"What is the Capra Nubiana?" Harry asked, his lips brushing Draco's ear, his voice cracking due to unuse, as he whispered the words in a room filled with odd smells and stranger creatures. Just as Draco murmured "Reckon the smell is cause of the plesiosaur thing there?"
He could be wrong, there were a bunch of traditional, funny looking pots with wooden spoons. Witchlike.
Harry almost choked in an attempt to not snort, then caught himself pondering over the word Draco just used. They were in an abnormally lit chamber, which, -however queer- still had the feeling of grandeur most chambers possess. "Plesiosaur?" chuckled Harry.
It was not the tone that made Draco recognize his question, nor was it feature of his voice. He understood Harry's question for neither of those reasons but more because of sheer familiarity. Time made him learn so much about Harry. Almost too much. But the voice itself was of no significance. A normal person would probably pick a slight tremble in Harry's voice, would probably underline the shock. But it made no difference to Draco. The fear never left their voices.
And he should mention, a normal person on Earth.
Everything was shocking here, despite the huge amount of time they have spent in the hellish nightmare. Harry's voice grounded Draco, as he turned his head, still marveling at the fact that he had a neck again.
"Still feels weird doesn't it?" smiled Harry. Draco stared at him. Never in his life did he think seeing Harry Potter's smile would calm him the way it did. But those smiling lips were a reminder that they succeeded, and there was still hope left. Maybe not in the near future, but sometime, he was sure...They can't spend forever here and go through the same things-
It was his touch that reminded Draco of his surroundings this time. "I still remember." he nodded, once again surprised to find it possible. To have a normal, human sized head-
"Of course you do," mused Harry softly, "you learnt something from me that day after all." Whether his voice was low because of his new vocal chords or because of the huge Plesiosa- no, Harry had laughed- he must have been wrong then- Monsters. Monsters will suffice- that surrounded them, Draco did not know, but the softness of his new voice irked him. It was just a few hours ago the sound of it made Draco puke, the screams in the hallways mixed with his own. Harry's soft voice made him think there was something worse about to happen. He wondered what others screamed for. The pain? Or the fear of losing someone who was sleeping in a death machine in a room right next to him?
It was Harry's taunt that managed to get him out of his head this time around. He smiled. "It kept me sane during the Blood Eagle." Harry's features changed.
Draco reached out to touch his new skin, astonished at how soft it was, he rubbed the folds until Harry's frown eased.
"I don't believe it worked." Harry responded.
Too many questions, Draco thought. He needed to respond to Harry's first one. He'll do anything Harry asks. Anything within or out of his power.
"The Nubian Ibex."
Harry nodded, cause he doesn't need words to know what Draco meant.
Draco took it as an indication to continue, "It was a sacred animal I think."
Harry rested his head on Draco's shoulders, "Sacred?"
"It's blood is sacred."
Harry made a face. "Is that the Ibex's blood, then?"
Draco nodded, looking at the pentagram blood circle, "They used different types of blood."
"All sacred?"
"Yeah...it's for cleansing our-"
A loud bang resonated through the walls of the chamber. Neither Draco nor Harry moved. It wasn't out of fear.
Eight days ago, they were burned at the stake- the result of which lead to an irreversible damage to their sensory nerve endings.
"Looks like they found the Basilisk." Draco muttered. If Harry was surprised at his knowledge, he didn't show it, merely breathed for Draco to continue, answering Harry's silent question, "Moeen told me this morning."
Ah, Moeen. She found them when they took their descent into Hell. -Bright eyed, and toad like features- and looked after them.
"Non puto te debere puniri, quia eiusdem generis tui soulmate-!"
Draco didn't understand a word, just a single word-soulmate-that was supposed to mean something...Bad?
The girl, beady eyed, and indignant. She didn't know of the war above. This was Hell, literally. Had Draco known- Had he known-
The old Malfoy books talked about the Underworld. To Draco, as he was tucked into bed, only five years of age, it was a faraway land for bad people.
Bad, eh? He did bad things. But, bad person? There were countless queer labels he would take on, but...Bad? No. The Dark Lord was the only evil-
No matter.
Aimlessly, the body floated through the whiteness of this limitless world, no walls existing to bounce it off them, no ceilings to fall along or the floor to break its fall. In this light, the body succumbed to it, yet no distortion arrived; almost, the act of complete annihilation was loving and tender like a mother's hand on the child's tousled hair. Step by step, the light grew more intense, solidifying its impenetrable hold on life and death, on the body arched back most elegantly and graciously, for in his last few minutes, he'd be allowed dignity and respect of the world that rightfully belonged to him. And step by step, indeed, the body disappeared, its outlines merging with the surrounding light, all of it swallowed up completely by warmth lulling and regal.
Draco wasn't paying attention to the frog-girl.
A hand turned ivory and delectable in the light shot out truly out of nowhere, curling around one ankle to yank the body closer and pull it close. It released the ankle, next holding onto the shoulders and pulling down, until – truly out of nowhere again – firm ground beneath their feet, yet still white and glowing, materialized, and four feet planted lightly onto it-
"Potter, wake up. Wake up. WAKE UP!"
He shook the body, watching with growing terror as to and fro the head limply lolled, following belatedly the body, and he gurgled on the rising panic, eviscerated the feeling of helplessness, because he knew – Sasuke knew and understood, Naruto was still there.
"Potter… Potter… You WILL NOT LEAVE LIKE THIS." He held, firm, the head in both hands, and under his touch the body flickered, growing heavy and inching to slump forward, before, just as firm, the feet touched the ground-"You spend six years of life chasing after the Dark Lord like a hero, like the fool you are and all to become nullified by your death. You hear me, Potter? Your efforts were for naught, all was in vain. You. Lost. You lost, you idiot. So come back and reclaim your efforts as in vain you laid your life down for them."
Not like in the movies, not in any sense dramatic, the eyes fluttered open and Draco witnessed the arrival of light into them, until – they regained their clarity and color, muddled by the happenings of the world and the current state of mind, yet all was pushed back by the entirety of Draco's wrath and Draco saw-
-Harry Potter return.
Deceitfully, the skin under his hands jumped to life with warmth. As he released the body, it physically touched the ground, corporeal in this lane of the mind. And Harry blinked. Once. Twice. Thrice-and reeled back.
"What-Malfoy?"
Soothed – angered at once, hateful of this man in front of him, Draco took a few steps back. "Finally."
Fi… Finally," repeated The Chosen One, a broken, aged record-
-but his eyes were set aflame, understanding in its blood-tainted form like the stained glass in a sacramental adobe putting hate-hot coals behind the ragged breathing and plaintive, horror-struck movement.
"You… Malfoy, you-What that is…" He utilized the anger and used it for purpose. "What the-you-UGH. Can't even let a man die in dignity, eh?"
What an audacious answer. What a fool, what a mongrel-
-Draco raged, fisting Harry's top in his hands. "Your stupidity is of unfathomable levels, you fool. What do you think you're going to achieve by this? Is this how you picture yourself making your dream come true? You die and it's OVER."
Harry pried him off, teeth bared in mutiny and eyes flashing hotter than the surface of Sun. "Oh, wow! Jeez, Malfoy, stating the obvious. I mean, wow, what are the chances of, oh, you know, dying and STAYING DEAD?"
"That is what you want for yourself," growled Draco, shoulders squared.
Harry's brows created a mighty scowl, a hiss vibrating through his lips. "What I want for myself, eh? Whatever… Please do me a favour and leave-this is my mind, hm? The mind and place of a dead person," he commented airily under his breath, having the cheek of looking around as if expecting this white prison to assume a more concrete form. "Huh… It really is. Reckon this is what Voldemort saw? Huh." Helpless, he smirked. "Whatever. Malfoy, please, just leave. Let me, well. Let me die, Malfoy."
"Heh. And make this easy for you?" He wasn't making sense. He, a Malfoy, wasn't making sense. Potter couldn't die. Not like a coward, not using such lowly means to flee from his touch.
"Easy for me? Oh, right. Easy for me. Very. Oi, Malfoy. Look."
What-he wanted to snap, but instead he looked-
Harry's hand had fit through the gaping hole in his chest, the heart.
Draco lurched backward, hand flying to his mouth-it was impossible, there existed nothing that filthily physical in this realm, but the sensation of almost throwing up was strong enough to easily deceive all his senses.
Victorious in a gritty and wrong sense, Harry's smirk widened and he shrugged, the hand long removed – but the hole ever-present, a manifestation of his true physical state and when Draco looked close enough, he could see the various scars and bruises that littered in faint image Potter's entire body, poking through the gashes, the cuts on his clothing, visible even underneath that attire the man opposite of him worn. As if a mockery. A mockery. Of Malfoy.
He gritted his teeth. Lowered his head, eyes embraced with most anticipation by the lids, prompting them to heavily arch over the pupils and turn them into two equally long lines singeing.
"Aa, Potter. So you intend to simply die."
"Intend," repeated Harry loftily, ignoring the looks sent in his direction and walking by, this intangible reality forming invisible walls, ceilings and floors for them to lean into whenever necessary, but the levity was a lie and soon afterwards – a violent shudder hit his shoulders. "Intend… Malfoy… What do I intend to do, hah…" Even he lowered his head, yet for purpose different, for the blond hairs shielded his eyes, covering a portion of his face bearing whatever emotion – whatever… Whatever. Because Malfoy… That Malfoy did NOT intend to know, even if a part of him wished the man stripped and begging, pleading for-something obscure and strange. Even if-"I intended to do many things in my life, Malfoy. In the end, I intended to save you. Even at the cost of my life. Well, look what happened. For once, I really kept completely to my word, eh? For once…" He lifted his head, revealing the grievous, anguished face. "I managed to do something."
"Death is your idea of something?"
"I don't know, Malfoy, you tell me. Tell me, why are you here?"
He motioned for the blinding whiteness around that was starting to distort, succumb to waves as it sought to spirit the young soul away, just small, erroneous tremors going through it.
And carelessly, like this didn't matter to him at all, Harry shrugged. "Why are you here, Malfoy? Do you want to fight again? Ah, that's not going to work, you know? After all, there's nothing here. Here, you can't use your chakra. And, honestly… I think I'm through with fighting you." Like a child, he shuffled around, making a semi-circle with his foot and a gracefully stepping forward. "Here… Well, here, I just want to be swept away."
Draco's eyes remained narrowed, dangerous and hateful – hated.
"Did you come, what… What, Malfoy? Nah, don't tell me you came to say goodbye? You really don't strike me as the kind, although what I knew what about you was only as much as I got told… And as I felt."
"Really, Potter. And what do you feel right now?"
Harry looked around. "You know, I don't feel a thing. I don't feel… Anything. Well, I guess this is death then, this is what death feels like… Like nothing… Huh. But." And he looked back at Draco, frowning a little, confused a little, amazed just as much. "I can feel you. You are inside my mind now. I guess that means – I am still alive. One breath away from death, no? Or one blink. Huh, what amazing things dark magic can do."
Draco made a grimace, features contorted without struggle to create a façade of utmost revolt. "And at your very last moments, what you do is wallow in self-pity. Exactly as the The Chosen One you are."
"Oh, yeah. Or that. Or you came here to argue. You know what?" Harry put his hands behind his head, tone elevated. "Whatever, Malfoy, whatever. I can't be bothered with it. That's not how I want to remember you, really."
"Remember me, Potter… Really. And how would you like to remember then? Tell me? Tell me, Potter, what you do know about me."
"What do I know? Come on, Malfoy, I know nothing about you, do I? I mean. If I did, I guess there would be-what I remember, what I pieced together. But, of course, being the The Chosen One what would I know?"
"I didn't come here to cater to your self-deprecating tendencies."
Slowly, Harry's hands fell back to rest tightly – sternly – by his sides. "No, Malfoy, I never had any such tendencies. I only had the dream to preserve our bond. For that dream, I was willing to die. For that dream, I did die. And if you think you can come here now and rob me off that feeling, then-"-déjà vu; almost a year ago, Malfoy had walked into Harry's mind, witnessing a debate between the carrier and its guest of honour, the Dark Lord, and now – now Harry, exactly like he had those many ago – outstretched his hand, ready to banish him. Only here and now, the gesture had an opposite effect.
And Harry, slowly and with languid care, like the rose petal colliding with earth, started to float away again. "Go, Malfoy. Let me die already."
Draco-
-tensed.
"I'm thinking, Malfoy… I'm thinking." His voice became a lilting echo, magnified and resonating with his mind. "Sirius… Sirius, my Godfather is on the other side. And my parents…Mom...Dad...Man, I saw them both only once and even then it was when I got close to letting The Dark Lord win. You know, Malfoy, I didn't lie… What you did. What you tried to do to Dumbledore."
Their eyes met.
"I understand."
Inches off the ground, body arcing backwards-"I understand. I can't blame you for that. I tried to carry your pain. Maybe… Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't. But I understand. That's what I'm going to hold onto, Malfoy, and that – you can't take away. You can scream, you can belittle, degrade me, humiliate even my grave, defile the memory of me, but you won't ever take from me – that I understood. For a really brief, tiny moment…" His eyes, lulled by a lullaby inaudible to Draco's ears, closed. "I understood your pain. I understood everything about Draco."
Like an angel he flew away.
Almost, Malfoy could see the wings, but Potter's had no feathers, because Potter's life had never known the touch of light and tender. Now, the wings would be constructed of cut lines wiring around their axis upwards and to sides to form a metallic, yet pearly white structure as clean, as beautiful as the man again disappearing out of his sight. In his last moments, Potter would be a martyr, taking to his grave this battered, glorified lie. Remembered for all eternity, from the beyond and to the beyond – as a fearless man to willingly embrace death.
What cretin. What fool.
What-
"POTTER YOU IDIOT!"
His hand shot out, fingers missing Potter by less than A STUPID INCH-and the ground beneath his feet disappeared, crumbling away like his dreams, desires and wishes by this unexpected turn of events and he struggled, fierce and ferocious, fighting tooth and nail in his mind as well – this current trying to sweep him away.
Potter was looking at him, the eyes barely parted to allow view of his green eyes that swam – with confusion but-but something else, something that Malfoy WOULD acknowledge as the signature trait, something that he would think of with all his might and HAVE in his hands to control and forever possess, because-
"What do YOU THINK YOU ARE going to achieve by this… POTTER? You know NOTHING of me, NOTHING of this world and as you die, you know NOTHING ABOUT YOURSELF! Dying? Meeting people you love? Who are you kidding you goddamn, filthy and pathetic mongrel. People you LOVE? You'd do everything to keep your bonds, Potter, but you'd do nothing to let them keep THEIRS."
They were in a place – perhaps purgatory, the station connecting the afterlife with life. Distance of several puny feet separated them, petty under the weight of his words. Their bodies were angled backwards, arched to fall down head-first, to impact with the ground of the worlds rightfully theirs for the claim, and between them – an invisible line marking the firm ground where they could stand, where gravity still didn't become. Odd aims in lives would suck them into opposite directions, but the vertical line switched to horizontal, gravitation swapped.
"You were meant to die by my hand, Potter…"
Mine alone.
Neither controlled this world. In reality, neither could. But Malfoy WOULD.
"Not."
"Your."
"Own."
To HELL with this world. He lurched his body forward, using the chakra that didn't exist here – so using, in reality, his will only, making it as corporeal as the hole he'd punched through Harry's heart, until again firmly on the ground he stood, feet feeling the-
-hole. Hole. The hole on Potter's chest.
I will make that. Potter. Go away.
I will make that disappear. Your ultimate failure. Your ultimate weakness. Your ultimate.
Fear of redemption.
Potter's toes grazed the ground, then the feet progressed down and in front of Draco, Harry put his hand over the chest, doubling over-pale, glittering liquid seeping through the fingers.
"What is it, Potter? Is your very soul crying? Does your soul, Potter… Does it know?" A step taken forward. Thundering around. Lightning bolt struck. "Does it know what fool you are? A fool aiming to die?"
The fool looked up, hand pushed away.
Another step.
And each and every one followed by the typhoon of Malfoy's whispers, accompanying their cutting, brutal, terrorizing strength for like a knife into butter they sank, sliding in the substance tender and sublime. So very sublime like Malfoy's vicious, berating MalfoyDraco's fervent denial and I, like his aim and direction, like EVERYTHING he was losing now, that very little that had left. All because of Him. "You do this-THIS. And you act like you're proud. Fool. You are-such-a-FOOL. You protect the bonds and at very last moment you SEVER them all, Na-ru-to. All gone, all gone – because of your SUICIDE. Because you struck yourself, landing the killing blow. It was YOUR hand that took your life and on this planet, in this universe, in this world there is but one person that will claim your life."
His hand covered the wound on Potter's chest-
"Me."
-fingers twisted and curved, knuckles bared and bone protruding, skin stretched across it and tearing.
"One person. One being. That will be – I. Draco Malfoy. Not you, not anyone else. Not your stupidity. You promised to carry my pain. You are my pain, Potter. Right now."
Into Harry's flesh, the fingers dug all over again.
"You are all I have left."
Harry's eyes were wide to taunt innocence, to taunt naivety and represent the world's every childish selfish proclamation of I.
And then his fingers curled around Malfoy's wrist.
"All you have left is the pain I represent… Malfoy… What THE HELL DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"
And shoved it away.
"I gave my life for you, my everything. My-"
"YOU DIDN'T!"
"Oh, Malfoy, getting honest and emotional NOW when I'm dead."
"You are-"
"Not dead, not dying, Malfoy? I AM. And I-I DON'T REGRET A THING!"
A child throwing a fit, Harry slapped Draco's hands off and backed away. "I don't REGRET it. Don't force your beliefs on me, Malfoy, just do not. Because I do not regret it. My spell killed me? Oh, yeah, let's say that in the figurative sense – it did and I killed myself. Was it all in vain, Malfoy, was it ALL in vain?"
"Hah, what did you think would happen? I'd march back to Hogwarts, fall on my knees and beg for forgiveness? For starters?"
Harry sat up, "It's afternoon now, then?"
Draco missed the tickle of Harry's hair on his neck. He sat up too, mirroring Harry's movements, as he went on to answer Draco's quiet question.
"There will be a ritual at midday."
"Well, it's started then, definitely."
Harry's face darkened. Draco reached his hand out to ease him into a more relaxing position. "What is going to happen?"
"The blood ritual is for us."
Draco nodded, not surprised. Harry had given in to his touch, leaning on him as they sat at the corner, darkest corner of the chamber.
"It is common for them to use the Ibex's blood to clean ours."
"It's not a plesiosaur, that one. It's a Hellhound."
"It's a what?"
"Hellhound? I saw it in a movie, it resembles a plesiosaur. I think."
"They're doing something to it."
"Yes." Harry nodded, "They're carving out its flesh. It was used on me yesterday."
"It was the tickle machine for me, I couldn't laugh, but the aftereffects were gruesome."
"Painful to walk."
"Painful to walk."
A sound resonated through the ghostly lit room's walls, making rats jump and scatter around in the room in a hurry. Nobody else moved. Draco and Harry were beckoned by a funny looking man, with a tail and second degree burn marks. Hours later they were both sat in the centre of the blood star when they lit the circle. They were wrong, it was not a mere cleansing ritual, they were draining all the blood out of their body as was obvious with the vials surrounding them. Draco's eyes were fixed on Harry's as he watched them tear him apart, inside out, stitching the hellhound's body parts on him instead.
Presently his body received the blood of a Hydra. Or didn't receive it as he felt himself throwing up again.
Twelve hours after the ritual ended, Draco found it in himself to turn his neck –he didn't remember how long it went on for, although the funny looking man had left ages ago and was replaced by another odd creature of hell, he presumed his shift was over which meant it went on for atleast twenty four hours- as Draco was mercilessly dropped from midair, but the fall didn't bother him as much as Harry's limp body did. As he got nearer, he saw movement and relaxed. Harry reached out to him and stumbled.
Fifteen seconds into their embrace a scream echoed through dungeons to which they were transported to after the ritual.
A wild haired woman stood there with flaming nostrils.
"The ritual didn't work."
Harry was trying to hold Draco in a way that doesn't hurt, which was hard to do since they hadn't been able to stitch the hellhound's hand properly enough to fit Draco's slender wrists, so it was dangling grossly from one side. Harry limped forward, stepping into a pool of blood –which were either Draco's or his own, it was hard to differentiate when the ground was covered with it and yelled –or tried to- it came out as a miserable whimper, "What was it supposed to do?"
"It was supposed to fix your sin!" wailed the woman.
'What sin?' Though Draco, but was too tired to speak, he was losing consciousness once again.
"Moeen, you can't help us anymore."
For the past hour, Draco had been constantly trying to convince Moeen to give up on the plane. The little girl –really, she was half frog- refused to do anything but.
She gasped and fell down on all fours, wind suddenly hitting her face, the scream of "Draco" suddenly filling her ears, the sight of – as she looked up – Draco's hand going through Harry's chest, the blood so, so very red.
Her insides swam.
The figures of the two disappearing, falling into an abyss, then appearing from above, floating in the maddeningly endless space of Harry's mind.
Moeen heard a scream.
And then, enthralled, she could only watch the scene unfold.
Too fast.
The Chosen One. You-Know-Who. Too fast.
Too fast it unfolded. No human eye could have kept up.
He went in.
And their bodies danced.
The outlines of Harry's figure shrouded in the poetry of the shadows blurred, responding immediately to Draco's who moved from the unconscious woman, who dodged the fist swung at him just in time, but who failed to notice, all in folly, the energy gathered around it that, obedient, followed his movements, until Draco lost his footing, grazed by its enormous and unnatural flow, toppling backwards, losing control-
He could see the shock in the blue eyes-
Draco flipped back and landed on his feet, skidding across the floor and ending inches from the wall.
Then at last the time caught up with them and the glass fragment cluttered loudly onto the floor, the window effectively ruined, the moon in full force welcoming the inhabitants of the attic, the air – still, as always in their presence, sizzling with-
-Ron and Hermione stopped at the threshold.
Harry's face had to have looked beautiful under the moonlight, and with some glass pieces still falling, with all of those whooshing right by him, patterns of light – almost like the stars from above gathered on his face – danced over his skin. Those pooled by his feet paved a new path for him to walk on, like rose petals, sharp and lethal, exactly as the man himself.
Harry would have looked beautiful, with all that much and more, because in the fierceness of his eyes lay all that devoted I, but each glass fragment to rattle past, with each to sprinkle the floor, one part of him withered away, never ever to come back, never ever – beckoned once more to enter into this existence.
Caught up with the events at last, Moeen's body hit the ground.
On Draco's left sleeve, a red mark formed, blood seeping through, infecting the white material close.
The Dark Mark.
On Harry's face, the mask of utter resolve slipping, a crack slowly spreading through it, revealing the real I under.
On the ground, the lulling sleeping of the young girl, suggesting to the onlooker she may have just fallen asleep on an accident and not bothered with looking for more of an appropriate place to lay down.
Such a beautiful story – that transpired in no more than a second or two.
"Non puto te debere puniri, quia eiusdem generis tui soulmate."
To love wasn't a sin.
To hurt was.
