You're sitting at these same long tables, and I'm wondering when my obsession, my jealously, turned into something darker and bloody worse than hate. There's something unaffected about you. Your hair is so dark and tangled, like you don't even care, not in rakish, purposeful way, but like you genuinely don't care. I wonder what it's like to not care, to get up in the morning and pull on your clothes in all of five minutes like I'm sure you must have done, the button of your shirt inside your robes carelessly undone. I suppose you fancy you have more important things to care about. Maybe, deep down, I reckon we all should. But caring about anything that much is fucking terrifying.
Over here, it's the same bloody boring bunch, hanging on to every careless word I say, Pansy batting her fucking eyelashes like she's got a tic, coquettish paroxysms I just cannot stand for another second. The truth is, life has lost its color. Life has been utterly monochromatic for a long time.
I'm drumming my fingers on the table, my skinny fingers, one ongoing staccato beat to compliment the bass throbbing in my temples. I wonder if you would take care of me. I wonder if for once, I could stop being a boy, and just be a person. If I could give up and you would be there to take me in, another one of your misfit, woe begotten refugees. I know I would feel safe. But I can't. No one is really safe. The invincible allure of your arms is an illusion.
I wonder who you've kissed. I wonder who you've held. I wonder if you've ever whispered something in a girl's ear beneath mistletoe, or starry skies. I wonder if you've ever kissed a boy. I wonder if you've ever killed.
Fuck.
I hate you.
I want you.
My father is walking through the garden with me. It is December the 22nd. Draco, He says. Draco, I hope you're doing everything right. You know what will happen if you fail. You know what will happen. It's the same thing he said to me at King's Cross before my first year, and it seemed just as deadly then, though there is a far more serious lethal promise behind it now. I was scared. I think everyone who pretends they're in control is scared. Pansy: yammering on next to me. Blaise: cool, collected. Goyle, cracking his knuckles. They all know. They've all heard screams and done nothing but watch. They know that even if they win the war they'll lose themselves to it, for the rest of their lives.
You're getting up now.
I follow the alert sweep your eyes give the Great Hall. Green as the killing curse, they are, and just as inspiring. My fingers are drumming faster. Weasel is still eating, predictably. Granger is reading, just as, if not more, predictably. Do you friends ever do anything you don't expect? I think. Then I feel a wicked smile curve my mouth as I whisper and how about your enemies?
I follow you down two halls, towards the astronomy tower. You climb the steps with the morning light. You loosen your red tie. You sit, framed in one of the stone windows, a watchful silhouette. The-boy-who-lived. A sentry. The-boy-who-may-die. I think about how easy it would be to kill you right now. It wouldn't even be as hard as a knife in your back, or my slender fingers around your gasping throat. No, just some words; that's all it would take. What are words, really? Meaningless sounds. It would be so easy. Your body would fall through the window. No, I'd catch you as the light left your eyes and kiss your mouth while the warmth remained. You'd never know.
"Malfoy." The monotone startles me. You haven't turned. You're gazing out the window, your wand casually grasped in one hand.
"Potter." The venomous response seems so automatic. How could I not say it? So many things have changed, but between us, time has stood still. We're still just bruised, angry boys who want to beat each other bloody and then laugh through our black eyes and nod in unspoken understanding. But there is a wall between us. Two sides of the biggest divide. We're poster boys for two dichotomous wills.
I can't stand it anymore.
It's amazing, how few steps it takes to get close enough to feel the heat radiating off of you. I've caught you off guard. The offensive you might have expected would have been a raised wand, right back where I stood. But now I'm almost touching you, I can see the whorls and bright verdant worlds through your glasses, feel your intake of breath, see your pupils dilate. My mouth collides with yours.
My mouth will be bruised tomorrow. I've slammed you roughly to the wall, and you're so surprised, for a few seconds you let me take from you a single hard kiss. It is molten, like vodka down my throat, my thumb under your cheekbone, grasping your hips, wanting, wanting, deadly, mad, glorious…
When you push me away we're both breathing hard. For a second, I'm brave, and I look at your stark disbelief. And then I turn. And run.
I know you won't say anything. I know we'll avoid each other's faces for a long time, and you'll never tell a soul that Draco Malfoy snogged you in The Astronomy Tower one morning, and what a bloody ponce he is, and how much you hate him. For one thing, I'm sure you're too noble. For another, it's probably too mortifying. But for a second, I couldn't feel The Dark Lord on my shoulder. For a second, we weren't two enemies on either side of a grisly slaughter.
For a second, we were two boys, standing on the line, utterly shocked.
