A/N: SURPRISE!

Happy birthday to our dear Harry, and anyone born on July 31st! We thought you guys deserved a little treat!

A sunny thank you to our wonderful beta! (Happy belated birthday, dude XD) and Happy reading!

Chapter warning for; explicit language, mentioned bullying,

Next update on 13th August, Friday (for real)

Dashed to pieces

...

All night I stretched my arms across

him, rivers of blood, the dark woods, singing

with all my skin and bone ''Please keep him safe.

Let him lay his head on my chest and we will be

like sailors, swimming in the sound of it, dashed

to pieces.'' -Richard Siken

….

"Hey, can I see you for a moment?" Asks a timid voice from behind. It's Neville, Ron of course recognizes the voice right away.

It's odd hearing him this late at night. The common room is vacated, and only a candle or two that he and Hermione lit are still merrily flickering away. It's not that unusual for them to spend the night in the common room, the majority of their nights are spent there anyway. It is, however, odd for Hermione to fall asleep before he does. Ron can cut her some slack, the past few days have been exceedingly difficult on them.

"Yeah?" Ron whispers, more than happy to snap the book he was attempting to read, close and pretending it never existed in the first place.

Reading isn't really his thing. Charms aren't his thing either. But since he has to teach people this shit, he has to know them in the first place. Sirius' library is only good for Hermione's appreciation.

Neville, much to Ron's surprise, isn't in his pajamas, but rather, squirming under his gaze in his school attire. Ron can't recall seeing him in their dorm earlier that night. He doesn't remember seeing the boy in the Great Hall at dinner either.

"Everything alright?" He asks and Neville shrugs, his gaze flickering across the couch where Hermione is sprawled in a heap of limbs and books, her hair puffy like a lion's mane, frizzling around her face like a halo.

Ron tried rearranging her several times, if only for the sake of her neck, covering her with a throw to keep warm, but she kicked it off within a few minutes every time. She looks restless in her sleep, tossing and turning, as if looking for the heart of a maze in her dreams.

Ron has been looking for it in his waking hours. it's illogical, imagining a key solution to all of their problems as unseen atoms weaved in the very air he breathes.

Hermione kicks off the throw. He'll try again in five minutes.

Neville shifts from foot to foot, "I need your help with something, Ron."

Ron tries stifling a sigh, but nods his head. He rolls his brittle shoulders until he hears them crack and eases off the chair he's been sitting on for god knew how long.

"Yeah… Sure." he glances at Neville as he's bending to pick up his cloak, "You sure you're alright?"

Instead of answering, Neville walks up to him, waits till Ron has his wand, then grabs him by the sleeve and turns away, deftly leading them both out of the portrait, with the fat lady peacefully snoring away amongst her other pals.

Neville mutters, the tip of his wand shining a dim blue as he shepherds Ron to the staircase.

Ron grabs Neville's wrist, "What about the inquisitorial squad-"

It wouldn't be too far-fetched for those ferret-faced snitches to be lurking the hallways at night, just looking for an excuse to hand Ron over to Umbridge on a platter. And honestly, the rage that he feels regarding that bitch and all the things she's done to him and Harry, to all of them, sort of compels him to wish that one of the snitches does in fact catch them red-handed.

He sees himself, alone with that toad, her, helpless and begging for mercy as Ron punches her over and over again, hangs her upside down, and lets all the murky blood in her body pool in her empty skull, to at least make up for the lack of her brain.

"Neville, the squad…"

"Just come on," he sounds stern, and they keep walking, not to the seventh floor, leading to the room of requirements, but rather down the moving staircase. Neville keeps his illuminated wand pointed down so as to not alert the sleeping portraits as they sneakily make their way past the Great Hall and to the courtyard.

It suddenly occurs to Ron that he has no idea whether this is really Neville, his dorm-mate who's dragging him out of the safety of the castle and to Merlin knows where. Discreetly, as he's being herded across the courtyard, Ron slips his wand from his holster and nimbly clenches his fingers around his weapon. Cold air whips across his face with a brutality that can only come from a November chill, and Ron breathes in the icy air.

He can kick him behind the knees, immobilize him and then levitate him back, tie him up somewhere and then wake Hermione to see what the hell they should do to Neville's imposter.

"Neville, are you sure this is absolutely—"

Neville lets go of his wrist, whirls, and then looks Ron right in the eyes, his pupils dilated and his face pales under the dimmed light.

"Ron," he says, softly and yet in a tone of voice that indicates urgency, " I need to show you something. I cannot hide it anymore."

He sees the wand clenched in Ron's hand, shakes his head, and then turns away to walk again, leaving Ron stumbling to catch up as they pass the viaduct bridge in the dead of night, their shoes deafeningly loud against the frozen wooden boards. Ron wants to do it, he wants to curse Neville, drag his freezing ass back to the castle, and then start questioning him, but there was something in his eyes.

Something peculiar. Neville was fully aware, wide awake. And he knew something that Ron had an irrational yearn to know as well. He's stupid like that. This is what probably kills him one day.

"What were you hiding?" he asks because the silence between them is terse, thick, and unyielding.

Neville ducks his head, "You have to see it, Ron."

Ron's chest feels tight, as Neville, instead of taking the muddy trail that leads to Hogsmeade, takes a sharp turn to the left, right in the woods, and into the forbidden forest.

Ron doesn't like this one bit. Curiosity is going to kill him. It will. Someday. He's not sure whether tonight is the one. He's not sure if Neville will be the guy.

"Neville," Ron illuminates his own wand.

"It's not far," Neville's hand grabs him again, as they navigate for all but two minutes before halting to a stop.

They're in the middle of the woods, and in the pitch black darkness, there are only the small halos of their wands lightening the path. Ron can hear crickets going insane in the distance, and Neville shuffling on his feet again.

It's dangerous being here, god knows what would happen if any centaurs crossed their paths late at night.

Neville hugs him, though Ron isn't quite sure why he hesitantly returns the hug with a pat on Neville's shoulder. This could be a dream, he thinks, because it sure feels like it.

Neville steps away, his blond hair flickering green under the blue hue of his wand.

"There," he points, and walks to a large bush that Ron can faintly distinguish as pixie berry shrubs. Neville grabs on the bush and pulls it aside, revealing a tunnel opening

"Is that…" Ron can't finish his sentence. He rubs his exhausted, aching eyes and squints closer as Neville properly moves the shrub away.

"I found it last week," Neville gestures at the stone tunnel opening. It's not quite tall enough to fit them at their full height, but Ron supposes they can get in if he crouches, "I was looking for the deadly shade blooms. The tunnel leads to the edge of the woods. It's barricaded on the other side though."

He has never seen this place before. He even doubts its existence on the map. He opens his mouth to ask Neville what the hell they are doing here but the other boy beats him to it.

Neville, then slightly bends his head and walks right into the hole, and Ron, again against his better judgement ducks in right after him in the damp smelling, cobwebbed tunnel.

The walls are thankfully much wider and taller in height than the cramped opening, and Ron straightens himself again.

Neville, once taking exactly three steps, stops, and turns to stare at Ron. Then he carefully raises his wand, prompting Ron to follow suit, but Neville doesn't point his wand at him.

The wand is pointed over Ron's shoulder, at the wall.

"Look," Neville says, and to Ron's absolute amazement, a single tear rolls down his cheek. Ron turns and stares.

Familiar words stare back at him.

Ron, his hand shaking, traces the words, illuminates the wall with the tip of his own wand. The smell of rust and decay filters through his lungs, he breathes in what he so sorely needs to exhale.

"That's his handwriting," he must have said, because he can feel his lips moving and his breath catching. His fingers trace the etched dips in the stone tiles.

"It is," Neville steps behind him, "I didn't want to bother you guys with it, but...I remembered all those days where you and Hermione would walk around the castle looking for him. I figured this was...the place he was hiding," his voice is muffled, as if reaching Ron from under water, or a whole other dimension away. All exhaustion flees Ron's body, and all is left is a shrill whistling in his ears.

"Hiding?" He mutters.

"Well, he seems to have spent a lot of time here," Neville looks slightly uncomfortable now.

It's true. The walls, they're littered with words, odd sentences, fragments, thoughts, things that Harry never said to him.

Ron can't wrap his head around it. He can't. It feels as if he didn't know his best friend at all. He used to pride himself on how well he knew Harry. They spent every waking moment together, and yet...if that were true then this place wouldn't exist.

"Hiding from us," he says, breathes the words really, and tries so hard not to crumble under the crushing weight of the truth.

Harry didn't want them to know about this place. He didn't want them to know the words, so painstakingly spelled to etch themselves on the stone tiles.

Neville's hand squeezes his shoulder, "I don't think that's it, Ron."

It feels anything but comforting. Ron feels as if he's going to choke.

"How could I have not known this," his eyes narrow at the words, he leans against the hand he's propped on the wall.

'Escaping within,' says the tile next to his left pinkie.

'I think I like pudding more than cake.'

'Ron loves chess more than himself.'

'Snape is a bastard.'

'Who thought Draco Malfoy had a soul?'

The handwriting varies. Neat and meticulous in some places, while haphazard and almost illegible at others.

Ron moves along the wall with the words, feeling bile bubbling up his throat with every passing second, 'I think Umbridge wants to kill me. I won't stop her.'

'Freak. Freak. Freak.'

Freak. That's a word that's been repeated countless times, long strings of it interwoven across and through other phrases. Old and new. Ron's eyes burn.

"How could I…"

Neville catches him before he can fall, "Ron, you're being too hard on yourself."

He bodily turns Ron away from the words, reaches into his pockets, and withdraws his clenched hand. He hands Ron the mint leaves.

"Chew," he says, and Ron numbly obliges, "it'll help with the nausea."

Ron turns to the wall again, the mint burns cold against his tongue and throat, "He had a hiding place," he can't understand how that could be possible. They spent all their time together, when they weren't looking for Harry then they were with him. There is not a single shred of knowledge about Ron that Harry doesn't know.

But it seems as if there is plenty about Harry that Ron and Hermione have no idea about.

"Look at all these. He went to the trouble to etch his words into stone. They are years old."

'Even here people don't talk to snakes.'

'I think I like Remus but also hate him.'

Neville shrugs behind him, he sounds uncomfortable in his own skin, as if he wished he were elsewhere, "He's a private person. But he loves you guys." As if those words could measure up to anything resembling comfort.

Ron feels worthless, self-absorbed, selfish. He feels small.

'I don't want to go back, please.'

"Ron?"

Ron touches his face, feels the dampness, and then roughly rubs his sleeve over his eyes. Neville gives him his space, lets him breathe, squeezes his shoulder again.

"Neville, I need to tell you something that no one else knows, okay?" He turns to the timid boy and sees the expression on his face morph from one of distress into determination.

"What is it?" Neville asks, his eyes narrowed.

"They lost Harry again," Ron chokes, and the dampness is back again, he stumbles forward and hugs Neville. Words spill from his mouth on their own accord, "They had him, he was safe but… But he's gone. He's gone again and I don't know, I was so close...If I'd only told him somehow, that he's not alone and I...how could he be so lonely? We were with him all the time."

His chest is so tight, it might just burst. He's in a cage. A cage of Harry's making. It reeks of suffering, loneliness, and desperation.

How could he have felt so lonely? Didn't he know how much Ron and Hermione loved him? How could he not know that without him, Ron and Hermione would make no sense?

"I'm sorry, they what? Lost him?"

"He was-". Ron closes his eyes and breathes, "He was in this safe house, but then suddenly he's just gone, I don't know where or how or why-"

Neville opens his mouth, closes it again for a moment, "How long ago was this? They're looking for him, right?"

"I don't know," Ron sighs, "They won't tell us anything. And look at this...I never got to tell him the things I needed to. Otherwise this place wouldn't exist."

"This isn't…" Neville shakes his head, "He didn't hide this from you because he didn't trust you guys." he sounds so sure of himself.

"Are you blind? Look at these!"

Neville remains apathetic to his snappish tone, "He needed his privacy. All it seems to me, is that Harry found the most extreme way to make a journal."

Ron laughs, a bitter, twisted, humorless gasp really, "Literally hacking words into stone?"

"He's your best friend, not mine. And granted, it is a bit weird, but…" Neville's gaze wanders over to some of the older etchings, "I've read the majority of these tiles, Ron. He was just venting out."

Ron stays quiet for a moment. Venting out to stone and silence? Hadn't Ron and Hermione been there for him? "You know how sometimes the world makes you reevaluate your worth? I think this is one of those moments."

"Ron," Neville murmurs firmly, "You are a good friend."

"But I should be better. Look at it, he sounds so alone."

Neville groans, he looks so disappointed in Ron, the way a parent would be at an unruly child, "Take it from a loner, Ron, he didn't feel lonely. Just overwhelmed. I get it, I get him," his eyes flicker over his shoulder, "I thought it'd be nice, even though it didn't seem that way, if you and Hermione could have something from him. That's why I showed you, I didn't want you to feel guilty."

A relic. An offering, that's what he wanted Ron and Hermione to have. Harry's words, in his absence. It doesn't make Ron any less heartbroken, but Neville wasn't far off. It does lessen the ache of missing him a bit. Just having that something. Even if it's his loneliness.

'I'm waiting for them to leave.'

"He thought we would leave him," Ron scrubs his eyes again.

Neville nods, with a smile, like a sociopath, "He's like a Mimosa Pudica, I suppose."

"A what?"

Neville flushes, writhing his hands, "We learned about them a few months ago, remember? Mimosa Pudica, touch-me-not plants," he shrugs again," Without them, pain relievers wouldn't have any alleviating effects, but when you try to touch the leaves, they shrivel and hide within themselves. It's instinct, Ron. Not on purpose."

Neville looks at him expectedly, and Ron ducks his gaze in favor of the walls again.

"So you're saying I should have left him alone?"

Neville clicks his tongue, "I'm saying that this isn't a demonstration of you being a crappy friend. It's just Harry talking to himself, reflecting maybe?"

'I don't live with my mistakes, they live within.'

"Don't you dare laugh," Draco grumbles as they settle on the plastic chairs. The train station is not even half as big as King's Cross, but still probably the biggest building they've been in since their escape from Draco's home.

It's bustling with people, which is actually quite ideal because nobody bothers noticing them groaning in relief as they sink down on the chairs in the waiting area.

"I just don't get how you've never seen a train station to its full extent. You take a train to school every year!" Harry's body brushes to his side as he carefully opens up the packet of crisps he's found whilst getting them the tickets. He looks adequately refreshed, and more lucid than Draco has seen him since this past week.

It's exhilarating.

"I never needed to," Draco grumbles as he stuffs his hand to grab a fistful of crisps. He's starving. They haven't had time to eat anything all day, "my parents literally apparated me in the designated spot, we passed the platform, and that was it."

In fact, platform nine and three quarters is the only portion of a muggle public place that he's had the chance to glance at once a year. Before all this.

Harry hums with a raised eyebrow. He looks so much more uplifted and agreeable since their hasty cleanup in the bathroom, "Typical rich boy stuff," he teases.

Draco groans in his hands, "You're never letting me live this down, are you?"

He didn't know what a ticket booth was. Big deal. And he didn't know how a train schedule board functioned, and how the muggles even knew where to go and how to go the places they're supposed to go according to the muffled voice in the ceiling.

Harry, happens to think it's hilarious.

"Draco," Harry turns to him with his mouth full, "I had to teach you how to crack eggs. Trust me, you're living it down alright."

"And you're talking with your mouth full," Draco holds his nose high, munching on the crisps as Harry laughs, mouth still full and all. He's so adorable, Draco might just die.

His laugh isn't pretty. It's heartfelt. Real. Snorts and all.

"Oh you are going to have a field day with Ron," Harry snorts again, none the wiser to Draco floundering over him as discreetly as he can in his mind.

Draco crosses his arms, ignores the faint pulling in his shoulder, "Oh so he taught you that."

Harry takes another mouthful out of the packet, "If you eat around Ron Weasley, you either eat right away or the food isn't yours anymore. It's a rule. Even Hermione does it."

Draco reaches for Harry's hand, the tips speckled with grains of salt, "The cycle of shame."

They watch people around them, moving in a swarm. A man sits two rows in front of them, and a young lady seems to be napping a few rows behind them, so Draco knows that they needn't worry about falling asleep on the chairs. Their train Isn't due for at least another three hours, and they can rest on the train itself a bit.

But maybe he should let Harry nap now that he's not feeling that tired. Therefore his sleep won't be deep enough for anything to occur. But then again it might. Something might happen, here in public, with all these muggles to see.

Draco honestly doesn't know what to do anymore. Everything is just a dimmed afterthought with a strong dose of headache.

"...and that's why you should never trust what Seamus hands you to eat."

Draco's brain sluggishly tries catching up with the conversation, "Well I bet that moron would never look this cute talking with his mouth full."

Harry pauses, "Did you just call me cute?"

Draco refuses to acknowledge the blush that creeps up his face, he didn't mean to say that out loud. Fuck.

"Well you're not exactly a diamond cut prince charming with your hands all grimy with crisp residue and your mouth still full," he says, trying to maintain his dignity, "I chose the next best thing."

Harry is undeterred, "You called me cute," he grins.

"What are you, a chipmunk?" He wrinkles his nose, "Honestly look how many crisps you've stuffed in your cheeks, and you're still talking."

"I'll be damned," Harry continues after swallowing a little, "Draco Malfoy finally gave me a term of endearment."

Harry looks so happy right now. the way he was in the cottage, lazily spending his days teaching Draco how to cook. Sleeping in the bed. Daydreaming on the couch.

Maybe Draco should call him cute more often.

Among other things. Stunning, beautiful, great, breathtaking, his soulmate, his darling, his love-

"I didn't know you liked nicknames," he says, putting a stop to that train of thought. No need to scare Harry away yet.

"Well, no one ever gave me a nickname," Harry cocks his head to the side, "Actually you did, Potter stinks. Scarhead, potty, pot head, Harhar, orphaned potty. You even called me crackhead at one point, and I know you were referring to the scar, but that's actually a common name given to addicts who take crack..."

"What's crack?"

"You don't want to know. Anyways, the whole point is that you do love giving out nicknames."

Draco grimaces, will he ever be able to leave the past behind? There's just so much wrong he did, regarding Harry. Shame pools in his guts like sewage, "Listen, I'm sorry about-"

What would meaningless apologies do in the face of years of cruelty and bullying? Nothing.

"Oh don't be," Harry chuckles, which is somehow exactly how Draco had not expected him to react, but then again maybe he should have. It's Harry.

"Those names sucked," Harry says with a chuckle, "Like, you could have put a bit more effort into them. Scarhead? Come on, I'm offended."

Draco raises an eyebrow, relieved that Harry doesn't seem to be holding that against him, but also indignant on Harry's behalf.

So he thinks in the face of such kindness, he better show some love, "That's rich coming from you, Larry?" He jeers.

Harry sticks up his nose in a very passable imitation of… well, him, and says in as haughty a tone as possible, "Larry is a very respectable name for a seagull, I'll have you know." He narrows his eyes, "Don't change the subject, you think I'm cute."

"I do," he concedes, and then because Draco has some pride, he continues, "I also think you're overbearing, messy and chatty."

"And yet…" Harry spreads his arms, flinging crisp crumbs everywhere, "You chose me."

"I don't think it was ever a choice, to be honest," Draco says. Harry's face gets a little more serious.

"Of course it was. You chose to help me in that bathroom, and you chose to save me time after time-"

"It wasn't a choice. I had to do it, Harry," Draco cuts in. He had to. There had always been something about Harry which had drawn Draco to him. Be it antagonistically or helpfully. And after the summer he'd had, he couldn't have borne to be antagonistic.

"But why?"

"Because it was you. I guess, it always was. One way or another, I always found my life entangled with yours. I liked it that way, I still do. I love it now, that my role isn't just the overbearing bully anymore," he smiles. Better late than never, he supposes.

Harry looks at him for a moment, "Never thought I'd hear Draco Malfoy say those words," he sounds baffled.

"Well, I never thought I'd live to see the day I can kiss you. I actually didn't expect to make it, after that night," Draco shifts closer to Harry.

"I saw you," Harry says, all traces of amusement gone now. He moves closer to Draco too.

"I know you did," Draco says.

"No," Harry shakes his head, taking hold of Draco's hands in his dusty, crumbly, cold ones, "I saw you. The real you that night," he smiles, a proud smile, "You had the look of a survivor."

Draco snorts bitterly, Harry and his words. "I did nothing while they murdered my mother. That's not brave."

Harry could be so gullible at times. How could he in the name of merlin, don him as anything resembling a magnanimous entity?

Because Draco hates himself, instead of containing that self-loathing, he opens his mouth.

"I could hear them, you know. Just marching in with new playthings. I could hear them scream before they were taken down to the dungeons. I did nothing. I didn't even think anything of it," he doesn't know why he's telling Harry this. What if Harry hates him for it? Harry would never have sit idly by and let people torture others in his own home. Draco did. He did it so easily.

He even sat in a corner while Harry was being tortured. For three days. He is a monster.

"You couldn't have done anything," Harry says instead of any derision, without pause, without thought.

But maybe he should have done something either way. Maybe he should have saved one Muggle. Maybe if he had, the universe would have been kinder to him.

Draco looks away, "I never can. It makes me sick. This helplessness." He's talking about being on the run, of course. In this cosmic irony. Being trapped amongst the very people he let ruthlessly be killed. It's the run, but also the curse. It's eating him alive, the fact that Harry still doesn't know about it. The fact that Draco doesn't know much either. And the fact that it keeps getting worse.

And Draco feels sick, always sick. Physically, mentally, emotionally. As if he's the one who'd been cursed, but he wasn't. He should have been.

Harry speaks after a moment of silent staring, "You know… I don't blame myself for Cedric's death because he came with me that night."

Draco blinks, "Then what?"

"I just blamed myself for not trying to save him. But...but then I realized that I was wrong, because you are wrong too," Harry says simply.

"Harry…" Draco says, a sigh creeping out his mouth, Harry and his savior complex.

It's a parasite of his, to think that he has to take every living thing under his wings and perish for it. He can't save everyone, he shouldn't have to. That's how the world works. It's unfair. It takes.

Cedric had been an adult participating voluntarily in a dangerous tournament. But he's said this countless times to Harry, and Draco knows Harry knows this objectively too.

Draco had also said the exact opposite once upon a time. He remembers every word, and he hates himself more and more every time he remembers it.

'Poor piss Potter with his sob story of a life.'

Such words, in regards to Harry. Why was he such an obnoxious ass? Why did he say such things to Harry, who happened to be bleeding in an abandoned bathroom? How can he look into Harry's eyes and think such cruel things?

Hiding behind Diggory.

The impact of those words, the impact they must have had, really appalls Draco. Maybe he is a sadistic twerp. How could Harry forget about all the hurtful things Draco's done to him? Draco would have hated himself for eternity. Some words never deserve atonement.

'Because you did, didn't you? You killed the Diggory boy because he fell for your act the same way everyone did. Then you hid behind his ass like a squealing pig, and waited for him to take the brunt of it.'

God.

"Harry, you need to-"

"Cedric didn't die because of me," Harry cuts him off. He looks so free. Admitting those words. And he knows. It's always so evident in his eyes, that knowing, but nonjudgmental look.

"You couldn't save them," Harry leans forward, "And you couldn't save your mom, and that's not your fault."

Maybe it wasn't, maybe it was. But that was all in the past. And what they have, right now in the present, is of utmost value to Draco. It's enormous and spilling over the imaginary container. If anything happens to Harry, to this, it would be his fault.

"I have to save you," he has to, and not just to avoid guilt. But because it's Harry. He has to.

Harry rolls his eyes, "I don't need saving, Draco," he squeezes his hands, and they feel just a tad warmer, "I just need you."