And the days, they seem like forever.
running is something draco does often now. it's not like he particularly likes it, he'd just rather be alive than dead. and everything depends on running.
it has been three weeks, two days, four hours, and sixteen minutes since snape killed dumbledore and draco ran into the forbidden forest. three weeks, two days, four hours, and sixteen minutes of hopeless wandering and avoiding anything that moves.
three weeks, two days, four hours, and sixteen minutes spent figuring out what to do.
of course, draco is a smart boy; he is more resourceful than others give him credit. he knows how to survive the muggle way. he is not as prejudiced as he acts, and he has an instinct for survival that has been perfected throughout his short life. when his father came home and announced that the dark lord had returned, draco started studying stolen muggle books on survival tactics, spending his hours locked up in his room going over every possible worst case scenario, making sure he was prepared. and so, during the first minutes of his three weeks, two days, four hours, and sixteen minutes, he quickly decides that the one thing that takes priority over finding his mother and convincing her that No, The Dark Lord Is Not Good, Father Is Off His Rocker And In Azkaban, Please Just Listen To Me, is his own current survival.
draco thinks, 'ohgod how can i do this to my own mother?' every time he digs a hole to hide in the dank dirt of the floor of the forbidden forest and as he crawls into his mucky hiding hole he wonders, wonders if she's given him up for dead, wonders if she's waiting for him to come home and convince her to leave, wonders if she's already gone somewhere safe, wonders if she's already dead.
and there are tears, which turn the dirt on his cheeks into mud and as he runs from shadows that move and twigs that snap; his cheeks sting, even though it's not particularly cold during the summer - because it is summer, and draco avoids everything except for the trees and the dirt and the roots and the bushes. because signs of life are bad, living means war, and war means death.
draco does not want to die.
and the only way he knows how to avoid death is to run. to run fast and far away, deeper into the forbidden forest. his logic in this, he thinks as he feels the inside of his lungs chafe from constant uneven air flow, is that if he gets lost enough, nobody will ever find him and he will be safe. he repeats this, muttering it to himself, a twistedly hopeful mantra that is the only thing that keeps him going when he feels the muscles in his legs protesting every small movement, when he feels the ache in his arms from their perpetual motion.
draco's three weeks, two days, four hours, and sixteen minutes turn into months, and months may have turned into years, but draco has stopped caring. time has been ruled irrelevant, except when fleeing. and the name narcissa malfoy is nothing more than a sore feeling in his chest, so similar to the ache in his bones that he passes it off as a tired muscle.
yes, he was lonely once. but he thinks of the loneliness he might have suffered in azkaban, or the loneliness he might have felt when pansy or vince or greg might have all been killed and he thinks that it's better this way, that it's safer, and that he's not being hurt as nearly as much as he could be.
outside the forbidden forest, harry potter kills voldermort and inadvertently saves narcissa malfoy. there is rejoicing, sorrow, and tears of happiness and loss. harry suffers from the losses, sitting on the hardwood floor next to his bed mouthing the words, 'if only ihadbeenthere if only i had been faster if only i hadn't done thatif only if only if only if only if only,' and sometimes he wanders into the forbidden forest and doesn't come out for days. ron and hermione observe him from a distance, at a loss as how to fix their broken friend.
after disappearing into he forest for five days, they wonder why harry hasn't come out yet. they worry for an hour and a half - but then their baby kicks inside hermione's stomach and they choose to focus on the hope of new life rather than harry's old soul.
they find each other like this:
draco has found a clearing, serene and beautiful. its center is a small pool of water, an unexpected gift upon draco's ever dehydrated body. ever cautious, (after all, survival comes first, and he must know that the water is safe that it's not poisoned or dangerous, because that would defeat his purpose entirely, wouldn't it?) he checks the water first, licking his dry lips with an even drier tongue, doing everything that he can remember to check the damn water, and when he is satisfied, he dunks his face into it, reveling in the pure wetness of it. draco teats himself to a weak cleaning spell that really only cleans the dirt and grime from his hair because he pronounces the words wrong, his voice warped from silence. he gulps down the water, sparing anxious looks to the left and the right of him, and he feels like he wants to inhale the whole pool and let it fill every unoccupied space in his body.
harry is lost. he was running from an angry centaur that he lost two days ago, but when he looked for an exit from the forest he found he was had no idea where he had been and where he was. so he wanders, not sure if he has just passed that tree stump or if it's a different one, and when he sees the opening of the clearing with a pool, he heads straight toward it.
as he approaches it, he sees a silvery being. a unicorn, is the first thing that pops into his mind and he slows his pace until he is creeping. he creeps until he can see without squinting, not a unicorn then.
more correctly, a person. to be even more exact, draco malfoy. who, at the noise that harry's hand makes as it scrapes against the bark of a tree, looks up and freezes due to the look on harry potter's face, his eyes scrunched up and squinting at him.
'i thought you were a unicorn.' is all harry can manage.
and maybe they left the forest together. maybe they fell in love, maybe draco malfoy got his safety and harry potter found resolution and closure in the arms of a pale fugitive, and maybe they got their happy ending.
or maybe they stayed in the forest and had a different kind of happy ending.
fin