Title: Innocent Like Snow
Author: Gold-Snitcher
Pairing: DM/HP
Summary: Draco contemplates Harry and the changes he's noticed in his lover since the war.
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It was snowing on the day you cracked and broke.
I watched you from the window and saw your pieces scatter across the immaculate white ground: innocence falling on purified earth. It was almost as if Gaia was attempting to make herself worthy of you. You were just a dark blur against the falling snow, but you looked like you belonged there, amidst all the purity.
Shattered, you crumpled to the ground and I watched your dark form as you knelt there.
I admit I called your name as I ran out to you, intent on picking-up the pieces. I attempted to reassemble you, but I was never very good with this, and I think I put you together all wrong. In fact, I know I did.
You never would have snapped at everyone the way you did when you were called down to join the party. You would have never scoffed and rolled your eyes the way you did when everyone began to sing, "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow", though I agree with you -- it was a sick thing to sing to you. Especially then.
It used to worry me.
I would watch you in those moments when I could tell with absolute certainty that this was not how you used to be. In those moments when you proved that I was inadequate to the task that you entrusted to me.
The one thing you asked from me, and I botched it.
I wanted nothing more than to apologize, than to beg your forgiveness, but that was never in me. I was never humble and I still don't know how to be. That was why I was surprised when you told me that you loved me those months ago. That was why I was surprised when you entrusted me with your heart. With The Task.
I know why I accepted. Anyone could have noticed that I was in love with you, but then, even if they did notice, I don't think they believed. It was all too unlikely that I could love my enemy. That I could love at all.
Still, I used to get frustrated when I saw that smirk on your face. The smirk you stole from me, or that I gave to you when I reassembled you all wrong. It's hard to tell. I used to wonder where I had gone wrong, what I could do to change it.
I don't mind anymore.
Yesterday you sat beside me and took my hands.
When I looked into your eyes, I remembered how you used to be, and that made me happy, though I would never admit that out-loud. You took my hands and told me that you were almost put in Slytherin. You told me about the turmoil in your head, the constant war that raged on and the doubt that you were who everyone believed you to be. You told me how hard it was sometimes, to be a Gryffindor. Then you kissed my cheek and told me that now you knew for certain who you were.
I used to think that when I put you back together -- piece by fractured piece -- I had recreated myself, as people so often do. But then you caught my eye across the table and smirked at me in that that endearing way, and I realized that it wasn't true. Not entirely. Because you never were as simple and plain as everyone wanted you to be. You were just as fucked-up as the rest of us. Perhaps even more so. Yes, even more. You just knew to trust yourself and had enough faith to step off a ledge with your eyes covered and no confirmation of ground beneath your feet.
It was snowing the day you cracked and broke and I ran outside to pick-up the pieces.
I did the best I could, and sometimes I wonder if you will ever talk to me about That Day, and I wonder how you could have ever confronted something like that. How you could ever love me. But then I remember that pure white earth, and your dark figure contrasting it. I remember the purity that surrounded you being marred as your dark blood spread like wildfire across the clean earth.
To the world you are a Gryffindor, but you have always been my little Slytherin.
I don't think about the pieces anymore.
All I think about is you.
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The End
