Title: Thin line
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling, the lucky witch, owns Harry Potter and all its affiliates. If I owned it, I would have taken over the world by now.
Rating: I'm going to rate it M, just in case. If my rating is wrong, let me know! Still new to this.
Pairings: The oh-so delicious pairing of DM/HP. Revel in the sheer intensity of it.
Warnings: Foul language, mild sexual content, some tears will be evoked.
Summary: There is always a thin line between love and hate.
Author's Notes: I started to write this a while back, when I felt like making myself cry. I finally finished it! This is also my first time writing so…descriptively? Yes, I think that's a good way of putting it. If it hurts your minds to read or needs some improving, review? Advice is welcome, and I hope you enjoy!
"F*ck you, Potter! I'm done!"
*SLAM*
"Draco!"
Harry's cry echoes in his ear still, even after three hours. You would think that the heavy wind whipping the tall pines and oaks ranging the Ravensmouth Quidditch pitch would fill his ears instead but no.
His luck sucked.
"Draco!" F*ck, now it was tangible! "Down here you prat!" Oh… He swivels his body where it lounged in the shortest goal hoop towards the git that stood glaring up at him. Weasley literally had his hands on his hips. If Draco wasn't so upset, he'd say something derisive.
"What do you want weasel?" Oh, that was slightly jeering. Not too bad, Draco. You can still dish it out.
Weasley's face grimaced and he pointed to the ground with such a Hermione-like glare that Draco did not stall too much as he remounted his StarStreaker 7 and floated back down to the green.
"What?" He sneers as he tosses the broom to the side and gets right into Weasley's face.
"Are you done with your pity party?" Draco almost punches him in his eye-patch, but he had some decency left. Weasley was still defensive about his missing eye, even though it had been two years since the Final War had taken it. Hermione loved calling him her handsome swashbuckler, much to his embarrassment.
"It's called anger, Weasel! You should know all about that!" Draco spits.
"Whatever. Are you done with it?"
"No, I'm not actually. So piss off."
"Look, he's confused. He doesn't know why you went off on him like that." He mentioned my father. To my face!
Draco's reddening face clued Ron in and he crosses his arms. "You know though. I won't make you tell me." As Draco's face drops in confusion, Ron's blue eye loses its shine slightly. "Just talk to him, Draco. He's hurting."
"I don't care." Draco mutters.
"That's the worst lie you've ever told, even after that one you told Voldemort."
A flash of the snake bastard's face as a cruel smile slides over it. His ivory wand angled towards Draco in the midst of his recounting of the events of how he (falsely) fought off his guards and escaped successfully.
"You're lying, Draco. I wonder why?" Draco dropped his fearful contriteness instantly, straightening up as a large crash shook the Lestrange Lake House where the evil bastard was housed this month.
"A coup, Voldemort. Welcome to the end!" Draco didn't have to turn to know who the sarcastic snot belonged to. A lithely muscled arm slipped around his back, shoulder-length hair tickled his shoulder where his robes were torn.
"Ever dramatic, Draco. Hello Tom." The emerald-green eyes of Harry Potter flashed like the light of Avada-Kedavra as he shoved Draco out of the way, a yellow jet of light streaking out of his wand— the final duel of the Second War had begun at last.
Draco blinks away the memory of catching Ron as his face was hit with a scalping curse directly after being shoved by Harry, the blood of his severed eye splattering his pale, right cheek and refocuses on the actual man in front of him.
"You don't know me, Weasley." Ron shakes his head, his right hand slipping fingers about the pale gold clothed eye-path (a gift from the twins) to readjust it.
"Harry does. He should after the last three years."
Another memory. A glimmer of the Hogwart's lake, silver-blue in the moonlight, and running along the edge before being tackled by Harry as he fled from the scene of Dumbledore's death. Severus and the others ran on, leaving him behind.
"Stop struggling, Malfoy!" Harry shouted as he fought to grasp Draco's wrists. He had already straddled the Slytherin's waist.
"Get off, Potter! You don't understand anything! GET OFF!" Draco screamed, the terror of the night's events causing his blood to scream as well, his movements hysterical.
"I understand, Malfoy." Draco's fist connected with Harry's cheek with a satisfying crunch but the stupid Gryffindor didn't move!
"You don't know me! You don't know what I've done! Get off! If I stay, I'm dead!" Harry caught one wrist at last and with the other he smoothed back the locks of silver-blonde hair that had fallen into Draco's eyes.
"Draco stop" The words were the softest he had ever heard and his wide, panic-stricken, blue-grey eyes locked onto those green ones with shock. "I know you, Draco. You don't have to run. I know you."
"Wh-What? H-ho-how?"
"There's a thin line between love and hate. I hate Voldemort and Bellatrix but there's no room for you." Draco attempted to wrench his hand away, furious. Rejected by Potter again! "Wait! There's no room to hate you, Draco. So I crossed the line. Okay? Do you understand?"
"Don't give me that Gryffindor drivel!" Harry slowly got to his feet and held out his hand to the torn blonde.
"Then let me show you."
He shakes his head with furious jerks as he finds his own pale hand reaching out, mirroring what he had done that night. He fists it in the fabric of his robes and adopts a sneer that fails to impress Ron.
"He deserves to at least know why you're mad at him. He saved your life, in more than ways than one."
"AVADA-KEDAVR—"
"Draco, NO!" The bronze hand tore his away from the sniveling figure of Peter Pettigrew, who had led Blaise and Luna to their deaths in an ambush.
"Why? Why should I hold back?" Draco screams inconsolably, the tears running down his face like acid. Harry let his fingertips trail up the Slytherin's arm, his green eyes darting around the forest clearing to assure that they were safe before locking onto Draco's. Sadness and loss reflected within them, but so did the redeeming gleam of… of those forbidden three words that Harry refused to say just yet.
"I won't let you taint your soul on filth like him. Let me." Draco, so tired of fighting and hiding who he was for the last eight months, doesn't argue but steps back.
"Cesso" The traitorous rat's heart finally ceased to beat. Draco turned to Harry, framing that loved face with his own pale hands. Grey burned into green.
"I don't care if you're scared to because of the war but you have saved me. You saved me that day by the lake, you saved me from losing my family by rescuing my parent's from Voldemort's wrath at their failure, and you saved my soul at the risk of your own. I love you." The green blazed with the fury of the sun. A smile that would make Aphrodite jealous stole across the boy-who-lived's face.
"I love you, too."
"Go back, Draco. Talk it out and forgive."
"Maybe I'm done forgiving." Ron's face fell with shock before his jaw tightens. He steps up now, his nose almost touching Draco's as his eyes narrow with fury.
"Then let him go. Stop stringing him along like this." At Draco's thinning lips, he steps back with a disgusted grunt. "You're both too stubborn. How you guys ever lasted long enough to get engaged is beyond me." He mutters. Draco shifts and straightens his robes to feign nonchalance.
"Me too"
"It's called love." A third voice enters the standstill, and the wizards turn to see Tonks. Her hair is still black in mourning for her Remus. She kept a single lock bright blue for her bubbly son, Teddy.
"What—"
"Harry sent me. Sort of." She grins impishly as she picks up Draco's broom. "He's at the cottage, with Ginny and Hermione."
"How is he?" Ron asks worriedly. Tonk's smile falters.
"He's in pretty bad shape. Draco, what did you fight about? He's driving himself up the wall trying to figure out what he did. We had to dose him with a calming draught." Draco winces and ducks his head. His chest, still writhing from the recalled memories, flares along the cracks broken into it with guilt. He was in pain too. He had his demons too.
"Look, just…just go explain! We won't stand to see him in pain. We won't stand for it anymore." Ron yells, his calm exterior finally breaking completely as his face reddens. Draco recoils.
"Do you want this to end, Draco? Because the longer you wait, the less Harry will want to listen." Tonks says gently. Draco holds his hand out and accepts the broom before apparating away. The front garden was clothed in darkness, the cottage itself lit only in the living room. Raised voices filter through the open bay windows.
"I DON'T WANT ANOTHER POTION, GINNY!" There was a terrible crack in the air and a loud crash quickly following.
"Harry, please! You're destroying your home." That was Hermione's voice. She was heavily pregnant, why is she near an unstable Harry?
"This isn't my home! It's not!" Harry's voice lowered suddenly, the pain colouring it causing it to crack. Draco grabs hold of the door handle.
It falls to the floor, hinges melted from the magical backlash of Harry's loss of control. Draco's surprised face meets that of a tired Ginny's and a stressed Hermione's. He can't look at him yet.
"Drac—" He interrupts Ginny before she can finish.
"Out"
"Not if you're still mad. You've done enough damage." Hermione growls as her hormones manifest.
"I need to speak with him. Get out, please." He adds with a snarl. Both girls bristle and begin to pull out their wands. A bronze hand rests over them and a tousled black head shakes.
"Go. I'll be fine." Ginny guides Hermione to the fireplace reluctantly but fully aware of the burning green and grey eyes on their backs.
Draco waits until the jade flames fade away into the air before turning to Harry, his hackles raised. Their living room walls, a tasteful lavender with dark blue trim, were cracked; lamps shattered, pictures on the ground or barely hanging on— even that dratted muggle laptop was in pieces against the wall. All from Harry's magic.
"What is wrong with you?" He snarls. The furious scowl drops from his lover's face instantly— without the façade, the true emotions are revealed. It hurt to see.
Harry drops onto the crispy couch with a weary sigh; his head in his hands as his shoulders tensed to painfully extreme proportions.
Draco lets his sneer morph into a worried frown as those ever-strong shoulders tremble slightly. In the three years they've been together, he had seen Harry cry but once. When Remus had been killed protecting the castle from a troll attack.
"Harry…?" Draco ventures tentatively, uncrossing his arms as he receives no reply. "Harry—"
"What did I do, Draco?" Harry doesn't lift his head up, his voice muffled by his hands, thick with tears. "What did I say? Is it something I'm not doing? Am I not enough? Is…" He chokes slightly and, at last, looks up to stare at Draco with reddened emerald eyes, tears still trickling from the corners. "Is there someone else?" He whispers. His eyes lowering to the carpet now, as if unable to face Draco's answer.
Draco tears off the veil of speechlessness that had settled over him before the length of his silence becomes too damning. "You did nothing. You're…not at fault." The blow to his pride to say that was worth it as the agony in his lover's eyes could not be withstood.
Harry looks up, anger and confusion warring in his expression. "What is going on, Draco?" He asks bluntly. Draco tightens his hands into fists before pulling out the ravaged letter in his pocket with a defeated sigh.
"This." Harry snatches it, his temper taking over him. His wet eyes scan the letter, his lips mouthing the damning words.
…great disappointment…a stain on the family name…disowned until further notice…change your priorities, you would be welcome…
The letter drops to the lopsided glass table that sat before the couch and folded his hands in pensive thought. Draco set his broom against the sides of the heart and lowers himself into the armchair opposite his lover. He wasn't sure he liked the dimming of his brazen eyes.
"That's why you got mad. I asked if your parents were coming for our Halloween Party." He murmurs. Draco nods slowly, biting his lip to express his shame. Harry's eyes had yet to focus on him.
"If it upset you this much, then we must fight your father's decision. I'll do anything, Draco." At last, the emeralds were upon them, bringing another memory to his conscious.
"Harry! Harry, you bastard, f*cking wake up!" The Gryffindor was playing with Draco. Playing another joke on him. He had to be. Any minute now, he was going to jump up from the floor at Voldemort's feet and wink at Draco in that irritating (totally adorable) way of his.
"Draco, no, he's dea—"
"SHUT UP, GRANGER! Potter, get your ass up NOW!" He skidded to his lover's side, uncaring of Voldemort's high, cold laughter echoing around him. He pressed his ear to the golden boy's still chest. He couldn't hear anything. No, no it wasn't because there was nothing to hear. It was…was…
"Shut up! I can't hear!" He screamed at Voldemort, who had been shouting his victory speech while his death eaters attempted to rally under the crushing force of the Light army.
His wand shot out a wordless silver curse. In fact, Draco didn't even think of a spell. All he could think about was that if Voldemort was quiet, he could hear Harry's heartbeat.
A golden cord materialized out of thin air and wrapped tightly around Voldemort's throat. His voice cut out instantly and Draco descended his head again, pressing his ear to the Avada-Kedavra-ravaged chest.
Thump…thump…thump... He let his head droop slightly before lifting it to watch as the stubborn git opened his eyes. Eyes as intense as the sun, as green as an emerald gemstone, as beautiful as the soul that shined behind them. His sun. His gemstone. His soul.
"Talio, Tom." Harry whispers, his eyes never leaving Draco's. Voldemort imploded, leaving behind only a broken wand and his robes. Nothing more.
"Fool" Draco whispers. Harry grins and winks. Insufferable fool, more like.
"Only for you."
"Harry" Draco whispers weakly, looking at the look in his fiancé's eyes. It was both resignation and undying determination. Harry leans forward and holds his hands out. Draco doesn't hesitate as he slips his own into those bronze hands that he loved so much.
"I will do anything for you, Draco. Your father will only change his mind if you break this off. We'll do it publicly, so as to leave him with no doubt. After that… I dunno. I can move out of the country to make it easier on you." Draco blinks slowly as the comprehension of what the ex-Gryffindor was saying trickled slowly through his mind. When it did, his hands tightened in the idiot's as he fought the urge to strangle him.
"You…" Draco struggles for a strong enough insult.
"I remember Astoria Greengrass was meant to be your betrothed before she broke it off so we could be together. She's a lovely person and I know you'll be happy with her, eventually." He keeps on rambling. Why the hell is he still talking when Draco is ready to make a new dent in this table with his head?!
"And hey, at least now I can travel the world like I wanted, ri—"
"Shut up." Draco whispers. Harry's brow furrows.
"What?"
"Shut up! Shut up, right now Potter! Shut up!" Draco stands up, still holding onto his hands, making Harry lurch to the floor on his knees.
"Draco, what the hell?"
"How dare…how…I can't…YOU TWAT!" Harry's mouth falls open as Draco begins to scream.
"Wha—" A hand is smashed over his mouth, preventing another syllable from escaping.
"You…you stupid…irritatingly…you think…" Draco pauses and bites his lip harshly to regain coherency. "You think that I would give you up just so I could have back my inheritance?" He snarls as he levels his bright blue-grey eyes onto the black-haired wizard.
Said wizard swallows slightly in fear and nods his head. "Er…yes?"
A few seconds of silence and then… "Whoa…Draco…hey what are you—DRACO!" He had no warning as his lover's mouth closed around his suddenly hard length. Draco makes sure his eyes stay on Harry's dilating ones as he sucks him in all the way to the base, his tongue flicking across every inch of skin available.
His already stretched lips stretch further in victory as those bronze hands thread into his already mussed hair, tightening painfully. His spine prickled with lust as a drawn-out moan escaped those delectable lips. He crinkles his nose against those ebony curls as he hums delightedly. He loved going down on him.
"D-Dray" He lets his teeth scrape very gently against Harry's slit, his fingers tracing swirls over Harry's sweat-glistening abdomen. He really disliked that nickname, except for when Harry practically panted it in the throes of passion. Like now, for instance.
"I should curse you to stay on the edge like this for a week." He murmurs conversationally as he takes his mouth away only to begin licking the underside, directly upon the vein, and his oh-so-very sensitive sides. Harry gurgles incomprehensively and his fingers are latching onto Draco's blonde locks with a ferocious tug, pulling the taller wizard straight on top of him without warning. Those jewel eyes, that cut his entire being to pieces with just one glance, pierced him now as their clothes vanished from their bodies, the prickling tingle of Harry's magic sweeping over their increasingly sweating flesh.
"As long as I can stay with you." Harry muses as he kneads the skin beneath Draco's ear with his teeth, which absolutely and irrevocably melted Draco into nothing more than a pile of moaning goo each time it happened. Draco let himself slump into his lover's warmth, feeling their arousals brushing, sending more heat, more flames, up through his body.
"I would never leave. I never will. I never was." Draco promises hazily as he manages to climb back to coherency by fisting his right hand around Harry's length. Harry arches into him, his slightly swollen lips parted in a silent cry.
"Why?" Harry gasps as his back touches back to their soft, plush carpet. Draco drapes himself lazily across his lover, recovering from his own orgasm after having watched Harry's greedily.
"There's a thin line between love and hate, Harry. And you know how much I love crossing lines." Draco whispers slyly as his fingers dance across the lines of his lover's face, his torso, his hipbones and groin and every single inch of his body.
Needless to say, Harry liked crossing lines too.
