Disclaimer: They're not mine. I just knock them over and play with them, and dress them up in funny clothing and make them talk in high-pitched accents. They belong to J.K. Rowling and her gang of heartless publishers. (Just give me the fifth book and I'll forgive all past sins…until I'm finished with it.)

Warnings: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter. That line between their names is a slash. It means they are together. They might hug, they might kiss, they might have hot, wild screaming monkey sex. If this thought nauseats or sickens you…go away. If you chose not to heed my warning and send me nasty letters, all the more fool you are.

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The words feathered across his skin, etched into his flesh, carved into his mind, burned into his eyelids. It was too close, too close. The sweat became tears, fear making him shiver. This late at night, with the lights extinguished and the world dark, every word became a knife cutting into his skin, torturing his soul with truth. No one could lie here, no untruths told when there was no light to hide from. Every word that passed between his lover's lips was wonderfully, horribly, sincere.

"Are you alright?" came the whisper. It came always like this; when he tensed, when his lover felt the terror rise up in his soul and sought to see it. Sought to solve that horrible darkness within him. It terrified him so much to see the one he loved so close to the truth, when the darkness was there.

"I'm fine, Harry," he whispered back. Three words exchanged, and the three words he didn't want to hear didn't come. One more night holding back the truth, one more night ignoring what he know was there. Sometimes he saw it in Harry's eyes, blindingly green, no shadow of doubt could hide there. But Harry didn't say it, he never said it, and Draco never replied to the honesty of Harry's gaze.

Too much, too deep. It hurt, a delicious pain that wracked Draco's soul in the dark of night, forcing him tense, turning his sweat to tears. It couldn't be love. It couldn't be love. Draco trembled, cold despite the warmth of blankets piled around them both. Love would break him, rip him apart, rend him piece by piece. What would his father say?

Harry didn't know. The silly, powerful, lucky boy-child didn't know how much it hurt. To love without knowing love, to ache with a pain that wasn't, tears that were not pain. Happy tears, a new invention to Draco's life. Finding out Harry was alive, still. One more year alive. Dusting off the ash and the dust and the blood and having those jet-black lashes flutter open, those green eyes seek his, always seeking his eyes. No matter where he moved, Harry always, always knew he was there. He could be standing ten feet away and Harry's eyes would find him, seek him out and greet him with such warmth that Draco wondered that no one had found them out. He prayed no one would find them out, prayed with a fervor that he put into nothing else. To be exposed…he would be forced to give up what he had. To give it up would be to admit to what it was. He dared not admit. Dare not give in to the truth. He wanted Harry there, beside him in bed when all the lights were dark, when the truth lay heavy on them, unspoken.

Warm lips pressed to his cold shoulder, warm breath kissing his skin like butterflies. "If you say so, Draco." Draco could feel Harry's knowing smile, millimeters away from his skin, laughing at his lies, but letting him hold them close. Someday, that invisible smile said, someday you'll believe. Someday the lies will fall. Harry believed it.

Draco shivered, and Harry's lips pressed to his skin once more, calming the fear, bringing peace. Draco smiled to himself, wondering if his lover could feel his own smile, wondering if he would get another kiss if he quivered. Tempting; to just shake, to tremble and let Harry's calming kisses drive it all away. Like a potion, boiling away all his doubts, addictive and euphoric and dangerous. He craved it like a drug, a thousand kisses to drive away a thousand problems.

Silent laughter spilled across Draco's bare skin, glittering in the dim, warm and welcoming, driving away the world, driving away the heavy weight of his father's expectations. A warm hand swept across his back, gentling the curve of his spine, skin on skin on skin, leaving a trail of liquid fire that bubbled beneath the surface. Draco shivered again, this time not from fear or cold. Like happy tears, a new invention. Harry's invention. Shiny and glittery and just bubbling over with everything that was Harry. Draco couldn't bring himself to hate the sensation.

No other touch had done this to him. No other lover could calm the raging storm of thought with a touch, a breath, a kiss, a smile. Every other was pale and shallow in comparison. Harry didn't even have to be there to make everything better. It was just Harry and suddenly the air was cleaner, purer. The Gryffindor banners reminded him, the red-headed children reminded him, seeing Professor Snape and knowing how much Harry didn't like the man, reminded Draco of Harry. If he had anyone who knew, any co-conspirators in his crime, any true friends, Draco's conversation would be littered with Harry-this and Harry-that. Harry won the House Cup today, he would say with pride. Harry defeated Voldemort again today. Hell. Harry breathed today, was good enough.

Lashes fluttered against his spine, and the ache was back, full force. Fear. It would end someday, Draco wanted to yell. It would end, it would all be over, and this safety he'd built would crumble because Harry would be gone and the reminders wouldn't hearten him, they would tear him apart. Gryffindor banners would shatter his heart, the red-headed children would hurt him, Professor Snape would be blessed with the sight of seeing him break down and cry. It had to end because nothing this pure, this Harry could last for someone like him. Someone with his father, with his past and his future. Draco would have to push Harry away, to save him. To save him.

"Shh," Harry whispered. Those green eyes saw, always knew where he was. A million miles away, ten feet distant, lost to the caverns of his mind, those green eyes saw, and caught him. Caught his eyes, caught his soul. Saved him. "Shh, I've got you, I've got you."

Draco nodded, pushing his face down into the pillow, ignoring the tears welling up inside, spilling over. Happy tears. Tears of fear and pain and loss, but now, happiness. "Near me," Draco whispered.

Arms tightened, and Harry was surprisingly strong, Draco always forgot how strong his lover was. Then there was just skin and he couldn't tell where one began and the other ended. Twenty fingers, twenty toes in two shades, tan and pale. It didn't matter whose was whose. They were the same.

"Near you," Harry whispered back.

Always, Draco didn't say. He wondered if the green eyes heard. There was no reply. But then again…there wasn't always a reply.

Please don't send me flowers

They only whisper the sweet things you'd say

Don't try to understand me

Your hands already know too much anyway

It just makes me want to make you near you always

The body pressed against his chest finally gentled, softened, melted into sleep. Harry could feel his lover's silver eyes close, waited until the frenetic tumblings of the other man's brain finally slowed. A sigh of relief echoed through Harry's mind, never vocalized. One more night, one more nightly terror extinguished into sleep. It didn't take much, it never did. A touch, a breath, a kiss, and Draco slept on, past the panic.

Harry wondered what it was this night. Fear of discovery? As if. Harry chuckled gently, squirming their weight around so he could look down at Draco's sleep-gentled features. Hermione said it might be fear of his father, but Snape said he had that corner in hand. Lucious was blind when it came to the inner workings of his son's surprisingly poetic mind. Fear of abandonment?

A silver tear worked its glittering way down Draco's cheek, Harry wiped the water from his own eyes. That seemed the most likely. Draco's eyes spoke it, seeking him always. Harry could feel it, itching on the back of his neck, comforting and disconcerting. When he walked into a room Draco's eyes would immediately fix on him, as if he had been looking for him all along, in the banners over the school, in the clutter of students, in the teacher. Always looking for him. Sometimes Harry could meet his gaze, follow the itching and see Draco standing there, pretending nonchalance with as much skill as a…well, with no skill at all. That Draco honestly thought anyone was fooled—Harry sighed, his smile growing out of proportion. Crabbe and Goyle swore that their fellow Slytheren thought he was being sneaky.

Draco didn't realize. The pale man just didn't seem to know how much it hurt not to be able to run into his arms and comfort him. Only in the dark of night, when he could feel that cold spike of terror run down Draco's back, did Harry get to hold him, wonder if this was how it was all day, without him there to drive off the fears. Draco didn't seem to know that he held Harry's heart in his hands, his eyes looking everwhere else for it.

Harry didn't understand it, Draco's constant search for some concrete proof, some constant in their hard-won relationship. Love. Only their arms winding around each other, twisting and turning until Harry could no longer figure out which leg was his and was long past caring, only then did Draco calm, breathe, sleep with a smile on his face. Like some sort of sly angel, beautiful and deadly, but so lovely, and Draco would never hurt Harry. The silver eyes sought, but the only place they stopped looking was when they looked at Harry.

It was Draco who held them apart, keeping that tense distance between them. Ron called it the staring line, and no one dared get between them, lest they lose sight of each other and… Well, Ron said a lot of things, and not all of them were exactly complementary. Sometimes it was for the better, however. Lucius might be blind, and a blockhead, but if they sat in each other's laps it would be harder for the elder Malfoy to ignore. Probably.

But it was Draco holding them apart, and Harry would abide by Draco's rules by day if he could hold the other man close at night. It hurt them both, but Draco had total power over him, even the power to keep them both in discomfort. Pain, love. It was for the better. Sometimes.

When they made love it all flew away, love, pain, distance, fear of abandonment or anything else, gone in a flurry of sweat and limbs. Gentle and sweet and hot, it was everything sex could be, should be. Of course, Draco was the only person Harry knew in that department, but he knew deep inside that this was the best it was, when the world blew away and he woke up two hours or two seconds later. He had found the best place there was, curled up with Draco, smiling into the shadows, no longer fearing the dark. Draco might have Harry's heart in his teeth, but he treated it gently.

If only they could lie there forever, hearts beating a harmonious duet. Comfort, not in the meeting of gaze across the room, when the world stopped, not even in sex, when the world blew away. Comfort was found in deep night, after the fears were calmed away, when they were just…near.

"Always," Harry breathed, letting his skin sing the word, feeling Draco's body take up the song, a promise. Someday Draco would see. There would be a someday.

--end--

The song is Jewel's 'Near You Always'. The whole story is, in fact, a songfic.