Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

And he wanted Draco. Wanted with a fierce drawing pull something he could not define but which Draco's mere conscious presence could give him and which nothing else precisely could. It was a wanting bad enough that he forced himself to stand in the middle of the room without moving until he was entirely sure that he could cross the room and stand next to Draco's bed and not shake him awake to demand comfort and consolation or even simply to be told in that deadly drawling voice that things were not really that bad.

They really were that bad. And he had let them get that way.

The light was darkening like old blood drying. Harry found he had crossed the room and was standing over Draco's infirmary bed and looking down at it and at the boy who lay on it, asleep. Draco's chest rose and fell lightly, stirring the blankets, but otherwise he was motionless, his cheek pillowed on his curled arm, his eyes shut fast.

Harry had often woken up to find Hermione propped on her elbow, looking down at him. Having never, to his recollection, had parents who stood over his bed looking down fondly at him while he slept, it had always seemed odd to him. Did people look all that different while they were asleep? But now, he began to see it — sleep had not added anything to Draco's face, but had rather taken away. Taken away the guardedness and the irony and the constant lively animation that was a distraction more than anything else. With all that gone, he could see the curious vulnerability that expressed itself in waking moments through anger and silence and even a peculiar sort of shyness. Could see through the translucent skin the blue tracery of veins at Draco's temples, laced across his eyelids. Could see the bruising under his eyes.

Harry knelt down slowly next to the bed and put his elbows on the mattress. He could hear Draco's soft deep breaths and could feel how completely the other boy was asleep. Could feel how deeply his exhaustion had wound him in its dark coils, and Harry was glad for it, because he wanted to be with Draco but he also wanted to be alone.

Somehow Harry felt that this moment was his own, that it was terribly important, that some great decision was about to be made or unmade inside him.

Your father told me to imagine what it would be like for me if you died, Harry thought. His thoughts arranged themselves as if Draco could hear him, although Harry knew that he could not. He almost thought he could hear the beat of Draco's heart through the coverlet both their hands lay on. Its accelerated tempo seemed twice his own. He told me to imagine it, and I tried, but I couldn't. And I thought perhaps that it was simply because I didn't want to, but I realize now it was more than that. The truth of it is that you are more myself than I am, now. If I lost you, there wouldn't be any more me. I'd be someone else. And I hope I never have to be that person. I never want to have to be that person. I've changed, since before I knew you. I'm better now. Stronger. And that's because of you.

And this is how I've paid you back…

Draco stirred slightly, and Harry shrank back, but Draco was only settling himself more deeply into the cushions. Harry sat where he was for a moment, then leaned forward again, and put his head on his arms. He closed his eyes.

He had not been brought up by Petunia and Vernon Dursley to know anything about prayer. On the rare occasions that they went to church they did not bring him with them. Hoping or pleading for divine intervention was, in its way, a foreign concept to him. But inside everyone there is some power that is entreated in times of despair, and Harry was no exception. He had always begged help from fate or chance or some dim recollection of his parents, and so he did now, bargaining as fiercely as his exhausted spirit would allow.

Let Snape find the antidote, he prayed, and I won't ever ask for anything else. I'll keep the promise I made. I will sever myself from Draco so that nothing I do can ever hurt him again. Let Snape find the antidote and I will go after Voldemort myself. I'll destroy him. I was born to destroy him and I've been too cowardly up until now to do it. I know maybe that's what you want from me, and maybe this is punishment for my failure. But please. Give me one more chance. Or if you must punish me, punish me some other way. Because if you do this to me now then I will never be any good to myself or anyone else ever again.

A sudden light flared behind Harry's eyelids, bright as sunlight. He jerked his head up in surprise — and saw that it was the infirmary torches, having all lit themselves at once in preparation for the evening. The room was suddenly brought with a warm ocher glow. Harry blinked against it, half-blinded, and heard the creak of the bed as Draco shifted and turned over, grabbing at his pillow to block the light. Harry froze, feeling suddenly extremely awkward, as the pillow slid off the other boy's head and a single gray eye, blinking curiously and half-hidden by tangled white-blond hair, appeared over the crook of Draco's arm.

"Potter? That you?" Draco's muffled voice was thick with sleep, lacking its usual drawling crystalline delicacy.

"Erm….yes," said Harry, not seeing how a denial in this case would get him anywhere.

"Oh." Draco blinked at him again. "Everything all right?"

Harry took a deep breath and lied. "Just came by to see if you wanted me to bring you up any supper."

Draco gave a slight shake of his head. "No. Too tired," he said, and behind his soft muffled tones Harry heard Snape's voice hissing at him, weakness lassitude exhaustion.

Blindness.

"I'm sorry I woke you up," Harry said tonelessly. "Can you go back to sleep?"

"Mmmph." Draco appeared to think about this. "Are you going to stay?"

Harry took another deep breath and lied again. "Yes. I'm going to stay."

"Mmmmph," Draco said again, and fell instantly back to sleep, rolling over onto his back with the pillow clutched in his arms. Harry looked at him for a moment and then spun around with a quick violence, revolted by his own lies and trapped by the need for them. He sank down onto the floor with his back to the bed, his arms looped around his knees.

He did not know long he sat there. Long enough for his legs to begin to cramp from the cold stone floor. Long enough for the darkness outside the windows to become complete, and for the torches to begin to dim as the night gathered itself around the castle. He sat there, half-listening to the sound of Draco's breathing and half to the soft noises inside his own head, so lost in thought that it took him a moment to come back to reality when the infirmary door opened, and Dumbledore and Snape walked in.

"Ginny? Ginny, are you in there?"

Seamus stood and looked at the shut door of the sixth-year girls' dormitory. He'd been knocking and calling for at least five minutes, with no appreciable results. He was beginning to feel rather stupid. Actually, he thought, he'd gone well past beginning to feel stupid several minutes ago and had now most definitely arrived at feeling very stupid indeed. All the portraits up and down the corridor were staring at him. It was extremely awkward.

"Ginny…" He sighed, and dropped his hand. "Okay, then. I guess you aren't there. Either that, or you're there but you don't want to talk to me.

Which is fine. I just came by to say that…"

Seamus paused. What had he come by to say? That he was sorry for being an enormous git? He wasn't though, actually, he was quite sure he'd been right. And he was also sure that if he had to spend one more night sleeping under the same roof as Draco Malfoy, murder would be committed. It was hardly worth it when Ginny barely seemed to notice whether he was there or not.

"…That I'm leaving," he went on. "I was hoping we could say goodbye, you know, in a civil sort of way. I'm not angry, and…"