Title: The Trick Is To Keep Breathing
Author: Miss T
Rating: R
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Genre: Romance/Future-fic/Horror
Notes: This story is based on one of my favourite adult-books of all time -
Drawing Blood by Poppy Z Brite. The story is not exactly the same, just based
around it, although some of it is very similar (lines, sort of plot, etc). I thought it was a good
Harry/Draco plot, and I hope you all like it! Please please please take my
recommendation of reading Drawing Blood... it really is good.
Notes 2: a special thank you to all my reviewers so far. I'm so pleased you
all like my story *grins*. Without the feedback I wouldn't feel the need to
continue! *dramatic pose* :D xxx
The Trick Is To Keep Breathing
Chapter Seven - Noxland
"Draco? Draco?! FUCK'S SAKE, DRACO!!" Harry pounded
his fist into the pillow beside Draco's head, but Draco didn't turn - he didn't
even seem to see or hear Harry at all.
Harry numbly reached out to Draco's neck to search for any signs of a pulse, but
it was there - strong and steady. Draco's eyes lay open and unfocused, and did
not blink when Harry waved his hand before them. They looked vacant, lost.
"Draco?" Harry whispered, his voice thick with unshed tears. "Draco? Remember,
you promised not to leave me here."
Draco didn't answer. He didn't even move.
"Draco?... please?" Harry pressed his lips against Draco's, but the
blonde boy didn't respond. It was like kissing a warm corpse. He grabbed a hold
of Draco's skinny shoulders, shaking them vigorously. But Draco's head rolled
back on his neck, unresponsive... dead.
Harry let out a muffled sob and clawed at his own unruly hair, pulling at it
violently. Why in the hell did he allow Draco to take those roots?! Here
of all places! Suddenly, he remembered what Draco had said. I have to get
there. Had Draco used the jolt of orgasm to detach himself from his body?
Was his spirit somewhere above Harry's head? Or worse, was Draco no longer here
at all? What if Draco was lost?
If Draco had landed somewhere else, Harry thought to himself, Harry had to
follow.
But how was Harry's spirit supposed to leave his body without him having to
actually die first? He concentrated feverishly, even trying to make his
mind communicate with Draco's. But nothing gave, even after pulling out his own
hair in frustration, trying to rip his soul out of his body. Harry collapsed on
top of Draco, his face pressing against the fresh film of sweat on Draco's torso
that smelled of smoke and faintly of coffee.
Coffee...
Harry had a dangerous idea.
Kissing Draco's skin tenderly, Harry stood up and buried his face into the pale
blonde hair of Draco's head. "I love you, Draco. I'm coming to get you." He
murmured into Draco's ear as he pushed himself off the mattress and clumsily
walked over to the other side of the room. He found Draco's bag lying where he
usually kept it - underneath the window and pulled out a slender silver flask.
Earlier that day in the coffee shop, the elderly man who owned it gave Draco
this flask filled with coffee, due to the copious amounts of coffee Draco had
bought and consumed that afternoon. Harry wrapped his fingers around the top of
the flask and flung it to the ground. Running over to Draco's side, Harry held
the flask under Draco's nose. "Draco? Want some coffee? C'mon.." Harry lifted
Draco's neck up and wafted the flask under his nose, but the blonde boy made no
response.
Harry sighed and looked into the flask, feeling his heartbeat move up a notch.
Harry took a deep breath and said a silent prayer to his all his Gods before
raising the flask to his lips with a shaky hand and drinking the entire contents
of the bitter coffee straight down.
~~~|~~~
Draco could feel his spirit letting go, rising above his
body, and the walls around him slowly began to materialise. Everything was
disappearing around him and he knew he had made it - he was there. It had
worked.
Slowly, the sensations of his limbs began to return, and he opened his eyes to
find himself standing at the end of a large hedge opening. A maze.
Everything was in black and white apart from the deep blue of the sky above him
that seemed to be moving to a different rhythm than normal - the clouds swept by
in torrid speed, although there was no sound. Everything was completely muted
apart from the beating of Draco's own heart. Draco took in a deep breath to
brace himself, and headed forwards, placing his hands inside his pockets.
Pockets? But I was lying naked in bed with Harry...
Looking down at himself, Draco saw that he was wearing black wizards robes,
and a cloak lined with green velvet. It was an outfit he'd seen his father often
wear, and was wandering why he was currently wearing something that belonged to
his dad. Lifting his hand up to his hair, Draco felt that it was tied into a
ponytail at the back of his head with a little velvet bow, just like
Father's...
Draco kept walking. He followed the straight pathway ahead of him, smelling
the faint aroma of coffee. Frowning, he sniffed again, but in an instant the
smell was gone before he could distinguish where it had come from.
Draco could see a small gap in the hedges in the distance, and he quickened his
pace to get to it. Stepping through the gap, Draco entered a small rounded
courtyard with a fork pathway, white stones littering the ground. In the middle
of the courtyard was a large fountain, and sitting on the rim of the fountain
was a tall, hooded figure. Draco gasped and stepped backwards as the hooded
figure stood up and advanced on him, his arms upraised. "Don't run." The figure
said, and Draco fairly recognised that drawling, nasally tone. The hooded figure
clasped onto both sides of it's hood and pulled it down, revealing it's face. It
was Professor Snape.
"Professor?" Draco asked uncertainly. Snape looked down at Draco, his top lip
curling into an unpleasant smile. "Don't run, Mr Malfoy." Snape said again.
Draco frowned and let out a stifled yell as Snape grabbed a hold of Draco's
wrists and tugged them out of his robes. "I'll be needing some tonight, Draco."
Snape said calmly.
"Some what, Professor?" Draco asked, his voice shaking. "I don't have anything!"
Snape frowned and looked at Draco as if he were a fool. "What do you mean? You
have these." Snape persisted, shaking Draco's wrists before using one of
his hands to plunge into his own robes and pull free a small vial with a needle
inside it.
"I'll be needing it now, Draco." Snape said, staring at Draco's bare wrists.
"I don't have anything!" Draco repeated.
Snape's frown deepened and he stepped backwards, letting go of Draco's hands. "I
do know you, right?" he asked apprehensively.
"Err..." Draco didn't really know what to say.
"You are a Malfoy, right?"
"Yes."
"Then I will be needing it tonight, Mr Malfoy! Don't make this any harder than
it already is! Just roll up your sleeve and get it over with."
"Why?"
"The family mercury." Snape replied, eyeing Draco's wrist hungrily.
"You want my blood?"
Snape tore his gaze away from Draco's wrist and looked him straight in the
eye, nodding slowly.
"If I do give you some, will you tell me where Lucius is?"
Snape nodded again.
"Will you take me to him?"
"Yes." Snape said. "He's been expecting you." Snape's mouth twisted into an ugly
smile.
"Okay." Draco said finally.
Snape led Draco over to the edge of the fountain, and they both sat down. Draco
pulled off his velvet lined cloak and dropped it to the floor, rolling up the
sleeve of his dark black robes. The cuts on his arms were still open, bleeding
down his arm slowly. Snape eyed the blood keenly and uncorked the vial, taking
out the small needle. He then re-corked the bottle, placing the needle into the
cork so that it looked like a fat syringe with no plug. He grabbed a hold of
Draco's wrist.
"Is it clean? I don't want anything dirty sticking into my arm."
Snape chuckled softly. "No, that's not where you like to stick dirty things, is
it?"
Before Draco could reply, Snape had stuck the needle into one of the open cuts
on Draco's arm, and a sharp buzz of pain shot up the nerves in his flesh. Snape
then ran his other hand over the bottom of the vial, and it slowly began to fill
with deep red blood. Once the vial was full, he pulled the needle out of Draco's
arm and uncorked the bottle impatiently. Draco held onto his arm as he watched
Snape pour his blood into his mouth, closing his eyes tight as the dark flood
ran past his tongue and into his stomach. For a second Snape kept his eyes
closed, gently swaying. He then opened them, and Draco could see that the pupils
were largely dilated. Snape shuddered and muttered something unintelligible
before slumping over to the side, rolling off the edge of the fountain and to
the ground in a heap. Draco gasped and leaned over Snape to place a hand on the
fallen man's shoulder, but when his hand came into contact with Snape's robes,
it was as if someone had dilated a balloon - Snape's body had vanished leaving
his robes lying in a useless heap on the ground.
Growling impatiently, Draco stood up and pushed his robes back down over his
wrist, and chose the left side of the fork pathway to walk through.
Harry dropped the empty flask on the ground and curled up
next to Draco's body before the pain took over his body. He felt his chest seize
up, rendering him breathless for a good ten seconds. He thought that he had done
it - this was it, he had killed himself. Never mind Harry Potter, The Boy Who
Lived getting killed by some supernatural force, he managed to be defeated by a
cup of coffee.
Harry's lungs eventually drew back and he was able to take in small gasps of
air, whimpering between goes. His heart was slamming inside of his chest, his
body slick with sweat and trembling under the force. He managed to worm his way
over on the pillow so that his and Draco's heads lay next to each other on the
pillow. Harry felt his nerves being stretched to the limit - like spreading a
bit of butter on bread too big, the pain excruciating, making his ears wring and
his nose bleed. As his vision began to cloud over, Harry let his body slip away.
The thought occurred to him that if the visions he saw when he left his body
were too much, it could very well give him a heart attack and kill him. I
don't care. He thought to himself. If I don't find Draco, there's no
reason for me to come back anyway.
Harry could feel the pain ebb away, and he suddenly realised he was hovering
above his body. Holy Merlin... this is actually happening... Harry felt
himself being pulled through a sucking vortex of light, the walls around him
twirling into nothing...
Harry woke up with a start, a deep thudding sensation in his
solar plexus. Reaching up to place a hand on his chest, Harry frowned as he felt
the silky sensation of satin under his touch. He appeared to be wearing some
kind of suit - a pinstriped jacket and matching trousers with a satiny green
shirt, and he was also stretched out on a large garden chair. He realised that
it was dark around him, the sky deep purple and moving in a very unusual fashion
- faster than naturally plausible. He suddenly took notice of the other garden
chairs around him, littering the large area of grass, all empty. Just as he was
about to stand up, a warm hand slid on his lap, squeezing his thigh.
Gasping and turning round to the chair sat next to him, Harry glared at the boy
who was gazing raptly into his eyes. Chris.
The strawberry blonde wore a black turtleneck jumper with a green suit on over
it, his glinting eyes glowing dangerously in the darkness. His strawberry blonde
hair was slicked back into a gelled ponytail, making him look scarily like Draco
when he was younger. His hand moved further up Harry's thigh, and he leaned over
to Harry's ear. "Do you want this as bad as I do?"
No, I just want Draco! Harry thought. He opened his mouth to say exactly
that, and what came out instead was "Hell, yes."
Chris grinned evilly and attacked Harry's mouth with his own, tugging at Harry's
fly and slipping his hand into Harry's trousers, running his slender fingers up
and down Harry's perfidious erection. Harry wrapped his fingers around Chris'
neck and kissed him back eagerly, kissing him hungrily.
As Harry came hard into Chris' hand, Harry's come began to fizz and burn at
Chris' flesh, hissing dangerously. Harry let out a strangled yelp, but Chris
didn't seem to mind at all as his flesh was getting fried by Harry's semen.
Chris grinned again and leaned into kiss Harry again, but his face was unusually
gaunt, the skin stretched over his bones like thin parchment. Harry shrank away
from Chris as Chris' skin began to rot before his eyes, much like what Harry had
saw happen to himself in the bathroom of the Manor. Harry pushed fiercely as
Chris' dry looking tongue flicked out at him, but then it wasn't Chris at all.
It was Harry's ex boyfriend, Adam. Adam's usually tan coloured skin was stark
white, his deep blue eyes sparkling and bulging out of his face. His lips pouted
and he leaned in towards Harry. "Harry..." He whispered huskily. "why
did we ever break up? We never did get to fuck, did we?" Then Adam's face
changed to Ginny Weasley. Then from Ginny to Cho... they kept changing...
Harry shoved himself out of the seat, causing it to clatter behind him. All at
once, the seats in the garden began to fill up with people Harry recognised, but
all of their faces looked dead and decayed. They all stirred and turned to face
Harry, growling, some cracking their knuckles. Harry turned and ran. He jumped
over the tangled limbs, galloped through the endless rows of chairs and kept
running through the large clearing towards a wall in the distance. Harry leapt
over the wall and landed with a thud onto the grass ground, covering his face
with his hands and waiting for the zombified creatures to climb over after him
and squash him like a fly. But it never happened.
Harry gave a couple of seconds for his breathing to calm down before he lifted
his hands off his face. Suddenly he was no longer next to the wall he had just
climbed over, but in the middle of a large courtyard walled with tall green
hedges. A maze of some sort. In the middle of the courtyard was a large
fountain, and next to it was a pile of black robes. Frowning, Harry stood up and
leaned over them, curious as to how they got there. A small bottle lay smashed
next to the robes, faint speckles of blood dripping from the shards. Well,
you're in a hallucination now. And it's not even your own, so you better get
used to seeing some fucked up things.
The place was lighter around him, and Harry suddenly got a better look at
his outfit. He was wearing some kind of suit, a very expensive one at
that. He felt a long black wizards cloak on his back, lined with silver velvet.
Wincing and placing a shaky hand on his head, Harry felt that his hair was no
longer unruly. It was in fact slicked back like Draco used to wear his, only
Harry's hair was dark so it must have looked somewhat different. He still wore
his glasses.
Somewhere in the distance, a faint note sounded, and music seemed to fill the
air. Turning around on the spot, Harry frowned as a piano seemed to appear from
nowhere, playing a very complicated melody on it's own.
"Oh, now." Harry muttered impatiently. "This is just silly."
The music stopped abruptly, and the piano's lid flew open, and Harry yelped and
stood back as a large whoosh of light swept over him. He clamped his eyes shut
and clenched his fists. "Excuse me, young gentleman?" A shrill feminine voice
asked. Harry risked it and opened his eyes and nearly laughed out loud at the
sight before him. In the background, Strauss' Blue Danube Waltz bellowed loudly.
In front of him, Hermione Granger lay on top of the piano, dressed in a blue
frilly faery costume. "Yes, you." Hermione breathed. Her eyes shone brilliantly
blue, matching her costume, a faint silver light dancing around her hair that
seemed to blow around her face elegantly. "You're in a hallucination.
Hallucination's are not supposed to make sense, young man." She said, and
suddenly whipped out a long cigarette holder from the front of her robes and
gestured it to Harry. "Here, have a stick of tea. It might calm you down a bit,
love."
Harry's jaw remained dropped as he accepted the cigarette from Hermione. This
whole situation was simply laughable.
Hermione smiled. "Care to dance?"
Harry felt his cheeks flush. "I don't dance." He mumbled. Hermione sighed and
stood up off the piano. "Oh well." She began to dither off towards one of the
paths in the maze in time to the music.
"Wait!" Harry called. "Do you know where any of the Malfoys are? Draco? Lucius?"
As the music began to speed up and the strings took over, Hermione waltzed
further away, not hearing Harry's question, and she disappeared into the
distance, along with the piano.
Harry let both of his hands flop to his sides and he shaked his head in
disbelief. Who would have thought it? Draco thought of Hermione Granger in a
blue tutu?
Harry looked at the cigarette in his hand and shrugged, searching the pockets of
his suit for a lighter. There was one - a slim silver one that screamed wealth.
He sat down on the edge of the fountain and stuck the cigarette into his mouth,
lighting it and taking a calming inhale in. Instead of the usual thick, warm
cloudy taste of nicotine, came a bitter, burning tang. He coughed and dropped
the cigarette to the ground. "A stick of tea." He murmured to himself. Before
Harry had a chance to think about his statement, pounding footsteps sounded
behind him and he was slammed violently to the ground. His palms scraped against
the concrete of the tiles below him, and he nearly had the wind knocked out of
him.
"I should have known it, Harry." Before Harry had the chance to process
the voice in his brain, a boot had connected with the small of his back, shoving
him hard into the ground.
Harry groaned and turned over onto his back to look up at his attacker. "...
Dad?!"
"Don't you fucking say my name like that!" James Potter spat. "Not after you've
touched that... thing!"
Harry looked straight into James' burning brown eyes and realised that this
wasn't the real James Potter. It couldn't be. "Look, Dad..."
James kicked Harry again in the stomach. "I said don't say my name like that!"
Harry lifted his hands up in defence. "What else am I supposed to call you?" he
said croakily, trying to catch his breath, "Can't you talk to me before you beat
me into a bloody pulp?"
"What do you want to talk about, Harry?" James snarled.
Harry looked up at James, his green eyes now blazing. "I have all kinds of
things I want to talk about. Let's talk about Harry Potter, The Boy Who FUCKING
Lived and Hated It, huh? Let's talk about the famous James Potter of Hogwarts
and how he used to BULLY THE SHIT out of people who weren't good enough
for him? TELL ME HOW I'VE MANAGED TO LIVE MY LIFE WITHOUT YOU IN IT, HUH?!!"
Harry tensed and took in a deep breath, expecting to get pounded into the
ground. But James only smiled sardonically. "You want to know things, do you?
The take a look at this."
James pulled Harry up by the scruff of his neck and used his free hand to
dig into his pocket, pulling out a used condom. The end was split, and a long
dangling piece of white fluid hung from it. "This is why you're here, Harry."
James snarled. "I was a fucking kid when I had you, boy. I didn't want a
baby more than you don't want one right now. Of course your mother was over the
moon when she found out, but I had a future. And you ruined it!"
"BULLSHIT!" Harry screamed, his face flushing with anger. "Voldemort
ruined your future, kid or no kid! You're just using me as an excuse for you're
own failure..."
James jammed the condom through Harry's lips and through into his mouth,
slithering over his tongue like a dead skin. Harry felt vomit touch the back of
his tongue as James extracted his fingers, leaving the used condom inside
Harry's mouth. He twisted his head away from James' grip and spat the rubber
onto the floor, but the deadly flavour of his own father's come in his mouth
still tainted his taste buds, tasting like mortality.
"Swallow it." James snarled. "It could have been you."
Harry's bottom lip began to quiver. "This isn't happening..." He whimpered.
"This isn't you... you aren't real..."
"Oh, yeah?" said James. "Then I suppose if I'm not real, this won't hurt?" Harry
only saw a flash of James' fist before it connected with his jaw, the skin
splitting open on his lip. Harry stumbled backwards onto the ground, crumpling
in a heap as James continued to kick him.
"You fucking smart-arsed BRAT. How smart are you going to be now, Harry? How
smart are you going to be with your fucking BRAINS STOMPED OUT INTO THE
GRASS?!"
He's going to kill me. Harry thought to himself as James' foot connected
with his back, over and over again. He's going to kick me to death right here
and now, and the sad fact is, he's not even real. This isn't even my dad. A
sudden thought occurred to Harry. Will my body back at the manor die, too?
Will Draco wake up next to my bashed up body and think that he did it?
The idea was too much to take. Harry rolled over and grabbed a hold of his
father's ankle, and yanked as hard as he could. James' stumbled slightly and
growled with anger, connecting the toe of his shoe into Harry's stomach. Harry
felt the wind knock out of him. Well, that's that. Harry thought as he
tried to breath. That was my chance, and it fucked up royally. Now he's just
going to kill me harder.
James reached down and yanked Harry up by his shoulder, almost dislocating
it. "You're smart enough to get into places, but not smart enough to know when
you're not wanted." He hissed into Harry's face. Then, he reached into his
pocket and pulled out a small cloth bag that jingled.
Galleons...
James grinned before he swung the bag in the air with his fist, ready to
connect with Harry's face.
Draco, Harry promised silently, if I see you again... no, WHEN I see
you again, I'm taking you away from this place. You're coming home with me, and
we'll keep each other as sane as we want to be and love each other as long as we
are alive. We'll let go of our pasts and start making our future...
Then, his father's slap blew across his skull, and the instant before his
mind went black, Harry saw the tiny gold galleons sparkle around his face to the
ground.
Draco continued to walk through the narrow path that that the
fork trail had given him, but the hedges around him seemed to get smaller and
smaller, until it was nothing but a large field. As if from nowhere, a stark
white building began to materialise before his eyes - the overgrown garden
before him grey and saddened. The Manor...
Draco knew that he had to go in. He knew there was no going back, and if he
died this time, it would be as if he was killed that same fateful night his
whole family did. If he didn't die, the remainder of his life was free, and it
belonged to him. And to Harry, if he still wanted any part of it. It's the
house where you lost your virginity after nearly twenty years, too. A voice
in Draco's head said.
As Draco entered the house, the hall was just how he remembered it - empty and
grand, gleaming cleanly. Draco advanced up the stairwell, and his heart skipped
a beat as he saw Narcissa lie out sprawled in the bathroom doorway. She was how
he found her that morning, a heap of gore and blood in her lap, staring skyward
as if praying.
Draco stepped over Narcissa's body and headed for his father's office. But no
one was inside - no one hung from the chandelier, and there was no broken bottle
on the floor. Draco frowned and backed out of the room.
Draco then found himself standing before the closed door of his own room. It
felt like he was doing a tight rope act between the past and the future, and if
he lost balance now, everything would be ruined. Draco reached out and slowly
opened the bedroom door.
The man sitting on the edge of Draco's bed looked up. His cold grey eyes looked
up at Draco's, and his bony face and hands smeared with blood. His silver hair
was covered in it, and in his right hand he held a broken bottle covered in
slimy gore. Draco noticed that there was somebody else in the room, buried
beneath the blankets of the bed. But he couldn't tell who it was.
Silence ached on and he and Lucius simply glared at one another, their faces
more alike than Draco had remembered. Lucius' stillness seemed to stir, and he
began to speak hoarsely. "Who are you?"
"I'm your son."
"Narcissa... the servants..."
"You killed them. You know me, Lucius." Draco walked into the room. "You had
better know me. I haven't stopped thinking about you for almost four years."
"Ohh, Draco..." The bottle fell out of Lucius' hand, landing onto the ground
with a heavy whack. His grey eyes filled up with tears. "Is it really you?"
"Look in the mirror if you don't believe me."
"No... no... I know who you are." Lucius' normally sharp shoulders shrank. He
looked exhausted, bleak. "How old are you? Nineteen? Twenty?"
"Nineteen."
"Do you still play?"
"Fuck!" Draco said. He suddenly remembered the broken piano. "You should know!"
Lucius shook his head slowly. "No, son. I don't know. I don't know anything
anymore." As Lucius looked into Draco's eyes, Draco saw the raw hurt in his
father's eyes, and it stung him like poison.
"Why didn't you kill me?" Draco asked. This is the one question he had been
waiting to ask for almost four years.
Lucius shrugged helplessly. "I just kept sitting here, remembering your
playing... your music. Your art. Wondering how in the hell I could hit you with
that thing, wondering how I could bury that glass into your charming,
intelligible brain, thinking how easy they'd been compared to you. They
were like anatomy lessons... the body is a puzzle of flesh and blood and bone...
do you understand?"
Draco nodded. He thought about the times he had hit Harry, how good it felt and
how much he wanted to tear the raven haired boy apart and study the different
pieces.
"And when you kill people you love, you watch what your hands are doing, you
feel the blood hitting your face, but all the time you're thinking Why am I
doing this?! And then you get it. It's because you love them, because
you want all of their secrets, not just the secrets they show you. And
after you take them apart, you know everything..."
"Then why..." Draco couldn't bring himself to speak. So it was true; his father
hadn't loved him enough to kill him.
"Why did I leave you out? Because I had to. Because I sat there watching you
sleep, thinking all that. And then you came in, just now. I can't do it, son. If
I have any talent left at all, it's in you now. I can kill them, I can kill
myself, but I can't kill that."
Lucius picked up the bottle again and walked towards Draco.
"Wait!" Draco cried, reaching out for his father, but his hands went through
thin air. "What... are you...?" He didn't know how to express what he wanted to
ask. "What about Noxland? What happened to it for you?"
"Noxland is a system oiled with the blood of artists." Lucius said distantly.
"Noxland is a mirror that reflects death. Noxland never existed. Nox."
"But it's right here! It's right outside that window!" Draco cried. "It's where
I just came from!"
"Yes," Lucius replied. "But I stay in here." He placed the bottle into Draco's
hand, and folded Draco into a tight embrace that felt like a warm mist. He
slowly began to fade into him.
"No!" Draco screamed. "Don't go! Tell me why you did it! TELL ME!!!"
"You don't really want to know why," he heard Lucius say. "You just want
to know what it felt like..."
And then Lucius was gone. Draco was standing alone in his bedroom. "Tell
me." He whispered.
"You're an artist, my son." The voice whispered back. "Find out for
yourself."
The world suddenly went black.
~~~|~~~
to be continued...