Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author's Note: This story was written as a birthday present for Slowfox.
Author: Penguin
Title: LIKE GLASS
Part 4When Draco Malfoy entered that bar, he was luminous. In Harry's blurred vision, through the drug haze and the smoke, he shone. He shimmered. A figure from the past, appearing in a dream.
An invisible wall separated Harry from the world. The Muggle world, the wizarding world. No difference. He was never really present, not like other people were. Pain made him present, but sometimes he was too tired for pain. Mental fog was good, too. Clear, sharp pain or fuzzy oblivion; those things made sense.
The invisible wall helped him not care. But Draco Malfoy seemed to slip right through it, smoothly and effortlessly, as if it had been the barrier to Platform 9 ¾, as if had been a sheet of glass suddenly turned into water.
Malfoy took him away. He allowed himself to be taken away; didn't even protest at being taken to The Leaky Cauldron. There was no risk in that. Muggles could go to Diagon Alley, if they knew how.
Harry didn't remember the rest of that evening and night very clearly, but in the morning, sick, shaking and trapped, he found himself wishing that Malfoy had killed him instead of just taking away his wand. Taking his wand was no punishment. It was no relief, either. It just didn't mean anything at all. The only reason why Harry had kept it with him all this time was a futile, pathetic hope that his magic would return. It hadn't.
He vomited and sweated and tried to think of a way to escape. He needed more drugs. He needed to sink into that blissful state of oblivion. He needed to get away before Malfoy found out the truth.
And then Malfoy came into the room, still shimmering pale in the morning light. He seemed unaware of it. He gave Harry some potions that cleared his head, and told him he wasn't a prisoner. A guest, he called it. Harry was free to go.
Free! He had never known what it was like, being free.
Once he had been told he could go, he found he was reluctant to. But as he gradually began to feel better physically, his thoughts returned, too, and nothing frightened him more than that. He had spent the past two years trying not to think.
Malfoy talked, asked questions. So he refused to go? So he didn't want to go back to the wizarding world? Harry wanted to bang his head against the wall and scream: BUT OF COURSE I DO! OF COURSE I FUCKING WANT TO GO BACK! WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK???
There was only one little problem. Returning only required one tiny little thing: he needed his magic back.
He could just leave The Leaky Cauldron; he could leave and resume his miserable life. He could be dead in a few months, or a few hours. It would be easy. But seeing Malfoy brought back unwanted memories of power, of warmth, of loyalty and laughter – in short, of a magical world he had lost. A world he had never allowed himself to miss and grieve consciously, although everything he did, every action, every thought, was to blot out the grief.
Now he had had a glimpse of it, vivid and painful. Ironically, all he had to hold on to now was Draco Malfoy. He had to hold on to Malfoy, or the magic would slip away again, for the last time. Out of his reach for good.
And now Malfoy was saying "tell me, talk to me, tell me".
Harry suddenly realised, in a tired, oddly distant way, that this was what Malfoy had been saying ever since they first met, all through their school years. All his nasty comments and actions, his meanness and his viciousness – it all boiled down to "talk to me, talk to me, talk to me".
Finally, Harry was ready to talk. He noted, at the back of his mind, that Malfoy finally seemed ready to listen.
"What happened at St Mungo's?" Malfoy was asking.
Big question. Long answer. Or a very short one.
"Nothing," Harry said, cowardly going with the short answer.
He saw Malfoy's jaw set, sighed and moved on to the long answer: "And everything."
He owed it to Malfoy. Malfoy was taking good care of him and being thoroughly decent. In fact he had been decent ever since he joined their side, Dumbledore's side, Dumbledore's Army, back in the war. There had been a good deal of scepticism towards him at first, but he had proved himself. And now that Dumbledore was gone, Malfoy was still here, still loyal to what was left of the dissolved Order.
Harry closed his eyes and prepared himself for pain. Not physical. The pain of the mind was far worse to deal with.
St Mungo's, just after the war: Harry was being treated with potions, ointments and talk. Talk, talk, talk. Questions, questions, probing questions that only elicited dishonest, evasive answers.
Harry had always been skilled at hiding the important things, the painful and deeply personal things. He continued doing it as if out of habit.
Words flew through the air; the words of the healers trying to do battle with his own. But they were playing in different leagues.
He couldn't remember when he first discovered he could no longer perform magic. When he had finally defeated Voldemort, with the help of a tremulous but brave and determined Neville Longbottom, he had mercifully passed out and been taken straight to St Mungo's by members of the Order. He had been unconscious for three days and then gradually surfaced out of the dark, oblivious depths. Up, up, through strange, floating dreams into bleak reality.
Physically, he had healed and recovered well and quickly. He had been released from hospital after a mere two weeks.
"And then it began," said Harry weakly, still with his eyes closed.
"What did?" said Malfoy.
Surprised, Harry opened his eyes and saw Malfoy on the edge of his chair, eyes wide, like an eager six-year-old Muggle boy at a movie matinée.
"The descent into Hell, I suppose," Harry said, and smiled a little.
His life, a matinée, a suspense movie.
Malfoy was fighting to understand, to grasp a different world, a different life, new concepts. The concept of Hell was not one he had encountered before, and Harry had to explain. Malfoy's face broke up in confusion. He obviously thought Hell was a melodramatic idea, but he was still respectful of what it represented to Harry. Harry's opinion of him rose. You could generally judge a man by the small things, and Malfoy, unexpectedly, was gracious in small things as well as big ones.
Harry was disconcerted to find himself distracted from his memories by Malfoy's wide grey eyes and the way they lost themselves in thought when Malfoy tried, tried so hard, to understand.
"I still don't know what happened when you killed... him," Malfoy was saying now. He sounded embarrassed and hesitated before he asked: "Would you mind terribly, telling me?"
No, Harry didn't mind telling Malfoy any more than he minded telling anyone. In fact, he couldn't remember when he had last had an audience as captive, as the ironic phrase went, as Malfoy. An audience that was so attentive and tried so hard.
"The only thing that could destroy Voldemort," he said, closing his eyes again to see it all more clearly inside his head, "was love. You know of the prophecy?"
"Yes." It was only a breath.
"Neville and I. It could have been either of us. Voldemort chose me, the halfblood, but according to the prophecy, it could just as well have been Neville. And this was how Voldemort would have to be destroyed. By both of us. Mainly by me, being the one Voldemort had chosen, but with the ready assistance of Neville. We both hated Voldemort for what he had done to us, and to our parents, directly or indirectly, but we had to shut out our hatred and focus on our love. The love we felt for our parents, the love we had ever felt for anyone. We were trained by Dumbledore and Lupin… trained to shut out, concentrate, focus, direct. Voldemort didn't expect it. He was so powerful, so knowledgeable; he had so many tricks and weapons. But love was the one thing he never knew anything about. He loved power, but he had never felt love for another human being, and he had always underestimated the power and force of that kind of love. So, in the end, we overpowered him. His wand exploded when he died. It burst into flame, green and red and violet flames... they went out and there were only sparks that fell to the ground. He looked me in the eyes as he died. I saw him die. I really saw life leave him – he looked me in the eyes and his were burning, red, like they always did, and then the light in them went out… just like that. And I tasted metal, like blood. I went cold and I was so tired... my wand was so heavy I couldn't hold it any more... I dropped it and then I passed out."
He hadn't realised he was crying, but his face was wet when Malfoy nudged his arm and handed him a glass. He hadn't realised he was shaking so violently, either. The bitter potion burned his throat and he had to lie down on the bed. So tired, but his head too clear. Drugs, he wanted drugs to make everything hazy; he wanted to sleep, he wanted to die.
He curled up on the bed, shivering with cold, helplessly hugging himself. Too tired to be surprised by the sudden warmth along his back and the back of his thighs, an arm coming round him to hold him.
Draco Malfoy had climbed into his bed and spooned up with him, making his body fit snugly with his own. Harry had had many surprises today. He simply let this one wash over him, accepted the warmth of another human body and gratefully sank into deep sleep.