Harry really didn't need to gripe about his headache – Draco was sure he'd have one, and had set out glasses just for this purpose. But when the brunette shifted to sit up against the headboard, he nearly missed the vessel with his Aguamenti when his eyes landed on the scar on his chest. Harry, thankfully, didn't notice for scrubbing at his eyes. But still, he was made by the clear of his throat, the warmth in his cheeks as he offered Harry the water.
"Hideous, isn't it?" he murmured as he accepted the glass and threw it back. Draco found it very difficult not to stare, because Jesus fucking Christ, how the hell–?
"How did you survive?" was through his lips before he could bite it back. Welp. Too late now. He tore his gaze back up to those green eyes, which were hollow as he answered flatly,
"I didn't."
Draco frowned. "What do you mean you didn't? Course you did, you're here now, aren't you?"
But bloody hell, he should've died. That's one hell of a scar.
"I died, Draco." He froze, waiting for the punchline, the catch, but Harry just stared blankly back at him. "Got lucky the first time with my mum, but the second time…" Harry's hand, which Draco saw had even more scars on the back of it, lifted to rub absently at the hollowed-out dent in the center of his sternum. "They don't call it the Killing Curse for dramatic flair."
He saw his own hand lift of its own accord, and when Harry lowered to his side instead of pushing him away, he slowly touched his fingers to the scar.
"Fucking hell," he whispered. The curse had only grazed his brow and half of it was decorated in those jagged lines, but on his chest, it really was like it'd sunk into him and reshaped his ribs in one spot. The lightning-like branches stretched the majority of his torso, and he winced slightly as he started to pull his hand away. "Sorry, I–"
Again, Harry held his hand to himself when he tried to pull away. Flattened his palm to the epicenter of the scar. Those green eyes were staring back at him unflinchingly, and while Draco didn't feel like he had any right to ask–
"How did you…?"
"Come back to life?" His voice rumbled beneath Draco's fingers as he lifted a shoulder with a shrug. "Chose to."
What the bloody fuck? Who just "chooses" to come back to life? What sort of magic even is that? Necromancy? Surely some sort of Dark Art, but Harry bloody Potter using the Dark Arts…?
Seeing Draco's thoughts whirling, Harry sighed and went on: "Hurts like a bitch, but just for a second. I… Dunno why, but I ended up in a weird version of King's Cross." Draco felt his eyebrows raise, and Harry answered it with a small smirk. "And there were two trains. I… I could've left." Finally, the hand pressing his to the scar released him, and he glimpsed Harry glance over at his left forearm. "Wanted to."
Draco couldn't ken it. Wanting him to touch him when he didn't want anyone else to, opening up about something like this, the open vulnerability in his eyes.
"Why tell me this?"
Harry studied his face, frowning as if he didn't understand, either.
"Suppose… I feel… Safe with you?" His cheeks pinked, and suddenly seemed like he was having an awfully difficult time meeting Draco's eyes. "I dunno… You read me like a fucking book anyway. Sorry."
Safe with me? I stomped his fucking nose in, let Death Eaters into our school, and he feels safe? I mean… It's not like I'd do anything like that now, but still…
"He… Killed you," he said slowly. Even slower, Harry lifted his eyes back to his. And nodded. Draco's stomach flipped, his heart nearly burst out of his mouth, the thought of Harry, dead–
His arms were around the brunette before he could fully process what he'd just learned, sloshing Harry's remaining water onto his bed, but he didn't care. Didn't even care that he wasn't reciprocating, just sitting stiffly in his arms as he buried his face against his throat.
"You didn't want to come back?" he whispered into his collarbone. Harry's swallow was loud against his face.
"L-like you said, I… I've lost a lot."
Something like a scream was building in Draco's chest as he recalled the photos he'd stumbled upon, his parents, his parents, Sirius, everyone else… He truly couldn't blame him, even though he'd been the last thing standing between the Dark Lord and his purposes.
Fucking hell, he knew, in theory, what'd happened to him during the war, had read all the articles and the interviews and biographies written about him by now, but for the first time, he felt like he really understood. And it shattered his fucking heart.
Shit.
Harry really couldn't understand why Draco seemed to care so much. Friends, he'd called them. Was that what they were now? Seemed an impossibility, but so did them shacking up together. So did the cursed fucking admission he'd just given him, unprompted.
He'd never told anyone about his death. Ever. To the reporters, the Ministry officials, to Ron and even fucking Hermione, he'd shrugged it off and said he must've just got lucky. That he had no idea if he'd even actually died, that the Horcrux in him must've taken the blow, but had taken to hiding the scar the second he'd had a moment alone afterward.
Beyond that, he'd buried the shame of his indecision deep, deep within himself, certain if anyone learned he nearly didn't return to save the world, they'd hate him. But for the same reason a single kiss had invited a series of escapades, and the one on his couch had invited tears to his eyes, he'd relinquished this most closely kept secret to none other than Draco fucking Malfoy.
Who still hadn't released him from his arms yet.
"I'm so sorry," Draco croaked against his throat. Is he… Crying? That itself made little sense, but he still felt his throat go tight. He knew he wasn't apologizing for any sin of his own, but was sympathizing with Harry's suffering, and the whole thing felt so enormously ridiculous that a smirk pulled at his lips.
"All worked out, didn't it?" Hesitantly, he pried an arm out from between their chests to cautiously rest a hand on Draco's shoulder blade. "Why–" His voice came out strangely, throat tight as it was, and he cleared it before trying again: "Why did you show me your scars?"
He felt the arms around him go slightly stiff just before they finally released him, and he was only slightly shocked to see an alarming pink around Draco's angular nose, a similar pink in his moisture-rimmed eyes.
"You asked," he answered, and passed a hand over his mouth.
"You could've refused," Harry refuted.
"Why do you hide yours?"
Again with the answering my questions with questions. It was bloody irritating, so why did it make him smile?
"Nosy teammates, locker rooms. Not the prettiest sight in the world, bit upsetting to see, take your pick." He doesn't need to know he's the first I've told about…
Draco nodded, a contemplative crease forming between his brows as his watery gaze dipped again to Harry's chest.
"Why show me then?" He winced, recalling how he'd referred to Draco as safe. It'd just slipped out, but then his hands had been on him and that damn ease he'd come to associate with his touch had seemed to pry it from his lips.
"I… D-didn't mean to. My wandless magic is… S-sometimes, it just… I dunno."
The blond hummed, and it was just then that Harry's body decided to alert him to its needs, and he made a quiet excuse as he stumbled to the adjoining washroom on unsteady legs. This is so fucking strange. Of all the times for the truth to come out…
He relieved himself hastily, washed his hands, and froze as his eyes lifted to plain bathroom tile. Who doesn't have a mirror in their bathroom? He frowned as he returned to the bedroom, finding Draco casually laying out an outfit for himself from the wardrobe, and finally noticed that there wasn't a full-length mirror either. That's odd.
Seeing as Draco didn't turn to acknowledge him, he set to redressing himself, assessing the state of his body and realizing, again, he hadn't taken advantage of his drunken state. Other than that kiss, they didn't seem to have fucked. A flush rose to his cheeks as he pulled his shirt on over his head.
A sigh. "You're freaking out again," Draco ascertained as he tugged his belt through the buckle and threaded the teeth through the hole, still facing away. Harry froze, trousers in his fists as they tightened.
"Tend to do that, s'pose," he answered shakily as he stepped into the legs and tugged it up to his hips. Draco rounded on him, hands on hips and something like discouragement on his face.
"What am I supposed to do with you when I'm not touching you?" Despite his serious demeanor, and his question, Harry found himself suddenly lost to hysterics. He folded at the waist, bracing against the foot of Draco's bed as he coughed out his humor. "You fucking serious?"
Harry only howled louder, crumpling to his knees as he desperately clung to the bed. What is he supposed to do with me? What is anyone? Perhaps it was Draco's seriousness that sent him cackling onto his knees, the culmination of all the incomprehensible weirdness of the exchange they'd just shared, but when Draco burst into laughter of his own, the shuddering hysteria softened into real humor as the blond fell down onto the rumpled bed.
They only sent each other further into laughter, and the sound of Draco's laugh was… Bliss. Pure bliss. It goaded his own cackling, but also gripped a fist around his heart. He'd never heard Draco laugh like that, in all his years of knowing him. It'd only ever been sneers and scoffs, but here he was, fucking losing it in his bed. Harry wept with laughter, and the easiness of it all invited him up onto the bed himself as he climbed up on shaking limbs to lower a kiss to the blond's chuckling mouth.
What the fuck is happening? He couldn't be bothered to care, because Draco was still laughing into his mouth, lips moving against his as his grin threatened to separate them, and it was so perfectly, astronomically insane. WHY am I kissing him right now?
Harry ripped his mouth away, staring down into grey eyes as they resolved, slowly, from tearful humor to embarrassed guilt.
He'd only glimpsed it from afar, but Harry's humor up close was an intoxicating fucking spell. Draco didn't even know what they were laughing at, but seeing him wipe tears from his eyes, try to regain his composure, and then losing it all over again drove him over the fucking edge. And when he kissed him, the seed he'd thought he'd buried, dead and gone, drove its roots into his heart and sprung a sapling up through the surface of his soul. Fuck!
When he suddenly pulled away to study Draco's face, though, the moment fractured. Tore at the sapling, plucking its vestal leaves, as he blinked up at Harry. His first love.
Draco swallowed. "Back to freaking out then, are we?"
Harry smiled, and Draco's lungs drew in an involuntary gasp at the sight. Even upside-down, he was breathtaking.
"Probably," he supposed, but leaned down to press one more sloppy, upside-down kiss to Draco's lips. And his breath caught in his throat.
The Chudley Canon's prize Seeker pried himself away to finish redressing, but Draco lay immobile on the bed a moment more. Holy fucking Christ. No way. No. No, I can't possibly fucking– After all this time?
He bit back a frustrated growl as he curled up to tug on his shoes, and was making fine work of it when Harry reappeared in his vision, fully clothed and fully flushed. Peering at him like a blushing fucking schoolgirl.
FUCK!
"T-til next time?"
Draco managed only an echo of a smile as he took Harry's anxious measure.
"Yeah."
"Right."
He hesitated only a moment before leaning in for another ingracious smack on his lips and turning on his heel to march out.
Draco sat, dazed, on his bed for several moments before his mind caught up. And once he heard the tell-tale flourish of his Floo foist Harry from his flat, he released the filthiest swear he knew with a rushed exhale.
