FIRE
I shouldn't be here.
I left almost six months ago. Rather, Harry did. I don't know if I'm him anymore. I look like him and I sound like him, but I'm sure his parents would be disgusted with me. I'm sure everyone he ever knew would be disgusted with me.
I can't be Harry.
I shouldn't be here.
I'm about to turn back when the door opens and out steps a woman. She's laughing, her green eyes are flashing boldly and she's got waves of strawberry blonde hair. I mean waves. She's got a figure like a model, which makes it very obvious that she's pregnant.
"Oh," she says, giving me an apologetic sort of smile. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you. Are you looking for Dray?" My heart speeds up into my throat. He still lives here. He still lives here and there's a pregnant bombshell coming out of the flat. All I can do is nod.
"Dray!" she calls over her shoulder. "There's someone here for you!"
"Second!" Draco calls back, and the woman smiles at me again.
"It was nice meeting you," she says politely, and leaves, strolling down the hallway with a graceful gait and vanishing into the lift. I gape after her, feeling just slightly ill, when there's something winding through my legs. Jasper is staring up at me reproachfully, rubbing himself against me like he needs to rub his smell into my stink.
"Harry?" Draco sounds incredulous. I can't look up at him.
"Yeah," I say softly. "I just…" He grabs my arm and I flinch as he drags me into the flat, shutting the door behind me.
"Take your shoes off and sit down," he says blandly. I do as he says. He hasn't moved anything in the last six months- then again, we never moved anything before that- and I sink into the seat I used to take. Like we never skipped a beat Jasper twines himself around my neck, licking my hair, and Shorty jumps up into my lap, and Toffee is her usual aloof self, sitting on the back of the sofa with her tail hanging over my shoulder.
I've missed them.
Draco hands me a glass of 7-Up and sits beside me, pulling Toffee into his lap. She flops over like a baby and allows him to pet her, completely silent. I look up at Draco and he meets my eyes, and I see his forehead crease, like it always does when he thinks something is wrong, and I remember why I didn't want him to look at me. If he looks too long, he'll see me.
I can't let that happen.
But I've missed him so much.
I draw a shaky breath and cover it up with a sip of my drink.
"You look like shit," Draco says bluntly, but I can tell by his expression that it's because he's still surprised.
"I know," I say softly. He doesn't say anything else, but his face becomes deeply and utterly sad. I can't look at him anymore, so I look at Jasper, scratching his neck the way he likes it. He begins to purr, a rusty rumble that feels like a massage on my aching neck. Draco is patient, he always has been. He waited six years to tell me how he felt about me, I don't suppose I can expect him to push me for information now. I suspect if I told him I didn't want to talk about it, he'd accept that. He might kick me out, but he wouldn't ask.
"I got scared," I say, feeling like a child.
"I gathered that." I nod. That's a good response.
"It's just… it was one thing to know you cared about me, but when you…" I can't say it because it hurts too much. Gut-wrenchy, heart-twisty pain. He trusted me and I ran away. "Everything was going too right. I've never had that."
"Well," Draco says, "get yourself cleaned up." He stands up and leaves the room, and as I follow him I see him head into his old room, not mine, not the one we shared. It hurts, but I can't blame him. I shower and shave for the first time in what seems like forever. In the mirror, I look exactly like I used to. A bit ragged around the edges and a bit scrawny, but nothing is different. I grasp at my arms, covering them up. There's a knock at the door.
"Your clothes are still in your room," he says. So I get myself dressed and rejoin him, taking a seat on the sofa while he sits at the kitchen table, smoking. I notice his hand is shaking, just barely, as he takes a haul off of his cancer-stick. I always wished he'd quit, but it seemed a bit redundant: we ate smoke for a living after all.
He still did.
"Where have you been?" he asks finally.
"Not anywhere indoors."
"So you've come back because you're cold?" By the end of that sentence he sounds a bit pissed off. Rightly so, I'd think.
"No. I wanted to freeze to death, but I figured it wouldn't be fair for you." Draco blinks, his expression flat-out astonished when he looks at me, like he can't believe I'd ever say that. Some part of me understands that perfectly; Harry would never say that. He lights up another, still peering at me as if wondering if I'm really Harry. I don't blame him, I'm still wondering if I'm really Harry.
"It wouldn't." That's when I notice he's wearing my ring, twisting it with his thumb around his finger, the same way I used to. "Do you know how fucking scared I was?" I do, and I don't, and I have no words to tell him. I just shake my head and he gestures towards me with his cigarette, a stabbing motion. "You just run out on me, leaving me to wonder what the fuck went wrong."
"I'm sorry," I say.
"I know you are. I can…" he shakes his head instead of finishing his sentence. I know what he can. He can see it in my eyes. They might not have me in there anymore, but I know they're filled with remorse and regret and pain. I hate looking at myself in the mirror nowadays: I remember Voldemort, something I never used to do.
"I was just scared," I whisper. I don't expect him to forgive me. I never expect anything from him, but least of all forgiveness. I don't deserve it. I'm surprised when I feel him hugging me, and I've just missed this so much I start crying. I never wanted to leave. I never wanted to hurt him. I never wanted to be frightened. I clutch at him and he just presses me against himself.
"It's okay, Harry," he says against my forehead. "I love you." It sounds apologetic. That just makes it worse. I've been wanting to hear that for the past six months, I never thought I would again. Not as earnestly and honestly as Draco says it. "I just wish you would have told me." He's too sweet.
I don't deserve him.
Draco orders pizzas, forcing me to eat more than I normally used too because he thinks I'm too skinny. I am, but I won't let him know that. I won't let him know a lot, not just yet. Not until I've stopped feeling like a monster. I have to resist the impulse to rub my arms when I realise that could take a very long time.
We sleep apart. I didn't expect anything different.
But it's so hard to sleep.
"Kid," a gruff voice said, and I looked up to see Earl standing there, with Bailey at his side. The wolfhound mix was panting, a goofy grin on his face, and Earl's grizzled grin was enough to make me smile. I didn't smile much then. I worried. I worried about which blokes would be dead or vanished today, whether it would be me there next.
"Hey Earl," I said, and Earl grinned wider. I liked Earl. He didn't pry, but he liked to talk. He'd tell me about how his wife left him after five years of sobriety, and how Bailey wouldn't leave him if he woke up with a hangover. I liked how he smiled, even though he was missing a few teeth, and how he laughed, even though he said he had nothing to be amused about.
"How's it goin', kid?" Earl asked as he helped me to my feet. I ran my hands through my hair, trying to straighten it out.
"Same old," I told him, and he nodded. We started walking, just down the road, through the orange-white pools the streetlights cast. I didn't know where we were going, I just followed Earl. Somehow, he always ended up somewhere good. As good as it could get in the situation we were in. Something crashed and I jumped, but Earl and Bailey kept on like nothing had ever happened.
There was a cacophony of laughter up ahead, and a gang of street punks came into view. Immediately every hair on my body stood on end, and one of the boys pointed towards us. Earl just kept walking, right into the group. One of them checked me with his shoulder and I stumbled, but Earl was there to bump me back into place without seeming to do so.
"Hey old man," one of them sneered. Earl inclined his head, but kept walking. "I'm talking to you!"
One of the kids kneeled down and began to scratch Bailey behind his ears. Bailey, as loving and soft as he was, tried to lick the kid. I didn't like the look on his face, and clearly Earl didn't either. He reached out for Bailey and the kid produced a knife from somewhere, absently reflecting the light with it. Earl froze; I froze; Bailey smiled a dog-smile, oblivious.
"We don't want any trouble," I said softly.
"We don't want any trouble," one of them mocked. "The fuck kind of fag are you?"
"The English kind," Earl replied. "Let the dog go, kids."
"I ain't no kid, retard!"
Things got ugly then. The kid with the knife let it fly and Bailey let out a strangled yelp; Earl echoed him eerily as he lurched forward for his dog.
"Earl!" I shouted, but one of them trapped my arms up behind my back, wrenching my shoulders up. I kicked at him but it didn't seem to make a dent, he was like a fucking tanker. Earl, good God, that poor old man was driven to his knees by fists and feet, but he was still reaching out for his dog. I watched him touch Bailey's paw and Bailey let out a final, rattling breath. Earl was crying.
"You fucking little shits!" Earl screamed. One of them grabbed his hair, pulling his head back, and I screamed, a wordless shriek.
Earl went down, his hand still on Bailey's paw, and they turned with their disgustingly amused grins to me. My stomach tied itself in a knot as the kid flashed his knife.
"Fucking bums," he snarled.
"I'm FDNY you fucking prick," I shrieked, and kicked at him.
"'Course you are," he said. He was too close to me, I could feel the flat of his blade against my throat. In desperation I reached out for something, anything, to help me. Some of that rage and fear I'd felt when I was a kid with my aunt and uncle. He turned his knife and I screamed.
Something happened. There was a concussion of air, a hugely deafening clap, and they were on the ground. I didn't stop to think; with one last anguished glanced at Earl I turned and ran. As far as I could get, as far as I could go.
A lot of bad things happened to me during those months, but the first thing I always remember is Earl.
"Eggs?"
"Thanks." Draco slides the plate towards me. He stays standing, watching me for a moment before he turns back to the counter and fills up the cats' bowls with food, and then sets Shorty's on the ground. Then he sits down, at the opposite end of the table from me, and digs in with fervour. He doesn't look up at me for a long while, not until he's done eating. It's a sad look when he does, one I wish I could avoid.
"I've got to work today," he tells me, and I feel a pang of longing. I want to have to go with him. I miss the crew, and running into fires and smoke and destruction to pull out what was left. I miss saving lives. I miss being connected, laughing and leaping and feeling the rush of adrenaline.
I remember one time, when I was still the newbie and therefore needed to be mocked and prodded around, we went into a fire. No one trusted Draco or I, so we were stuck together. I think they expected us to nail ourselves with our halligans, or maybe someone else. We pulled a six year-old boy out from under a sofa that had caught fire, carried him outside with his grandmother. Somewhere along the lines- probably when I was rooting around under that sofa- my trousers had caught fire. So there I was, carrying this kid, and I didn't even notice I was a walking hazard.
I felt most alive then. They called my crazy. I just got crazier.
God I miss that. I want it back.
Instead I nod, ducking my head so that he can't see it in my eyes. I think wanting something would look rather terrifying to him, especially the way I want things now.
He leaves, in an oversized jumper and jeans, and I'm stuck under the scrutinising gaze of our pets. I know that they can see everything, I don't even try to hide from them. With Jasper and Shorty and Toffee, I finally give in and break down. Jasper purrs rustily, Shorty grumbles, and Toffee smiles. They still love me. They never stopped. I lie on the couch with Shorty on my stomach and Toffee on my chest and Jasper on my head, alternatively stroking one or the other. The television is on, white noise so I don't feel alone.
I tell them everything: everything that hurts, everything that I'm ashamed of, everything that has scared me these past months.
They don't care.
They just listen.
I tell them the second thing I remember, every time I think of these things. I need to rehearse it anyway, because Draco needs to know. Deserves to know. I just wish it wouldn't hurt so much. I tell them how I was out of it: food poisoning, drunkenness, depression, whatever the hell it was, I was out of it. I was so far gone half the time I'm sure I've convinced myself this happened when it really didn't.
"He came out of nowhere," I say, and Toffee puts a paw over my mouth, as if she knows and doesn't need to be told. I can see it in her eyes, her understanding. He hurt you, those keen yellow eyes say. He hurt you like Draco never did.
I wish I had never left.
Jasper's looks reminded me of Draco, but Toffee's attitude is his. She touches and she looks and she knows, all quietly, without blame. I hope that Draco will be so understanding, will silence me before I say something and make it real. He always knew how to make me feel better, alive, even when we were kids and we hated each other. I think I need someone to make me feel alive right now.
I fucked up. I ran away from something good because I freaked out, and I put myself in a horrible place. Just thinking about it makes me sick and I remember something I once read on an internet forum: all aboard the whaaambulance. I never said I was smart. I'm quite well known for doing idiotic things, now aren't I? Almost getting people killed seems to be my speciality, I just happened to do it to myself this time.
I stand up, seized by the urge to move. There's something sickly turning in my stomach and I feel like my brain is trying to squeeze out of my ears. I walk circles around the sitting room, absently plucking at my jumper before I pull it over my head and drop it on the armchair. The cats are watching me like I'm a nervous rat, and Shorty is following on my heels like he's afraid he needs to keep me from running away again.
On impulse I walk down the hallway, rubbing my knuckles against my palm before cracking them. I push open the door to Draco's room with my foot and it swings open smoothly. It's the same as it was before I left, before we started sleeping together: the shelves in the corner lined alternatively with novels and tomes, the computer on the desk on standby.
There's a photograph in a studded black frame on the desk, and I pick it up. My stomach turns over. It's a muggle photo, taken a few days after I was discharged from the hospital that time a cop tried to kill the crew. I've got my arm around Draco's shoulder and the other blokes in the company- Jeremy, Ami, McCullen- they've got their glasses and bottles raised in toast.
We were happy.
And I ruined it.
Whaaambulance.
I put the photo back down and sink into the computer chair. I never had much interest in computers- I just remember how much my cousin lived on his- but Draco was positively giddy when he found out the things he could do on them. On a whim I move the mouse and the screen flicks on. There are a few minimised windows along the bottom- Livejournal, eBay, Microsoft Word- but what catches my eye is the background.
God, I want to puke. I swallow back the feeling, raking my eyes over the picture: it's Draco, with two women, one of them the strawberry blonde, and the cats are around their necks like jewellery and Draco is grinning, but his eyes look lost. Like he's missing something. I've heard of people having bad relationships and "going gay", but never the other way around. Clearly, he doesn't like it.
The phone rings and I jump out of my seat. I pick it out of the cradle before I think and the tiny screen on the front says it's Draco's mobile calling. God knows when he got a mobile, but that's what it's telling me. It rings again and I answer it.
"Harry?"
"Yeah," I say.
"Someone on the night crew's gonna be late, they asked me to fill in," he says, his voice crackling a bit in the middle.
"All right."
"Be home around ten. Order something, there's money in the jar." Then he hangs up. It's amazing how much his voice can make my heart hurt. I look at the clock on the computer screen, and it tells me Draco should have been home in about two hours. I don't know how I've passed the day without going insane, but it's catching up to me. I feel sick and hot and twisty, and some animal is gnawing incessantly on my brain.
I realise I've started chewing on my fingernails and stop, clenching my fist. It's like my body's started doing things without my consent and I hate it. I hate it, but hating it hurts. I force myself to sit still on the sofa and watch a movie, but the movie swiftly blurs into a haze of sound and colour that's trying to suffocate me. I put my head in my hands and moan. Shorty puts his paws on my knee and stretches to lick the back of my hand.
I get up. I just can't take it anymore: the twist in my gut, the migraine. I stagger into my room, using the wall as a support, and fall to my knees beside my bed. Shorty is right there, whining and running half-circles around me, as I dig into my bag. It's old and ragged and I had to duct-tape the strap back onto it, but it's served me well. Too well.
I should hate it.
Shorty whines, and I look up at him. He's sitting squarely in front of me with this look in his eye, so sad that he can't help me.
I'm sorry.
I didn't know where I was, but I sure didn't like it.
Some kid had told me that there was an abandoned house up this way, all boarded up except for the back door, which had been surreptitiously unlocked by a talented street punk. It was getting cold out, and I figured that one night indoors couldn't hurt me, especially if I kept myself out of their shit.
So I went. Discreetly, of course, even if I don't look half-bad compared to some of the blokes I've seen. No need to draw any unwanted attention to myself or the house and have someone call the cops on us. I've had about enough of cops beating me down, thanks very much. Around the back of this house, some of the boards ripped from the windows just enough to let light in, and let myself in the back.
It reeked. Piss and smoke and filth and God only knows what else. But the wind was gone, and it was better than nothing, especially since I'd heard it was supposed to rain that night. The room I was in seemed to be a kitchen, and it was empty. Walking as lightly as I could I checked out the sitting room and found it devoid of furniture and life, with a few half-hearted graffiti scribbles on the wall. It'd have to do.
I tried to arrange my coat into an entire bed, but as usual it didn't work. So I turned it into a pillow and tried to curl up into as small a ball as possible. The ceiling was creaking as someone made their way across the upper floor, and then the stairs were going, and I hoped I wouldn't be dragged into anything I didn't want to be involved in. This whole thing had been a bad idea, I decided.
"Hey, look," someone said in a rather dreamy tone. "Someone died in the corner."
"I'm not dead," I grumbled.
"Oh shit!" someone else said, giving the impression that it was all one word. "It talked!" I sat up, getting a good look at who was talking to me: a gaunt young woman and a tall, ratty boy. They had an equally ratty blanket wrapped around the both of them, giving me a bizarre impression in the half-light that they were connected together.
"I'm perfectly alive," I said.
"Awesome," said the boy, like he didn't quite believe me.
"Spending the night?" the girl asked, and I nodded. She sank to the floor near me and stared at me with huge, dilated blue eyes. "You're cute."
"I'm gay," I blurted, before I could stop myself.
"Aww," the girl said, and pouted. The bloke she was with sat down beside her, pulling the blanket back across his shoulders and clinging to her possessively. We talked. It was actually rather nice to not be alone: since Earl, I had basically cut myself off from all human contact. They were rather mellow, if a bit fidgety, and they tended to let conversations trail off before starting another, or go off on a random tangent. It took me about an hour to wonder if they were on drugs.
It should have been the first thing I thought about. The only reason I did was because the girl- Candice- reached forward to run her fingers through my hair, commenting on the set of white boy dreadlocks I was cultivating. Her arm was uncovered, exposing dozens of purplish pinprick bruises on her inner arm. She grinned lazily at me when I noticed them.
"Makes the night shorter," was her answer to my unasked question. I licked my lips, nervous, as she leaned forward and whispered, "You want?" I stared at her blandly for a moment.
"Why the hell not."
I throw my head back, my teeth gritted, and feel my hair brush the back of my neck. It's like liquid fire and crystallised ice cascading through my blood. I hate it, but it's so beautiful. Like a cousin to the rush I experienced running into fires, saving lives. My headache abates and the twist in my gut settles, pleasantly numb. My hand falls free and I feel Shorty push his head against it, hear him whining, but at this very moment I don't care.
I hate myself.
But it doesn't feel so bad.
My name buzzes pleasantly through my head right up until someone opens the door, letting light from the hallway cut in. I blink, trying to focus, but my brain already knows who's there, and it's panicking. It just takes my body a moment to catch up, is all. Shorty whines again as I lurch to my feet, trying to claw the needle out of my arm, but before I even get there Draco's seized me by the arms.
"Oww," I whinge, unable to help myself.
"Harry," Draco says, hurt and angry and sad and oh God I can't look him in the eye so I roll my head back again and stare up at the ceiling, trying very hard not to cry. He wasn't supposed to be home. He wasn't supposed to see this. I hiss at the sting as he pulls the needle out, not expecting him to throw it across the room with a savage yell. He's going to do that to me now, throw me out the door with that same disgust.
"Oh God Harry," Draco says, and I swear he's crying, but I'm still not looking at him. The buzz is gone, replaced by a twisting, awful illness that nothing I've ever experienced can compete with. Draco's got his arms around me, squeezing until I see stars, his chest hitching as he sobs. This isn't right. He should be angry, not hurt. Angry. Hit me, damnit, make me pay for what I've done. I can't say it.
Abruptly, he lets go of me, staggering out of the room. I hear his door slam shut.
For most of the night, I hear him sobbing, talking to himself.
I don't know if I slept.
It's almost two in the afternoon according to my alarm clock when I finally come out of my room. Draco is sitting on the sofa, wrapped in the green tartan throw that used to be on my bed, with the cats piled on him and Shorty in my space. He looks up at me with red-rimmed eyes and I feel my heart twist up and stop, and I just stand there.
"Are you…"
I shake my head. Maybe medically I'm still high, but I've felt like shit since last night. There's nothing pleasant about this. I think I'm finally seeing the true face of my addiction. There's no poetry, it's just painfully seducing me into thinking it's related to my favourite high.
He doesn't say anything else, just stares into his coffee cup. I shift my weight onto one foot and tap my fingers against my thigh for several moments before noticing I'm doing it. I have to force myself to stop, crossing my arms against my chest.
"Why?"
I don't really have an answer. Because I'm an idiot seems the best one. Because I thought I'd lost everything already, or rather, because I thought I'd run away from it. I was cold and lonely and wanted to die, but that wasn't it, because I didn't. I wanted to come back to Draco. Now look at what I've done.
"I don't have an answer," I tell him miserably.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he clarifies, still staring into his coffee.
"I was afraid," I don't have to think about that one, because it's the truth. Draco snorts.
"You killed a fucking dark lord at seventeen, you ran into burning buildings for a living, you're gay, for Christ's sakes, but you're afraid of telling me you're addicted to heroin?" It's delivered in a dangerously quiet whisper, and I can't help but flinch at the force behind it.
"I…"
"So much for Gryffindor courage." I sag, sinking into a seat on the rug, and bury my face in my hands. "Why did you have to fuck everything up, Harry? Being scared is one thing, what you've done…" He sighs.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sure," he says, sounding defeated. I hear the clink as he puts the mug down on the coffee table, and then I feel him drawing the blanket around my shoulders, pulling me close. He cradles me against his chest and I just want to break down and cry.
I've wasted so much time. I stole it from myself, I tripped and fell and fucked things up royally, and now he's going to have to carry me back to that place we used to be. If he wants to. I look up at him, meeting his eyes and holding them even though I want nothing more than to turn away. His eyebrows draw together and he frowns, sadly, at what he sees in there.
"I'll help you," he says quietly, "if you want me to."
Looking into those eyes, silver and earnest and loving, I know he means it. He'll never give up on me, even though I gave up on him. Draco doesn't let go of the things he decides are his, and I guess I've always fallen into that category. His rival, his friend, his lover. His Harry. I nod, and Draco kisses my forehead, and I can't help but feel at peace for the first time in months.
He's brewed a potion, his first in at least two years, buying everything off the internet. I told you he could do things with his computer. It won't fix anything, but it will help keep the pain at bay. Then I just need to beat the cravings, the awful niggling creature behind my left eye that makes me want the bliss that heroin provides. At a cost, I keep reminding myself. Draco.
If I let myself slip… I don't know what I'll do.
I drink it, and it tastes like venom. It's putrid, but I need to do this. When there's nothing but dregs in the cup I drop it in the sink and gulp mouthfuls of water straight from the tap. Goddamn, that was disgusting. I stumble down the hall, clutching the arms of my jumper, and peek into Draco's room. He's on his computer, eating a bag of crisps, undoubtedly still looking up potions or detox symptoms or something. He closes his window and pauses for a moment, tapping the keyboard, and I remember.
"Why are you helping me?" I ask in a small voice, and he turns to look at me. "Your… girlfriend."
His eyebrows raise comically. "Girlfriend?" I nod, stepping into his room, and lean over him on his chair, pointing to the blonde on the background. "Kelly?" I nod again, and Draco laughs. He presses a hand to the side of my head and pushes my cheek against his head. "Kelly is McCullen's middle daughter. That," he points to the other girl, "is Christina. Her girlfriend."
"Oh… they're lesbians?" I say, and my brow furrows. "Wait… McCullen has a lesbian daughter?"
"Yep. Loves her to bits, too," he says, and the computer goes on standby mode, flicking to a black screen. "I met her a bit after you… well, she liked me. And Chris liked me. And they wanted a kid. So… I donated my services."
I squeeze my eyes shut against the mental image, trying not to laugh. "You had sex with a woman?"
"Of course not," Draco says, sounding both amused and disgusted. "They do all these wonderful things now, people who want kids don't even have to touch each other."
"You're having a kid," I say, and smile. Draco would be a fabulous father.
"Kelly's having it, I think I'd be screaming in terror if I had to go through that," he says.
"It will be so blonde."
"Yeah, well, Chris saw a picture of you, and she said when you came back, she wants some of your little soldiers."
"Came back?" I say, trying to remember how to breathe. There's something I don't need to think about right now. Draco finally gets out of his computer chair, wrapping his arm around my shoulder.
"I told them that you went back to England for a bit," he says quietly. "It's what everyone thinks."
"Oh." He did that for me, to save my arse. How in God's green earth did I think I should be scared of him? All he ever did was care about me. I lean against him as he leads me back into the sitting room and we sink into the sofa, curled up together to watch the television. All I can think of is how much I did to hurt him, and how hard he's ever tried to help me.
I recall a time when I'd fallen halfway through a stairwell and was holding myself up by my arms. Draco had tried to haul me out of the hole and, for his trouble, I'd ended up stabbing him in the foot with my halligan. Luckily it missed anything important and was rather easy for him to heal up before anyone noticed, but I felt like an idiot. Hurt for helping.
Hurt for helping. He helped me leave England, and I know he misses his mother. We don't even know if she's still alive. He helped me get into the FDNY even though I know there are places he'd rather be. He loves it, but I doubt he'd have chosen it for himself. He helped me keep myself in order when I could have easily spiralled into this pit five years ago. Now, he's helping me crawl out of a hole I dug for myself, even though I left him to do it.
A normal person would hate me. I guess we've always been a little abnormal.
I stay in hiding for several long months. I don't even go on the balcony, sitting by the door when Draco's outside there smoking. It takes that long for me to stop needing the venom, but even afterwards I don't trust myself outside. I'm so afraid of being afraid, I'd rather hide away forever. Draco convinces me otherwise.
"You've got to meet Chris and Kelly," he says, softly, against my ear as we're watching House one evening.
"But-"
"Shh, they don't bite." So he invites them over the next day. I wear long sleeves. My bruises are gone, but my arms are corded and wiry and look awful anyway. I've barely been able to let Draco look at them, I'm not going to let these strangers do it. I'm sitting at the kitchen table with one of Draco's cigarettes, trying very hard to calm myself down, jiggling my foot and scratching Toffee's forehead, when the door opens.
"Harry?" Draco calls out, and I wave, stabbing the cigarette into the ashtray. It certainly didn't help matters, because I'm still feeling shaky as I stand up and walk towards them. Draco, with this beautiful blonde pregnant chick, her arm around the waist of a petite girl with black hair and blue eyes. Chris grins widely at me and Kelly looks like she remembers me.
"You!" she says. "Oh my, England must be a terrible place to send you home looking like that."
I try to smile. "Er, not really. I just had a bad time there."
"You are even better looking in person," Chris quips. "No wonder Dray loves you." I blush, and Draco makes several tutting noises, shooing us towards the sitting room. Chris sits in the armchair and Kelly takes up a space on the sofa, and before I can have any say in the matter Draco has pulled me into his lap. I just blush harder, hard enough that I know I'm actually colouring despite my complexion.
"Oh!" Chris squeals. "He's shy!"
They're nice girls, really. Chris has a fabulous sense of humour and Kelly is infallibly sweet, so sweet that she coerces an unpractised purr out of our sugar-princess, Toffee. That was what made me decide they had to be all right: Toffee is almost scarily quiet, for a cat. When they leave later that evening, Draco's got a lazy grin on his face, a look that says I told you so without him saying it.
I pretend I don't see.
When I go to bed that night, Shorty sleeping on my feet, I think that maybe things will be all right after all. Maybe I won't be an idiot this time.
I think I should leave the house. I've been crammed up in here for absolutely ages and, while I'm terrified I'm going to do something stupid, it's wearing on me. I need air, I need to stretch my legs a bit, so I leash up Shorty and decide we're going for a walk. I take the stairs rather than the lift, realising as I round down the way-too-many flights why I never used to walk down them, and by the time we're outside I think I've walked quite enough.
Shorty tugs me off in a new direction, and I follow. I become part of the crowd in the chilly, grey world that is street-level New York. It's not so bad, really. I'm used to walking, I enjoy it. I walked when I lived with the Dursley's, and I walked all over Hogwarts, and I walked everywhere with Draco. Cars are bloody awful machines that I will never set a toe in again. Shorty capers, happily sniffing after every other dog we pass, even a Great Dane that's part of a pile of dogs being walked and looks like it would like nothing more than to snack on him.
I watch the people. They're interesting sometimes, how they can ignore what's right before their gloomy faces, pass over what they don't want to see. It doesn't exist. There's a small girl crying as her mother pulls her along by her hand, her face far too old to belong to a child; a pair of teenage boys done up in ridiculous punk attire, glaring at the world through hooded eyes that don't quite hide distrust and hurt. There are too many.
I know, if the right person looks back at me, they'll put me in the crowd of faces that I can see hide fear and loathing. I tug Shorty up, away from a grey-haired businessman who doesn't seem to see anything that's smaller than him, and nearly run into someone going the opposite way. My heart wants to scream through my mouth when I recognise his face, his coldly cruel eyes, like a knife.
He passes by, not seeing me, and I half-turn to watch him go. Of course. During the day, we're all different people. During the day he's not a street kid who kills dogs and old bums for kicks. He's a kid skiving off of school, or running errands for his mum who doesn't really care about him. He's left a knot of fear in my stomach just by being there, and I hurry home.
So many months go by that my time away seems petty compared to how long I've been with Draco. He's always off at work during the day and I still ache to get back to doing what I love, but I know I can't, not yet at least. It's June fifth, Draco's birthday, and I decide he needs one of those disgusting flourless chocolate cakes he loves so much. It's easy enough to make, even if I have to keep Shorty far away from it, because he's got some kind of death wish and enjoys trying to eat things that could kill him.
Draco comes home as I put it in the oven. He seems terribly amused that I've got chocolate on my face, and my shirt, and just about all over the kitchen. I'm terribly amused when he decides that the only way to get the chocolate off of me is to lick it. He's a right pain in the arse sometimes, but I can't fault him. If he was wearing chocolate, I think I'd lick it off too.
We order takeaway barbecued chicken from a local restaurant and watch the cake rise a bare centimetre, thick and darkly bittersweet. Draco seems to enjoy just inhaling the heady scent, his eyes closed. He's beautiful like that, leaning back in his chair so that his hair sweeps across his face. I used to think he was his father in miniature, but he's more like a male version of his mother, and as he sits there in front of the oven, I remember the kid I never liked.
And always loved, if you can call unhealthy obsession love.
I've had plenty of unhealthy obsessions in my lifetime, but Draco is barely outmatched for my obsession with family. He's been there from the get-go, from the first moment I started really living. I remember eating chocolate and raspberry ice cream the first time I met him, and chocolate frogs when he first introduced himself. The first time I actually worried about whether he would live or not, I remember I'd sneaked a hunk of Honeyduke's from Ron's stash.
When I really think about it, Draco's always come hand-in-hand with chocolate. And obsession. I don't see why any of it should change now.
"Is it done?" he whinges, looking over at me. I'm sure he'd hex me if I ever told him his eyes look like quicksilver, because he fastidiously claims that silver is a girly colour, and grey is manly. Stormclouds and stone and iron are grey, but Draco is none of these things. He's lightning. He's possessive obsession.
I pull the cake out of the oven, regardless of whether it's ready or not. If it isn't, it will be liquid lava chocolate in the centre, just as good as if it were done. I cut into it and the heart of it oozes thick syrup, which drips across the top as I put the first piece on a plate and Draco attacks it with gusto. He's like a wolf gorging on a carcass: intent only on devouring as much as he can in as little a time as possible rather than savouring the sweetness of his victory.
When he kisses me later, I can taste it on his tongue. Bittersweet, like he is. I've always liked him with a bit of bite.
Three days later, Chris rings us, all incoherent screaming, and about the only words we can make out are Kelly and hospital. Draco is terrified, I can see it roiling in his eyes and across his pallid face, but he pretends he isn't as he apparates us to a desert part of the multilevel car park near the hospital. We run the rest of the way, and I'm afraid that something horrible has happened. Draco has been almost giddy the last few months, alternatively taunting his father that his only heirs will be half-bloods and wondering exactly how screwed up this kid will be, with two mums and a dad and an uncle and way too many pets.
Oh, and magic. Don't forget the possibility of magic.
But it's all for naught, because Chris is jumping up and down ecstatically when we arrive, and we get to see exactly why she was freaking out. Draco attaches his nose to the glass with all the appropriate awe of a new father, and I just stare. It's red, and itty-witty, with flailing limbs, but it's not screaming at the top of its lungs as most of the others are. A little card proclaims it female, seven pounds twelve ounces, thirteen inches in length and unnamed.
"We wanted you to be here," Chris beams.
She ends up with one of the longest names I've ever seen: Marie Narcissa-Gabrielle McCullen White Malfoy. Legally, I suppose she's neither a McCullen nor a White, but that's what she is properly.
She makes Draco happy, even when he announces that his father is rolling in his grave with a half-blood granddaughter. Which, of course, prompts Kelly to wonder how she's a half-anything. We weasel out of explaining that somehow, even though we know we'll have to fess up someday. I don't care right now, because it feels like we're actually part of something larger than ourselves, a family, and it makes me feel about this big for being a petty prat.
I've got Draco. He's quite enough for me.
But he's still restrained, to the point where I think I might have to just come out and tell him to stop holding back, keeping the tactile Draco-beast on a short leash and a tight heel. The fact that he's still afraid to touch me is hurting him, and I can see it: around his eyes, in his fluttering hands. Like he's being smothered by rose petals and feathers, something insubstantial that's killing him for something he needs. It makes me feel just slightly ill when I think it's me choking him, but every time I want to tell him to stop keeping his hands to himself the words catch in my throat.
Maybe it's thinking about these things that distracts me, but somehow, Shorty has got away. His leash goes sliding across the pavement as he crosses the road, blithely unaware of any danger he might be in, and my first instinct is to follow him, shouting.
"Shorty!" I yell.
"Squeeeee!" a car yells.
Running was a bad idea.
If I hadn't know that Draco Malfoy was here, in this very room, I think I would have been shocked. As it was, I'd seen him just now on the map, with Myrtle. I didn't think much of it until I saw Draco, his white-blond head bowed over a sink as Myrtle tried to console him in what seemed a very unpractised way. It was hard for my sixteen year-old brain to get over the fact that Malfoy was crying.
I watched his shoulders shake, dumbfounded for what to do. It seemed to me that backing slowly out of the room was a good option, but the stubborn part of me wanted to know why he was crying. If only I was cloaked, I could hang around longer and see why. I took a step back, but Draco looked up at that moment, his eyes going wide as he spotted me.
He wheeled around, scrubbing a sleeve across his face as his other hand extracted his wand from wherever it was hidden, training it on me. I don't know when my wand got into my hand, but it was evidently too slow because I missed the first hex he fired off, and it missed me as I ducked. He was like some rapid-fire machine, his eyes wild: an old loathing mixed in with fear, maybe that I'd rat to his little cronies.
Things exploded and Myrtle screamed hysterically, and I flourished my wand, shouting the first thing that came to mine.
"Sectumsempra!"
Like slow motion, Malfoy flinched and collapsed, sheets of red-hot blood staining his robes and seeping across the floor. Suddenly I was thrust into a nightmare instead of another childish brawl for supremacy. I was killing Draco Malfoy because of what he was, instead of what he could be. Blood, thin and watery, soaked into my knees and I felt bile rising in my throat as Draco twitched on the floor.
I felt pain. My chest and ribs and back burned and ached, as if Draco's agony was becoming my own. He twisted on the floor, his face a grimace, a parody of a smile.
"Hurt me hurt you," he rasped, and my world exploded.
I don't know when I wake up, but I know it doesn't hurt. In fact, I feel as if I've been wrapped in a numbly muffling cloud of bliss, and I sigh. I can feel a lazy smile flickering around my face as my eyes flutter open. Where am I, exactly? Does it really matter? No, a small voice in my head says, and I'm quite content to listen to it. It's much nicer than the ugly rasp from… whatever I was just thinking of.
"Harry?"
"Mm," I say, turning my head to focus on the source of the voice. It's nicer than both the rasp and the small voice. It's something I can recognise as well, and I'm pleased that he's with me on this cloud. "Draco." He looks down at me, mildly puzzled and very pale and fuzzy-looking around the edges. I can tell by the set of his face that we're not at home. "Where'm I?"
"Hospital," he says faintly.
"We come here a lot," I say with a grin, remembering just how many times I've ended up here. Draco hasn't, but I have. I seem to get hurt a lot. Some things never do change.
"How are you feeling?"
"Happy." Draco frowns and I wave my hand in his general direction. He grabs it, squeezing it tightly, and they both land on the bed. To me, it seems that my hand has grown a few extra fingers and I snort a laugh. I could use a few more fingers, and limbs, and things. A faint discomfort crawls up along my ribs, but it's quickly masked out by… something. Happy.
His eyes are moving, too fast for me to watch them go, but he looks like he's realised something. He's yelling and it hurts my head, but a nurse bustles in, and doctors, and they chatter far too fast and with too many big words. Draco seems very cross with someone, maybe me, so I close my eyes again and try to block them out.
By the time he's come back to sit beside me, the discomfort is becoming pain, and I'm not feeling quite so good-willed towards the world.
"Morphine… metabolising… ugh," Draco sounds disgusted.
"Shuddup," I say groggily, wishing I was asleep again.
"Look, I'll just try to heal some of it up, all right?" I grunt, and he seems to take that as assent, because I can feel a tingle of magic as he casts a few rudimentary healing charms. The ones he had to learn to keep me in one piece, mostly. It feels better, but not by much, and I open my eyes to look at him again.
"What happened?"
"You got hit by a car," Draco says, concentrating very hard on my left ear instead of my face. "They gave you some painkillers and patched you up and rang the flat."
"Did you find Shorty?" Draco looks down and I feel my stomach drop away. "Draco? Where's Shorty?"
"He's…" He doesn't finish the sentence and he doesn't need to. I tilt my head back and shut my eyes. He's dead. I killed my dog. Shorty, with his scruffy cheeks and his floppy ears and little square feet and muzzle, his keen green-gold eyes and his perfectly loving attitude, is gone.
"It's not fair."
Jasper and Toffee seem to agree when we get home. Jasper wails out on the balcony, savaging the little grass box that was Shorty's makeshift toilet, and Toffee gathers up his toys and makes a nest out of them below the television, daring us to take them away. I can't look at them, and opt for taking a shower instead. Wash away the disgusting smell of the hospital, the strange, coiling animal that's taken up residence again in my gut, the pain of losing Shorty.
It's almost my birthday. Why did Shorty have to go? He had years yet and it just isn't fair. I'm like King Midas in reverse: everything I touch crumbles into so much dust and ashes. Even the warmth of the water can't help relax me, I just feel more and more tense as I remember everything Shorty did. How he warmed my toes at night and liked to lie on my lap or my stomach, or how he licked Draco behind the ears when he really wanted to annoy him.
Dust and ashes.
I don't realise I'm not alone until Draco's right there, and I don't realise I'm crying until he kisses the tears away. It isn't fair. I killed our dog, I lost Shorty while worrying about how I'd hurt Draco, about how he was afraid. I was selfish and now he's doing exactly what I was thinking about, despite the fact that now his shirt's soaked and we're dripping all over, and there's no Shorty to lick up the mess.
I cry harder and Draco doesn't care. For the first time since I came back, we sleep in the same bed.
For my birthday, Draco presents me with a ring, basically identical to my old one, the one he's still wearing, but set with a black gem. I don't have to feel the innate magic to know he's made it; I don't have to ask to know it's what's left of Shorty. Shorty liked to wink, just like the gem is now.
He's too many kinds of wonderful that I just don't deserve.
I kiss him, and it doesn't stop there. It doesn't stop when I've shredded his shirt, or when I'm seized with the inexplicable urge to lick the jewel-toned ouroboros around his arm, or when he hits the door to my bedroom and whinges something about my slamming him around like a leaf caught in a tornado. I can tell you honestly that it doesn't stop when he's sprawled out on my bed looking like some kind of de-winged angel, not of the variety that defied God, but the kind that wanted to see what all the fuss of humanity was about.
I show him some humanity that leaves him whimpering incoherently and shivering. It's like he was born knowing how to move, something I'm sure he'd be offended with if I told him. His fingers dig almost painfully into my arms and I recall what happened the last time this did, and how some small part of him must be hoping to keep hold of me there instead of running. I don't want to run this time.
"Love you," I say, and I can feel his shock, but not for long.
He seems to think his long arms and legs can keep me from escaping after, but I've still no intention of doing so. Instead I kiss all the shadowed corners of his face, the parts that were being smothered in rose petals and feathers and secrets, and tell him over and over.
"Love you love you love you."
"Mine," he says possessively.
Devilish angels in snake disguises.
He's beautiful when he sleeps. I reason with myself that I think he's beautiful no matter what he's doing, despite the fact that he likes to complain about how I seem to feminise him. I don't particularly care about that, because handsome just doesn't quite cut it with Draco. He's too well cut, like a marble statue made by a master, too lean and willowy and pale. For a ridiculous moment I wonder if there's Veela in him, and smile.
I feel as if I've pulled the last piece of the puzzle out of thin air and, suddenly, everything is back to normal. Like I had never left in the first place. There's an achingly empty space in my lap when we watch television, but Draco soon takes to putting his head there, like I'm a pillow. I stroke his hair and I think about how I'm good at screwing things up, but he's always been there to make it better, or at the very least make it seem less.
I've hurt him countless ways, and he's always there to forgive me. I screw things up often, and he's always there to piece it back together. And while I think it's not fair to expect him to save my arse all the time, I do think this:
I'm lucky he loves me.
That's all the luck I need.
There, the second (and currently final) part of Fire. Yep, there's no fire! My muse ran away about seven pages (6-7 thousand words) in, but I got it done anyway. Things SWK didn't know before she started writing this: firefighters have way too much jargon, heroin metabolises into morphine (I was under the impression that they were different strains of the same chemical) and Harry Potter whines too much.
Get out of my head now, Harry.