Credits: The poem is Mia's.
Summary: Watching him standing motionless in the rain, tears washing down his face, was one of the hardest things of my life to see. I knew. I knew there would never be a day I could understand the way he felt, there would never be a time when I could stand beside him.
Warnings: Depression, angst, mild slash.
Characters: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy
Pairings: Harry/Draco
Genre: Angst, hurt/comfort
Rating: T
Words: 1038
Author's Note: I'd like to say I feel proud for Mia. She's never been able to write an emotionally intimate situation without making everything too tragic. And this is the first time she's ever written them kissing each other. I'm so proud of my sweetheart! Mia says that this one was written like this because, "Watching the person you hold dear fall apart because of something you can't change makes you feel so inferior. Knowing that your beloved is broken but having no idea how to pick up the pieces is one of the hardest trials of a relationship."

Barriers of spider silk
and twirling vines shot upward
drawing a line between you and I.
But now, my dear,
they'll come tumbling down.
If my blood won't bring you back,
then I'll fight tooth and nail
for your smile to acknowledge my presence.

The wall between me and you

Watching him standing motionless in the rain, tears washing down his face, was one of the hardest things of my life to see. I knew. I knew there would never be a day I could understand the way he felt, there would never be a time when I could stand beside him. None of us could. We could never know how it felt to him.

He never told anyone when something was wrong, never told us. It was hard to just watch him bear the whole world's weight on his shoulders. The weight he carried could never be equally shared between us for he was burdened with the hardest task of all.

It would have hurt less if I hadn't watched him fall so far into this state. But I had been watching him every moment of my life. From the moment I met him to today, I've been watching him. I saw the fleeting signs of his early life long before his friends could, and that was pathetic. It was me who first saw him break down.

And watching a formidable hero break into a shattered mess was hard. He wasn't that happy little Gryffindor anymore. He was nothing more than a shell of a battered and abused man. Everyone was to blame. We all tagged him with the worst whether we knew it or not. We expected the impossible from him. So much so that we forgot that he was just as human as us.

The wind blew against my face, driving the cold rain with it and I couldn't do much more than watch as the man I had hated, rivaled, befriended and more crumble to pieces in the middle of nature's anger. I could feel it, the brokenness of his mind and the grief that had broken him washed through the entire premise.

As his stance relaxed slightly in the driven cold, I stepped out into the midst of the swirling weather, not caring about the rain beating against my face and numbing skin with cold instantly. I moved closer, my shoes trudging through the mud without a conscious thought.

I stopped when I pulled up beside him a few feet away. Looking at his face, I felt awed for a moment. His eyes stared up at the sky unseeingly and his lips that were visibly chapped were curved upward in the slightest of smiles.

Turning my own face upward to see just what was so spectacular, I chuckled slightly. No one will ever see what he sees. The sky was nothing more than a blanket of angry grey clouds and swirling masses of falling raindrops. Yet I had a feeling that he was seeing something completely different.

There was no doubt that he was seeing something more, something spectacular. For what he sees is nothing short of it. It wasn't one of those "Oh he's the Boy-who-Lived he has to do everything amazingly" moments. I just knew that this man was having a special moment.

And then his face turned to me and he smiled, though I couldn't tell if he was still crying or if it was rain, as he said, "This is my grace." It was short, it was quick, but it was all he needed to say for me to understand and I knew he knew it too because his eyes gained back a soft shine that I hadn't seen in a very long time.

I only shook my head with a well meant roll of the eyes and snatched up his hand, pulling him towards the house that looked a whole lot more appealing the longer I stood out here in the rain. His chuckle in response sounded sweeter and far more genuine than the laughs he had been laughing. And he must have realized it too because he started laughing as he allowed himself to be dragged along behind me, our muddied shoes squelching in the gooey mud.

Snorting at his hysterical laughter, I tugged harder on his arm to keep him walking and as soon as we were under the safety of the house roof, I cleaned and dried us off before stepping further into the building and I spared just enough time to remove our shoes before yanking the other along behind me in a silent rush for the living room and the very welcoming warmth of the fireplace.

He snickered at something I wasn't too concerned about and tumbled down over my legs mere seconds after I had sat down. He rolled onto his back and an arm rested over his eyes as he simply heaved out a shuddering breath that he seemed to have been holding for years. It was as if that one exhale erased the past years of anguish and his arm moved so he could stare right at me.

"This is the space between me and you."

His sentence was murmured as he reached up and pulled me down. It wasn't the most pleasant kiss ever considering the circumstances, his lips were cracked and he tasted of salt but it was enough. He gave a happy sigh as I pulled upward and I just hovered over him, watching his face.

There were times like these where I was glad that I had been watching him for years. His eyes were closed but that didn't deter from the fact that he had a strong face. His cheekbones were high placed and the skin pulled fairly tight over them, his cheeks were taunt and firm against his jawline. It was obvious in his face alone that he hadn't been eating properly.

His skin was far too pale and his lips a deprived red, but I wouldn't care if he was as malnourished as a stick or as fat as a pig, because this moment was mine, and I could feel it. "The wall between you and I…"

"is crumbling." He murmured quietly completing the sentence I hadn't even realized I had started. His eyes opened slowly and he looked at me with expectant blood shot green eyes, "The wall's crumbling, and I'll tear it down myself."

I gave a soft chuckle as I pressed my lips against his once more, "Welcome back, my drowning vampire."