Notes, disclaimers, etc: Yeah. Okay. So they're hers. Don't tell anyone. Um I want to thank everyone once again who reviewed, you make me feel loved. I keep thinking I have 10515 reviews. Alas, that's words. Oh well. So this was inspired by Dream Boy by Jim Grimsley which you must read! You must! And to the girl (or boy) who asked about the whole *nsync thing, I like basically… every kind of music. It's just *nsync is awfully fun to write about. Yeppers. Okay. So um.. yea? I guess that's it. Oh right, I was going to plug my domain. I have a Harry Potter layout up now and everyone should go see it because it's tight. http://burning-memories.net is the address.
Oh right. This chapter contains: slash, angst!Draco, self-injury, snogging boys, and some random babbling between sections. Right-o.
Chapter 12: Everything That Can't Be Undone
Walking with my head down, your blood still encrusted beneath my nails, the heady rush of your breath and your skin and your lips still wrapped around my mind, I nearly run you over before I'm even aware that there's someone in front of me.
"Watch where you're going, you pig!" Granger snaps in her know-it-all domineering voice.
"Nearly kill Harry, why don't you, Malfoy." Weasley choruses, glaring at me.
I stand over you, blank for a moment because I can still feel your blood underneath my fingertips, can still taste you in my mouth. My mouth curls automatically in a sneer and I say softly, "I would help you up, Potter, but I'd rather not waste my time on someone who can obviously help himself because he's-" I pause and my eyes sweep your body and the books spilling out of your bag and your untied shoelaces and can almost smell the derision radiating off me in sweetly aching waves.
I shouldn't be doing this.
I breathe and my voice is even soft and fuck I can almost see everything crumbling in your eyes as you flush bright red then pale just as quickly, "-the Boy Who Lived." I finish, then step over you and walk on.
My nails dig deeper into my palms with every step and breath I take and all I see is your eyes and your pain and the way you must have believed everything would change and when I finally reach the dining hall I am choking on self-hatred and I can feel the blood welling up in hands.
Your eyes burn holes into the back of my neck and I nearly turn around.
Nearly.
In this at least you will not see me falter; the only role I've ever played is this one.
You're so nervous you're shaking. Of course Snape would put us together- he always does and yet you act like this is unexpected, new, and altogether terrifying.
"Pull yourself together, Potter." I hiss in your ear, leaning past you to grab a jar of beetle eyes. I set it by your elbow and lean forward to begin grinding the ebony as Snape dictated.
His shadow falls over my work and you are still sitting in a daze of confusion and apprehension. "I believe I put you together to work as a team, Potter," Snape says silkily.
"Huh?" You blink. "Oh. Yea." You turn to get something and knock over the jar of beetle eyes.
Seeker reflexes kick in and I reach for the falling jar just as you do and our hands fold neatly over the jar, mine trapped between the glass and yours.
We are trapped, too frightened to hold on, too desperate to let go.
At the same moment we pull away and the jar falls to the ground, exploding on the hardwood floors. A shard embeds itself in my revealed wrist and I see it in my skin but I cannot feel the pain.
You look from the cut to my eyes to the cut again and quiet acceptance paints your eyes with somber grace.
There are but a thousand dreams shattered in the breaking of a heart; your flesh will bear our history in blood.
You are waiting for me, the moonlight soaking your hair and skin in silver flame. I don't understand why you are here.
For a moment we are suspended in time and in your eyes I can see the glass shattering and in your breathing I hear his and in the way you chew your bottom lip I see the razor and the blood in the water and dripping down my wrist in sugared red trails.
You are the embodiment of pain, in all its sweetly twisted forms, you are the reason I survived my father only to find that I cannot escape myself.
When you move it is to gently raise my sleeves, to bare my wrists and arms.
"Bloody hell, Draco." You whisper, tracing with your fingers and eyes the scars that mar my pale skin, the red and pink and flaring and fading cuts that carve my inner arms from wrist to elbow.
I pull my arms away, hastily cover them. You watch me for a moment, then step closer and without hesitation wrap one arm around my waist, the other reaching up to lower my head to your shoulder and run your hand through my hair. "How could you do that to yourself?" You ask.
When I speak my voice is exhausted and resigned. "Because I wanted to see if I could bleed the pain away."
We stand in silence for awhile, your fingers working through my hair still. You're not that much taller than me, and yet I always thought you were; I always that you towered over me.
Somehow you maneuver us to the ground and you lean against the stone wall and I am nearly on top of you and yet you say nothing, do nothing but play absentmindedly with my hair and draw circles on my back.
After a while you begin talking softly, to yourself, almost. "I hated you. I hated you when we met because you had a father and you knew about the wizarding world and you had grown up with parents who loved you and you had had a room to yourself and you didn't have a childhood filled with humiliation and feeling like you're worthless and I was trapped, Draco, I was just fucking trapped and there you were, the bloody picture of health and love and family. I hated you later because you thought you were better than everyone and you always had that goddamn expression on your face and you didn't care about anyone but yourself." You smile faintly at me, brushing your lips against my forehead. "And then I started hating you for being so goddamned beautiful and for kissing Pansy and for not ever looking at me without that bloody sneer and for being straight and for not loving me. Gods, I hated you so much then."
"I'm sorry." I whisper.
You don't seem to notice and keep talking. "But I hated you most, Draco, I hated you most when you pushed me away and told me that if I told anyone you'd ruin my life and that you didn't need this and you didn't need me."
"I'm sorry," I repeat, and know that it is not enough, will never be enough.
You smile now, and it is a real smile. "You know what I think? I think you do need this. I think you do need me."
"I do." I mumble into your neck, clenching my teeth and fighting the comfort and warmth that surrounds me, that has always betrayed me.
Your arms tighten around me and you say, softly, "Silver."
"What?"
"Your hair." You say, then laugh. "You're so beautiful. Has anyone ever told you?"
I shake my head. "I'm not." I say and the scars twinge a little, hurting more with the memories. "I'm not beautiful."
"You are," you say firmly, and I am too tired to argue with you. Presently, you say, "What are you thinking?" And I feel you smile at the cliché we find ourselves in.
I am thinking about love- my father's. I am thinking about the past. And what can't be undone. And what can. I am thinking about holding on. And letting go. And the things I'll never have.
But mostly I am thinking about pain. Yours. And mine.
But I don't tell you this.
"I don't want to die, Harry." I say, clinging to you all the more.
You sigh and murmur, "Neither do I, Draco."