*Author's Note- PLEASE READ!*
So, this is it. The final ever chapter of Hero Like Me and that makes me very sad and very relieved. (But OMG my OCD hates me for ending on 9, not 10…)I hated being mean to them, because I really do love them- PROMISE! But it was kind of like I had no control over this fic. It was writing itself and I was just the conduit. In defense of my ending, can I just say I WARNED YOU! I knew the ending before I knew anything else and I tried to prepare you as best I could… (But note the warnings and note what's missing as much as what's there, m'kay?) Oh and if you want to get more on Draco's p.o.v or see what happens after, I will be updating Follow You Down soon!
Mostly I wanted to say a huge, insanely squealy THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOUUUUU to everyone who read, alerted and reviewed this fic. Especially to all the reviewers: Srienia, and B. and But an especially huge thank you to these reviwers: HeidiFox, LukeandLorelai Brucas Fan and Red Sonja of the North because their reviews seriously were amazing and kept me going. :,D THANKYOU! I cannot say it enough. 3
WARNINGS: SELF HARM, BULIMIA AND ANOREXIA TRIGGERS, SUICIDAL THOUGHTS, BASHING OF EVERY POSSIBLE BELOVED CHARACTER AND GENERAL ANGSTINESS. Oh and slash, lol.
J.K ROWLING THE AMAZING FANTASTIC WONDOROUS AWE-INSPIRING OWNS ALL. I'm just being a bitch haha. Title is from "4st 7lbs" by Manic Street Preachers. Quote is included just cause.
Chapter Nine: Epilogue Of Youth
"Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for."
Clarence Darrow
Harry wakes one morning and knows it is spring. He can taste the scent of the thawing, rain soaked earth in the air. Can taste the no longer watery sun. He fancies he can smell the green shoots of new grass poking up through the cracks in the sidewalk outside his apartment. Can smell the scent of flesh and blood thawing and warming as it is exposed to the glimmering golden light. As the shackles of a long, cold winter are slowly melted away.
Not his blood though.
And not Draco's.
They will remain smothered in layers as their starving bodies try to keep-
Draco.
Draco. That's what's missing, why Harry fancies he can smell the world-
Because there is no cotton-candy-chocolate-bitter-bile-honey-sweet-musky-silver-metal-shine-glimmer-blood-hope
Draco lying in bed beside him, with his hair all mussed and his sweet sick skin filling Harry's nose with the scent of
Love and
Disease.
Harry sits up in bed so fast his head spins and his empty stomach lurches.
Draco is missing, where is Draco Draco Draco is he hurt, bathroom tiles bleeding bile soaked oesophogus ruptured dying dead oh Gods Draco-
And Harry is half way across the room before his merry-go-round brain realizes there is a note on Draco's pillow.
He approaches it slowly, trembling like a new a new born foal and his breath is harsh and ragged and far too loud in the dingy apartment, with the scattered and strange shadows caused by the spring sun and decades old dirt.
Harry's vision is twisted, blurry and his heart is murmuring a melody comprised of Draco's name and what if what if what's wrong oh gods oh gods Draacoo…?
And even the snake is shocked into silence because there are rules to this game and rules mean constancies and one of those is Draco, here, there, now, with, always, Draco.
And Harry's eyes feel like they're burning bleeding and he drops the note three times before his traitorous hands and eyes co-operate enough to let him read it.
Harry-
Dear Harry, perfect Harry, hateful Harry, damaged Harry, beautiful, fucked up, tortured, torturing Harry.
Lover Harry, enemy Harry, Saviour Harry, golden boy Harry, sick, sweet, diseased Harry.
Do not panic. I am not dead. And I will be back I just don't know
When.
Do you remember when I left you in St. Mungo's. all alone, trapped with your disease and the fruitless, pointless, pathetic administrations of the
"Healers"?
Of course you do. How you must have hated me for doing that. I'm sorry.
More so because I know how much it must have caused you to
Despise yourself.
And I never told you why, did I? I'm sorry
So sorry
It seems as I write this, I have so much to answer for.
I love you, gods how I love you and I am imploring you do not ever forget that. I'm on my knees begging you to remember that.
I
Love
You.
And though I guess the position has lost much significance. It seems I've been on my knees far too often since I fell for, with, you.
I want to stay. The world is warming, I can feel it, almost. See it in the way the light dances through the air. But my eyes are so blurry now and sometimes everything seems grey and strange and spots thread their way into my vision. So maybe it is still winter after all. I want a spring with you. Want summer. Want to be able to go into Hyde park and eat ice-cream and hold hands and kiss and make faces at anyone who disapproves. I want to eat dinner with my mother and your, well family, the Weasely's, Granger, what else could I call them? But that's impossible, isn't it love?
I have not left because I am asking you to get better
(Though I must admit, as beautiful as you are, you are starting to scare me. Remember, you can't die, you promised you wouldn't, Gods if you knew what you do to me-)
I am making
Me
Get better.
Harry you healed me once and that was fine for a while. But I need to heal myself
At least, temporarily.
And my mother needs me. And I need to find
Myself.
I will be back. Jus like last time.
And last time, (see, I said I would tell you, and Malfoy's are true to their words) I left because staying would destroy you, love. Seeing me worsen, as you were forced to heal. It would have caused pain and conflict and nothing good would have come of it.
We would have hated each other in a week.
And the same thing will happen if I stay now.
If I stay and try to heal whilst you do not I wouldn't last a day before falling into my old habits.
And I can't ask you to heal, not for me.
I know I'm not enough to kill the demons.
Though I wish so desperately I could be.
I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you
And this isn't forever, there's no such thing as forever but I'll be back I promise.
Please wait for me.
Please do not die.
Please hold on, for me for me for me.
I love you, always.
Yours, only yours, forever and ever- Draco.
And Harry can do nothing but stare for endless moments as his hungry, haunted mind tries to comprehend what he has just read. He re-reads the letter, once, twice, ten times and it's not making sense Draco left Draco can't leave no, he needs Draco Draco-
And then Harry is rushing across the room, falling, crawling as his body rebels against the shock.
And then he's sprawled in from of the grimy toilet on his knees like a mockery of being at prayer and he's heaving retching gagging and his throat is
Burning it burns oh god Draco
And he is heaving up stomach acid and he tastes something metallic and he realizes he has bit straight through his lip trying to hold in his screams, his sobs and there is blood and bile dripping down he's chin and down his throat and he thinks he might be crying maybe
Though hero's they don't cry
Stop crying you useless fuck stop crying tears won't bring him back you useless fat piece of shit-
And the ghosts are cackling
We told you so
Told you so told you
That you would break him destroy him hurt him kill him like you
Murdered us
He hates you he hates you he hates you you have never been enough
You will never be enough
Fat piece of shit
Useless
Hate you
He hates you
He left you everyone leaves you don't you ever wonder why we left you
They left you he left you they hate you everyone hates you
Fat shit ugly weak some hero ugly fat loser despicable monster hate you ugly fat weak shit-
And Harry can't tell what the snake is saying and what the ghosts are saying and what he is telling to himself but everyone is screaming abuse in his head and he's still puking up blood and bile and tears and everything hurts and he feels like inside him is broken and
DRACO IS GONE YOU DROVE HIM AWAY YOU FAT FUCKING PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT
LOSER
ARSEHOLE
MONSTER
PIECE OF SHIT SCUM WORTHLESS DEGENERATE MISERABLE WEAK WEAK WEAK UGLY FAT WHO COULD EVER WANT
YOU?
And he's crying in earnest and maybe he is screaming there's blood dripping onto his clothes and he can't tell where it's coming from anymore and Harry isn't enough to save Draco?
But Harry's the hero
Or maybe he never was a hero
Maybe the war never happened like he thought it did and Harry never did anything good in his entire fucking life.
And he's so cold he can't stop shaking and his hunger is roaring at him he's so empty it aches and he burns and he longs and he's going to implode if he doesn't let this pressure out.
And he's conjured a familiar looking blade and tries not to think of Draco's eyes
As they confessed and begged and blamed in a bathroom in the moonlight
As they stared at Dumbledore, ill and old and ripe for the plucking
As they glared at him filled with a vicious desperate hate as those perfect lips began to mouth the word "Cruci-"
As Draco mocked him and taunted him and hated him a thousand times
As he called Hermione a Mudblood or called Ron a blood-traitor.
The look in his eyes on the first day they met as he told Harry he didn't think they "Should let the other sort in…"
And the hurt and hate and contempt in those glittering grey silver moonlight smoke mirror magic eyes as Harry rejected in his hand.
And Harry needs that colour to
Dispappear
He needs the blade to be a brilliant, ruby red
All glistening and gleaming and glowing and distinctly
Gryffindor
And he forgets that Draco begged him not to die
Forgets he himself has not wanted to die
That hero's are strong and should not die
And instead he plunges the handle of the knife into his prominent ribs, depp enough so he can feel the hilt of the knife as it presses against his bones.
And then he pulls it out and gouges holes in his thighs
Carves up his wrists, his arms, his calves, his stomach, his palms.
And though every thing is red red red blood glistening gleaming
Stinking up his nostrils with it's sickening metallic scent
All Harry sees is silver.
Silver soft and glowing as they smile at Harry across the crowded Great Hall
Sleepy and sated as they lie curled around the other after making love for hours
Predatory and sinful as Draco whispers in syllabant tones all he intends to do to Harry
Pliant and playful as Harry traps Draco's body beneath his.
Fearful and hopeful as Draco held out his hand, desperate even then to make the Boy Who Lived notice him, and care.
Harry gasps and the sound is frightful
A gurgling wet choking sound as Harry Potter, Golden Boy, Saviour
Boy Who Fucking Lived
Chokes to death on his own blood.
Harry can't see and he thinks by rights he should be dead by now.
He thinks this much blood loss can't be good and oh god it hurts-
Mum, help Draco, Draco-
But he is all he has and maybe there is a reason Harry was chosen after all because he can feel his magic pumping through him, burning as it tries to repair and Harry grasps the air, floor blindly trying to find his wand, sending the thought Accio wand- through every fibre of his dying being-
And finally grabs it and chokes out healing spells through a garbled voice and woozy head and hopes they're doing something because he doesn't know what to do and everything is going dark-
And he catches a flash of a shocked face and bushy hair and then everything turns black.
The first thing Harry notices when he wakes is that the pillow his face is pressed into still smells like cotton candy and the musky smell of Draco's skin.
The second is that sitting in two cozy emerald green (and obviously conjured) armchairs, are none other than Ginny Weasely and Hermione Granger.
The third is that he feels like shit and his tiny apartment looks like it's had a hurricane through it.
And then he remembers and groans, though all he is rewarded with for his efforts is a stinging pain through his abused throat and looks of disapproval from Hermione and Ginny.
Who, he realizes a second later, are not meant to be in his freaking apartment!
Hermione glares at him as she stands and walks over to him, carrying a steaming bowl of what smells like French Onion soup.
Seeing that Harry is about to protest, she tells him coldly: "Draco said we were to check in on you and look after you if anything happened while he was away. What happened last night definitely constitutes "something happening" and if you, you stupid, bloody, over dramatic, temperamental, freaking Gryffindor do not acquiesce to eating this soup, I will have absolutely no qualms about forcing it down your stupid throat!"
And Harry is silent because Hermione looks like she is about to pour the steaming soup on his lap if dares protest and besides, there are tears in her cinnamon eyes and Draco said so.
He eats in silence, Hermione watching every bite and Ginny alternating between glaring at him and pulling faces.
When he's done, Hermione takes the bowl and sighs turning away, before throwing her arms around him and near-smothering him with her bushy hair.
"We thought you were dead! It took longer than we thought to get in, though Draco had given us the directions to unlocking the wards, it took so long and we heard screaming and banging and when we finally got in you were so still and you looked dead and oh god, oh my fucking gods, Harry, we thought we'd lost you-"
And here she leans back to slap him full on the face, her pretty features incandescent with rage.
"If you ever dare do something as completely idiotic as that again, I swear to god I will kill you! You bloody idiot, he said he was coming back! He will come back and you go and act like the world has ended! You idiot!" And she's crying again and all Harry can do is rub her back and murmur "I'm fine Mione, I'm fine, Mione, it's ok, I'm fine, I love you, I'm fine…"
And Ginny is shaking her head and smiling as she cries and Harry beckons her over and they stay, huddled together, each terrified at what almost happened, for the longest time.
And Harry is not allowed to remain unsupervised. So Ginny who is apparently in between both jobs and boyfriends moves in to what she describes as "the shit hole".
And they force Harry to maintain a diet above that of almost starvation
And Harry sneaks in exercises at night when Ginny is asleep and increases and maintains his weight at 95 perfect horrible too many pounds and waits for Draco to come home.
And sometimes, when a babbling Ginny is grating on his used-to-silver-silence-nerves or Ron is making snide comments about Draco in Harry's hearing or Hermione is fretting
Harry snaps
And screams at them all that they're a bunch of interfering fucks who can't leave well enough alone and he HATES them and can they just fuck off and leave him alone like Draco that fucking utter bastard Malfoy did because
Everyone leaves
And obviously they don't love him they just don't want to be responsible for the Golden Boy's death.
And then they'll leave for an hour or two because they have learnt if they don't, things get broken and Harry will not speak to them for days.
And in that time Harry will do crunches and squats and star jumps til his bones ache and he will trace Draco's name on his skin, ever so faintly with a razor blade and he will let his ghosts scream and his snake hiss and then he will be calm.
And it's been four months and Draco has not yet returned.
And summer is passing all golden and slow
And Harry has calmed, returned to his icy façade and convinced them all to leave him alone for the most part.
And the snake hisses
Burden
Weak
Scum
They hate you
He hates you
They know what you are
Murderer
Monster
Fat ugly burden
You should let them go
Move far away and just let go…
And the ghosts chastise him
Because is this how he treats his
Family?
All you do is hurt those you love you kill us you abuse us you drive us away leave us no choice but to hate you…
He wonders what Hermione would say if she knew of the beloved monsters he hears in his head.
He is hovering at 92 pounds and he wants to starve needs the hollow hell but he can't not yet not yet.
And Draco needs to come home because his pillow doesn't smell right anymore
And Harry's sticky cold nights are endless without him.
July melts into August. Harry is 20 now and he is sick of being baby-sat.
And he needs Draco because without Draco all he has is the disease and his family can't make him feel
Whole
Like Draco and the snake can.
And he spends his lonely nights wishing on starlight
For Draco Draco my Draco to come home.
And Harry is sorry for everything he has ever done.
Pretends to himself he would've tried not to restrict in front of Draco
(Though he knows he is a liar at 90 pounds and melting trickling
D
O
W
N)
And Ginny doesn't babble so much anymore and Hermione doesn't fret and Ron's stopped coming, unable to deal with his sad-eyed, slumped once best friend. At 5 months they think Draco isn't coming home
But Harry hopes has to hope because otherwise his days are endless and Technicolor-fake bright burning lonely and all he wants is his silver smoke gleaming moonlight unicorn hope hate silver gleam bright glow starlight moonlight soft sweet silver silver silver smoke fog metal gleam
Draco.
And it's midnight and the nights are chilly now
6 months dead and 87 pounds and no Draco and it's getting so cold in Harry's head and his bones and his heart.
And then he hears a tapping at the window and sees a beautiful, grey owl, that seems so strange and perfect in the moonlight.
Harry jumps up though the action makes his head swim, and ruses to let the majestic owl in
And tires to ignore the stab of pain at the thought of his beautiful, beloved Hedwig.
And the bird carries a cream coloured not that bears only the words, in Draco's elegant scrawl:
"Can I come home?"
And Harry writes back a single word:
"Always."
When Harry sleeps that night he dreams of maniacal laughter and soothing hisses. He dreams of a moonlit forest that glows faintly green and he sees unicorn blood pooling and shimmering on the ground. And he looks at it, and it morphs into the Mirror Of Erised and all Harry sees when he gazes into it, is his and Draco's hands intertwined.
And when Draco returns, they do not speak, though Draco seems to be murmuring "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" into Harry's neck as they feverishly embrace.
And it is Draco who has to be gentle now, careful not to break Harry's skeletal frame.
And when they undress it is in moonlight and Harry cannot help but stare at Draco's filled out perfect frame. His collar bone still gleams and Harry can see his shoulder blades when he moves, still like angel wings but no longer haunting.
The night before Draco left, Harry remembers, Draco looked like a battered and beaten moth that had tried to fly toward the light one too many times and was paying the price.
His heartbeat fluttered in his chest when they made love and his hands constantly trembled, like the junkies who shook and begged on the streets outside their door.
His beautiful hair had turned lank, his sweet breath sour and his eyes were the colour of smoothed beach pebbles, all dull and grey and lifeless.
And now he looks like an Arctic fox
All snow white and sleek and strong and oh-so-beautiful
With eyes like light refracting
Diamonds.
As they make love, slow and sweet and deliberate
There is such profound sorrow intermingled with the joy.
And they know something has died
Was murdered
Murderer
When Draco chose to leave to heal
If only temporarily
And Harry stayed behind.
It is their choices that make the difference to them
Unlike how their powerlessness makes a difference to the rest of the god-damn world.
And oh it's a terrible truth that part of Harry's joy at having his diamond his dragon his Draco back
Home
Is that he can start starving and losing, rapidly, quickly, yes, once more.
And Harry wonders how he ever could have doubted Draco.
And Harry thinks maybe he does hate Draco, just a bit.
Not for the act of leaving, but for the act of healing.
Of letting himself heal when Harry cannot.
Draco, Harry thinks, has always been
Stronger
But then Harry feels Draco's icy tears on his neck as Draco sobs out his release into Harry's skin.
And he feels Draco's blunt nails tracing
Mine I love you I'm sorry missed you love you mine mine mine
Into the dip in Harry's back
And he smells the very faint smell of vomit on Draco's cotton candy breath, and wonders how healed he is.
For Harry of all people knows that you can fix the body but that won't kill this disease.
And he thinks of winning wars by surrendering battles
And the difference between acquiescence and complicity.
And Harry tries to breathe in Draco's skin
And knows with a certainty, an accepting lack of hope
That they will never be free.
And isn't that wonderful?
And he can no longer tell how much time has passed because he's always so cold and as he no longer yearns for Draco, he has no way of measuring the time.
And Hermione and Ginny and Ron don't come by much any more. Though they write, occasionally, sometimes.
They have lives and Harry and Draco have each other.
And Harry starts starving again and it is bliss at 80 pounds.
And Draco resists for the most part, tries not to binge and purge and hate and harm.
But occasionally he can't help it.
And when he does he smiles at Harry, and there is fear and love and hope and sadness in those silver eyes of his.
And Harry thinks
They can do this.
They can live like this
Forever and ever and ever and ever.
Though forever doesn't exist.
He and Draco walk the streets together now, unafraid and needing the sky.
Because sometimes, after being apart for so long
The other is too much
And not enough
So they walk among the refuse of society
The junkies the whores the most down and out artists the filth of society
And they walk in silence, the two pretty hungry boys invisible here.
No wizards or witches to care
And the Muggles here, with their heads only just sticking out of their graves, do not, cannot see.
And it's a perfect hell.
And it must be winter because it's snowing again and where does the time go to die?
And Draco purges become more frequent, as he tries to tame the ghosts that ride in his head.
And Harry once more begins to carve patterns in his stomach
Trying to kill the ghosts that dance in his bones.
And he wonders how many ghosts he and Draco share.
But he knows better than to ask.
And what a horrible fascinating game it is that they play.
And the world is cold and Harry hungers for it,
Wants to gobble it up and let it cut him into pieces.
He is starving and oh so sick now.
And he can barely walk but he still runs or does crunches and squats until dawn.
And he's got so much caffeine in his system he thinks he could fly.
And Draco takes up smoking because he heard some Muggles say it keeps weight down.
And their apartment fills with smoke and becomes stuffy and smells like sickness.
And the smoke looks like dragons like snakes like lions and tigers and unicorns.
And Harry still shrinks
And is at 100 calories three times a week and 75 pounds now.
And Draco watches and wonders and waits.
Wishing he could intervene; knowing he can't.
And Harry doesn't think he wants to
Die
But he doesn't know how
Or why
To live
Beyond a pair of tarnished silver eyes that still manage to dimly
Glow
When they light upon Harry's emaciated face
Beyond a bony body that wraps itself around him at night like a python that never ever wants to let go.
He doesn't eat enough to live.
But he eats too much to die.
He eats just enough to continually prolong the
Inevitable
And he never wants to stop.
He's living off the magic and the caffeine. He's living off the euphoric frenzy of starvation.
He's dancing on the precipiece and he doesn't know isn't quite sure which way he wants to fall.
And the ghosts have trickled out of his bones and they roam his blood stream and his sluggish pulse beats to the sound of their mockery.
He can't imagine killing them now. They've been far too long a part of him
(And a minute sane part of him knows he can't kill them anyway. How do you kill something that doesn't exist? How do you kill something
When it's all in your head?)
And the snake in his head has slithered into his spine and sometime's it's so heavy he feels like it has grown to the size of a basilisk
Its heavy head rests at the base of his skull and its fangs dig into the base of his neck.
And it's a comfort of a kind
Even if he can't stand straight anymore.
And the half hearted dreams they once told him to dream
Have turned to ashes and
Blown away in the breeze.
Draco starts to beg him not to stop not to die with a once more bloody mouth that tastes like chocolate and bitter bile.
And he thinks he would do anything for that razor tongue and those bony loving hands.
And so he lives each day as it comes.
At 70 pounds he is a walking skeleton
At 65 he is a medical magical marvel and he hovers there above the point of no return never ever return
And now, he is finally
I
N
V
I
S
I
B
L
E
Living on the degenerate edge of society.
And maybe he is the ghost now. For the ghosts in his skin are far more corporeal than he has ever been.
Harry Potter the Boy Who Lived and Died and never found his way back home, not quite.
The boy who was only ever what they told him he was.
He was a
Manifestation
Of their ideals. And without them he turns to
Dust.
But Draco is still smiling
And it's sunset again
Or maybe even dawn.
And he'll keep going til he no longer can.
Til the ghosts take him away
And he'll die
When he dies
If you even can die twice
With the taste of blood and cotton candy on his tongue
And the image of those beautiful quicksilver eyes fixed firmly in his mind.
*A/N*
65 pounds is 29.55 kilos. I chose this weight deliberately as it's just above the weigh at which death is medically unavoidable (28.57 kg, 4st 7lbs) So I figured magic, who knows? It's deliberately ambiguous, and I hope you don't hate me too much for it. I couldn't change the ending once I wrote it, no matter how much I wanted to. Thank you for reading. Please review, just one last time! :)
Echo xoxo
