CHAPTER SIXTEEN
[The Wisp Sings]
DRACO
"Tea or coffee?"
Draco looked up from his book. Harry was standing in the library doorway with a plate of food looking slightly out of place. Draco cursed under his breath. Did none of the locks work in this place? Harry's presence was the last thing he needed right now.
"Neither, now leave. Didn't anyone ever teach you to knock?"
Harry bites his lip with uncertainty. "I just thought you'd want someone-"
"I'm fine, Potter." He spits. "I'm not some foolish Gryffindor that needs to run crying over every mishap."
Lies.
"Mishap? Malfoy are dense? Your father-"
"Is nothing I can't handle. I'm fine. Get out."
Harry takes another step forward, not hearing the sharp edge in his voice. Draco bit back his tongue and clenched his hand on his thigh hard enough to leave bruises from under the desk. Draco was already teetering on the edge of a mental breakdown when he came in. If he didn't leave soon he would either start crying or screaming. Or both. It wasn't an order, it was a warning.
Harry sets the plate down next to him and stares at him expectantly. Draco takes one glance before turning back to his book. He could hardly pay attention to what it was saying.
"You need to eat."
"Did you not hear what I said?" Draco seethes. "This is my goddamn house. Leave me alone. I don't need you telling me what to do."
"You need to talk to someone. You can't just sit here and deteriorate from existence."
Without warning, Draco's fist slams onto the table with a bang, startling the brunet.
"I said I'm fine!"
Harry backs up hesitantly, suddenly nervous and scared. Out of the corner of his eyes he sees the boy subconsciously pat his back pocket for his wand. It only caused the back of Draco's eyes to burn hotter.
Draco wanted to yell; throw a fit. How did everything he did make him so selfish? His father just wanted him close and to follow in his footsteps. It was his fault he couldn't be a good son. And how did he repay him? Nearly killing him. Spitting at his feet and rejecting him. His mother and Bramble too. Now it was Harry, who just wanted to make sure he didn't starve to death despite hating him, only to remind him of his horrid uncle.
Draco seemed to be causing more harm than good.
The world turned into a blur, and so did all the sounds. The taste. The smell. The small, false sense of ground underneath him slipped. He paused trying to hold back the strange feelings rumbling inside him but he couldn't. A tear started to trace down his cheek despite his best efforts, and just like that, the floodgates opened. So many tears burst forth like water from a dam, spilling down his face. Draco's chin trembled as if he was a small child.
What was he even doing? He was breaking down in front of Harry Potter of all people. He felt pathetic. He couldn't even do one of the simplest things asked of him. Even crying he was still disappointing his father.
Book forgotten, he pushed his face in his hands to hide his increasingly blotching face. He just wanted to crawl in a hole and die from embarrassment and shame. He also just wanted to scream until his throat went raw. He hated himself so much. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be alive. He should be someplace suffering for everything he's done. He deserved so much more pain; he should be welcoming everything happening to him. Yet some greedy part of him just wished for it all to go away and become the same ignorant twelve-year old he once was. If only he could just smother it to death.
He didn't even notice Potter leave the room and come back with a blanket. Harry wrapped the warmth around his shoulders and shoved a steaming mug into his hands. He only looks up when Harry is sitting right next to him on a stool that wasn't there moments earlier.
"I don't know much about your home life Malfoy but I know he's wrong. Truce or not. People like that...I don't think they have much humanity left in them to realize what they're doing. They're blinded by hate."
He wanted Harry to leave. The other's words were only making the stones in my stomach heavier. There have been too many touchy-feely moments between the two of them the past few days. One more and he'll be ready to jump off a cliff.
Draco pushed the mug away and looked at the wall. How did so much change so fast?
"Draco."
"My fa-" he chokes, "My father isn't bad. You have no idea what you're talking about. Shut up."
Draco doesn't have to turn around to know Harry's face was one of confusion. Draco could hardly blame him. He was too- did he really believe that? He should. He wanted to.
"But you said-"
"Yea well, I was wrong. I wasn't thinking straight."
Harry mumbles something underneath his breath. "But...he put you under the cruciatus curse? He's a deatheater. What are you even talking about? Of course he's bad."
Draco flinches slightly and pulls the blanket tighter around his shoulders. He could practically feel the dark ink on his forearm moving with a mind of its own. Merlin, he was disgusting. Tainted. Harry had no idea. And if he did, he probably wouldn't be sitting where he was right now.
"Not everything is black and white," he hisses pathetically. "You can't just look at one side of the mirror and decide which side is right. Stop talking like you know me. You don't. Now just-" he wiped his face lazily and waved at the door, "leave me the bloody hell alone."
Harry looked down at his feet and hands, not leaving but contemplating something. Draco's fingers twitched in annoyance and humiliation.
The mug was pushed back toward him. "Drink it. Your body can't cry and drink at the same time."
Draco looked up at it with wide eyes. His throat nearly closed up. Instead of pushing it away like every reasonable part of him wanted, he grabbed hold of it desperately with shaky hands still refusing to meet Harry's eyes.
Bramble had taught him that. Now she was dead because of him.
"You know, you'd think after five years of glaring everytime I hear your name, this would be different." He places this head on the desk and tilts it so Draco has a clear view of his face. His glasses were on the edge of slipping off the smooth slope of his nose and a strand of loose hair was blocking his eyes. "This entire situation I mean. Maybe I'm just imagining things but I know less than a week ago I don't think I would have had the same reaction I did to the other night. You scared me. That's not the reaction I thought I would have, so maybe you're right. But you're also wrong."
"You're...insane," He sniffs.
Harry shrugs awkwardly and looks up at him with a sheepish smile. Draco wondered how he was talking so casually. "Not the first time I've been told that. I'm serious though. You're wrong. I don't know you. I thought I did, but I don't think that was ever you."
"Sorry to burst your bubble Potter, but this is me. A cold, manipulative git. Nothing more and nothing less." The words come out harsher than he thought. Cold and impersonal.
"So you're in the black and white and your father isn't? You have to be on something, Malfoy." He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath with a slightly pained expression. "We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are. And I think you can change."
Draco fell silent for awhile. What Potter was saying made sense but that didn't mean his mind would accept it. Potter was just making things up out of his arse. He wouldn't be saying that if he saw the mark on his arm or the evil psychopath taking residency in his home.
"What makes you so sure, huh?"
Harry shrugs and pushes himself back up into a sitting position. "I don't know- it's just a nagging feeling I have I guess. You're not like your father is what I'm trying to get out."
Draco's head whips around fast. There's a mix of pain and anger in his fiery, narrowed eyes. "Yeah I noticed asshole. You don't have to remind me."
He stands up as fast as he can, chair falling behind him, and makes for the door. He slams it shut with as much force as he can manage before practically running down the steps. It was pathetic and he knew that, but didn't stop the urgency to get as far away from Potter as humanly possible.
"Fine, run away from your problems then Draco! You're going to end up accidentally killing yourself one day and Pansy and I are going to be the ones stuck picking up the pieces." Blasie's fourth year voice rings inside his head. Why it came back then he had no idea, only it made Draco feel sick to his stomach and hold a hand over his mouth. Thoughts were accelerating inside his head. Draco wanted them to slow so he could breathe but they wouldn't.
He grabbed the nearest coat off the rack and went out the backdoor where the garden was. He would leave the property if there wasn't the risk of death eaters finding him again. His best hopes were to hide and hopes that Harry wouldn't be coming after him. Salazar's name, he felt like a four year old.
There was a gate of rough wood as big as a cow and ivy cascaded over the fence, growing tendrils in every direction. The stone path was punctuated with weeds after every stone. The dishevelled, un-manicured lawn was more moss than grass and was overshadowed by huge weeping willow flowing down onto the dank and squishy ground. Clusters of defiant daffodils reared their golden heads amidst the gloom and there were smatters of fuchsia alongside the scarlet and saffron hued primroses.
Near the very base of the tree there was a clear patch of grass where he sat down, not caring the slightest if his trousers were to get dirty. He digs his fingers into it and pulled up random clumps to keep the storm behind his eyes at bay.
He just wanted everything to stop. It seemed as if every thought inside his brain had turn against each other is war. Not a single one agreed with each other. To achieve one thing conflicted with the other. He wanted to be the perfect son, yet he also wanted to burn in whatever afterlife was waiting for him.
The thought was unmovable. He deserved to die. He was too much of a coward to really ever do anything though. After everything he's done there was no denying it. He was cruel and unforgiving. He'd made countless people feel the way he was now. He was under the command of a monster who killed thousands for his own psychopathic needs. And he hadn't even tried to fight back when it happened. Bramble's blood was even on his hands now. The bars were low for him so why couldn't he bring himself to do better?
Blaise's words came back to him. Would that be true? Pansy and Blasie were the only other people who had seen him fuck up and explode like he just had. They were the only people he could ever consider friends, even if he knew they might just being using him to gain superiority in whatever pureblood rank nonsense that had been fed into all of them. Would they even care? Would they agree with him?
He pushed the palms of his shaky hands into his eyes and looked up at the fading sky. Either one of them might be next to be pushed into the dark lords crutches and it would be his fault.
For a sliver of a moment he had thought Harry might have understood what was going on inside his head. He had no idea.
Draco doesn't know how long he sits there in the cold being miserable and angry. It turns dark enough for him to look up and see tiny specks of light above him. It's cold enough for him to wrap his arms around himself and wish he had looked a bit harder before mistaking grabbing Potter's jacket instead.
The crunch of dead grass coming near him is what catches his attention. It was Potter and he had to consciously keep himself from clenching his hands. Did this man listen to anything he was told?
The footsteps came closer and stopped within a couple feet in front of him. He refused to acknowledge his own existence and instead took to glaring at the Gryffindor's shoes as if they themselves had wronged him.
"I'm sorry."
Draco doesn't respond. He hoped it would send a message that he wasn't in the mood. Even if he wanted to speak, he couldn't. The clump in his throat was far too large.
Harry scratches the back of his neck and continues on. "I- I didn't understand and...I apologize. You're right, I don't know you. This entire thing could be an illusion I've made up inside my head just because of the truce. You could be faking and I could be walking right into a trap really. The thing is...I don't believe that could be possible.
"My gut instinct never have been the best but it's telling me right now that you aren't a bad person. Rationally, that's stupid because of everything that's happened between us and yet- Ron probably kill me for saying this- I don't think you meant it. It tells me that maybe now both of us think this stupid rilvery may be doing more harm than good and uh-" Harry stuffs his thumbs into trouser pockets and awkwardly looks up at the sky. "What I'm trying to say is that I don't know you but after all of this, maybe I wish I did. Okay? Don't laugh at me."
Draco is silent. He didn't even know how to respond. Did he make his emotions that obvious?
He knew he didn't deserve Harry's forgiveness. He had done so much to warrant his hatred, so what did he do to warrant his apology?
Draco took a deep breath with his eyes closed and tried to remember Brambles words. This could be his chance to switch everything around. He wasn't dense. He could see an opportunity when he was one. The only question was though, was he too much of a coward to take it?
Draco struck out a hand.
It was only seconds later after the brunet took it did he notice the burning comet soaring over both of their heads.
