the chocolate. It was simply a source of energy at this point, and he wasn’t stupid enough not to partake. His body felt frighteningly devoid of protection, but it couldn’t be helped. He had to go into that fortress un-magicked or risk being caught immediately. Seamus skittered around the edges of his thoughts, but he pushed him away with days of practice and the knowledge that he had to do so.
He had to find that snake. There was nothing worth thinking about except that.
The waters of the lake rushed up in small waves, whitecapping in the wind. The sun cast long shadows among Urquhart’s ruins. Blaise sat back into the hillside, running his tongue over his teeth, and waited for nightfall.
* * *
Harry met Draco’s mouth with a tentative kiss. Draco’s lips were soft, slightly swollen, and they gave hesitantly beneath his. Harry felt his exhalation, a tiny flutter against his lips. He touched his tongue carefully just inside Draco’s mouth, feeling the solid ridge of his teeth before stretching deeper. He tilted his head. Draco made an infinitesimal sound; the tip of his tongue flicked shyly against Harry’s before drawing back, and Harry pulled up.
Ash-coloured eyes stared up from a wide-open face. Harry looked back, uncertain of the strange waver there. Draco’s cheeks were flushed, and the warmth of his body beat into Harry’s. He wanted to kiss Draco again, surprise him again, but he wasn’t sure he wanted Draco to be surprised by such a gesture. To look back at Harry as though he’d fallen open and could not draw himself together again. Draco shifted against the bedclothes, one bare leg sliding along Harry’s side, and Harry pulled further back. Draco’s throat was flecked here and there with the pinking ministrations of Harry’s mouth, and his chest rose and fell in an unsteady rhythm.
Something lurked behind the grey, words or thoughts, Harry couldn’t tell, but they had not been uttered, even in the gentling sunset through his windows. Draco’s body sprawled across Harry’s bed, limbs entangled in and against Harry’s, and yet oddly separate.
It couldn’t have been more different, this afternoon. Last night had been full of speed and groping hands, breathless mouths seeking gods knew what. What Harry was coming down off of now was quieter, a rush born of patience and stamina, and a shallow but lasting climax that had dropped from Draco’s body at last on a choked gasp. But it had been no less needy, or desperate. Draco’s fingers still squeezed his bicep, forgotten there in the shock of a final kiss unlike the frenzy of the others.
Harry wanted nothing more than to kiss him like that again.
“Alright?” he murmured. Draco gazed up at him silently, making Harry’s heart twinge. The man’s face might be open, but there was little there to latch onto. What Harry wanted was still buried.
But Draco’s eyes flickered down and up, and his lips parted minutely. Harry leaned back into him, feeling the give of muscle and the firm pressure of bone beneath his body, and kissed Draco again. Draco’s mouth opened wider and Harry soothed with his tongue until he felt Draco shudder and draw closer. Just a tiny shift. Harry tasted and remembered, keeping himself from asking for anything except for what was being given freely.
Draco’s pupils were fully dilated when Harry finally pulled back. He moved restlessly and Harry finally allowed the smile he’d been holding back to slip through.
They’d barely spoken to each other all day. There seemed to be nothing to say, or at least no way to say it. Draco’s collapse that morning had caught Harry completely off guard, and it was only then that he’d understood the full toll taken on Draco Malfoy. The man was a wreck, and Harry had been unable to say much of anything for fear of what would come flooding out.
It was his fault, after all.
Somehow he’d gotten Draco from the front hall to the kitchens, hoping that food and perhaps the time and space to clean himself up properly would put colour back into his cheeks. He’d already begun to forget what Draco’s eyes looked like enlivened, but the absence of that energy struck hard, winding him. When had he ever been close enough to understand it so thoroughly, to recognise all its facets? He hadn’t realised he’d formed an attachment to so intangible a thing until he saw Draco devoid of it.
Faced with the vitality of the previous night, Harry hadn’t been able to stomach the loss. But he’d felt Draco’s physical absence just as keenly. Letting the door to Draco’s room shut between them had done damage, locking Harry out in the hallway with only Luna’s song for company; his fingers itched to throw open the door, to reveal Draco once more. He wanted to walk into that room, stand inches away from him again and just sniff the air, remind himself of that fleeting scent. When the door shut, he was absurdly afraid it would never open again.
But it had. And then his own door had opened and closed behind both of them. All in silence, for Draco said nothing. Just looked at him from behind that interminable mask until Harry had him on his back across his bed sheets again and was cracking the facade apart in gasps and clutches.
Legs almost too tight around his middle. He could still feel the bruises there, just under his ribs.
He wasn’t sure what time it was. Ginny hovered in the back of his mind, reminding him that he had other obligations, but… Damn it, he didn’t know when he would ever be granted this chance again, and the memory of her presence faded in and out like a ghost, paling in comparison to the physical heat of Draco’s skin, the feeling of a taut, angular body beneath his own. There were wounds here that needed to be taken care of, but there was no Healer on earth that would ever be able to see them, let alone heal them.
Harry had no right to be touching him like this.
He knew Draco’s wounds because he’d bloody well put them there. He could see his signature on them just as if they bore his magical stamp. They might as well have; the thought flashed through Harry’s mind that he’d marked Draco with something of himself, something any Death Eater worth his or her salt could pick up on, and then he’d sent him into their very arms with the orders to get through at any cost. The idea was foolish, of course; Draco bore nothing of Harry’s magic, but still the danger hung there, along with the sour tang of Harry’s guilt.
He hated being their leader. He hated the fact that they all looked at him as if he were the bedrock of their operation, even Mad-Eye Moody, who had more than enough right to tell Harry to shove off, stop making all the damned decisions. And what had he to show for his leadership? Fred and George, exhausted and deathly ill in the Infirmary respectively. Ginny, somewhere in the castle with only the cold walls and her own thoughts to distract her, which were surely no distraction at all. An army scattered Merlin knew where, perhaps all dead or rethinking their agreement to follow a mere boy into battle. Hermione and Hannah, out there risking their lives for a bond Harry couldn’t even get excited about anymore. And an enemy that was winning handily, picking them off one by one by one while Harry hid and ‘built up strength.’
It was shameful. At least he’d not marked Blaise Zabini this way before sending him into the viper’s nest, Harry thought disgustedly, even as he laid his lips against Draco’s breast. No, he’d only sent Blaise there in the first place, that was all. Another hopeless cause in a series of hopeless causes. He wished it hadn’t been Blaise. If only Pansy had not been unmasked. Or Theodore Nott, with all his dark watchfulness and his calculating eyes… He would have been the best choice.
But could Harry ever have sent Nott to Voldemort, with Draco obviously enamoured of the man? He’d known they were sleeping together. It wasn’t so much a secret as a fact that hadn’t been concealed. He’d already broken so many pieces of Draco’s life away; how would he have been able to take his lover from him, too?
He felt fingers stroke over his forehead, a slight, ephemeral sweep, and then they threaded into his hair, twisting vaguely. Feeling. He met Draco’s eyes, felt the tangle as his fingers made their way across his scalp and down behind one ear. Tentative strokes. Draco’s gaze roamed along the path his fingers were taking, and Harry knew with contentment as well as a shameful sorrow that the other man was studying his hair. The texture of it. The colour. Perhaps seeing the black of another’s.
It was not the idle wonderings of what Nott and Draco did in bed that fascinated him, how they moved together or what it might feel like to have sex with another man. Harry had not wondered about that for nearly two years, since the night after Bordeaux fell. The man had been French, and he’d left Europe the following week, losing himself in the mess of magical refugees making their way east. The stress of battle and constant peering over his shoulder had long ago sent Harry seeking the comfort of male companionship when that of women just did not dull the ache, and the man in France had been a fine ally, and a fine bedmate, while it lasted. But it had never been meant to last, Harry’d known that from the moment it began. Despite his personal feelings. So Harry did not wonder what Nott and Draco got up to in the darkness of their bedroom or tent, or wherever.
He did wonder what Draco did in bed, how Draco moved. How a person crushed so many times could still summon the means to love another, to worship him every night he could and agonise over his safety on the nights he couldn’t. Harry knew how close Theodore Nott was to Draco, and he also knew he could never have knowingly sent Nott into the clutches of the Death Eaters. Not after all the other things he’d already stolen from Draco.
And what are you taking now? Harry fought against the grimace, teasing his lips over the slope of Draco’s chin and tasting the raw salt of their exertions. The throat under his fingers convulsed; Draco bent his head down and found Harry’s mouth, easing him upward. The familiar taste flooded across Harry’s tongue again, forcing the pain deeper. What was he taking? The only thing Draco had left, his body, but Merlin, Harry wanted it, even though he knew it was wrong. It was the sating of a long-held desire, one he hadn’t fully understood until it was about to be granted.
The worst part was that he realised he liked holding Draco, cradling his body close and feeling the inhale-exhale as he breathed. As though he were the one breathing that rhythm. Draco smelled of clean water and tart soap; his skin was supple in a way it shouldn’t have been after nights in the wild, and his hair was the silk of down.
Harry had not yet acknowledged how he felt about actually… being inside Draco. There was no way to reminisce about it when this pall still hung over them. It was pathetic, but he didn’t want that memory to be tainted, even if it wasn’t rightfully his to own.
“Harry.”
The first word Draco had spoken in hours. Harry’s body tried to freeze. He looked up, wondering what had prompted it, and what would follow.
Draco’s gaze drifted a bit, then slid back. But he said nothing. Whatever had been about to come out had receded. Harry couldn’t help himself; he smoothed the tumble of hair across Draco’s forehead. His hand lingered over the worrisome cut, now scabbed over and washed clean of blood.
“What happened? In the forest.” It came out in spite of his efforts, and for a moment the guilt that had been steadily climbing fell back.
Draco’s hand rose, brushing over the cut, over Harry’s fingers. Draco pulled his hand away, letting it fall back to his side. His eyes closed. “She hit me.”
“A Death Eater.”
Draco nodded. Drew a breath that Harry felt against his own chest. Again it was a shock, knowing Draco was lying naked beneath him.
“She caught you?”
A shake of his head. “No, she… I was alone.”
Harry frowned. “Where was Ginny?”
An instant later, he wished he hadn’t said it. Draco’s body stiffened. His eyes opened, but he wasn’t looking at Harry, had turned his head instead to stare at the bed curtains. His voice was flat. “I told her to run. And then I went…” Draco’s lips thinned. “But she didn’t listen. She came back.”
Harry studied the dark swoop of Draco’s eyelashes. Had he never noticed the length of them before? He wanted to place his lips over them, feel their drift and flutter against his mouth.
He had no right to want such a thing from Draco.
“You went back to the Death Eaters.”
This time Draco rolled his eyes. Harry could still feel the hand on his bicep and wondered if Draco had perhaps forgotten it was there. “Seemed like a good idea at the time, Potter.”
A thousand imagined reasons soared into Harry’s head, bumbling and cluttering around each other. The meaning of them all overwhelmed him and he shut his eyes briefly, trying to pinpoint the questions he had to ask to sort it all out. “How… Who came back?”
Draco’s eyes flickered away this time, the light in them fading as he remembered. Or tried not to remember. “Weasley,” he whispered.
“Why was she gone?” Harry blurted out. “You… She… And you went back?”
Draco’s mouth opened, but nothing came out until— “Yes.”
Harry couldn’t get Draco to look at him. And he needed him to, as though he would find all the answers there in his gaze if only Draco gave it to him fully. “They found you?”
Draco’s head swivelled toward him. “Why are you doing this, Potter?” he asked in a tired voice.
“Asking you about what happened?”
Draco’s ears pinked. His body shifted restlessly beneath Harry’s. Harry caught his breath as he realised what Draco really meant. He pulled away, rising slightly over Draco to look down at him. Draco’s expression had an earnest lilt, but his emotions remained inaccessible. Harry caught his breath.
No, he wasn’t… wasn’t ready for that question yet. Not yet, gods, why did it always have to come back to his reasons? He didn’t think he could lie to Draco, and it came to him with a start that he hadn’t lied to Draco in years. Not since their Hogwarts days. Harry pushed away, sat up.
“What kind of question is that?” he muttered.
Draco’s face froze into something colder… and then slipped all the way into a scowl. A hand crawled up to shove his hair from his forehead. “Well. I didn’t expect it to be that difficult for you.”
The slice of anger into their comfortable heat scraped Harry’s nerves. He grew annoyed. Ridiculous for Draco to think it would be an easy thing to answer, an easy thing to think about. It stung that Draco had such a lack of concern over the question. What had this meant to Draco anyway?
Had it meant anything?
“Oh, I don’t know, Malfoy, it’s just hard to reduce something like that into one sentence, yeah?” he said irritably.
Draco stared at him stonily, nearly wiping away the memory of his open expression a moment ago. The sweat still shone on his skin and Harry was already having trouble remembering how he’d looked. It was painful; he’d wanted that memory so badly.
And here he’d been, expecting it to mean something to Draco. Salazar take him, he knew what it meant to the other man. He’d known it before he even tipped Draco down onto his bed, known it as soon as he plunged his tongue into that desperate, willing mouth. It had just been so easy to forget. To ignore it for a few hours, and pretend—
Pretend that he hadn’t been the one to bring it all to a head in the first place.
Just a replacement. A substitute for the person Harry had taken away from Draco. Or not even that; maybe Draco had closed that part of himself off completely, and Harry was nothing more than a convenient release.
Well. He owed him that. If he owed him anything, it was the relief of his pain for a single, breathless night.
When he looked up, Draco was watching him again, shadows darkening his features. But there was nothing darker than the hollows beneath his eyes. Bad dreams. Lack of sleep. Hell, the loss of everyone he’d ever cared about. One fucking night wasn’t going to make up for all of that. Or one afternoon.
“What?” Harry muttered, and Draco moved restlessly.
“It’s just a question.”
His voice was subdued, even a little timid. Harry saw the reflection of his own feelings in Draco’s eyes, but it wasn’t the inner twin of those emotions. It was as though Draco had put up a mirror, bouncing everything back at him. He couldn’t see what Draco was thinking or feeling, and that was more telling than Harry liked to admit.
It’s only been a couple months since Nott died. You think he’s even been with anyone else since then? Unlikely. Harry had seen how Nott looked at Draco, so much so that he’d avoided witnessing the answering gaze, unable to watch that plethora of emotion returned. That sort of love didn’t die. It snuck into the bedroom and twisted everything that followed for months, turning other peoples’ faces into that lost lover, every sigh and moan into a cheap imitation of that singular voice. Harry had felt the inklings of that in France, and he hadn’t even been in love with the bastard.
Sometimes fucking someone was enough. Nott had done much more than fuck Draco.
“I don’t know what else to do,” Harry breathed at last. The silence that followed was indecipherably heavy. He concentrated on his hands until he couldn’t take it any longer. When he looked up, it was to find that Draco’s eyes had lost a few of their walls. Confusion was the only name Harry could give to the look on his face.
“I don’t understand you, Potter,” he stated.
Harry licked his lips. Tried swallowing, but the words were still there; there was nowhere else for them to go. And perhaps it was high time he spoke his sins aloud anyway. There was no better person to hear them.
“I’ve taken so much from you, Malfoy.” He shuddered. “So many.”
A heartbeat. Draco’s gaze went unfocussed, then snapped back sharply, and something in the muscles of his face spasmed. He sat up with a fluid ripple, hanging his legs over the side of the bed. His shoulders hunched and as Harry watched, they shivered. The movement travelled up and down Draco’s body so quickly Harry blinked.
And nearly missed the sound Draco made. A barely audible word on the back of a breath.
Draco stood with a jerk, naked body glowing in the relief of firelight, and left the bed. He grabbed his trousers, stumbling as he put his feet into them and yanked them up. Buttoned them. Lifted his shirt from the bedpost with a shaking hand. Harry could only watch. The words had crumbled like sand in his throat, and now Draco was moving for the door.
“Draco,” he forced out.
Draco paused for the briefest of instances. Harry thought he might turn.
He almost did.
But Harry’s voice abandoned him again, and Draco left the room with nothing but the creak of the door as it closed behind him.
...
Chapter 16
Title: The Road (15/?)
Author:
rurounihimeRating: hard R when all is said and done…
Pairing: H/D eventually
Summary: In the midst of a disintegrating war, Harry awaits the arrival of the Order’s last hope.
Warning: violence, character death, spoilers for all books
Disclaimer: The HP characters and most of the spellwork do not belong to me.
A/N: Thank you to April for her fabulous and attentive beta-ing, and to Coffee for constantly letting me bounce ideas off of her. The other major pairing in this is Blaise/Seamus, but there are minor het pairings as well.
…
ETA: Artwork for this chapter done by the wonderful
naadi. Thank you so much, dear! ... Please Don't Leave (H/D, rated G)No music for this chapter.
…
**ETA 2: THIS CHAPTER HAS RECEIVED ITS FINAL EDIT**
Previous chapters
Chapter 15: Draco at the Door
“Luna!”
Harry tore through the door, shirt in hand. Luna sat there plucking at a lute and humming softly. Her eyes had been closed, but they opened to reveal curious ocean blue.
“Where is he, Luna?” Harry said urgently.
Luna opened her mouth and let a high note float out like a bell chime. At the front door.
Harry’s mouth went dryer than cracked earth. “Leaving?”
Oh, no. He can’t. Luna tilted her head and strummed the lute strings.
Harry took a split second to let the relief crash over him, then spun and made for the door again. He called over his shoulder. “Don’t let him out, Luna!”
He’s very angry with me. He could hear the grin in her voice.
He raced down the hall toward the staircase, leaping the top four steps before catching himself against the railing. The next floor tilted crazily and Harry slowed. It would help nothing to fall down the stairs and break his neck. But his hands were trembling.
He hadn’t known what to think. He’d just looked over and seen the empty side of the bed. He’d reached out, and his mind had barely registered the cooled sheets before he was sitting up and pulling on his trousers. Searching for his glasses and finding them inexplicably next to his bed. But there was no time to wonder. He didn’t bother with Draco’s room; the only one who would know instantly was Luna, and he’d been terrified of what she might tell him.
The night before was clear as glass in his mind, though he couldn’t remember exactly what had prompted him to grab Draco, to kiss him like that. He’d had no right, that was certain, and yet Draco had lurched back into him and sent him reeling with an embrace Harry hadn’t imagined in his deepest dreams. His body still tingled with the aftershocks. One thing was plain: He didn’t know what he’d do if Draco got away into the wastes of the war. Like some sort of spirit, haunting him for a single, burning, glorious night, and then vanishing into the foggy past.
Even with his brain screaming caution, Harry took the stairs three at a time, barely clinging to his balance. The castle was quiet except for Luna’s singing; doubtful that anyone else was up yet, though watery sunlight spilled across the steps he clambered down. It didn’t matter to him if he should meet anyone. The only thing that mattered was stopping Draco from leaving the castle.
* * *
Draco’s wand poked at his thigh where he’d shoved it into his trouser waist. He pounded the door with a fist. The morning sun struck in stripes across the wood and iron braces, but the warmth it gave was not nearly enough to calm the shudders that threatened.
The castle was quiet, save for his pounding and the haunting lilt of Lovegood’s lute. Draco cursed her through gritted teeth. It was her doing, her fault he couldn’t open this door. He was weak with hunger, thirsty, and utterly crushed under the weight he’d carried for so long. He struck the door with the flat of his hand and paused to breathe. His own heart throbbed in his ears.
He was tired. So very tired. He’d been going solely on nerves for the past four days.
He’d woken that morning, expecting the cold ground of some cave, Weasley a few meters away, because his good dreams were never the reality.
It had been a shock to see Harry’s smooth back before him, rising and falling with barely audible breaths. Draco stared for several seconds before the enormity hit. And then he couldn’t get enough air.
His... his body hurt. Muscles ached in ways they hadn’t since Theodore. His thighs were stiff. His back felt deliciously stretched, and between his legs—Draco squeezed his eyes shut, air hissing in and out through clenched teeth.
He could remember Harry’s hands on him. Cradling his hips. Sliding around to knead the muscles of his lower back. Pressing hot points into his shoulders with his fingertips. Every stroke burned into his flesh as though Harry’s hands still moved over his skin. He could recall every touch.
Harry’s back rose and fell gently with each inhalation. Red tracks marred the skin of his shoulders. Draco swallowed. His fingernails. His stomach writhed and for a lasting second, he thought he would be sick.
Draco pushed himself up slowly, careful not to jar the bed, then hung his feet over the edge, trying to find his equilibrium. But he had no idea how to do that anymore. There was just movement, escape. He cast around and found his trousers in a heap toward the end of the bed. His filthy sweater, draped over the far post. And his cloak, a sad huddle of black fabric near the window. Draco stood hurriedly, halting in his tracks when he heard his bedmate sigh. Harry rolled over, one hand trailing across his chest, lips parting and then closing once more. His eyelids flickered but did not open.
Watching Harry the whole time, Draco gathered his trousers up and pulled them on, then snatched at his pullover and dragged it over his head. He made for his cloak and nearly tripped sideways over his pack where it rested neatly against the bedpost. He stared at it.
He’d dropped it… out in the hallway. When he’d—Draco dashed a hand over his face, tasting bile. House-elves. Gods, they’d known he was here and not in his own room.
The very idea made him moan. Draco scooped his cloak from the floor, then grabbed the strap of his bag. Harry moved again, one bare leg bending restlessly beneath the sheets. Draco caught himself looking and jerked away. He let himself out of the room as quietly as he could.
And now here he was on the ground floor, trying to break through solid oak with nothing but his hands and listening to the sickeningly sweet music of the very person who was keeping him from his goal.
He wiped at his eyes and cursed himself. What the fuck was wrong with him? He didn’t cry. He hadn’t even cried when Theodore died, not for the right reasons anyway. There was no reason why he should be crying over this.
Where had his strength of will gone? Had it finally been kicked out of him back in the woods, in the damp caves, staring down the length of that Death Eater’s wand? He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the protest of the muscles in his back and legs. Such a steady ache. And he knew where each tiny hurt had come from, could name the stroke or the thrust that had given each one to him. His left shoulder felt as though it still bore the print of Harry’s fingers, five lasting bruises to keep him from forgetting what he’d done.
And what had he done? He’d given in to the last thing he wanted, and the first thing. He’d let it become just another dark night in an endless river of dark nights.
You couldn’t be content, could you? You had to take it further. The tears welled yet again. Draco slumped against the door.
He’d never felt so lost, as though he’d been ripped at the seams and shaken apart. He had what he’d longed for, what he’d imagined every night for the last two years, and it had been so brokenly perfect, and now where was he? What in Merlin’s name was he going to do?
He’d never realised until now how much the dreams, the anticipation, of what had just happened had driven him. And now...
Now what?
The war had eaten up yet another part of him, and he’d just stood there—no, lain there, for fuck’s sake—and let it happen. Thrust into it until it died a slow death, bloody well welcomed it, pulled himself up against it, and let his senses explode into a frenzy off of it. Had he no self-control at all? Obviously not; he could even remember the sounds he’d made, the words he may or may not have spoken aloud with the night’s blackness pouring in through the windows, and where was Weasley? Had she known? Had she been waiting for Harry while the two of them had both taken a little solace from the war, a dirty-quick thrust and release and a few scant hours of peace, until the next avalanche fell upon them?
Except he hadn’t just taken solace. He’d never had the ability to do something so simple with Harry Potter. No, he’d taken what he’d been yearning for, for months, and now it was carving him up with slow, deadly knives because he’d given it more meaning that it was meant to have. Than Harry meant it to have.
Just another night. Another tryst to be filed away and, in time, dismissed.
And wasn’t he just the expert on that?
Draco’s stomach jerked, threatening to relieve itself of what little it held, but it wasn’t the sensation of purging. If he gave in, the heaves would go on and on until he collapsed or died, whichever came first. The door felt cool against his forehead, but there was nothing that could steady him, and all the while, Lovegood’s music flowed over him, carefree and mocking.
Never fall in love with an idol.
He’d lost himself somewhere. Forgotten that his first duty was to himself, because even if he wanted to be altruistic, Salazar forbid, there was nothing he could do for anyone else if he himself were not whole. And he was breaking, doing it alone this time because there was only one person left in this world who he could call family. The rest were dead or vanished, and he’d fooled himself into thinking that he could cut a different niche for himself.
He’d lost them all by trying to save them when he was not fit to save anyone. Pansy and his mother, his father, Theodore... All the rest.
Did you think you could save Harry, too? Hysterical laughter threatened. Draco pushed away from the door and stared at up it. Surely behind it lay the answers to all of his problems, if he could just get through. Harry didn’t need saving, especially not by Draco Malfoy. It was Harry who saved, and maybe that was it: the previous night had been about trying to rescue himself from the mire he’d slogged into, to cleanse his body inside and out with something he would never really be worthy enough to deserve from Harry Potter. One night was all he’d had a right to, if he’d had a right to anything, and he’d wasted it pretending it was something else.
He knew then that he couldn’t stay in the castle and watch. Assist. He was almost sick at the thought, and barely railed against the flood.
“Draco?”
Silence thudded through him. Surely not. But he knew that voice. Just the night before, it had uttered his name in a way he’d never, ever thought he would hear. Impossible to pretend it a dream. He suspected that he would only be granted nightmares from here on out anyway.
Draco turned, uncertain whether he would fall or remain standing as he did, and saw Harry standing at the bottom of the staircase. His hair was a wild, nymphish tangle of deep black. A shirt was clutched in Harry’s hand and his bare chest heaved under the assault of heavy breathing. Draco choked. Such glorious imperfection housed in one perfect body. Harry stared at him through eyes that Draco could only remember in the shimmer of low candlelight and sliding sweat. The same rich green roiled in them now, the same fierce presence.
Tell him to fuck off, a feeble voice piped in his head. But the words died in his throat. He couldn’t say that to Harry. Not after they’d—
Draco swallowed hard.
Harry came closer, crossing the sun-lanced floor on bare feet. Even in this, the man was all elegance. Such self-possession. Draco resisted the urge to press back into the door, to get as far away from Harry as he could. He stood ramrod straight, without the door or the walls for balance, and watched the boy saviour approach. There were marks on Harry’s chest and throat, reddish bruises. Their presence sent his head reeling, knowing he’d been the one to put them there. But it was like some misted dream.
“Are you alright?” Harry asked. Soft words, meant only for him. Draco was suddenly afraid of who else might be awake and listening, watching. Witnessing the state of Harry’s body and knowing just how it got to be that way. Draco drew himself upright inside as well as out.
“I’m fine.” His throat was dry. He licked his lips without thinking, and Harry’s eyes flicked to follow. Something rebellious inside coiled and Draco shoved it down. “Just wonderful, in fact. Good morning.”
He tried the door again before Harry could respond, but it remained steadfastly shut and he could still feel the other man’s presence behind him like a shadow. There was movement as Harry shifted.
“No.”
It was biting, not in tone but because of what it meant. Harry’s calm flowed into that one word and Draco’s hand slipped right off the door ring. His palms were sweating. He sighed, feigning an exasperation he was nowhere near feeling, and turned to face Harry again. But Harry had come even closer, only a few yards away now, and Draco was not prepared. His eyes skipped down of their own volition, to Harry’s stomach and the naked hollow of his hipbones above the line of his trousers. The memory of being held against that stomach, his own thighs sliding up to grip those hips, rocked him. Draco shut his eyes, but the sensations remained, called into existence by each horrid little thought. He remembered the warm flush of Harry’s skin beneath his trousers and the slick flex of muscle as he—Something small and delightful curled deep in Draco’s loins, threatening to shoot out through his body, and he felt heat begin to climb up his spine.
Merlin. He couldn’t even look at Harry now. His nights with Theodore had never done this to him. In the end, his friend had always been staring back at him in the morning, comforting and knowing, quiet with what they had done yet again. Draco had been able to pretend Theodore’s eyes were a touch greener. But now there was no need to pretend and the painful, sharp reality of it speared his innards.
He jerked up and stared Harry right in the face, searching for his composure there. He’d always known that face, even if he hadn’t known that body until now. He could face the countenance of the Boy Wonder if nothing else. “No?”
Harry’s mouth opened and shut, and Draco caught the ripple of his throat as he swallowed. Harry glanced down, obviously reaching for composure of his own. But when he met Draco’s eyes again, there was little of the uncertainty Draco’d counted on. “No. I don’t think you’re alright.”
Draco sneered. “I assure you, I’m fine.”
Green eyes flicked down and up again. “You haven’t eaten, Draco.”
“Well. Then I’ll remedy that situation in the near future. Now if you don’t mind?”
He gestured toward the door and a strange look crossed Harry’s face. Amusement? Relief? Well, then. Potter didn’t want him to go. Hoping to make something of a nasty situation, no doubt, drawing all of his lackeys back into the fold before the final battle. Of course he’d never let Draco out. But even Draco’s anger couldn’t stand against the desperation tying a sour knot in his throat.
“It only opens for Luna,” Harry said, his voice equally strange. Draco found real hatred in his heart for the odd, flighty girl, and seized upon it.
“Tell her,” he gritted out, “that I’ve places to be. She can’t keep me in here. Moody’s orders.”
Harry’s expression flickered and Draco felt a quick twinge of triumph. Let Potter make what he wanted of that; by the time the mistake was discovered, he’d be far enough away to stay away. And there were plenty of people out there to take his mind off of his troubles, perhaps permanently. But Harry’s eyes narrowed, and Draco’s wild hope sank into nothingness.
“Draco, you don’t have to leave,” he said.
Don’t I? He wished he could just say the words. But they were netted by the remembered scent of Harry’s skin and the concern in those eyes. Draco pursed his lips, dangerously close to teetering off the edge. He had no idea what lay below him. “I haven’t time for this,” he said at last, horrified at what he heard creeping into his voice. Still Harry stood there, close enough to touch if Draco just reached out, felt for the slope of that shoulder. There was warmth there that he could no longer ignore, now that he’d tasted it—felt it ripple within his body, succumbed to it, you bloody fool, give it the name it deserves—but the idea that it wasn’t meant for him and had never been snapped the noose taut. It hurt to breathe.
Suddenly it was impossible to be that close to Harry. Draco put a few feet between them, and Harry stopped.
“Draco—”
“What do you want from me, Potter?” It was cold enough to surprise even Draco, but he drew himself under the cowl of his frustration. For a split second, the old mantle felt natural again.
Harry’s eyes widened. He raised a hand in front of himself. “Nothing. I don’t want anything from you.”
Why did it cause so much pain when he’d already known? He barely kept from biting his lip by sneering at Harry instead. It didn’t feel successful; Draco had to get out of Harry’s presence before more pieces fell away.
“That’s just fine,” he spat. Exhausted tears threatened anew, and he spun toward the door, wrapping a hand around the iron ring. “Tell Lovegood to let me out.”
Fingers slid around his wrist before he’d finished the last word. Harry’s warmth flamed into his body, familiar. Draco shuddered.
“Let go. Let go and look at me.”
Draco wrenched his hand away. “You can’t tell me what to do.” But there was no force in it, and Harry’s hand encircled his with a gentle grip. He turned Draco around at last. Draco saw his face slacken in surprise and knew that he’d noticed the tears welling. Hated Harry for seeing it, for causing it, but he could only stare back miserably. Harry’s hold on him tightened and Draco felt the touch of Harry’s other hand on his arm, running up and down in cautious sweeps.
“Draco,” Harry breathed.
Gods, let me go. He must have whispered it, because Harry shook his head. His hold became firmer, kneading into sore muscles, and Draco wilted under it. His knees buckled; he rode his momentum slowly to the floor. Harry bent with him, easing him back against the oaken door, and settled down beside him, drawing his knees up. His hand remained clasped round Draco’s wrist.
“Please don’t leave,” Harry whispered.
Draco slipped into silent sobs, shaking from the force of them. Harry just sat there in the empty front hall with him, Lovegood’s voice wafting around them like a breeze, and let him cry.
* * *
Blaise crouched in the shadow of several bushes, eyes trained on the landscape below. The waters of Loch Ness shimmered like sapphires, and the cloud-studded sky carved periwinkle over the hills. The Muggle visitor centre down the slope was dark and caved in, all tumbled pylons and cracked roofing. Wind whipped through the new ruin, bearing ash trails away as it reached into hidden nooks and crannies.
Beyond, Castle Urquhart waited in the sunlight, deceptively peaceful. Its walls were a crumble of mossy stone. Blaise could see the remnants of fallen rooms and towers.
He’d come across several snare hexes as he’d approached, but to his trained eye, they were easy to see. Half of them were the invention of the Glenfallons, an ancient Wizarding family who had come to an ugly end centuries ago during the plague years, and standard classroom fodder for any sixth year Defence student. Severus Snape had been careful with his Slytherins; they knew the Glenfallon bewitchments like they knew their own heritage, and how to dismantle them.
The other spells had been the stuff of nightmares. Literally. Blaise had managed to avoid setting off the deadly curses they contained, but he’d also been unable to find a way through them. Several times he’d had to reroute, into the icy waters of the loch or up around three hills before switching back to continue his approach. Voldemort had been more than careful, he’d been absolutely murderous.
Blaise sensed the strange deadness of the land surrounding the castle. It stretched for miles, leaching the inherent magic from the soil and water. Everything had been sucked clean out. To Apparate anywhere within a mile was to court certain and sudden death; there was no natural magic left to cloud such a potent spell. Blaise couldn’t begin to imagine the price that Tom Riddle had paid to achieve such a vacuum.
It would have required sacrifices. Hundreds. And not all of them Muggle. And what had Riddle become as a result? It was unknown territory to the Wizarding world, but Blaise was certain that Voldemort was no longer fully human. If he ever had been.
He only hoped that his seeking spells had not been sensed by whoever dwelt underneath that castle.
He doubted there were many Death Eaters left in the stronghold. With Hermione, Hannah, and Ginny running around in the wilds, and Harry Potter vanished like a slip of fog, their attentions would doubtless be focussed elsewhere. But the only thing keeping his magic from being detected was probably the twisted, black draw of the new wards over the castle itself, and those were more than enough to make Blaise pause.
He could get inside. Getting out again would be the real question. Then again, Blaise had always known that the importance of his mission didn’t lie in his escape.
The most disconcerting part was not the impending doom. Blaise shivered in the weak sunlight, hunching back into the hillside and wrapping his cloak tightly around himself.
It was that no one really knew where he was.
In all his days of fighting, running, hiding, and killing, Blaise had never had time to just sit and think about what the end might look like. He’d imagined a huge battle, with plenty of potions-slingers and a hundred or more Death Eaters. Spells whipping the air into static, the shouts of a thousand other people through the smoke. He’d never pictured it as a solitary event, bunkered in the hillsides of an ancient lake with no one near enough to see. He was alone, and this was the end, or at least the beginning of it. That snake, the one he’d trumped up into a monstrous behemoth in his dreams, was the doorway to the finish line, and his part in it began in solitude.
Only Harry Potter knew where he was. And Pansy. But Pansy was dead. Blaise hadn’t even been there to see it. His friend had been inside the walls of the fortress below him, underground in the dank and mould, passing through corridors that seeped the waters of the Ness, and finding her way back to the light again and again to tell them all what she knew. It was thanks to Pansy’s efforts that Blaise had the layout of the fortress memorised, a cold and empty tableau in his mind.
He would need it before he ever saw daylight again.
It was the fifth day. Blaise had been careful to double-check, to keep his watch dry and his dates straight. The fifth day since Draco had walked off into the darkness with Ginny behind him. The fifth day since he’d seen Seamus, or anyone that he knew, for that matter. He had only to wait until night fell to find a way inside the castle’s new wards and breach the inner chambers.
He hadn’t allowed himself to think about how many Death Eaters might still be in residence. It had been enough of an intrigue to wonder how the Muggles would have felt to know that their delightful historical site had been transformed, warped into the very thing that might end the world for everyone, wizard and non-wizard alike. It was an old ruin whose significance to the Dark Arts had been lost to time, and frankly, Blaise couldn’t give a shit about what that significance was. It had nothing to do with the magic he’d have to face once the sun set. That were all Voldemort’s, sinister and razor-sharp. It would cut just as deeply as a razor, but not nearly as cleanly.
It would take time, but every ward was surmountable, especially the types he felt eddying through the air below. Pansy had given him enough to combat a third of what lay around the castle, and Draco’s ancient and dusty texts had been most helpful once devoid of their curses. If Blaise never looked at another tome again, it would be too soon. He’d lost more sleep than he wanted to admit committing the ponderous ward-breaking spells to memory. It was bad enough that he’d have to shed and use his own blood to get through them.
Would Potter come after him if he never came back? Blaise thought about eating what was in his pack, but he still wasn’t hungry. He doubted that Harry Potter would come to find him. They all had enough on their plates without worrying about one man lost in some Death Eater’s stronghold. But it curled his stomach. More than ever, Blaise felt his isolation. He would have to get himself out if he ever wanted to get out; there weren’t going to be any heroes waiting to smash the gates down.
And that, of course, just left the strength of will to get himself in.
Pansy had done it, over and over. That was comforting, in a weird sort of way. And Blaise was much more prepared than she had been. Still, the most primal part of his body knew exactly what he was facing, and his instincts screamed at him to get the fuck up and go, further away, not closer like he planned.
The hours wore on and the sun slipped into the soft gold of late afternoon. Blaise knelt on his knees and dug into the earth with both hands, piling the loose soil to the side. He hollowed out a shallow trough and then pulled three candy bars and his jumper from his pack before settling the bag carefully in the hole. He’d already memorised the landmarks, the specific angles of the castle. But in all likelihood, he’d be leaving his bag here, buried in this hillside. There would be precious little time for escape, much less retrieval.
Blaise stuck one of the candy bars in his mouth, and tucked the other two into his trouser pocket alongside his wand. He hardly tasted the chocolate. It was simply a source of energy at this point, and he wasn’t stupid enough not to partake. His body felt frighteningly devoid of protection, but it couldn’t be helped. He had to go into that fortress un-magicked or risk being caught immediately. Seamus skittered around the edges of his thoughts, but he pushed him away with days of practice and the knowledge that he had to do so.
He had to find that snake. There was nothing worth thinking about except that.
The waters of the lake rushed up in small waves, whitecapping in the wind. The sun cast long shadows among Urquhart’s ruins. Blaise sat back into the hillside, running his tongue over his teeth, and waited for nightfall.
* * *
Harry met Draco’s mouth with a tentative kiss. Draco’s lips were soft, slightly swollen, and they gave hesitantly beneath his. Harry felt his exhalation, a tiny flutter against his lips. He touched his tongue carefully just inside Draco’s mouth, feeling the solid ridge of his teeth before stretching deeper. He tilted his head. Draco made an infinitesimal sound; the tip of his tongue flicked shyly against Harry’s before drawing back, and Harry pulled up.
Ash-coloured eyes stared up from a wide-open face. Harry looked back, uncertain of the strange waver there. Draco’s cheeks were flushed, and the warmth of his body beat into Harry’s. He wanted to kiss Draco again, surprise him again, but he wasn’t sure he wanted Draco to be surprised by such a gesture. To look back at Harry as though he’d fallen open and could not draw himself together again. Draco shifted against the bedclothes, one bare leg sliding along Harry’s side, and Harry pulled further back. Draco’s throat was flecked here and there with the pinking ministrations of Harry’s mouth, and his chest rose and fell in an unsteady rhythm.
Something lurked behind the grey, words or thoughts, Harry couldn’t tell, but they had not been uttered, even in the gentling sunset through his windows. Draco’s body sprawled across Harry’s bed, limbs entangled in and against Harry’s, and yet oddly separate.
It couldn’t have been more different, this afternoon. Last night had been full of speed and groping hands, breathless mouths seeking gods knew what. What Harry was coming down off of now was quieter, a rush born of patience and stamina, and a shallow but lasting climax that had dropped from Draco’s body at last on a choked gasp. But it had been no less needy, or desperate. Draco’s fingers still squeezed his bicep, forgotten there in the shock of a final kiss unlike the frenzy of the others.
Harry wanted nothing more than to kiss him like that again.
“Alright?” he murmured. Draco gazed up at him silently, making Harry’s heart twinge. The man’s face might be open, but there was little there to latch onto. What Harry wanted was still buried.
But Draco’s eyes flickered down and up, and his lips parted minutely. Harry leaned back into him, feeling the give of muscle and the firm pressure of bone beneath his body, and kissed Draco again. Draco’s mouth opened wider and Harry soothed with his tongue until he felt Draco shudder and draw closer. Just a tiny shift. Harry tasted and remembered, keeping himself from asking for anything except for what was being given freely.
Draco’s pupils were fully dilated when Harry finally pulled back. He moved restlessly and Harry finally allowed the smile he’d been holding back to slip through.
They’d barely spoken to each other all day. There seemed to be nothing to say, or at least no way to say it. Draco’s collapse that morning had caught Harry completely off guard, and it was only then that he’d understood the full toll taken on Draco Malfoy. The man was a wreck, and Harry had been unable to say much of anything for fear of what would come flooding out.
It was his fault, after all.
Somehow he’d gotten Draco from the front hall to the kitchens, hoping that food and perhaps the time and space to clean himself up properly would put colour back into his cheeks. He’d already begun to forget what Draco’s eyes looked like enlivened, but the absence of that energy struck hard, winding him. When had he ever been close enough to understand it so thoroughly, to recognise all its facets? He hadn’t realised he’d formed an attachment to so intangible a thing until he saw Draco devoid of it.
Faced with the vitality of the previous night, Harry hadn’t been able to stomach the loss. But he’d felt Draco’s physical absence just as keenly. Letting the door to Draco’s room shut between them had done damage, locking Harry out in the hallway with only Luna’s song for company; his fingers itched to throw open the door, to reveal Draco once more. He wanted to walk into that room, stand inches away from him again and just sniff the air, remind himself of that fleeting scent. When the door shut, he was absurdly afraid it would never open again.
But it had. And then his own door had opened and closed behind both of them. All in silence, for Draco said nothing. Just looked at him from behind that interminable mask until Harry had him on his back across his bed sheets again and was cracking the facade apart in gasps and clutches.
Legs almost too tight around his middle. He could still feel the bruises there, just under his ribs.
He wasn’t sure what time it was. Ginny hovered in the back of his mind, reminding him that he had other obligations, but… Damn it, he didn’t know when he would ever be granted this chance again, and the memory of her presence faded in and out like a ghost, paling in comparison to the physical heat of Draco’s skin, the feeling of a taut, angular body beneath his own. There were wounds here that needed to be taken care of, but there was no Healer on earth that would ever be able to see them, let alone heal them.
Harry had no right to be touching him like this.
He knew Draco’s wounds because he’d bloody well put them there. He could see his signature on them just as if they bore his magical stamp. They might as well have; the thought flashed through Harry’s mind that he’d marked Draco with something of himself, something any Death Eater worth his or her salt could pick up on, and then he’d sent him into their very arms with the orders to get through at any cost. The idea was foolish, of course; Draco bore nothing of Harry’s magic, but still the danger hung there, along with the sour tang of Harry’s guilt.
He hated being their leader. He hated the fact that they all looked at him as if he were the bedrock of their operation, even Mad-Eye Moody, who had more than enough right to tell Harry to shove off, stop making all the damned decisions. And what had he to show for his leadership? Fred and George, exhausted and deathly ill in the Infirmary respectively. Ginny, somewhere in the castle with only the cold walls and her own thoughts to distract her, which were surely no distraction at all. An army scattered Merlin knew where, perhaps all dead or rethinking their agreement to follow a mere boy into battle. Hermione and Hannah, out there risking their lives for a bond Harry couldn’t even get excited about anymore. And an enemy that was winning handily, picking them off one by one by one while Harry hid and ‘built up strength.’
It was shameful. At least he’d not marked Blaise Zabini this way before sending him into the viper’s nest, Harry thought disgustedly, even as he laid his lips against Draco’s breast. No, he’d only sent Blaise there in the first place, that was all. Another hopeless cause in a series of hopeless causes. He wished it hadn’t been Blaise. If only Pansy had not been unmasked. Or Theodore Nott, with all his dark watchfulness and his calculating eyes… He would have been the best choice.
But could Harry ever have sent Nott to Voldemort, with Draco obviously enamoured of the man? He’d known they were sleeping together. It wasn’t so much a secret as a fact that hadn’t been concealed. He’d already broken so many pieces of Draco’s life away; how would he have been able to take his lover from him, too?
He felt fingers stroke over his forehead, a slight, ephemeral sweep, and then they threaded into his hair, twisting vaguely. Feeling. He met Draco’s eyes, felt the tangle as his fingers made their way across his scalp and down behind one ear. Tentative strokes. Draco’s gaze roamed along the path his fingers were taking, and Harry knew with contentment as well as a shameful sorrow that the other man was studying his hair. The texture of it. The colour. Perhaps seeing the black of another’s.
It was not the idle wonderings of what Nott and Draco did in bed that fascinated him, how they moved together or what it might feel like to have sex with another man. Harry had not wondered about that for nearly two years, since the night after Bordeaux fell. The man had been French, and he’d left Europe the following week, losing himself in the mess of magical refugees making their way east. The stress of battle and constant peering over his shoulder had long ago sent Harry seeking the comfort of male companionship when that of women just did not dull the ache, and the man in France had been a fine ally, and a fine bedmate, while it lasted. But it had never been meant to last, Harry’d known that from the moment it began. Despite his personal feelings. So Harry did not wonder what Nott and Draco got up to in the darkness of their bedroom or tent, or wherever.
He did wonder what Draco did in bed, how Draco moved. How a person crushed so many times could still summon the means to love another, to worship him every night he could and agonise over his safety on the nights he couldn’t. Harry knew how close Theodore Nott was to Draco, and he also knew he could never have knowingly sent Nott into the clutches of the Death Eaters. Not after all the other things he’d already stolen from Draco.
And what are you taking now? Harry fought against the grimace, teasing his lips over the slope of Draco’s chin and tasting the raw salt of their exertions. The throat under his fingers convulsed; Draco bent his head down and found Harry’s mouth, easing him upward. The familiar taste flooded across Harry’s tongue again, forcing the pain deeper. What was he taking? The only thing Draco had left, his body, but Merlin, Harry wanted it, even though he knew it was wrong. It was the sating of a long-held desire, one he hadn’t fully understood until it was about to be granted.
The worst part was that he realised he liked holding Draco, cradling his body close and feeling the inhale-exhale as he breathed. As though he were the one breathing that rhythm. Draco smelled of clean water and tart soap; his skin was supple in a way it shouldn’t have been after nights in the wild, and his hair was the silk of down.
Harry had not yet acknowledged how he felt about actually… being inside Draco. There was no way to reminisce about it when this pall still hung over them. It was pathetic, but he didn’t want that memory to be tainted, even if it wasn’t rightfully his to own.
“Harry.”
The first word Draco had spoken in hours. Harry’s body tried to freeze. He looked up, wondering what had prompted it, and what would follow.
Draco’s gaze drifted a bit, then slid back. But he said nothing. Whatever had been about to come out had receded. Harry couldn’t help himself; he smoothed the tumble of hair across Draco’s forehead. His hand lingered over the worrisome cut, now scabbed over and washed clean of blood.
“What happened? In the forest.” It came out in spite of his efforts, and for a moment the guilt that had been steadily climbing fell back.
Draco’s hand rose, brushing over the cut, over Harry’s fingers. Draco pulled his hand away, letting it fall back to his side. His eyes closed. “She hit me.”
“A Death Eater.”
Draco nodded. Drew a breath that Harry felt against his own chest. Again it was a shock, knowing Draco was lying naked beneath him.
“She caught you?”
A shake of his head. “No, she… I was alone.”
Harry frowned. “Where was Ginny?”
An instant later, he wished he hadn’t said it. Draco’s body stiffened. His eyes opened, but he wasn’t looking at Harry, had turned his head instead to stare at the bed curtains. His voice was flat. “I told her to run. And then I went…” Draco’s lips thinned. “But she didn’t listen. She came back.”
Harry studied the dark swoop of Draco’s eyelashes. Had he never noticed the length of them before? He wanted to place his lips over them, feel their drift and flutter against his mouth.
He had no right to want such a thing from Draco.
“You went back to the Death Eaters.”
This time Draco rolled his eyes. Harry could still feel the hand on his bicep and wondered if Draco had perhaps forgotten it was there. “Seemed like a good idea at the time, Potter.”
A thousand imagined reasons soared into Harry’s head, bumbling and cluttering around each other. The meaning of them all overwhelmed him and he shut his eyes briefly, trying to pinpoint the questions he had to ask to sort it all out. “How… Who came back?”
Draco’s eyes flickered away this time, the light in them fading as he remembered. Or tried not to remember. “Weasley,” he whispered.
“Why was she gone?” Harry blurted out. “You… She… And you went back?”
Draco’s mouth opened, but nothing came out until— “Yes.”
Harry couldn’t get Draco to look at him. And he needed him to, as though he would find all the answers there in his gaze if only Draco gave it to him fully. “They found you?”
Draco’s head swivelled toward him. “Why are you doing this, Potter?” he asked in a tired voice.
“Asking you about what happened?”
Draco’s ears pinked. His body shifted restlessly beneath Harry’s. Harry caught his breath as he realised what Draco really meant. He pulled away, rising slightly over Draco to look down at him. Draco’s expression had an earnest lilt, but his emotions remained inaccessible. Harry caught his breath.
No, he wasn’t… wasn’t ready for that question yet. Not yet, gods, why did it always have to come back to his reasons? He didn’t think he could lie to Draco, and it came to him with a start that he hadn’t lied to Draco in years. Not since their Hogwarts days. Harry pushed away, sat up.
“What kind of question is that?” he muttered.
Draco’s face froze into something colder… and then slipped all the way into a scowl. A hand crawled up to shove his hair from his forehead. “Well. I didn’t expect it to be that difficult for you.”
The slice of anger into their comfortable heat scraped Harry’s nerves. He grew annoyed. Ridiculous for Draco to think it would be an easy thing to answer, an easy thing to think about. It stung that Draco had such a lack of concern over the question. What had this meant to Draco anyway?
Had it meant anything?
“Oh, I don’t know, Malfoy, it’s just hard to reduce something like that into one sentence, yeah?” he said irritably.
Draco stared at him stonily, nearly wiping away the memory of his open expression a moment ago. The sweat still shone on his skin and Harry was already having trouble remembering how he’d looked. It was painful; he’d wanted that memory so badly.
And here he’d been, expecting it to mean something to Draco. Salazar take him, he knew what it meant to the other man. He’d known it before he even tipped Draco down onto his bed, known it as soon as he plunged his tongue into that desperate, willing mouth. It had just been so easy to forget. To ignore it for a few hours, and pretend—
Pretend that he hadn’t been the one to bring it all to a head in the first place.
Just a replacement. A substitute for the person Harry had taken away from Draco. Or not even that; maybe Draco had closed that part of himself off completely, and Harry was nothing more than a convenient release.
Well. He owed him that. If he owed him anything, it was the relief of his pain for a single, breathless night.
When he looked up, Draco was watching him again, shadows darkening his features. But there was nothing darker than the hollows beneath his eyes. Bad dreams. Lack of sleep. Hell, the loss of everyone he’d ever cared about. One fucking night wasn’t going to make up for all of that. Or one afternoon.
“What?” Harry muttered, and Draco moved restlessly.
“It’s just a question.”
His voice was subdued, even a little timid. Harry saw the reflection of his own feelings in Draco’s eyes, but it wasn’t the inner twin of those emotions. It was as though Draco had put up a mirror, bouncing everything back at him. He couldn’t see what Draco was thinking or feeling, and that was more telling than Harry liked to admit.
It’s only been a couple months since Nott died. You think he’s even been with anyone else since then? Unlikely. Harry had seen how Nott looked at Draco, so much so that he’d avoided witnessing the answering gaze, unable to watch that plethora of emotion returned. That sort of love didn’t die. It snuck into the bedroom and twisted everything that followed for months, turning other peoples’ faces into that lost lover, every sigh and moan into a cheap imitation of that singular voice. Harry had felt the inklings of that in France, and he hadn’t even been in love with the bastard.
Sometimes fucking someone was enough. Nott had done much more than fuck Draco.
“I don’t know what else to do,” Harry breathed at last. The silence that followed was indecipherably heavy. He concentrated on his hands until he couldn’t take it any longer. When he looked up, it was to find that Draco’s eyes had lost a few of their walls. Confusion was the only name Harry could give to the look on his face.
“I don’t understand you, Potter,” he stated.
Harry licked his lips. Tried swallowing, but the words were still there; there was nowhere else for them to go. And perhaps it was high time he spoke his sins aloud anyway. There was no better person to hear them.
“I’ve taken so much from you, Malfoy.” He shuddered. “So many.”
A heartbeat. Draco’s gaze went unfocussed, then snapped back sharply, and something in the muscles of his face spasmed. He sat up with a fluid ripple, hanging his legs over the side of the bed. His shoulders hunched and as Harry watched, they shivered. The movement travelled up and down Draco’s body so quickly Harry blinked.
And nearly missed the sound Draco made. A barely audible word on the back of a breath.
Draco stood with a jerk, naked body glowing in the relief of firelight, and left the bed. He grabbed his trousers, stumbling as he put his feet into them and yanked them up. Buttoned them. Lifted his shirt from the bedpost with a shaking hand. Harry could only watch. The words had crumbled like sand in his throat, and now Draco was moving for the door.
“Draco,” he forced out.
Draco paused for the briefest of instances. Harry thought he might turn.
He almost did.
But Harry’s voice abandoned him again, and Draco left the room with nothing but the creak of the door as it closed behind him.
...
Chapter 16
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 04:36 am (UTC)From:*reads*
♥
no subject
Date: 2007-06-16 07:12 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 04:38 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-16 07:13 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 05:11 am (UTC)From:You are an incredible writer, you play my emotions like a well practice violin.
Go you!
no subject
Date: 2007-06-16 07:14 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 05:46 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-16 07:15 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 05:53 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-16 07:16 pm (UTC)From:Nice
Date: 2007-06-09 06:21 am (UTC)From:Sigh. How's Hermione doing?
Yay for the brief Luna/Harry interaction. That poor girl must get pretty lonely sitting by herself all day and singing! Ha! And poor Ginny, who must realize by now that Harry is not coming back.
So how many people are in the castle now? Moody, Luna, Weasley Twins, Ginny, Harry, and Draco. Is Wood still there?
Anyway, I love the interaction between Harry and Draco. GUH! If only they could speak those words, they would see the truth. Men and their communication problems.
I want to know how all the characters are doing, but I'm glad this chapter was so H/D heavy. As I read, and started to get re-interested in Blaise's mission I thought to myself "This would be terrible if the chapter ended and I did not see what happened after Draco's crying! I'd have to wait who knows how long till the next update!"
Good job, and way to know what the reader's needs are!
Re: Nice
Date: 2007-06-19 08:25 pm (UTC)From:Hermione will be making an appearance soon, too.
I think you are right about Luna. I would imagine she gets somewhat lonely. Then again, her life cognizance of her life has undergone a complete alteration, so I also imagine she is able to see and hear and understand things she hasn't been able to before.
Lessee... castle count thus far: Moody, Harry, Draco, Ginny, Weasley Twins, Luna, Oliver, Dumbledore's ghost, and there are two other minor characters. ^_^
Thanks for this review. I like knowing how people are responding to the story's pacing and such. This is very nice for me to read.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 10:56 am (UTC)From:my darling Rurounihime, am a *huge* fan of your fic, but am unfortunately a WIP-phobe, so will wait until Road is finished. *is greedy*
I can be patient enough. I think.
It just occured to me when the fic warnings caught my eye- character death. you wouldn't be planing on offing our boys? *wibbles*
if you can't let me know thats fine too lol!
Happy Writing!
no subject
Date: 2007-06-16 07:18 pm (UTC)From:And you KNOW I can't tell you about the character death. Hahaha! However... If you really, REALLY need to know, I can email you with the answer later. I just don't want to give anything away on lj here. But ask yourself: do you really want spoilers? Let me know. ♥
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 11:58 am (UTC)From:“I’ve taken so much from you, Malfoy. So…” He shuddered. “So many.”
You're Harry is an idiot, or too much of a hero. And your Draco is just as foolish. Why does he keep on thinking that he's not worth it? Still, I love the two, even if they're both idiots *lol* I just hoe that they're just honest and frank with each other, would make things easier for us all!
And finally, something about Blaise!
I love, love The Road. I did tell you that before right?
no subject
Date: 2007-06-16 07:23 pm (UTC)From:Haha, get ready for an entire chapter on Blaise. That'll be coming up in chapter 17. ^__^
Thank you SO much for reading my fic, and for leaving me such a great comment!
no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 01:24 pm (UTC)From:It's almost funny how their feelings towards each other are so obvious and yet they can't see them. They're too lost in their own reasoning, explaining and justifying, that they can't look at each other the right way and see the truth!
I so want to know how you'll put this triangle.
And, please, don't let them stay mad at each other for too long! >< I can't stand it!
This story always leaves me emotional.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-16 07:26 pm (UTC)From:Thank you so much for investing yourself emotionally in my stories! That is a wonderful compliment.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 08:19 pm (UTC)From:Harry took a split second to let the relief crash over him, then spun on his heel and made for the door. He called over his shoulder. "Don't let him out, Luna!"
He's very angry with me. He could hear the grin in her voice.
Then I sniffed...
"Let go," came Harry's voice. "Let go and look at me."
And then the tears welled in my eyes and I sniffed some more...
"Please don't leave," Harry whispered.
There was just so much that was perfect here. This is what I was waiting for, the chance to finally get in both the boys' heads and see how the wall separating them was built and is maintained. The Nott thing sort of lends a bittersweet tone to Harry and Draco finally letting go and coming together. I'm guessing he really loved Draco in a way that Draco couldn't reciprocate. They both carry so much guilt and there are so many hurt (and dead) people in between them that I don't see how this can have a happy ending. But the passion and the caring and the devotion are so obvious that I just want to shake them both repeatedly until they come to their senses.
I really loved this installment.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-16 07:28 pm (UTC)From:You are spot-on about Theodore Nott. He had feelings for Draco that Draco couldn't return, even though it definitely would have been easier, and Draco wanted to. I hope I can resolve all the ghosts between them for you. I love to hear what you think as you read!
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Date: 2007-06-09 08:42 pm (UTC)From:Harry is being silly once again, very cannon like. I know he feels guilty for how much and many he took from Draco and it is noble to feel this way. What is not noble and extremely stupid is to tell Draco that feelings of guilt and debt are the reasons he slept with him. I would imagine that to Draco it sounded like a pity sex. Poor Draco, crumbling once again.
It is ironic that for Draco Nott for a substitute for Harry, but Harry thinks that he is a substitute for Nott. How can be Harry so oblivious? I hope that the confusion will be resolved very soon.
Ginny should voluntarily give up the bond at this point. She is a smart, proud and brave girl and deserves to be with someone who will love her.
The scene with Blaise was interesting. It reminded me about Frodo in front of the Black Gate. I hope that Blaise will survive his mission as well, even if he is alone and does not have a companion in person. He has Seamus in his mind and heart though. Hopefully, it’ll be enough to survive the ordeal.
Great chapter! Cannot wait for more!!!
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Date: 2007-06-19 08:31 pm (UTC)From:Ooh, I love the scene of Frodo and the Black Gate! So ominous and creepy. This is a humbling comparison, and I thank you for it.
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Date: 2007-06-09 09:40 pm (UTC)From:Normally I like stories with more dialogue but your story is just so beautifully and breathtakingly intense that I just sit in front of the computer like a hypnotised bunny in front of the snake! (but your story isn't a bad snake. No, not at all!)
I loved it to bits! The intensity killed me (in thousand good ways!)
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Date: 2007-06-16 07:29 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 09:56 pm (UTC)From:<3333333333333333333333
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Date: 2007-06-16 07:30 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 10:57 pm (UTC)From:(Thrilled with the new chapter, by the bye.)
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Date: 2007-06-16 07:30 pm (UTC)From:Thank you so much for sticking with it. ♥
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Date: 2007-06-10 01:05 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-16 07:31 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-10 03:02 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-16 07:32 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-10 03:50 am (UTC)From:This is a wonderful story!
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Date: 2007-06-16 07:32 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-10 05:28 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-16 07:33 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-10 11:15 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-16 07:35 pm (UTC)From:Yeah, they don't talk. Stoopid boys. But then, we wouldn't like them as much if they did, would we? *laughs*
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Date: 2007-06-10 11:38 pm (UTC)From:no subject
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Date: 2007-06-11 03:49 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-06-19 08:34 pm (UTC)From:Thank you for commenting, and for reading my fic. I really appreciate what you've said here. It makes me happy to be writing.
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Date: 2007-06-11 11:41 am (UTC)From:It's good to have some news from Blaise at last, even if it's not much. Ever since Draco and Harry had that confrontation, so much has happened it's almost hard to go back to everyone else's 'quests' and the story. But now I definitely need more news on other characters. Like Ginny! I'd like to know what's on her mind. Poor girl, completely put aside x) that's so very Harry, to 'forget' she's there (because of him, no less) because well... Draco happened! In a naked way.
Can't wait for the next one :)
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Date: 2007-06-19 08:36 pm (UTC)From:I'm very excited that you are interested in what's going on with the other characters. It's been a test to juggle them all. I'm really happy that it's working for you.
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Date: 2007-06-11 04:33 pm (UTC)From:Beautiful stuff. I just get pulled in to every little angle of the story...does Luna know what Harry and Draco have been up to? lOL
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Date: 2007-06-19 08:38 pm (UTC)From:Thanks for reading, love!
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Date: 2007-06-11 04:49 pm (UTC)From:For the most part, the HD aspect is what's important to me. But your backstory with the others is well written and it leaves me wondering what's going on with Hermione too. It was nice to see what Blaise is up to. He's very strong and determined. I loved reading his thoughts on what he knows he's about to face. For instance, the fact he knows he will endure pain and that he'll be running like hell if he gets out of there. I'm curious about the bond and affect on the other person. Will Seamus feel Blaise's distress? ...assuming he will become distressed in the very near future. ; ) On the other hand, it seems you've successfully shown us the bond through this pair so that we know what to expect with Harry and whoever he bonds with *cough*Draco*cough*. I'm fully aware this means the worst case scenario is very much possible for Blaise.
By the way, if the Blaise/Seamus bond formed unintentionally, couldn't... :D
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Date: 2007-06-19 08:41 pm (UTC)From:And yes, the bond can definitely form unintentionally. It just requires strong enough emotions to get going. ^_^ Thanks so much for a great comment! I really enjoy reading them.
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Date: 2007-06-19 08:41 pm (UTC)From: