Did you know that you remind me of a knife?
When the glare of unfiltered sunlight reflects on the shining angles you are made of, I have seen perfection. When the edges of your mouth form the mordant edges of a sneer and your words begin to slice through the thin layers of my flesh, I have seen disgust. You are the dagger implanted in my ribcage, the irremovable steel splinter that haunts me.
Did you know that you remind me why I hate you?
When you shine in your majestic abilities to destroy me, I have seen flawlessness. When you devour your opportunities to open my wounds and bathe in my blood, I have seen persistence. You create invisible scars on what passes for my soul, permanent marks representing burdens just as everlasting.
Did you know that you remind me why I love you?
When the silence of velvet-wrapped shadows steals your hatred, I have seen purity. When your breath on my skin fogs the clarity of my thoughts, I have seen revelry. You are the silver space between two absolutes, burnished and gossamer.
Did you know that you remind me why I feel at all?
You provoke emotion, you and your unflinching cruelty, your petty remarks that somehow how rip at my ego, you and your incredible knowledge of my weakness, you and your wide eyes, childlike mannerisms, nervous habits, overstatements, irrational fears.
And you and your ridiculous beauty, indescribable and unreal.
I suppose I should remind you how to breathe when I suck the life from your mouth to sustain myself in the thoughtlessness of a harsh kiss. I suppose I should remind you now (as you lapse into the realm of your subconscious with one hand resting gently in the small of my back): this is the incarnation of the ethereal. This is the oxymoronic impossibility that has somehow come to pass.
I should remind you that I adore you; I should remind you that I abhor you.
I should remind you that I would die for you; but in the end, you will die for me.
By my hand.
The knife that is your existence will not be my downfall, but the swirling poison that I subsist as will be your death.
And as your eyelids peel away and reveal the razor blades that slice through my illusions, I know you understand that as well. There is no need for reminders while the light in your eyes dissolves into burning drops of salt that fall smoothly onto the pillow.
There is no need for reminders.
Because when you search my face and choke on unspoken laments, I realize I have been speaking aloud.
And I am compelled to speak again, to force more of my poisoned threats into your ears – to watch you squirm and suffer and then die. I fail to choose carefully and the delivery is less than cautious.
Didn't I warn you?
My hand is moving of its own accord now, thumb pushing into your cheek to wipe away the shining glimmer of melted moonbeam crossing your face. Pressing a bit too hard, dragging across your cheekbone and then coming to rest on your temple, the digit slowly turns white from the pressure. And I smile. And you close your eyes and I know that you feel the venom spreading gently through your veins and I know that it burns away everything but love and pain which now are ridiculously similar.
I suppose you did (whispered) I suppose you must have. And maybe, (continued between shuddering breaths and that glow leaking from your eyes steadily falling to the pillow as you raise your eyelids to meet my gaze) and maybe I care about dying after all.
Oh, love, you don't (and here the finger presses harder on your temple) care. You don't care at all.
And who are you to tell me that I want to die?
You as good as told me. Remember? But I don't need to ask. I don't need to remind you. You know. I saved you. Me. I did.
I wouldn't have done it.
But you would have, dear. You would have swallowed the whole damn bottle. Gulped the whole fucking thing down on the night I found you sitting on the North Tower, vial of acidic green death in a tight grip, just waiting to pour it down your throat. And I didn't ask questions. Just threw it into the frost-crisp December night and led you down by the hand. There was no moon glow then, no shimmer to melt and drip down your cheeks but the rain that weighed our cloaks down as we tripped down the stairs poured down your face along with something else.
No.
Absolutely. However, monosyllabic arguments will get us nowhere fast. And I laugh at you, laugh at you and your foolish glowing tears. And you are frightened now, because you can see the madness in my face, the ease with which I will end your life.
It's not your right to tell me to die.
But I am right, regardless of whether I am in the right. You will die by my hand. I'm not telling you to die. I'm telling you that I will have to kill you eventually. But I shouldn't say telling. Telling would imply a command, one that you would have some control over obeying. Small smile and I press down ever harder with my thumb, and spread my flingers across the rest of your head, tips of every finger balanced on the nail, gently digging into your scalp.
You sigh - not the quiet breath of the contented, but rather the moan of the pained and broken hearted. Your eyes press shut, light blond eyelashes matted by tears turned blue by the dim gleam filtering through the windows.
When? For a moment, I am not sure if you spoke, and then for another, I am not sure if I want to answer.
There will be a battle. And you will fight at your lord's right hand. And I will fight opposite you. And then we will meet, and then you will die. And then your lord will fall. And then I will be twice the hero I am now.
But.
I will never be allowed to grieve for you, I will never be allowed to cry over your grave or pray for your soul. I will publicly rejoice in your death, and be rewarded for your downfall. And the stories about how you died, the rumours about the extent of your evil will grow and expand and extend and be exaggerated again and again and again. You will be the example -- because people cannot deal with the face of Voldemort himself, you will become the surrogate representation of evil.
And perhaps, someday, when your name is spat like a curse and no children have been named Draco out of fear of the name for decades, the truth will resurface.
You were a spy, you were a hero. You pledged allegiance to the Order of the Phoenix, you swore to protect me. You were my lover, you were my saviour. And then the questions will start: why didn't anyone say so before? Why keep it silent for so long?
Because, they will be told, because the Death Eaters were still active, and in revealing your status, the Ministry might have inadvertently revealed the other spies – Snape and Nott, and the other spies, who were not Death Eaters themselves, but their family – Alice Crabbe and Deborah Goyle among them. And the Death Eaters couldn't know that there had ever been a spy, for it might cause them to look for others. So it was left silent until everyone who knew had forgotten, or chose to ignore that sacred bit of information.
But that will serve as a reminder to the world: the strongest heroes always go unsung. And as long after that as I live, I will remind them, with every step I take, that you were a hero too. And that I loved you, and that I hated you, and that when you died, you died for them every bit as much as you died for me.
My hand has relaxed now, and my fingers trail across the angles of your jaw, brushing along your neck and down across your shoulder blades, following the sharp turns of the bone before they curve along your ribcage and my hand cups your side. You bite your lip and look up at me with pleading eyes devoid of their previous shining glory. And I realize that you in no way needed be reminded of everything that I just said. With a gasp of realization and agony I see that only I needed to be reminded. I had forgotten the gravity of what you will do – are doing –, the tremendous amount that you must love me to lie here now.
I had forgotten how agonizing it must be to know that your suffering would go unrecognised, that you would be hated despite your best efforts at redemption. That the only person you had ever loved hates you in that unforgettable way. That I saved you from yourself only to take your life.
And now for a fleeting instant I wonder if I should have let you die that night last December, if things would have been better if you had been the one to take your life. Because poison will kill you either way. Because your life is not mine, I have no claim on it, it isn't mine to take or mine to give. And then I think again about how many lives you have saved with what hints you have passed to Dumbledore and the Order and the Ministry. And I think about how much I have come to love you. And I wonder how many nights have been spent like this one, curled together on my bed in Gryffindor Tower, sheets tangled at our feet, the flush of moonshine or the flurry of rain at the window. And as I wonder, I realize that this, here, this answer to the out of the question, this saved me.
In saving you, I saved myself. Because with the weight of the world on my shoulders the nights would have been far too long if I was alone.
But I'm not.
And I then I wonder for the first time if I will be able to do what is expected of me.
The question is silenced when suddenly your lips are on mine, when I realize as tears cascade with silent beauty down both our cheeks that you are not the only one crying. The question is answered in your plea for survival in the form of your hands laced in my hair as you ensure that breathing is a thing of the past.
No.
There are other ways, I whisper as I pull back.
Like you said. It isn't a command we can choose to follow.
I won't, I won't do it, fuck destiny. Fuck Dumbledore, fuck the Ministry, and I am sobbing now, clinging to you to make sure you don't suddenly die and fall upwards into heaven. I have pulled myself as close to you as I can manage, hiding my face where your shoulder meets the base of your neck. And you are still letting the light flow from your eyes; I feel it dropping onto the exposed skin of my back. Your hands are still woven deeply into my hair, and my fingers are splayed across the middle of your back, your cheek resting on the top of my head.
You wouldn't? And I cannot read your voice, I cannot tell if you are surprised or guilty or upset.
No. I have managed to slow my rushing breaths, I have found the strength to raise my head and look you in the eye. And the expression on your face is beyond gratitude. It is rapture. And in that moment, I know I have done what I should.
I couldn't.
Thank you, Harry. But even as the words trip off of your lips, I know what you mean.
I love you, too.
And you just smile through the filter of your tears. I am held in thrall by your gaze, and in the end, there is only one thing left to do. So I raise my lips to yours.
But we both draw back, me because I have felt the heat from your Mark against my own skin, you because your arm is surely being split open by the burning along the twisted skull that adorns it. You swear fluently and roll out of the bed, hitting the floor with a soft thump as your skin meets the carpeted ground. I gasp from the sudden lack of warmth and snatch the blankets from their discarded spot at the foot of our bed. You laugh and wipe away what few drops remain on your cheeks and become beautiful and flawless once more, eyes devoid of redness and all signs of weeping gone.
Our robes had been cast aside, rejected and left lying haphazardly on the chairs near the fireplace. You hurry over there and begin to pull yours on carelessly while I huddle against myself and clench the heap of fabric formerly known as the sheets. And I know I should get up, perhaps find your cloak for you, and at least see you off. But at the moment, the room seems large and cold and hostile and I am overly reluctant to move. So I stare at you absentmindedly, gripped by the instinct to memorize the way you look – there, when you turn a bit and your hair catches the light and sends it refracting at the walls. I see a flicker of movement at the window, and my eyes are drawn automatically to it, paranoia seizing my gut. I relax back into the pillows as I realize there is nothing there, and turn only to see the door close behind you.