title; a matter of independence
rating; pretty hard r i suppose
genre; drama/gen
pairing; no real to be honest, hinted at draco/ron and harry/draco, but there's no romance involved, sorry to say.
warnings; sexual activities, violence, hp-universe racism (albeit pretty brief),
disclaimer; all these characters and settings are belong to JKR, i'm only claiming the bit of ol' fashioned fanfiction i've got here.

summary; "Surely, Draco, you weren't named because it'd fit your persona, now were you?" In that very moment, he was positive the world was twisting off its axis. He could practically hear it, clatter, clatter, spin…

Sorry for the confusion surrounding the point of view in this one. The first scene is indeed in third person, but with focus on Harry. The rest are from Draco's, I have no idea why. It seemed right to do, the best for the story I guess. Good thing to start with, but it's really not a part of the "line" that runs through the story. Uh, first HP story as well, I am however, currently discussing a multi-chaptered with my beta, and working on it, so expect more of it!

"I had it all but not what I wanted
'cause hope for me was a place uncharted
and overgrown"
–paramore; careful

His lips were chewed out and angrily red; almost crimson and shocking in a face that looked tan with pale. Naturally, the contrasts grew even greater when anger crashed down like inferno in paradise. Harry had never given various religions thought before, but somehow the – in the situation he found himself in – simile of words seemed a familiar one, bringing back something of an almost eerily familiar hunch of the stomach, tightening and spread of cold buried deep in his chest. Akin to a lover's insults; accusations you knew by the heart, yet they still managed to dig their arrogant stiletto heels in your chest and shove you backwards as though you weren't prepared at all.

But he was. He was as ready as Draco was, razor edge to tongue and teeth and a snarl in the back of his throat, his pose seeming almost animalistic in his malice and fury. The briefest thought of how he could be a lion right now and the irony was certainly not lost on him.

Beautiful.

And Harry clenched his fists. Sixteen, they were sixteen. A year younger than their impending death, a year older than when they'd regarded themselves as grownups.

And they threw themselves at each other, clawing and ripping and kicking and hitting verbally.

Eleven, it started at eleven. Of course, it was no secret, or, if professor Dumbledore had gotten to say it himself: It was the greatest secret, so needless to say the entire school knew about it. No one was left out of it, whispers in the corridors and stares at backs and all of that came with it. It was only appropriate the entire school knew, of course. There had been mocking eyes and razor edge smiles with Crabbe and Goyle flanking him while the freckled skin on Ron's nose twisted and he balled up his fists behind Harry.

It wasn't really about Harry from the start, no, not really. It was the Weasleys with their autumn leaves hair and uncut temper and finely crafted features and cinnamon dusted skin. It was because of Ron it became Harry later on, amongst blood traitors which left a bad aftertaste on his tongue after tasting the word and empty Gringott vaults and insults based on physical heritage. It was Ron who got so mad his broad, bones-jutting-out-in-a-despite-every–thing-proud-way shoulders shook, who sneered like a wounded albeit too proud to admit it lion before he punched Malfoy wherever he could reach him.

For the longest time, Malfoy and Ron were the arch nemesis' the crowd searched for in Malfoy and Harry. Harry was supposedly noble and golden at heart. And the punch line to everything Weasley did, was a given. It was positively exhilarating. Harry was there, thin and with a strange set of emotions that ticked and ticked but never exploded; they merely breathed ash and smoke. Tufted hair and all too green eyes that scorched and smoldered and burnt.

And Draco couldn't decide whether he thought they were frightening or heightening in their wake.

The mudblood witch soon joined them in their first school year, but stayed. Arrogant when she managed to that rivaled Draco himself. His anger didn't just go out over Weasley anymore. It riveted; steadily a rivulet and stream in his mouth and in his mind, it started channeling at a greater picture than he had no control over. It started pouring onto her too, and of course, there Harry was, always the trigger to release. He'd bite back verbally, sometimes with hexes and spells; nonetheless his voice was always there. An insult to his senses, a ghost haunting his mind. Mind traps and Legilimency and what not. He never did suppose it was all too much an insult to his senses as a twelve year old generally. They'd grown, but they certainly hadn't matured.

Weasley was still a hot topic, hot as his hair demands it to be, Pansy used to say, before furrowing her brow and screeching that she didn't mean it in a suggestive manner. Draco snorted, as though she really had any idea of exactly what she was talking. Running after older students helped her talk, but of course not to understand the weight of words and the topic in itself.

Of course not, they were only twelve. Twelve and brash and harsh mouthed and rushing head first into prejudices and matters that were not their own. And it was by here where the summer came onto them and would result in yet a third year that Potter started to play a game he had no right to play according to more than a lot of them. He would play God and finger on lives he had no right to do it with, daresay, minds, he had no right to access and manipulate.

And on nights, the sheets were warm underneath his body as he twisted and turned and clenched his jaw, because there was just no way that Potter had the right to access his mind like that. He had no right to take control – spellbind – or invade his mind. But he did, and third and fourth year passed. And Weasley insults were fewer, and Granger faded out of his mind, and there was only lithe Harry with his too big glasses left.

And he didn't want that. At all.

Years passed, they grew still. Perhaps they matured in speech, in stance and in fighting for their opinions. But they didn't mature enough to be considered 'mature'. Draco softened but was yet sharpened. His features smoothed out a bit one day to be cut into passing 90⁰ angles again.

By their fourth year, no one was surprised when the rumors started leaking about how Draco once pushed Weasley up against a wall, tongue down his throat and nails ripping up shreds of his chest to bury outside in the dirt. How he'd trailed bites down his jaw, putting pressure to the places that would hurt the most, be most visible. Harry had hit him then, punched a high cheekbone hard enough to get the skin to shift in graying out magenta. Aimed clumsily, had drawn blood with his nails. Just like he'd done to the Weasley. Draco had spat at the floor then, applying pressure to his cheek and scrambling away. Still flanked, still "protected", still eleven years old.

The anger was bubbling in his throat, spilling out beneath brittle and blonde eyelashes. But he couldn't act on it, not this young, not this… out of control of his emotions and charged up on Harry obsession.

But by their fifth year innocence had passed onto advances and passive aggressive outbursts that were controlled and calculated instead of randomly spewing insults because they thought it would do them good. A lot were still as "mature" as the first years, but Draco had always valued himself and his abilities above others.

Umbridge took control over the school, chaos started to spread through the roots, heading for the branches. Everyone could feel it, tension crackling like 100⁰ volt of electricity in the air. He had noticed the scarification work done on the back of Harry's hand. Had seen it, pretended he knew nothing about it. Shall not tell lies, but he didn't voice it at all.

They met in the corridor. Evening, after the Weasley twins had gone. Draco was past caring. Harry looked as though the walls might close up; swallow them dry, as though it was all Draco's fault if they did. Draco's fault, it mauled on; chanted over and over in his head, until he stopped abruptly. Harry was still there, their backs facing each other.

"I'm not the man behind all your fears, Potter." He spat.

And Harry turned his head to look at him.

"I don't care if you are, because you never scared me." He answered, and his voice was soft. And Draco knew it was true, all too true. Numbly true, painfully true.

You do other things to me. And could they think in perfect unison, act as though they were clichés spat out to the public for their amusement, they probably would have.

Draco's fault, his mind chanted on.

Those other things, naturally, comes back to stab them in the back. Betray them and force them down on their knees. Literally, for some. Harry was too proud to be pictured down there, but so was Draco. And in the end it was Draco with his Malfoy pride and Slytherin scheming who won, whose knees almost went out when Harry took him deep on the harsh stone floor in an abandoned classroom.

Reduced to shallow panting and long, wispy fingers that tugged at Harry's black hair. Bony knees that occasionally bumped into his shoulders and a spine that curved when he helplessly tried to not buck forward. It's all about self control, he realized. But didn't bother to obscure the hiss spilling from his lips on the brink of release as Harry pulled away. Didn't say anything, would like to tell Harry that he'd get severely hurt unless he returned to what he did right a second ago, didn't.

Because Harry was tilting his head, and Draco's hands automatically flew out of tresses of raven hair, searched for solidness on a cold bench and an earth globe to his left. It was perfectly still for the passing moments, utterly still. Until Harry spoke up, rough voice that brought forth purple bruises underneath his eyes, made so much more real when his glasses weren't perked at the bridge of his nose and instead lay on the floor somewhere.

"Surely, Draco, you weren't named because it'd fit your persona, now were you?" Harry asked, a half-lip smirk twisting and curving his face into something unfamiliar, alien, something Draco did not know. And in that very moment, he was positive the world was twisting off its axis. He could practically hear it, clatter, clatter, spin…

Before he recollected himself. Put pieces together; saw them fit tentatively as he arched an eyebrow, fighting desire for release that promptly began to renew itself, gathering from the tips of his fingers and toes to coil in his stomach. "Oh, and why ever would you think so, Potter?" He spat his surname indignantly, fixing his gaze by the scar on his forehead, partially covered by beginning-to-dampen locks.

"Besides." He murmured, raking a hand through his hair. "Aren't you a little controvert on your own, Boy who lived?" But there wasn't even the briefest glimpse of sympathy in him. Not even when Harry glared, a flare, flicker in his green eyes who'd long since lost their luster, and dove back to where he'd been before. Deep throating Draco, who had to give in with a groan and fists in thick, black hair. A groan that might just have given Harry Potter the exact kind of rush of power fitted for a Slytherin alone to have. The power to control urges, desires, thoughts.

And the world span, tilted, shattered. And Draco knew that he hadn't got any control of it what so ever, he never had.

Harry groaned; a sharp vocalization of what raged in his head when he parted his lips after swallowing, tasting salt on his tongue as he laid bare his soul to Draco, unwillingly spilling – to Draco – inner thoughts neither of them should ever know of.

"Beautiful, but you shouldn't be."

Draco had long considered himself just that, but he had never before seen anything more on-the-verge and unafraid of what was to come than Harry Potter's laid bare inner thoughts right then and there. And no one knew better than a Malfoy of just how beautiful the last strides to death could be.

"'Cause it's fame
before you they will kneel
yes it's fame
and the more you steal, the less you feel"
–alex band; fame

Harry swerved again as the serpent lounged at him, he soared upwards and towards the place, he prayed, the door stood open: Ron, Hermione and Goyle had vanished; Malfoy was screaming and holding Harry so tightly it hurt…

And in that moment, there was nothing beautiful about death. It was so close it was scorching his back through his robes, his fingers dug into Harry's stomach, tried to hold onto each individual rib as he pressed himself tighter to the boy in front of him, trying to breathe and settle his screaming as he buried his head in the nape of Harry's neck.

There was burning on his wrist, pulling and tearing at veins sickly teal underneath seashell pale skin and powder white bones. Stark black against fair, sickness coiled in his stomach like a content serpent, slithering around and encircling his organs. Crushing them tightly, wringing the oxygen out of his lungs.

And his arm moved, reaching and wounding itself around Harry's wrist, pressing and pressing to cool the feeling down. As though the boy could actually help him, as though his touch was a catharsis against all evil in the world. As though what everyone had told them since childhood was true.

And when Harry – consciously or not – pressed back, it was all Draco ever wanted to believe. Here, engulfed in fire and flame's tight embrace, racing against time they had not been granted.

He wanted to believe, that Harry was true, that he had stolen more than he could keep from Draco.

He gasped and gasped, tried to breathe in as much as he could, keep the air snugly fitted inside his lungs and really keep it there forever and longer even. But, as obsession and death, it is merely a fleeting thing. A phenomenon that revisits because it is a necessary factor. Obsession, regardless if it is looked upon as love or care or hate, it is still an obsession in itself. Death, the inevitable end that will meet all in one or another form, will always be there. Perhaps we know nothing of it, but it's always there, regarding us with cool and deciding things we cannot control. Air, oxygen, the necessity to carry on living for as long as we are permitted to, always there, but still fleeting, for-the-moment in a recurring manner.

But, as he got up, coughing and writhing on the ruined floor, watching Harry and his backing support become blurry figures in the shadows from the flames, Draco realized that even obsession could be recurring.

An obsession not looked on as love, or hate, or care, but an obsession. Everything in between, avoiding and never really touching one definite term. Draco's world had slowly got back upon the axis it balanced on, but forever spinning in an opposite direction than it had two years ago. But he'd live with it, he was a Malfoy. After all, it was merely a question of independence.

An independence that told him that could he not keep the balance steady, there was no future ahead.

So he got up. Did not look up and back at Harry who was long gone. Gone in so many terms he didn't want to count them himself. Gone to meet death up ahead, keeping true to the chivalrousness that his house had chosen him for.

And Draco realized that it wasn't the way towards death that was beautiful, and it wasn't death in itself that was beautiful. But Harry, who strode up to meet it time after time, Harry who sacrificed a part of himself each time, who teetered on the edge to oblivion and was willing to give it all up but still didn't, he was beautiful. He was beautiful because death was not, and Harry was life.

And life, Draco Malfoy learned as maturity seemed to hit him as suddenly as it could, had brilliance to it that nothing else could stand up to.

–fin.

So, uh, anyone who actually saw the underlying point to the whole thing? I'm positively and insanely curious as to whether anyone could actually catch what the whole point was in my blabbering around the bit of fiction here.