Disclaimer: Propaganda can buy you.
Word count: 1.079
Prompt: Insides
Draco's heart is on the inside.
He doesn't know about anyone else, but he knows that he is nothing but what heart is not, and he most definitely does not seem to mind.
☼
When he was younger, Lucius used to tell him to stop playing around with the pets he had amassed over his rather hellish first seven years of life. When Draco had refused, every one of them was killed.
Have a heart, Malfoy.
Draco wasn't sure whether to be upset over that or to just accept it, like he had when he was seven and when his father was God, even now. Instead he sat in the darkness of his room, shrouding himself in the only thing he could see that was even vaguely reminiscent of himself.
Have a heart, Malfoy.
Draco grimaced.
Have a heart, Malfoy.
He hated that voice.
☼
Hogwarts and the Wizarding World had been taken by surprise when the final attack came. Draco couldn't help but think it was hilarious. On the day that the Order of the Phoenix was just sending out its troops to be stationed around all of the Wizarding World, they were slaughtered as they left their bases.
He supposed the Weasleys must have taken it hard when they found out they had two children left. Weasley and Weaselette. Kept home safe by orders of the Golden Boy, since they were still underage.
Draco never wondered about Hermione Granger. He couldn't care less, really. Because she had heart, she would always have a heart, and Draco was fine knowing she was locked up, now. She would find a way out. The war took a toll on everyone's mind, and they all lived. Besides, her heart was in the right place. On the outside.
Have a heart, Malfoy.
He wondered about Harry.
☼
"What are you doing, Malfoy?"
Dropped things. Picked up. "Nothing."
Silence.
"You're leaving, aren't you?"
Nice deduction, Potter. "Nice deduction, Potter."
"Am I really right, Malfoy?"
Yes. "No."
Silence. Hesitation. Glasses fumbled. A sigh.
"Geez, Potter, here. And don't drop these again, you're going to die at this rate."
"What?" Startled.
Another sigh. "If you can't hang onto your glasses in the middle of a school hallway, how are you supposed to manage not to become blind on the battlefield."
"Why are you leaving?"
Automatic response. Stifled. "Potter, turn around, please."
"Malfoy."
"People are going to die anyway."
"Malfoy! Malfoy, stop!"
Rush of a Portkey. Blurred face. Potter, are you crying
"Have a heart, Malfoy! Don't do this!"
☼
Have a heart, Malfoy.
Have a heart.
Heart.
What, Draco mused, defines a heart? Everyone has one, right? Otherwise you wouldn't be able to perform The Function, living. Draco frowned. So one didn't have to be compassionate to have a heart, correct? And, the best place to have your heart would be outside. Where everyone could see it, because when it's inside it's unused.
He wondered what Harry would say.
☼
"Don't be an idiot."
"What?"
"I wouldn't have said anything."
☼
He already did have a heart.
That changed things. Draco closed his eyes. What did it mean, again, to have a heart? Somewhere in there was love, but that was too much. Complex things during even more puzzling times were not popular with him.
☼
There is someone banging at his door.
☼
He doesn't move.
☼
There was music, he thought, as the door burst open. There was music on the day when he had seen Harry's heart. Harry's beating, beating heart.
The music was in the rhythm of his breathing, and his steps, and everything else Harry did. Harry's heart was not just on his sleeve; it was all over Harry, entwining with his breathing and gasping and little quirks about him.
☼
Draco thinks a bad thought.
He wants another war. He wants to see Harry jump in front of his body again, and he wants to feel those last drumbeats that were all across Harry's body. Hermione had been screaming spasms, but they weren't.
Draco recognized that rhythm. He knew and he hated that he knew, but Harry's heart, that had covered him like the warmest of cloth before, was strangling him. It was taking all his life away.
☼
That, Draco reflected, was probably why he was glad his heart was on the inside.
☼
He doesn't even flinch when the Auror draws a wand, and reflexes have Draco groping for his, before he remembers where it is. Back at that ocean of wreckage, where Harry's body had fallen, a tomb marker better than all the rest.
So Draco grasps for the vase next to his bed stand, but the Auror doesn't give him a chance. Draco doesn't know what the man hit him with, but it burned and then cooled all at the same time.
☼
There was euphoria, first, because he felt his heartbeat. It was still on the inside, but it was strong. And then sorrow because he wasn't supposed to be feeling a heartbeat, and then panic as he realized it was fading.
He had just heard the music.
He didn't want it gone just yet.
☼
Have a heart, Malfoy.
☼
His heartbeat is gone, and he is left alone. In the corner of a dark room there is a cracked picture and a broken vase, and a crumpled body. The door is splintered and hangs off its hinges.
The body is cold.
☼
It is cold outside.
Draco wraps himself in the coat he took from the Auror and wanders. He is not dying until he gets an answer to the question. Does he have a heart? Is it on the inside?
Inside.
Where it's warm and safe and where glass can't reach to hurt.
Draco shivers and wraps the coat around him further.
☼
He looks for a hotel to spend the night, and notices the Auror made headlines. Kingsley something or another. Faces melt into each other when you don't care.
The owner of the place eyes him strangely but gives him a room anyway. Draco decides not to spend the night. He will leave in the evening, by window.
This is the way it is.
And his heartbeat has stilled again.
☼
Draco's heart is on the inside.
He doesn't know about anyone else, but he knows that he is nothing but what heart is not, and he most definitely does not seem to mind.
Gah. That was some painful writing, right there, so very much angst like. Review?