Acid Rain
By: Dephile
Standard disclaimers apply.
Z-
Harry wasn't sure if he was crying or if it was the rain, slithering down like thousand of water snakes, biting and coiling around skin and bones and bark.
Breathing ragged and heart cracking – or maybe it was the thunder? – he cast his hands up to heaven, vision bloody and wet and crying. Spinning faster and faster Harry went, until everything was only a vicious blur and his ears were ringing like mad and laughter was rising like a keening cry of despair and doom.
Harry Potter was doomed.
It was written the day he was born, reiterated the minute a scar appeared on his forehead and the second he found salvation in his end.
Nameless faces, toneless voices, empty touches burned at his skin, as everywhere tears rained down on him, pouring meaningless hope and compassion and desperation around and into the Boy-Who-Didn't-Want-To-Be-A-Hero.
Insanity was a painful deliverance and Harry couldn't help anyone. They died, they will die and he will be alone to face his cruel fate. The lies and the illusions shattered into tiny pieces, showering down and creating scars on everyone and everything and no one was innocent or safe because the Boy-Who-Lived had died the moment the light touched him.
He wasn't the only one now with scars.
A tumble, a bloody memory was all it took for the Golden Boy to fall, to break into many, many unimportant chunks people clamored to own a part of, that beloved image they poured, pounded, all their hope into and which killed Harry slowly more than anything, ripping his sanity into two.
Sirius.
The whisper startled Harry and he stood up. Everything was a blurry nightmare, water in his lashes and glasses and fabric clinging wetly to a delicate thin-boned structure.
Sirius.
Everything whirled and dipped, Harry slipping countless times on slick earth, scraping new and old bruises, desperation taking hold of that last flicker of sanity in a dulled brain. Crying and sobbing and moaning and laughing that name to him, hurled back and forth to tease and stab and hurt. A flash of green, a woman's scream and a searing pain was Harry's life, recurring and recurring and recurring like some awful cycle that didn't, couldn't let go.
SIRIUS!
Harry fell on his knees, shuddering from cold or crying or from laughter, hair plastered like vines and blood was a copper Butterbeer that Harry couldn't get enough of.
The warm touch of life broke and healed Harry at the same time and he looked up, faced with the sudden glow of heaven (or was it hell? What was the difference?).
Pink streaking and an angry voice fell on cold ears. "Fuck, Potter, do you want to die! What the fuck are you doing in the bloody storm!"
Die? What a beautiful word. To die means to let go of everything, an eternal rest that assured an escape from red-eyed nightmares and impossible expectations from a little boy. Yes, to die would be beautiful.
Could he die? Under the rain? Maybe open his mouth and stop breathing, wait for sweet, sweet death to claim his manipulated soul and let it rest, finally.
"Shit, Potter! You're burning up!"
But Harry couldn't let go yet. The light was shining in front of him, bleary as it was, and the voice tingled with life, with fervor and Harry clung to that, afraid of falling again into deep, thick black pool with the crazed bloody eyes staring at him.
Two hands, so painfully warm, gripped his wrists and pulled him towards a warm chest. Eyes the color of tumultuous storms glared down at him, that pink moving to say unheard words.
Suddenly drunk, from rain or despair or utter insanity, Harry snaked thin arms around that glow and pulled down, pressing blue on pink and taking and taking life.
Hating hands pushed him away and he staggered back, a bit dazed and feeling a little bit alive.
"Oh fuck, Potter! Did you just kiss me? Have you lost your fucking mind!" the voice spat and it was like a punch to a shaky foundation.
A tremendous sob broke, over flooding bloodshot eyes and pale cheeks and quaking like a leaf in a storm. Loud, hopeless cries that everyone heard but quickly shunned out, afraid to accept it and realize their only hope was just a little lost boy that had no one.
A hesitation and contrite hands were pulling him in again, stroking gently for what it was worth. Harry wept and muttered; releasing and bringing back a lifetime of unwanted responsibility and misguided fears.
The rain fell on, soaking everything and making things heavier, lazier. Instead of renewal, it brought praise from darkness as it lurked out beneath the light's nose.
It was an eternity and a minute at the same time and Harry calmed, feeling the chest and hands and sighs wash over him. He closed useless eyes and tried to imagine in his head but the darkness there tried to overwhelm.
"Shhh, don't cry now." There was a derisive laugh and Harry opened his eyes, light and liquid mixing to form an incoherent sight. "Christ, I never thought I'd be out in the rain, comforting you, of all people."
And it was like ice melting but nothing was beneath because no one bothered to place anything (laughter, happiness, love) under the surface. All that was left was a mocking innocence to a time lost in time itself.
Reason was a tiny grain that would take a long time to grow but Harry wondered who it was. Blank faces peered into his mind with voices that vowed to bring a fool's utopia and he couldn't place who had such life and voice.
"Who…Who are you?"
The gray stared down at him in shock, as if it was such a stupid question.
Harry was too lost to care.
"Who are you?" he asked in a small voice, brimming with innocence and a carefree tone that wasn't true to the shadowed green eyes that'd seen too much and had so little. "I'm…should I tell? You might be surprised at who I am." Harry giggled. "Okay, I'll tell." His voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper, "I'm Harry Potter!"
And suddenly, the other understood with brutal clarity and it would be hysterical if it wasn't so bloody sad. Funny how much he wanted to cry right there.
It was the strongest who was always the weakest, in the end.
"I'm…Draco Malfoy...I'm pleased to meet you, Harry."
Z-
That made no sense whatsoever. Yup, that was the most meaningless, pointless ficlet that has ever been written. If anyone understood that, then bravo, because even the writer is clueless herself.
Damn, the shit I write. (Well, this is the first shit, actually, but more will come.) Setting: This probably happened a month or two after the Final War, thus Harry's insanity because of it. I think.