Drabble #3: Beautiful
Note: a bit more angsty than the other ones, this is for the stupid image that refuse to leave my head. As usual, unbetta-ed.
Word count: 807
Harry Potter strode down the cold stone hall late at night, steps quick and sure among the up heaved floor and blown out walls. Outside the shattered windows, the wind howled beneath the storm clouds. This is Hogswarts, he thought dimly, absently. This is the greatest Wizardry school in all of Great Britain. He kicked aside a piece of rubble next to the smashed in wall and crumbled tapestry.
This is Hogswarts.
Harry had just come out of a room at the end of the long hall behind him. He had come out of a room that had the broken corpse of a man who was not a man, a beast who was not a beast. Harry had left the dead body of the most feared Wizard of the magical world in that windowless cell, his half human, half not form already rotting and sending putrid acridness into the air.
The castle that is Hogswarts is empty now, its halls ruined and broken, tapestries ripped, paintings smashed, and the only living soul Harry could feel is his own. And that fact is sending his heart into a greater fear than when standing face to face with the Dark Lord. Because when Harry received the glowing messenger ball from his comrades of the Order of Phoenix, he found out that not all those who were alive were evacuated safely.
One other man had stayed behind.
So Harry had ignored the orders of retreat, had thrown the glowing white ball into the semi-intact wall and watched it break into million pieces of white shards, feeling a mixture of fear and anger welling up inside him. He had kicked open the door to that windowless cell where he had faced Voldemort and sent out a wave of pure unadulterated magical energy, smashing the Death Eaters who had gathered into walls and furniture and windows alike, pressuring them until every single one had entered the realm of unconsciousness.
Harry held nothing back, not for the few whom he had known and had entered school with him, nor for those whom he didn't know. He glanced at none either as he continued past their crumbled form. There is only one person he want found; Harry does not care for anyone else.
So he walk now, with quick and angry and desperate strides, eyes darting among the bodies littered among the ground, hoping desperately that the one he needs to find is not among the dead.
When he entered the Great Hall, he came to an abrupt stop, the wind howling more strongly than in the corridor. The enchanted ceiling, which had given him so much joy before as a child is gone now, ripped away by the powerful magic of both his enemies and his allies. Angry clouds roiled above him, a mockery of the peaceful blue of the enchanted ceiling of the past.
Below that spitting and hissing sky stood a man with his back to Harry, tall and strong, long blonde hair flying every which way. One hand held a long cane, the tip gleaming with silver. Lightning flashed, and for a moment Harry thought the silver snake on the cane had moved.
Lucius Malfoy, he thought, feeling the fear come back again. Lucius Malfoy is standing. And the anger changed to rage.
But before he could train his wand, trembling in fury, onto the back of the Malfoy, Lucius stumbled and crashed to his knees. As he fell, his form revealed another blonde, a smaller blonde whose hair is in the same shade of pale gold, whose eyes were the same pale gray, but whose skin was whiter, eyes larger, lips fuller.
Harry stopped, feeling the rage drain out of him, feeling his heart stop in his chest. There was dirt on the other man's lily-white skin, dirt and mud and blood that had already dried and crusted. There was blood in his hair too, tangled into a mass of golden red. His robes were ripped and shredded, and trails of dark liquid still rolled down one pale arm unmarred by a black skull, circling down to the wooden wand tip, still glowing a faint green.
The storm continued to rage, but to Harry, it sounded fainter somehow, as if it was finally receding after hours and hours of wailing.
He never looked so filthy, Harry thought fondly. Draco Malfoy slowly raised his eyes from the fallen form of his father, the man who had raised him, trained him, taught him, and sold him to a snake in the form of a man. Raised his eyes from the deceiver who tried to kill him, to the man who, once upon a time, had saved him from a fate far worse than death.
He never looked so filthy, Harry admitted, lips curling up. But he also never looked more beautiful.
