*** Day 39 - Draco ***

"Any deaths?" Potter asked. Potter always asked nowadays. Draco had done everything he could think of to try and get Potter not to ask. He'd choked him, stretched him, burned him, cut him, poisoned him—he'd pulled out every hex in his (rather sizable) repertoire and still Potter continued to ask. After a while, Draco had settled on simply ignoring him, and much to his surprise, that seemed to annoy the self-righteous Gryffindor prat more than anything. And, oh, how Draco did enjoy those agitated little huffs Potter didn't think he could hear.

But today was different.

Draco frowned as he snapped his Daily Prophet straight. The obituaries had grown to cover nearly half a page now, and searching for his parents names had become its own form of torture. Today's sigh of relief was almost immediately contradicted by a scowl. He stared down at the name Rubius Hagrid with something akin to bile bubbling in the back of his throat. There was nothing for it, Draco knew—he'd always hated the man after all—but even so, he was keenly aware that the half-giant and Potter had been…close. As gingerly as he could manage, Draco folded the paper and set it down next to his chair.

He felt odd—sort of light headed, like he was about to drift off. Why did Potter always have to ask him that question? Draco had never once answered him, and still not a day went by without those two words spilling over Potter's lips. He hated it. He hated the pathetic way Potter's voice always cracked when he asked. He hated that it had started to become hard not to answer.

"Do you want to play another game?" Draco asked suddenly.

Potter's head rose from the cradled nook between his arms and knees. His green eyes seemed oddly calm today. "You broke the last one."

"Well I have more." Draco pulled his wand out from behind his ear and summoned his stack of games—sans Hungry Hungry Hippos. "How about Mandrakes and Mice?"

"Too violent."

Draco felt his lips pucker as he realized that pretty much eliminated all of their options. Chess was no less violent a game than Mandrakes and Mice, and Potter wouldn't be able to play Exploding Snap properly from behind bars. He stared at the pile silently, somehow ashamed that he had nothing else to offer.

"Do you have a deck of cards?" Potter asked quietly.

"Cards?" Draco cocked his head and leaned forward in his chair. "Like tarot cards?"

"No, like a deck of playing cards."

What sort of cards were meant to be played with? A creation of the Weasley twins perhaps? It was only when Potter started laughing that Draco realized he hadn't responded.

"Let me get this straight—you have a game like Hungry Hungry Hippos, but you've never heard of a deck of playing cards?"

Draco grimaced in response.

"52 cards? Hearts, diamonds, spades, clovers? None of that means anything to you?"

"Are you quite finished?"

Potter laughed again, his teeth a flash of white in the dimness. "It's just funny is all."

"What is?"

"You, I guess." Potter shook his head before pushing himself up to his feet. He teetered for a moment, wavering on his deteriorating legs, and Draco felt his own thighs impulsively tense beneath him. Slowly, Potter made his way over to the bars, and sank back down to his knees. "It's really quite…funny."

Funny? Draco shifted uncomfortably as Potter's eyes refused to leave him. "Are you feeling alright? You seem a bit…"

"Lucid?"

"I was going to say manic. Possibly verging on—"

"—Luminous?"

"Psychotic."

"I've never known you to give such lavish compliments."

Draco raised a brow. "You also seem very keen on L-words today."

"I have a lot of free time on my hands. I've decided to alphabetically theme my days."

"And sarcasm—the sarcasm is new."

Potter smiled again, but there was something overwhelmingly broken about it. He leaned his head against the bars, the scratched lenses of his glasses scraping against the metal. "I suppose this is all starting to seem a bit funny to me now."

Draco swallowed against the dry lump that seemed to have lodged itself in his throat. "What do you mean?"

"You. Me. Everything. All of it. We're both here, day in and day out, and nothing ever happens. I don't even know how long I've been here anymore, and I find myself forgetting that time is still moving. Days, hours, minutes—they don't exist for me anymore—I've slipped out of time and I've fallen into this place where everything's stopped. And I hate it. Dying like this…I always thought that the end would be brief—that I would just be in the wrong place at the wrong time and everything would go black and that would be it. Not this. Not this withering slowness where I can feel myself wasting away into nothing—where I've lost my reason."

"I fail to see how any of that is funny," Draco replied softly.

"Yeah, well, you've never been easy to amuse," Potter said the words flatly, as if he didn't have enough energy to put malice into them.

Uncomfortable silence hung between them. Draco wished that Potter would move away from the bars so that he could forget this conversation ever happened and go back to his reading. His books never made him feel like this—like he was back at Hogwarts and the battle was just about to begin, and everyone was still acting brave because they didn't know what horrors the next hours would bring. Draco had never been brave though…Snape had taught him better than that.

"I'm not an idiot you know," Potter said, his voice now rough and low.

Draco wanted to disagree, but he didn't.

"Someone died today."

Stiffness struck through Draco's nerves like a jet of electricity. He doused the reaction not a moment later, but somehow he knew that Potter had seen it anyway.

Potter's eyebrows drew together, creating a deep crease in between. "Someone died today, and you wanted to play a game with me." He paused, as if the words confused him somehow. "Why?"

Draco's heart beat soundly against his ribcage once. Twice. Three times. "You think that someone died, and you're asking me why I wanted to play a game with you?"

"Yes."

"Why aren't you asking me who died?"

"Because I don't want to know," Potter replied. "And even if I did want to know, you wouldn't tell me."

"That's never stopped you from asking before."

"I've gotten smarter." Potter's eyes narrowed. "Why are you avoiding answering my question?"

Draco's shrug felt stiff. "Because I'm on this side of the bars, and you're on that side. I don't have to answer your questions."

Potter hummed—a small, accepting sort of noise—and looked away. The sound traveled straight down Draco's spine, settling into something hot and acrid in his stomach. He felt oddly annoyed, though he hadn't the faintest clue why.

"What does it matter to you why I wanted to play a game anyway?" Draco asked, hints of acid lacing his tone.

Potter's eyes flicked back up. "It doesn't matter to me."

"Then why did you ask?"

Air filled Potter's lungs, and Draco watched as his chest slowly rose and caved in again. "I have no idea."