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Okay, this is my monster fic. And I say this because I have been working on it for months, now, and it has finally ceased its morphing and curling and has settled into... this. I hope you all enjoy it. Thanks ever so much (EVER SO MUCH) to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
coffeejunkii for her incredible support and patience with me, and to fireelemental79 for the incessant beta-ing. *loves deeply*
Title: World's Edge (1/2)
Author: me
Pairing: H/D with some previous other pairings
Rating: Hard R. Hard.
Summary: In the harshest environment on earth, Harry finds that escaping is harder than simply running.
Warning: This is extremely angsty. There are difficult issues to deal with here.
Disclaimer: Not my boys, or my penguins. This story comes from the HP fandom, and was inspired by the gorgeous film March of the Penguins (American version). Please go see it.
Another disclaimer: In writing this fic, I have tried my darndest to follow the cycle of an Antarctic winter. But guys, I am not a biologist, nor am I a meteorologist, and I do not specialize in the Antarctic in the slightest. So, there are bound to be errors in this story. I am well aware of that. But for some of the other things that happen, suffice it to say that nature is a creature of extreme variance, and things never go quite the way they are expected to.
...
World's Edge
Part 1
“…in some ways this is a story about survival, a tale of life over death. But it’s more than that, really.
This is a story about love.”
Late June
The sunlight cut into Harry’s retinas in a glistering sweep. He tightened his fingers around his omnioculars and watched the blue-suited figure trudging through the snow. Moving at a good pace, arms swinging out to bring the tips of ski poles deep into the ice.
Harry lowered his omnioculars and the figure became a dusky lilac blur on the horizon. The wind whipped at his bare cheeks.
Boots crunched through the snow behind him and a hand touched his shoulder through the thick padding of his jacket. He turned and saw Sanoe crouched beside him. Her voice was muffled by the thick scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face.
“We’re leaving you the extra tent, just in case. The females have already started to leave. Extra rations, fuel for the stove… Jamus put the weather balloon next to your sleeping bag. He’s afraid the wind will rip the material if he leaves it outside.” There was a raucous cawing down the slope, followed by the trumpeting of a male emperor penguin. Sanoe glanced down and then back at him. Harry did not follow her eyes.
She tilted her head to one side, then tugged off one of her gloves and touched the patch of skin he had not bothered to cover, just under his eyes. Her fingers were already white from the chill. “Going to be alright here?” she asked softly.
Harry smiled, knowing she would see it even with his mouth covered. “I’ll be fine.”
Sanoe nodded. Her hazel eyes crinkled at the edges. She looked past him. Harry turned his head and found the figure in blue again. The haze shimmered like heat waves, blurring the person’s outline. With a sigh, Sanoe stood and tugged her glove back on.
Harry looked up at her. “Take care out there.”
Sanoe nodded. She tapped one finger against her sun-goggles. Harry slid his own down over his eyes and the white world darkened to grays and blues. He waved once as she slid-walked down the slope toward Jamus. Jamus returned the gesture, and Sanoe too lifted her hand. They picked up their sled ropes from the snow and set off across the crystal expanse.
Harry settled his omnioculars around his neck. He lifted his camera instead and directed its lens on the hordes of croaking, meandering penguins in the Punch Bowl – for that was what Sanoe had laughingly termed it just before an early blizzard caved the west side into a trench. He focused on a male shuffling a large egg on his claws, snapping the picture just as the magnificent bird curved its neck to peer at his briefly revealed treasure.
Harry changed rolls of film carefully, angled around to better accommodate the blustering snowdrifts, and jotted down a note about the old female with the scar across her flipper. When he looked up, the blue-coated figure was one hundred yards out. The sled lurched along behind him with each jogging step.
Harry pursed his lips and raised his camera, taking a picture of his teammate’s approach for later documentation.
Draco Malfoy said nothing as he pulled the sled up over the hump of snow around the Punch Bowl. He turned his head toward Harry once and then headed for the yellow tent. Harry got up and moved around the rim of the Bowl until he had the towering ice wall behind the penguins. He crouched, focused, and clicked the shutter three times.
The sun was still above the horizon when Harry returned to the tent area. Now there were two, side by side in the snow. Malfoy sat on a crust of ice and assembled his large camera lens.
“Getting late,” Harry said. Malfoy nodded, not looking his way. The sun was dipping, turning the sky a vibrant orange. Harry opened the flap of his tent and pulled out a small stove, settling it in the snow between two drifts Jamus had muscled into place to block the wind. Harry scooped snow into the metal bowl, then removed his wand from the confines of his jacket and ignited a tiny fire under it. He looked up and found Malfoy’s eyes on him.
“It works. A little.” Harry put his wand away. “Anything bigger disturbs the animals anyway.”
Malfoy turned his attention back to his camera. Harry watched the snow melt in the pot. They were too close to the pole for magic to function correctly. The magnetism warped it and tugged it away. He’d learned not to mind much.
When the water boiled, Harry emptied it into two tin cups and dropped a stiff teabag into each. He stood and approached Malfoy. The man looked up.
“Here.”
Gloved hands took the cup from him. Malfoy sniffed the contents and blinked. “Thank you.”
Harry nodded and set about preparing food he did not really feel like eating.
~*~
The penguins fluffed the snow in plumes with their flippers. The noise was cacophonous. Harry flexed his fingers and struggled to make his writing legible. He had a headache. The steady click of Malfoy’s camera came to his ears.
One of the last female penguins remaining stroked her beak up her mate’s throat. He bent his head, she followed, and Harry watched the resemblance of a heart form from the shape of their two bodies. He sighed heavily and thought of where Ginny might be at that moment.
Malfoy’s shutter stopped clicking. He stared at the two penguins, camera cradled in both hands. The male penguin made a soft croaking sound and the female swept up his chest again, whirring in her throat.
“Well.” Malfoy’s voice was flat. It bit in the still air. “Some species can be monogamous at least.”
Harry pursed his lips. “They only stay together for a year.”
He wrote, Maggie, you would adore these penguins. It seems they put such trust in each other. To come back, not to desert the other one.
“That would be a record for some people,” came Malfoy’s bitter reply.
Harry frowned. His head was pounding. “Well, maybe you should choose a more loyal person next time, Malfoy,” he snapped, then thought about what a hypocritical bastard he was. At least some people knew themselves well enough before a relationship began to avoid complications later on—
Malfoy’s eyes were like dead ice. “Fuck off, Potter.” He turned and moved away over the snow, heading for the far huddle of males along the east wall.
Harry watched him for a moment, and then shook himself and turned back to the penguins.
~*~
The wind woke Harry, wrapping itself around the tent and flapping the sides furiously. Images of Maggie’s auburn hair and green eyes faded. Harry peered blurrily at his watch. The middle of the night, but it really made no difference. It was dark day in and day out now.
He gave up on sleep at last and struggled out of his sleeping bag, still holding the photograph of Maggie. He had been looking at it before drifting off. A few miserably cold moments later, he left the tent, zipping his jacket up to his chin. The penguins were murmuring. Telltale cries and squawks whipped in and out of Harry’s hearing.
Yellow and blue lights shifted over the snow. It reminded Harry of the fireworks Maggie loved so much. Harry swallowed, pushing the thought away, and made for the edge of the Punch Bowl. Several yards from the slope, he came to a stop.
Malfoy was sitting on the edge, boots planted in the snow to stop his downward slide. His head was tilted up, flickers of the Southern Lights playing over his face. Harry hesitated, then closed the distance and sat down a yard or two away. He looked up at the night sky and saw ribbons of color waving overhead.
Malfoy shifted. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Harry closed his eyes. “I don’t sleep all that much,” he murmured.
Malfoy was looking at him. Harry fought with himself for several seconds, but ended up catching the other man’s gaze anyway. Malfoy’s eyes were dark, penetrative. Harry looked away, wondering if maybe Malfoy knew why he didn’t sleep. Everyone else seemed to.
He struggled with himself for a moment. “Malfoy, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s so quiet here,” Malfoy cut in. He was looking into the sky again. Harry listened to the squawks and cries, the blustering wind. He felt the first tug of a smile.
“Sounds pretty noisy to me.”
Malfoy turned what could have been a half-smile on him. It was hard to see in the fluctuating light. His eyes fell on the cliffs on the west side of the Punch Bowl. “It’s quiet where it counts. There aren’t any…”
Harry nodded before Malfoy could get the word out. No. There aren’t any people. Malfoy glanced at him and opened his mouth again. Harry waited, but Draco ended up looking away without saying anything more.
The Southern Lights had gone pale pink when Harry finally rose and went back to his tent, leaving Draco at the edge of the Punch Bowl and the shifting darkness flowing into it.
~*~
August
Harry walked the long shadows of the ice cliffs, pausing every few steps to note the number of males along the north side of the group. Low mutters and occasional harsh trumpeting were interspersed with high-pitched warbles and hoots. The sky was the color of charcoal, fading to silver-yellow just above the horizon. The ice shone in a kaleidoscope of glimmers, winding deeply into its depths.
Malfoy’s blue suit stood out in the dim light. He was once again in the midst of a group of meandering males, camera fixed to his eye. Harry had often seen him like that, when he actually broke himself away from his own photography long enough to note the time or the nagging voice telling him to eat.
Malfoy knelt and angled his camera. Harry caught sight of a familiar smirk before the man murmured, “Is that a penguin chick under your skin flap, or are you just happy to see me?”
Harry couldn’t help it; a laugh bubbled up and burst from him. It was an awkward sound. He hadn’t felt anywhere close to laughter in so long. Malfoy turned quickly, lowering his camera, a look of surprise on his features. The expression became guarded, then melted into a hesitant – but genuine – smile. Malfoy was all gleaming teeth and crinkled eyes when he smiled. Harry had never really seen it before.
The male penguin who had been the object of Malfoy’s comment gave a short, guttural caw. He looked down and the sleek feathers at the base of his belly rose little by little, until a slightly damp head poked out. The penguin chick blinked and hooted, its too-big head rocking up and down.
“They look soft enough to touch,” Malfoy murmured. Harry stared at the penguin chick for one teetering moment, and then shook himself. He raised his Nikon and zoomed closely on the still visible head, clicking the shutter. Then he pulled the focus out until Malfoy’s form showed on the left side, and took another picture.
“We aren’t allowed.”
Malfoy looked at him, eyes narrowed. Harry stood and brushed his knees off. He gestured at the horizon. “It’s late. You think you can…”
Malfoy nodded.
Harry started back toward the tents. “I’ll… get dinner going.”
A low voice came to his ears. “Potter. Who… who are you writing to all the time?”
Harry did not fully face him. The sun was just beginning to dip back under the horizon, giving up its fight for the sky. “My daughter,” he said stiffly.
The other man shifted and Harry had the sense that more words were imminent. But Malfoy only stared at him for an indefinable moment and turned away. He nodded once, a bob of his head. Almost to himself.
Harry made his way back to the tents slowly.
~*~
A horrendous tumult of croaking and cawing had Harry dashing around the tents, slipping on the ice and struggling to keep his balance. He fumbled for his camera strap, and ran to the edge of the Punch Bowl, skidding to a stop on the very lip of it. Malfoy was already down in amongst the straggling males. As soon as he saw Harry he started waving and gesturing, whatever words he was yelling lost in the din.
Harry looked and saw the earliest bunch of females sidling over the eastern edge of the Bowl. As he watched, one slipped onto her belly and slid the rest of the way down, bumping into a more successful descender before coming to a stop. Harry took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then began to pick his way down over the lip, feeling lighter than he had in days.
The first of the starving males had begun to give up and leave two days ago. Harry had watched silently, taking pictures with a dull sort of emptiness. The tiny, ice-encrusted corpses of abandoned chicks had not gone unnoticed by either himself or Malfoy.
The males now sounded their welcome with resounding rack-ack-ack-acks. Harry halted a hundred feet from the edge of the bumbling penguin mass, checking his lens for frost. Malfoy came up beside him, breathing hot puffs of steam. His hood was off, sun-goggles strangely dark against his skin and hair.
The clicking of their cameras was barely audible that close to the penguins. After a time, Malfoy eased down on his knees in the snow, pulled out a small notebook and pencil stub, and began to scribble furiously.
“Look at them, Potter. Can you imagine them coming all this way… just to find a mate?”
Harry had already lowered his camera and was watching a newly reunited couple purring their hellos not fifteen feet from where they stood. He glanced down at Malfoy and was surprised to see a smile there below his snow-goggles. The man’s cheeks were flushed pink in the cold. Harry’s eyes fell to the notepad lying lopsided over Malfoy’s knee. A small but detailed sketch of three penguins took up the page; the adults’ heads were bent, mid-shuffle as they transferred a gangly chick from male to female.
Harry looked up and saw that Malfoy’s smile was trained on him. He looked away. “Thought you weren’t happy with all this monogamy.”
Malfoy’s shoulders rose and fell, and he turned back to the noisy birds. “I never said that,” he answered softly.
He gripped his camera and inched forward across the ice. Harry stayed where he was and watched the weak sunlight glowing through the flaxen strands of Malfoy’s hair. He lifted his camera again.
That night, if he dreamt about Maggie, he didn’t remember it in the morning.
~*~
September
Harry was positioning his tripod to catch a tiny, flapping chick on the Punch Bowl’s rim when the ice groaned. There was a tunktunkTUNK and a patch of brilliant white cracked away to his right. Harry fell sideways and down into the water, dropping his camera.
The water stretched under him to midnight blue and deepest black, the underside of the ice rippling away out of sight. Harry clawed upward and broke the surface with a gasp. The ice couldn’t be this thin here. Could it? No. The penguins would never have chosen this spot if—
The water suddenly soaked through his outer layers and Harry’s calves, thighs, waist, then chest felt as if they were being slashed to ribbons with knives. His gloved hand found the rim of the ice hole and he clung there. He had no idea if Malfoy had seen him. Harry opened his mouth but his teeth clacked together, shuttering his words into a mere whoosh of air. The thick coat and snow pants felt heavier than rocks; the water became huge fingers so cold they burned as they wrapped around his body. Harry kicked feebly, trying to breathe, but his lungs heaved and released in stuttering hitches. The ice under his fingers cracked off and plunked into the water, buoying back to the surface.
For a second, Harry submerged and was met with absolute silence. Only the faint thud of blood in his ears. It was so dark, so black. Light above, but nothing underneath. His ears were buzzing. Icy water filled his mouth, thick with salt. Harry could not tell if he had broken the surface again or if he was still plunging down into the abyss below. An image struck him, strangely: the open maw of a Dementor. Any moment, he would hear Ginny’s choking cry, he would look out over the water and see…
There was the thunk of a body hitting the ice above him. Two gloved hands plunged into the water and latched around his forearms. Harry let go of the ice and kicked, but his fingers would not tighten around the arms pulling at him. He could hear Malfoy’s voice above the cotton buzz in his ears. “Kick, kick, come on. I’ve got you, now—push—”
Malfoy gave a mighty heave and Harry slid over the lip of the ice and out of the water. His body was a mass of fire, his face hurt. Malfoy tugged him away from the hole. Harry curled his arms to himself, feeling the strange, otherwordly sensation of being lifted, half-pulled over the snow. He fell and Malfoy’s arms clenched around him, dragged him toward a blur of yellow.
Harry legs were barely moving by the time they reached the tents. Already Malfoy was jerking at the buttons of Harry’s jacket, his other hand fumbling with the tent flap. Harry collapsed onto his hands and knees in the snow. He couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering.
“Harry—”
He heard the rasp of a zipper and then Malfoy had him under the arms again and was pulling him into one of the tents. He stumbled forward, but his legs gave out and he went down in a heap on the tumble of sleeping bag and blankets. Malfoy rolled him onto his back and yanked the zipper of his coat down, peeling it from his body. He flung the sopping thing into a corner and went to work on Harry’s pants.
Harry stared blurrily at the tent’s ceiling as Malfoy undressed him, hearing the harsh gasps of his own breathing from far away, the quick pants that must have been coming from Malfoy. His legs were blocks of lead, his torso cinching like a vise, and all he could feel was an aching, spiking pain through every muscle.
“Potter!” Malfoy’s bare hands were rubbing at Harry’s somehow bare chest. “Harry, breathe slowly, deep breaths—”
Harry tried to force his lungs into obedience but they were not his anymore. They belonged to the frigid darkness under the ice, contracting, contracting, breaking apart as if shattered. Malfoy yanked the soaked wool cap off his head and then he was bundling Harry’s naked body into his sleeping bag. Harry tried to curl up, knees to chest, but his muscles would not obey.
There was a spark to his left and he heard muttered words. A feeble flame had erupted in a cleared spot on the floor. Malfoy crouched over it, wand poised, coaxing the flame higher. He whispered something else and a bright ring flared on the tent floor around the flame before fading. Malfoy stared at the fire for a frozen moment, and then he was moving again, scooting to Harry’s side.
“Harry, can you hear me?”
Harry looked at him dully. Malfoy’s eyes darted over his face and then the wand was back, sweeping up his body. Harry felt a delicate tingle against his flesh – what little of it he could still remember as flesh – and then it vanished, leaving a wake that was even icier than Harry could have imagined.
Blackness began to slide into his vision. Malfoy was cursing.
There was a clatter, and then an odd shuffling. The sound of zippers. Harry was so tired. So tired. If he could just close his eyes… for one… second…
Malfoy’s hands were suddenly on his cheeks. Harry blinked into wide grey eyes.
“Harry… Potter, I’m sorry, the magic won’t work. You— I’m going to—”
Malfoy pursed his lips and stopped speaking. The sleeping bag was folded back from Harry’s body. There was one last rustle, the flump of something heavy over Harry’s legs, and suddenly there was a very warm presence next to him in the sleeping bag. Harry’s entire body convulsed as first an arm and then a leg wrapped themselves around him. Malfoy eased up against him, pressing his long body along Harry’s side, and began to rub vigorously at his chest.
Sparks flared in Harry’s skin and sharp lights scattered before his eyes. Harry groaned and Malfoy tugged him even closer. He worked in silence, smoothing warm hands over Harry’s torso and extremities. Harry cried out as one of his legs began to tingle painfully. Malfoy let out a hiss… might have been a shhh… and tucked the hood of the sleeping bag over Harry’s head. Hands climbed through his hair, breaking off rigid chips of ice and brushing them away. Harry’s face felt stiff, but the hands slid down and moved against his cheeks in slow, deep sweeps. Malfoy’s body shifted and Harry felt new agony as he began to massage his chest again, hard.
“Breathe, Harry,” Malfoy said softly. And… Harry found that he could. A little.
Slowly the massage crawled down his body, over his abdomen, over each hip in flickers of pinching pain. By the time Malfoy got to his thighs, Harry was taking deep lungfuls of air through clacking teeth. His vision cleared somewhat and sense came back to him in a rush. Malfoy’s hands kneaded his thighs. There was a slide of skin against Harry’s torso as the hands reached down for his calves, and Harry realized through a fog that Malfoy was naked.
He lay there until the hands lifted, and all that remained was a persistent cocoon of heat around his limbs. Malfoy was still pressed against his side, one arm now beneath him, wrapped around his shoulder. Harry could feel that hand like a hot brand against his shoulder blade. He turned his head painfully. Malfoy’s profile was pale, blond hair hanging in wisps against his cheeks. He caught Harry looking and the determined set of his mouth disappeared into cautious attentiveness.
“Har… Potter?”
Harry opened his mouth, but the words still felt frozen in his chest. Malfoy looked at him for a moment longer, then nodded and went back to rubbing Harry’s sides. Smooth strokes. Harry watched his profile for as long as he could keep his eyes open, and then let them go unfocused. He began to drift.
~*~
It was absolutely still when Harry floated back into consciousness. He could hear wind, and the muttering of the penguins, but it sounded far off. More immediate was the crackle of the shielded fire, still guttering on the floor of the tent. Harry blinked, encased in warmth. He looked around.
Malfoy lay next to him, turned onto his back. His body was no longer against Harry’s but heat radiated off of him into the confines of the sleeping bag. His eyes were closed under cinder-grey lashes, and his chest rose and fell gently. Only one part of Malfoy touched Harry’s skin: the warm curl of fingers tucked against his side.
Harry did not even let himself contemplate their nonexistent state of dress. He felt too comfortable to move and disturb the heavy layer of stillness that had settled over his limbs. He let himself sink back into a doze. A soft huff of breath from beside him tickled at his senses.
~*~
The wind had picked up and was gusting the walls of the tents. Harry crouched in the open entranceway, tugged the blanket closer over his shoulders, and dug through the pocket of his coat. The material had dried at last, and he could feel it warming to his touch. He sighed. At least the heating incantations spelled into it had not been ruined.
Draco was fixing breakfast over a meager flame. Steam curled out of a small pot on the second stove before being whisked away by the wind. He glanced up at Harry.
“Film’s ruined,” Harry muttered. He closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. “At least I didn’t have all of it on me.”
Draco stirred, gazing down into the pan in front of him. A small sigh. “Potter. I don’t think that’s the most—”
“I know.” Harry looked at Draco. The other man raised his head and met his gaze. Piercing. Harry had to force himself to meet his eyes. His stomach gave an odd swoop. “I… Thank you.”
Draco’s mouth twitched up at the corners. “There’s a storm coming. Either tonight or tomorrow.” He scooped something from the pan, doused the fire, and came to where Harry sat. Harry cupped his hands, and Draco dropped one of what he held into them. Harry felt the burn through the thin cotton glove he was wearing, the phantom touch of Draco’s fingers.
“Scones? How--?”
“Frozen solid.” Draco flashed him a grin. He gestured toward the steaming pot. “Hot water in a tick.”
They sat for a moment, listening to the howl of wind over the highest of the ice cliffs. The penguins’ voices whipped in and out of hearing. Draco fidgeted twice, then let out a breath. “Potter— I hope you…” He stopped, pursed his lips. “What I mean is—”
Harry smiled faintly and almost touched Draco’s shoulder with one fingertip. He drew his hand back. “It’s fine. You did what was necessary.”
Draco looked at him out of the corner of his eye. Harry watched a tall female penguin flap her flippers anxiously at another female.
“Well.” Draco stood, cupping his half-eaten scone in one hand. “If you think you can tear yourself away from your sleeping bag today, there was a new group of chicks starting to gain their ice legs on the western side last night.”
Harry looked up and found Draco’s expression quirked into faint amusement. One well-groomed eyebrow rose tauntingly. “Of course, if you’re still not thawed out—”
“I’m coming, you git.” Harry turned to fetch his coat, hiding his smile. But he didn’t miss the satisfied smirk that flickered across Draco’s face.
~*~
October
The penguins were agitated. They shuffled around Harry’s legs, bumping against him. Harry stood beneath the lowering sky and let the wind shove at him. He stared at the new edge of the ice wall silently.
“Ice must have broken last night.” Draco, behind him. Harry heard the snow creaking as he shifted feet.
The gale beat at Harry’s face and plunged in his ears. The tip of a fluffy wing stuck out from the icefall. Farther up, a long, pointed beak, frosted over. That portion of the wall had been a windbreak.
Draco spoke softly. “Not sure how many.”
Harry turned abruptly away, crunching past the other man. “Doesn’t matter.”
A pause. “Potter.”
“Malfoy, those penguins back there are still alive. The storm’s building again, and I don’t have any more film on me.”
He trudged toward the tents. After a moment, the muffled thump of footsteps echoed his. Harry jerked a glove off and opened the left pocket of his jacket, rummaging for an empty canister for the used film. His shivering fingers encountered the thin edge of Maggie’s photograph. Harry yanked his hand out of his pocket and pulled his glove back on.
~*~
There was an abandoned egg wedged in the snow five inches from Harry’s camera lens. He leaned in, feeling the cold air singe his nostrils. The egg was half black, a dusky film crusting the shell. A single ice-clogged crack zig-zagged over its surface, the crystals translucent blue. Harry hadn’t the faintest idea how it had gotten so far away from the group. The wind maybe. Or a gull who’d at last given up and left it in the snow.
“Potter!”
Harry looked up. Draco was standing on the edge of the Punch Bowl, bright periwinkle against the colorless sky. The man’s hair slapped around his cheeks, but his face was bare and Harry could make out an irritated scowl on his features. He raised one hand in acknowledgment and Draco’s expression soured further.
“Potter, I need you over here. Now.”
Harry cast a glance over the thin snow covering the ice. He grimaced and thought about ignoring his companion. The egg was here. Draco was not. It had been so serene, so… deadly quiet until a moment ago.
“Potter.”
Harry sighed and stood, then turned, making his way across the ice. He struggled up the Bowl’s rim, nearly slipping down twice. Draco watched him walk the edge toward him, eyebrows pinched. Harry stopped a yard away and cleared his throat, looking around for the problem. “What?”
Two hands grabbed the front of his jacket and jerked him nearly off his feet. Harry hissed as Draco spun him away from the narrow rim and up against his body. “What the bloody fuck do you think you’re doing, Potter?”
Harry gritted his teeth and tried to yank his coat out of Draco’s hands. “What the hell— Malfoy, let go of me!”
Draco reaffirmed his grip with one hand and dragged Harry closer. “Not likely. What are you playing at?”
Harry sneered at him. He hadn’t felt his face twist like that in over a year. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snapped.
“What were you doing over there?”
“Taking a picture of an abandoned egg, Malfoy!”
Draco’s eyes darted over his face and narrowed ferociously. He yanked Harry forward and then abruptly shoved him away. “Fuck you, Potter, I didn’t pull you out of that hole just so you could wander back over there again!”
Harry clenched his fists and tried to turn away. “Don’t remind us both how much of an idiot you are, Draco,” he tossed back.
Draco’s sneer looked far more twisted than his own had felt. He grabbed Harry’s shoulder and pushed hard enough to knock him off balance. “I’m not the one acting like a fool though, am I?”
Harry stumbled, found his footing. Heat coursed through him; it wasn’t Malfoy’s business. “Just shut up.”
Draco stood askance in the snow. His whole body was tensed as if ready for Harry to pounce on him. “What is the matter with you, Potter?”
“Nothing’s the matter with me!”
“Bullshit. You’re all over the place! Laughing one minute, then snapping my head off the next. You didn’t speak to me for three days last week, and then afterward you couldn’t seem to shut up. And now this! Are you trying to fall through the ice again?”
The penguins closest to them had shuffled further into the Punch Bowl, cawing anxiously. Harry clenched his teeth. “It’s perfectly safe now.”
“You can’t possibly know that!” Draco stalked over to stand in front of him, a foot from Harry’s face. His expression was hard and ugly, voice suddenly low. “What is this, Potter? All nicely pent up… Here to kill yourself or something? Wouldn’t that be heroic?”
Harry’s rage spiked at the mocking tone. He shoved Draco away, slipping a bit as he did. “You don’t know anything about it,” he yelled. Draco was still shooting daggers at him from his eyes. Harry flushed. “Why the hell are you here, then?”
“I’m here to live, Potter!” Draco raised both hands and scuffed them through his hair. “I’m here to get away from all those sodding people, fuck, people like you who can’t see beyond their own two feet!” His voice was rising, growing more frenzied. The penguins were croaking loudly now.
“I don’t need them, Potter. I don’t need that! Not again. You give them all you can possibly give and they suck it away. They just take and take until you hate everything about them, and then they leave you. Alone! After… after everything you had with—What’s the fucking point? We’re better off on our own!”
The last sentence came out choked. Draco stuttered into silence, breathing heavily. Harry stared at him, at his rosy-flushed cheeks, the trembling of his bottom lip. It was very faint.
Had he… not seen? Surely if Draco had been upset by— he would have said something about the man he’d— Harry knew about what had happened, the chatter of wizarding society, but he hadn’t really… He looked at Draco, harder this time, and suddenly the world felt bigger, for one infinitesimal second. Draco’s pale face, the lines around his mouth and eyes, the thinness to his limbs beneath his heavy clothing, it had all been there, and Harry hadn’t… Even knowing what he did about Draco’s life. About the one who had left him.
“Draco—”
“Don’t. Don’t you even say it’s not like that, Potter. Just… don’t.”
But Draco was staring at him helplessly, eyes darting over his face, flicking to take in his entire body. He saw Draco swallow hard.
“Draco.” Harry licked his lip. Draco’s eyes followed the movement. “It’s not like that. Not everyone… leaves you.”
Draco’s eyes dropped. He shook his head once, slowly. “Harry.”
But it was like that, wasn’t it? Harry turned sightless eyes to the huddle of penguins in the Punch Bowl. Eventually they all just left you, or… or they… He blinked rapidly. The wind stung his eyes.
The fervor in Draco’s face was dying, slipping away. He looked so small, fragile as icicles, and just as iridescent. His lips parted, the flush of life against pale cheeks, soft breaths passing through to wisp on the air. Harry almost reached out. He wanted to—he wanted—
Harry dropped his hand to his side. Eventually you forced them all away. Eventually there was nothing left to be but alone.
~*~
November
It was late afternoon. Harry’s head was throbbing again. He had long since thrown down his pencil and crumpled Maggie’s letter into the deepest pocket of his backpack, and now he was glaring through the wind, trying not to think. The penguins were spread out across the ice, the uncharacteristically warmer air whirling between them.
The landscape looked dull, the penguins mere shadows against the white. Harry’s entire body felt heavy.
A mournful, grating sound rose to his ears from the western side of the bowl. Harry looked up, flinching against the ache in his temples. Draco stood in the middle of the penguin huddle, straight-backed, like a statue. His camera…
Harry squinted. Draco’s camera rested in both hands against his chest, forgotten, the strap twisted around his gloves. Draco was staring at something at his feet.
The cry rose again.
It wasn’t until Harry was mere yards away that the blond looked up and did a double-take. “Harry. It’s… it’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”
He came closer and Draco turned fully to face him. An odd look skittered over his features.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. I just got distracted, you can go back to. To what you were…”
There was a penguin standing very near Draco. A female. Her neck was bent, looking down into the snow. She lifted her head and let forth a broken sound that rattled from deep in her breast. Harry craned his neck.
Draco’s hands came up and pressed him back, two planes of pressure against his chest. His eyes glimmered. “No, Harry, don’t look. Just…”
A baby penguin lay crumpled in the snow. One of its wings was flung up, the other furrowed beneath it against the ice. Its tiny beak was half open. Little black eyes stared out, not yet filmed over; a soft dusting of snow covered its fur. The female penguin shuffled forward and gave it a nudge with her beak. A low, fractured cry cracked its way from her and she blinked.
Harry had seen dead chicks. He’d watched the parents leave them for the food the ocean had to offer, seen them mewl helplessly as they tottered about, watched snow sift over their prone bodies, hiding them from view. But this…
Harry tried to swallow. This was different. This was not abandonment, or natural mishap. This was familiar.
“Oh, god—” Harry could not get air into his lungs. The female penguin moaned again, then stumbled back and raised her head in a keening wail that floated up into the sky. The wind ruffled the downy feathers of the dead chick. Tiny gray feet curled into the snow behind its body, and suddenly it looked so very small.
The mother cried again and Harry dropped to his knees.
“Maggie.” It came out ragged, unvoiced in months. The familiar sound tore the dam wide open and Harry’s eyes flooded. He curled against himself, clutching at his chest. But the image would not leave him: sparking green eyes, curly red hair drifting in a swoop as she ran. A sob tore from him; he shut his eyes tightly, refusing to see, and yet the memory of that day came on and he could not blot it out.
“Why wasn’t I watching?” It wasn’t his voice. It wasn’t. “Why didn’t I move faster? I should have—should— have—”
His breath was coming too fast for words, but they wailed on in his head, beating and beating. The penguin was crying again, her voice fluttering weakly, jarringly. She nudged the chick with her beak. Maggie’s smile was too bright, yet faded and cracked at the edges, and Harry moaned against the sight. His body was falling apart, tearing itself to pieces in its anguish and he fell forward to the snow, unable to do anything but see it happening all over again.
He felt arms slide around him, pulling him away from the icy, dark chill beneath him, up against something firm and warm. Draco’s voice came, hushed and sad. “Harry… Shhh…”
He couldn’t stop it. He had been stopping it, for months. Nearly a year. Harry’s face felt cold; his tears froze on his cheeks and he couldn’t get enough air. Draco’s embrace tightened and suddenly Harry was clinging to him more fiercely than he’d ever clung to anything.
A hand stroked his hair. “Not your fault, Harry.” Draco’s voice shuddered, catching at the end. It sounded so helpless. Harry felt lips brush his forehead. “Not your… Harry, let— just… let it out.”
His body gave out. Maggie’s smile faded and there was just snow and cold, and Draco.
~*~
Harry stared at the ceiling of his tent. His body was empty. Everything was empty. He didn’t even know if he had feelings left, because they had at long last deserted him. He’d wished for it for so long, known that he was heading for it, careening down an icy slope toward it, and now that it had actually happened, he could feel nothing except the hollow core of loss.
He’d never felt so alone in the darkness. If he just… vanished off the world’s edge… he would not even know the difference.
The quiet was interrupted by the sound of a zipper, and a rush of cool air swirled into the tent. Draco crouched there, blond hair flying about his bare head. He met Harry’s eyes for an instant, and then slipped inside, zipping the door closed behind him.
Harry watched him dully. Something in his chest was scratching to get out, to leave him, and he had a horrid feeling it might be his soul. He’d lost his grip on almost everything else. It would make sense for the rest to disappear as well. To leave him behind.
Draco crawled across the tent, his gaze intent on Harry. His jacket was open, showing the white turtleneck beneath. He stopped once he reached Harry’s side and looked at him for a long, silent moment.
“Harry...” It was a statement, heavy in the air between them. Draco’s voice was so soft. Harry felt the edges of the hole inside him burning. He tried to breathe, and it rasped. He wanted… he wanted for there to be something left inside him, telling him he hadn’t been abandoned in the chill wind to blow away, to freeze under mantles of snow. He felt forgotten. Harry’s hand twitched in the confines of its glove, lifted, searching for what he hadn’t yet reached for. It hung in the air, inches from the pale cheek before him, the warmth he had forgotten how to feel. He’d forgotten it existed, that he had the ability, the desire once, to feel it. He wanted to feel it. He wanted…
“Draco… Can. Please. Can you—?”
“What, Harry?” Draco’s voice was barely there. Harry’s gloved fingers touched his lips. They parted slightly. Wide grey eyes looked back at him, and Draco’s lower lip trembled under Harry’s fingertips.
“Draco, I… want… I want…”
Draco’s face shivered. His eyes filled with something unnamable. He leaned forward.
His hand found Harry’s and slid his glove off. Draco touched cool lips to the flesh of his wrist. Harry shifted, and then fingers were tugging at his coat buttons, easing beneath the waistline of his snow pants. Draco’s hands were warm, swiftly losing heat as they stroked up his chest. He pulled back the sleeping bag and swung one leg over Harry’s waist, then bent until his breath ghosted over Harry’s lips.
Harry looked up at him mutely. Draco’s eyes were soft silver, and liquid. The expression in them bruised Harry and he swallowed. Draco eased Harry’s coat off his shoulders and settled one hand against his chest, over his heart. His mouth opened once, and then closed wordlessly. Hands tracked their way down and slid Harry’s pants down over his hips. Draco removed his own jacket and pants, sacrificing his heat to the frigid air. Harry watched pale skin reveal itself, the hitching, hesitant motion of Draco’s fingers on buttons, zippers, soft cloth. Draco looked at him, eyes wider than usual. He gently lifted Harry’s thighs, edging between them until his naked hips were touching his body.
The chilly air stung Harry’s skin and he hissed. “Cold…”
Draco nodded and tugged the sleeping bag up around Harry’s sides. He reached back and thumbed through pockets and pockets of his cast-off jacket. When he turned, his hands were glossy with lotion. The air smelled faintly sweet. Harry felt the first brief brush of Draco’s fingers, cool and startling; he hadn’t thought he was still warm anywhere, not even there. Draco stroked and stretched him in silence, and then raised his eyes to look at him. Their depths rippled like disturbed pools. Draco leaned in. His arms climbed under Harry’s body to cradle his shoulders. Harry took a breath and looked at the tent roof. Draco eased inside him slowly, pausing when Harry sucked in more air, and then moving deeper. Harry scrabbled for breath and felt the ice in it burn his lungs. He clung to Draco’s back, curling close.
Draco bent and touched his lips with a kiss. Harry met his gaze and the hollowness in his chest felt as if it had been rubbed raw. Draco kissed him again with a soft brush of tongue. His hands held Harry’s face, the skin of his palms chapped and warm. “There will be others,” he whispered. “Harry… you can still have...”
Harry turned his face away, choking. “I don’t want to. I can’t—go through that again.”
Draco’s cheek brushed over his own and left a trace of wetness on his skin. Pale hands smoothed over Harry’s chest, and he shuddered. Hips shifted against his, touching deep inside him, and Harry moaned, raising his legs higher. The warmth of Draco’s sides beat into his skin. Draco’s fingers clutched his thigh once, slid up and down. Their bodies rocked together, again, and again, deeper, and Harry squeezed his eyes shut.
“I wish I were gone. I want…”
Draco’s voice cracked, fingers trembling over Harry’s lips. “No, don’t, please don’t wish that—”
Harry opened his eyes and saw splintered grey. He felt a tear slide over his cheek. Draco brushed it away with his thumb and Harry lifted his head until their lips met, not knowing how to feel. Draco’s hips thrust against his, warm skin, so, so warm, and Harry curled his legs around the backs of Draco’s thighs, clenching his toes. He moved, allowed himself to be moved. He could feel Draco’s hands splayed under his shoulders, fingers pressing.
Harry forced himself to breathe. His hands found Draco’s hair, velvety as snow. He gave a soft cry as their hips rose, and another. Another. Draco’s lips pressed against his throat. All of Harry’s emptiness was draining away, leaving a warmth he hadn’t felt in months in its place. He clung to Draco, and let the quiet sounds they had begun to make fill him to the brim, until he overflowed. His body clenched, hard, endlessly, and then he opened his eyes and blinked against the blurry colors.
Draco’s body moved against his, within his, for another shivery second, and then Harry’s mouth was touched again by that feathery kiss. He could feel Draco shuddering and pulled him close. His muscles felt weak, on the verge of disappearing. Harry tried to speak and Draco’s breath fluttered back in a shaky ripple over his lips. Harry curled his legs around the body above him, clenching his thighs desperately, and felt tears begin to slide down his face, freezing as they went.
The wind was the only sound for several seconds. Then Draco shifted slowly, pulling his warmth away from Harry. He raised his eyes and Harry was caught in the resignation there, the carefully tended ache he had seen before, but which was now falling to bits, leaving behind… barren sweeps of white. Harry struggled to speak; the words were right on the tip of his tongue, but his entire body was filling at last and the sensation was far too much. Far too much.
“Draco…”
The other man looked at him through shadowed eyes. A trace of a smile flickered over his features.
“It’s alright, Harry.”
His arms slid hesitantly up and wrapped themselves around Harry’s body. Draco settled with an empty sigh and Harry shut his eyes against the sting of tears. He could not even find the breath to say the thank you he yearned to voice.
~*~
The last of the penguin chicks toddled, slid, skidded, and finally dove off the edge of the ice two hours before lunchtime. Harry stood, camera between his fingers, and watched the ripples lap the crust. A breeze was rushing over the ice, pushing snow flurries along in front of it
On the horizon, the two blue dots that were Sanoe and Jamus approached steadily.
Draco crouched on the rim of the Punch Bowl, jacket unzipped, camera clicking. His hat was tugged low over his forehead, hood tight around it, but longish blond tendrils still wisped in the air currents. His cheeks were a gentle pink. As Harry watched, he rose, stepped several yards to the left and crouched again. His camera shutter snapped twice over the barren expanse below him, once so filled with life, now empty of everything but blue shadows.
Harry raised his Nikon to his eye, focused in on Draco’s profile, and took the last two shots. The film began to rewind in a soft whirr.
They had barely spoken since that night. Standing in the strong sunlight, Harry felt for the curious tightness he had born for so long, and once again found it loosened. The weightlessness fluttered at his nerves, forcing a deep breath, then another. Today… today he felt taut again, but in a new, unfamiliar way.
Draco’s passage through the snow a foot away from Harry over breakfast, along the Punch Bowl in the waning light, or crunching softly over the ice outside Harry’s tent felt like a touch, a brush of his fingertips. His face was passive whenever Harry saw it now. Harry fingered the used film rolls in his pocket. The penguins were there in those canisters, but also that fragile countenance, as yet ungraspable. Pictures and pictures of Draco.
He made his way back to his tent and began to dismantle it. The sun felt hot on his back, and Harry shrugged off his overcoat halfway through. Slowly his sled filled. Harry rolled his sleeping bag and strapped it in, boiled snow into water and filled his canteens. He had a ways to walk before he reached the Port site. The stove came down and went on the sled, then his folded clothing. The tarp his tent had rested on. His Nikons, locked in their case and bundled in his thickest sweater.
When Harry looked up, Draco was still at the Bowl, hunkered down in the snow. He was drawing again. Beyond him, Sanoe and Jamus jogged, close enough now for Harry to see the black of Jamus’ hair. Harry’s feet felt strangely heavy.
He gazed over the Punch Bowl, his throat suddenly constricted. Draco had risen, notebook still clutched in one pale hand. He was staring at Harry. Harry looked back, loosely gripping his sled straps. For a moment, the wind dropped and silence descended around them like a veil.
Draco’s throat bobbed visibly.
Sanoe’s faint laughter broke through the hush and Harry blinked. It was time; if he waited any longer he would miss his Portkey. He looked at Draco, opening his mouth, but the sounds, the words, did not come.
Draco’s eyes flickered. He raised one hand. Harry hesitated, then returned the gesture. He turned slowly, picked up the lines of his sled, and began to jog across the snow, leaving the Punch Bowl behind.
...
Part 2
coffeejunkii for her incredible support and patience with me, and to fireelemental79 for the incessant beta-ing. *loves deeply*Title: World's Edge (1/2)
Author: me
Pairing: H/D with some previous other pairings
Rating: Hard R. Hard.
Summary: In the harshest environment on earth, Harry finds that escaping is harder than simply running.
Warning: This is extremely angsty. There are difficult issues to deal with here.
Disclaimer: Not my boys, or my penguins. This story comes from the HP fandom, and was inspired by the gorgeous film March of the Penguins (American version). Please go see it.
Another disclaimer: In writing this fic, I have tried my darndest to follow the cycle of an Antarctic winter. But guys, I am not a biologist, nor am I a meteorologist, and I do not specialize in the Antarctic in the slightest. So, there are bound to be errors in this story. I am well aware of that. But for some of the other things that happen, suffice it to say that nature is a creature of extreme variance, and things never go quite the way they are expected to.
...
World's Edge
Part 1
“…in some ways this is a story about survival, a tale of life over death. But it’s more than that, really.
This is a story about love.”
~Morgan Freeman
March of the Penguins
Late June
The sunlight cut into Harry’s retinas in a glistering sweep. He tightened his fingers around his omnioculars and watched the blue-suited figure trudging through the snow. Moving at a good pace, arms swinging out to bring the tips of ski poles deep into the ice.
Harry lowered his omnioculars and the figure became a dusky lilac blur on the horizon. The wind whipped at his bare cheeks.
Boots crunched through the snow behind him and a hand touched his shoulder through the thick padding of his jacket. He turned and saw Sanoe crouched beside him. Her voice was muffled by the thick scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face.
“We’re leaving you the extra tent, just in case. The females have already started to leave. Extra rations, fuel for the stove… Jamus put the weather balloon next to your sleeping bag. He’s afraid the wind will rip the material if he leaves it outside.” There was a raucous cawing down the slope, followed by the trumpeting of a male emperor penguin. Sanoe glanced down and then back at him. Harry did not follow her eyes.
She tilted her head to one side, then tugged off one of her gloves and touched the patch of skin he had not bothered to cover, just under his eyes. Her fingers were already white from the chill. “Going to be alright here?” she asked softly.
Harry smiled, knowing she would see it even with his mouth covered. “I’ll be fine.”
Sanoe nodded. Her hazel eyes crinkled at the edges. She looked past him. Harry turned his head and found the figure in blue again. The haze shimmered like heat waves, blurring the person’s outline. With a sigh, Sanoe stood and tugged her glove back on.
Harry looked up at her. “Take care out there.”
Sanoe nodded. She tapped one finger against her sun-goggles. Harry slid his own down over his eyes and the white world darkened to grays and blues. He waved once as she slid-walked down the slope toward Jamus. Jamus returned the gesture, and Sanoe too lifted her hand. They picked up their sled ropes from the snow and set off across the crystal expanse.
Harry settled his omnioculars around his neck. He lifted his camera instead and directed its lens on the hordes of croaking, meandering penguins in the Punch Bowl – for that was what Sanoe had laughingly termed it just before an early blizzard caved the west side into a trench. He focused on a male shuffling a large egg on his claws, snapping the picture just as the magnificent bird curved its neck to peer at his briefly revealed treasure.
Harry changed rolls of film carefully, angled around to better accommodate the blustering snowdrifts, and jotted down a note about the old female with the scar across her flipper. When he looked up, the blue-coated figure was one hundred yards out. The sled lurched along behind him with each jogging step.
Harry pursed his lips and raised his camera, taking a picture of his teammate’s approach for later documentation.
Draco Malfoy said nothing as he pulled the sled up over the hump of snow around the Punch Bowl. He turned his head toward Harry once and then headed for the yellow tent. Harry got up and moved around the rim of the Bowl until he had the towering ice wall behind the penguins. He crouched, focused, and clicked the shutter three times.
The sun was still above the horizon when Harry returned to the tent area. Now there were two, side by side in the snow. Malfoy sat on a crust of ice and assembled his large camera lens.
“Getting late,” Harry said. Malfoy nodded, not looking his way. The sun was dipping, turning the sky a vibrant orange. Harry opened the flap of his tent and pulled out a small stove, settling it in the snow between two drifts Jamus had muscled into place to block the wind. Harry scooped snow into the metal bowl, then removed his wand from the confines of his jacket and ignited a tiny fire under it. He looked up and found Malfoy’s eyes on him.
“It works. A little.” Harry put his wand away. “Anything bigger disturbs the animals anyway.”
Malfoy turned his attention back to his camera. Harry watched the snow melt in the pot. They were too close to the pole for magic to function correctly. The magnetism warped it and tugged it away. He’d learned not to mind much.
When the water boiled, Harry emptied it into two tin cups and dropped a stiff teabag into each. He stood and approached Malfoy. The man looked up.
“Here.”
Gloved hands took the cup from him. Malfoy sniffed the contents and blinked. “Thank you.”
Harry nodded and set about preparing food he did not really feel like eating.
~*~
The penguins fluffed the snow in plumes with their flippers. The noise was cacophonous. Harry flexed his fingers and struggled to make his writing legible. He had a headache. The steady click of Malfoy’s camera came to his ears.
One of the last female penguins remaining stroked her beak up her mate’s throat. He bent his head, she followed, and Harry watched the resemblance of a heart form from the shape of their two bodies. He sighed heavily and thought of where Ginny might be at that moment.
Malfoy’s shutter stopped clicking. He stared at the two penguins, camera cradled in both hands. The male penguin made a soft croaking sound and the female swept up his chest again, whirring in her throat.
“Well.” Malfoy’s voice was flat. It bit in the still air. “Some species can be monogamous at least.”
Harry pursed his lips. “They only stay together for a year.”
He wrote, Maggie, you would adore these penguins. It seems they put such trust in each other. To come back, not to desert the other one.
“That would be a record for some people,” came Malfoy’s bitter reply.
Harry frowned. His head was pounding. “Well, maybe you should choose a more loyal person next time, Malfoy,” he snapped, then thought about what a hypocritical bastard he was. At least some people knew themselves well enough before a relationship began to avoid complications later on—
Malfoy’s eyes were like dead ice. “Fuck off, Potter.” He turned and moved away over the snow, heading for the far huddle of males along the east wall.
Harry watched him for a moment, and then shook himself and turned back to the penguins.
~*~
The wind woke Harry, wrapping itself around the tent and flapping the sides furiously. Images of Maggie’s auburn hair and green eyes faded. Harry peered blurrily at his watch. The middle of the night, but it really made no difference. It was dark day in and day out now.
He gave up on sleep at last and struggled out of his sleeping bag, still holding the photograph of Maggie. He had been looking at it before drifting off. A few miserably cold moments later, he left the tent, zipping his jacket up to his chin. The penguins were murmuring. Telltale cries and squawks whipped in and out of Harry’s hearing.
Yellow and blue lights shifted over the snow. It reminded Harry of the fireworks Maggie loved so much. Harry swallowed, pushing the thought away, and made for the edge of the Punch Bowl. Several yards from the slope, he came to a stop.
Malfoy was sitting on the edge, boots planted in the snow to stop his downward slide. His head was tilted up, flickers of the Southern Lights playing over his face. Harry hesitated, then closed the distance and sat down a yard or two away. He looked up at the night sky and saw ribbons of color waving overhead.
Malfoy shifted. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Harry closed his eyes. “I don’t sleep all that much,” he murmured.
Malfoy was looking at him. Harry fought with himself for several seconds, but ended up catching the other man’s gaze anyway. Malfoy’s eyes were dark, penetrative. Harry looked away, wondering if maybe Malfoy knew why he didn’t sleep. Everyone else seemed to.
He struggled with himself for a moment. “Malfoy, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s so quiet here,” Malfoy cut in. He was looking into the sky again. Harry listened to the squawks and cries, the blustering wind. He felt the first tug of a smile.
“Sounds pretty noisy to me.”
Malfoy turned what could have been a half-smile on him. It was hard to see in the fluctuating light. His eyes fell on the cliffs on the west side of the Punch Bowl. “It’s quiet where it counts. There aren’t any…”
Harry nodded before Malfoy could get the word out. No. There aren’t any people. Malfoy glanced at him and opened his mouth again. Harry waited, but Draco ended up looking away without saying anything more.
The Southern Lights had gone pale pink when Harry finally rose and went back to his tent, leaving Draco at the edge of the Punch Bowl and the shifting darkness flowing into it.
~*~
August
Harry walked the long shadows of the ice cliffs, pausing every few steps to note the number of males along the north side of the group. Low mutters and occasional harsh trumpeting were interspersed with high-pitched warbles and hoots. The sky was the color of charcoal, fading to silver-yellow just above the horizon. The ice shone in a kaleidoscope of glimmers, winding deeply into its depths.
Malfoy’s blue suit stood out in the dim light. He was once again in the midst of a group of meandering males, camera fixed to his eye. Harry had often seen him like that, when he actually broke himself away from his own photography long enough to note the time or the nagging voice telling him to eat.
Malfoy knelt and angled his camera. Harry caught sight of a familiar smirk before the man murmured, “Is that a penguin chick under your skin flap, or are you just happy to see me?”
Harry couldn’t help it; a laugh bubbled up and burst from him. It was an awkward sound. He hadn’t felt anywhere close to laughter in so long. Malfoy turned quickly, lowering his camera, a look of surprise on his features. The expression became guarded, then melted into a hesitant – but genuine – smile. Malfoy was all gleaming teeth and crinkled eyes when he smiled. Harry had never really seen it before.
The male penguin who had been the object of Malfoy’s comment gave a short, guttural caw. He looked down and the sleek feathers at the base of his belly rose little by little, until a slightly damp head poked out. The penguin chick blinked and hooted, its too-big head rocking up and down.
“They look soft enough to touch,” Malfoy murmured. Harry stared at the penguin chick for one teetering moment, and then shook himself. He raised his Nikon and zoomed closely on the still visible head, clicking the shutter. Then he pulled the focus out until Malfoy’s form showed on the left side, and took another picture.
“We aren’t allowed.”
Malfoy looked at him, eyes narrowed. Harry stood and brushed his knees off. He gestured at the horizon. “It’s late. You think you can…”
Malfoy nodded.
Harry started back toward the tents. “I’ll… get dinner going.”
A low voice came to his ears. “Potter. Who… who are you writing to all the time?”
Harry did not fully face him. The sun was just beginning to dip back under the horizon, giving up its fight for the sky. “My daughter,” he said stiffly.
The other man shifted and Harry had the sense that more words were imminent. But Malfoy only stared at him for an indefinable moment and turned away. He nodded once, a bob of his head. Almost to himself.
Harry made his way back to the tents slowly.
~*~
A horrendous tumult of croaking and cawing had Harry dashing around the tents, slipping on the ice and struggling to keep his balance. He fumbled for his camera strap, and ran to the edge of the Punch Bowl, skidding to a stop on the very lip of it. Malfoy was already down in amongst the straggling males. As soon as he saw Harry he started waving and gesturing, whatever words he was yelling lost in the din.
Harry looked and saw the earliest bunch of females sidling over the eastern edge of the Bowl. As he watched, one slipped onto her belly and slid the rest of the way down, bumping into a more successful descender before coming to a stop. Harry took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then began to pick his way down over the lip, feeling lighter than he had in days.
The first of the starving males had begun to give up and leave two days ago. Harry had watched silently, taking pictures with a dull sort of emptiness. The tiny, ice-encrusted corpses of abandoned chicks had not gone unnoticed by either himself or Malfoy.
The males now sounded their welcome with resounding rack-ack-ack-acks. Harry halted a hundred feet from the edge of the bumbling penguin mass, checking his lens for frost. Malfoy came up beside him, breathing hot puffs of steam. His hood was off, sun-goggles strangely dark against his skin and hair.
The clicking of their cameras was barely audible that close to the penguins. After a time, Malfoy eased down on his knees in the snow, pulled out a small notebook and pencil stub, and began to scribble furiously.
“Look at them, Potter. Can you imagine them coming all this way… just to find a mate?”
Harry had already lowered his camera and was watching a newly reunited couple purring their hellos not fifteen feet from where they stood. He glanced down at Malfoy and was surprised to see a smile there below his snow-goggles. The man’s cheeks were flushed pink in the cold. Harry’s eyes fell to the notepad lying lopsided over Malfoy’s knee. A small but detailed sketch of three penguins took up the page; the adults’ heads were bent, mid-shuffle as they transferred a gangly chick from male to female.
Harry looked up and saw that Malfoy’s smile was trained on him. He looked away. “Thought you weren’t happy with all this monogamy.”
Malfoy’s shoulders rose and fell, and he turned back to the noisy birds. “I never said that,” he answered softly.
He gripped his camera and inched forward across the ice. Harry stayed where he was and watched the weak sunlight glowing through the flaxen strands of Malfoy’s hair. He lifted his camera again.
That night, if he dreamt about Maggie, he didn’t remember it in the morning.
~*~
September
Harry was positioning his tripod to catch a tiny, flapping chick on the Punch Bowl’s rim when the ice groaned. There was a tunktunkTUNK and a patch of brilliant white cracked away to his right. Harry fell sideways and down into the water, dropping his camera.
The water stretched under him to midnight blue and deepest black, the underside of the ice rippling away out of sight. Harry clawed upward and broke the surface with a gasp. The ice couldn’t be this thin here. Could it? No. The penguins would never have chosen this spot if—
The water suddenly soaked through his outer layers and Harry’s calves, thighs, waist, then chest felt as if they were being slashed to ribbons with knives. His gloved hand found the rim of the ice hole and he clung there. He had no idea if Malfoy had seen him. Harry opened his mouth but his teeth clacked together, shuttering his words into a mere whoosh of air. The thick coat and snow pants felt heavier than rocks; the water became huge fingers so cold they burned as they wrapped around his body. Harry kicked feebly, trying to breathe, but his lungs heaved and released in stuttering hitches. The ice under his fingers cracked off and plunked into the water, buoying back to the surface.
For a second, Harry submerged and was met with absolute silence. Only the faint thud of blood in his ears. It was so dark, so black. Light above, but nothing underneath. His ears were buzzing. Icy water filled his mouth, thick with salt. Harry could not tell if he had broken the surface again or if he was still plunging down into the abyss below. An image struck him, strangely: the open maw of a Dementor. Any moment, he would hear Ginny’s choking cry, he would look out over the water and see…
There was the thunk of a body hitting the ice above him. Two gloved hands plunged into the water and latched around his forearms. Harry let go of the ice and kicked, but his fingers would not tighten around the arms pulling at him. He could hear Malfoy’s voice above the cotton buzz in his ears. “Kick, kick, come on. I’ve got you, now—push—”
Malfoy gave a mighty heave and Harry slid over the lip of the ice and out of the water. His body was a mass of fire, his face hurt. Malfoy tugged him away from the hole. Harry curled his arms to himself, feeling the strange, otherwordly sensation of being lifted, half-pulled over the snow. He fell and Malfoy’s arms clenched around him, dragged him toward a blur of yellow.
Harry legs were barely moving by the time they reached the tents. Already Malfoy was jerking at the buttons of Harry’s jacket, his other hand fumbling with the tent flap. Harry collapsed onto his hands and knees in the snow. He couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering.
“Harry—”
He heard the rasp of a zipper and then Malfoy had him under the arms again and was pulling him into one of the tents. He stumbled forward, but his legs gave out and he went down in a heap on the tumble of sleeping bag and blankets. Malfoy rolled him onto his back and yanked the zipper of his coat down, peeling it from his body. He flung the sopping thing into a corner and went to work on Harry’s pants.
Harry stared blurrily at the tent’s ceiling as Malfoy undressed him, hearing the harsh gasps of his own breathing from far away, the quick pants that must have been coming from Malfoy. His legs were blocks of lead, his torso cinching like a vise, and all he could feel was an aching, spiking pain through every muscle.
“Potter!” Malfoy’s bare hands were rubbing at Harry’s somehow bare chest. “Harry, breathe slowly, deep breaths—”
Harry tried to force his lungs into obedience but they were not his anymore. They belonged to the frigid darkness under the ice, contracting, contracting, breaking apart as if shattered. Malfoy yanked the soaked wool cap off his head and then he was bundling Harry’s naked body into his sleeping bag. Harry tried to curl up, knees to chest, but his muscles would not obey.
There was a spark to his left and he heard muttered words. A feeble flame had erupted in a cleared spot on the floor. Malfoy crouched over it, wand poised, coaxing the flame higher. He whispered something else and a bright ring flared on the tent floor around the flame before fading. Malfoy stared at the fire for a frozen moment, and then he was moving again, scooting to Harry’s side.
“Harry, can you hear me?”
Harry looked at him dully. Malfoy’s eyes darted over his face and then the wand was back, sweeping up his body. Harry felt a delicate tingle against his flesh – what little of it he could still remember as flesh – and then it vanished, leaving a wake that was even icier than Harry could have imagined.
Blackness began to slide into his vision. Malfoy was cursing.
There was a clatter, and then an odd shuffling. The sound of zippers. Harry was so tired. So tired. If he could just close his eyes… for one… second…
Malfoy’s hands were suddenly on his cheeks. Harry blinked into wide grey eyes.
“Harry… Potter, I’m sorry, the magic won’t work. You— I’m going to—”
Malfoy pursed his lips and stopped speaking. The sleeping bag was folded back from Harry’s body. There was one last rustle, the flump of something heavy over Harry’s legs, and suddenly there was a very warm presence next to him in the sleeping bag. Harry’s entire body convulsed as first an arm and then a leg wrapped themselves around him. Malfoy eased up against him, pressing his long body along Harry’s side, and began to rub vigorously at his chest.
Sparks flared in Harry’s skin and sharp lights scattered before his eyes. Harry groaned and Malfoy tugged him even closer. He worked in silence, smoothing warm hands over Harry’s torso and extremities. Harry cried out as one of his legs began to tingle painfully. Malfoy let out a hiss… might have been a shhh… and tucked the hood of the sleeping bag over Harry’s head. Hands climbed through his hair, breaking off rigid chips of ice and brushing them away. Harry’s face felt stiff, but the hands slid down and moved against his cheeks in slow, deep sweeps. Malfoy’s body shifted and Harry felt new agony as he began to massage his chest again, hard.
“Breathe, Harry,” Malfoy said softly. And… Harry found that he could. A little.
Slowly the massage crawled down his body, over his abdomen, over each hip in flickers of pinching pain. By the time Malfoy got to his thighs, Harry was taking deep lungfuls of air through clacking teeth. His vision cleared somewhat and sense came back to him in a rush. Malfoy’s hands kneaded his thighs. There was a slide of skin against Harry’s torso as the hands reached down for his calves, and Harry realized through a fog that Malfoy was naked.
He lay there until the hands lifted, and all that remained was a persistent cocoon of heat around his limbs. Malfoy was still pressed against his side, one arm now beneath him, wrapped around his shoulder. Harry could feel that hand like a hot brand against his shoulder blade. He turned his head painfully. Malfoy’s profile was pale, blond hair hanging in wisps against his cheeks. He caught Harry looking and the determined set of his mouth disappeared into cautious attentiveness.
“Har… Potter?”
Harry opened his mouth, but the words still felt frozen in his chest. Malfoy looked at him for a moment longer, then nodded and went back to rubbing Harry’s sides. Smooth strokes. Harry watched his profile for as long as he could keep his eyes open, and then let them go unfocused. He began to drift.
~*~
It was absolutely still when Harry floated back into consciousness. He could hear wind, and the muttering of the penguins, but it sounded far off. More immediate was the crackle of the shielded fire, still guttering on the floor of the tent. Harry blinked, encased in warmth. He looked around.
Malfoy lay next to him, turned onto his back. His body was no longer against Harry’s but heat radiated off of him into the confines of the sleeping bag. His eyes were closed under cinder-grey lashes, and his chest rose and fell gently. Only one part of Malfoy touched Harry’s skin: the warm curl of fingers tucked against his side.
Harry did not even let himself contemplate their nonexistent state of dress. He felt too comfortable to move and disturb the heavy layer of stillness that had settled over his limbs. He let himself sink back into a doze. A soft huff of breath from beside him tickled at his senses.
~*~
The wind had picked up and was gusting the walls of the tents. Harry crouched in the open entranceway, tugged the blanket closer over his shoulders, and dug through the pocket of his coat. The material had dried at last, and he could feel it warming to his touch. He sighed. At least the heating incantations spelled into it had not been ruined.
Draco was fixing breakfast over a meager flame. Steam curled out of a small pot on the second stove before being whisked away by the wind. He glanced up at Harry.
“Film’s ruined,” Harry muttered. He closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. “At least I didn’t have all of it on me.”
Draco stirred, gazing down into the pan in front of him. A small sigh. “Potter. I don’t think that’s the most—”
“I know.” Harry looked at Draco. The other man raised his head and met his gaze. Piercing. Harry had to force himself to meet his eyes. His stomach gave an odd swoop. “I… Thank you.”
Draco’s mouth twitched up at the corners. “There’s a storm coming. Either tonight or tomorrow.” He scooped something from the pan, doused the fire, and came to where Harry sat. Harry cupped his hands, and Draco dropped one of what he held into them. Harry felt the burn through the thin cotton glove he was wearing, the phantom touch of Draco’s fingers.
“Scones? How--?”
“Frozen solid.” Draco flashed him a grin. He gestured toward the steaming pot. “Hot water in a tick.”
They sat for a moment, listening to the howl of wind over the highest of the ice cliffs. The penguins’ voices whipped in and out of hearing. Draco fidgeted twice, then let out a breath. “Potter— I hope you…” He stopped, pursed his lips. “What I mean is—”
Harry smiled faintly and almost touched Draco’s shoulder with one fingertip. He drew his hand back. “It’s fine. You did what was necessary.”
Draco looked at him out of the corner of his eye. Harry watched a tall female penguin flap her flippers anxiously at another female.
“Well.” Draco stood, cupping his half-eaten scone in one hand. “If you think you can tear yourself away from your sleeping bag today, there was a new group of chicks starting to gain their ice legs on the western side last night.”
Harry looked up and found Draco’s expression quirked into faint amusement. One well-groomed eyebrow rose tauntingly. “Of course, if you’re still not thawed out—”
“I’m coming, you git.” Harry turned to fetch his coat, hiding his smile. But he didn’t miss the satisfied smirk that flickered across Draco’s face.
~*~
October
The penguins were agitated. They shuffled around Harry’s legs, bumping against him. Harry stood beneath the lowering sky and let the wind shove at him. He stared at the new edge of the ice wall silently.
“Ice must have broken last night.” Draco, behind him. Harry heard the snow creaking as he shifted feet.
The gale beat at Harry’s face and plunged in his ears. The tip of a fluffy wing stuck out from the icefall. Farther up, a long, pointed beak, frosted over. That portion of the wall had been a windbreak.
Draco spoke softly. “Not sure how many.”
Harry turned abruptly away, crunching past the other man. “Doesn’t matter.”
A pause. “Potter.”
“Malfoy, those penguins back there are still alive. The storm’s building again, and I don’t have any more film on me.”
He trudged toward the tents. After a moment, the muffled thump of footsteps echoed his. Harry jerked a glove off and opened the left pocket of his jacket, rummaging for an empty canister for the used film. His shivering fingers encountered the thin edge of Maggie’s photograph. Harry yanked his hand out of his pocket and pulled his glove back on.
~*~
There was an abandoned egg wedged in the snow five inches from Harry’s camera lens. He leaned in, feeling the cold air singe his nostrils. The egg was half black, a dusky film crusting the shell. A single ice-clogged crack zig-zagged over its surface, the crystals translucent blue. Harry hadn’t the faintest idea how it had gotten so far away from the group. The wind maybe. Or a gull who’d at last given up and left it in the snow.
“Potter!”
Harry looked up. Draco was standing on the edge of the Punch Bowl, bright periwinkle against the colorless sky. The man’s hair slapped around his cheeks, but his face was bare and Harry could make out an irritated scowl on his features. He raised one hand in acknowledgment and Draco’s expression soured further.
“Potter, I need you over here. Now.”
Harry cast a glance over the thin snow covering the ice. He grimaced and thought about ignoring his companion. The egg was here. Draco was not. It had been so serene, so… deadly quiet until a moment ago.
“Potter.”
Harry sighed and stood, then turned, making his way across the ice. He struggled up the Bowl’s rim, nearly slipping down twice. Draco watched him walk the edge toward him, eyebrows pinched. Harry stopped a yard away and cleared his throat, looking around for the problem. “What?”
Two hands grabbed the front of his jacket and jerked him nearly off his feet. Harry hissed as Draco spun him away from the narrow rim and up against his body. “What the bloody fuck do you think you’re doing, Potter?”
Harry gritted his teeth and tried to yank his coat out of Draco’s hands. “What the hell— Malfoy, let go of me!”
Draco reaffirmed his grip with one hand and dragged Harry closer. “Not likely. What are you playing at?”
Harry sneered at him. He hadn’t felt his face twist like that in over a year. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snapped.
“What were you doing over there?”
“Taking a picture of an abandoned egg, Malfoy!”
Draco’s eyes darted over his face and narrowed ferociously. He yanked Harry forward and then abruptly shoved him away. “Fuck you, Potter, I didn’t pull you out of that hole just so you could wander back over there again!”
Harry clenched his fists and tried to turn away. “Don’t remind us both how much of an idiot you are, Draco,” he tossed back.
Draco’s sneer looked far more twisted than his own had felt. He grabbed Harry’s shoulder and pushed hard enough to knock him off balance. “I’m not the one acting like a fool though, am I?”
Harry stumbled, found his footing. Heat coursed through him; it wasn’t Malfoy’s business. “Just shut up.”
Draco stood askance in the snow. His whole body was tensed as if ready for Harry to pounce on him. “What is the matter with you, Potter?”
“Nothing’s the matter with me!”
“Bullshit. You’re all over the place! Laughing one minute, then snapping my head off the next. You didn’t speak to me for three days last week, and then afterward you couldn’t seem to shut up. And now this! Are you trying to fall through the ice again?”
The penguins closest to them had shuffled further into the Punch Bowl, cawing anxiously. Harry clenched his teeth. “It’s perfectly safe now.”
“You can’t possibly know that!” Draco stalked over to stand in front of him, a foot from Harry’s face. His expression was hard and ugly, voice suddenly low. “What is this, Potter? All nicely pent up… Here to kill yourself or something? Wouldn’t that be heroic?”
Harry’s rage spiked at the mocking tone. He shoved Draco away, slipping a bit as he did. “You don’t know anything about it,” he yelled. Draco was still shooting daggers at him from his eyes. Harry flushed. “Why the hell are you here, then?”
“I’m here to live, Potter!” Draco raised both hands and scuffed them through his hair. “I’m here to get away from all those sodding people, fuck, people like you who can’t see beyond their own two feet!” His voice was rising, growing more frenzied. The penguins were croaking loudly now.
“I don’t need them, Potter. I don’t need that! Not again. You give them all you can possibly give and they suck it away. They just take and take until you hate everything about them, and then they leave you. Alone! After… after everything you had with—What’s the fucking point? We’re better off on our own!”
The last sentence came out choked. Draco stuttered into silence, breathing heavily. Harry stared at him, at his rosy-flushed cheeks, the trembling of his bottom lip. It was very faint.
Had he… not seen? Surely if Draco had been upset by— he would have said something about the man he’d— Harry knew about what had happened, the chatter of wizarding society, but he hadn’t really… He looked at Draco, harder this time, and suddenly the world felt bigger, for one infinitesimal second. Draco’s pale face, the lines around his mouth and eyes, the thinness to his limbs beneath his heavy clothing, it had all been there, and Harry hadn’t… Even knowing what he did about Draco’s life. About the one who had left him.
“Draco—”
“Don’t. Don’t you even say it’s not like that, Potter. Just… don’t.”
But Draco was staring at him helplessly, eyes darting over his face, flicking to take in his entire body. He saw Draco swallow hard.
“Draco.” Harry licked his lip. Draco’s eyes followed the movement. “It’s not like that. Not everyone… leaves you.”
Draco’s eyes dropped. He shook his head once, slowly. “Harry.”
But it was like that, wasn’t it? Harry turned sightless eyes to the huddle of penguins in the Punch Bowl. Eventually they all just left you, or… or they… He blinked rapidly. The wind stung his eyes.
The fervor in Draco’s face was dying, slipping away. He looked so small, fragile as icicles, and just as iridescent. His lips parted, the flush of life against pale cheeks, soft breaths passing through to wisp on the air. Harry almost reached out. He wanted to—he wanted—
Harry dropped his hand to his side. Eventually you forced them all away. Eventually there was nothing left to be but alone.
~*~
November
It was late afternoon. Harry’s head was throbbing again. He had long since thrown down his pencil and crumpled Maggie’s letter into the deepest pocket of his backpack, and now he was glaring through the wind, trying not to think. The penguins were spread out across the ice, the uncharacteristically warmer air whirling between them.
The landscape looked dull, the penguins mere shadows against the white. Harry’s entire body felt heavy.
A mournful, grating sound rose to his ears from the western side of the bowl. Harry looked up, flinching against the ache in his temples. Draco stood in the middle of the penguin huddle, straight-backed, like a statue. His camera…
Harry squinted. Draco’s camera rested in both hands against his chest, forgotten, the strap twisted around his gloves. Draco was staring at something at his feet.
The cry rose again.
It wasn’t until Harry was mere yards away that the blond looked up and did a double-take. “Harry. It’s… it’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”
He came closer and Draco turned fully to face him. An odd look skittered over his features.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. I just got distracted, you can go back to. To what you were…”
There was a penguin standing very near Draco. A female. Her neck was bent, looking down into the snow. She lifted her head and let forth a broken sound that rattled from deep in her breast. Harry craned his neck.
Draco’s hands came up and pressed him back, two planes of pressure against his chest. His eyes glimmered. “No, Harry, don’t look. Just…”
A baby penguin lay crumpled in the snow. One of its wings was flung up, the other furrowed beneath it against the ice. Its tiny beak was half open. Little black eyes stared out, not yet filmed over; a soft dusting of snow covered its fur. The female penguin shuffled forward and gave it a nudge with her beak. A low, fractured cry cracked its way from her and she blinked.
Harry had seen dead chicks. He’d watched the parents leave them for the food the ocean had to offer, seen them mewl helplessly as they tottered about, watched snow sift over their prone bodies, hiding them from view. But this…
Harry tried to swallow. This was different. This was not abandonment, or natural mishap. This was familiar.
“Oh, god—” Harry could not get air into his lungs. The female penguin moaned again, then stumbled back and raised her head in a keening wail that floated up into the sky. The wind ruffled the downy feathers of the dead chick. Tiny gray feet curled into the snow behind its body, and suddenly it looked so very small.
The mother cried again and Harry dropped to his knees.
“Maggie.” It came out ragged, unvoiced in months. The familiar sound tore the dam wide open and Harry’s eyes flooded. He curled against himself, clutching at his chest. But the image would not leave him: sparking green eyes, curly red hair drifting in a swoop as she ran. A sob tore from him; he shut his eyes tightly, refusing to see, and yet the memory of that day came on and he could not blot it out.
“Why wasn’t I watching?” It wasn’t his voice. It wasn’t. “Why didn’t I move faster? I should have—should— have—”
His breath was coming too fast for words, but they wailed on in his head, beating and beating. The penguin was crying again, her voice fluttering weakly, jarringly. She nudged the chick with her beak. Maggie’s smile was too bright, yet faded and cracked at the edges, and Harry moaned against the sight. His body was falling apart, tearing itself to pieces in its anguish and he fell forward to the snow, unable to do anything but see it happening all over again.
He felt arms slide around him, pulling him away from the icy, dark chill beneath him, up against something firm and warm. Draco’s voice came, hushed and sad. “Harry… Shhh…”
He couldn’t stop it. He had been stopping it, for months. Nearly a year. Harry’s face felt cold; his tears froze on his cheeks and he couldn’t get enough air. Draco’s embrace tightened and suddenly Harry was clinging to him more fiercely than he’d ever clung to anything.
A hand stroked his hair. “Not your fault, Harry.” Draco’s voice shuddered, catching at the end. It sounded so helpless. Harry felt lips brush his forehead. “Not your… Harry, let— just… let it out.”
His body gave out. Maggie’s smile faded and there was just snow and cold, and Draco.
~*~
Harry stared at the ceiling of his tent. His body was empty. Everything was empty. He didn’t even know if he had feelings left, because they had at long last deserted him. He’d wished for it for so long, known that he was heading for it, careening down an icy slope toward it, and now that it had actually happened, he could feel nothing except the hollow core of loss.
He’d never felt so alone in the darkness. If he just… vanished off the world’s edge… he would not even know the difference.
The quiet was interrupted by the sound of a zipper, and a rush of cool air swirled into the tent. Draco crouched there, blond hair flying about his bare head. He met Harry’s eyes for an instant, and then slipped inside, zipping the door closed behind him.
Harry watched him dully. Something in his chest was scratching to get out, to leave him, and he had a horrid feeling it might be his soul. He’d lost his grip on almost everything else. It would make sense for the rest to disappear as well. To leave him behind.
Draco crawled across the tent, his gaze intent on Harry. His jacket was open, showing the white turtleneck beneath. He stopped once he reached Harry’s side and looked at him for a long, silent moment.
“Harry...” It was a statement, heavy in the air between them. Draco’s voice was so soft. Harry felt the edges of the hole inside him burning. He tried to breathe, and it rasped. He wanted… he wanted for there to be something left inside him, telling him he hadn’t been abandoned in the chill wind to blow away, to freeze under mantles of snow. He felt forgotten. Harry’s hand twitched in the confines of its glove, lifted, searching for what he hadn’t yet reached for. It hung in the air, inches from the pale cheek before him, the warmth he had forgotten how to feel. He’d forgotten it existed, that he had the ability, the desire once, to feel it. He wanted to feel it. He wanted…
“Draco… Can. Please. Can you—?”
“What, Harry?” Draco’s voice was barely there. Harry’s gloved fingers touched his lips. They parted slightly. Wide grey eyes looked back at him, and Draco’s lower lip trembled under Harry’s fingertips.
“Draco, I… want… I want…”
Draco’s face shivered. His eyes filled with something unnamable. He leaned forward.
His hand found Harry’s and slid his glove off. Draco touched cool lips to the flesh of his wrist. Harry shifted, and then fingers were tugging at his coat buttons, easing beneath the waistline of his snow pants. Draco’s hands were warm, swiftly losing heat as they stroked up his chest. He pulled back the sleeping bag and swung one leg over Harry’s waist, then bent until his breath ghosted over Harry’s lips.
Harry looked up at him mutely. Draco’s eyes were soft silver, and liquid. The expression in them bruised Harry and he swallowed. Draco eased Harry’s coat off his shoulders and settled one hand against his chest, over his heart. His mouth opened once, and then closed wordlessly. Hands tracked their way down and slid Harry’s pants down over his hips. Draco removed his own jacket and pants, sacrificing his heat to the frigid air. Harry watched pale skin reveal itself, the hitching, hesitant motion of Draco’s fingers on buttons, zippers, soft cloth. Draco looked at him, eyes wider than usual. He gently lifted Harry’s thighs, edging between them until his naked hips were touching his body.
The chilly air stung Harry’s skin and he hissed. “Cold…”
Draco nodded and tugged the sleeping bag up around Harry’s sides. He reached back and thumbed through pockets and pockets of his cast-off jacket. When he turned, his hands were glossy with lotion. The air smelled faintly sweet. Harry felt the first brief brush of Draco’s fingers, cool and startling; he hadn’t thought he was still warm anywhere, not even there. Draco stroked and stretched him in silence, and then raised his eyes to look at him. Their depths rippled like disturbed pools. Draco leaned in. His arms climbed under Harry’s body to cradle his shoulders. Harry took a breath and looked at the tent roof. Draco eased inside him slowly, pausing when Harry sucked in more air, and then moving deeper. Harry scrabbled for breath and felt the ice in it burn his lungs. He clung to Draco’s back, curling close.
Draco bent and touched his lips with a kiss. Harry met his gaze and the hollowness in his chest felt as if it had been rubbed raw. Draco kissed him again with a soft brush of tongue. His hands held Harry’s face, the skin of his palms chapped and warm. “There will be others,” he whispered. “Harry… you can still have...”
Harry turned his face away, choking. “I don’t want to. I can’t—go through that again.”
Draco’s cheek brushed over his own and left a trace of wetness on his skin. Pale hands smoothed over Harry’s chest, and he shuddered. Hips shifted against his, touching deep inside him, and Harry moaned, raising his legs higher. The warmth of Draco’s sides beat into his skin. Draco’s fingers clutched his thigh once, slid up and down. Their bodies rocked together, again, and again, deeper, and Harry squeezed his eyes shut.
“I wish I were gone. I want…”
Draco’s voice cracked, fingers trembling over Harry’s lips. “No, don’t, please don’t wish that—”
Harry opened his eyes and saw splintered grey. He felt a tear slide over his cheek. Draco brushed it away with his thumb and Harry lifted his head until their lips met, not knowing how to feel. Draco’s hips thrust against his, warm skin, so, so warm, and Harry curled his legs around the backs of Draco’s thighs, clenching his toes. He moved, allowed himself to be moved. He could feel Draco’s hands splayed under his shoulders, fingers pressing.
Harry forced himself to breathe. His hands found Draco’s hair, velvety as snow. He gave a soft cry as their hips rose, and another. Another. Draco’s lips pressed against his throat. All of Harry’s emptiness was draining away, leaving a warmth he hadn’t felt in months in its place. He clung to Draco, and let the quiet sounds they had begun to make fill him to the brim, until he overflowed. His body clenched, hard, endlessly, and then he opened his eyes and blinked against the blurry colors.
Draco’s body moved against his, within his, for another shivery second, and then Harry’s mouth was touched again by that feathery kiss. He could feel Draco shuddering and pulled him close. His muscles felt weak, on the verge of disappearing. Harry tried to speak and Draco’s breath fluttered back in a shaky ripple over his lips. Harry curled his legs around the body above him, clenching his thighs desperately, and felt tears begin to slide down his face, freezing as they went.
The wind was the only sound for several seconds. Then Draco shifted slowly, pulling his warmth away from Harry. He raised his eyes and Harry was caught in the resignation there, the carefully tended ache he had seen before, but which was now falling to bits, leaving behind… barren sweeps of white. Harry struggled to speak; the words were right on the tip of his tongue, but his entire body was filling at last and the sensation was far too much. Far too much.
“Draco…”
The other man looked at him through shadowed eyes. A trace of a smile flickered over his features.
“It’s alright, Harry.”
His arms slid hesitantly up and wrapped themselves around Harry’s body. Draco settled with an empty sigh and Harry shut his eyes against the sting of tears. He could not even find the breath to say the thank you he yearned to voice.
~*~
The last of the penguin chicks toddled, slid, skidded, and finally dove off the edge of the ice two hours before lunchtime. Harry stood, camera between his fingers, and watched the ripples lap the crust. A breeze was rushing over the ice, pushing snow flurries along in front of it
On the horizon, the two blue dots that were Sanoe and Jamus approached steadily.
Draco crouched on the rim of the Punch Bowl, jacket unzipped, camera clicking. His hat was tugged low over his forehead, hood tight around it, but longish blond tendrils still wisped in the air currents. His cheeks were a gentle pink. As Harry watched, he rose, stepped several yards to the left and crouched again. His camera shutter snapped twice over the barren expanse below him, once so filled with life, now empty of everything but blue shadows.
Harry raised his Nikon to his eye, focused in on Draco’s profile, and took the last two shots. The film began to rewind in a soft whirr.
They had barely spoken since that night. Standing in the strong sunlight, Harry felt for the curious tightness he had born for so long, and once again found it loosened. The weightlessness fluttered at his nerves, forcing a deep breath, then another. Today… today he felt taut again, but in a new, unfamiliar way.
Draco’s passage through the snow a foot away from Harry over breakfast, along the Punch Bowl in the waning light, or crunching softly over the ice outside Harry’s tent felt like a touch, a brush of his fingertips. His face was passive whenever Harry saw it now. Harry fingered the used film rolls in his pocket. The penguins were there in those canisters, but also that fragile countenance, as yet ungraspable. Pictures and pictures of Draco.
He made his way back to his tent and began to dismantle it. The sun felt hot on his back, and Harry shrugged off his overcoat halfway through. Slowly his sled filled. Harry rolled his sleeping bag and strapped it in, boiled snow into water and filled his canteens. He had a ways to walk before he reached the Port site. The stove came down and went on the sled, then his folded clothing. The tarp his tent had rested on. His Nikons, locked in their case and bundled in his thickest sweater.
When Harry looked up, Draco was still at the Bowl, hunkered down in the snow. He was drawing again. Beyond him, Sanoe and Jamus jogged, close enough now for Harry to see the black of Jamus’ hair. Harry’s feet felt strangely heavy.
He gazed over the Punch Bowl, his throat suddenly constricted. Draco had risen, notebook still clutched in one pale hand. He was staring at Harry. Harry looked back, loosely gripping his sled straps. For a moment, the wind dropped and silence descended around them like a veil.
Draco’s throat bobbed visibly.
Sanoe’s faint laughter broke through the hush and Harry blinked. It was time; if he waited any longer he would miss his Portkey. He looked at Draco, opening his mouth, but the sounds, the words, did not come.
Draco’s eyes flickered. He raised one hand. Harry hesitated, then returned the gesture. He turned slowly, picked up the lines of his sled, and began to jog across the snow, leaving the Punch Bowl behind.
...
Part 2
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Re: World's Edge 1
Date: 2006-08-31 05:38 pm (UTC)From:Re: World's Edge 1
Date: 2006-09-01 02:22 pm (UTC)From: