A/N: For Rish, as I know you like this pairing, and I hope you like this piece! Thank you for entering the John Green Appreciation Competition, and for so generously reviewing my work. :)
Warnings: Slash, mentions of self-harm.
keep me in your heart
In the end, he gave you all the love he had and it still wasn't enough to save you from yourself.
You don't fall in love with him straight away. First he's the Potter boy, then he's a fellow Gryffindor and a friend, then he's a best friend and before you know it he's someone you can't live without, someone you think you just might have feelings for.
You go to each other's' houses over the holidays, you to his more than his to yours. Just because your parents have accepted that you're friends with the Potters doesn't mean they're thrilled about it. (Sometimes you wonder how your family would react if they knew you're in love with one of them. Most of the time, you know they'd be disgusted – maybe they'd even disown you – and you refuse to think too much about it.)
You feel more at home at his house than you ever have at yours – or maybe you just feel at home with him. Harry and Ginny grow accustomed to your presence at their house and they make you feel like you're another one of their children. In their house, it doesn't matter that you're a Malfoy and they're all Potters, or that you're the first Malfoy to be in Gryffindor possibly ever, or that you've never had and possibly never will have a girlfriend.
In their house, as long as you treat everyone else with respect and courtesy, you're accepted unconditionally, and you crave that sense of belonging so desperately, you wish you could bottle it up and carry it with you everywhere.
Belonging is a blessing and a curse, you quickly learn, because when you feel important and needed and accepted, there's nothing better. And when you don't, there's nothing worse.
Loneliness settles heavy inside you, a cloud, a demon, a storm, a blanket only time can lift. Your feelings are intense and relentless, a barrage of experience that is painful and inescapable and too shameful to articulate.
When you can't sleep, when there's too many thoughts and too much emotion swirling through you, you have a secret, private remedy.
It starts in fourth year, and it never stops. Sometimes you cut, sometimes you bite, sometimes you scratch, most of the time it doesn't matter what you do, as long as you can feel it.
It's in fourth year that you find the Mirror, too, and your life changes for the better even as you're spiralling into something dark and far, far worse.
Most of the time, you fall asleep just fine. Some of the time, you don't. You toss and you turn and your mind keeps ticking an unstoppable rhythm and it keeps you awake. These nights are what the knife is for.
Before, you were a hate-filled mess, but as you hold it in your hand, admiring the silver blade as it glints in the dark, you are calm. You deserve this, this pain that isn't pain, punishment for all your mistakes, for being who and what you are.
The curtains are drawn around your four-poster, and everyone else is asleep, of that you've made sure. This is your secret; no one else can know.
You smile delightedly as the scarlet drops of blood run down your arm – you're an inch away from death, and this is what makes you feel so blissfully alive.
You've got adrenaline coursing through your system and nervous energy to expel, so you tiptoe downstairs and through the common room, feeling reckless and free. The night is dark and it doesn't swallow you, it protects you.
You end up in a room you've never seen before, standing in front of a regal-looking mirror which reflects something blurry and indistinct, until you step closer, and your brow furrows in surprise.
You look around, unsure. Al's not here, and yet he is, staring straight at you from beyond the glass. It's riveting – he is riveting– and you sit for you don't know how long, just gazing back at him, without any of the fear you'd usually feel. It's okay to love him here, in the dark where no one else can see.
You slip back into your dormitory as the sun begins to rise, smiling involuntarily at the sight of Albus' sleeping form.
"Go for a midnight stroll again, did we?" He asks as you're walking to the Great Hall. "I'm disappointed you didn't ask me to come along. It must have been interesting if you got so little sleep."
"It was definitely interesting," you say evasively, hoping to allay his questions with a smile. Perceptive as ever, he takes the hint and after a beat, you ask the question that's been on your mind for hours.
"Hey, Al, have you ever heard of a magical mirror in Hogwarts, one that doesn't show you your reflection?"
"'Course, that's the Mirror of Erised. My mum and dad told me all about it, but I've never seen it. Apparently it's this really old, really powerful mirror that shows you the deepest desire of your heart. That's what Erised means – desire spelled backwards."
It all makes sense, there's no hiding from the truth any longer. You're in love with your best friend.
"Great – thanks."
"Wait – you didn't find it, did you?" Al asks, spearing a bit of sausage onto his fork. "You did!" He knowingly exclaims, not fooled by your poker face in the least. "Will you show me how to find it? I want to know what I'd see! Besides, James is always bragging about all the stuff he gets up to here, imagine if I was the one to find the Mirror first! What do you say, Scor?"
Unease swirls within you – what if he asks what you see? You've never been a good liar; he'd know you were hiding something straight away. Anyway, you found the Mirror of Erised on your own, something about it feels special and sacred, too important to share.
"Please?"
Giving a small sigh and a big smile, you agree to take him to the Mirror. You've never been able to refuse him anything.
The image in the Mirror gives you the courage to speak the words in your heart.
"I love you." It slips out one day, the confession you never meant to make. You feel hot and cold and clammy all over, your heart pounds a million miles a minute and you have to quell the urge to vomit, to run, to somehow take back the most dangerous words of all.
And then Al is in front of you, and he's saying something you can't quite hear through the chaos in your mind. It looks like "I love you, too," but it can't be, can it? Hearing him say those words would be too good to be true, like something out of your wildest dreams, and dreams don't come true for Malfoys, you learned that a long time ago.
Albus is saying your name, he's shaking your shoulders, holding your hands, looking at you with green eyes filled with fear instead of fun, and it is the fear in his eyes that compels you to speak. "What?" You say dumbly, still in shock.
"Scor? I said I love you. I love you, too."
This time, you hear him loud and clear, and you have heard no sound more beautiful than his voice and those words and the unquestioning acceptance you can finally let yourself believe in.
On another day he finds you staring at the scars that climb your arms like an uneven ladder, some old and faded and some bright pink and fresh. There's no mistaking what they are.
You pull your sleeve down quickly, ready to make a joke, needing to make the mingling of confusion and shock and concern disappear from his face. Your own pain has become routine, but his is unbearable for you to see.
"Scor," he begins, sitting across from you. "Scorpius. Scor." He's getting mud all over your bed with his dirty Quidditch clothes, and although he's usually meticulously neat, neither of you notices.
Unable to look at him, you clench and unclench your fists, hating yourself more and more with every moment. You've ruined everything – no one could ever love someone so broken and scarred and pathetic.
"What?" You snarl savagely, loathing how nasty you sound. Cruelty is necessary to push him away. Pushing him away is much easier and much more familiar than taking a risk and believing that he – that anyone – might actually still care about you. All your life you've hated yourself and expected others to do the same, and anyone who hasn't, you've dismissed as a liar without a second thought.
But Albus has never lied to you.
You don't say much, only the little that you can, and he listens attentively to every word you say, like he always does, and he talks a little bit, too.
"I don't care where you are, I don't care when it is. Keep me in your heart. Remember that I love you, remember that you deserve better than this. Please – please – promise me you won't do it anymore."
"I won't," you promise firmly. In that moment, it doesn't feel like a lie.
Albus can't protect you from everything, as much as he might want to.
You're drowning, drowning, drowning in a sea of red and everything and nothing, and was it worth it, little boy? You'll never know, now.
You keep him in your heart, just like you promised, in your final moments. He'll be better off without you and if anything, you're doing him a favour. He gives you life, and yet all you have to offer him is death, a cold corpse, and a cold existence without you.
Albus finds you the next morning, lying in a pool of life-giving blood and he shouts and cries and pleads with you and with a higher power he doesn't believe in, for you to wake up and return to him. You don't, of course. He is too late, and he'll have to live with that forever.
In the end, he gave you all the love he had and it still wasn't enough to save you from yourself.
Written for:
All Sorts of Love Competition – slash
The Flower Language Challenge: Hydrangea – write about someone confessing his/her feelings to someone else
Fantastic Beasts Challenge: Flobberworm – write a fic where the first and last lines are the same.
Different Genres Competition – Tragedy and Angst
Inspirational Quotes Challenge
The Hugs and Happiness Challenge - Rish