Note: that mystery guest I had mentioned? look for them in the next, i've decided to take this in a different direction than I first thought...
Strange Kind of Love
I laughed. In light of all the strange things that happened already, this was almost more than I could stand. "So bloody wonderful? No one has ever called me so bloody wonderful before."
"How does it feel?" Such pain and misery in his voice.
"Actually, it's one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me." And it was. This whole event was one of the nicest things that had ever happened to me. Never in a million years did I expect to be comforting Draco Malfoy. Yet, somehow, it seemed that it was the right thing to do. In all honesty, it was all I could do. He had been so miserable since we had come back. Not in all the time that I had known Draco Malfoy had I ever seen him even remotely like he was now. I rather stunned myself when I had confronted him in Potions. Ron and Hermione were angry at me for being concerned about him. In a way, I couldn't blame them. This was the boy who had caused us so much misery over the last five years. And here I was, holding him to me. I know it makes no sense. But there are times one has to swallow their pride for the better of others.
But I think I may just be spouting random thoughts at the moment. Please allow me just a moment to explain how it was that I wound up in that un-used classroom with Draco Malfoy. I had noticed when we had arrived at Hogwarts at the beginning of the year how emaciated and tired Draco looked. The thing that really startled me, however, was his lack of biting remarks. He hadn't gone out of his way to be kind, but he was certainly keeping more to himself than he ever had before. That first Potions class I got a close look at how sick he really was. By that point, Hermione and Ron were already angry at me for my concern for Draco. He may have been a bad person to me up to that point, but he was a person, nonetheless. Over the next few weeks I caught him staring at me quite frequently. On the outside, his demeanor towards me seemed to have remained the same. Lacking, of course, the usual insults. He had even started smiling at me. This was starting to really concern me, mostly because this was the same person who had gone out of his way on more than one occasion to point out all the really painful things in my life. My dead parents, my horrible Muggle family, the scar on my face. What other option did I have at that point? I would rather have had him be horrible to me than continue to waste away. So I confronted him, and here we were.
He was looking like he was going to start crying again, and I couldn't bear any more of it. "Draco, calm down, it's all right. No one is here except for you and me. I swear I won't do anything mean to you, just tell me what this is all about."
For a moment, I thought he was going to break down again. But he just took a deep breath and stared at me. "I just don't know how to keep together anymore, Harry. I can't eat. I can't sleep. All I want to do is die. And the only thing that is keeping me from doing that is you and you're the last person I want to hurt." His words were coming out in almost incoherent rushes. "I'm so sorry, Harry. I'm so sorry for all the times I've hurt you and all the times I've hurt your friends. I'm so sorry." And he broke down again.
This entire meeting was so surreal. From the moment I sat down next to him, Draco had been sobbing against me. He was telling me things that were almost impossible for me to believe. He was sorry for all the pain he had caused me? And Ron? And Hermione? I was what got him through the first month of school? I was what was keeping him from just giving up? This was almost more than I could bear. I know I've never been on the best terms with Draco, but what he was telling me was breaking my heart. No one, not even Draco Malfoy, deserved to be this miserable. Not even Draco Malfoy deserved to die.
"Draco, you will stop this right now." And he did, thank whatever force was working on my side. "You are going to stop crying this instant and tell me where the hell this is all coming from." I mean, I could dig that he had to say what he had to say, but I had to know why.
"Because I realize that I've been horrible to you and you've been absolutely wonderful to me and I just don't know why. You should be kicking me for what I've done. And here I am perpetuating it. You should just give up on whatever brought you here in the first place and go back to your life. Just go and fix it with your friends, just go be happy."
I was in shock. Here was my worst enemy telling me to be happy? While he was starving and sobbing like that? And then I started crying. We had misunderstood each other for so long, and it was all remedied after one conversation.
"How do you expect me to go back to my world and leave you here as though nothing has changed?" I demanded.
"Has it changed? Has it really? Why are you even here?"
I had to take my time with that answer. That was a question I had been asking myself since Potions that morning. The next thing I knew, it was all coming out, and it was all totally honest. "I'm here because I have been watching you and you are, without a doubt, not yourself at all. Your appearance is absolutely frightening and I can't stand it any more. I don't care what you did to me in the past, I would take it all over again if you would just get better. I don't know, I guess I just can't stand to see someone so damn alone. I would not wish on my worst enemy on my worst day all the lonliness that I've gone through. Maybe I just never realized it before, how alone you are. All the time I've been wishing that you knew what it was like to be, maybe you would understand. And now..."
"And now you know. And I know and I always did, which is why I feel like the worthless shit that I am. I'm just a coward, and I'm sorry that I took it out on you. I'm sorry for everything. Harry, I'm not looking for absolute forgiveness. I guess I'm just looking for..." and he trailed off. I knew what he couldn't say. Hell, I knew he couldn't say it, not that he wouldn't. It was the same thing I had wanted to say since he had collapsed against me.
"You don't have to say it, mate." And before I even knew what I was doing, I had my mouth against his. I had my arms around him like I had never had them around anyone before in my life. And he just melted. Five years of animosity had completely dissolved in that single moment. Five years of mutual pain had ended. The one thing I had desired more than any other was at my fingertips. I had kissed girls before, but it always left so much to be desired. Draco's lips answered my questions. Now I knew why girls left so much to be desired for me. It wasn't just that I wanted to be with men, I wanted to be with Draco. His surrender was more than I could ever have dared to ask for. And here we were after five years of hatred masking desire. 'This isn't real, it can't be.' I pulled back from him. He clung to me and just stared. He looked like a scared rabbit. The fear in his face was breaking me all over again.
"Is this really happening?" he asked.
"It is really happening." I smiled at him. Relief was spreading over his features.
"Tell me that this is for real, and I haven't made a horrible mistake." There was a panicked note in his voice.
"This is for real, it is really happening, and if you've made a mistake, then so have I." Relief again. I couldn't seem to keep myself off of him. Kissing him was like nothing I had ever felt before and nothing that I have felt since. He sparked passions in me I didn't know existed. His face in my hands, his hands on my arms, his lips on mine. It was all coming together.
I don't know how long we sat there together. Forever. Never. Whatever sense of time I once had was thrown out the window. Time didn't matter. All that mattered was that Draco had stopped sobbing and he had felt the same as me. Out of pure habit I looked at my watch. 'Oh my god, have we been here for two and a half hours?' Impossible. The time had flown by.
"Draco?"
He looked up at me and for the first time ever, he looked more fragile than glass. The pain had gone from his face, which was now quite serene. And the serenity of his gaunt features only made him look more fragile. He was so thin, and his eyes were so sad. I thought that if I were to touch him just the wrong way, he would break. Which probably wasn't far from reality, given his current state.
"Much as I hate to say it, it is getting late." I tried to be as gentle as I could. He just looked up at me with watery eyes and nodded.
"I know," he sighed. I helped stand him on his feet. For a moment I thought he was going to fall over. He held onto my shoulder, balancing himself. Suddenly, he threw his arms around me. All I could do was stand there and hold him. That was all I wanted to do. That was all I ever wanted to do. Standing there with him pressed against me, his platinum hair running through my fingers, I could have wept. He was so beautiful and so small and it hurt me so deeply to think that someone had actually destroyed him almost to the point of death. That death was a better option than going back to whatever had done this to him scared me. What had done this to him?
"Thank you," he whispered. And so I held him tighter. For another eternity we stood there holding each other. Our moment had come at last. And it was all so fucking absurd. And it was all so bloody unfair. Why did it have to come from misery? Why couldn't there be just one thing between me and Draco that didn't stem from misery? 'Give it time,' the little voice in my mind said. What else could I do? 'I guess I'll give it time.'
Eventually, Draco stepped back. We walked to the door together where we stood, facing each other.
"Are you going to make it to bed all right?" I asked. He wasn't walking well on his own. I could just see him falling down the stairs to the dungeons and the Slytherin common room. But to my complete and utter shock, he smiled. Genuinely smiled.
"And if I say no?" Was he playing with me? He was! The thought made me blush.
"Then I would have to say that it sucks to be you." For a moment I was afraid that I had said the wrong thing.
"I know it's true." No tears, no broken hearts. He just slid his hand into mine and we left.
Most of the way was spent in silence. All of a sudden he stopped. When I looked at him, he smiled at me.
"Thank you, Harry."
"For what?" What on Earth was he thanking me for? I hadn't done anything except let him cry. Listened to what he said, at least to the best of my ability.
"For, well, listening and caring and shaking some sense into me and..."
"And treating you like a decent human being?" I didn't really mean to say it, it just kind of came out.
"You don't understand," he said very simply.
"What don't I understand?"
"That you have done more for me in the last hour than anyone else has my entire life." I was dumbfounded. I was stunned. "You don't understand that you have saved me."
Had I really saved Draco Malfoy? "No, I haven't saved you. I have given you the means to save yourself."
"And that is worth so much more than you will ever know." Never have I been so bold in my life as when I took him in my arms right there and just kissed him. Being discreet wasn't in the front of my mind. Any number of people could have seen us. But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered except for me and Draco.
***
Nothing could have prepared me for those next few weeks. I spent most of my time out of classes and Quidditch practice helping Draco. He was worse than I had thought. His starvation was getting so out of hand I took to watching him during meals to make sure that he ate. He wasn't. In the end, I had to feed him myself, long after everyone else had gone. Knowing most of the Hogwarts house-elves came in handy. They would send food up every night at whatever time I told them. And then he was so behind in his classes, I thought it would take all year for him to catch up. He worked as hard as I did, though, which made it all worth while. Unfortunately, that was the easy part.
Then I learned why Draco had suddenly snapped. It was mid-afternoon and, it being a Saturday, the library was quite deserted. He was only one essay away from being completely caught up when I saw him shudder.
"Draco, are you all right?"
His eyes had glazed over and he had started shaking violently. The scared rabbit look was on his face again. Now I was starting to panic.
"Draco?"
No reaction. No reaction whatsoever. I laid a hand on his and he jerked it away. He curled himself up and was staring, though at what, I had no idea. It was official. I was panicked. Not knowing what to do, I sat and watched him. He just sat like that for the better part of an hour. Then he was back. He stretched himself out and went back to reading from the book that he had been staring at for the last forty five minutes as though nothing was wrong. I was shocked. What the hell was going on in his head?
"Draco?"
"Yes?" He had no idea. He had no idea what he had just done. He was utterly perplexed at the look on my face. "Harry, are you all right?" He was asking me if I was all right?
"Me? What about you? Are you all right?"
"Of course I am, why?"
"Look at the clock." He looked and an absolutely horrified look crossed his face. When he looked back at me, it was the frightened rabbit again. He was going to cry again.
"I don't know, Harry, I just don't know." Poor thing had no idea. I held his hand, and he almost broke mine, he was squeezing so hard. "What happened just now?"
"All of a sudden you curled up into a ball and started shaking. What happened? Are you all right?" A few tears leaked from his eyes.
"Harry, there's so much I haven't told you." And he launched into the story of his father and his father's friends. 'This isn't really happening.' 'No, it already has happened.' It was all I could do to sit there and listen to this. Even without the gory details, it was the most horrible thing I have ever listened to in my life. 'Death is too good for him.' What he did to his servant, Dobby, was sweet and kind in comparison to what he did to his own son. Sitting there seemed almost sinful. But what could I have done? Really? So I sat and listened. And when he was through, he looked so ashamed. We sat in silence for a moment.
"So now you know how weak I truly am," he said in little more than a whisper.
That was it. That was the last straw.
"If you say one more negative word in regards to yourself I will get up from this table and personally kill that man this very moment." He remained silent. Just staring at me with those pale grey eyes and all the shame in the world on his shoulders. Shame that was not his to bear. "The last person I would call weak is you. Lucius is the weak one, and don't you ever believe otherwise."
"Harry?"
"Hmm?" I was staring at the desk, rubbing my temples, trying to rid myself of the pain that was infiltrating every part of my brain. But I had to look at him. What I saw was something I had never seen before in anyone. Ever.
"I love you." It was so simple. It was so honest. Those three little words and the body they had come from transcended space and time. The library was somewhere else. Lucius didn't exist. A slight smile played across his mouth. Tears were running down my face.
"No one has ever said that to me before." That was it. That was the end. I was sobbing like a little girl. This time it was Draco who held me. 'How can he do that? Comfort me when he's living out hell in his mind?' "I love you, so much, Draco..." Spluttering fool that I was, I couldn't even finish my sentence.
When we were finished crying (he had started too, fuck me) we just sat and stared at each other. Smile. Squeeze of my hand. And I was that sobbing little girl again.
***
Thank you for reviewing me, you all truly made my day and gave me that little boost of confidence I needed! This is the first story I have written at all in the last eight years and thank you for finding it lovely. I do hope this part is up to par?
