Chapter 10
I Need Somewhere To Begin
The walk back to my flat is long and filled with trepidation, the thick warm air drying my hair in a curling mess like it's trying to reflect the turmoil I feel inside. It's a ridiculous analogy but I can't seem to break it from my mind every time I have to shove it out of my eyes with irritation.
It almost feels mocking.
Atop that I know I must be making a strange sight indeed in the early morning - rumpled trousers, un-tucked shirt with the black vest thrown haphazardly over it and remaining unbuttoned. And glancing down I realize that I didn't even manage to lace up my boots all the way before fleeing Potter's hotel room. I had felt very much like a petulant child getting caught red handed the moment he started to stir awake and before I had even thought it through all the way I had been grabbing my boots and vest and running out the door.
I'm not ready to face him, not after spending the night tangled together and then in the shower...
My scalp protests with a burning edge as I tug my fingers through my rebelliously wild hair yet again, rounding the final corner before my building. Fishing my keys from my pocket I knock straight into Caleb as he comes jogging down the steps with a deep red sweatshirt zipped up and covering his head, the smallest glimpse of a white wire leading to each ear.
I curse while regaining my balance, not sure if I'm more annoyed at the fact that I seem to be making a habit of smacking into people lately or worried that I keep getting so lost in my thoughts that everyone around me turns to a mist until their colliding with me.
"Hey sorry." He pops the headphone buds out with a quick tug on where the wire meets as he takes a step back. He eyes me up and down and I feel a tad ashamed for the obvious nature of my attire, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot for a moment. "You just getting home?"
"Um yeah, crashed at Potter's." I tell him, my tongue feeling oddly thick in my mouth as he looks at me. I know I shouldn't care what people think, but I can tell from the way he's staring at me that he's wondering about what all that 'crashed' entitled and most likely picturing it containing much more than it was.
Setting that look alongside Potter's assumption of Caleb's thoughts towards me and it's enough to make me want to jump out of my skin and hide. I don't know how to deal with any such intentions, don't really want to give the energy to even try to, and I really wish he hadn't said anything.
Obliviousness is so much easier to handle.
"Oh really?" His smile looks a little forced, his tone a bit too short for his usual joyful cadence. "You had us worried you know. Why'd you disappear that like?"
I suck on my tongue as I debate how much to tell him, wondering if it would lighten the load at all to share the straps Madame Safiya is trying to tie me down with. Or if it's even safe for me to do so. Would it put him in anymore danger if I do? Would she turn her calculating eye on him if I bring him deeper into her complicated web of half-truths and barely suggested comments that sting like poison?
It's my fault alone that she's even taken an interest in Potter and I know I shouldn't risk another. But Donnie will be wondering as well and I know I have to give them some sort of an explanation, my abrupt departure with Potter from the club last night too startling not to.
"I wasn't keen on staying any longer than I had to." I pause and tug on the hem of my wrinkled shirt, the gesture in itself startling me. "Plus there was some rather unseemly talk about Potter that I didn't think he'd appreciate." There, that's safe enough right?
Caleb nods and brushes the hood from his head. "She was interested in Harry? That's a bit out of her norm isn't it?" He fidgets on the balls of his feet and there's a pulling tension between us that I don't recall there ever being before.
I shrug with as much nonchalance as I can muster. "I think she enjoys being unpredictable." I reply with a one sided smile, leaving out the real reason that I know has to do with me bringing him in the first place...and probably holding his face in my hands for a strangely long time.
No wonder she was curious about him, I was not acting like myself at any point last night. Why did I think it was a good idea to bring him again?
"That she does." He smiles back at me and relaxes a little bit, the taunt line in his shoulders easing with a release of his breath. "It was fun though yeah?"
"It was...loud." I mutter.
"God you sound like such an old man." Caleb laughs. "Cause you know you're not supposed to complain about noise until you’re over forty."
"Arbitrary rule."
"If you say so. I've got to get going, wanna join me?" He asks.
I seriously consider it for a moment, my body humming at just the idea of losing myself in a good long run but I shake my head, grudgingly knowing there are some things I need to do that I shouldn't put off any longer. "No you go ahead, I'll see you later."
"Alright Dray, oh and give Donnie a call okay? I think you spooked him last night."
I nod and wave him goodbye as I trudge through the door and down the hall, my door giving way beneath the light weight of my hand. I sigh as I drop my keys on the desk and glance around - it's funny how different my flat actually feels compared to Potter's hotel room. The place literally buzzes with a different sort of energy and I can't help but wonder if it simply has to do with our different cleanliness levels or if it's due to the drastically different nature of our very beings.
I don't necessarily feel at home here, never really have, but I do feel content. And yet, the air here now has an edge of melodically that I never really realized before, it feels sparse and...void. The books line the shelves so very neatly, my fingers refusing to release them back to their spots until they are perfectly aligned, the desk scrubbed till shining, the bedspread without a wrinkle marring it, the kitchen without a dish insight...like no one actually lives here.
Soulless would be the word I suppose.
My eyes slip shut as my feet are all but sucked into the carpet, leaving me immobile and standing at the fork of two very different paths. They're both wide and clear for all but a second until they twist off into the tangled unknown, neither offering any reassurance, both a deep question that conflicting parts of me want to run down.
And I wish I could just continue to ignore it, continue to stay still or even back up a few steps and stay there in its familiarity forever. But that's unfortunately not an option anymore, the place I'm at not being a safe one to dwell. I have to decide, have to traverse down one of the paths, hell I just know Potter's going to kick me down one if I don't decide for myself soon.
Gathering up my resolve, I grab the corner of the desk and pull the heavy piece of furniture away from the wall. It creaks and groans and seems to be loudly protesting my decision with each inch it gives until I can finally reach behind it. My hand feels along the wood until I come to the hairline seam that signals the opening to the false backing. Pressing all five fingers squarely against it, I push in and find my breath leaving my lungs as it clicks and pops out. I grope blindly in the little niche, a dull ache reaching back out to me as I wrap my hands around the old wooden box.
Placing it carefully, relevantly, on the top of the desk, I stare silently down at it. The wood is a dark cherry, covered in a fine layer of dust with long smudges on the top and sides where my fingers had held it. I haven't opened it since running from my past life and yet I've carried it around with me, from place to place, hiding it carefully at every stop - matter how long or short of time I was there for.
I haven't even really looked at it in all this time. It had always been too painful to - I much preferred to ignore it, to pretend it wasn't there. But there's no overwhelming pain now, no tendrils reaching out and hooking though my skin, pulling me down.
Instead there's only nervousness and...curiosity.
"No going back." I mutter to the empty room, setting my jaw and hoping that I'm not wrong about this.
My fingers slip through the dust then carefully pry the lid up, the hinges creaking lowly with protest. My gaze skips over the few items nestled inside, my hand hovering above it like there's some invisible net restricting it traveling any further into the contents. With a sharp intake of breath, I plunge my fingers down against the cold that seeps into them and lightly touch the slim sliver ring bearing the Malfoy crest.
It pulses back at me, like it's seeking its owner and I quickly withdraw from it, not ready to pull it any further - to accept it once more. There's a thumping in my ears that I distantly recognize as my own heartbeat as I skip over the other few trinkets before pausing over the hawthorn length that was supposed to spend the rest of its days inside this very box.
Never to be touched or wielded again.
My wand looks the same as it ever did, no dust daring to cling to it, and memories fall like raindrops through me - washing through my mind with both remembered joy and crushing anguish. But I'm not here for the memories, not here to relive the best and worst times, so I allow myself a second to sponge them away.
Then I tentatively let just the tip of my middle finger run over its length, ready to recoil like lightening if I start having an adverse reaction to it. I release a long breath that seems to vibrate and exhale from the wand’s very tip and I pull my hand back, staring intently at my middle finger like it now has all the answers I need.
There's a gathering of power resting there, in a near perfect circle, not moving or growing or pulsing out. Just waiting for me, like a silent offering.
"Of blood..." I say so very softly as the nail of my thumb digs into the tender pad, my voice trailing off after only the first two words. The long withheld voice of my father rising in my ears, all those years of listening to him spew pureblood hierarchy. If only he could see me now, see how I've shed the Malfoy name, see how I've shun from my very own blood.
His blood.
It seems so...insignificant.
"Draco!" There's a shout and a bang on the front door, the wood rattling on its hinges at the force of the knock.
I look up slowly, my thumb still pressing into my middle finger, feeling oddly frozen - even my mouth refusing to open and speak.
Potter calls my name again and after another round of knocking there's a whoosh of air and then he's suddenly standing right before me, looking for all intents and purposes like he's gone completely mental. He's got his shoes on the wrong feet, is still wearing his checkered sleep pants, and the green shirt he had worn last night is hanging on his shoulders with only two of the buttons in the middle of his chest done up. His glasses are a bit skewed on his face, like he shoved them on in such a hurry that he missed one of his ears, his hair even more wild and unruly than I thought possible. He's got his wand in his hand, his eyes as wide as saucers as they dart around, looking for god knows what.
"Are you alright?" He gasps out, sounding out of breath. Had he been running? "You just...damn it Draco!"
"I'm sorry but...what?" I ask, clearly confused.
He lowers his wand and clutches at his side like he has a stitch. "Don't do that!" He snaps and slumps down onto the edge of my bed.
"Do what exactly?"
"Disappear, don't you ever just disappear." His tone is unusually harsh and tinged with a bit of residual panic.
"I," I pause, feeling oddly guilty for some reason. "I just went home."
"Well bloody wake me up next time first." He falls back on the bed, throwing his arm over his eyes. His shirt rides up and falls open over his stomach, exposing a smooth toned stretch of skin, his other hand pressing down to rest in the dip just under his belly button.
He used to be so skinny, his body once ravaged by the elements, stress, lack of proper nutrition, and plainly put, war. And while he's still trim there is nothing drastically skinny about him anymore, a full grown man in full command of his body. I find myself staring at his fingers, rising and falling with each breath he takes, his pinky just barely slipping beneath the elastic of his sleep pants.
The sight along with the lingering sound of distress in his voice at having woken up to find me gone is doing funny things to my nerves, and with a hiss I look away to see I've actually pricked my finger - a single drop of red blood staining the tip. I bend my finger at the knuckle and smear the tiny drop across my palm, effectively expunging away the well of magic that was reaching tentatively out to me.
"I feel like shit." He groans suddenly and I glance back over at him, determinedly keeping my eyes away from his lower half.
"Alcohol will do that." I respond, annoyed when my voice comes out a little too raspy.
He hums in agreement and then lifts his hand a fraction and peers at me from out from under it. "All your bloody fault."
It was? "Care to clarify?" I hedge, truly curious about all that happened last night.
He grunts then pushes himself up on his elbows, eyeing me with bloodshot eyes. "You first."
"Come again?" I tip my head and with smooth movements, reach behind myself and carefully shut the lid of the box, knowing I can't chance him seeing inside.
His eyes flicker over to it at the small creak for a moment but he thankfully doesn't ask about it. "You were acting..." He trails off, looking up at the ceiling as he mulls over the correct description.
"Tipsy?" I supply for him.
"Unhinged." He corrects and I try not to visibly flinch. Apparently everyone noticed then. "I want to know what happened with Safiya."
"Ah, well what do you know already?" I ask, slipping the vest from my shoulders and hanging it carefully in the wardrobe simply so my hands have something to do.
He snorts and sits up all the way, his fingers rubbing over his forehead. "I have no clue really, you just kept rambling about me running far far away from someone and not letting her touch me." He chuckles lightly, then with a grimace seems to reconsider the sound and his decision to get up. "You weren't making any sense. Just lots of ranting, pacing, and drinking." He mutters as he flops back down, bringing his legs fully onto the bed and turning on his side to face me. "Reminded me a bit of your more heated tirades about washing my dishes as soon as I'm finished with them."
I scowl and toe my boots off, tossing them in the bottom of the wardrobe. "If you don't, then they become ghastly difficult to clean now don't they?"
"Beside the point."
"You brought it up." I pad into the kitchen, turning over exactly what to tell him and how as I fill the kettle and place it on the stove.
He mumbles something I can't make out and when I come back into the room he's sprawled across the bed, a muscle twitching in my cheek at the sight. With an inward curse I make a mental note to do the laundry before tonight.
"How are you doing that?" He grunts and I pause with my hand rifling through my shirts, looking over at him with a perplexed look. "Walking around so much." He tries to clarify and I just blink. Walking around, seriously? "You were way more drunk than me and it's much too early for you to be looking so...healthy."
"I was not that drunk." I pull out a simple gray tee-shirt, laying it over the back of the desk chair while I begin to undo the buttons on my shirt.
"Right." Potter snorts. "So then remind me, why exactly did you pour all my shampoo down the sink?"
My fingers still on the last button, the tiny little fastening pinched so tightly in my grasp I'm surprised it doesn't snap. I did what? "I think you were imagining things Potter." I mutter, forcing the last button free and shrugging the material that feels a bit sticky off my shoulders.
Though wasn't that exactly what I've been wanting to do?
"No, you stalked into my bathroom, grabbed the shampoo, and started emptying the whole thing while ranting about 'Harry fucking Potter and god damn coconuts'. It was quite humorous actually, except for the fact that now I need to buy some more." His tone is light and edged with little laughs but there's also a hint of question in it, wondering why I had actually done something like that.
And what am I going to say? Yes Potter, I simply cannot resist the way you smell and it's literally driving me insane with making me want to snog you so that is why I had to get rid of it. Oh yes, that would go over really well.
I can feel him watching me, his gaze burning over my exposed back before I manage to tug the clean shirt on. "It was making me sick." I lie.
"Sure it was." He smiles, the kind of smile that makes his nose crinkle and eyes narrow and he sounds much too happy about that. "Now, back to the lady I need to run away from and not let touch me." Potter swings the subject back around and I find myself just blinking at him for a moment, my mind having wondered off and gotten lost again in watching the damn stretch of skin that's still exposed.
This is getting much too difficult.
It was just a few days ago that it wasn't nearly so hard to keep myself in check - any amorous thoughts, really even looking intently at him, quickly leading to a rising panic. But now the panics have seemingly vanished leaving only a plethora of questions and...why can't he button up his damn shirt?
Now is the time to look away again, to stop watching him like an idiot but nothing seems to be going my way this morning - my entire body apparently rebelling against the logical side of my mind. I need to do something, say something, before I completely lose all control and climb onto the bed. To taste him and make his face contort in a mirror imagine of the one in my thoughts.
I shake my head and blink and good god what am I a teenager again? This is getting ridiculous, this is not me...maybe I'm still drunk...
The kettle whistles and I turn with probably way to much enthusiasm for a simple cup of tea and very purposely not run but walk into the kitchen. Pouring the boiling water into a smaller teapot, I add a strong amount of loose leaves, set the timer, and with determination rejoin the man who’s apparently set on ruining me all over again.
"Can I borrow a shirt?" Potter asks while staring down at himself and plucking at the wrinkled material.
That is not a good idea, is he purposely trying to scar everything I own, making it impossible for me to ever look at anything again without seeing him? I can't put my whole pathetic life in that dusty box and close the lid once he leaves again.
No, not pathetic, structured. My structured life.
But of course there is no good and logical reason he can't borrow a shirt, so with my lip curling in revolution at my own inner distress, I pluck out the first one my hands fall on and throw it to him.
I wonder if he'll get out if I ask him to leave. Probably not...
I hear the rustle of fabric, can picture perfectly in my mind the way his arms will lift and bend as the material falls free and with yet another curse at myself, retreat back into the kitchen. To check on the tea, mustn't let it get bitter and all. I scowl at the inane timer that's still ticking down with silent seconds and brace my hands against the counter top.
I really should throw him out, not only to remove this fuzz in my mind but so I can get back to that damn crossroads and decide how and where to proceed.
"Just curious but what does this say?"
I glance over my shoulder at Potter's curious voice to find him standing in the doorway, pointing at his chest. And damn it I should have picked more carefully because I like that one. He's wearing one of my Muay Thai shirts that Donnie gave me after my first fight, a deep black fabric with the Thai language scrolled in a semi-circle on one side with two hands pressed together in the sign of respect on the other near the bottom.
"Bone is inch by inch, stronger than steel." I translate with a small nostalgic smile.
I was always fond of that saying, because it was a promise of sorts to me. Reminding me that if I just gave it enough time, enough courage, enough of myself than my bone could be the part of me that's strongest. Not my heritage, not my blood, not my magic. My own bone, something I could harden and mold with sheer effort.
Something that could be only mine that no one else has touched.
"I like that." Potter smiles and slides onto one of the chairs.
The timer dings and I pull out two mugs, pouring the tea into each before carrying them over to the table. He mutters a quick thank you as I slide it towards him, his lips pursing to blow on the burning surface as he holds it between his palms. His breath creates a ripple over the top of the black liquid, his glasses fogging from the proximity, and a portion of the fear that had driven me out of the club last night spins towards me. Free man or not, she could still get to him. And this, he, is not a gamble I'm willing to make.
He's not safe here and I can't...can't continue with the focus I need with that pulling at me. I have to win the next fight.
"I think you should leave." I say abruptly.
He starts and curses as the tea sloshes in his mug and spills over his fingers. "Oh okay...um well...I mean I still want to know though. Maybe this afternoon-"
"No Potter." I cut him off, my throat feeling suddenly tight and my heart squeezing as I force the words out with a deadpan voice. "You need to go back to England or America or wherever you want but you can't stay here." His fingers are bright red, scalded angry lines curving over them but he doesn't get up to run them under cool water or even give them a second glance.
"What? Why?" His green eyes are unusually wide, all trace of humor gone from his face as he stares at me. "Does this have to do with what happened last night?"
"Yes." I look down into my mug, the expression on his face too distressing and I need to stay strong, stay focused. Convincing Harry Potter of anything is an art form of itself - one I used to be very good at but I'm not so confident in my abilities any longer.
"What is it?"
"Madame Safiya...as well as some of her clients...has taken an interest in you and it's not safe any longer."
"An interest?" He repeats, sounding perfectly puzzled. "What does that mean?"
"Put it together Potter, why would I want to keep you away from a client that wants to touch you?" I ask, putting a sharp emphasis on the word client and touch.
He looks utterly incredulous for a moment before, "oh...OH..." He shifts uncomfortably and I glance back up to meet his eye. The look I don't want to see takes flame in his irises and I brace myself as he leans into the table. "Draco, why was she having you meet those kinds of clients?" He asks tensely.
Damn it, can't he ever just act selfishly for once and not worry about others?
I wave my hand in the air dismissively, acting as if her making me let them see me didn't bother me in the slightest. "As long as I win the next fight it will be inconsequential."
"As long as you win..." My jaw slides forward and sets, why does he keep repeating me? "Does that mean if you lose that she's going to...what sell you?" He spits the last words out with a biting anger that surges through me.
"I'm not going to lose and even if I do she'll find it rather difficult to actually do it." I mutter darkly, taking a drink of my tea even though it's too hot and scorches my mouth and throat.
Potter looks wild, his magic rising like a force around him that makes me want to cringe away and wrap it around myself in the same moment. Because maybe if I can build up enough anxiety, enough revulsion this will all be so much easier. "But she'll try! How do you know she won't even if you do win? Why are you even still here? We need to go, not just me!"
"I've made my decision."
"Then bloody change it!" He snaps and I just look at him steadily, letting him see that it's pointless asking me too. "Well I'm not leaving either then." He seethes stubbornly, crossing his arms over his chest.
"You don't owe me anything Potter, you should get out while you can." I say quietly suddenly feeling very, very tired.
"I am not leaving without you." He grinds out and he looks utterly dangerous, like he's standing again on the battlefield with only a stretch of frozen ground between him and the Dark Lord. When his hands had slipped over mine, directing my arm out, a command screaming from his lips as I slumped against him, a wand of untold power flying into our outstretched palms. He had been blazing then, a force pushing out from him that had stilled the bravest and darkest of hearts - a clear and undeniable reminder of what he could do to anyone who tried to tame and control him.
I feel like crumbling beneath the waves, the torrent emitting from him, and allow myself the briefest of moments to wonder what it would be like. How it would feel to let myself go and just let him pull me away with him. To forget this whole life I've carved for myself, to let the bone that sits like steel within my body to drift back to its more brittle nature. Could I possibly replace it with the heritage in my blood?
Could I handle it? Do I even want to?
"Why?" I hear myself asking, not realizing I had done so until the question pulls a stretch of punctured silence from him.
He licks his bottom lip before biting it and do I really want to know the answer? I can't help but let myself think back to his journal, to the pages that spoke of his steps over these past few years, the steps that seemed oddly like ghosts of my own, the probability that it was all just a great cosmic coincidence pressing at me and laughing in my face
"You know why." He says quietly.
"No Potter, I don't." I struggle to keep my emotions in check, to keep them down and out of the way, away from clouding my judgment. "I have no idea why you care so much. Is it some sort of skewed loyalty thing because we used to be friends? It that it? I haven't seen you for years and you didn't give a damn during all that time. Or is this about your need to be the hero? Are you so bored in your own life that you have to leech onto mine just to get a fix of adrenaline? How many times do I have to tell you that I don't need you to save me?" My voice, that had grown uncharacteristically loud, falls likes shattering glass through the kitchen and Potter's staring at me like I've just stabbed him repeatedly – his dark lashes laying over heavily hooded eyes
And with a crack the mug sitting before him shakes and collapses in on itself, dark tea spilling across the table top. I stare at the running liquid, barely registering the hot quality of it soaking through my pants as it drips off the table. "Always once more." He says so lowly that I almost miss it, my gaze snapping away from the river and up to him.
"What?" I clench my hands over my thighs, pressing into the hot fabric.
"You left." He continues, like he didn't hear me at all, his eyes distant and oddly shinning. "You left, not me, so don't say I didn't give a damn."
My heart plummets into the pit of my stomach and the spilled tea in my lap and on my hands suddenly seems to reach my nerve center and starts to burn uncontrollably. And maybe it's just me trying to detach, trying to dig my heels in and stay very far away from where this conversation could lead, but I let myself drown in the heat for a moment. Then unable to take his gaze anymore and equally unable to come up with a fitting retort, I rise quickly and walk over to the sink.
Turning the tap on, I stick my burning hands under the cool water, wishing very much that I could dunk my entire body beneath its cold stream - maybe then the heat that seems to be radiating from inside me would dissolve.
"Do you want to know how that made me feel?" Potter says from behind me, his tone hard and very controlled, like he's only allowing himself to breathe every other second, only allowing his voice to rise between each inhale.
My head shakes on its own accord, my hands trembling lightly under the water and I start counting simply to give myself something else to latch onto other than his words and voice. "I imagine nothing."
"You can't believe that." He replies, his voice nearer than it was a second before, causing every muscle in my body to tense. "Not after everything."
"Actually I can." I clear my throat, frowning at the breathy quality of my tone, sounding very much like I don't believe my own words. Cursing myself and refusing to acknowledging the tremble that seems to be spreading to my insides, I turn sharply, intending to fix him with a sneer that would convey my disdain in a way my voice is refusing to do. Instead I find myself trapped between him and the sink, his hands reaching immediately out to press into the counter top on either side of me. And before I can think it through my mouth is opening on reflex and nearly growling out, "you wanted to know what they did to me? They took away the illusion Potter, they made it all very undeniable clear."
His throat works, his eyes flicking down to the long ugly scar on the inside of my left arm and it's like I can feel the knife against my skin all over again - cutting away the decaying Dark Mark with a blade that was too dull for the job. "No Draco, they made you believe a lie if that's what you really think."
"Wrong again Potter." He's standing so close all I can see is his vivid emerald eyes that are darker than ever, can feel his harsh breath on my face. "You don't-"
"I killed him." He interrupts me and I feel all the blood drain from my face, my heart stopping. "Did you know that?" I shake my head, my eyes blinking rapidly, positive that one of the times I reopen my eyes that he'll be gone, that this is all a figment of my imagination. Because that can't be true. "I did, I tracked him down and killed him myself."
I swallow thickly, my mind filling with the image that his explanation is conjuring. Can it possibly be true? It doesn't sound like Potter, doesn't fit the goodness of who he is. "No...how...why?"
Yet even though I can't believe it of him, it's worming its way inside anyways, vibrating over and over in my head - he's dead…he’s dead...
The man who threw me in a pit with nothing to protect from the elements for weeks on end. The man who starved and beat and tortured and broke my body in every way imaginable. The man who took such great pleasure in hearing me scream, the man who tormented me to the point that my own name was a haze on a distant horizon that I could no longer reach.
He's dead and I don't quite know how to grasp that.
Potter's arms slip closer around me, pressing into my sides and I'm sure if I looked down I would find his hands clasped unnaturally tight around the ledge. "Because they took you and tortured you and now I know why. They didn't want to kill you, they wanted to break you didn't they?" He pauses and looks positively murderous. "They wanted to make you believe you are something you aren't."
"But I am." My voice cracks but I can't gather enough energy to care about that appearance of weakness, my head spinning with all Potter's revealing. "I am and that's...that's why..."
"Why what? Why you ran? Why you can't stand magic?" He probes and I feel myself crumbling because no matter what Potter says I know better.
I know what I am.
"That's why you need to leave." I finish in a whisper.
"It's not real Draco, it's not true." He's turning flustered, his eyes softening around the edges. "I don't know what they convinced you of but listen to me, I know you, I do and whatever twisted version of yourself they gave you isn't it." His arms snake around my back until he's pressing himself to me, his face burying in my shoulder and I can feel the hardness of each drag of breath through his chest. "Just...trust me please."
I stare at the empty space of wall over the top of his head, finding it hard to breathe as I listen to his pleading voice. I can't believe I just told him, it's my secret and even though he doesn't know the whole of it, doesn't know the deepness of the wound or the infection that's festering in it, it's only a matter of time now before he does. Before it all becomes clear and I can't live through that, I know it will sever the last thread of sanity I have. I can feel him so solid and warm against me, hugging me like he's afraid I'll drift like smoke through his fingers, and it's such a cruel illusion.
Because he'll hate me when he knows and even if for some miracle he doesn't, he should.
"Just please leave." I know he just barely manages to hear my one last plea and I can feel his arms tighten and throat swallow while his heart speeds up.
"Why are you so afraid of me?" He mumbles against my shoulder, sounding oddly small, like a child - it's a voice unfitting of the great Harry Potter. "I can help you, we can figure this out together."
"Harry." I sigh, using his given name in an attempt to gather his full attention and it works, his head pulling back just a fraction to look at me with an expression of hope. The speech that was building in my mind slowly falls bit by bit through my gasp as he sucks me in and I know there's no convincing him.
Unless I shatter him, unless I take that hope away in such a manner that it can never grow back. And that is exactly what I should do, what I need to do for his and my own sake. And I know just how to do it.
"Tell me." He says gently, running just the tip of his fingers over my jaw in a touch that's much too soft before pressing a feather light kiss to my cheek that captures my breath anyway. "Tell me the lie they gave you and I'll show you how wrong it is."
I screw my eyes shut, my jaw clenching tightly, his touch becoming more insistent at the hardness that overtakes my muscles. "Go." I know I'm simply repeating myself, an argument that won't work but I can't seem to bring myself to use the things I know will drive him away now. And maybe it's because there's a part of me that doesn't want to, the part that's melting under him - I can't remember the last time I was touched in such a manner or kissed, even if it was only on the cheek.
"Not a chance." I can hear the shy smile in his voice.
"I can't tell you."
"I can wait until you’re ready." Potter whispers, pressing another kiss to the corner of my eye.
"You'll be waiting forever then." I mutter, his attention making me feel like a puddle on the ground and even though I should put a stop to it, I can't seem to move my body in any helpful way - instead I find my hand coming up to rest atop the one he has curved around the side of my neck, in effort to pry it away or to make sure he doesn't run I can't be sure.
I feel completely torn in two, perfectly conflicted, his warm lips opening just a fraction to place a wet kiss near my ear and then moving over my jaw. But he's not for me and never can be.
This is a very dangerous line I'm dancing.
"I can do that." He says, promising in so many words to wait forever with me, for me.
