The Art of Shadow Boxing

 

                                                                                                                              Chapter 12

                                                                                                                The Wanting Comes In Waves







"You are absolutely no help."

I glance up with a quirked eyebrow, my fingers drifting away from the stand filled with exotic fruits and dried meats. "And that's surprising?" I ask, trying to keep a smile in as Potter crosses his arms and all but stomps his foot in frustration.

"Yes actually, isn't shopping like one of your things?" He grumbles, looking rather accusatory which only adds to the humor I can feel blooming in my chest.

I nod and move around the cart with the twining flowers running up and down its length, drawing myself closer to him and away from the bustle of people. "When I was younger but in case you haven't notice I don't particularly like crowds anymore." His frown twitches and I try to ignore the scratch of arms and legs brushing into me on accident as all the natives and tourists alike weave throughout the market. "I'm not all together sure how you managed to talk me into this in the first place."

He smiles coyly, a faint blush tinting his cheeks before he clears his throat with a little cough. "Lucky timing?" He rocks on his heels and tugs me to the next stall that houses an array of colorful hand weaved silk wraps.

Lucky timing indeed - I had been in the middle of my morning sit-ups when the bastard swept from the bathroom, his hair dripping wet and clad only in a pair of sleep pants, and promptly flopped down on my bed. He had just stared at me for a good five minutes until I couldn't take it any longer and looked over at him, which had been a tremendous mistake. He always looks much to appealing after showering, the water somehow managing to tame his hair for a few brief moments before evaporating.

When it was all said and done I had gotten caught off guard as he prattled off, my eyes glued to a drop of water clinging to a curl around his ear before dropping off and running down his neck and into the hallow of his throat. Thus I was duly distracted and embarrassed and frustrated and I found myself mumbling a 'yeah sure' without really knowing what I was agreeing to.

Leading us here, to a crowded street market searching for a present for Granger and Weasley. Apparently it's some sort of tradition - Potter buys them something local and they bring him...well I actually don't quite remember because he was talking about it while kneeling on the floor and rummaging around in the bottom of the wardrobe looking for a pair of trousers.

And that sight was just cruelly taunting.

"Just pick something Potter, we've been here all afternoon." I grumble, feeling hot and tired and very uncomfortable with all the press of people. Yet all in all, I'm doing relatively well, not falling into vertigo and melting down being a rather momentous achievement.

I should feel happier about it.

"I don't know...I mean do you think she'll like this?" Potter picks up a beautiful wrap made of shimmering reds, oranges, and yellows, creating the illusion of the sun setting around your shoulders. "It's pretty right?"

I trail my fingers over the incredibly soft material and smile lightly - my mother would have loved it and I can almost see it draped along her gentle curves, hugging her and providing warmth to her natural winter looks. I let my hand drop and divert my attention back to the present situation, the thought of my long lost mother still stinging in the hallow of my heart. "It is but perhaps a book is better suited for Granger."

Potter rolls his eyes and huffs. "She's always getting books."

"That's because she loves them." I point out. "But this will do as well I suppose, won't clash horribly with her complexion or anything."

Potter smiles with a little laugh, folding the warp carefully in his hands. "Oh see now there's the Draco I've been looking for since we got here." He shakes his head and holds up his choice to the merchant, indicating his desire to purchases it. "I'm absolutely rubbish at this sort of thing."

"You've gotten a slight better at it." I mutter, eyeing the way his simple vintage red shirt falls against the angles of his body, his jeans hugging his hips in just the right places. He still dresses drably and in clothes much too large from him time to time but not always, it's a bit uncanny how he can switch back and forth between the styles without a bat of the eye - like he doesn't even notice doing it.

He jerks his head back over to me, blinking like he can't quite believe that I just complimented him before his mouth splits into a wide grin. "You think?"

I start moving past him, trying to give off an air of indifference. "Don't let it go to your head, it's not that big of an achievement."

"Coming from you it is." He calls after me as I pick at the offerings in the next stall, lovely carved figures of wood and jade. "Okay so now Ron. Any ideas?" He asks as he comes up next to me, his new purchase wrapped in brown paper under his arm. 

I shrug, looking over the tiny carved animals before me. "How about a little marble weasel?" I ask with a sly smirk.

Potter snorts and looks around the vicinity. "Right, I'm sure he'd love it." He says sarcastically. "Come on if you want to leave soon, then help me find something good."

Shoving my hands in my pockets we meld with the flow of people moving between the stands, keeping our eyes out for interesting looking wares. "Honestly Potter I don't know why you think I could pick something out for Weasley. I could make the man furious, upset, indigent, confused, embarrassed, nervous, shocked, and even produce a rather impressive blush all relatively quickly but I do believe that picking a gift he'd enjoy is beyond my skill set." 

He laughs again, the merriment that today has brought him shinning in his face. "Very true, I've seen you manage that all in the course of one action before."

"It's a rare talent indeed." I return his smile, the hot sun beating down on my neck and giving an odd sort of glow to our surroundings, the crowd pulsing in the waves of heat like reflections on water. And Potter's riding atop it like an illusion bent on being reality, his grin much to wide as he bites into the corner of his bottom lip. "What are you thinking?" I ask as he leads me down a turn in the street, bringing us through a slightly darker and even more crowded path.

"It's just good to see you really smiling...I've missed it."

"Getting sappy on me Potter?" I ask, surprised by the teasing in my voice.

"That depends." He touches my shoulder firmly as a stall catches his attention, pulling me with him over to it. "Are you going to get all stoic again if I do?" He stares at me with an intensity that's difficult to digest in the middle of the market, my mind already fuzzy from the heat and the perfumed air and mass of people.

I know the answer should be yes - that being stoic is much safer but I can't seem to care about that right now. Because at the moment I feel several years younger, before everything became twisted and god I just want to be...normal, carefree for one little moment. So with my mind floating in a bubble of frozen time, I let myself smirk at him, capturing his fingers as they fall from my arm and using them to tug him closer.

He stumbles a step and catches himself with a hand on my shoulder. "Are you complaining?" I ask, staring down into his rounded eyes. "Because I know I do stoic rather well..."

He gulps and doesn't move to right himself. "Yes you do. Still...I think I'll take the smiling." He says quietly, almost too lowly to be heard amongst the shouts of merchants yelling out their prices and divine wares.

"And whys that?" I ask in a rush that gushes the words out before I can think better and retract them.

Day by day, inch by inch, he's been breaking down my resolve and now I feel laid out and dizzy in the crowded square, acting without letting my mind connect to their logical consequences. And then there's his immediate proximity, he's always been all consuming, no matter what he's doing - the man could command thousands with a sigh. No one has ever affected me like he does, no one has ever touched me like his hands have, like I'm...worth the price.

He glances at our entwined hands at his waist, a lazy smile spreading up his mouth. "Bet you could guess."

"Does it have to do with my dashing good looks?" I mutter, searching the lines of his face and feeling myself slip away and maybe...maybe...

Maybe out here in the heat and the hustle and the semblance of isolation I could forget, for now, for a moment. Maybe I could have this before Granger and Weasley come and steal him away as they must.

I know I need to convince them of that, to take him back home when they come, I came to that dreaded realization a couple days ago. There are few things that can bend Potter, his friends being my brightest hope in securing his safety.

"Mhmm." He nods, sidestepping a group of young children brushing past his legs without even looking down at them. "You know whenever you smiled in school I was convinced you were up to something." He finishes as he settles his hip against the long wooden pole at the corner of the stall.

"Want to know a secret?" I ask and he nods again with an ever growing smile, his back easing against the pole and all he's missing is the Hogwarts uniform to complete the picture - looking so very much like he did all those days he spent stalking me in sixth year. I lean in casually and whisper in his ear, "I was half the time, the other half I was just enjoying watching you get all flustered and frustrated with trying to catch me at something."

"So you liked watching me huh?" Potter raises one thick eyebrow with a chuckle muffled against his pressed lips.

"Yes." I mirror his expression and press a little closer. "But not as much as you liked stalking me."

His bottom lip springs free from his teeth as his mouth parts with a blushing smile that can't decide if it wants to be shy or an outright grin. "That's all conjecture. I seem to recall you always shouting at me from across the Great Hall trying to get my attention."

"And it wasn't hard because you were already staring at me." I counter and his flush deepens to a lovely shade of red. It's so strange, speaking of our youth in such an untroubled way, teasing with gentle probes as one of Potter's legs presses into the side of mine.

"Seems we're at an impasse then." He mumbles with his head tilting further towards me, his fingers still barely tangled in mine in a feather light grasp that's sending little shivers up and down my spine.

Funny how so simple a touch is capable of that.

I find my heart speeding up a little as I'm forced another step closer by a passing trio of women, Potter's warmth sinking into my already overheated flesh at the minuscule distance between us now. And I can't decide how to continue, if I should keep sinking us into school day remembrances or maybe traverse a little further down the road to the more complicated days of hunting horcruxes. Either way it's odd to realize that I want both of those instead of trying to flee from their memories.

The decision is made for me a moment later as Potter reaches up and starts fiddling with the collar of my shirt, clearly debating his next words, and I find myself with no urge to stop him and remove his hands from me. Quite the opposite actually.

"Draco, I..." He huffs with his own frustration and blinks rapidly at me for a moment before leaning his head back and fixing me with a long look that's glowing in his emerald eyes.  

The emotions fitted in his gaze are starting to make my head swim, my tongue growing thick in my mouth as I teeter on the edge - leaning further and further away from the frantic 'no, no, no' repeating itself over and over again inside my mind.

"Yes?" I prompt and his fingers curl around the neck of my shirt, pulling with just enough pressure to draw me nearer if I decide to let it.

I find myself giving into it, letting his fist drag me closer, when everything inside me freezes in an instant as my eyes catch sight of something just over his shoulder. It's only a glimpse of wild black hair, thick tangling curls dancing over a long pale face and descending to merge against a tight black dress. A twisted wicked smile with a laugh that seems to carry like a phantom on the breeze before she turns and sways through the crowd that's parting before her in a swarming mass that opens and swallows, opens and swallows.

"Bella." I whisper, all the blood draining from my face, my heart stopping in my chest as I push Potter back from me with jerking movements. My feet rushing past him on their own, a loud breathing in my head as I shoulder through the people that are between us, a lock of black and a flash of a demented grin taunting me forward. I chase after her without any sort of plan, the sight of her sending a nervous chill all over my heated body and I feel a sheen of sweat break out across my skin.

"Draco it's time, it's time, it's time..." Bellatrix's voice pierces straight through my thoughts, like she's tangling herself around me, a sharp throbbing pain scorching at me with each crackling syllable.

I will kill her, I will drain the life from her, how the fuck is she here!

"Don't close your eyes." She laughs through my bones and I feel my body snap forward and jerk like she's dragging a curse along my skin.

I run through the street, turning this way and that, the ghost of my Aunt before me until there's nothing there, her disembodied laugh dying on the wind - my hands gripping in my hair as I spin around, suddenly panicking at having lost sight of her, for now she could be anywhere, could pounce unnoticed at any moment. There's a strangled cry falling from my lips and then Potter's grabbing my arm, dragging me off to the side as I mutter incoherently, my eyes still roving in a desperate attempt to catch sight of her.

He pulls me down an alley, my mind barely grasping onto our surroundings as I feel myself tearing apart with fear, his arm all of a sudden appearing around my waist as he tugs me against him. "Sorry." He says into my ear right before I feel the nauseating pull beneath my navel, my body compressing and sinking and ripping with such a severe nausea that it threatens to steal my consciousness and then only a split second later we're landing in the middle of my flat.

With a gurgling gasp, I scramble to the bathroom, falling with a painful thud against the tile and promptly up-heaving my lunch into the toilet as I feel sweat slide down my face. When I've expelled all I can, I let my body sink down against the cabinet, my eyes squeezed shut. There a shifting of air and a rustle of clothing as Potter slides down to sit next to me, his hand brushing the hair from my sticky forehead.

"I'm sorry about that, I just needed to get you out of there fast." Potter says quietly.

"Did you see her?" I ask, my voice strangely rough and scratchy.

"Bellatrix?" He clarifies and I nod without opening my eyes as I concentrate on settling the sickness that's humming through me. "No...Draco she couldn't have been there."

"How do you know?" I ask, prying my eyes open and lolling my head on the wood to look at him. "Did you kill her too?" I spit the words out with an unbalanced anger, almost hoping beyond hope that he'll say yes. That he ended her life and watched it drain from her face himself. That he killed her the day he murdered Amycus - that my mad Aunt who tormented my mind and soul met the same end as the man who twisted my body.

His jaw tightens as he shakes his head. "No she escaped before I...but she was captured later and died in Azkaban last year." His hand moves to grasp mine, his fingers tangling with mine on my thigh.

I let out an unhinged sounding laugh as I stare at our entwined hands and shake my head. "She was there Potter, I could feel her, I could feel her mind trying to wrap around mine...she's here..."

Potter sighs softly and tightens his grasp on me. "It wasn't her, Hermione owled me the newspaper clipping, she died in her cell, they buried her body at sea."

"You think I'm hallucinating? Think I've gone mad then?" I ask with wave of panic, because no matter how many times he says it, I know she was there. Which means she either didn't die or she's come back from the grave to haunt me for all eternity.

"I think..." He pauses and waits till I look up and meet his eye. "I think maybe you were scared and..."

"And what?" I demand.

"And that you can't let yourself be happy so your minds playing tricks on you." He says very quietly, holding my gaze and refusing my retreat. "I think you've held yourself in for so long that you’re terrified of letting yourself out. You were different this afternoon and I think that started freaking you out." He pauses as I look away, my throat constricting. "But Draco, you don't need to be afraid, no one’s going to hurt you again." He touches my cheek and turns my face towards him. "I promised I'd wait for you to be ready to talk about it and I will, I'll wait as long as you need, but you can't keep going on like this. I can see you want out, I can hear it in your voice when you let your guard drop when you think I'm not noticing, I can see it when you look at me. There's a part of you that's screaming to be released...stop letting it imprison you."

"Some prisons are necessary."

He shakes his head sadly again. "No, they’re not."

"I wasn't imagining things Potter." I mutter, rising to my feet and keeping my gaze away from him. "I have to go, I need some air." He's still sitting on the bathroom floor, motionless, as I walk out - my strides swift and mechanical as I sweep out the door.







****







Bellatrix is here.

I know she is, there' a heaviness that shrouds all those around her and it's draping over me. Phantom or not that cloak of depression is as real as any flesh and bone, her power unhindered by the grave. She's come back to replace the garment back over me, perhaps in rage at Potter haven broken her block. Whatever the reason, whatever the method, she's back and the shadows are growing and jumping from their corners.

"Pull it back Dray!"

I blink and gasp in long abandoned air, my vision slowly refocusing as my fists fall still at my sides, my fingers clenching around the black wraps. "Alright?" I ask, clasping Caleb's wrists and pulling him up from the floor, a trickle of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. He wobbles for a second on his feet with a dazed sort of expression that gets quickly shoved away.

He dabs the red stream away with the back of his hand, an uneasy look in his eyes. "Yeah. Everything okay with you?" He asks and I guiltily eye the bruises forming on his sides and shoulders. "You seem distracted."

I nod while readjusting myself to my surroundings, the familiar gym with its familiar patrons, the darkness that is Bella encroaching on the edges. I feel bad for having taken my paranoia out on Caleb and for allowing it to divest my focus until I had become lost within the dance of limbs.

"Maybe I'm a bit tired." My voice sounds convincing enough and maybe it's because I am tired. Exhausted even. But I don't know when I'll be able to really sleep again.

A long run followed by a few hours of intense training and a couple rounds of sparing hasn't eased my mind in the way it should or that I'm hinging on.

"Office. Now." Donnie catches my eye and with his strong jaw clenched against whatever he wishes to say, turns and walks away.

"Sorry about that." Wiping the sweat from my brow, I feel oddly unbalanced on the spot, like there's something more I should be saying to Caleb but nothing solid comes to mind.

"Don't worry about it." Caleb smiles. "It's good practice for me."

"You're a good soul." I tell him sincerely before crouching and slipping through the ropes of the practice ring.

"You say the oddest things sometimes." He calls at my back with a chuckle as I make my way to the office.

Donnie's sitting in his chair, a glass of water gripped tightly in his hand, his eyes following me all the way inside. "Shut the door." He instructs.

I click it shut behind me and drop into one of the empty chairs, my fingers prying the wrap loose on one hand and slowly begin the process of unraveling it. "What is it?"

"Caleb is not your punching bag." He says strictly and I open my mouth to object or argue or maybe just apologize but he holds up a hand, commanding me to stay quiet. "I know you have a lot on your mind but you crossed a line at the end there and you are not to forget that, understand?" I nod at his pause, feeling guiltier and guiltier with every passing moment. It was never my intention to hurt him. "Good. Now go home."

"What?" I ask a bit startled by that. Surely he isn't that mad at me? Caleb wasn't even that bothered by the rather harsh treatment that shouldn't have entered a friendly sparing ring.

"Go home and cool off and take care of whatever has got a hold of your mind. Your fight’s in a few days and I need you focused." Donnie intones very matter factually, the perspiration on his water glass beading and running down over his fingers.

The wrap springs free with a sharp tug, my teeth sinking into my tongue, because he's right. I've lost my focus, the one thing I've always been able to rely on in a fight, in my life. It’s like it's been plunged in the Arctic sea, frozen in place and only accessible with a chisel and nail.

Damn Bellatrix, only a glimpse and she's fastened a hold to it. "I can stay and help Caleb with his rounds." I offer, uncomfortable about the idea of going home right now.

"I don't think that's what you need right now Dray. You can run him tomorrow." Donnie rubs a hand over the top of his head as he watches me. "Go study Troy's technique some more alright?"

I nod as I free my other hand from its confines. "Yeah alright. I'll see you in the morning then."

He waves me away with a distracted limp hand as I gather up my things. Grabbing my bag and shoving the dirty wraps inside, I say goodbye to Caleb and start on my way home. I feel jumpy as I walk down the street, my gaze on a constant vigilant sweep around the nearby area, almost expecting at any moment for her to appear right before me - even though I know logically that she won't. Because Potter wouldn't lie to me, he wouldn't say she was dead if she wasn't but damn it I just can't shake the creepy feeling that she's slipping ever nearer.

At least I'm not hearing her voice in my head any longer.

I arrive back at my flat with my feet feeling like lead in my shoes and my skin sticky from all the sweat beading and drying across my skin all afternoon. With one last glance around me, I fit the key in the lock and push inside.

"Potter?" I call out as I drop the bag off to the side, uncertain if he's here or not, I can't remember if he was going to be around tonight. I'm not sure which response I'd rather get, either the pin drop quiet of him gone or his tight smile that will no doubt be gracing his face given the last conversation we had.

There's the soft scrap of feet against tile coming from the kitchen and I head towards it with a tired sigh. "I was thinking of ordering in tonight, what do-" I stop dead in the archway, my gaze zeroing in on the unexpected scene before me. 

"Mr. Evans, so good to see you." Madame Safiya smiles coolly at me from where she's seated at my table, her legs clad in sleek skintight black jeans crossed at the knee with one gray stiletto heel dangling in the air. Just beyond her on the other side is Potter, his face drawn with lines of polite courtesy and a subdued shine to his green eyes that would look to any on looker like he's perfectly composed and calm with an edge of disinterest.

But I know better, I know the tightest in the corner of his mouth that hints at the coil of muscles that are ready to pounce and move with unexpected force and grace. I recognize the way he's blinking slowly, with eyes that flicker minutely to the side, gauging the three guards grouped against the counter opposite them.

"Madame." I speak slowly and clearly after having calculated all those in the little kitchen. "Did I miss a meeting?" I ask as I lean against the archway.

"No dear I just wanted to stop by to officially meet Mr. Potter." She answers with a gentle wave of her wrist in Potter's direction. "We've been having a nice little chat."

"Oh?" I raise an eyebrow and take a moment to reassess him, trying to notice any pain in the way he's holding himself but I thankfully can't detect any.

Safiya tilts her chin up with what could almost be construed as a smirk. "I invited him to join me and a few of my acquaintances for dinner this evening but he politely declined." She glances at Potter, her curved eyebrows rising once. "I'm unaccustomed to having my invitations dismissed as such."

"No disrespect, I'm busy is all." Potter replies with a small incline of his head and I can't help but feel rather impressed at his grace in handling this awkward and potentially dangerous situation. 

"Of course dear." Safiya rises smoothly and Potter mimics her like he was raised with refined manners and not in a little cupboard under the stairs. "Another time then?"

"Possibly." He counters and I bite my tongue against shouting out a loud and resounding 'not a chance in hell'.

"I look forward to it." She takes his outstretched hand, clasping it between her two smaller ones and leans in to press a kiss to his cheek.

The small action is making my blood boil and when she releases him and turns back towards me I fear my jaw is noticeably taunt but I can't seem to loosen the muscles. She saunters over to me with a rigid back and places a hand on my shoulder. "And of course the invitation is extended to you as well darling. I assume the preparations for the match are coming along nicely?"

"Perfectly." I answer tightly, keeping my gaze firmly on her face.

"Very good. I'll show myself out." Safiya brushes past me, her three cronies following stiffly and I stand still and erect without turning around until I hear the door click open and thunk shut, the sudden silence in the flat thick and heavy. 

"Are you alright?" I ask, finally allowing the muscles in my body to relax an inch as I swing my gaze over to Potter.

He has his hands held together behind his back as he nods. "Yeah. I can see why you're not fond of her." He snorts and sends me a lopsided smile.

"What did she want?" I move further into the kitchen and he angles his back away from me, my eyes narrowing at the minuscule but purposeful movement.

"She was intent on trying to figure me out I think. She likes to set traps in her conversations doesn't she?" He explains and shifts again as I take another step closer.

"Indeed. Why are you hiding your hands?"

"Er...I'm not." He stares wide eyed at me, in a goofy 'see how completely innocent and alright I am?' expression that only manages to make me more suspicions. I cross my arms and set my jaw and he grumbles under his breath. "It's nothing really."

"Then show me." I insist. He's grumbling quietly again as he holds his hands out for me to see, two angry red chaff marks marring each wrist like they had been bound together with a line of cutting twine. I reach out and grasp his arm just under the mark, hissing in a breath and silently seething at that damn woman. "What did she do?" I grind out.

"Not much really she just...um took some blood." He shifts on his feet and my eyes snap up to the hollow of his elbow and sure enough there's a needle thin indentation in the middle of a blossoming bruise.

"You let her take your blood?" I ask breathlessly, my chest feeling a bit tight as all the horrendous things a wizard could do with someone’s blood floods my mind, the options are numerous and none of them good.

He seems to sense my line of thought and shakes his head with a huff. "What was I supposed to do? Stun them all? Try to run away? They're muggles, there can't be too many awful things she can do with it is there?"

"I don't know." My fingers curl around his marred skin that's hotter to the touch than the rest of him. "But damn it Potter this can't be anything good!"

"I understand that." Potter says sternly. "But there's nothing we can do about it now, so what would you have me do? Worry myself sick over it? Most likely it will be nothing. I know that head of yours is bursting with all those awful Dark Arts books of yours but you have to remember that she's not a witch, she can't do any of that stuff." He reaches out and winds his other hand through my free one. "I'll ask Hermione to look into it when she gets here tomorrow though."

I let out a tired chuckle, grasping tightly to his fingers and running my thumb over his red wrist. "Oh that's just brilliant Potter, let your friends know that I've put you in this position. They'll hate me all over again." I chide but there's a part of me that latches onto the idea.

Granger has always been amazing at digging up the most obscure things, perhaps she could come up with some plausible explanations as to why Madame Safiya wants his blood.

My eyes droop heavily as we stand silently in the kitchen for several long minutes, every last drop of energy fleeing my overworked body, as my mind tries to work around this new development. But there's too many twists and turns, too many knots and overpasses and hidden agendas and smoothly placed half-truths that I can't catch onto it all - not now with how emotionally, mentally, and physically drained I am.

"You look like you’re going to keel over." Potter mumbles and starts pulling me gently towards the other room. "Come on, let’s get you to bed."

I let him lead me, not even caring that I haven't eaten or that I really should shower or try to convince him to leave again or at least force my head down until I figure this whole maze out. I stare quietly out the window, my throat swallowing down a protest as he drops my hand to rummage around in the wardrobe.

It's stupid, we're not any safer because of a silly handhold but somehow I feel distinctly more agitated as soon as his warm palm and long fingers part from mine.

He hands me a set of pajamas and I head to the bathroom and prepare for bed with measured movements, suddenly nervous of what my dreams might bring tonight.

Don't close my eyes.

That's what Bella had said and it feels as if she's looped an anchor around my conscious, sticking my weary eyes open, and making me fear the night more than I have in a very long time.

I find my fingers running the length of the counter in a one, two, three, four up and one, two, three, four down methodical procedure before I even realize I'm doing it. With a muttered curse I pull my hand back like I've been forcing it over a burning stove and exit the loo, slipping beneath the thin covers carefully.

Potter snaps the curtains shut, blocking out the setting sun and blinking street lamps. "Night Draco." He says quietly as I watch his darkened form move across the room.

"Potter?" I hesitate as he turns towards me, waiting silently for me to finish my thought. I fiddle with the sheet pooled about my waist and clench and release my fist, my eyes screwing shut for a moment as I battle with myself. "Will you stay?" I ask quietly, whispering around the taunting voice of my Aunt.

I can see him cock his head, even in the poor lighting and its four painful beats later before he responds. "I wasn't planning on leaving."

"No I mean..." I curse my own timid voice, I sound small. I sound like a victim and that is not okay. But god I can't image traversing through this night alone, not after seeing my Aunts ghost, not after Safiya bound Potter and pierced him in my own home. "Will you stay...here...with me tonight?" I finish, letting my hand fall to the space beside me, his eyes strangely glowing in the room as they follow and fix on the empty expanse.

I can hear him breathing as he nods, his movements far more unsteady than normal as he tugs his shirt over his head, and crawls onto the bed. He sits on his knees, staring at me and I'm both glad for the darkness obscuring our features and wishing to flip on a light so I could clearly read his expression.

"Draco...about this afternoon at the market-"

"Let's let it lie for now." I whisper, scooting down until I'm lying on my side facing him, watching the black lines of body as he mimics me. He rests his hand inches from my own and since I've already tipped over the line by requesting this of him, I let my fingers inch forward and rest gently over his. "Thank you." I breathe in his scent and feel my eyes flutter with the force of my exhaustion and his presence.

He twines his fingers through mine and I'm struck with the realization that somehow, for some reason, we keep ending up holding hands today.