Kneeling

Author's note: I'm sorry I've made you all wait so long for the next chapter! For two months, I kept checking if aff.net was up again, but I finally gave it up as a lost cause. Glad to have been wrong!


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Draco woke up with Harry’s arm slung heavily over his chest, warm breath snuffling in his ear, and a smile that just didn’t want to quit. He thought about snaking out of bed before there could be any morning-after awkwardness, but he just couldn’t bring himself to leave their warm bed just yet. Just five more minutes, he told himself, but then it was already to late - Harry stirred, made a small, snuffling sound and opened his eyes. But strangely enough, he didn't scowl or glare at Draco.

He didn't actually say much of anything, either, but then, Draco was pretty sure that had more to do with Harry just not being a morning person than anything else. They got dressed in near-silence, but there was nothing hostile or awkward about the moment, and when they parted to go to their respective classes, Harry gave Draco a small smile and wave goodbye.

Draco felt his heart flutter a little with a wave of bright, instant joy. He shook his head at himself. Hopeless. You're completely hopeless..


*********


Considering the peaceful way their last night together had ended, it was a complete shock when Harry came into their secret room the next time with his face set into a hard, tight mask. He jerked off his clothes with clothes with urgent, mindless efficiency, his movements jittery and agitated.

For a moment, Draco felt his insides clench with fear -- he couldn't stand a return of their more uglier nights, of the time when Harry had so obviously loathed the very sight of him. Not now, not when everything had been so good.

But this didn't look like hate, or even rage -- there was something more like panic in Harry's eyes, like he was barely keeping it together in the face of a dark, powerful fright. Draco reached out hesitantly to put a hand on Harry’s shoulder, trying to offer comfort, even knowing it probably wouldn't be welcome. “Want to tell me what’s bothering you?” he said quietly, expecting the question to be harshly rebuffed.

To his surprise, Harry didn’t bat him away, but rather leaned into the touch a little bit. His muscles were clenched tight and hard under Draco's hand. He slowly rubbed them with his thumb, trying to soothe . Harry sighed and slumped down on the bed, some of the tension going out of him, but didn't answer.

“Come on”, Draco cajoled. “What’s up? On the risk of sounding like a psychwiz, talking about things does tend to help.”

He lay down next to Harry, who turned and curled into him, burying his face against Draco’s shoulder. He wasn't crying, at least Draco didn’t think so, but there were minute shudders running through his body.

“Hey…” Draco whispered, helplessly. “Harry, what is it?”

“God, Draco, I’m so afraid”, Harry suddenly choked out, blindly grabbing onto Draco’s arm. “They’re all expecting me to save them, they’re looking to me to defeat Voldemort, and I can’t, Draco, I can’t! I’m not even all that much of a great wizard, how do they expect me to be a match for someone who has had years more experience and training than me? I can’t stand it, Draco, I don’t want to be the saviour of the wizarding world, I never wanted that!”

His fingers were digging into Draco’s arm now, nails biting even through the thick fabric of his robe, but Draco ignored it. It wasn’t his own pain that he cared about at the moment. He wanted to comfort Harry, wanted it so much, but he didn’t know what to say.

It’s going to be all right would have been a lie, and they both knew it. You’re string, you're going to make it would only have added the burden of another unwanted confidence on Harry’s shoulders.

Finally, he said “You won’t have to face it alone,” because while it might not be a great consolation, at least that much was true.

Harry’s friends would be with him every step of the way (damn loyal Gyffindors) and he himself would be there, too. He’d have liked to tell Harry that, to promise him his loyalty, but he didn’t quite dare -- even as miserable as he was at the moment, Harry probably would have laughed in his face. He’d never trust a Malfoy in this particular battle, even though Draco liked to think that he’d gained a little bit of Harry’s trust by now. Why else would he have told him something like that?

He tightened his arm around Harry’s shoulder, protectively. “You won’t have to carry that burden alone.”

Harry sighed, the sound muffled against Draco’s shoulder. “’m glad you’re here,” he muttered. He turned his head to give Draco an ironic little smile. “And who’d have thought I’d ever say anything like that?”

Draco felt a steady glow of warmth start spreading through his whole body from the centre of his chest, and suddenly he couldn’t help himself, he had to lean over and kiss Harry’s smiling mouth. He kept it quick and light and closemouthed, all too aware of the boundaries he was crossing, and he was already drawing back to apologize when Harry’s arm locked around his neck and drew him down. Harry latched onto his mouth, kissing him wildly and desperately and like he had been starving for it.

Finally he eased up a bit, tongue still greedily licking at the corners of Draco's mouth.
“God, Draco… just make me forget it for a while?”

That he could do, at least. And for long, blissful moments, buried deeply in Harry’s body and watching his ecstatic face, it felt like more than enough.

************

For a few weeks after that, Harry’s life was strangely peaceful. Whatever research Hermione had been doing had evidently been finished after that awful day where Lupin had gotten hurt. Harry had not seen Lupin for a couple of days after that, and hadn’t dared ask about him, because after all he shouldn't’ even have known that Lupin had gotten hurt.

But then Lupin had come to meet him in Hogsmeade a week later, still looking much thinner than any human being should ever look, but not as if he was about to keel over from exhaustion anymore. His wounds, at least the visible ones, had healed by then, although his ear was still shaped a bit strangely, covered with ugly scar tissue, and he was moving a bit too carefully and stiffly, obviously still hurting.

He refused to answer all the questions Harry dared ask, except for some vague allusions to an “important mission for the Order” he was finished with, now.

Harry started spending more time with Hermione and Ron again, now that she was not quite so stressed out and tired and he himself not so frantic anymore.

Even the nightmares came less frequently now. The nights where he woke up drenched in sweat and crying for the friends he had been unable to save were getting fewer and farther in between. It was still Draco who helped the most with that, who would spend hours distracting him with long, drawn-out sessions of sex whenever the fear began to rise up in him again. It was… nice, to have someone care for him like that, someone he could share his fears with.

He had the occasional pang of conscience about being so much more honest with Draco than he ever was with Hermione and Ron, but he always suppressed it quickly. His friends didn't need him to add his own fears to their burden, and anyway, didn't he deserve some comfort for himself, after all he had done?


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And then another Hogsmeade weekend came. He didn’t have anyone to come with him this time. Hermione was buried in a book -- no research book this time, just the regular muggle variety, but according to her the most thrilling thriller ever -- and didn't even seem to hear him when he asked her, and Ron emerged from under his mountain of overdue homework just long enough to make some longing noises an assure him that he’d love to, he really would, but several teachers were going to have his head on a platter if he didn’t finish this, like, yesterday.

So when he saw Draco walking down the path in front of him, alone, it somehow seemed completely natural to catch up to him and fall into step.

“Hi,” he said tentatively, not sure if his company would be welcomed, or if Draco would revert back to his old spiteful self in public. He didn’t think so, not after what had happened in potions class.

And he was right -- Draco just grinned at him, and jerked a thumb back into the direction of the castle.

“You’d think those morons would have the presence of mind to do their homework before the one weekend where we actually get to do anything but sit around in the castle all the damn time, wouldn’t you?”

Harry laughed. “Well, I can’t say I haven’t done that to myself a time or two, but this time it wasn’t even an option -- if I don’t buy myself some new quills I’ll have to start writing with my fingers.”

It wasn’t much of a conversation, certainly nothing compared to some of the talks they’d had in the privacy of their secret rooms, but as small talk went, it wasn’t too bad. At least there was none of the awkwardness that had pervaded his attempts to talk to Cho on their one and only date in Hogsmeade. Not that this was anything like a date at all, of course.

They bought Harry’s quills and a scarf for Draco -- some thin, shiny, indecently soft thing, made of the beard of a creature Harry had never even heard of, and expensive enough to make him boggle -- and then settled into the Hogshead, where at least they wouldn’t be stared at by any other pupils for choosing to sit together. They didn’t talk much, but the silence was strangely companionable.