Two Sides

warning: character death and slash

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I can smell him, twisty-warm peppermint and boy. The fuzzy darkness behind me blocks emotion, warmth, but I can taste his scent. To do this am I more animal than human now? If so, I enjoy it.

I'm with him now and reality is so far away I can't even feel an echo. The vibrations are all tied up in one person, in each separate moment with him.

We're twined together, silent. Listening to nothing and each other. Pale hair threads through my hand, blurred without my glasses.

He's ice itself, but I can feel everything in him, his heart, mind, soul. I laugh at myself. That's not possible, no one can know that about him. About anyone. But maybe I do, maybe I can try.

There are scars but they are scabbed over, healed.

It doesn't matter who cut the scars originally; it matters if we let them bleed. Hurt needs to be soothed, kissed, to heal the crack in the soul it makes.

I know all too well.

He was nearly shattered when I found him, curled and shivering in snow, his hands fisted in tangled hair the same pale color. It's the middle of winter, and he's in silk pajamas. Of course he would be. I looked at him and asked myself why I care.

I don't.

Or, I didn't.

Nothing in this world is black and white, except for us.

He is the white, pure in his arrogance and unfailing sarcasm. I healed his emotional scars enough to scab over and the snobby aristocrat surfaced.

With one difference.

He shows me in little ways. Holds back my hair when I throw up after a mission, when the red, crazy light fades from my eyes. Cooks for me when I ache so badly I can't move. He's there to clutch in the heart of night when ghosts abound.

I am the black, killing mercilessly in the name of good. I have a reputation; Death Eaters see me and run. It never used to be like that. I couldn't purposefully hurt others, was too damn noble to do what needed to be done.

Then Ron died.

Coldly murdered by someone unknown, unsuspected. Someone so eaten with hate that they didn't care how important he was to our cause. To me, the would-be savior of all.

That person was the first one I, the Black Death, assassinated. Yeah, stupid name. Damn muggle history.

But that person was someone from the side of good, the supposedly white side.

As I said, nothing in this world is good and evil anymore. Nothing is right or wrong, pure or tainted. The two sides are a mangled mess.

I found Draco, crumpled in the snow, two weeks after Ron's death, outside our base camp. Somewhere he was not supposed to be.

Kneeling before Voldemort is where his place was. Or where everyone thought his place was. We were partly wrong. His place isn't with them, or with us. He's right in the middle.

I suppose you could say his place is with me. He doesn't give a flying fuck who wins, as long as we both survive.

Hermione asks now why I didn't kill him on sight, why the Black Death didn't surface and remember years of hatred.

Us at school. Bitter enemies. Hogwarts is a faded memory, part of that fuzzy darkness behind me. It's a different life. The war and this small room we share like a married couple is my life now.

So no, Hermione, I don't know why.

Does it really matter?

What matters is now.

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Hmm. That wasn't supposed to be the ending, but it stopped by itself. Silly story. I'm thinking of doing other short blurbs from this universe. Perhaps I shall write an actual story with dialogue and such. Perhaps. So… I have mixed feelings about this thing (like if it made any sense at all). Please review!

Smurky