Kick You When You're Down

A/N: This marks a HUGE departure from my usual style. Please don't be too shocked - and certainly, none of my usual readers are obliged to comment. It's not a romance; it's a bit of wry angst, and not especially skilful. So I warn you. Wouldn't mind suggestions for improvement *grin*… By the way, this is for Katie of Gryffindor, who writes about Harry and Draco so sweetly… *grin again*.

It was the first Hogsmeade weekend of the school year, but few of the students left the castle.

Harry Potter snagged a copy of the Daily Prophet from Neville's limp fingers, read the front-page news, and wished he hadn't. His green eyes blank, the Gryffindor slipped from the table, ignoring his friends as they called after him.

Because he always watched the Boy who Lived, a certain Slytherin saw him go.

"Draco. Let me read it." Pansy tugged his elbow.

"Wait," Draco said, and skimmed the article narrow-eyed, dwelling on the small, featured picture of the Dark Mark, looking at the statistics: Small wizard community. Eighteen dead.

"Take it," he said, and gave it to her, and left the hall himself.

Harry Potter clasped the handle of his broom lightly. The smallest of pressures was necessary to change the direction of his Firebolt, and at first, that was all he used. Then his knuckles grew whiter and his flight became more jerky. He swooped and lunged in the air above the Quidditch pitch. The wind slashed through his hair. His manoeuvres were death-defying...

He contemplated death. That of eighteen people, during the night, in Wales; that of his parents, which usually entered his mind when he thought of death; and, briefly, his own.

And the name that linked them, Voldemort.

And I am linked to him, Harry Potter thought. I lived because he died... and he lives because of my blood in his veins... the key ingredient, the thing that brought him back.

Part of me is in the being that tortured eighteen people and killed them and marked the place with his gaudy sign of triumph...

My mother's love killed him and I restored him. What does that make me?

He swooped, and pulled himself up, and headed, for a span, straight towards the sky.

He wanted to be alone. His friends would have reassured him. They would have hugged him and given him their sympathy and told him everything he wanted to hear.

You could believe anything, if it was what you wanted to hear. He didn't want to be reassured, and told he was being stupid and that of course he was innocent. If it really was 'of course', then how could he have questions?

The air was perfect because Ron had no broom and Hermione couldn't fly. The air was safe and completely his own.

It wasn't as flash as a Firebolt, but Draco treated his Nimbus 2001 with care. He lifted it from its rack after murmuring the necessary ward-releasing words, and wiped the dust off it before he mounted it.

Then he soared out into the grounds.

Harry Potter was flying all over the place. The Slytherin watched him with his usual cynical smile. His own flight was far more controlled. But it affected the Gryffindor. Draco saw frustration on the other Seeker's face as he flashed past. The blond boy continued to slide through the air, weaving slowly around Harry with his humbler broom.

Finally, eyes flashing, Harry Potter pulled his broom up in front of Draco. 'What're you doing here, Malfoy?" he demanded. "Come to gloat?"

I've come to kick you while you're down… "Upset about something, Potter?" Draco taunted back.

"You should be too." Harry stared fiercely at him. "Although I suppose I'm expecting too much of you."

"Really? It's not as if I knew those people, is it?" Draco replied lazily. He glanced away, then turned his gray eyes back to Harry. They were as unreadable as a cloud, but Harry's eyes had all his feelings in them. Rage, fear, guilt, helplessness. "On the other hand," Draco said, "it's all a little… frightening, isn't it? Eighteen people… gone… suddenly… in the night. Just like that. Nothing you can do about it, is there? Don't you feel a little bit… powerless?"

He was pretending to be casual but he didn't feel that way at all. His face was relaxed but his eyes were trained on the Boy who Lived.

"You're just like everyone else, Harry," said Draco (cursing himself for that slip of a name - he should have said Potter). "You can't do a thing for this side you call 'good'. You're not so perfect after all."

Harry's eyes were hawk-fierce as they glared at Draco, daring him to continue. But you're blind, Potter, Draco thought.

"Why don't you join us, Harry Potter?" Draco asked softly. "It might help you to start asking questions - about your safety, about your friends.."

"Never."

Harry leaned forward and shot his broom at the Slytherin. To dodge him, Draco used the same trick that he'd used back in their first year. Then he began a leisurely descent, trusting that Harry would not return to knock him out of the air.

Indeed, Harry pulled himself up, and sat intensely motionless in the air. Never.

There was nothing I could do then, or for those people.

But I can do one thing. Stay above the level of the Malfoys and do what's right. I may hurt people in ignorance but I will never hurt them in malice. Not without just cause. I am not like Malfoy. I do not belong on his side.

The light was burning brightly in his eyes now, and the broom began to glide through the air again.

On the other side of the lake, at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Draco Malfoy was caught between laughter and tears. "You're so vulnerable, Potter," he murmured. "Even my father noticed that. And so blind. You've no idea what I just did for you. Well - did to you, then."

Sitting on a rock, he put his chin in his hands.

"Silly Potter," he mused. "It's so obvious what you think, but only your enemy would dare taunt you with it. Aren't we lucky to have each other, Potter."

I'd have to be stupider than my father not to know that we need the Boy who Lived. And I can help fight Voldemort so perfectly this way - because our poor dear Harry has to believe in himself, has to see what kinds of things he's fighting, and compare well with them.

The strange thing is, Harry, you're just as weak as anyone else and at the same time, you're not. You're a symbol.

I'm a symbol too, for you. The Malicious Adversary. I play it because it's useful to you and because I can get away with it. It's so plausible, after all.

The laughter won over the tears - after all, no Malfoy cried. Draco's laughter mocked himself and the air. "I'm so good at it. Kicking you when you're down… kicking you up onto your feet again."

-Heh. That's all I can say - heh. *frown*… I've a long way to go, that's for sure.