![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Again, sorry for the lateness of this chapter. I have been having too much fun keeping up with all the wonderful ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hd_holidays submissions! I encourage everyone to go and check them out. ^__^
Title: The Road (16/?)
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.
…
No artwork or music for this chapter.
…
**ETA: THIS CHAPTER HAS RECEIVED ITS FINAL EDIT**
Previous chapters
Chapter 16: Old Wounds
Ginny squeezed her brother’s hand, perhaps too tightly, but she couldn’t distinguish anymore. The hospital ward was quiet except for his breathing. It had become easier; the change had been audible even as she sat beside him.
She hadn’t been able to think of anywhere else to go. Harry’s failure to return to her two nights prior had not been unexpected, but even the best mental preparation in the world had been unable to counter this daunting vigil: watching the closed doors of first the sitting room and then, when she finally roused herself from her tears and followed a house-elf upstairs, her own chamber. Both sets of doors had remained closed into the small hours of the night, and the loneliness of the castle as it slept settled around her like a voluminous shroud. Sleep had been out of the question, even exhausted as she was. She’d paced, found food in her knapsack, paced some more, and waited.
Harry had never returned.
Finally, sleep had taken her senses from her, and then Luna’s song had broken across her ears, drawing her from her stupor. The castle was extremely quiet; she’d walked, and ultimately been unable to bear the intense emptiness. Somehow she’d found her way back into the Infirmary.
Fred’s sleep had been light; she hadn’t been able to resist touching his shoulder. Achingly familiar blue eyes opened, and Fred sat up blurrily.
“Gods—Ginny?”
It felt so good to be held by her brother again. She clung to him wordlessly, letting all the aches and pains drip out of her. He’d changed: his shoulders were thin and much tenser than she remembered, and she could feel his ribs as she hugged him.
“Gin.” Fred kissed her hair, squeezing her hard enough to hurt, as though he couldn’t remember how to let go. “I didn’t know you were here, I thought… Merlin, Ginny, thank the Founders.”
“George?” she asked when she could. “What happened?”
They both looked toward the bed and watched the unsteady rise and fall of their brother’s chest. Fred’s fingers were clenched and Ginny reached to uncurl them. His voice was hollow.
“Sudden. He wouldn’t let me heal him. I could have, if only—” Fred rubbed a hand over his eyes. Ginny stroked the mussed hair from his forehead. He hadn’t bathed yet and she could see the filth in rivulets on his flesh.
“You’re a sight,” she said. Fred looked at her for a long moment, and then the tiniest of smiles cracked his pallor.
“You’re no Occamy yourself, you know.”
It was the first time she’d laughed in days.
They’d eaten there in the Infirmary, wondered together about where their mother and father were, avoided the subject of Ron entirely, and traded stories about their brushes with Death Eaters. It was easy to talk to her brother, even about the difficult things. There was no need to explain her pain to Fred, to wonder if he knew the depth of her misery, her loneliness. He experienced it just as she did.
And now, an entire day later, Ginny held George’s fingers as Fred slumbered beside her, and tried not to think. It had been easier when she’d feared for George’s life. But it was clear he was recovering, though it still came in slips and slides. Fred’s conversation had silenced her self-reflection for a time. Now there was nothing except Luna’s voice to remind her of where she was, and that Harry was somewhere nearby.
Harry had arrived in the Infirmary that morning, clean-clothed and alert, and Ginny had found one last sprig of hope in the twisted thorns in her chest. His eyes, vibrant jade, had widened when he saw her, and there was no hint of the anxiety she had been feeling all night. Perhaps… perhaps he had just gone to bed, and been caught up in more important things for the past day. Perhaps he’d wanted to give her time alone with Fred and George.
Perhaps he really had just thanked Draco Malfoy and been done with it.
She’d spent the morning smiling, wondering at how normal it felt to be in the same room as Fred, George, and Harry again. Certainly, they were missing some familiar faces. But this was the Harry of her fifth year and all the years before, tossing jokes back and forth with her brother, running a hand sheepishly through his thatch, and genuinely happy to be in her presence. Ginny had blossomed into it, let herself tumble because she knew this ground, and she knew she would be caught.
When Fred had drifted back to sleep, Harry’d led her from the hospital wing, down toward the kitchens. Ginny had been in high spirits.
It wasn’t until after their meal, when they reached the staircase leading up from the cellars and saw Draco Malfoy coming down, that Ginny realised her mistake.
It was clear from the instant their eyes locked. Draco halted in mid-step, gazing down at them, and Harry’s body went absolutely still beside her. It only lasted for the flicker of an eye, and then they’d moved past each other. But the damage was done.
Ginny didn’t know how she knew, but she did. They’d… slept together. Had sex. At some point in the past two days, Harry had taken Draco Malfoy to his bed.
It was in the way Draco carried himself as he passed them on the stairs, and the way Harry nearly turned. Nearly. She hadn’t looked, but she knew he’d glanced back.
Gods. The idea of Harry’s body in someone else’s hands—in firelight. Torchlight? Had they been able to hear the rain as they’d—as they’d moved—Ginny’s legs had threatened to crumple right there in the stairwell. She sought Harry’s eyes and found them vacant, lost somewhere back down the stairs. Where Draco had gone. The pain struck her heart so hard she looked away, to hide the burning behind her eyes. Yes. Harry had had sex with Draco Malfoy. In his bed, or Draco’s, it didn’t matter. And something had happened there that shuttered his good mood.
She would have found some modicum of satisfaction in that if not for the wrenching hurt in Harry’s expression.
Ginny forced herself to release George’s hand, thankful for the solitude of the Infirmary and the fact that Fred was asleep. There had been no salvaging of her mood after the meeting on the stairs; she’d only been able to think of coming here, of being with her blood again, her family. What she had left of it.
Why in hell did you go back in the forest? she thought bitterly. Why didn’t you just let them have him? He was going to sacrifice himself willingly, you could have just—If you’d only stayed away—
Ginny couldn’t decide what felt worse: the sick horror at those thoughts, or the fact that a small part of her still very much wished they were the reality.
George gave a cleansing sigh and turned over in his sleep. Tears pricked Ginny’s eyelids yet again. “Oh yes,” she whispered to herself. “So big of you. Let the Death Eaters have your competition and all is well again.”
No one answered.
“Shouldn’t have come,” she mumbled. Her jaw ached from holding back all the frustration. Here she was, playing at some romantic story, and when it all fell down around her, she could only weep for her folly. Seven hells, what sort of person had she become?
She longed for the days before, when she hadn’t known that Harry had slept with Draco, or how deeply Draco’s feelings for her intended went. When she was just nervous and excited by the prospect of knowing Harry intimately again, of seeing the end of this war in sight at last. Blaise and Seamus with her by the fire, sharing food and telling stories, awaiting the next turn of the road, the next step in whatever plan was being hatched for them all. It was just a game then, and everyone was alive and healthy and together. Scattered physically, but together somehow in a way they weren’t any longer. She knew it was stupid, that people had been dying left and right no matter what she understood about Harry and Draco’s relationship, but at least she’d felt safe.
And with Seamus and Blaise, she’d felt inexplicably safe. It was hard to put her finger on what made her feel so secure. She’d been with friends there, and she’d known they were lovers, that they did more than sleep side by side during the night. But it hadn’t been a threat to her. It had been a comfort, to see that the war still held no sway over that sort of emotional attachment, that love was still a reality.
Fuck. She probably had Draco to thank for their existence, too, somehow. Wouldn’t that just be the way?
“Merlin, where are you?” As if calling them would bring Seamus and Blaise to her like some wild Accio. They’d always been proof that she was headed for something greater. She couldn’t get it out of her mind that if they were with her again, here, she could have that fabled love for herself once more. The chance of it, at least.
She held George’s hand, listened to Fred breathing, and wondered helplessly where her friends were at that moment.
* * *
Grimmauld Place, one year ago
It was like watching his life from beneath the surface of a pool. Muted light, muffled voices, his heartbeat a dull thud in his temples.
Blaise didn’t know if he was asleep or awake. He had been awake, surely, for over two days. He remembered the ache in his calves and thighs, the pounding of his heart as he ran. Skirted. Dodged through copses of trees that seemed overly vivid to his taxed mind. He’d watched Death Eaters pass the places he hid, their wands drawn and trembling before them, the circles under their eyes dire reminders of what he must look like. He remembered feeling a clouded fear. They were determined. They had his stamina, and were they not just like the Order in their diligence, their commitment? They would forgo sleep to search him out, and perhaps fall to the earth in a shaking stupor rather than return to their Lord without him.
But they had not caught him. Or maybe they had, and this bed, this familiar warmth and musty smell, these dark, cracked walls and this withering candlelight, were all a hallucination. Grimmauld wallowed heavily in the night’s silence and he strove to grip the soft cotton of his sheets—remind himself of their reality—but his fingers did no more than twitch.
His head hurt. The ache whispered through his dreams like a dark spirit, and he could feel Seamus there as well, circling the pain, stroking at his mind with slow fingers. For long moments, Seamus was beside him, and he thrashed out, reaching, to find the bed empty and himself not even certain he’d moved. Perhaps he had dreamt it all.
A glimmer intruded at last, the sallow light of day, or fire. Blaise forced his eyes open once, and then slipped back into sleep. In and out. In and out. Had he left anyone behind in the forest? Had he killed any of his pursuers? He thought he had, but couldn’t remember the spell he’d used, or even the feeling of the wand in his hand. He shouted in his dream, heard-felt Seamus drifting there as if tossed by a breeze. In one coherent flicker, he wondered at the confusion he must be pushing into his lover’s head, wondered if Seamus were not scrabbling for purchase in a miasma that was not really his. His skull throbbed dully.
A door clicked open, and suddenly Blaise knew Seamus was there; the presence of the one who shared his bond tore a long furrow through the fog. He rolled dazedly, felt the bed dip, and a warm heat insinuated itself along his back. Seamus’ arm came around him, a delicious weight, and Blaise’s mind spun free of the chaos. He found energy to search out Seamus’ fingers, lace his own through them. Sleep, deep and expansive, took him at last. The passage of time vanished.
His eyes opened again on their own. Blaise swam up into consciousness as though surfacing from a dark, dank lake. He blinked. Sunlight streamed in shafts through the dusty windows. The warmth of the room was almost overwhelming; he knew without thinking that to move would upset the balance, make him too hot. Blaise inhaled. Exhaled. Became aware of an indefinable ache. He touched his temple with one hand. No longer his head aching. Seamus’ arm was a limp, sleepy mass around his middle. He rubbed over his lover’s fingers. Seamus did not even twitch.
The heat of their two bodies drifted over him, and somewhere in his brain he felt Seamus reel and drift along with it. Blaise shut his eyes again and pressed a hand to his forehead. His stomach roiled. His throat tasted dry, acrid; he swallowed and leaned backward, longing for the haze of closeness, the slow loss of consciousness that sleep granted.
It was at the exact instant that he felt the damp cling of the sheets at his back that he realised he hadn’t heard Seamus’ gentle breaths. A long, uneasy rasp rattled in his ear and the indefinable burn blossomed heavily in the pit of his belly. Blaise struggled onto his elbows and looked at Seamus to find freckles standing out stark and livid against white… greying skin. Seamus’ eyelids were half closed; the dull sheen of blue irises was barely visible.
“Seamus.” The arm he now clutched lay leaden over his ribs. As he watched, Seamus’ body shivered into another slow rasp. Sallow pits hung under his partially closed eyes, and a glint of red dotted the corner of his mouth. Blaise looked down at the damp sheets.
Blood. The bedclothes were soaked rusty red with it.
He came fully awake in a wrenching grind that rolled through him from toes to fingertips. He lurched up, twisting a muscle in his abdomen painfully, but it hardly registered. “Seamus? Sea—”
There was a wound. In Seamus’ side, seeping a wide patch of crimson across a once-white undershirt. Blaise’s hand shot to Seamus’ hip, easing the sodden fabric away. Pressing it back into place, lest a tenuous clot be broken. Muscles shivered once under his fingers, and Seamus’ eyelids fluttered and drifted shut.
“Seamus!”
Blaise jerked the sheet from across his own body, scrunched it in his hand and pressed it to Seamus’ ribs, hiding the scarlet stain from view. Brown in places—how long had he been bleeding? How fucking long had he, Blaise, been asleep?
The ache intensified into a harsh burn in his own side, and Blaise moaned out the belated horror of it. He couldn’t breathe properly; his lips struggled to form words, and finally one arrived, laden with a hope that this time, this time, the occupant of the next room was actually there to hear it. “Draco!”
He lost track of how many times he cried that name into the room. He didn’t hear the door open, except that suddenly Draco Malfoy was at his side, leaning onto the bed and touching the clammy breadth of Seamus’ forehead. Blaise looked up, confused, unable to see anything aside from the shadows pocking Seamus’ face, the widening stains over his own hands. Draco’s hair was askew, eyes still blurry with sleep, and Blaise snatched his hand, yanking it to where the wound was.
“How long, Blaise? When did he… When did he arrive?”
Blaise shook his head, heard the rattle of Seamus’ breath, and pressed a hand to his own side, unable to see beyond the hot shard there. “Don’t know. Muddled—”
Draco froze, and then Blaise felt hands scrabbling over his own hips, pulling at his shirt. “Blaise. Blaise, are you injured, too?”
“No! Fuck, Draco, no, it’s him, it’s… fucking binding… I can feel it…”
Draco’s hands left him, and Blaise felt Seamus’ body shift. Draco began to mutter. There was a ripping sound, fabric tearing, and a moan that was not Draco’s, nor his own. Blaise started upward, opened his eyes, only to fall back under a wave of dizziness.
“Lacerating hex,” Draco said. His hands probed the wound, and more blood oozed forth. His wand waved once and his face twisted. “Not clotting. Fuck.”
Another wave of his wand, far more complicated. Draco slammed his hand down into the mattress and cursed. “Fucking—This is one of hers. Fucking Alecto!”
He yanked Blaise up by the collar of his shirt and shook him. “Blaise, what did you say about a… binding? Did she bind him?”
“No. Me… we. Draco—”
It might have been realisation dawning on Draco’s face, or new urgency. He let go. “Get your wand.”
Somehow Blaise fought free of the quilts and traversed the room to the bag he’d dropped by the door. He didn’t remember summoning Pomfrey, or the spells Draco recited for him to repeat, or the hurried explanations when the Healer finally hastened into the room. The smell of blood tickled Blaise’s nostrils as if he’d inhaled the liquid. The ache in his side swelled over him until it was all he could feel, and yet it did not fell him. He moved mechanically, seeing bright red and pale white, muted colours that only coalesced into recognisable objects an hour later, when Seamus was breathing more easily, Draco perched on the bed trailing his sparking wand back and forth in gentle strokes over the closing wound. Pomfrey spoke in agitated spurts. Words, “Alecto,” “spell,” and “when,” and Draco answered, but Blaise only heard Seamus’ gradually steadying dreams in his ears.
It wasn’t until six nights later, his lover catching his breath heavily in his arms for a different reason, that Blaise thought through his post-coital haze and understood that Seamus should have died. It should be a corpse in his arms. Somehow, Seamus had found his way back to him, and that same, fragile thread between them, the one that had brought him home, had kept him alive for hours when he should have perished.
The tears that Seamus wiped from Blaise’s cheeks that night were helpless and unsatisfied by the reality of the man pressed against him. What should have been haunted Blaise’s thoughts like a wraith.
...
Chapter 17
hd_holidays submissions! I encourage everyone to go and check them out. ^__^Title: The Road (16/?)
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.
…
No artwork or music for this chapter.
…
**ETA: THIS CHAPTER HAS RECEIVED ITS FINAL EDIT**
Previous chapters
Chapter 16: Old Wounds
Ginny squeezed her brother’s hand, perhaps too tightly, but she couldn’t distinguish anymore. The hospital ward was quiet except for his breathing. It had become easier; the change had been audible even as she sat beside him.
She hadn’t been able to think of anywhere else to go. Harry’s failure to return to her two nights prior had not been unexpected, but even the best mental preparation in the world had been unable to counter this daunting vigil: watching the closed doors of first the sitting room and then, when she finally roused herself from her tears and followed a house-elf upstairs, her own chamber. Both sets of doors had remained closed into the small hours of the night, and the loneliness of the castle as it slept settled around her like a voluminous shroud. Sleep had been out of the question, even exhausted as she was. She’d paced, found food in her knapsack, paced some more, and waited.
Harry had never returned.
Finally, sleep had taken her senses from her, and then Luna’s song had broken across her ears, drawing her from her stupor. The castle was extremely quiet; she’d walked, and ultimately been unable to bear the intense emptiness. Somehow she’d found her way back into the Infirmary.
Fred’s sleep had been light; she hadn’t been able to resist touching his shoulder. Achingly familiar blue eyes opened, and Fred sat up blurrily.
“Gods—Ginny?”
It felt so good to be held by her brother again. She clung to him wordlessly, letting all the aches and pains drip out of her. He’d changed: his shoulders were thin and much tenser than she remembered, and she could feel his ribs as she hugged him.
“Gin.” Fred kissed her hair, squeezing her hard enough to hurt, as though he couldn’t remember how to let go. “I didn’t know you were here, I thought… Merlin, Ginny, thank the Founders.”
“George?” she asked when she could. “What happened?”
They both looked toward the bed and watched the unsteady rise and fall of their brother’s chest. Fred’s fingers were clenched and Ginny reached to uncurl them. His voice was hollow.
“Sudden. He wouldn’t let me heal him. I could have, if only—” Fred rubbed a hand over his eyes. Ginny stroked the mussed hair from his forehead. He hadn’t bathed yet and she could see the filth in rivulets on his flesh.
“You’re a sight,” she said. Fred looked at her for a long moment, and then the tiniest of smiles cracked his pallor.
“You’re no Occamy yourself, you know.”
It was the first time she’d laughed in days.
They’d eaten there in the Infirmary, wondered together about where their mother and father were, avoided the subject of Ron entirely, and traded stories about their brushes with Death Eaters. It was easy to talk to her brother, even about the difficult things. There was no need to explain her pain to Fred, to wonder if he knew the depth of her misery, her loneliness. He experienced it just as she did.
And now, an entire day later, Ginny held George’s fingers as Fred slumbered beside her, and tried not to think. It had been easier when she’d feared for George’s life. But it was clear he was recovering, though it still came in slips and slides. Fred’s conversation had silenced her self-reflection for a time. Now there was nothing except Luna’s voice to remind her of where she was, and that Harry was somewhere nearby.
Harry had arrived in the Infirmary that morning, clean-clothed and alert, and Ginny had found one last sprig of hope in the twisted thorns in her chest. His eyes, vibrant jade, had widened when he saw her, and there was no hint of the anxiety she had been feeling all night. Perhaps… perhaps he had just gone to bed, and been caught up in more important things for the past day. Perhaps he’d wanted to give her time alone with Fred and George.
Perhaps he really had just thanked Draco Malfoy and been done with it.
She’d spent the morning smiling, wondering at how normal it felt to be in the same room as Fred, George, and Harry again. Certainly, they were missing some familiar faces. But this was the Harry of her fifth year and all the years before, tossing jokes back and forth with her brother, running a hand sheepishly through his thatch, and genuinely happy to be in her presence. Ginny had blossomed into it, let herself tumble because she knew this ground, and she knew she would be caught.
When Fred had drifted back to sleep, Harry’d led her from the hospital wing, down toward the kitchens. Ginny had been in high spirits.
It wasn’t until after their meal, when they reached the staircase leading up from the cellars and saw Draco Malfoy coming down, that Ginny realised her mistake.
It was clear from the instant their eyes locked. Draco halted in mid-step, gazing down at them, and Harry’s body went absolutely still beside her. It only lasted for the flicker of an eye, and then they’d moved past each other. But the damage was done.
Ginny didn’t know how she knew, but she did. They’d… slept together. Had sex. At some point in the past two days, Harry had taken Draco Malfoy to his bed.
It was in the way Draco carried himself as he passed them on the stairs, and the way Harry nearly turned. Nearly. She hadn’t looked, but she knew he’d glanced back.
Gods. The idea of Harry’s body in someone else’s hands—in firelight. Torchlight? Had they been able to hear the rain as they’d—as they’d moved—Ginny’s legs had threatened to crumple right there in the stairwell. She sought Harry’s eyes and found them vacant, lost somewhere back down the stairs. Where Draco had gone. The pain struck her heart so hard she looked away, to hide the burning behind her eyes. Yes. Harry had had sex with Draco Malfoy. In his bed, or Draco’s, it didn’t matter. And something had happened there that shuttered his good mood.
She would have found some modicum of satisfaction in that if not for the wrenching hurt in Harry’s expression.
Ginny forced herself to release George’s hand, thankful for the solitude of the Infirmary and the fact that Fred was asleep. There had been no salvaging of her mood after the meeting on the stairs; she’d only been able to think of coming here, of being with her blood again, her family. What she had left of it.
Why in hell did you go back in the forest? she thought bitterly. Why didn’t you just let them have him? He was going to sacrifice himself willingly, you could have just—If you’d only stayed away—
Ginny couldn’t decide what felt worse: the sick horror at those thoughts, or the fact that a small part of her still very much wished they were the reality.
George gave a cleansing sigh and turned over in his sleep. Tears pricked Ginny’s eyelids yet again. “Oh yes,” she whispered to herself. “So big of you. Let the Death Eaters have your competition and all is well again.”
No one answered.
“Shouldn’t have come,” she mumbled. Her jaw ached from holding back all the frustration. Here she was, playing at some romantic story, and when it all fell down around her, she could only weep for her folly. Seven hells, what sort of person had she become?
She longed for the days before, when she hadn’t known that Harry had slept with Draco, or how deeply Draco’s feelings for her intended went. When she was just nervous and excited by the prospect of knowing Harry intimately again, of seeing the end of this war in sight at last. Blaise and Seamus with her by the fire, sharing food and telling stories, awaiting the next turn of the road, the next step in whatever plan was being hatched for them all. It was just a game then, and everyone was alive and healthy and together. Scattered physically, but together somehow in a way they weren’t any longer. She knew it was stupid, that people had been dying left and right no matter what she understood about Harry and Draco’s relationship, but at least she’d felt safe.
And with Seamus and Blaise, she’d felt inexplicably safe. It was hard to put her finger on what made her feel so secure. She’d been with friends there, and she’d known they were lovers, that they did more than sleep side by side during the night. But it hadn’t been a threat to her. It had been a comfort, to see that the war still held no sway over that sort of emotional attachment, that love was still a reality.
Fuck. She probably had Draco to thank for their existence, too, somehow. Wouldn’t that just be the way?
“Merlin, where are you?” As if calling them would bring Seamus and Blaise to her like some wild Accio. They’d always been proof that she was headed for something greater. She couldn’t get it out of her mind that if they were with her again, here, she could have that fabled love for herself once more. The chance of it, at least.
She held George’s hand, listened to Fred breathing, and wondered helplessly where her friends were at that moment.
* * *
Grimmauld Place, one year ago
It was like watching his life from beneath the surface of a pool. Muted light, muffled voices, his heartbeat a dull thud in his temples.
Blaise didn’t know if he was asleep or awake. He had been awake, surely, for over two days. He remembered the ache in his calves and thighs, the pounding of his heart as he ran. Skirted. Dodged through copses of trees that seemed overly vivid to his taxed mind. He’d watched Death Eaters pass the places he hid, their wands drawn and trembling before them, the circles under their eyes dire reminders of what he must look like. He remembered feeling a clouded fear. They were determined. They had his stamina, and were they not just like the Order in their diligence, their commitment? They would forgo sleep to search him out, and perhaps fall to the earth in a shaking stupor rather than return to their Lord without him.
But they had not caught him. Or maybe they had, and this bed, this familiar warmth and musty smell, these dark, cracked walls and this withering candlelight, were all a hallucination. Grimmauld wallowed heavily in the night’s silence and he strove to grip the soft cotton of his sheets—remind himself of their reality—but his fingers did no more than twitch.
His head hurt. The ache whispered through his dreams like a dark spirit, and he could feel Seamus there as well, circling the pain, stroking at his mind with slow fingers. For long moments, Seamus was beside him, and he thrashed out, reaching, to find the bed empty and himself not even certain he’d moved. Perhaps he had dreamt it all.
A glimmer intruded at last, the sallow light of day, or fire. Blaise forced his eyes open once, and then slipped back into sleep. In and out. In and out. Had he left anyone behind in the forest? Had he killed any of his pursuers? He thought he had, but couldn’t remember the spell he’d used, or even the feeling of the wand in his hand. He shouted in his dream, heard-felt Seamus drifting there as if tossed by a breeze. In one coherent flicker, he wondered at the confusion he must be pushing into his lover’s head, wondered if Seamus were not scrabbling for purchase in a miasma that was not really his. His skull throbbed dully.
A door clicked open, and suddenly Blaise knew Seamus was there; the presence of the one who shared his bond tore a long furrow through the fog. He rolled dazedly, felt the bed dip, and a warm heat insinuated itself along his back. Seamus’ arm came around him, a delicious weight, and Blaise’s mind spun free of the chaos. He found energy to search out Seamus’ fingers, lace his own through them. Sleep, deep and expansive, took him at last. The passage of time vanished.
His eyes opened again on their own. Blaise swam up into consciousness as though surfacing from a dark, dank lake. He blinked. Sunlight streamed in shafts through the dusty windows. The warmth of the room was almost overwhelming; he knew without thinking that to move would upset the balance, make him too hot. Blaise inhaled. Exhaled. Became aware of an indefinable ache. He touched his temple with one hand. No longer his head aching. Seamus’ arm was a limp, sleepy mass around his middle. He rubbed over his lover’s fingers. Seamus did not even twitch.
The heat of their two bodies drifted over him, and somewhere in his brain he felt Seamus reel and drift along with it. Blaise shut his eyes again and pressed a hand to his forehead. His stomach roiled. His throat tasted dry, acrid; he swallowed and leaned backward, longing for the haze of closeness, the slow loss of consciousness that sleep granted.
It was at the exact instant that he felt the damp cling of the sheets at his back that he realised he hadn’t heard Seamus’ gentle breaths. A long, uneasy rasp rattled in his ear and the indefinable burn blossomed heavily in the pit of his belly. Blaise struggled onto his elbows and looked at Seamus to find freckles standing out stark and livid against white… greying skin. Seamus’ eyelids were half closed; the dull sheen of blue irises was barely visible.
“Seamus.” The arm he now clutched lay leaden over his ribs. As he watched, Seamus’ body shivered into another slow rasp. Sallow pits hung under his partially closed eyes, and a glint of red dotted the corner of his mouth. Blaise looked down at the damp sheets.
Blood. The bedclothes were soaked rusty red with it.
He came fully awake in a wrenching grind that rolled through him from toes to fingertips. He lurched up, twisting a muscle in his abdomen painfully, but it hardly registered. “Seamus? Sea—”
There was a wound. In Seamus’ side, seeping a wide patch of crimson across a once-white undershirt. Blaise’s hand shot to Seamus’ hip, easing the sodden fabric away. Pressing it back into place, lest a tenuous clot be broken. Muscles shivered once under his fingers, and Seamus’ eyelids fluttered and drifted shut.
“Seamus!”
Blaise jerked the sheet from across his own body, scrunched it in his hand and pressed it to Seamus’ ribs, hiding the scarlet stain from view. Brown in places—how long had he been bleeding? How fucking long had he, Blaise, been asleep?
The ache intensified into a harsh burn in his own side, and Blaise moaned out the belated horror of it. He couldn’t breathe properly; his lips struggled to form words, and finally one arrived, laden with a hope that this time, this time, the occupant of the next room was actually there to hear it. “Draco!”
He lost track of how many times he cried that name into the room. He didn’t hear the door open, except that suddenly Draco Malfoy was at his side, leaning onto the bed and touching the clammy breadth of Seamus’ forehead. Blaise looked up, confused, unable to see anything aside from the shadows pocking Seamus’ face, the widening stains over his own hands. Draco’s hair was askew, eyes still blurry with sleep, and Blaise snatched his hand, yanking it to where the wound was.
“How long, Blaise? When did he… When did he arrive?”
Blaise shook his head, heard the rattle of Seamus’ breath, and pressed a hand to his own side, unable to see beyond the hot shard there. “Don’t know. Muddled—”
Draco froze, and then Blaise felt hands scrabbling over his own hips, pulling at his shirt. “Blaise. Blaise, are you injured, too?”
“No! Fuck, Draco, no, it’s him, it’s… fucking binding… I can feel it…”
Draco’s hands left him, and Blaise felt Seamus’ body shift. Draco began to mutter. There was a ripping sound, fabric tearing, and a moan that was not Draco’s, nor his own. Blaise started upward, opened his eyes, only to fall back under a wave of dizziness.
“Lacerating hex,” Draco said. His hands probed the wound, and more blood oozed forth. His wand waved once and his face twisted. “Not clotting. Fuck.”
Another wave of his wand, far more complicated. Draco slammed his hand down into the mattress and cursed. “Fucking—This is one of hers. Fucking Alecto!”
He yanked Blaise up by the collar of his shirt and shook him. “Blaise, what did you say about a… binding? Did she bind him?”
“No. Me… we. Draco—”
It might have been realisation dawning on Draco’s face, or new urgency. He let go. “Get your wand.”
Somehow Blaise fought free of the quilts and traversed the room to the bag he’d dropped by the door. He didn’t remember summoning Pomfrey, or the spells Draco recited for him to repeat, or the hurried explanations when the Healer finally hastened into the room. The smell of blood tickled Blaise’s nostrils as if he’d inhaled the liquid. The ache in his side swelled over him until it was all he could feel, and yet it did not fell him. He moved mechanically, seeing bright red and pale white, muted colours that only coalesced into recognisable objects an hour later, when Seamus was breathing more easily, Draco perched on the bed trailing his sparking wand back and forth in gentle strokes over the closing wound. Pomfrey spoke in agitated spurts. Words, “Alecto,” “spell,” and “when,” and Draco answered, but Blaise only heard Seamus’ gradually steadying dreams in his ears.
It wasn’t until six nights later, his lover catching his breath heavily in his arms for a different reason, that Blaise thought through his post-coital haze and understood that Seamus should have died. It should be a corpse in his arms. Somehow, Seamus had found his way back to him, and that same, fragile thread between them, the one that had brought him home, had kept him alive for hours when he should have perished.
The tears that Seamus wiped from Blaise’s cheeks that night were helpless and unsatisfied by the reality of the man pressed against him. What should have been haunted Blaise’s thoughts like a wraith.
...
Chapter 17
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-07-04 06:55 am (UTC)From: