Disclaimer: I do not own in any way Harry Potter.
Summary: Just a little post-war HarryxDraco oneshot. Quite literally.
Warnings: Some swearing and yaoi ( boyboy love). No like, no read, so please no flames!
Tears and AshesLaboured breathing echoed through the trees. The sky thundered darkly overhead and the very air itself seemed smeared with grey. Ash drifted, blown by the wind from the nearby battle and though it was June, the air was chill.
A young man, ripped and ragged, tore through the branches, his robes snagged by the undergrowth. His platinum hair was dull and limp, dripping with sweat. Torn robes revealed deep gouaches and made the surrounding fabric dark with blood.
His head snapped back with force at a small noise, sending him sprawling over a protruding root and into a large scum filled puddle. For a moment he did not move.
In fact, it looked as if he had no will to ever get up again.
Eventually, sputtering, he lifted his head from the water to take a gasping breath. From his harsh breathing it was obvious there was internal damage to his lungs, either from exertion or injury.
At any rate, all he did was lift a hand, rife with tremors, to meet his wet and bloodied lip. A laugh rang out. It was shrill, and it was easy to detect the barely restrained hysteria underneath it.
Draco Malfoy rolled over, mindless of the large amount of filthy water seeping into his clothes. This was highly unusual for the 19 year old, or it should have been; he was clearly not in the state to care about anything. His cheeks and arms were scratched by the whipping branches of his earlier escape, and his skin had an unhealthy pallor to it. Deep grey circles shadowed his eyes and the quiet desperation within them was what was the most worrying of his features to observe.
He nearly choked on his own spittle when a snap sounded not two feet away. He slowly, fearfully turned his head on the ground to see what fate awaited him. Another man stood, just as woe-be-gone and bedraggled as Draco himself, chest heaving with the strain to continue staying upright, leaning heavily against a gnarled tree.
Draco's head returned to its original position staring at the sky.
"And what" he pushed out between his teeth, " is Harry Potter, not an hour after the Final Battle, doing alone in the middle of a dead-cursed, fecking forest, with only death eater Draco Malfoy for company?"
There was no reply. The head turned once more to face the other man.
Harry was not looking at him. His gaze was looking, unseeing, past the dark spaces between the trees.
" I can't do it. I can't go back" he whispered in a hush, "all is not what it once was" he continued mournfully.
" For Gods sake, don't get philosophical on me now Potter. It doesn't suit you."
Harry snapped his attention to the blonde laying in the filth on the floor. His eyes ran up and down the Death Eater's frame, marking every wound, cut, nick and ailment automatically. A piece of ash had landed in Draco's hair at some point and smudged, leaving a dark sooty trail where it had been.
Harry returned his eyes to the distance before replying, " It's just that… I know what's waiting for me if I go back" he said hesitantly, chancing a glance back at Draco as he continued, " and I don't like the future that's there."
Draco had yet to make a snide comment, and Harry seemed to take some confidence from this silence. " If I go back," he murmured softly, eyes still lingering in the distance, " I'll be hailed as some hero, yet again, they'll put me back on a pedestal again, I will be constantly watched and probably end up marrying Ginny Weasley."
At this point Harry turned his attention back to the man on the floor, a hopeful glint in his eye that his last words might have got some reaction. He wasn't disappointed.
" And what do you want to do about it Potter? Whine all you like, but you seemed to have forgotten that my situation is a hell of a lot worse than yours could ever hope to be! I face an execution simply because of the family I just happen to be born in, while you harp on about the terrors of a forced celebrity status?! ", the blonde spat.
" Well isn't that just typical, you rotten bastard", he muttered as he dragged himself up, still not showing any apparent care for the puddle-water that was continuing to seep into his clothes.
Harry bit his lip, looking as if he was having an internal struggle on what reply he should give. It was clear they had gotten to the crux of their conversation, as well as the source for the dark haired boy's nervous fidgeting.
" I was thinking, wondering actually", Harry said rather breathlessly, " if, perhaps, maybe, that you would consider coming…along…with me."
Draco now focused an intense gaze on the standing man, his dull eyes finally showing some of their former brilliance. It was a shame it was to give Harry a piercing stare that gave the boy the impression that he might spontaneously combust from it.
Finally, after an age, the platinum haired young man seemed to find what he was looking for, whatever that was. He lowered his eyes to the ground, as if that would give him an answer to the question, which would surely be a turning point in his life. " I really don't have a choice in this do I?" he asked seemingly to himself.
Harry didn't reply. The question was practically rhetorical anyway, at least it sounded that way to him.
Draco gave a loud sigh, before finally fighting his way out of his sitting position to standing. He gave Harry an appraising look before saying,
So, where to Potter? And this better be good. If I have to put up with you than I want to know that this is at least going to be better than what I'm leaving behind."
Harry merely gave a small smile in reply before reaching for the former Slytherin's hand.