Title: 'Shattered Spectacles'
Author: tigersilver
Recipient: This is a GLOMP for all recipients and participants of this Fest, with eternal Luuuurve from Tiger. You—and this pairing, and this fandom, with all its bright lights, shining stars, true kindness and Real People—are food for my soul when it's dark out. I can't GLOMP you enough, ever.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5,600
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco
Summary: Sometimes, sometimes…one can see more clearly through broken glass.
Warning(s): Minor cutting, actual and implied. Bloodplay. Kissage. Some angst. Dependency issues. Self-condemnation and resultant coping skills, self-taught. Hogwarts, 6th Year. AU. EWE and everything else, after. Implication of underage sexual interest, male-to-male.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: Beta'd by lonerofthepack , my darling Built-In Beta. In loving memory of Renee M. Romero, easilymused1956* . With extra-special glompage to vaysh11* , dysonrules* , sesheta_66 , phoenixacid* , mijeli* , groolover , roma_fics* , megyal* , demicus , aydenclare , monster_o_love* , a_execution* , lovely_slyth* and a host of Real People who make my life all the more worthwhile. I'll be Lurking 'round your edges evermore!

HD 'Shattered Spectacles'

Malfoy healed from the Sectrumsempra…or at least Harry assumed he did. He was more wan than ever, and withdrawn; set apart, cold as an iceberg floating inviolate on his end of the Slytherin table—when he bothered to make an appearance for meals at all.

Harry was treated to a higher magnitude of Glares of Unusual Malevolence from Professor Snape, but that was nothing compared to his own self-torment. Of all the things he swore he'd never be, 'killer' was the very first one, even though he knew, of course, that Voldemort was coming, and he was expected to kill him.

Bloody hell, Voldemort was already here.

Harry, being Harry, brooded over what happened between him and Malfoy in Myrtle's lav, as expected, but with Malfoy so often absent his focus shifted somewhat. He still castigated himself for foolishly leading Sirius to his death (no matter what Remus or Hermione or anyone else had to say about it, that's exactly what he'd done, wasn't it?) and he was still endlessly terrified of the burgeoning sense of Dark that lay coiled inside him, pulsing as a red-hot coal in his chest, ever threatening to burst forth and consume him altogether. But he was no longer angry with Malfoy, not even for the broken nose, or the Dementors. Not even for all those jibes about his Mum and Dad.

No, he felt sorry for him. Such a change bodily fluids wrought when they were spilt heedlessly—the wrong bodily fluids, that was; the exact opposite sort from what a normal teenager should be concerned with. Blood and tears, not wet dreams—not good, healthy jizz. The stuff of agony, not satiation, when it was forced from one, or spilt through some sort of massive cosmic error.

Because he'd wronged Malfoy, Harry had. In error, by accident, not meaning to, but still. He, who was really pegged to be the 'good guy', the 'white hat', if there ever was one in this stupid war, had done unto Malfoy far worse damage than even Malfoy Senior's precious Lord Voldemort had ever done to Harry's person—and that out of mere fear, and petty revenge, and bloody stupid anger, boiling over. Rage.

He was no better than what inhabited him. No better than…that.

And Malfoy was Harry's victim, just as much as he was the victim of his Pureblooded, narrow-minded upbringing.

Harry gradually became convinced of this. But it seemed that only Moaning Myrtle was willing to listen when Harry proposed this idea of his heightened culpability, for Harry knew that he never dared breathe a word of it to Ron and Hermione. They'd have his arse in Dumbledore's office so fast his head would spin—if not the James Thickey Ward, committed, before even that. They'd not understand, nor conceive of how he, the Golden Boy, the 'Chosen', could ever possibly entertain the notion that he wasn't righteous. That the fight he fought wasn't a good one. That Malfoy wasn't Evil Incarnate in all capitals and flourishes. That murderous rage was acceptable.

Why was it that his anger was viewed as courage and Malfoy's as mere spite? Where was the righteousness in that?

Harry felt it was just like when his spectacles were knocked about on his nose—during Quidditch or some scuffle—and the world suddenly went sideways and topsy-turvey. As if he stood before a funhouse mirror (and Erised echoed in his too-fertile memory, ever so briefly) and he could all at once see 'round edges and through closed doors.

A whole new perspective, really.

Myrtle (naturally) suggested suicide, so 'they could be together', just as she always did, and giggled like a whistling kettle at the fantasy, but she did listen, which was all Harry asked of her, those nights he took refuge in her lav. Harry shrugged at her high-pitched giggles, uneasy and mute, and wondered why it was always lavs where people had their breakdowns. Was it the cold, clear lighting that showed one the mirror of one's soul so surgically, or was it the water, always dripping, that lulled one into believing problems could be washed away? Like blood, or tears. One sweep of Filch's dirty mop or the scrub of a quick sleeve and they were visibly gone, subsided, except for there were always traces left behind.

No better than you should be. That's what Aunt Petunia had said, time and again, when she lit into him for breaking crockery or burning the dinner. He'd not believed her, then. He wasn't a victim, to willingly roll over and be denigrated, but now…now was different. Now he'd done it. He'd truly done it, and it was not to be undone.

Except…except he had to live with it, too, Harry did. Despite himself, he had to rise up every morning and keep on walking. Just like with Sirius, only worse, as he had to look at Malfoy, see him every day. Every single damned day, at least when the sodding berk allowed himself to be seen.

Malfoy wasn't recuperating well, though, even weeks after Snape healed him. Even Harry—oblivious Harry, who had the rep for walking around half-asleep and was always a step behind on noticing anything that went with other people, per Hermione—Harry could see that. Malfoy was his special case, his 'obsession', after all. He likely could estimate to the half-ounce how much weight the once-sleek Malfoy had dropped since they'd stepped off the Express at Hogwarts at beginning of term, or precisely how long it had been since Malfoy had slept peacefully. Certainly not during this term, despite Malfoy's stomping, sneering, 'holier than thou' arrogance at the very beginning. The prick had acted so high and mighty then—worse than usual, even—and strode around as if he were elevated above everyone, as if they were all just children, beneath his notice, but even so, Harry had noted that Malfoy had dark rings beneath his eyes.

He looked a ruddy sight these days, and the faint smudges and bags of September and the Express had escalated to kohl-black streaks no Charm would ever conceal and eyelids as puffy as school trunks, comparatively. He looked as awful as a ruddy Inferi, and Harry, at last, couldn't stand it. Not one more day.

Not one more moment. It was time, and past time.

Which was why, when their shoulders ricocheted—purely by accident— in a crowded hallway, knocking Harry's much-Reparo'd spectacles off and tumbling all his books from his bag like academic vomit, Harry skived off after him on a mad dash. He was too late to save his spectacles before the heel of a passing Ravenclaw stomped the left lens nearly to dust, but he scooped them up willy-nilly and bolted after Malfoy anyway. Because it wasn't deliberate, that shoulder bump—it was that Malfoy had literally staggered as he walked, and Harry couldn't bear it, not one more day.

Not one more hour, nor minute, nor second. Not and keep on with walking.

"Malfoy!" he yelped, tearing after him, deeper into the dungeons. Ron and Hermione weren't with him, fortunately, so at least he could chase after Malfoy in peace, this one crucial time. "Malfoy! Hold up, you git! I've something to say to you, Malfoy! Mal-foy!" he roared.

Harry nipped past the huge serpentine carvings that guarded the dusty corridor Malfoy had taken off down with all the speed of his fleet Patronus, and kept right on going, doggedly, his broken spectacles digging into his palm, his open book bag jouncing on his shoulder. He'd learnt how to run, Harry had, but Malfoy would not stop for an instant. He sent a single wild-eyed glance over one shoulder, and perhaps he went another shade paler, if that were even possible, as he was already waxy enough to be one of Headless Nick's fellows, but he did not stop. Didn't pause—didn't wait.

"Malfoy, I'm sorry! I'm sorry, alright? Would you just slow the fuck down for a bloody minute?" Harry figured he'd better start apologizing now—this instant—or the git would never bother to listen.

"Fuck off, Potter! Leave…me…alone!" The voice echoed backwards, from the ill-lit corridor Malfoy had ducked into, a rabbit down a hole—a snake to its burrow.

"No!"

Harry went faster—faster, till he felt as though he'd be just a blur of pounding feet and flailing arms, if he could but see himself. Another minute of giving chase; another minute of watching black robes whisk 'round corners and escape him. Malfoy was lightning-quick, as fleet on his feet as he was on the broom his Daddy had given him, the sod.

Harry, reduced to a half-panting, half-sobbing state, a wicked-arse stitch ripping up his ribs, called out, "Malfoy! Malfoy, damn it, just wait!" and "Malfoy, what the fuck? Why won't you give me a half a ruddy chance?"

One after the other, they penetrated a maze of ancient hallways and anterooms that was the dungeons proper, one cobwebby blank-faced room leading onto another, and all of them abandoned by the school built on their bones. And running, still, and then trotting, when he became too breathless to run, and then finally only walking—lurching on legs deprived of oxygenated blood—at the last, when even the tall be-robed figure before him slowed his pace down to a crawl and stumbled occasionally.

"Malfoy!" Harry gasped and thrust a hand out. "Malfoy!"

They fetched up at last in the near dusk, in a room with only one window, a purpley-bluish stained glass one, which gave out a faint aqua light from the sunlit Lake. The streaming brightness of an autumn afternoon was metres above their tousled heads, and here it was deserted and dusty and still as a catacomb. Hardly any air currents to drift by, and no sign of Peeves or Snape or stray Slytherins. Not a sound to be heard by straining eardrums but the labored whistle of their mutual gasping and huffing, because Malfoy—the git—was completely winded, too.

He seemed as if he might just fall over, at that. He'd a long, thin hand on a wall to support him as he doubled over, clutching his stomach.

"Fuck off, Scarface," was the first thing he growled at Harry, when he got up sufficient breath to do so, and that was so typical of the git, and Harry would've been surprised if he hadn't. "Get the fuck away from me, Potter. Leave me alone."

"Malfoy—" Harry spewed out faster than thought, but the Ice Prince—and he really did resemble one, if one thought of skinny icicles in place of silver-gilt nobility—swung away sharp as daggers drawn. He stood with his back toward Harry—stiff, starched stiff and unyielding— and all Harry could see was a solid wall of dark woolen fabric and a ruffled white pelt above it. And the tips of Malfoy's pointy ears, blushed red from exertion.

"Shut up, Potter. Go away, will you? Shouldn't even be down here—Gryffindor," the sneering voice was javelin-sharp, for all that the git was aiming blindly.

"Hey?" Harry tried again, ever stupidly hopeful, and latched onto Malfoy's bent elbow. Dropped the broken glasses in his hand, too, not thinking. They tinkled miserably when they met the stone flags, and Harry froze at that. "Look—erm…Malfoy?"

In all this time, he'd not been focusing at all on the blurry streaks that raced by him as he raced after Malfoy—Seeker to Snitch, if Snitches could be pesky, difficult gits, personified. It was only, when Malfoy's bright hair—perhaps not as shiny-glossy-smooth as usual, maybe?—wasn't delineated clearly before Harry's eyes in the watery dimness that he recalled he couldn't actually see. Wasn't seeing now, for that matter.

His spectacles were broken. No use to him—not now. He'd have to feel his fucking way forward, this time.

"Have you not done enough damage, Potter?" the sneer demanded fretfully, ignoring his feeble efforts completely. "Go away."

If Malfoy still claimed any patience at all, it was worn thin through and well raggedy, now. Not that he'd ever any to spare for Harry, in the first place...or the second, either.

"Take youself off, wanker."

"I don't want to," Harry stated, mostly unfazed. He stepped forward and the rubber sole of his trainer flipped the mangled frame of his spectacles end-over-end, kicking them away in a spidery skitter. They skidded to one side and lay there helpless, like a shiny stick insect gone turtle, and Harry didn't care. Didn't care—didn't care.

"I want to see, Malfoy," he laid it out slowly, the words solidifying into fact as he actually said them aloud. "I want to talk to you. With you, git—not shout at you whilst you're running away!"

"I don't care, Potter," Malfoy's reply was dungeon-grim, even bitter. An echo, again, but of Harry's head, this time. Harry didn't blame him, not for that. He'd feel the same, he was sure, if he was the one cornered. "What you want or don't. That's immaterial. Just get out. You don't belong here."

"I want to see, Malfoy," Harry repeated stubbornly, and refused to let go of Malfoy's arm even when the git shook it irritably. "I have the right. I did it to you, didn't I? Nearly murdered you? I want to see."

Malfoy dragged in a long hiss of air through his nose before he spun around. His appearance was utterly atrocious for him, at least—sweaty-pale, with his nearly white hair lank and stringy with cooling sweat, and the pupils of his eyes dilated dark and velvety. His lips were chapped raw and Harry could see where he'd worried at the dried-out skin. Specks of blood welled—minute cabochon rubies in a mother-of-pearl setting.

It was beautiful—Malfoy's worn-thin face. A bloody work of art, even blurry 'round the edges. With the faintest of indrawn breaths, Harry drew closer, unable to even conceive of 'going away'.

"The right?" Malfoy drawled, his features tight and unyielding, and Harry, struggling with equating this scrawny, wasted scarecrow of a figure with his longtime sleekly well-cared for nemesis, goggled at him. At least he still sounded the same arrogant prick, Malfoy did. Harry, despite everything, felt a little relieved. But…how so lovely? Since when was obvious distress a turn-on?

When was ire—and fear—and loathing?

"You have no rights, Scarface," Malfoy went on acidly, ticking off the fingers of one hand as he made his points. "You shouldn't even be here. No Gryffindors allowed in Slytherin and vice versa, you dumb arse. When Snape finds out you've been, you'll face so many detentions back-to-back you'll die from old age, polishing cauldrons. So—leave. Scarper off now, before I do to you what you did to me, Potter."

Malfoy was threatening him—Harry finally noticed it, dragging his eyes away from the pansy black velvet that bloomed in the centre of chill pewter grey. Wearily, yes, but the threats were valid, nonetheless. That actually was brilliant, too, Harry decided. He nodded abruptly, he was so very pleased. Malfoy wasn't all burnt out yet—not inside, at least, though his exterior was a fucking tragedy. Harry snickered faintly at this small pleasure, a feeble snort-choke-cough to be sure, and that startled Malfoy into stepping forward and whipping out his wand for passionate brandishment.

They were practically nose-to-nose now, sparks flying. Harry sneered and levered his chin up that crucial bit necessary to confront Malfoy on every level.

Malfoy must think he was apartments-to-let, giggling away at nothing, when they were at daggers drawn again, same as always. Nothing changed, it seemed—nothing.

"What?" Malfoy demanded, nostrils flaring and then thinning to unpleasant slits. He seemed vastly offended by Harry's stifled laugh, even while panting still from exertion."You think I don't mean it, Potty? You think I won't tell? Snape'll have your bollocks in a vise, git—if you don't make tracks out of here, this instant!"

"No, no, that's not it, Malfoy," Harry replied, snorting again. "Not it, not it," he sang out, and yes, he was acting mental, a bit. What of it? This was all mental, anyway. The whole scene. "I believe you, really I do. Of course you'll tattle—you probably even deserve that I let you, arsehole, which I'm not, so don't get any ideas. But," Harry went on, chin firming all at once with steely determination, and took another deliberate step towards Malfoy, so he could grab his arm again, take him hostage, "but, Malfoy—I still want to see."

"And I, Potter, don't want you to," Malfoy shot back. And stepped back, dragging Harry forward forcibly when Harry's grip wouldn't budge off Malfoy's arm. "None of your bloody business. That's all there is to it, Scarhead. So, no more. This is the end of the line, Potty. Get the fuck out of Slytherin—now!"

"No," Harry said, simply. He wasn't budging, thanks ever so. Not an inch."Not till you show me."

"Show you what, Potty?" Malfoy scowled. "There's nothing to see."

"There's the scars from the Sectumsempra, Malfoy," Harry replied instantly, "and there's your Mark, if you have one. Show me those and then I'll be off…maybe."

"You!" Malfoy sputtered. "You think this is all so easy, don't you? You think you deserve that I just give you what you want? Hades, no, Potter! Not a fucking chance! Now, leave, before I summon Snape on your arse and he rips you a new one. Get the fuck out!"

"Malfoy."

Harry's green eyes narrowed in quick temper. He'd sidled close enough to the git that he could see straight into Malfoy's slitted angry eyes and know what was going on in there, deep below the surface, as he'd not known, really, why Malfoy had been crying, that day. Still didn't know why exactly but it also didn't matter, truly. Myrtle's lav was ancient history—this was now, and he could make Malfoy tell him—show him. Didn't even need his vision corrected with spectacles for that, at least.

"You didn't say you don't have one—a Mark. So, you do, yeah?" Harry snorted dryly, amused but not at this situation he now found himself in. Who knew coaxing Malfoy to talk about himself—the git's favourite subject—could be so difficult? No, wait—that was his father Malfoy was always spouting off about, wasn't it? Though not so much, these days. Not so much.

"Well, I want to see it." Harry took another jagged breath, one that seemed to drag at his lungs. "I want to know, for sure."

"Potter!" Malfoy screamed, reared backwards, as if the repeated mention of his maybe-Mark was the last straw in a very large load of them. He'd been fulminating—building up steam to fuel the mother of all tantrums, all the while Harry talked.

"Potter, fuck off!" he shouted, and his patrician, too-well-bred-for-words enunciation sounded strange when wrapped round the plebian word 'fuck'—as if it was dirtier than usual or something. "It's none of your Merlin-forsaken business, Potty! Leave off!"

He ripped himself away from Harry's challenging glare and ducked down to the floor with same old elegance, despite the fact he looked as if the wind could blow him right off his pins. Grabbed at something down there on the dirty, dusty slate flags, and then Harry all at once remembered his poor spectacles. Saw them clearly, too, as a jagged half-circle of slicing crystal hovering a hair's breadth off his own nose, glittering in time with the fine tremor of Malfoy's white-knuckled grasp.

"I'll cut you," Malfoy hissed—or sobbed, really—"and I'll gouge out those eyes that so want to see, Potter!" Malfoy gritted his teeth over what was coming from between them, and his hand shook with palsy, even as he spat out the words. Harry didn't see Malfoy's wand at all, though it had been so much in evidence but a moment before, though he'd have thought Malfoy would threaten him with that well before he resorted to a silly piece of broken Muggle lens glass. Had he dropped it, then, scrabbling 'round on the murky floor?

"I'll Mark you, Potter," Malfoy galloped on, wide-eyed and heedless of his unarmed state, his vulnerability; ribcage heaving wildly under his wind-whipped robes, and finally, finally, there was tinge of healthier pink to that whiter-than-white whey face of his. "Like I am, and you'll not ever forget it, and never remove it, because it'll be a part of you! Part of you, Potter—just like he's part of me!"

Harry, not thinking, grabbed the hand that held the shard and dragged it closer, closer, forcing the makeshift weapon down within Malfoy's shaking fist with strength born from sheer stubborn will. He brought up his other arm in the same swift movement, and laughed at Malfoy once again, a wild peal that matched perfectly the madness reflected in Malfoy's nearly black eyes.

Malfoy was bloody beautiful when he was angry—when he was terrified and hiding secrets too horrid to tell—when he was trapped in his own lair, at bay.

"Go ahead," Harry taunted, though he was perfectly serious about this sudden decision of his, his naked wrist turned up willingly to present the rigid veins that throbbed there under just a few thin molecules of skin. Even in the dim light, there was no question Harry's blood was ever as blue as fucking Pureblood Malfoy's. He laughed louder at the very notion, scoffing at himself for ever doubting it—for doubting himself.

Human, weren't they, the both of them? For all their differences? Humans who bled.

"Go the fuck ahead, Malfoy," he dared, reckless as a Fury. "In fact, I'll do it for you—I'll carve the word 'murderer' on my arm, as that's what I nearly was!"

"No!" Malfoy struggled, trying to take back his hand, his arm from Harry's clutches. He shook that pale mane of his slowly back-and-forth all the while, like a serpent weaving, hypnotized. "No, Potter! You won't make me! You won't!"

"What, Malfoy?"

Harry deliberately allowed his voice to go very soft, so nearly a mutter that Malfoy had to bend that wind-whipped cloud of white silk nearer to hear him, an unwary fly to Harry's web, even now. How could Malfoy—sly Malfoy; agile Malfoy—not realize what Harry had in store for him? Harry the Murderer-in-training—Harry who wasn't quite what he seemed?

"I won't make you what? Bleed? Suffer? Cry? Die, Malfoy?"

"No…" Malfoy whimpered, struggling yet. "No! Shut up, Potter—shut up! Stop talking!"

"Because I very nearly did," Harry went on, relentless, and would not let go. "All those things, Malfoy, just like your sodding bastard Dark Lord—that was me, Malfoy! All me."

"No," Malfoy said again, and dropped his head on his willowy neck as if it were far too heavy to hold up any longer. He stared at the floor and the dust of ages and stumbled over his words in his haste. "You aren't—you haven't—I. I did it—not you. It was me, Potter. Me. Him!"

"…You're bleeding, Malfoy," Harry, staring blankly at the hand cupped in his, finally noticed it, a faint trickle of dark scarlet ink, staining the chilled flesh with lacy feather-like weals, running freely. Dripping to the cold flags beneath their feet ever so daintily, a drop at a time. "Again. I've made you bleed, again."

The pale head whipped up, and Malfoy fixed his eyes straight on Harry's unshielded ones with such piercing intensity Harry gulped, swallowing back all the words that still wanted out. Perhaps the Sectumsempra had robbed Malfoy of his wits, along with his blood, Harry thought inconsequentially. Perhaps he'd cracked finally—gone mental, as it seemed Harry had, offering his wrist up to the enemy. Offering his guilt.

Giving Malfoy a prime opening, when that was the last thing Harry would ever do—would ever have done, before.

"Then cut it off," Malfoy ordered furiously, and twisted his fingers to grasp at Harry's. The jagged shard was caught between their twinned palms, slicing in haphazardly, and Harry scowled. It stung, but it was nothing, really, in comparison to everything else. Mouseballs to a Basilisk's fang, really. A Puffskein's nip.

"Cut it off me, Potter!" Malfoy ordered imperiously. "This Mark. You're so damned good at making me bleed, at taking me apart, piece by piece, Potter—cut it off! Get rid of it."

"What?"

Harry stumbled, though he wasn't planning on moving an inch. Couldn't really, with Malfoy's eyes like iron chains around him.

"UnMark me, you arse!" Malfoy was impatient—Harry could hear every last taunt over his fabled incompetence packed in those four words—years upon years of it—and what was it really all about, anyway? "It's so bloody simple, you fucker—why aren't you listening?"

"I—I can't do that, Malfoy!" Harry stuttered, ignoring the cutting edges that hovered all about him. This was a terribly dangerous situation, but he had to forge on. Wait! Could he?

"You can!" Malfoy shouted.

He managed at last to take back possession of his damaged forearm, wresting it from Harry's death grip, but only apparently for the purpose of ripping his cuffs apart and dragging up the pristine white fabric of a sleeve.

"You fucking well can! If anyone can, it's you, Potter! Bloody fucking Saviour—Saint Potter!" he snarled, so furious Harry could see spittle at the corners of those thinned lips. "I want some absolution, Scarhead—and I want it now!"

Black on white, a stark clear-cut image that bled not at all 'round the edges—that was Malfoy's Mark. A skull that leapt out at one nastily, grinning potent death.

"Malfoy," Harry said—sharper than anything ever before, with an edge like a blade, as if he taken the Pureblood surname so honoured through Wizarding ages and honed the syllables of it to a killing steel—"Malfoy, I will."

Malfoy was sobbing once more, pansy-heart eyes wide open in a sea of silvery glitter. He even cried prettily, the git, and the bloody git cried a lot; Harry didn't. Couldn't quite seem to, so maybe it was alright that someone was. Someone should be.

"Th-tha—" sobs and little gasps gouted out of Malfoy's chewed-on lips like fresh blood from a never-healing wound, "—nks!"

He bowed his white head then, perhaps in thanks, his lips opening and closing, a fish out of water—a bird with clipped wings—and Harry had never seen him so penitent. Not Malfoy, the ridiculous prat. Not Stupid Blind Pride, walking—nay, strutting, as if he owned bloody everything he saw and none of it was in any way up to the mark.

The Mark. There was more than the one sort, evidently.

Harry couldn't stand for that, either, no more than he'd managed the endless waiting for Malfoy—that daft git Malfoy—to bounce back from the crumbled edge of his personal precipice.

"But not like that," Harry stated flatly. "Not that, prat, so don't get your hopes up."

He got hold of Malfoy's thin wrist again; swarmed his fingers up where they clenched around the most recent gouge in that satiny flesh and peeled their bony gnarls open like the petals of a tight furled lotus-flower. A glittering oval lay in Malfoy's stained palm—Harry's spectacle lens, Reparo'd.

Reparo'd.

"Not like that," Harry said it again, this time in a barely-there whisper, and Malfoy whipped his too-humbly bowed head up and locked gazes with him. They eyed each other, unblinking, for an eon. There was no more crying.

A month later, they were situated on the Astronomy Tower's top floor, at one o'clock in the morning—knee to knee, Indian-fashion folded atop Harry's cloak. It was Saturday night, but the other lovers who used the Tower for their snogging assignations were long since safely to bed. The Map, lying untidily crumpled at Harry's folded-up knee, reported merely that Filch was safely occupied elsewhere.

"Enough?" Harry examined his handiwork by the faint light of Malfoy's steady Lumos. Malfoy did too, and their foreheads bumped together as they peered critically at what Harry had wrought.

"Mmm, s'alright to go on with, for a ham-handed prat, four-eyed and blind as a bat," Malfoy allowed, nodding briskly. "I s'pose."

He raised his well-defined chin abruptly and even in the very poor light of the stars and the flickering Lumos, Harry could see every single tiny pore on his beaky nose. They were all exceptionally small and the skin itself was a fine-grained masterpiece of architecture; the git was a git, but he was a fanciable git all the same, even his pointy bits. Gorgeous skin, definitely.

He should know. He'd just finished scratching at it, with a deliberately shattered section of common lens glass from his battered old spectacles.

"Give those over, will you?" Impatient, Malfoy took them up without waiting, straight out of Harry's perspiring grip. "Reparo!"

"Episky," Harry muttered, just as quickly, and deftly touched his wand tip to where he'd moments before etched a whole series of fine cross-hatchings, all down Malfoy's Voldemort-Marked forearm. The tendons flexed and jumped under the twice-marred skin and Malfoy winced ever so slightly, jerking back and hissing. Harry blinked a bit; there was a drip-drip of blood seeping into his one eye. Just a trickle, but it bothered him. Was saltier than tears, and thicker, too. Glue, to hold him together, on the inside.

"Here." Malfoy forced Harry's repaired spectacles back in his hand and then grabbed at his chin, twisting his jaw to and fro in a quick shake to shift Harry's flyaway hair out of his tangled lashes. "Episky!"

His spell was a wandless one, and it didn't cause Harry to 'Meep!' as Luna's had when she fixed up his broken nose after the Hogwarts Express debacle—or like his must've, just now, when he used it on Draco's gradually diminishing Dark Mark to end the last of the sluggish bleeding.

Harry blinked rapidly to rid his eyelashes of leftover stickiness and Malfoy instantly rubbed the soft pad of his thumb across Harry's one smeared eyelid and his wrinkled brow, too, right under the infamous Scar. The minute scratches were much fainter there, barely even discernable, but Harry—when he peered intently at his forehead in the dorm's shower mirror of a morning—could swear Malfoy's careful X's were doing their job.

Erasing. They were erasing them, these blots other people had put upon them. Slowly, surely, a little bit at a time, yes—but it was working. Which counted, as much as anything ever did, in the long run.

"Alright, Saint Potter?"

Malfoy's query was dry as dust and pedantic, which was how Harry knew he was laughing a little, on the inside. Not so much at Harry, as at the nickname. Harry was no one's Saint and they both knew it.

He nodded willingly enough—he was, yeah—and Malfoy tilted that beacon-bright head of his, which was shiny again and twice-as-perfect, and brushed his thin, firm, pink lips across Harry's, pecking almost—once, twice, thrice—before he reared back on his haunches yet again.

"Yes? Sure of that, Potter?"

Harry nodded much more vehemently in reply and feinted a teasing hand to pat Malfoy fondly on the pate. Malfoy shied away instantly, scrambling inelegantly and scowling blackly, nostrils flaring with temper.

"Prat, Potty! Uncalled for! Hands to yourself, if you please."

"Yes, idiot. It's fine," Harry put a whiny emphasis on that last syllable, mainly to shut Malfoy up—git was always a sodding worrywart over something. Any little thing; Harry would swear he enjoyed it, just as Hermione seemed to.

"Just fine. Come on, then," Harry added, gathering himself to rise to his pins-and-needles prickly feet, settling his much repaired spectacles back upon the bridge of his nose with an air of a man well pleased with a task completed. "'S'late. Back tomorrow, right?"

Malfoy stood like a pale ghost rising—or the flame dancing off a wick—but to Harry's eyes he was more the Ice Prince now than he'd been since well before the Sectumsempra. A few more months of this—this mutual Marking and perhaps they each might even start sleeping like normal people again, to go along with the ever-so-gradual weight gain each could boast of.

Hermione's sharp eyes had caught those changes in both of them, but she only smirked knowingly and kept her gob shut; Ron had merely rolled his eyes at Harry. Good thing, that. Some things didn't need to be discussed to death to be accepted. He loved his mates, he did. They were the best, ever.

"Tomorrow, yes," Malfoy agreed, and led the way out the door, politely holding it for Harry so it wouldn't slam in his face. "And don't be late, Scarhead. I had a time slipping past Snape last night on the way back—all because you were a laggard, coming."

Tomorrow, Harry thought, dawdling. "Yes, yes," he said aloud, grinning. "Point. I'll do better tomorrow, I promise."

"See that you do, Potty," Malfoy tipped his lips unwillingly and continued right on holding the door like the gentleman he'd been raised to be till Harry stepped through. "It's plebian to be tardy, you know. Very rude, keeping people waiting."

At least now, they both had one they could bear thinking of. A tomorrow, that is.

"Berk," Harry shot back and poked an affectionate finger into the tickly ribs of the pale git he'd made bleed—who made him bleed, in honourable payment—and whom he could see now, quite clearly.

Spectacles or no.

FINITE