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Brynn

Chapter 2: Death

"Who are you to claim to know me?" The voice echoed from the bare walls. It actually shouldn't have, not in a room like this, but somehow there was nothing it would have clashed with. Edward Elric rapidly sat up on his bed, jerking from the nightmare, and screamed.

o

He tried to move and hardly restrained himself from screaming again. Bracing himself and turning his head he examined his shoulder.

'What the fuck?' Pieces of automail stuck out of the dismantled base. The rest of the arm lay in components all around. He was crippled, unable of any movement and hurting… hurting worse than he was ever since Winry and Auntie Pinako attached the bases.

'Who would do something like that?' He could think of no one. But something like this never happened to him and, frankly, something like that simply couldn't happen to Winry's work, not without a radical interference of outside force. The arm was completely alright yesterday… Tears pressed in Edward's eyes but he blinked them away.

'Seems that after all I won't accompany you after all, Colonel Bastard… hope you are happy.'

o

Harry had always done everything differently. Knowing that they were going to die, they should have attacked head on, not…

Draco's musings were cut off. He halted, keeping the wand he had nicked from the dead guard paralel to his thigh. There was a laughably quiet crack in the air.

The wizards around them stopped in the middle of their movement and for a second that could have stretched out for ages there was absolute stillness. Then the wind blew and Draco's eyes widened-

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It's been days… Edward tried to spend as much time as he could asleep, but it didn't work too well – his body was used to little sleep.

He was hungry and thirsty and physically sick, but all those sensations were subtle compared to the continuous burning pain. He was going to die and he knew it. It was a strangely empty emotion; he lacked even the will to fight. He had no idea what had happened to him, or what had happened outside that nobody came looking for him… but his colleagues were gone on mission and Al… who knew what happened to Al… Edward certainly wanted to hope his brother was alright, but his mind was far too rational to allow him to believe such a folly.

So he stared at the ceiling as another long painful day ended in a red-coloured twilight and selfishly hoped it had been the last one.

o

"Potter! Harry…" Draco got no response… he had not exactly expected one. "Harry…" There was a lot of blood around the scarcely-clad body. He might have well been dead. "Harry!" Draco was becoming desperate. He knew he had to stir at least some kind of response from the other boy, lest he was going to curl up in an imitation of his position and not move from the place until…

"Har-ry-" he repeated brokenly, shaking the cold white shoulder.

The body stubbornly refused to speak up. Draco's eyes filled with tears, but he was laughing. He was being strong, strong for both of them, wherever this place was, whatever had happened, and however Voldemort had survived that… terryfying thing Harry did.

"Har-ry-" Draco whispered with a smile and lowered his head to rest on his lover's hand forever…

Harry coughed. It was a reflex of an unconscious organism, spitting out the blood that was making breathing impossible, but it was more than enough to motivate Draco. He shakily stood up, conjured a strecher under the other boy and levitated him.

"Just hold on, love, I'll fix you… you'll see… I'll- you just… need… help… fix… sleep… bed…"

He looked around. Never before he had seen a place like this – they must have been in some exotic country… neertheless, it was still a town, and a town was bound to be inhabited by people. He aimed to the nice big house across the juncture. There was a sign, but he couldn't focus his eyes enough to read it.

"Hold on, I promise it'll be alright – if not than you can.., you can wander off with that Weasley beast. Really. I won't try and stop you. Just take me back to London with you; I'll learn to take care of myself… really… really…"

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Edward fortunately didn't have enough energy left to move, because he would have jerked at the crash. His only remotely-functional mind suggested that the roof had caved in… which was a total nonsense, because he was still staring at the ceiling… so he tried to concentrate…

o

Draco calmed down a bit after he realised that the reason why they were in this strange place was that in the middle of the vortex of raw magic Harry had Apparated them… He, naturally, couldn't quite control it, otherwise they would have been sitting in the Grimmauld Place right now…

Sneaking a glance at his lover's battered body he felt absolutely no qualms about blasting the front door to the nice house.

"Hang on, Potter. Look, I know just how much you hate Muggles, but even I admit you really need any help this time… look, once we're out of here we can pretend it never happened. How about that? Now, let's find where they have bandages…"

o

Edward's eyes fluttered open and he bit his lip to suppress the cry of pain that was close to escaping him. Someone was there. In his apartment. It wasn't Al. It wasn't Winry either.

That meant it was some stranger… more strangers… though they didn't seem to intend harm… rather sounded desperate…

He definitely couldn't defend himself if the strangers had any violent intentions.

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"Now, let's find where they have bandages…" Draco was a hair-thin close to panicking – no, scratch that, Draco was panicking. Wherever they were, it wasn't where they were supposed to be. He didn't know that much about the Muggle cities, but the differences here were so striking that even a pureblooded stuck up brat like he couldn't miss them. Potter would be proud.

If he wasn't unconscious and on the brink of death… He dislodged the limp body off the stretcher on the bare – and damn too cold – floor.

'Can't they even afford a carpet!' He didn't pay a thought to his blood-stained robe and went searching for the accursed bandages and some bed. There was bound to be one, Potter really did need it and Draco wouldn't hesitate before throwing anybody out of it.

He stepped into a small square room. There indeed seemed to be a bed… and something smelled rather nasty…

'I can't have such luck? The owner of this place was found by me, dead. Wicked,' Draco thought dryly. His sarcasm was dying, too.

"Lumos." He approached the bed. It was riled up. The floor around it was littered with oddly shaped pieces of metal, which didn't seem like anything he knew. A few strands of golden hair were splayed on the pillow. Judging from the shape of blankets, they covered a rather small frame.

'A child?' Draco asked inwardly and stepped closer. After what he had seen out there, no matter what he might find here it would not be able to touch him. And disposing of a corpse was easier than disposing of a living and objecting person. He pulled the linen away and gasped.

A pair of great, golden, pain-glazed eyes was staring at him.