Title: Chase the Shadows Away
Author: FragrantPowders
Beta: Emma, you know I love you (all remaining mistakes are my own).
Pairing: Harry/Other, Harry/Draco
Rating: M/R
Warnings: Darkness, angst, character death
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the Harry Potter universe, JK Rowling does (that lucky lady) and I make no profit of this piece of fanfiction. Please, don't sue; I have no money. Besides that, I do not own the lyrics used in this. ABBA does (again, don't sue).
Author's Notes: The chorus from the ABBA song "Gimme Gimme Gimme" used, so it's kind of a songfic - except, not really. Read and review, please; it makes it worth writing.
Chase the Shadows Away "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!"
Harry moves through the London nightlife like you would expect a panther to move through the jungle. He is the hunter chasing new prey every night, never sated no matter how many men he brings down. The regulars in the bars he prefers often speak of the young man with a hunter's attitude but the eyes of a prey – seemingly haunted by something only he sees.
Harry lives for the night. He uses the maze that is London to run from the memories. He uses his anonymous lovers as a way of forgetting, though they only succeed in making him remember. He visits bar after bar to find someone who can make him feel real; like he exists. Harry ignores the fact that people living in the past are more dead than alive.
He has been running for months. Years. He tells himself he is searching for someone to pour his heart out to but deep inside even he recognises this as a blatant lie. Harry is not looking for love, he is not even looking for sex – he is seeking the ghost of something he can never have back. Ghosts are hard to catch with your bare hands, but Harry tries anyway.
"A man after midnight"
Harry is not picky with his partners. His radar is non-responsive to appearance and age, the only thing that attracts him is power. He goes for men who seems to take charge; men who wants control. Harry is a seducer, but when it comes to fucking he wants to be taken, not take himself.
Normally he does not kiss whomever he ends up with. In the depths of his mind he remembers kisses from once upon a time; gentle kisses, needy kisses – kisses speaking of feeling, and those memories he wants to keep fresh in his mind. Not stained with the feeling of other men's clumsy tongues and breath tasting of alcohol.
Once he has broken this private promise. The man was tall and pale, his hair so blond it seemed almost white – or maybe silver. Harry remembers his fingers the best; they were slender and flawless, nails well-cared-for. He reminded Harry of someone he had once known. Harry never invites his partners home to his own flat. Never. This man got as far as half the way before being dragged into an alley way where Harry was handed few precious moments of sweet oblivion, a second where he did not remember why he turned his back on life and daylight – a moment where he really did believe he had caught the ghost from his past.
That man is also the only one who has ever been allowed to see Harry's face as he comes. However, none of this changed anything, he was just another disappointment in a never-ending row. When he came down from the highs of his orgasm he had kissed Harry on the cheek, zipped up and left without a word. It was a week before Harry had been out hunting again.
Harry does not wear his glasses when he goes out at night. His excuse is that he looks better without them, his eyes seem more green and their spark will be noticed by more potential prey, but the truth is that there is no spark left in Harry's eyes and he wants to be blind when fucked. It is easier to pretend in darkness.
"Won't somebody help me chase the shadows away"
Tonight is no different than the hundreds of nights he has already survived. Once again he finds himself pressed against a dirty wall in a public toilet, some stranger kissing his neck and fumbling with his trousers. Tonight there is no resemblance between his partner and the past.
In the beginning Harry went for blonds only. In the beginning he went trough the whole act with care. Stroking, blowing and fucking as if it meant something to him, as if the men he was with were special. Now he does not care about blond hair or sex resembling love-making. He has stopped caring at all. Not because it would not be nice to go back to that, to the thing that was almost feeling, but because his heart beats slower these days and his body is going numb.
Harry needs to feel that his body is still functioning, that he is still alive, even if it is only physically. He craves the pain because it tells him what he wants to know.
This man is slightly shorter than Harry, fat and black. His hands are dark shadows against the pale skin on Harry's hips. Harry does not care. He leans his forehead against the cool, white tiles, spreading his legs invitingly. All he needs to know is that tonight's choice has a huge cock which will wake Harry's body up just as Harry likes it.
The man's plump fingers poke at Harry's entrance, covered in lube. Harry waves them away impatiently.
"Don't bother," he tells the stranger, not looking over his shoulder, keeping his eyes closed. When you are standing in the dark blindness you do not have to look yourself in the eyes.
"It will hurt if I don't," the man points out gently as if Harry is a virgin who has not taken it up the arse before. Harry would have laughed at this, had he had the energy, but he has not. He is empty inside. That is why he needs the fucking in the first place, to find something to fill out that giant hole Malfoy left when he slammed the door in Harry's face.
Malfoy.
Harry bites his lip, wanting the man to make him forget.
"I can take it," he says harshly, "but if you have a problem you should leave now and I'll find someone else to do it my way."
Harry was surprised at first when he discovered how many of his partners wanted him to be prepared for their intrusion, as if they cared about how much it would hurt him. He always gave them the same ultimatum; fuck me or get lost. None of them had left so far.
The man is silent behind him for a moment, Harry knows how the man's eyes are going up and down his body, from the loose shirt to where his back bends, offering his arse as some kind of sacred gift. Then there is the sound of panting – the man lubing himself, Harry knows – and finally the head of a cock is pressed against his entrance. Harry does not move. He stills himself completely, hands pressed against the wall, breathing as even as possible in a situation like this.
The man slams into him in one hard motion of hips. Harry is grateful as the pain overtakes his body completely, forcing a hoarse cry from his lips. His knees buckle as the man's cock brushes past his prostate, the pleasure-pain mix making his own cock twitch.
Malfoy's voice enters his mind as soon as the man is fully positioned inside him. Malfoy's voice is always right there when Harry is finally – finally – not empty anymore. When he starts feeling truly alive again, there Malfoy is, his voice a whisper from days long since gone. Secretly this is why Harry wants to be fucked hard. He is allowed to hear Malfoy's voice one more time. Harry tells himself he is running and he is – from the mess Malfoy made of him – but when he comes it is because Malfoy whispers to him to let go.
"It's just a fuck, Potter – why do you have to make such a big deal out of it?"
"Because I don't believe in fucking without feeling."
"Oh please, you're such a sap. It's sex – good sex, I'll give you that – but… well, nothing more."
"You've told me you love me."
"I was coming – orgasm makes you talk nonsense."
"I love you."
"Don't be stupid, you can't."
"Why not?"
"Because you're Harry Potter and I'm Draco Malfoy and we can't love each other. It's the way of the world, Potter."
"It doesn't have to be."
"I'm not about to change it."
Harry is sobbing before the man's third thrust. Not because the pain is unbearable – by now it is a weak burn just under his skin, his arse stretched tightly around the huge cock (besides, nothing is pain compared to Cruciatus) – but because he knows this will be yet another insignificant fuck leaving him a little more empty than before. Another failed choice and that means he will be roaming the streets again tomorrow night.
Harry comes as he remembers how Malfoy used to touch him tenderly, not forcing his release from him, but teasing it out of him by exploring his body inch by inch. Harry comes because the echo of the Malfoy he remembers tells him it is okay. He comes because a dreamlike image enters his mind – an image of two boys, survivors of a war that should not have been fought, finding comfort in each other and the privacy of a bedroom no longer existing. A bit like Harry himself.
The man's sperm does not make Harry feel whole. It makes him feel betrayed. He waits for the man to finish dressing, his face hidden in the crook of his arm. When the door to the toilet closes softly Harry has not moved. His legs are still spread and come is running down his inner thighs. When he turns around, he sees a coin on the floor outside one of the stalls. For a fleeting moment Harry thinks it is left there for him, he feels enough of a whore to expect that people would want to pay him.
He dresses in silence, remembering the money Malfoy send him by owl two days after he left.
Good fucks are hard to find.
"Take me through the darkness to the break of the day"
Harry stands on the rail of London Bridge, staring down at the water which the sunrise gives a golden glow. His clothes lie in a discarded heap on the pavement, the morning breeze making Harry shiver, his naked skin trembling from the cold. It hurts a little and Harry is glad.
He remembers a time where he had not yet been destroyed by war and hate and love. He remembers friends living and dying and family members he was not allowed to keep. He remembers a fairy tale castle and an old wizard telling him death was nothing but a new, great adventure. At that time he had not understood – Harry thinks he does, now.
He remembers Malfoy. He remembers the way Malfoy kissed him – that first time. They were young, if not innocent; they had both seen death and both seen destruction. They ached to see something beautiful, something real. Then they kissed and Harry remembers feeling awed.
Harry remembers and decides that he will stop living this pathetic life. His life stopped making sense when Malfoy married Parkinson, his life stopped making sense when love was no longer his protection but his curse.
The water blinks invitingly – seducing in a way Harry with all his talents will never be able to mirror. Harry wonders if it is as cold as the touches of the hundreds of men who have fucked him these past two years. He wonders if the water is as cold as his heart.
"Death is nothing but a new, great adventure," he says out loud. It sounds true. He lets go of the steel wire he has been leaning against this far, balancing on the rail with his arms outstretched. He remembers flying. He remembers being alive and yearns to feel that way again.
"Death is nothing…" he repeats as he takes a tentative step forward, one foot hanging in free air – a rush of something Harry recognises as excitement runs through his body. He is in charge of this; it is his choice.
He overbalances. He slips.
He falls.
He is flying towards the golden waters, facing death – and it makes him feel more alive than ever.