Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, JK Rowling and a host of others do. Done for fun, not profit.
Author's Notes: Done for one of the LJ community slythindor100 Special Valentine Challenge prompts: "Love is just a word until you find someone that gives it definition." Not at all what I originally intended to write (which was fluff). This is what hit me after helping someone with Communication Theory coursework.
Harry had never been good at saying how he felt. Words were tricky—they had no meaning of their own. They were simply lines on a page, sounds in the air, until you ascribed a meaning to them.
Like 'love'. Soft, lulling, round beginning, buzzing end. No real meaning. Until now.
Now it meant warm hands over cold fingers, a hot meal placed before him, careful hands assisting when Harry can only fumble, a slow, tired smile that rarely reaches dull grey eyes, and patience as Draco painstakingly tries to communicate, looking in vain for some kind of meaningful response.
~*~
His life is full of words. Words to explain, words to correct, words to soothe and comfort. They never seem to do any good. He searches for recognition in bright green eyes, and sometimes he fools himself into thinking he sees it. But then it fades, and he's left repeating the same things over and over.
Fork. Come. Eat. Drink. Bath. Bed. Sleep. And more frequently, others: Draco. You. Harry. Safe. And as he kneels before Harry, desperately holding onto hands that are always cold: Love. Love you. I love you.
Maybe some day Harry will understand him once more.
~*~
Sounds and lines. He'd never realised how important they were. For a while, they were nothing. Now… they mean something.
He tries. He'd thought he had it; a brief flicker of hope, the grey eyes went dull again. No words, then. Only sounds from a voice rarely used since the accident.
He keeps trying. Every day more sounds stop being sounds and become words in his head.
One day he croaks out more sounds; Draco's tears stop and he trembles, arms tightening around Harry. "What?"
"Love… Draco." Stilted, but he knows he's gotten through at last. Silence tells him so.