Notes, disclaimers, etc: okay, you've gotten this far and you're still clamoring for a damn disclaimer? Fine. *points an accusing finger at JKR* there's the demon that started it all. Burn her. Um..yeah. anyway. I kind of.. skipped the beta thing. Because this took so long to write and.. yeah. So thanks to all my readers who are reviewing, you make me one happy slasher girl.
So, this chapter contains: slash, Ron, angst!Draco, hints at rape, incest and abuse, and some weird creepy blood fetish. So it's rated R.
Chapter 10: Moonlight Blood"Don't go, Harry." Ron's voice slices neatly through the night air. "You've gone every night since we've got here. You're losing sleep, you're forgetting to turn in your homework- it's not healthy, Harry."
I freeze. "Ron," I whisper quietly. "Go back to sleep."
He shifts and his face is in the moonlight. I can see a stubborn firmness setting his lips into a grim line, furrowing his brow. "Not until you do. Harry, it's not worth it. You're going to fail if you keep this up. You can't afford to fail. This isn't—this isn't right."
I roll my eyes. "You sound like Hermione." I say in exasperation.
His voice is shrill, still raspy with sleep. "Maybe she's right! Maybe you should listen to her! Maybe you should listen to me! I don't know what's gotten into you lately, Harry, but you've really been-"
"Oh for God's sake." I snap. "Get a hold of yourself. Go back to bed, for crying out loud. You're getting hysterical." I hear the weird tone in my voice but refuse to apologize or even bite it back. It isn't Ron's fault I've been like I am lately but I don't care right now, I just want to walk and be alone and think without interruptions. I have suddenly grown tired of his and Hermione's clinging and if night is the only time I have away from them I am going to use it.
He is silent for a moment and I can feel his hurt. It is in his face and his clenched hands and the heavy way he breathes. When he speaks it is in his voice. "Harry-" He says quietly. He mumbles a curse and climbs back into bed, his back to me.
Satisfied that he is done nagging me like the overbearing mother I never had, I slip on my invisibility cloak and sneak out of the room, down the stairs, out into the hallway.
"I'm onto you." The lady in the portrait threatens half-heartedly. "Robbing me of my sleep… I'm going to report you, you know."
She can't see me, though, and she doesn't know who I am, so I refuse to be worried and continue on my way. The stone floors are freezing but silent and I slowly walk up the winding stairs that lead up to the astronomy tower.
When I haul myself through the trapdoor in the astronomy room I hear someone inhaling sharply and I know, instinctively, who it is. Did I know he was going to be here? When he's never been here before?
"What the fuck are you doing here, Potter?" His voice is icy but lacking bitterness- his voice is strained and weepy.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" I ask in return, careful to avoid the name that, through tears, he begged me never to say. Since then he has not spoken a word to me, and his eyes carefully avoid mine, although I feel him watching when my back is turned.
He frowns at me. "Thinking." He says bitterly. "Remembering."
"And what is that you're thinking, that makes you so weepy and raspy?" I ask, knowing that I am on unfamiliar ground. I am torn between running like hell and kissing him because he looks like a melted angel.
"I am not weepy and raspy." He says, turning back to me and narrowing his eyes. "And if I was it's not any of your business, Potter." The words are sneered, seeping hatred and sarcasm, more like himself than he has been for weeks.
I take a step closer to him. Another. Edging my way to the moon-drenched windowsill on which he is seated, I inhale and say boldly, "No? You don't think so? Because I wonder. Maybe it is my business."
He rolls his eyes at me. "What are you going on about, Potter?" He asks impatiently.
To hell with it. I sit on the sill beside him, swinging my feet up so my toes are just barely touching his. We stare at each other, and he is glaring but I am merely gaping, awestruck. Finding my voice, I ask, "What am I supposed to call you?"
He arches an eyebrow. "What are you supposed to call me?" He asks calmly, then smiles sardonically. "Oh, I don't know. O Superior One would do just fine, if you can't come up with something that's less of an understatement."
He doesn't say it cruelly, though, and I refuse to be provoked. "I meant, I don't really know what to call you, since you don't want me to…" I trail off, then add, "And anyways, if I can't call you by your last name, why are you still calling me by mine?"
He stares at me for a moment, then says, slowly, "You don't understand, do you?" He leans forward, his eyes intense, angry. "Your name isn't anything to be ashamed of. In fact, your name is famous."
I am most definitely confused now. My voice is bewildered as I say, "But.. your name isn't anything to be ashamed of. You're just as famous as I am." A lie, but not much of one. "I mean—your father—"
He looks at me in a strange, cold way, then leans back, his expression suddenly far too clinical and calm. "My father." He says quietly, staring out the window again. His expression doesn't change as he asks, "Do you want to know what he did to me? Do you want to know about the way he sent me to my room just so I could lie in bed and wait to hear his footsteps on the stairs and his hand on the doorknob and his shadow in the doorframe?" He leans forward again, a sadistic, broken smile cracking his face in half. "Do you want to know what made him so angry that he broke my jaw and my leg, in three places? About the drawing he found hidden in my robes? Do you want to know who the drawing was of?"
I close my eyes against his words which sear like open wounds and salt. He leans forward and grabs the collar of my robe, his fingers digging through the fabric into my skin in a desperate, panicked way. His voice is raspy and harsh as he mumbles in my ear, "I wanted to die that night. I lay awake and stared at the ceiling and prayed that I would just fucking die. And you know what?" He is now pressing his lips against my ear, his voice grating against my skin, his breath raising the hair on my neck. "I prayed that you would die with me."
He presses one frantic kiss against my lips, his nails still clawing at my neck. His tears are hot as they drip between our mouths and I can feel the bitter exhaustion that is eating at his flesh. He has lost weight over the summer, throughout this schoolyear. My arms tentatively circle his waist and his skin is brittle and stretched too tightly over his bones.
He pulls his hand away and in the moonlight his fingers are shining darkly with blood. He leans back, away from me, stares blankly at his fingers, then gently places them against my cheek.
His fingers half-caress my face, and his eyes are weird and silver.
"I should have known," He whispers savagely, still smearing my blood onto my skin. "You're the fucking Boy Who Lived."