title: beloved
rating: G
summary: Oh, you should know the drill by now. Harry/Draco and they angst. xD Okay, it's basically in Draco's point of view and he's talking. Talking about himself and Harry and their relationship--why exactly does he stay? Thanks to august fai for the beta.
xx
I really hate you, sometimes. It's a weird cycle, with us being all gooey and affectionate—and having lots of hot sex, but never mind that—around a third of the time, and then the rest we're—you and I—we're—well. It's complicated, I guess.
Something I say will piss you off, and something you say will rub me the wrong way—yeah, those are your words, not mine—and we'll end up fighting. No, not fighting. Clashing. You come in head first, snarling, and I meet you word for word, hissing all the while.
You tell me my eyes turn steely and ice-cold, but always I choose to ignore that because it reminds me of my father—too many things remind me of my father, Harry. Too many things bring up unwanted memories of the war, and sometimes, though I'm scared to admit it—I'm afraid that I can never completely forget because I'm with you. Your green eyes bring me comfort, yes, but at night when I close my eyes I dream of death, and you know what color it is? Green. I can't help it, it's not as if I can control my dreams—but that's what it looks like, beneath my eyelids. So now you won't have to wonder why I always turn away from you when I wake up screaming.
The fighting always fizzles out in the end, leading to an uneasy truce that I think I loathe even more. Watching each other out of the corners of our eyes and then quickly looking away—what kind of phony, adolescent thing is that to do? It's as if we're fifteen again, but Merlin knows we're more than a decade off.
Ignoring me when you go to work, you don't even bother to drink your coffee, and I read my newspaper as if it's the most fascinating thing in the world. My stomach churns angrily and my eyes are burning.
I suppose you're still too thick to realize it, but I hate being ignored.
But of course, my pride won't let me give in first.
It's such a rocky, unstable relationship that I wonder why we stay together. We share nothing but pain and sadness, and we add even more of our own pain into the mix.
I guess that, after all those years of living with that pain, we don't quite know how to live without it.
How so very sad, Harry. As if you didn't have enough of that in your life; and trust me, I know. I may complain about all the crap I had to go through, but the truth is, you had it worse. You were always alone, in a way, even with all your friends and mentors around you. Who was the head of the army against Voldemort? Who volunteered his own home—house, not home, it was never a home to you—as the Order's headquarters?
It was as if you had to do bloody everything yourself. You still don't know how to ask for help. Never did. You thought I might have been able to, hm, Harry? Thought I could let you be yourself and all that rot? Stay by your side always? Make you feel better?
The truth is, Harry—I wish I could.
But I don't know how.
I wonder why I can't get myself to move on and leave—I wonder why I still stay with you, after all these years of frustration. You ask me why I stay.
We lived, yes, we fought—and won. We were heroes. But now that the war is gone, what is there for us in this life?
What small taste of normalcy you experienced at Hogwarts is long forgotten, just a few years of nothingness in your life. We couldn't even bloody graduate, for Merlin's sake, before we got sucked into that war, whether we liked it or not.
There was you, the Boy Who Lived, shouldering the whole Wizarding World on your thin shoulders.
And there was me, blundering through forests and abandoned houses, unable to get Dumbledore's final words out of my mind. I spent the years during the war living, and fighting, and trying to settle my doubts and my fears. I so wanted to choose, I really did, but—how can you choose something like that? Your own safety or your parents'?
But no matter. The Dark Lord chose for me.
Without my parents I had nothing, and if I had stayed I would lose the one thing I still possessed—my life. But I swore I would be useful, dammit; I would do something grand and noble and I would not be forgotten.
Will not.
So I came to you for help and, miraculously, you let me in.
We won, you and I. It was really our battle of course, as you were the Boy Who Lived and I was—am—the Boy Who Lived's beloved.
Oh yes. I had gotten power. I had finally done and received what I always aspired for. Acknowledgment and fame was mine for the taking. I could be assured that when I died, my name would live on.
I fell in your arms and so did you—fell, I mean, into my trap, my intricately woven web of lies.
It took five years and countless kisses for me to realize it, but when I did it was abundantly clear why I was with you. I'm not happy with you, Harry; not entirely, nor will I ever be.
You ask me why I stay.
I stay because without you, I have nothing. And with you—I have everything.
xx