Harry Potter sat in the window of the tallest tower of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The wind was playing with his long curls as his feet dangled off the edge of the window. It was only up here that he could finally be himself. It was only in that tower, staring out the window at the vast landscape in front of him that he could really be honest with himself about everything that was happening. Without his friends around and all his classmates and without the pressing things going on in his life could Harry Potter really think about the things he wanted; wanted or didn't want. Like how he wanted to find real love like Ron and Hermione or all the rest of his friends who were now in serious relationships. It was the beginning of his seventh year and he hadn't so much as a flicker of want towards anyone after his short and uneventful fling with Cho Chang. Or how much he didn't want to be famous or have to be destined to kill a certain dark wizard. To be famous only made getting the things he wanted harder on him. All the people who wanted him happened because of the title that came with him.
The wind picked up again and Harry closed his eyes and enjoyed the breeze. Just as he opened his emeralds again he saw an owl fly by and land in a nearby tree, pruning its feathers. He wished he could just sprout wings from his back and fly away as well. He both envied and hated his snowy owl Hedwig for just being able to glide out the window and into the unending sky.
Just as he was about to slide backward on the stone sill of the window and head downstairs for dinner he heard the door creak open and he waited a moment longer. He wasn't expecting anyone to meet him, he never did when he went up to the North Tower to have some quality Harry time, but he would run into someone at some point. Glancing over his shoulder, Harry caught a glimpse of striking blonde and he breathed lightly out of his mouth, leaning his head back against the side of the window. "Malfoy," he greeted quietly.
It was the third time they'd run into each other like this. The first time they just glared at each other and went on their way. The second Harry inquired what Draco did in the tower and he was answered with a similar answer to what he did up there. This third time Harry just nodded at Draco and walked past him, the blonde doing the same. They had both come to respect each other's privacy, each having some need to be alone for some part of the day before everything collapsed on top of them.
B R E A K
A few hours later Draco found himself lying on the sofa in his godfather's living room, sipping on a cold glass of orange juice enjoying the silence of the evening.
"I ran into Potter again," he noted thoughtfully as the door to the rooms opened. He knew it would be none other than his godfather since nobody else was idiot enough to go into his rooms as boldly as Draco did.
Making a noncommittal sound, Severus walked across the room to sit down in his armchair, grabbing a bottle of scotch and glass from the top of the fireplace on the way. The Potions Master had long since known that Harry Potter went up to the North Tower. It was his job to know since the Headmaster charged him with watching after him. It seemed Dumbledore wasn't the only one to notice the Boy-Who-Lived was a bit off lately, not just with his studies even with Hermione Granger as his best friend, but also in everyday life. Skipping meals to be by himself and daydreaming with the saddest of expressions. Even Severus himself had to admit that Potter definitely wasn't his cheerful and carefree, rule-breaking self. He would have to watch Harry Potter in hopes of figuring out what was going through that head of his before something happened that was irreversible.
Draco looked up finally, staring into his lover's dark eyes. Usually when he did this he could feel his body working against him, smoldering and ultimately wanting to be claimed by his touch over and over again, but this time was different. His mind was trembling of things that might happen if someone were to be left alone for that long. "Something bad is going to happen soon, isn't it, Sev?" He hadn't meant to ask, but what would've happened if he hadn't brought it up. Were they just going to ignore the fact that they may be the only two people in the school who truly noticed that Potter…Harry…wasn't just trying to get alone time? Something very serious was going on that they had yet to discover what that something was.
The Potions Professor turned away. What could he say to answer his younger lover? Nothing. There wasn't a thing he could say that would make both of them feel at ease, nothing that they didn't already know at any rate. So, instead, he answered the best way he could. "Yes." Quiet, short; the one word alone made their hearts way heavier. What's going on with you Potter?
B R E A K
Harry was tired. No. He was beyond tired: he was exhausted. To top it off, he felt confined and suffocated. Having already thrown his covers off him and toed his socks off he couldn't help the feeling that it was continuously becoming harder and harder for him to breathe. He lay on his bed, wearing only his green plaid pajama bottoms, with the curtain open and he had long since opened the window to let the cool night breeze in. Glancing at his watch he observed as the seconds ticked by until 2.36 read 2.37am. Sighing in defeat, he dropped his arm over his tired, red-rimmed eyes and tried to take a deep breath. Another sleepless night. The last time this happened he'd been late to Transfigurations and even fallen asleep in Professor Trelawney's class, thankfully having taken a table in the back where her owlish eyes hidden behind glasses that made them seem even bigger couldn't see him. That was yesterday.
Pulling a baggy grey hooded sweatshirt over his head and tugging his sneakers on his feet he carefully and quietly walked from the room and downstairs to the portrait. Harry didn't bother with his father's invisibility cloak anymore. Having had so many sleepless nights in a row made it easy for him to memorize where teachers were at which times. For instance, he knew that by the time he reached the staircase with the one trick step towards the bottom that he'd have enough time to duck into a shadowed crevice just as Professor Flitwick strolled by to head up the stairs and that by the time he made it to the Great Hall that Professor Snape just started into the dungeons to finish off his rounds. The green-eyed teen continued walking down the pathway leading towards the gates until he reached the crooked tree halfway down that twisted around itself before leaning over to cast its overbearing shadow across the dirt path. Veering left he used a much less worn path towards the lake and took a seat on a rock that had a flat surface with a slight dip in the back which made for a perfect backrest.
It was there that Harry Potter usually spent his tireless nights. The first night it happened he was glad to actually have this alone time. It had also been on the same day he'd first skipped a meal to go up to the North Tower. By now he'd lost count of how many times ago that was, but he knew that was months ago. Even though his eyes were rimmed with loss of sleep he found he could no longer will the comfortable unconsciousness to come. The same as his stomach whenever it growled and he tried to put food in his mouth, the taste came more like ashes to his tongue and he couldn't will anymore than that bite before he stopped.
Having never quite figured out what was wrong with himself until several nights ago he'd actually thought about things that had always flitted around in his mind before. It was the day he'd caught Ron and Hermione, his two closest and best of friends, snogging in an alcove on a lazy Saturday afternoon. They'd been embarrassed and retreated quickly enough but it was the pain that Harry himself had never had the joy to experience something like that with anybody. Cho Chang had crossed his mind, but they'd only shared a couple kisses and they'd never really meant anything to him. He'd come to that realization quite harshly and he'd refused to actually look at Chang for weeks before she finally wrote him a note saying that there were no hard feelings. He still had yet to start talking to her again and that was two years ago. No, it wasn't just the lack of a true heartfelt relationship that his soul was craving: it was the lack of having one but knowing he couldn't have it.
The last time Harry Potter had truly slept at night he'd been having another nightmare about the Dark Lord. He saw hundreds of people slaughtered with a swish of a wand and even more tortured until they could no longer scream. There was so much blood that Harry could feel the coppery stickiness on his very skin, crawling into his core and soaking his clothes in a heavy bloodbath. When he'd woken he was in the hospital wing with all his bunkmates surrounding him and Madam Promphrey hurrying over with a vile of yellowish-clear liquid. She poured it down his throat and the burning acid taste of it he felt completely before it settled in his stomach. It hadn't been until hours later that he realized Ron had tried to awaken him for class and when he started screaming he'd called for help. He hadn't truly woken up until well past noon that day.
His heart was weighing heavily on him at that point and each day it seemed like another few pounds was added to the growing load. Harry briefly thought at one point that because of that last dream his subconscious was too afraid to sleep anymore and so he was kept awake no matter the exhaustion he felt, but he was sure that wasn't the right answer either. No, on the day he'd run into Ron and Hermione accidentally he'd found the correct answer. After his friends at run off green eyes had been staring into his reflection of the window when it dawned off him why it was that his life had been forced into disarray. He watched with his mind's eye all the people from that dream and previous visions that had been brutally murdered, tortured for something they couldn't control, his friends who'd found someone to love and waved it in front of him on a dangling hook that was too high for him to grab. Harry Potter's very soul knew what was coming and had shut him down from the inside out. The core of his being could feel Voldemort reaching out for him, an ugly, crusted and scabbed hand clutching at his inner being and tearing away everything Harry felt he could ever live for. The very thing that defined him had lost the will to live.
The teen had cried that night. He'd cried until a headache pulsed angrily behind his eyes. Until the sun peaked over the far mountains and casted its reflection on the lake he sat in front of, glaring into his soaked and red-edged eyes. Harry had never felt so scared in his life. He'd wanted to go to his friends, for them to hug him and tell him that everything would be alright. The teen didn't allow himself to. They'd just gotten together and were happy and carefree with each other, not noticing their third man was out. He wasn't about to intrude on the haven they'd found in each other's arms. So, instead, he would bear this pain himself and go on living in everyone's eyes as the person they expected. He couldn't go into a relationship for it wouldn't be fair to his partner if they were to get close and then he ended up dying in the fight. Confidence had long since left him, when he tried to think of how he could fight the Dark Lord, it was as if all the spells he once knew had left him and he was just waving a little stick around, a little boy pretending in his fantasies that magic truly existed if just for a brief time.
Was it too much to ask for someone to ask how he felt once in a while? Too much for a bit of comfort, to let him know that he could get through this? No, even the teachers knew something that they thought he didn't. Sometimes he would catch them. He'd be sitting with his friends in the Great Hall and he would glance up, catching the sadness and uncertainty in their eyes as the thought that Harry Potter couldn't defeat the Dark Lord reflected in their faces and drooped expressions. It wasn't a look of worry for the boy himself though, but would happen to everyone when the malicious wizard was victorious.
Tears streaked down his face, much like they did every morning as he thought about what he could do to maybe bring himself a little hope. The tears fell because his soul was fully convinced there was no way out of his impending doom. Harry Potter was going to die at Lord Voldemort's hands and he could hear the imaginary ticking of the seconds as his life dwindled by on borrowed time.
B R E A K
"Where were you, mate," Ron asked, knowing full well by now that Harry wouldn't answer him. He shrugged, thinking Harry had another nightmare that left him waking up several hours before, and left to get dressed.
He both envied and hated the redhead for his simple mindedness. The same as he did for everyone else. How nice would it be to be ignorant of the war raging on around him? To not have to be at the center of it all, having to rid the world of the Dark Lord? To just put the duty on someone else's shoulders and let them deal with? Harry knew he could never be that lucky. No one would say it, but they were glad they didn't have to deal with the nightmares or the scar that would signal when Voldemort was nearby; the weight of both the magical and muggle world literally on their shoulders.
Harry made his way down to the Great Hall and watched from the corners as students poured in for breakfast. The thought of the taste of ash in his mouth again made his stomach churn with both sickness and hunger. He opted for hunger and turned on his heel, deciding to wait until he could no longer hold out for food in his system.
B R E A K
Ice blue eyes were concentrated on the lone figure that walked away from the dining hall. He skipped again Draco thought, knowing the green-eyed savior must be on the brink of starvation. Having not seen the teen actually eat anything for days, and he often paid attention to the aloof teen's habits on the instructions of his lover, he knew that his stomach must hate him. What is it that's keeping you so distant, Potter? Deciding he could afford to skip a meal as well he pushed away from the table. It was time to move things along faster. Before leaving the Great Hall he caught the dark eyes of his lover and nodded his head just gently, seeing the return gesture before slipping out of the room. He knew exactly where to go.
B R E A K
"You're early," Harry remarked, voice soft and tired. His feet were dangling out the window once more and his back rested gently against the side edge of the window with his head lying against the stone brick with a heaviness that told Draco that he'd been by the lake all night again. Goosebumps were rising on the flesh of his arms and there was a slight shiver to his shoulders as he watched through his peripheral vision as the Slytherin made his entry.
Stepping into the room, the blonde shrugged off his cloak, at one point he would've surprised himself by his actions, and draped the heavy material across Harry's shoulders. "Why are you doing this to yourself, Potter?"
Green eyes widened just barely and neither said anything for a long time as the teen took the question in. Why would Malfoy care? Nobody else does. No one else even knows Harry goes up there. Turning back to the scenery, Harry shrugged. It wasn't really lying, not in his mind. Unconsciously he tugged the cloak tighter around his shoulders and wished…he didn't know what he wished but he definitely wanted something different to happen. He was tired of the routines, tired of acting like someone he wasn't, plain exhausted of how everything worked around him. "Tired," he repeated, though he didn't realize he said it aloud until the figure behind him stepped closer.
"If you wouldn't spend all your nights down by the lake, you could probably sleep better," Draco insisted. He'd broken the rules, he knew. The unspoken policy between them that kept their privacy just that: private. There was no way the blonde could help his lover keep an eye on Harry and just watch from a distance as the Boy-Who-Lived faded away to just a shell of his former existence. The dark-haired teen didn't seem to mind though. In fact, he seemed almost relieved that someone had actually noticed enough to ask, even if it was someone he used to call 'enemy'.
He blinked out at the vast distance, listening but not hearing Draco's words. He understood what he meant, but the blonde couldn't understand why it was Harry did what he did. Who would understand what he was going through? Certainly not the son of a death eater, whether the teen was supportive or not. The curiosity though, whether it happened to have been concern or not, made Harry realize just what a toll his sleepless nights and daily hunger was costing him. The edges of his vision fuzzed briefly and he let the welcome euphoria of sleep finally claim his body. He slipped backwards, feeling the stone of the window rub against his back before gravity gave way to his heavy form. Harry was out, not caring that he could've been hurt when he hit the hard floor of the North Tower and not realizing that his once most-hated rival had caught him as he drifted into a much needed rest.
Draco smirked to himself as he caught the brunette, knowing he was unconscious before he even fell into his arms. Maybe now we can get some answers straight from the source he thought as he used his foot to nudge open the door. It would be a bit of walk and he was grateful that everyone would still be in the Great Hall having breakfast so he wouldn't have to worry about anyone seeing them. Seeing Draco showing his caring side or witnessing Harry in his state of emotional and physical weakness. He knew the teen's scars weren't skin deep. He'd known just by one glance into his dark green eyes that his pain went much further and he would take a lot of work to bring back even a small glimmer of what he used to be.
B R E A K
Setting his light charge on the bed, covering him with a heavy blanket to chase away the ever constant chill of the dungeons, Draco couldn't help but stare at the tense face. Even in his unconscious slumber the turmoil of his life didn't recede from his face. With nothing else to do and already deciding he'd skip breakfast, the blonde sat down on a nearby chair and waited. Severus would be along soon and together they could figure out what to do. How do you save someone who doesn't want to be saved? That was question that kept flitting back to the Prince of Slytherin. In the brief conversation he'd had with Harry before he slipped from the window that was the one thing he had read from his eyes. How long have you felt like this?
The door cricked open and the Potions Master swept through, locking it behind him. He didn't have any morning classes to attend to and his first priority was finding his adored blonde. He usually was sitting on the couch waiting for him, but this time was different. He was there, but he wasn't on the sofa. Glancing around with his black eyes he noticed the door to his bedroom was left ajar. There he told himself. Stepping into his and Draco's sleeping quarters he immediately took note of the dark-haired teenager sleeping under a feather-filled duvet on their bed. The blonde, after a short scan of the room, was sitting just a couple feet away in a rocking chair.
"He's sleeping," Severus noted.
Draco nodded, cracking his blue eyes open to stare at the man he called lover. "He just fell," he explained. He told him how he was in the North Tower and that, after asking why he behaving uncharacteristically that Harry Potter for just a second received a look that even Draco had never seen before. It was a mixture of both surprise and relief, but from what the Slytherin hadn't yet figured out. "Then his eyes slipped closed and he was out before he was even falling out the window."
They wouldn't wake the troubled young man for his classes. The most important thing for him at the moment was rest and after so many sleepless nights neither were very eager to wake him.
As much as Draco wanted to stay, however, and help his lover with their self-assigned duty towards the sleeping teenager on their bed he didn't argue when it was clear he had to leave for his own classes. That was how things worked with their relationship. With anyone else he could be cocky and rude, sneer all he wanted and act like he shagged all the girls in Hogwarts with his immature personality, but with Severus it was different. Severus was the one who knew the truth. Behind closed doors Draco had all the troubles of any person his age. He thought things through and was naturally a very quiet and mature person whose virginity he'd given to the Potions Master and the Potions Master alone. He and the older man hardly ever argued or discussed pointless topics that hadn't even needed to be brought up. That was the way they preferred it and for a year and a half that was the way things stayed.
As the door closed behind his young other half, Severus wondered just how long it would be before his charge actually woke. He contemplated the odds of the well-known dreams plaguing Harry Potter every night, especially the one dream that he'd had the first of many nights sitting by the lake in sleeping pants and a sweatshirt.
Of course he'd known. He knew all along that Harry Potter was out of bed at night for several months now. He knew exactly when he crept through the Great Hall shortly after he'd passed through it. Just as he knew that he spent most meals in the North Tower sitting in the window thinking about everything and nothing at the same time. He'd been charged with watching the teen carefully before that last dream hit him. The one person who didn't know though was Dumbledore.
The old man was convinced that Harry was starting to take his role in the war more seriously. He told Severus not to interfere should he see the teen act oddly and the professor did as was told. By the dead expression and the emerald eyes that dulled to a mere unimpressive green he knew that Albus was wrong. Harry may have thinking about the war, but he wasn't planning anything strategic that would help him win or coming up with a plan so full proof that the war would be over in a measly few seconds like the headmaster thought with his wishful thinking. No, Harry Potter was thinking about the war from a completely different angle and Severus was truly convinced that with that line of thought constantly swimming around in his head was what brought about the abrupt adjustment in Harry Potter's personality and day-to-day life.
With those views settled into his mentality, Severus predicted it to be less than an hour when the Boy-Who-Lived would wake up, startled and confused and possibly even scared. What would happen then? Even Severus couldn't know until it happened, but he ran through different scenarios in hopes that he chose the right method in order to not scare off the green-eyed savior. He didn't want to think of what would happen if the headmaster were to find out that he went against his orders to watch the boy and to not interfere. When he reported what he'd been seeing to Albus and his own opinions on what was happening his words were pushed aside as normal ways of thinking and he was clearly seeing what he wanted to see and not what was truly happening. He stopped reporting to Dumbledore after that first meeting. The old man was crazy to think that not eating and no sleep were Harry's ways of figuring out how to stop war. He also didn't want to think about what would happen if Potter ran from him should he choose the wrong way of confronting him.
He prepared for a sensitive way of how he planned to approach the boy. Moving to his small kitchenette he made a small meal, knowing that if he made anything too big the boy was liable to make himself sick. After eating so little for so long, his stomach had undoubtedly shrunken and too much food would only come out eventually and in a way that wasn't going to improve the green-eyed teen's nutrition. True to form just as he walked into his bedroom with a tray of fresh bread with melted butter and some light chicken soup the boy shot up.
Glasses askew on his face, he didn't even bother to adjust them. Harry could feel his limbs shaking and his heart was racing frantically in his chest, threatening to burst right through his ribs. The very thing that kept his wakefulness at night had weaved its way into his subconscious again. He could feel the blood on his hands from Voldemort's freshest victims. Feel it in his clothes on his skin and he urgently rubbed his arms red and tore his clothes as if they were constricting his ability to breathe. Tears leaked from his eyes unknowingly as the memories of each terror-stricken face passed by his eyes in a ghostly fashion. A young girl with wide eyes and hair done up in pigtails had been killed from the Death Eaters initial break in, exploding through the door, an older boy that had to have been her brother racing through the hallway at the sound before a curse sent his way had several slashes to his face and arms and legs, dying slowly as his blood oozed from his cuts and soaked the carpet. The parents were brutally slaughtered as well, followed by the rest of the town. Some were more horrible than others and others were quick and unintentional, much like the young girl. He'd long since stopped tearing at his own clothes and sobbed into his hands, rocking back and forth and wishing that it would all go away.
Severus watched the teen's fit from the start all the way until Harry began teetering at the fine line that defined sanity from insanity. How long could a person be an unwilling participant in a Death Eater raid, forced to watch hundreds of people slaughtered brutally for a purpose they had no will over without ever being able to lift a finger to attempt stopping the horror? He knew it was bad, but it had just gone to worse. Casting a quick warming charm on the meal and placing it on a table where it wouldn't fall over should it get hit and knocked down, the Potions Master strolled quickly to the bed and took Harry in his arms.
Sparks were his first warning when his long, potion-stained fingers tried to caress his skin. He knew that if he didn't calm the distraught teen down soon there was going to be a lot more terrible things going on than a few electric shocks though and, ignoring the magical jolts of the beginning of uncontrolled magic, he wrapped his arms around the lad and held him tightly. He was relieved when the boy uncurled from himself and then attached himself to the one person who gave him what he'd needed for months now, crying in his cloaked shoulder and hoping the solid form on his tilted world wouldn't disappear.
Without knowing how long they actually sat there, Harry Potter clinging to him desperately, the tears finally subsided. After such an emotional breakdown one would usually fall asleep, but not the green-eyed teen. He was tensed, half sprawled on the Potion Master's lap with his glasses knocked off and his eyes clenched tightly, breath coming in ragged gasps and heart still fluttering for escape in his chest. There were no words for several moments, but Severus knew he would have to say something. The only way to start Harry's healing process would have to be to say something.
A long pause went by and several scenarios about what the wrong thing or the right thing to say might be, Severus knew he would need a drink. He'd never dealt with something like this before. Sure, he'd seen his fair share of crying students, but none whose very point of stability was on the line. He'd even witnessed one of Draco's breakdowns but the blonde hadn't needed comfort like Harry did right now. It was closer to when they'd just gotten together when it had happened and Severus was too fearful of doing something that would jeopardize their fragile beginnings of a relationship that he'd come to realize that if he just let Draco have some space he'd eventually calm down. It was clearly not the case with this breakdown. For the most part Harry was visibly in more pain than Draco had been and had been closed off from people for so long he definitely had yet to realize who it was that was giving him comfort.
Dark eyes glanced over to the food he'd prepared and decided he'd start with something simple. "You should eat something," he offered, voice soft and quiet. Not wanting to startle the boy he started to move in a soft scoot towards the edge of the bed, but desperate fingers clutched at his robes and hid his face further into his chest. Every so often he could hear sniffles and he was about to try again when Harry cried out as if in pain, holding him tightly. There was a silent plea to his actions and Severus could hear it as clearly as if it were said aloud. Even crossing the room would break the broken mass of a Boy-Who-Lived now. Holding him tightly against his warm body, soothing the tremors from his shoulders and shushing his after-cry hiccupping, he promised with gentle words to his ear that he wouldn't let him go. Instead, he summoned the food to him after stretched as far as he could reach to retrieve his wand from the bedside table next to him. With the unstable magic that had been around Harry just moments earlier he hadn't wanted to try it, but everything was fine after a good cry.
Easing the teen against the pillows was one of the hardest things thus far. Harry clearly didn't want to let him go, but the smell of good food so close to him now made his stomach gurgle with hungry anticipation. Severus decided the best way to go about something like this was to try something Draco once said he enjoyed when he was once sick with a fever and hadn't wanted to go to the hospital wing. He propped himself up against the pillows and slid the teen into the crook of his arm with the tray of food on his lap. With one arm wrapped around his waist and the other holding a spoon of soup to his mouth it was a long few minutes before Harry reluctantly opened his mouth. Chewing slowly and swallowing hesitantly he turned away from the next spoonful when it reached his face. The Potions Master didn't think his patience would last so long and was surprised when his voice continued coming out in a soothing manner. "You have to eat more than that, Pot – Harry."
Shaking his head and trying to get away from the food, Harry once again hid his face and curled around his stomach, trembling once more. There had to be more to it than what was actually there to see. From the sounds of hunger it was obvious to the professor that his student was hungry and that, with food there, he should want to eat it. It couldn't be that it tasted bad. No, he'd made the same for his blonde delight several times before and had heard several times over that it was delicious. There was no difference between those times and this time except for the person eating.
"Is there something else I can get for you," he offered, thinking that Harry maybe didn't like chicken soup. Even eating the bread roll would suffice him for right then, at least until dinner rolled around, but Harry wasn't interested in that either.
Dull eyes met his and he stared into the pained depths of the unstable teen. No wonder Draco felt so soft and protective towards Harry. His blue eyes had been the same once, though these were clearly worse. He waited as the thin mouth opened, but when no words came out he began to seriously doubt if Harry could be saved by that point. Were Draco and him too late to reach out to the boy? Had he truly gone too far for the teen to be able to reach out and grab their hands? "I can't." Quiet, even softer then Severus' words, but the professor heard them in the silence of the room. Urging him to explain in the gentlest of ways, he waited with his patience, knowing that that alone would be what it took to save Harry if the Boy-Who-Lived was still salvageable, but wouldn't he not bother talking then? If they were too late there would be no reason for Harry to try explaining why it was he couldn't eat. As he explained in his scratchy, underused and tear-filled voice what food began tasting like to him, understanding dawned on Severus. No one would want to eat with the taste of burnt charcoals in their mouth and immediately he felt his heart go out to the boy, the same protectiveness that Draco had already acquired only two hours earlier. Nonetheless though, he couldn't let Harry not eat, but he didn't want to force him and make him sick with a taste his senses couldn't stand.
"Please, Harry," he asked, "You have to try, if just a few bites at a time." At the teen's nod, he tried again and watched painful bite after painful bite as he ate, face scrunched up and hard swallows before he shook his head, asking for a minute. It's better than nothing Severus decided and waited for Harry to give the go ahead. If someone, even Draco whom he trusted more than anyone else, were to tell him that one day he'd been spoon feeding the bane of his existence, James Potter's son, when he was seventeen years old he probably would've…he didn't know exactly what he would have done, but it would be pretty bad.
A slim smile made its way to Draco's mouth as he observed the scene from the doorway. He'd grabbed a quick bite in the Great Hall before leaving for the quarters he shared with the Potions Master. As he walked by the Gryffindor tables he couldn't help but hear the mudblood Granger mention something about Harry's whereabouts and he could only smirk at the thought that if she knew where exactly she could find him. When Severus saw him he made his way in and settled on the other side of the lone Gryffindor. Harry didn't seem to mind and as a yawn forced its way through and his eyes drooped closed he shifted and lay so his head was resting on the blonde's shoulder.
I shouldn't sleep Harry told himself though unable to fight the weariness making his body seem that much heavier. He feared the inevitable nightmares that would plague him and he could only wish that his insomnia had kept if just to keep the imaginary blood from soaking his clothes and crusting along his skin. When a soft hand combed through his unruly locks the fight against sleep proved fruitless and he quickly slipped away from the world of waking once more.
Throughout the entire time Draco and Severus remained on the bed. Not from force, but from the want of protecting the vulnerable teen in between them. In the short time they'd spent with him that day they knew that if Harry were to wake up alone right then the small bit of sanity he'd managed to cling onto with them would drift and fall away to the wind, shattering his reality. So they stayed, petting his unruly black locks and whispering softly that everything would be alright in an attempt to keep the nightmares at bay if just for this one time. They were successful and when Harry eventually did wake up several hours later he thanked them with a blush on his face and turned away, knowing he'd had to face his housemates and their questions of where he'd been all day if he wanted to collect the assignments he'd missed. Surprise was first on his face and then wariness when the Potions Master called back to him, slipping him a note with an excused absence into his hand and the promise that if he needed anything at all that he'd be there for him.
B R E A K
It was happening again. The people around the school were surrounding him and he felt his body become rigid and tense. It felt like he could scream out and no one would hear him, but at the same time it was as though all eyes were on him, blaming him for the deaths of so many muggles and half-bloods. Palms were beginning to itch with sweat and his heart was racing and not beating at all. Gasping for breath in the thick, muggy air of summer right around the corner, Harry wondered if he'd be able to make it through another panic attack. He hated these moments the most. Shutting out the world was horrible enough but when he was awake and panicking than everything became so much worse. Voldemort was coming for him and he'd already taken the first step into the front door. Grabbing his chest, Harry turned, forcing his way through students and not caring that they stared curiously at his huddled form as he hurried for the one place he knew someone would see him and not question his odd behavior. When he made it to the potions room though he paused, seeing the office door to Snape's quarters was closed.
Harry didn't want to disturb the normally stoic Potions Master, but his nerves were shot and everything was pressing in on him at once. The man did say anytime he was needed he'd be available, but maybe he wasn't expecting that time to come so soon. What would his professor think if he found out Harry didn't come to him in his time of need though? Would he even care at all, or be upset? Disappointed, most likely the green-eyed teen thought and hating himself for how easy the depressing words came to mind. If he was enthralled in something that looked important than he'd turn away and deal with it on his own; if not than he'd knock.
His heart was racing as he approached the wooden door with its brass handle, a snake engraved into the metal. With sweaty palms itching and shaky fingers he peeked through the slight crack in the entry way. Green eyes widened and Harry swore that his heart skipped a beat. The Potions Master was indeed busy, very busy. Snape was at that moment leaning over his desk, lip-locked in a very passionate kiss that sent chills down his spine. Lying face-up on the desk with a knee in between his parted legs and a hand up his shirt was none other than Draco Malfoy.
They're kissing the teen thought in shock. They're together! That one thought hit Harry harder than he thought it would. He was stupid to think just because Snape had been a little nice to him in his pathetic time of desperate need of affection that anything might've changed. No, even the snarky potion professor had someone special of his own. Everyone in the castle seemed to have a lover or significant other except him: the odd ball, the single one out. Harry Potter would forever be alone and he didn't care that tears welled up in his eyes at the thought or that as he ran from the room if he made any noise, or if someone caught him fleeing the dungeons at high speed. He was alone and he hated himself for forgetting. The encounter he'd witnessed hadn't just affected him in such a way that was painful, but also in a way that made him feel dirty from the slightest tenting in his pants. Not a dirty sense that he thought two men together was wrong, but dirty that he'd gotten it from watching a private moment.
B R E A K
Severus glanced up, thinking he'd heard someone by the door. "Did you hear that too," he questioned, removing himself from his lover. The blonde beneath him nodded, sitting up off the desk, frowning when a couple papers stuck to his sweaty back.
"Could it have been Harry?" His dark-haired partner stopped at the door with one hand on the door knob, giving him a look that clearly said he hoped it hadn't been the Gryffindor. Glancing into the room he did a quick scan with his dark eyes, finding in short time a stack of empty folders that had fallen off the shelf. Draco stood behind him as he bent to pick them up. "Hope it wasn't important, whoever it was," he mentioned, taking the folders from Severus to replace them.
Quiet for several moments as he stared at the open classroom door and watching several people walk by in the hallway, the professor finally looked to Draco and through eyes asked a silent question. The blonde was gone in a matter of seconds, his heart rate picking up as he too feared the same as his beloved Potions Master. He had to find Harry.
The elusive green-eyed teen was no where along the pathway to the North Tower, nor was he in the tower itself. Draco checked every empty classroom he knew of on his run back towards the Great Hall. There was one more place he could think of and he wished desperately that he was there and that Harry wasn't going to hurt himself.
He was there. Glasses sat beside him as he hid his face in his lap. Green eyes would no doubt be rimmed with red, irritated skin and dry tear tracks on his cheeks. He was there with his black, unruly hair and Quiddich defined tan skin, broken. Right then, as he stared at his back, Draco knew that his and Sev's fears proved true. Harry Potter had seen them making out on the desk, had been the one to knock off those empty file folders on his haste to leave, was the one who flew from the room and left the potions room door ajar.
Two steps was all it took to reach the distraught teen, two quick strides before he wrapped his arms around the shaking, trembling form and he whispered to his quivering shoulder in the quietest of voices; "You saw us." It wasn't a question and both teens knew it. Even Draco could see how this was such a sensitive topic for Harry. In his whole six and a half years at Hogwarts he'd only ever had one girl and she'd ended up using him to try getting over the death of Cedric, and everyone else was the same. People only ever wanted him for his fame, the title that would come with him should he ever choose to settle down. The name itself would only become more valuable once he defeated the Dark Lord. Draco cursed mentally, knowing now that him and Severus should've been more careful after they'd decided to defy the headmaster and start interfering. "I'm sorry." Whispered, soft and gentle, but enough to make the teen lift his head to look out across the water.
Shaking his head, green eyes narrowed. "No, I shouldn't have walked in to look. I just…he said that -." Everything was so confusing for him right now. Was it so wrong that he needed to talk and happened to find his Potions professor snogging on his desk? The weight was pressing in deeper as flashes of the brief second he'd seen them and he hated himself for his weakness. Even with his poor excuse of an explanation though, Draco seemed to understand. Wrapping pale hands around his shoulders in a half hug, nuzzling his cheek into his hair, he knew just what Harry wanted without the teen ever having to say anything.
"Let's go back."
B R E A K
Making it back to the room Harry was greeted with a cup of hot chocolate, extra marshmallows added, and an apologetic look from Snape. The couch he sat on was comfortable and he leaned back gratefully, taking in the musky scent of herbs that was his professor and the fruity lotion that was Malfoy. It surprised him to admit, even if only in his mind, that just sitting down in comfortable silence with the two people in all of the castle that wouldn't judge him based on his title as the Boy-Who-Lived and that made all effects of his panic attack slip away. He didn't have to think about Voldemort here. Didn't have to worry about how to defeat the dark wizard, or the death eater followers, or the next stupid thing he did or said would get into the papers because these two people in all the magical world didn't care.
Sipping on his hot cocoa he wondered briefly if he'd barged his way into the two males' lives, whether he meant to or not, and a moment of guilt passed through him. When long fingers played with his bangs he sucked in a breath and stared into the dark eyes of Severus Snape.
"Don't think like that," he said, somehow knowing what it was Harry had been thinking. "We're doing this because we want to. Because no one else could seem to notice." The teen looked over at Draco to see him nodding and he let slip a small smile, feeling his anguish and pain driven away simply by their consoling presence. Green eyes slipped closed and he enjoyed the calmness that was seeping into his limbs that had been tensed for so long, waiting for an attack at a moment's notice.
I'm scared he wanted to say and tears dripped down his tan cheeks, soaking into his shirt leaving wet dots behind on the cloth. Severus pulled him to his chest and held him tightly, swaying him back and forth gently as if to say 'I'm here.' Draco curled up on his other side, laying his head on his shoulder and wrapping an arm around his waist.
The three of them sat there like that for almost an hour before Draco glanced up at the relaxed face of the male sitting in between him and his lover and his heart suddenly pounded. "He's beautiful," he mouthed to Severus, who'd agreed quickly having come to the same realization a few seconds earlier. The blonde couldn't resist himself. He had to know if they stood a chance, but at the same time he'd didn't want to feel as though he were taking advantage of a person in desperate need of companionship. His feelings overrated all rational thought though and he pressed his lips to Harry's dry, cracked ones. The result was quick and wonderfully regretless. There were a few seconds where there was nothing and Draco was about to pull back and then the lips moved against his, kissing him back. Scooting in closer, practically half lying over the teen, he let his pale hands roam but being careful to stay above the barrier of the clothes. If Harry wanted more he was going to be the one to instigate it.
When air became a necessity, Draco pulled back and began to wander down his cheek, suckling and nipping lightly at the soft skin of Harry's neck. Severus was playing with his thick, dark curls, whispering sweet things in his hair that had the teen crying for different sorts of reasons. Not wanting to push too heavily, Draco stopped just as he reached the shirt line of his collar before moving back up to press one short kiss to his lips and then rested his head on the broad chest, listening to the increased heart rate.
"You'll be staying here tonight," Severus muttered, holding on more tightly to the tanned boy. The blonde Slytherin felt the corners of his mouth tug upward.