dawn laughing, brown sugar, Fingertips - Vera Blue
TW: this chapter contains something similar to a dissociative episode and themes of PTSD
"So, you're alive."
Ron's voice caught him, on his way to the dormitory. Harry stilled, mid-step. Ron was sprawled on a fire-lit couch, next to a watchful Hermione, who caught his eye and smiled hesitantly.
Harry teetered on his feet. "How long was I gone?"
Ron and Hermione exchanged a look. "A couple of days," said Hermione quietly.
"It's normal, now," said Ron, stretching. But he watched Harry suspiciously. "I suppose you were with Malfoy."
His tone ignited an unexpected flare in Harry's stomach, almost protective. "Yeah," he found his voice angry. "I was."
They looked surprised, and Harry blinked, tried gathering some loose dregs of composure but no words came out; instead he found himself storming to his dormitory and pulling the crimson curtains. He blinked again, and swore crudely to nothing.
When he came back down a moment later, their heads were ducked in quiet conversation. He flopped on a single couch and found he couldn't meet Ron's eyes.
"I'm sorry," he said stiffly. "I don't know why I did that."
They watched him openly, sharing looks, but seemed to sense something about to teeter, so leaned forward to sit on the edge of the couch.
Harry pressed his lips together. "I –" his throat stuck. Words are so finite. Draco was right. There were no useful words. "I realized that I am," he stared hard at the floor, and felt their stares like bright lights. "Or that I'm not. I'm not straight."
When he slid his eyes up slowly, Ron was blinking hard and Hermione watched Ron.
"You're … gay?" Ron said expressionless.
"No," Harry blurted. "No, I mean. I'm … I like girls, still."
Ron frowned, and looked between the two of them. "I'm lost."
Hermione scratched her cheek to hide the growing smile, and Harry cursed damn Hogwarts for its lack of exposure.
"I like more than girls," Harry breathed deep to hold the stutter. "Guys, as well. I'll probably use bisexual."
"Bisexual," Ron stared at the floor. "Wait, does that mean you've thought about –" he gestured between the two of them, and Harry frowned. Before understanding with a sharp sour taste.
"What – No!" He blubbered, and took a levelled breath. "It doesn't mean I like everyone. Just that I have a capacity to, I suppose."
Ron nodded slowly at the floor, before shooting up straight. "Wait," he said sharply, and his eyes widened between his friends. "Is this about Malfoy?"
"I –" He knew this would be harder, that he'd have to bend language or perhaps create a new language, to fit the gap. Such singular terms for such infinite messy things. "It's not about anyone else, it's just me," he said clearly, but hesitated. "But, he is a part of it, yes."
"What," Ron snapped his head to him. "You're –" his mouth hung loose and blurry. "Dating."
Harry rubbed his face, elbows on knees, and shook his head.
"Fucking." Ron's voice had a pig squeal tip.
Harry shook his head in his hands more adamantly. "He's … a part of it," his voice muffled.
Ron was silent, and Harry found he didn't want to look up. "What is this really about?" Ron said after a while. "Cause you can do better than Draco fucking Malfoy."
Harry shot up and met his stare, sizzles of heat darting quick through him.
"Ron," Hermione said quickly, and Harry closed his mouth. "I didn't understand, either," she said carefully. "But …" She trailed off, looking between them in thought. "It actually makes a lot of sense."
Harry felt a breath of relief fill him up, watching her; if Hermione could make sense of it, it made sense. Ron's shock filtered this, and searched her dumb-founded.
"I mean," Hermione said pensively. "Think about it." The boys exchanged an uneasy look. "It's Harry and Mal – Draco. They've always been …" she pursed her lips, a quiver of a smile as she thought of the right words. "Captivated. By each other."
Harry straightened slightly, hands fiddling as he watched her closely. Ron looked between them, frowning hard, opening and closing his mouth. "In a way," he got out.
Hermione smiled knowingly. "You know what I mean," she said, and searched Harry. "And now, it's obvious. I've seen how he looks at him."
Harry fiddled with his sleeve. "Am I that obvious?"
Hermione laughed. "I don't mean you," she grew soft and contemplative. "I've never seen him … happy before."
Harry looked away to the floor, an irresistible smile and flutter filing him; Ron didn't seem to know what to do with that, and stood up to sway slightly. "This is mad," he said crookedly.
Hermione shot up from her seat, eyes narrowed at him. "You don't think Harry deserves to be happy, after everything? I couldn't care less if it was a bloody Hippogriff, he is hurting. He hasn't been himself ever since …" she trailed off, but her eyes blazed and both boys shifted away.
"I – that's not what I –" Ron blubbered, and spun aimlessly, before huffing and straggling to the dormitories. Harry watched, blinking blank, before Hermione swept him in a tight hug.
"Hermione –"
Hermione held him tightly, arms locked and hands stroking his shoulder blades softly. "I meant what I said," she said clearly.
"What, a Hippogriff?"
She shot him a soft smile, half-exasperated, and let him go to follow Ron.
X
They uncurled like silk ribbons into nothing, spread like silk on the floor. Draco had pulled a cloak of sheets round him, padding over floor aimlessly in the night like a pale silhouette, sucking something aimless in his hands. Harry slipped, at some point, from the couch so they both lay unravelling, on miscellaneous mess of pine and books and sheets in a strewn out clutter of texture and night air.
"Why 'Lou'?"
Draco lay flat on his stomach with loose limbs twisted in sheets. He played with loose strands of Harry's hair, dancing in the breeze in little quivers. The cat curled around in the kitchen with pats of paws, eyes bright.
"He's loopy," he said lazily, a smile in his voice.
"What," Harry paused, staring at the ceiling. And laughed bright and loud; fingers tugged his hair.
Draco shook slightly in laughter and stretched, pulling out his body tall and Harry drew light fingers over the back of his pale neck, curling through hair. "So warm," Draco mumbled.
"Mmm?" Harry lay his hand flat against skin; fingers dug into bumps and hollows and needled, so Draco arched up to expose more neck.
"Your hands," Draco said. "They are always hot."
Harry mumbled in response, drawing light nails into his hair and watching him sigh and close his eyes.
"I've never known someone's body without just sleeping with them," Draco said. Harry watched him closely, his sleepy face and voice.
Draco opened his eyes to trace over Harry, tracing his whole length and holding on his little details, darting around. "Like …" he trailed off lightly. "Art."
Harry stared close. Draco's eyes met his; they were grey open skies. "You're figuring it out, aren't you?" Harry whispered.
Draco frowned lightly, holding his gaze intently. His eyes were flickers of movement, uncurling and swirling out to Harry – before they were white paper. Utterly blank. His face was even and still; his mouth moved slightly as if playing with words, before resigned to silence.
Harry pressed his lips together to stop the mass in him come out in a gush; instead, he watched Draco not reply, not needing to reply. Draco moved suddenly, to break away – he shifted up to stand, to sway loose, and hold himself stiff. Before drifting off.
Harry let him. He found, once he rolled up from the floor, that the bedroom door was closed shut, and he felt he didn't want to breach. He let Draco's mind close.
He left after a few meaningless hours in the night air, smoking himself to nothing. At the first paint strokes of dawn; he had said, planted, all that was needed, and climbed through his school day in crowds.
Harry knew, without needing to know. He was overtaken. In Draco's lazy drawl, thick with sleep, in a fuzz and stretch of morning with peered eyes against light and bright smiles without the tire of day; in his slack face and sighs, smudged into sheets in the night shadows with curious lights in his eyes and muffled low laughs. That Draco liked to be held more than he hold; that nightmares turned him to still stone and vacant early morning stares. That his electricity never stopped, grew sluggish when drunk or strung out, but quaked in quivers held in Harry's hand or pressed into him. That his lips moved in sleep; if you sucked on his skin blood bloomed hot and red through the transparent pale white. That if Harry shifted his feet would search; that he'd only still when their ankles were curled. That in daytime sleep he made soft noises and his fingers curled into themselves and clothes. That he did awful Draco things, like lick brown sugar from fruit and peel skin with knifes and thumbs and play with smoke in his throat and over his tongue and taste like coffee and cold air in Harry's mouth.
Harry was done, in it. Knocked out. But he liked it, dissolving into something like madness, something Malfoy had always brought. Like slipping; he liked not thinking, he liked disappearing.
It was excess. The whole thing was excess – that he was so near his obsession, that it curled around him and offered up. But he was also done, with it. As it became this escape, this role-play, like playing house or estranged exiles, locked away in hideaways. With double lives and double meanings. Draco talked like he was talking about something else; it was like trying to decode smoke and vapour, there were no figments to grasp, nothing to align; there was no pattern to the madness.
Harry was in a split knife mode.
X
As soon as Harry Apparated, something was wrong.
He stood still at the end of the hallway, and felt like a trespasser. To the unfamiliar sounds and scent; flickers and burn. When he walked in, Draco didn't turn around and his arms hung round him, twitching through the air. He paced loosely; the place was unlit and had tipped over in scatter, pushed up on the walls with widened empty gaps over the floor.
"What –" Harry peered around, still. "What's that on the balcony?"
Draco glanced at him; he caught a twitched tug of a smile. "I am cleansing," he said.
Harry stared at him, blinked. He moved over the floor and mess to the balcony, to the hot flickers against the dark – where bright flame was consuming paper in a blackened glass bowl on the ground. No, not paper – Muggle money, pastel and thin licked by flames so it curled over itself and disintegrated. The silver snake ring lay unscathed in the melting mess.
Harry stared frozen, and spun around slowly. "What the fuck is going on."
Draco was turned away, fumbling with a lighter and babbled a lilted stream of words.
"Wha –" Harry shook his head slowly.
"It's Italian. Dolce far niente," he repeated.
"You speak Italian?" Harry walked closer, peering at him, but Draco was watching the roof.
"Does it matter?" Draco swayed slightly, and Harry cast around the room instantly. "How sweet it is to do nothing, it means."
He targeting in on loose bottles sprawled, dripping on the floor, white liquor uncapped on his table. "Draco …" he started slowly. "I think you're unwell, or –"
Draco laughed sharply over him. "You're adorable," he said, exhaling clouds. "I'm not having a damn crisis."
Harry hesitated. "You didn't come to Hogwarts today."
"Yes," Draco said airily, and swung over to wrap long fingers around the bottle, bringing to eye level to peer at. "That's all a farce."
Harry frowned at him, and moved over but Draco spun to move away. "See, I am nothing," Draco continued in an odd distant voice. "So I decided to be nothing. That starts by owning nothing."
"Owning nothing …?" Harry glanced over at the balcony.
"How sweet it is. What else is there, Potter?" Draco sipped with grace, fingers twitching over the glass. "I am empty."
"Draco," Harry moved forward swiftly and grabbed his arm, turned him to face him. "Here, let's just go to bed, or –"
Draco smiled liquidly. "You're right, there's always sex, pleasure," his eyes spun, and finally met Harry's. He looked gone. "But that fades."
He knocked out of Harry's grip and moved over to the balcony in indecisive movements, swift and held back. "See," he said, holding up a flaming thin sheet of money. "I could just burn away, and no one would know."
Harry just stared at him; shivers ran down his back.
Draco smiled slyly at him and dropped the money, eyes wild. "I have nothing. I have no name," he moved forward, hands fidgeting over themselves.
He flicked the cigarette away and laughed, but stumbled. Harry shot forward and clutched his upper arms. Draco caught his eye and traced his face sloppily, before his lips twitched down.
He looked away at nothing. "I have no family," he said, and snatched out of Harry's grip; a chill ran through Harry.
Draco swung out his arms wide. "I belong to no one and nothing." He grabbed his sleeve in a sharp move, and tugged it up to expose the underside of his left forearm. "Have you noticed?" He showed Harry the blank space of white skin, and Harry just stared. "No Mark. I was a disappointment," he smiled sardonically.
"Draco –" Harry said, but it didn't come out. Draco paced slowly around; Harry was cold.
"I could just disappear," Draco drew fingers up and down his jaw. "No one would know."
Something sank icy in Harry's blood, stung the back of his neck. He moved forward and clutched Draco's wrist, stopped it from twitching around. "That's not true," Harry brought Draco's hand over his neck, to settle his quivering fingers against the warmth. He traced it to his mouth and kissed his palm gently.
Draco's loose eyes met his, and watched him cautiously with rapid grey swirls. Harry felt his eyes burn with hot trickles, and bitter tears sprung at their corners. "You're worth something," he said quietly, but his throat stuck heavy. "Why can't you see that?"
Draco's face twitched, but Harry held his hand tight at his chest and fixed his gaze. "I'm here," Harry said clearly, and didn't blink away the burn. "I know you."
Draco's mouth squirmed and he pulled away slightly. "You don't want –"
"Shut up," Harry clutched him, gripped his elbow with his other hand. "Just shut up. Stop speaking for me."
Draco's gaze flickered, and Harry didn't feel the tear on his face until Draco's gaze captured it. "You idiot," Harry said hard and quiet. "Why do you think I'm here?"
Draco's eyes flicked away and back at him, and swallowed hard. "I don't –" he hesitated, and tried to jerk away.
Harry moved to clutch his jaw between his hands, so he could angle him still, and stared hard at him. "I want you, not to satisfy some twisted complex I have, not because I'm delusional, because I do."
Draco's jaw twitched under him, his eyes swarmed as he watched Harry, silent.
"I can't explain it," Harry said quietly, staring earnestly. "It's just there – it's become me."
Draco's brow furrowed over sharp eyes, searching him intently. Before he stepped back, out of reach and moved loose, turned away. When Harry caught his expression, it had buckled, into a twisted smile.
"What," he said. "Do you love me, Potter?" He sounded empty, with snark.
Harry watched him move around slowly with sliding feet, a hollow ache beginning to climb through him, holding him to silence.
Draco smiled vacantly at the walls. "Love," he repeated. "Love is just the afterglow of sex." He flicked out another cigarette, fumbled with it. "The haze of orgasm," he said, and then his smile flickered away as he paced. "Or a formality, a written contract, something advantageous."
Harry was still; he felt a numb pain fill him, bowl in him and through his limbs.
"Monogamy, marriage," Draco continued in his dead voice, trailing smoke. "It feeds off human frailty. Entraps people in a socially accepted prison. Born from our undying fear of being alone."
Harry's throat unstuck, to hollow air. "I can't do this."
"Hmm?" Draco didn't look at him, head tilted up.
Harry rubbed his face slowly and looked at the floor. "I'm done," he expected to sound tearful, ripped through. But he sounded empty.
Draco caught his eye when he looked up, and raised his eyebrows hazily.
Harry stared at him. "You were always a coward," he threw it in the space between them; it fell out numb.
A flicker of life lit in Draco's eyes. "You're just desperate," he said, a depth to his tone. "You need things to mean something, when they just don't."
Harry watched him and nodded slowly, before looking at the floor. He smiled empty and sad. "You're scared of caring, of – meaning " he said. "Of loss."
He blinked slowly, before spinning on his heel. "I'm not coming back," he said, but his voice caught, before he Apparated.
