Rating: probably Pg:13
Pairing: yup HARRY/ DRACO all the way baby *sticks out tongue* they're not underage. So there.
Summary: it's 7th year and two people are in love, but neither know it. They both have one last chance. Will they take it?
Feedback: plz plz plz plz plz plz plz if you read it tell me what you think???? I REALLY need the encouragement =P thanx muchly
Thanks to: Fanny_chan, Aezy, Shadowslight and Yami no Hikari and eMJay (hehehe u inspired me in my evilness) who reviewed my 4th chap.
In general – I love all my reviewers =D you cant no how much ur reviews brighten my day, really, ppl tend to look at me a little strangely when I dance around the room huggin myself . . but its worth it =D
A/N – this fic has taken on a life of its own and I wont be held responsible for all the twistings and turnings =P I am just an innocent bystander.
- sorry bout the belated update (for me) my muse decided to take a little vacation
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~ A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words ~
Even years later, Harry would be unable to explain how he found his way safely back to his room that morning, or how he was able to remain there undetected though out the day without being disturbed or reprimanded for skipping class. Not that any reprimands, or . . . anything really would have been acknowledged that day because, from the moment Harry had returned to the safety of his room, he had collapsed on the bed, entering into a strange kind of catatonic state, his body resting with an appearance of calm serenity that totally contradicted the whirling, screaming shambles of his mind, a vortex of horrible thoughts that chased each other round and round inside his head.
There was no screaming, no crying, nothing was broken and no one was hurt. There was no physical indication of Harry's internal struggle, his soul-crushing, heart-rending, mind-melting pain. And perhaps that was the problem. There was no outlet for the pain, the rage, the grief that slowly built inside him, tearing him apart. He kept it bottled inside, his consciousness turned away from the world, fighting the urge to fight, to flee, to rage and to scream, to do anything to dull the pain, to deal with it in some way. Desperately Harry tried to hold himself together, to gather his fraying sense of self together, to stop everything he thought he was from coming apart at the seams and exploding in a wild, violent expression of his confusion. Harry felt as though the love of his life had died, had left him all alone, taking a part of his soul with him and was now lost to him forever, but Harry refused to let himself grieve, to grieve for what he never had at all.
He silently battled on until, some time in the middle of the night; his consciousness gave up, surrendered to his impulses and fled from his chaotic thoughts, fled deep inside himself to find some peace. For the first time in his life he shed the cloak of sophistication, the mask of evolved humanity that we all wear and left himself bare, trying to find out who he was and how to deal with his pain, trying to rebuild his shattered self and find a way to go on.
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At the very centre of us all, in that secret, most primitive part of us, there is ancient force, a power, a magic that is a remnant of a time, many millennia ago, when we had no form and simply . . . existed - pure and free. Some call this force the "spirit" or "soul" of a person, something that has existed since before time and will continue to exist, briefly caged in human flesh. No matter what you call it, or if you even choose to recognise it at all, it exists, deep inside us, beneath the layers of consciousness, the most basic self. Trapped in cage of lies and deceit, expectation and belief, rarely reached, barely even noticed. When a person goes deep inside, past what they thought they know of the world and themselves, past all any thought at all, they can sometimes touch that power and in a place where nothing but pure truth resides, they may find the answers they seek.
In an attempt to hide from himself, Harry had come face to face with what he truly was, his simple, exquisite essence and the truth at the base of his soul.
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As if in a trance, Harry rose from the bed, his feet sure in the darkness as his hands gathered pristine parchment, something guiding him, no need for the eyes that stared into the distance - glazed and glowing. Harry stood in the middle of his dark room, light from the pale moon ghosting his features with ethereal light. The parchment floating gently in front of him, His hands flew across the unspoiled surface, power shimmering and flowing, radiating from his being. As his hands moved, line, shape and colour was left in their wake, an image forming on the parchment as Harry poured all his pain, his love, his very soul into his creation.
The moment the last stroke was complete, Harry collapsed to the floor, this time lost in a deep, dreamless sleep, the parchment slowly fluttering down to rest on his gently rising and falling chest.
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Draco lay in that grove until the tears dried, his tortured breathing calmed and he was left staring at the glittering stars far above him, their cold light reflecting in his eyes, shining brilliantly with a determination fuelled by possessive love. The leaves fell, the birds sung and the sun made its majestic way through the sky and all of this went unnoticed as Draco planned and plotted. He would win his love over; he would make Harry forget all about his new lover and would claim that passion for himself. Draco would stick to his original plan, because it really was a magnificent plan, he would paint a masterpiece, a picture that embodied his love and portrayed his lover as Draco saw him, as his saviour, as his conscience, as his eternal love.
Draco rose from the soft, mossy earth and found his way back to the castle in the dark, stumbling drunkenly, an idiotic grin plastered to his pale face. This would work.
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Draco found his way back to The Grove early the next morning, finally taking in the beauty around him. His confident steps muffled by the yielding loam, falling quietly on the mossy, flower-strewn ground Draco walked reverently through the natural entrance way created by two ancient, towering trees, gnarled with centuries of weather and twisted with clinging vines. The morning sun shone through the leafy canopy far above him, illuminating the almost perfectly round clearance before him. Birds of unknown, exotic species twittered and sung enchanting songs, hidden from prying eyes in the upper swaying upper branches of the surrounding trees and jewel bright wild flowers grew in clusters amid the verdant grasses and luxurious mosses that covered the soft earth.
All in all, most people would call this place heaven, but for Draco, anywhere that Harry was . . . that was his own idea of heaven, and sadly Harry was the only thing missing from this beautiful place. Sighing softly, Draco refused to let himself succumb to his miserable thoughts once more and instead focused on the task at hand. Turning abruptly on his heel, Draco returned to the spot, a few steps from the entrance to The Grove, where he had left his supplies, an easel, charcoal and pencils, some expensive parchment and even more outrageously expensive oil paints and various brushes. Any expense was worth the attention and affection of his beloved.
Placing the easel so that it caught the golden-green rays of sunlight, Draco picked up a pencil and brought his hand to rest over the blank parchment. His and hovering, Draco's eyes became unfocused, staring at some random point in the surrounding forest as he searched through the images in his head, desperately sifted through everything he knew and loved about Harry Potter and tried to find the right place to start. His creation had to be perfect, better than that if he wanted to convince his beloved, a man who loved another and barely even recognised Draco's existence, to return his desperate affection.
Determined, he pressed the fine grey-lead to the parchment, gently sketching a line, a curve, a shape that could be called a face, if one had absolutely no artistic vision. Trying with all his might, Draco continued to draw and sketch at the parchment, growing more frustrated and less confident with every too harsh line, every failed attempt to capture the incredible beauty of his subject, the terrifying intensity of his love. Oh, the drawing wasn't bad exactly, in fact it probably would have been a good first piece for a young artist, when Draco finally started to paint, but it was no masterpiece. And that was what Draco needed. Nothing less would suffice.
In frustration, Draco flung the pencil from him to land somewhere in the dense undergrowth, emitting a strangled yell of –
"GODS DAMN IT!"
- and stalked away from the easel. Staring off into the trees with unseeing eyes, Draco ran a shaking hand over his face, trying to retain some of the calm, the determination he previously had an abundance of. Desperately, he sort inspiration. Something. Anything.
Draco's hands clenched into tight fists, his eyes narrowed and he ground his teeth in barely controlled fury. He just needed a little help, though he was hard pressed to admit it, he didn't have quite the talent for what he needed to create. He needed inspiration. He needed beauty and . . . power. He *really* needed Harry but that would never happen, at least not until the painting was done. Consciously, Draco relaxed every tensed muscle in his lithe form and concentrated on the image of his beloved. Shaking Draco exhaled a long breath, trying to rid himself of all the pent up frustration, born of anger and pain. Clearing his mind of all but the image of Harry, loving and angelic, Draco sent out a plea to the gods he had only just damned, to anyone who might be listening, for inspiration, for a little help, for everything he needed, for anything they could give.
The gods may not have heard Draco's heartfelt prayer that day, but something did.
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As you know, there are forces in the world older than humanity, older than history, older than time itself, these magical, mystical beings have no form but are everywhere around us, we cannot see them, we may not choose to believe in them, but they *are* there. When mortal men and women and all the beasts of the world came into existence, some of these forces were caged in flesh and buried beneath instinct and thought, but not all.
The remaining ancients were forced to roam the newly forming earth in search of shelter, a home, somewhere to exist in secret safety away from the eyes of all mortal creatures. They fled to all the corners of the planet, to all the deep and secret places where they could hide, some journeyed to the bottom of the primordial oceans, some to the caves and pits in the dark mother earth, some to the bright and airy reaches of the sky, to flit among the clouds and some chose the new forests that were growing over the grassy planes to hide among the trees, in the dense undergrowth, in the darkness and shadow.
As man evolved from the animals and continued to grow, to change, he learned to fear the secret places and decided to change the world to suit himself, to banish the ancient magicks, to modernise, to civilise, to make the world safe and *known*. Over the millennia, humans infiltrated every secret, magic place and almost successfully drove out the ancients, never knowing they really were just cloaks of flesh, hiding the forces deep within themselves. They built ships and fantastic metal contraptions and travelled the seas, they mined and drilled deep into the earth, raping her bounty and plundering all they could, the pitiful flightless creatures built themselves wings of metal and wood to imitate the birds, they cut down the great forests and built their own dwellings, poisoning the earth.
These mortal beings multiplied and spread, the largest plague the world would ever know and where ever they went, they destroyed the sacred places and the ancients were forced to flee. So many were forced from their places, and yet some remained untouched, only in the deepest and most inherently magical places where man feared to tread. Millennia of concentrated ancient magick imbued these places with their own special force, enough to protect the remaining ancients, at least for a while. They were left the deepest, darkest depths of the farthest seas, to deep for man to travel . . . and a forest, just one, a forest like no other that remained on the earth, magical and powerful, almost a living entity in itself. The forest that surrounded Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was this very forest, the last sacred place on land and the home of the most powerful ancients.
These beings had, out of necessity evolved a kind of semi consciousness, enough to protect them from the mortals that might harm them, destroy their place. They cultivated their power, and grew to be able to see inside the hearts and souls of mortal beings, to sense those in tune with their ancient powers. They controlled the living woods around them, wary of all but a select few of the magical folk who lived on their borders. They hid from the inevitable, awaiting the day when they would have no where left to run, no where to hide and no where to exist at all.
The ancients were cold to the plight of man, focused on their own power and the . . . other power that existed in the world. The ancients could only be roused for this power, a power greater than themselves, greater than mortals, greater than everything. Love.
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Draco had but a seconds warning. An impression of something moving towards his, a force, powerful and faster than anything he had ever known, to fast to stop. And then he was surrounded in a blazing light, a warmth that seemed to flood him, sinking to his very bones and beyond, calling to something deep within him. For less than a moment Draco considered struggling, fighting whatever was taking over, but then that thing rushed up from deep within him, two powers meeting and Draco surrendered, not to pain, not to force, but to beauty, to a sense of comfort and love and the fact that he knew, *knew* that his prayers had been answered.
Glowing from within and without, Draco seemed to glide across the mossy ground, the sunlight from far above illuminating his soft hair like a halo about his mesmerised face. He stood before the easel, no hesitation this time, and ran his fingers lightly over the half-drawn lines of the beloved face. Behind his caressing hands, the crude lines turned to brilliant colour, smooth texture and enthralling, subtle shading, the work of a master painter, the work of the heart and soul, Draco's love shone forth from the parchment for all to see. It was beautiful, it was perfect, it was a masterpiece and it was . . . incredibly tiring. Draco poured everything he had into the painting, leaving him animated only by the strange force that was powering him. When the picture was complete, Draco swayed and fell to the ground, his head cushioned on a pillow of yielding earth, as the forces separated, one leaving him completely, flying away to join the shadows and one sinking back deep inside him to lie dormant, unable to sustain Draco on its own, leaving him to topple unceremoniously to the ground, deep in the sleep of the exhausted . . . but satisfied.
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TBC
Mwuahahahahahahahah I really am truely evil (thanku eMJay)
A/N - ok just WHOA I really wasn't expecting that . . were u? *shakes head* strange very strange . . wonder whats going to happen next . . .
- woo hooo I created my own mythology . . I love it . . .=P it may not make sense but its MINE