Nightshade
Harry's back hurt. He'd been sitting in that one position for much too long. He took a scalding shower, attempting to soothe the sore muscles. Well, he wouldn't sleep like that again.
He felt the gentle rhythm of the water on his back. It sprayed out in a soothing tempo, and Harry closed his eyes. He realized then that he loved simplicity. He had come to enjoy what he used to consider monotonous.
He dried, smirked at the reflection of his hair, and went on with his morning business.
So it would be seven years at Hogwarts, and Harry had accepted the fact that he was the only one who could kill Voldemort and that Voldemort could be the only one to kill him. He attempted to enjoy every bit of life he could. It was funny though: nobody knew that but him.
Ron and Hermione had thought he was growing depressed, what with his solitary walks and his obsession with watching people. His was a form of completely non-magical legilimens. He could read people by their body movements, facial expressions, pretty much anything. And it wasn't because he was gifted, as people assumed, but because he loved to watch people live their dull lives, something he would never again be able experience.
But he wasn't depressed. He did think longingly of his parents sometimes, and he wished muggle television was available in Hogwarts, but he wasn't depressed.
He didn't have the time for it, or the tolerance. He had to live something, not walk and talk and breathe, but live.
It was as Harry folded up his invisibility cloak that he remembered the previous night's dream. Or it wasn't a dream at all. Draco Malfoy walked, didn't throw a skipping stone, and cried, with Harry sitting only three feet away. It would have made for a funny dream, but it wasn't, because it was all of it very real and Harry was watching someone from inside his invisibility cloak.
He had witnessed some strange occurrences when people thought they were alone, but he had never seen Draco cry. It was the kind of thing that makes the world turn sideways for a few seconds. Everything's off balance for the shortest time, but then it all comes back and seems as if it should have been off balance the whole time.
Harry wasn't spiteful anymore, not to Draco even. He contemplated it as more of a tradition now. Draco would insult him, Harry would retort, Draco would fire a hex, Harry would retort, and then for some reason, they would be forced to reconcile by Professor McGonagall. Harry didn't mind it so much; it was another one of the patterns he recognized as a part of his life.
But that's why, he thought, Draco's untimely episode proved to be something of a hindrance in Harry's pattern. It wasn't a part of what always was. This walking alone and crying business, Draco Malfoy seemed to have developed a soul.
The situation was of no consequence to him. A year ago, Harry had decided that living in fear would not be living at all, that he would not fear but appreciate. And the loss of any of these things would not hurt him. It wouldn't, really; he didn't know it before, but he had always been alone in this fight.
There was the fact that his back still hurt. He supposed he didn't much appreciate that.
~~~~~~~
They had all seen it and they knew what he was. Draco pinned another carrot to his plate with a fork. They saw it, they would ask him about it, they would want to know why. So why? He had no answer.
He tortured his carrot some more, before growing nauseous at the thought of ingesting it. He looked up at the faces all around the Slytherin table. Nobody had asked him a thing, except to pass the butter. Of course they couldn't have known what Nightshade meant.
It meant that he was captured, trapped, obedient. It meant he had no mother, that he only had Lucius and Voldemort.
He wondered if any of them were in his boat. It was an amusing thought, all of them thinking they were so alone, even when they might have been so close to somebody who understood. He looked at them again. But that one was evil, Draco knew it, and that one over there only wanted attention.
Nobody knew about his father's promise. Nobody here knew what Nightshade was and nobody suspected anything about him. His thoughts kept turning back to how many Lord Voldemort would take.
It was unexpected, but he could no longer bear to be in their presence. Every time he looked up, he envisioned all of them wearing the dark mark. He was to wear it and become one of them. They might wear it and become one of him.
He stood up and left.
He could hear the Slytherins asking where he was going, some only acknowledged his departure. He needed them once, when he hadn't realized what few years might make up his entire life.
Draco noticed how easily his perspective had changed. He wasn't like this a week ago. He had a purpose then, a plan. Now he was left with this unmistakable void that he couldn't understand. He found himself unwilling to carry out whatever plans his father might devise, unwilling to serve the master that he had been born to appease. There was no feeling, just this mindless drifting and the occasional glance into society.
He remembered leaving the great hall, but had not remembered venturing as far as the lake. He didn't even feel the light breeze running through his hair.
He sat down on a small hill that overlooked the lake. He liked this place. It didn't cause him to think too much, and it didn't want to hurt him. He ran his hands over the short grass as he lied back and looked up at the dark sky. Waning moon, retreating stars. They all blurred in his vision until he saw nothing.
~~~~~
Harry saw him again as he made his way toward the lake. The situation was switched, he thought mildly, Draco had fallen asleep. It had only been two days since either of them had come out to the lake. He walked around the water and climbed the short hill that harbored someone sleeping at it's peak. He sat down next to the sleeping form and studied it, still safe from his invisibility cloak. Draco Malfoy was asleep, but still, he didn't look as vulnerable as when he was crying.
He thought to himself, in two days, he had found out more about this boy than he had in seven years. But Harry never noticed how thin Draco was…perhaps it was the way he held himself. But now, Harry studied his prone, sleeping form on the grass. This was not Draco Malfoy. This was not anybody, just an unconscious body soaked in beauty and, for the moment, peace.
Of course, the moment had to be blown to hell. Harry was quite surprised to see Severus Snape stalking out of the castle in their direction. He decided it was best that he wasn't caught sitting next to Draco by accidentally being sat on by a very menacing professor. So he quietly got up and sat back down a few feet away, underneath a small tree. This way, he was still in hearing range should they have a conversation in his presence. It wasn't that unusual, he supposed, for a Head of House to speak with his student.
But no, Snape had only come out here and stared calmly at the sleeping boy. He had only spoken Draco's name in a whisper, but Draco was a light sleeper. He woke up quickly, responded quickly, left quickly. All of it seemed planned and carried out in a rush. Still, Harry went back to where Draco had slept, he went there and looked out at the lake, trying to see if this was a better view from where he usually sat. He laughed out loud when he got there, pointing out to himself that he had officially gone mad.
This wasn't as good a view, anyway.
~~~~~~~
You know what I love about writing? 'Cause I don't, and I'm seriously about ready to give up…I know that I love the freedom of creating, it's liberating…but I'm losing interest already!
Luckily, I don't consider fanfic writing as the kind of writing that I'm getting sick of, thank God. I hate professors…most of them. Some of them nitpick, you see… they know they haven't done their job unless they're able to find some error, some horrible, blinding error. So then I've got to go correct it, but they're still not satisfied. That happened at 10:32, not 10:30! Red marks, red marks everywhere. Actually, okay, I've only had one like this. Oh, what am I doing? Sorry, it's three in the morning right now and I'm out of people to rant to.
Hopefully, my readers wont nitpick like certain unnamed professors…thanks in advance, anyway. Unfortunately, my self esteem relies on the amount of reviews I get. I suppose it's the female version of a man judging himself by the size of his penis. Ah, good times, good times.
-Tara