Disclaimer: All characters are property of J.K. Rowling. Lyrics written by Jeff Buckley.
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LILAC WINE
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"I lost myself on a cool damp night,
I gave myself in that misty light,
Was hypnotized by a strange delight
Under a lilac tree..."
"I think more than I want to think
and do things I never should do,
I drink much more that I ought to drink,
because it brings me back you..."
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Harry awoke.
Or did he? His consciousness was blurred at the edges, as though he still lingered in a dream. The world seemed deliciously light, airy; experimentally, he raised a pale hand. It swam before his clouded vision like dissolving marble.
Harry smiled, although he didn't mean to. He stood, and he didn't mean to do that, either. He felt like a puppet, gently manipulated by invisible strings. It was fitting; his insides felt light as wood, and hollowed out.
The brush of his bed's velvet drapes against the smooth skin of his thigh told him that he was naked. Why was he naked? Did it matter? His puppeteer told him no, no...the other boys in his dormitory were asleep; their quiet and unconcerned breaths seemed to send ripples through the still air.
Harry felt the cool lightness of the bed-sheet between his fingertips, and pulled without thought. The cotton came away easily, and the puppet-master used Harry's hands to pull the sheet tenderly around himself, like a cape to cover his exposed skin. He noticed that it highlighted the sharp angles of his thin shoulders, his jutting hipbones.
He stole soundlessly through the door, which opened at a single touch. The scarlet hangings of the Gryffindor common room blurred and faded to the shade of a dying rose, the embers of the fireplace glowing like fireflies.
Harry descended the stairs, ghost-like, his small white feet making no sound on the stone and the sheet billowing like white wings. He was unashamed of his nakedness.
The night was misty, moonlight illuminating the dancing beads of dew. Harry felt phosphorescent, the wet grass leaving tiny, freezing kisses on his bare feet. He drifted through the strange, glowing dusk, feeling altogether purposeless and yet...
The lilac tree stood wordlessly beside the black glass of the lake. Harry admired its fragrant beauty; the dip of its flowers' angelic faces, the scent it seduced the air with, the stillness and poise with which it held its heart-shaped leaves.
Beneath the tree's balmy and sweet-smelling canopy lay a figure, a figure that to Harry seemed composed of marble and barbed wire. Unafraid, he stepped forward, and the sheet brushed against the dew-soaked grass like bride's lace.
The tangled creature seemed to lurch upward, and suddenly Harry was looking into a face, a marble face with eyes and hair the silver of barbed wire.
"Wh--?"
Draco's question hung on the air like the scent of lilac, and the barbed wire eyes, clouded with inebriation, became round as silver dollars. The clutching fingers tensed slightly around the green, deceptively innocent neck of the wine bottle, and the lips that opened in shock were stained.
Harry stood there, wrapped in a sheet and waiting for the invisible twitch of strings.
"Oh God." Draco slurred suddenly, and with an air of finality. "Oh God."
He lifted the bottle to his bruised lips, and a trickle of the pure red poison bled from between them. Harry watched the movement of Draco's swallowing throat without feeling.
With a clink, the bottle dropped from his cold, listless fingers, spilling its vinegary-sweet remains. Draco suddenly staggered to his feet, and Harry could see that they were bare too, and blue-tinted.
The drunken boy's face was inexplicably closer, and Harry could taste wine on the air.
"You," Draco murmured, reaching carefully out as though Harry was a thing too delicate to touch, "are incredibly beautiful. And I...am incredibly drunk."
Harry was smiling again. Draco's stained mouth was twisted into a reluctant, drunken grin. The ghostly boy felt cold fingertips on his neck, on his cheek. Draco spoke against Harry's lips.
"You're not real, are you?"
"No." Harry whispered.
"I need you so badly, that I've imagined you, I've conjured you."
"Yes."
Draco breathed out, and Harry tasted alcohol and longing.
"I have a good imagination." He laughed haltingly, and suddenly they were kissing, and Draco was holding him as a drowning man holds a scrap of driftwood. There were desperate fingers in his hair, desperate words spilling into his open, tender mouth, "Harry, Harry, please don't go, please don't leave, I need you, I need you, Harry..."
They had sunk, weakly, onto the misted grass, and Draco laid him down with trembling white hands. With the same hands he peeled away the damp sheet, brushed the hair gently from Harry's face. His eyes were closed as Harry pulled the dark, disheveled robes from his body, and he sighed with mingled delight and disappointment.
"What am I doing? What am I doing?" He asked deliriously, and Harry stared deep into confused silver eyes, and felt the hot salt of tears land on his cold skin.
"You're making love to a dream, Draco." He told him, and watched the smile of a destroyed man form on the wine-stained lips.
"Yes." Draco breathed, and dipped to kiss the unwanted truth from Harry's mouth.
They held each other as their white bodies rocked gently, Harry feeling the hotness of Draco's tears sear his shoulders and tasting the desire in him as the drunken boy crushed his lips hopelessly. Their breathing became ragged as they moved as one, and suddenly Draco was whispering to him again, so fast that the words blurred together, "Say my name, please, please..."
"Draco!" Harry gasped, digging his fingers into the other boy's smooth shoulders, feeling himself weeping without knowing why, "Draco, Draco, Draco, Draco..."
The pale boy arched in a muted scream, and for a second looked breathtakingly beautiful, before he crumbled gently back into Harry's embrace. Harry stared at him wordlessly, his tingling lips tasting of tears and wine and love.
Draco's smile was sad as he lay quietly beside him, eyes closed in reverie. His stained lips moved, murmured something inaudible, and Harry bent to hear.
"Don't ever leave me."
"I won't," Harry promised, and the lie was bitter in his mouth.
As the sun rose like a slice of burnished gold the following morning, Draco Malfoy awoke, frozen, wet and naked, save for the white sheet tangled lovingly around his wine-stained limbs.
A/N: ...that was simultaneously one of the most and least satisfying things I have ever written. x3 Please review, it only takes a few seconds and I would really, really appreciate your opinion. Thankyou for reading!