Coloured Grey

AN: I'm back. And I've brought ficcy goodness for all.

This fic ignores most of DH.

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Grey. That wasn't right.
Wasn't snow supposed to be white?
Harry let his eyes drift into focus....Red? That certainly wasn't right.


*


'I found him out there.'

'Well you should have left him out there.'

'Ronald...'

'Don't call me that. Don't YOU call me that!'

Harry listened wistfully to the stomp of his best friend's boots on creaking floorboards as the redhead walked away.


**


Grey. That's the colour of the clouds. The colour of the drapes. The colour of dust...
there's something being left unsaid
Grey is the colour of a lot of things.

IT was a vision straight out of a nightmare. Harry froze, seeing the splash of colour on the snow. Red. Blood. seeping, bleeding, melting into the fresh morning snow That was not the best way to start off the day, in fact it was down right horrible. Harry bent over the corpse...no, body, he noted with a sense of sweeping relief as he watched it struggle to catch his breath in the banks of snow...unconscious.


***


'If he stays, I go.'

'Now, now....there's no need for that. You and I both know there's nowhere else for you to go.'
Ron's anger was a flash of lightning in the gloom and it recoiled as if struck by Harry's words. Harry shook his head and turned away, weary.

It had been a long day and he had been nowhere beyond his front step.

Besides he was certain that the Malfoy, unconscious or not, couldn't possibly be comfortable slumped in the front corridor by the door as he was. No one's fault but his own, Harry supposed. His, and perhaps Ron's, but then he didn't really have the heart to rebuke Ron's anger.


****


'Oi, where do you think you're taking that fucker?'

Harry heard the tone of genuine concern in Ron's voice, thin and straining under the persistently ominous rumblings of anger which hung over the redhead like an inexhaustible thundercloud.

Ron was worried, Harry knew, not for the blond heap of a human in his arms, but rather for his own safety and Harry's too. Just the two of theirs.

'Upstairs.'

'Why-'

'I can't have him bleeding all over the front door. Or over that dust and cobweb effigy of Dumbledore if he ever regains consciousness. I don't think you can get blood out of dust.'

Ron's mood soured at his dark humour, but Harry was already halfway up the next flight of stairs by then.


*****


'Fuck.' Harry muttered, his eloquence lost on the soulless walls of Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

Harry took a moment then to let his legs give out under him as he cut a swathe through the grime on the wall with his back in the act of sliding to the floor. Malfoy weighed a ton in his arms. There were charms for that. But then Harry had always resisted the notion of using needless magic in the Black House. There was something ominous about the place.

Perhaps Hermione had been right in suggesting that they clean out the unused rooms. Everything had a tendency of falling under a spell of grime, dust and neglect in the Black House, even when left alone for the span of a day. Hermione had encouraged them not to let the gloom take over. Bad for spirits, she had said. but then so was going and getting herself killed


******


A shadow fell across Harry, and he opened his eyes, wondering how even with closed eyes he could tell that Ron was towering over him.

'He's done you in has he?'

'Not quite.'
It was more of a heaved sigh than a response.

'Then why-'

'The rooms...dust.' Harry muttered in explanation.

'Then toss the prick out back and let him freeze.'

'Not an option Ron.'

'Right.' Ron shook his head as if in defeat. 'I thought you might say that.'
He offered his hand.

Harry allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, the lead weight of Malfoy still numbing his arms.


*******


'This is too much.'
The disbelief was thick in Ron's voice.

'Well, where do you propose we put him? Your room?'
Harry laughed.

Ron didn't answer.

'The only other choice would be-- '

'NO!'

Ron's voice echoed in his head long after the dust from his furious departure had settled.


********


Harry noted with distaste the blood that had seeped in the sleeves of his favourite jacket.
Blood was oh-so-hard to get out.

He'd forgotten to remove his good sheets. What a waste.


*********


It had been so much easier when Malfoy had been unconscious.
An animal cannot feel back into a corner when unconscious.
A sleeping beast is unaware of pain until it wakes. Thrashing.


**********


Right, Malfoy had grey eyes.
Harry had forgotten that.
Oh perhaps he had just neglected to remember.


***********


'Fuck.' A hoarse rasp, barely recognizable as a word, echoed soundlessly by a sympathetic sentiment in Harry's mind.

A whimper. Then......nothing. Taking stock perhaps.
The hard rattle of troubled breathing.
Harry didn't feel the need to make his presence known. Not right away at least.

A gasp and a shuffle of the covers. Harry turned his attention to the now tightly coiled lump of a bloody blond on his bed.
'Alright there Malfoy?' A superficial probe. Any idiot could tell that Malfoy was anything but alright.

No answer.

Harry ignored the roiling ill-ease that twisted in his gut. Not the time for addressing that.

'Oi.' Not particularly articulate, but Harry wasn't really one for pleasantries.
One step, two steps, three steps, four.

The blood made him blanche.
'Malfoy!'

No answer.

Harry reached out. Touched. A gentle tap on the shoulder.
The recoil was instantaneous.
A half-muted shout.
A violent jerk.
Malfoy ended up on the floor on the other side of the bed.
Harry's heart stuttered with the shock and it took a moment to kick his body back into gear.

'Don't.'

'What?'

'touch me'
The words barely above a whisper. Pleading.

It took Harry a moment to process the fact that it was all one sentence.

Harry raised his hands in defeat.

Malfoy shuddered on the floor looking paler than Harry had ever seen him.
Haunted eyes. Harry didn't move.
The blond's breaths were rasping, he shivered as if he were back lying in that snow bank and his body was tense. His eyes: frighteningly blank, cavernous.

'Malfoy you're bleeding.'
Obvious, yes. Maybe stupidly so. But perhaps not, Harry thought as Malfoy looked himself over for the first time.

His breathing became uneven, and choppy as his gaze traveled over his body.
'Bleeding? I'm alive then...'

Harry felt his mind jam. He didn't know what exactly to say to that.

A long silence and then:
'Look Malfoy is there anything you need?'
Common courtesy to ask, Harry thought, though it was not lost on him that it was a Death Eater sitting crumpled on his bedroom floor. But then all the more reason to want him alive.

'A shower.'
Harry simply nodded.




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AN: Hey look I'm alive. Good. Now on with the explanation for this weirdass story. I'm slightly lazy, and more than that I don't have much time, plus I've been meaning to expand the horizons of my writing style. That is to say to try something original. The plot is not too cliche but not too out of this world. And hopefully I can keep things interesting. I like this idea and hopefully so will YOU THE READER.

Reviews are much appreciated.

- Incessant_Darkness