A/N: First off, I want to thank everyone for reviewing.
I have been trying for weeks now to find a person who would consider drawing a picture for me. I would soooooooo appreciate it. The picture I'm thinking of is one of Harry and Draco leaning back-against-back in dark cloaks. Draco's glancing at Harry, while Harry's glaring at the ground. They're both sitting on the armrests of a large thrown, and a small amulet, of any color, I wouldn't mind, is in the seat. You could have a headshot of Sabet, then two of Snape and Remus, in the background. Have a shaft of light falling on them. =Oooh, so pretty=
That would be a challenge, anyone up for it?
Oh YEAH, now we're past the 230 reviews mark! Par-tay!!!
I have a wonderful new reviewer, who deserves mentioning. Hello, Kaetian! Thank you so much for that review, I did not mind its length at all! You're absolutely right about Harry's inability to Apparate, dead on the mark, you are.
Tennessee, at least in the region I live in, is very, VERY mountainous, and very, very odd. We have an assortment of races, all mingled together and being attacked and bashed as a whole by the KKK! No, kidding, but we've got that... [yes, the KKK is reffered to as IT and THAT] too. Anyway, the summers are horrid, and we only get snow once every five years. I swear it's true; our snow is on a cycle. Winters don't get too cold unless, like I do, you live ON A FRIGGIN MOUNTAIN. But I wouldn't trade it for the world, I just love it here. Nothing boring about it really!
I'm also rather sorry about your friends, I know it's a common thing but still... it must have been horrible for you. I can relate.
And thank-you for understanding that I am not some sick perverted freak! I thank-you twice over!
I recently uploaded a story of the Inuyasha kind called "Wishing for the Rain". There's only one chapter, but please consider reading it.
Disclaimer: Nothing mine
[Author's notes]
-=-=-=-=-=-=13=-=-=-=-=-=-
Hand shaking madly, Harry lowered the blade. At which point, Draco bounded in, crying out; "Harry!" as he fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around Harry, pinning the dark-haired youth's arms to his sides. Harry only shivered and closed his eyes, arms crossed over his chest as if her were a cadaver. Draco wrenched the knife from his loose hand, and threw it to the side, only for the blade to impale the wall.
"What in the hell are you thinking?" Draco asked, turning Harry around, though he was not as gentle as intended. Harry only shook his head.
The void was so close, if he had only fallen in, he could be lost forever. But... Harry wanted to be found... didn't he? The thoughts were overwhelming, said issue being on of the more prominent. All of his burdens were weighing him down; as if he were carrying a giant boulder like the sculpture he had seen once in books. The weight, so slowly crushing his soul, had almost won him over; it had almost done him in...
Harry groaned and gently pushed Draco back, lying on the floor. His hands gripped his hair as his eyes tightly closed, face pale with the reality at the act he had tried to commit. Draco helplessly watched him, vaguely feeling the hopeless sense of a lost child in a crowded room. It came from Harry, but Draco could find no way of solace for his companion. Quietly, he scooted over, wrapping an arm around Harry and pulling the boy up, aided by his inherited strength. Harry allowed it, not caring to fight the warm embrace.
So wrong...
For so long...
So the truth comes out at last
He felt cold, trapped in the hollow of his soul. Vaguely, he heard soft whispering, could feel a gentle touch to his hair and face, but could not distinguish it. But he knew who the gentle nurturing came from. If only he could get out. But his mind was a safe haven, it had been and forever would be, he knew. No one could get him here, not even the most powerful of creatures. Inwardly he sighed as darkness threatened the boundaries around him, eager to consume his spirit and drag it mercilessly inward, deeper, farther away...
He would stay this time. He would not be dead, but he would not be considered leaving. But guilt of what he would leave behind unnerved him. Yet he willed away as he finished sealing himself away...
I'm dead inside
(I'm burning up)
A hollow shell
(My private hell)
In my own misery
They leave me to dwell
"Harry," Draco whispered, resting Harry's head in his lap; "Please, come back;" he said softly and helplessly, his hand ghosting over Harry's bangs.
Harry's hands had since gone limp, and his eyelids were closed generally now, not deliberately. His breath was faint, and each intake was few and far between. Draco worried, torn between running for help and simply waiting it out. He chose the latter, inwardly hoping that his godfather would return from "business".
Draco decided upon trying again; "Harry," he said, "Harry, can you hear me?" he paused, fingers ghosting over the young man's chilling cheek. Draco froze at the temperature... such a lack of heat in skin.
"Harry!" Draco exclaimed, laying said vampire on his back upon the floor; "Harry, come back!" Draco bellowed, shaking the teen.
Harry only moved his head to the side, his eyes opening slowly and gazing up at Draco. There was no reflection in them. They absorbed all of the light that hit them. Draco's stomach knotted with fear at the sight of Harry's eyes, and he hastily focused his gaze elsewhere, on the collar of Harry's old shirt.
"Harry, damn you come back to me!" Draco yelled, groaning as he held Harry's shoulders in his hands, lifted up about an inch, and let go. The thud that followed gave wind to know promise, and Draco's anger and anxiety boiled together in one unstable cauldron of his soul.
Spiritual Isolation - The ultimate frustration
Scratch the surface, turn another page
The ugly truth or another pretty lie
They deceived me, I believed them
Why did everything go...
"Harry, don't make me follow you inward!" Draco pleaded as his right palm began to glow a vibrant black. Inhaling sharply, his hand met Harry's chest, and Draco gasped as he was thrown forward, from his body, and was drawn to the darkness he soon began to see.
It was thick, like fog hanging in the air. It was consuming, like being trapped within churning sand. Draco couldn't breathe; his hands went to his neck in reflex. His knees began to shake, and he fought to keep his thoughts in order, but they seemed to scatter, merge, and attack all at once, then separate before coming together to repeat the attack. Like flocking birds on a rampage...
Draco closed his eyes, focusing on whatever he could. First his thoughts were on his mother, but she soon faded, then he centered on Snape, and that failed. He tried school, Hogsmead, Quidditch, but nothing worked. Finally, when he thought his mind would explode and his heart would collapse into his soul, he focused on the owner of the turbulent realm.
Harry...
At once, the weighty feeling of it all began to fade, though it remained. Draco was able to remove his hands from his neck and chance a look around. Before him was nothing but darkness, but he could barely make out the faint glint of something, maybe resembling scales. To answer his query there was a low, deep hissing noise, and then all was quiet, so deathly quiet. Draco was standing beneath a shaft of light, and it was so bright he could not look up at it. He covered his face, peering out between his arms to see another shaft of light, a figure standing below it. At once Draco knew it was Harry, and Draco's arms fell as he shouted out.
"Harry!"
The figure turned, and Draco held his breath. It was Harry, but not as he had ever been seen. Gaunt cheekbones, frail bones surrounded by thin muscle, all covered by skin so pale it was translucent. His clothing was so baggy and tattered it made Draco pitiable and disgusted all at once. What was supposed to be Green in his eyes was a sullen grey, cloudy and distantly morose.
This couldn't be Harry's soul.
"Draco," came the echoing, hollow reply from the Soul.
"Harry," Draco managed; "Why... how... what happened to you? You look..."
"Horrible?" the Soul finished, laughing dryly, a deadpan tone of morose depression and indifference.
"Yes," Draco finished, quietly.
"I'm surprised you came," the Soul said; "You must care for me if you'd do this..."
"You mean Harry's been testing me?" Draco asked.
"In a way," the Soul replied; "I haven't had the best of lives, and trust isn't something I just give away freely. Besides, a relationship, commitment, it is something I am afraid of. And... love is a foreign thing. After I've been lied to, it's hard to tell what is real anymore..."
Draco paused. The soul was Harry's, though the reality was brutal and unwanted. Draco gulped, before asking; "Could you tell me why you're so... so..."
"Like I am?" the Soul finished, and Draco nodded; "You can give the credit to the Wizarding World and my cousin..."
"Then why is it so dark?" Draco asked, looking around and motioning with his arms.
"Isn't it though?" the soul mused, sighing as it too, glanced around; "It's a sanctuary, the place in my mind I can run to. I'm safe here. Nothing can get to me. I'm never leaving again..."
"You're afraid of someone hurting you?" Draco asked quietly.
"I'm afraid of the guilt," the Soul replied morosely; "It weighs you down as if you're carrying a mass so great it cannot be fathomed!" the Soul wailed.
"What's the guilt from, then?" Draco asked.
"All the deaths because of me," the Soul muttered, shaking its head as the hollow eyes gazed crazily at Draco.
"Deaths?"
"Lily, James, Sirius, Cedric, Hedwig..."
"Harry, none of those deaths were your fault!" Draco shouted desperately.
But the soul continued to mourn; "And all my life I suffered, and no one heard me!" the ringing voice echoed with anguish, seeming to shake the very structure; "And I was lied to, I knew! BUT I IGNORED IT! I ALONE AM TO BLAME FOR THIS!!!! ONLY ME!!!!"
"Harry, no, don't tell yourself that!" Draco shouted.
"My entire fault, everything, down to the last drop of blood," the soul murmured continuous, like some grim chant of the hell that had been created here, in the dark cavernous pit in which Harry's soul resided.
"Harry, just shut the fuck up!" Draco roared; "It's not your fault, it never was, and for gods sake don't be the martyr, be selfish!!!!!"
The Soul was quiet, looking away; "Leave, before you die too," it suddenly whispered fearfully, glaring at Draco. But the fear and nervousness was evident in the dull green eyes; "Just leave me alone so you won't get hurt..."
Draco was taken aback by the volume, but yelled back; "I won't! You need help, Harry! I want to help you!"
"Just leave me alone... I don't need any help..."
"You need to return to the living, Harry, where it's safe!"
"It's safe here, so just go!"
"You think holing yourself up in your mind will solve anything, Harry? Well it won't! You'll rot away at this rate! Look at you! You're skinny, haphazard and depressed, and you think 'hiding away' will solve anything? What kind of Gryffindor are you if you run?"
"I'm no Gryffindor!" the Soul said weakly; "I wasn't meant to be!"
"You think being a Gryffindor automatically makes you brave and fearless?" Draco shouted; "It doesn't! Who are you to be called by name when one even runs from themselves?"
The Soul was quiet; "Just go," it pleaded desperately; "just... go," it repeated, clutching its head and dropping to its knees.
But Draco wouldn't go. He had a plan brewing, a spell he remembered his mother teaching him. Calmly, he sighed, and then took a step forward.
When his foot did not fall through, Draco continued, the light following him as he went to the Soul. The Soul cried out hoarsely, backing up to sit straight, as if against a wall, and had its knees drawn up slightly.
Draco bent down, and the soul looked at him. Latin words flowed from the blonde's articulate mouth, and he said softly...
"What a soul to be if to hide from what you cannot see
What a fool to know nothing of what you used to call something
Closed up in darkness, lost and thoughtless
Hear my voice and acknowledge me, for it is I who takes note of your plea..."
"No," the Soul breathed quietly, covering eyes with pale, bony and scarred hands.
But Draco continued...
"You of weary Fate, whose path is wounded, far from straight
Restless and weary to see with vision so bleary
A countless many dire fights and lonely, pain-stricken nights
Hear my voice and acknowledge me, for it is I who answers your plea..."
"Please, leave me be," the Soul gasped, beginning to mourn, to cry, silently.
But the blonde vampire was unhampered...
"Scars from life run so deep, stains of crimson on your hands you keep
Release the shards and rest for now, no need to remind you how
A path so suffering with the strength I give you to go on living
But such pain cannot be taken; you must heal most alone without your heart breaking
Hear my voice and acknowledge me, for it is I who has quieted your plea..."
And the soul screamed out, a keening, echoing sound of horrible torment and the failure of defeat, of the upheaval Draco had committed.
And around Draco, the world began to collapse, chunks of darkness falling away to let in a grey hue of light. Whispering the counter spell, Draco felt the force of reality tugging at the back of his head, and soon he was jettisoned backward, out of the realm and into his body.
Draco's eyes snapped open as he was thrown from Harry, crashing into the desk with such force that the desk broke. Draco groaned, leaning his head back against what was left of the stand, and looked over at Harry.
Harry hadn't moved, but his eyes had begun to brighten with life. Draco sighed as he moved to stand, but a pang of pain in his shoulder held his fast to his current position, splayed out and leaning against the desk.
Draco rose from the desk, succeeding to stand with little pain. Quietly and cautiously he walked over to Harry, unsure of the youth's reactions, be there any at all. Draco bent down and looked Harry over, hand gently resting over his chest again, feeling warmth through the sheer material of the shirt. Draco sighed thankfully, inclining his head as he rested his eyes. He opened them to see Harry's gaze fixed on the ceiling, a single tear gently running down his face, only to fall and land on the hard wood of the floor. Draco gently wiped the tear-stain away, only for Harry to look away and turn his head elsewhere.
"Harry," Draco said quietly.
Harry looked at him; "Why?" he asked, a look of anguished confusion on his features.
Draco thought for an answer, and said what he could; "I... I was worried, Harry," he said quietly; "I thought you'd leave me. I knew when you hit the wall, the energy trail you left... it was, incriminating..."
Harry shook his head and laughed apathetically; "Incriminating," he repeated, his eyes staring forward, past oblivion; "I'm a mess, Drake..."
"Well, of course, I know that for a fact now, after what I've seen," Draco said, "You need rest."
He helped Harry to sit, but Harry gently held his arm out, pushing Draco back, and stood on his own. He as wobbling, but managed to move to the bed. Draco sat down beside him, easing Harry back to lie down, all the while whispering different things to him.
"Draco, honestly, you can stop now," Harry said when he could stand it no longer; "I was... overwhelmed and confused, okay? It won't happen again, I promise."
"Yes, promise all you want, Harry," Draco said, gently lying beside him, propped up on his elbow; "You're officially under suicide watch as of now."
Harry rolled his eyes as he rolled onto his side, away from the blonde; "Just leave me be," he whispered, turning his head into the pillow as he wrapped his arms around himself. He sighed.
"That's what you said, while I was in that place," Draco mused, "You're soul Harry, it's so worn and tainted with your anguish..."
Harry snorted, rolling over and looking at Draco; "Tell me something I don't know;" he said quietly, but anger was brimming in the tone; "I go there all the time. You might have seen nothing, but when I go there, it's not but reflections of me;" he closed his eyes and was silent as he sighed, his tense body finally collapsing into the soft mattress.
"Let me help, Harry," Draco murmured, scooting closer.
Harry scooted back slightly, and shook his head; "No, Draco," he said, eyes slowly opening to stare at the blonde, almost mournfully; "You've done more than enough," he continued quietly; "Thanks..."
"I won't just sit and watch you fall, Harry, I still want to help," Draco said.
Harry only closed his eyes and sighed. Draco watched him, how his chest heaved up and down with every breath, steadily slowing to a rhythmic pace. Draco slowly rose, mind overwhelmed in a mix of dread, regret, and confusion. He didn't want to leave Harry alone, but he had to. It was for the best, after all, that Harry rest after such an ordeal.
Draco's eyes fell on the red stain upon the floor, and he quickly backtracked to clean it. His eyes the fell, or rather, rose, to the dagger hilt jutting from the wall near the door pane. Draco tore it from the wall, and walked out of the room, the door he left ajar so as to where he could easily hear Harry's every move. He stalked into the kitchen, heaving a sigh as he sat down at the table. The dagger fell from his loose grasp as he threw it onto the table.
Draco scowled at the blade, still crimson along the cutting edge. He slumped, crossing his arms over on the table and resting his chin on them, gaze never faltering from the dagger.
It made perfectly unfocused sense. Draco understood Harry's sudden urge. The pint-up energy Draco had felt all day had risen to the surface, but the drastic measures taken to expel it were beyond his reasoning. He had considered the cuts on Harry's wrists before, the faint scars blending almost invisibly with the skin. Perhaps Harry had tried before? Draco tried not to think of that, the fact his boyfriend might have tried to commit suicide...
The door opening brought Draco to reality, and he looked up to see a haggard appearing Snape enter through the side door. His godfather closed the door and sighed. Draco saw scrolls tucked under his arm. Snape looked at Draco, and took notice of the dagger.
"Why is there a bloody blade on my kitchen table?" Snape asked incredulously.
Draco stood slowly, reaching for the dagger. His intention was to conceal it, but Snape said; "No, Draco, leave it and tell me what has been going on."
Sighing, Draco sat back down; "Harry..." he began; "He's... Severus, so much has happened to him, there's just so much that's been shoved onto his shoulders! He blew up from it all, punched a whole in the bloody wall for crying out loud! And then, he attempted to... to commit..." he couldn't finish, and Snape looked—was, utterly shocked; "But he's fine," Draco added quickly; "I... I saved him, but he... he had closed into himself. I went in after him—"
"Went in after him?" Snape repeated, setting the scrolls along the counter before setting down.
"I followed his soul into this weird, dark chamber place," Draco simplified; "It was a complex spell, and I wasn't sure if it would work, at first. But it did, and I found Harry's soul;" he paused; "His soul looked dreadful, Sev, it really did," he said quietly; "I... I wanted to know why he was so angry and upset, and why the room was so dark. A soul's sanctum is supposed to be bright and comforting, not dark and morose. The soul said that he was burdened with guilt, that all the deaths were his fault. He was blaming himself for everything, Sev, he was being a... a martyr..." Draco looked down and inclined his head at this, silencing. He didn't want to speak of it any longer.
Snape too, looked away, trying his best to control his rising anger and to regulate his breathing; "Is he... is Harry alright?" he asked.
"Yes, asleep, in fact," Draco replied, head beginning to swim in his growing thoughts.
Snape nodded, glancing at the clock; "It is only nine," he muttered; "I can still catch the bastard."
"Nine?" Draco asked, looking at the clock. Indeed, it was getting late in the evening. Draco looked out the window. The sun was nearly set. Had he really taken so long in the search for Harry's soul?
"Yes," Snape said, seething as he grabbed a cloak from the rack in the corner; "Draco, I'm about to do something that might jeopardize you and Harry's stay here. If anyone from the Order comes, I want you both to run down the road to the Inn within the valley. Just say you are staying there under my name, and they won't ask questions. Now, I'm off."
And Draco watched as his godfather left, wand tightly clutched in hand.
.-=-=-=-=-=-.TBC.-=-=-=-=-=-.
A/N: there you have it! Review!
Song lyrics by Arch Enemy, from their song so ironically entitled "dead inside". I haven't actually heard the song, per se, by the lyrics were good for this chapter.
Another update might be late, as has decided to do some re-vamping to the sight. Can't say I blame them, in fact, I don't. so until I post again...!
Next chapter will be mostly about Snape, and a few side segments about Sabet, and possibly the Order. Hmmm, but my muse feeds on reviews.
Why make her suffer a horrible death due to starvation?
-!!!! Boom-Rhapsody