IN THE SHADOW
Draco saunters across the lawn. His steps are noiseless in the thick, soft grass, birds are singing and wind is whispering in the trees. Draco's feet are carrying him towards a figure sitting on the lawn with his back against a tree trunk, knees up and a book leaning against them. The sun is bright but the figure is in the shade, as if trying to hide from view, or as if sunlight will make him melt.
But Draco sees him. The way he always has.
Harry Potter. As famous as the Dark Lord. And believed to be the only one who can defeat him – at least that seems to be what he himself believes.
Draco snorts, but Potter doesn't hear him. Deluded, Draco thinks. But then again... my father...
Potter's dark eyebrows are drawn together above his nose, shadow and light playing over his face. It makes him look deceptive. Indefinable. Dark and light, good and... evil?
Something moves inside Draco, something unholy.
His eyes caress the black hair and the famous mark on the forehead, the scar that doesn't get pale like other scars but turns more vividly red each year. Draco hates Harry Potter more than anything and anyone in this world, but if he had Potter chained to a bed, with wide eyes and distended pupils, writhing and breathing – then he knows he wouldn't be above climbing into the bed himself. For amusement.
Oh yes, he does believe it would be good fun. Or perhaps not good. Goodness is uninteresting.
"Potions?" he says out loud to Potter when he has identified the book.
Potter looks up reluctantly when he sees Draco's shadow fall across the grass. He mumbles something almost inaudible that just may have been "fuck off". Draco pokes at Potter's bag with the toe of his shoe and smiles.
"What was that, Potter? Reciting potion ingredients to yourself?"
Potter glares. His hands are clutching the book so hard his knuckles go pale like the bone underneath the skin. The whites of his eyes gleam in the shade. The gleam makes something knock gently on a forgotten door in Draco's memory, but he doesn't know how to open it. He smiles again.
"Merlin knows you need it," he says softly, "or your Auror dreams will go up in smoke. Vanish. Just like that... that... godfather of yours, was he?... just like Black did. As easily as that. Pouf. Gone."
Potter is on his feet so quickly Draco almost misses the movement as he blinks.
"What is it you want, Malfoy?" Potter says between his teeth. "If there is something you want – why don't you just say it and leave?"
"Oh, just a bit of conversation, that's all," Draco says smoothly, shrugging as if getting rid of an unwelcome touch. "Seeing as you were here all alone."
"That's because I wanted to be alone."
Potter's voice is quiet but it creeps under Draco's collar like a trickle of icy water, and Draco never knew Potter's eyes could be so dark. Perhaps something about the light and the shadow playing over his face, his glasses, is deceiving him.
"You're always alone, aren't you, Potter?"
Draco doesn't know what made him say that, but he knows immediately that he touched something in Potter he has never touched before. Grated against something already rubbed raw. Potter flinches visibly.
"What are you talking about, Malfoy," he almost whispers.
It isn't a frightened whisper. It's a whisper that strokes a cold fingertip down Draco's spine. He is thrilled. Slightly frightened. Exhilarated. He has reached Potter. Potter is with him now, awake. Focused on him, Draco. I have your attention, Potter. I have you.
"Don't you ever give up? Your parents are gone. Your godfather is gone. You're all alone and you will never win. You know you'll never win. Not over Him."
Potter is silent. His eyes are burning. The cold, smooth shiver down Draco's spine is still there, and he loves it, oh how he loves it. It's food and drink to him.
"Cat got your tongue, Potter?" he says softly. "Or – " he tilts his head to one side appraisingly – "or is your brain clouded by your muddy blood?" His voice drips with fake sympathy.
"My brain is very clear, thanks," Potter says calmly. Too calmly. He is supposed to bristle. "What about yourself, Malfoy?"
"Me?"
"You. How about you, with Crabbe and Goyle gone Merlin knows where, or rather Voldemort knows where – " he gives an almost unnoticeable smile at Draco's involuntary movement " – and your father in Azkaban?"
Draco feels himself go pale, but Malfoys recover quickly. "I'm not alone, Potter. I have centuries and centuries of pureblood tradition to lean on. What have you got of tradition, Potter? You're a traitor to it. You always have been."
It only takes a fraction of a second for the storm to break.
"Tradition!" Potter yells, and Draco understands he has touched an open wound. Strangely, he doesn't want to smile any more. "Tradition! Fuck you and your tradition, Malfoy! Look what it's done to us! I haven't had enough continuity in my life to have experienced tradition, and when I see you, I'm glad I haven't. I'm glad, do you hear me, glad, if tradition means your Death Eater filth and their sick pureblood worship – look where it's got us." The spray of saliva from his lips almost reaches Draco. This hasn't gone quite where Draco wanted it to go, but it's still interesting. Potter has nearly lost control now, so what is it to Draco if he has to pay with a little pain? "I've lost my godfather. You've lost your father."
Draco gasps before he can stop himself. Potter wasn't supposed to go here.
"My father – "
"Is in Azkaban, yes. And as I'm sure you know, there are Dementors back there. The ones who wanted an easy life. Being slaves to Voldemort – " Draco flinches again, he can't help it – "was too much for some of them. And last I had news from Azkaban, I was told your father had been given the Kiss."
"Shut your mouth, Potter," Draco hisses, stabbed by a pain he hadn't expected. "Shut your filthy little Mudblood mouth."
Suddenly Potter is laughing; he laughs as if he had a sharp blade inside him. Jaggedly.
"And I'm sure it's not news to you, Malfoy, that your father... has been kissed by the Dementors... for a half-blood. All this for a half-blood."
Draco gapes at Potter for a second. How did they get here? He wanted control, he wanted to inflict pain, and instead Potter has driven a spike into him, a shiny spike of silver that quivers in his heart.
"You can't have missed that little piece of information," Potter says smoothly. "Surely you know that Voldemort – jumpy today, Malfoy? – surely you know that Voldemort's father was a Muggle."
Draco wonders fleetingly why he is unable to breathe. Then he wonders if the colour of his burning face shows in the deep shade under the tree. He takes a great gulp of air to prove to himself that he can breathe, and then he wants to kill Potter, but Potter has his wand out before him.
"So you didn't know," Potter says, and he doesn't sound triumphant any more. His voice is almost sad. "Do you see now, Malfoy? Do you see? We have both lost what is dearest to us for nothing. Voldemort has lied to you and tried to kill me. You live a lie. I live in danger. All for absolutely nothing, Malfoy. And that's why I have to fight until all this is over, until he is gone, even if I am all alone. We're all alone in the end. All of us."
Draco doesn't understand. He doesn't understand why he is shaking, doesn't understand why he feels like a window flung open by a gust of wind. Clear and transparent, holding no secrets, having no will of his own. Potter's eyes are still dark; the whites of his eyes still gleaming. There is a feeble knock on that memory door again, and Draco fumbles for the handle. He doesn't find it.
Potter is walking across the lawn, steps muffled by thick soft grass, robes billowing in the wind. He walks away from Draco, and all Draco wants is for him to turn back and say:
"You are not alone. We are not alone."
He hates Potter. There is no comfort here.
He suddenly finds the handle to the memory door and falls through it. Down. It's dark and it's a trap. It's the memory of eyes in the dark, of utter loneliness.
Where did Draco's determination go? His superiority? There is no comfort anywhere, only darkness, and he knows that Potter is right. He hates for Potter to be right.
Potters black robes seem to have obscured the sun. Draco shivers. You live a lie. I live in danger. Where did everything go?