Someone Else's Life

Five: Lost in a Portrait

My outline is solid and made up of crime
And the things that you say just burn in my eyes
I want to, to surrender
I want you to find some comfort
In the spaces between the lines
--Trapt “Lost in a Portrait”

“You two, sit,” Draco snapped at Ron and Hermione, and then he grabbed Harry’s shoulders and shook the boy. “And you. I want you to hear every word. I won’t allow you to retreat into yourself. You want to know about what I’ve suffered then I will tell you. No more secrets.”

There was a wild look in the blonde’s stormy grey eyes as he took a moment to compose himself. He let out a dry cruel bout of laughter and then shook his head. Finally he looked at them. First Weasley, then Granger, and finally his eyes landed on Harry, and he couldn’t look away.

“You are all aware that my father has never been a kind man, at least not in my life time, so I needn’t go into my childhood, although I once respected the man more than anything,” Draco said and then sighed before continuing. “So I will begin with Platform nine and three quarters right after we got off of the Hogwarts Express for the summer. Lucius was there when I arrived, as he has been every year, always to escort me to the manor. This time though, things were different. There was something just under the surface, as though I’d finally matured to a point of usefulness to him at last.

“Upon returning to the manor I was asked to accompany him to his study. I wasn’t certain of his plans, perhaps if I had been I wouldn’t have gotten on that train in the first place. I would have demanded asylum at Hogwarts sooner. Still, I wanted to see my mother. She was everything to me, and despite what you may have thought of her; she was a warm and kind woman. She taught me about love. She was the warmth that I was never to know from my father.

“Forgive me for that momentary lapse. Now to continue. Lucius brought me to his study to discuss the terms of my initiation into the Death Eaters. I wasn’t expecting it to occur until Christmas Holidays of my seventh year, as that is usually when the main initiation occurs because it’s the longest night of the year. However my father’s plans were different than my own. The terms were as follows. I was to kill one of you three, either you Weasley, or you Granger, or the ultimate target, Harry, and I was to provide definitive proof of the completed task…”

“So what stopped you from doing as your Daddy asked?” Ron cut in.

Draco’s eyes flashed in anger as he grabbed Ron by the front of his shirt and hauled him to his feet. Which was quite a task seeing as to how Ron was a whole half a foot taller than he. “I may be many things Weasley, but a murderer I am not.”

He then let Ron go and took a few calming deep breaths and sighed. “That night I was to begin my task. Instead I tried to escape. I should have expected the wards Lucius had around my quarters, and he’d changed the wards around the manor. I was caught within hours of my attempt to escape. It was then that he questioned my loyalties to him and the cause. I was taken to the dungeons, stripped naked, and suspended by my wrists from the ceiling. A very painful way to be left for days. I was given enough water and bread to survive on, and when he finally came to me he demanded that I get on with the task and accept the dark mark as my fate. I refused and he said the cost would be my life if I disobeyed. He took a dagger and cut my inner right thigh, puncturing the femoral artery. I would have bled to death, like an animal being bled after the hunt, had my mother not intervened on my behalf.”

Draco closed his eyes, a tear slipping from his left eye to trail down his cheek at the thought of his mother, now buried in the earth, which he quickly wiped away with the back of his hand before continuing.

“She asked that he show mercy for me. So he consented, and instead brought me rags to wear and flogged me daily, trying to beat some sense into me and to make me pledge my loyalties to his cause. When he tired of the physical exertion he put into flogging me he resorted to his wand. One hex after another, until he tired of that and went straight to the Unforgivables. When I cast off the Imperius Curse he was not pleased, so he followed it with the Cruciatus. He would continue the floggings periodically, sometimes beating me while I was under the influence of the Cruciatus. I was only fed enough to survive on, and the night that I managed to escape I was desperate. He gave me one hour to make my decision. To choose to become him or to die. I still can’t remember much of that night. I remember running into my mother’s bedchamber, and using her fireplace to escape to Hogsmeade, and then there was nothing until I awoke in the infirmary at Hogwarts. That moment when she sat up in bed and called to me. I asked that she not tell him where I’d gone. Her life was the price for that request, for my escape. That was the last time I ever saw her.”

He’d been standing during the telling of the things he’d endured. He realized all too late what a mistake that was. His knees buckled beneath him and he sunk to the earth. He crossed his arms over his stomach and curled into himself, struggling to breathe, and to fight the demons waging battle within him. Hermione stood up and was about to approach the blond, but she wasn’t quick enough. Harry had reached an epiphany during Draco’s confession, and as soon as Draco had fallen he’d moved to him. Both Hermione and Ron watched as Draco trembled and suddenly his shudders stopped as Harry’s arms wrapped around him.

Draco tried to fight him off, push him away, but Harry would not release him. Once the blond realized this he clung to the dark haired boy. The dark haired boy ran his hand up and down the blonde’s back. It was strange when the blond spoke again. His voice was small, unsure, and lost.

“I breathe because she took my whereabouts to the grave. I live because she is dead. Oh Gods, I killed her. The one person who loved me, who never rejected me for any reason. I am nothing. She died for nothing. I never wanted to be a murderer, but it turns out that I am…”

“That isn’t true. She died for you, because she loved you. She wanted you to live, like my mother wanted me to live. Your life matters. You matter,” Harry whispered into the blonde’s ear.

“Why?” the blond asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe to save me. To help me put the pieces back together. You said I needed someone. Remember. You asked if I was prepared for what was to come. I said yes. So…aren’t you prepared as well?”

“I don’t have your strength,” the blond whispered.

He then felt a different hand on his shoulder, one smaller, slighter, with narrow fingers. He looked up from Harry’s shoulder and saw the look of compassion on Hermione Granger’s face. She smiled in reassurance at him and let out her breath, hardly believing that she was facing Draco Malfoy, or Black, as he preferred calling himself now. “You don’t need Harry’s strength. His support perhaps, but not his strength. You were strong enough to survive all of that. This won’t be easy, but I’m willing to try. You look as though you need a family, let’s begin with friends first?”

Draco looked up at her incredulously and then noticed that Weasley was standing next to her. The redhead looked torn between compassion and disbelief and disgust. Finally compassion won the war and the redhead tried to smile and failed miserably. “Well, Mal…uh Black… I’m not saying we’re friends or anything, but what you’ve been through. It took guts, and I…respect that. Harry for some reason of other seems fond of you, and well despite how seeing you two snogging and holding each other gets me in the stomach like m’ dad’s cooking, I can learn to deal with it…if it’s what Harry wants. Guess we can let you into the family, although I think you’ve already been accepted, what with Mum hovering about you and hugging you every chance she gets.”

“Hugging me? And here I thought she was just trying to bodily strangle me,” Draco said in an attempt at humor and slowly his hold on Harry lessened and they drew apart.

Harry was up first and he helped the blond to his feet as Ron said, “Well, Mum’s affection can get aggressive at times. If you think her hugs are violent you should see her really angry.”

“I’d rather think not,” Draco said in response, and then noticed the food on the blanket and realized how hungry he was. “Look, your mum packed enough food for Harry, me, and a small army. Care to join us, and go for a swim afterward?”

Ron looked absolutely gob smacked at the offer. Hermione smacked him in the chest and smiled at the blond, then looked at Harry, noticing that he was smiling, one of the first smiles she’d seen on his face in a long time.

“I think that would be nice,” she said and shot Ron a warning look. “Of course once we’ve finished eating it’s best to wait half an hour before swimming.”

The boys just looked at her with raised eyebrows, shook their heads, and sighed. Harry grabbed the plate of sandwiches, handed Draco one, then Hermione, took one for himself, and handed the plate over to Ron, knowing how the redhead loved to eat. Oddly enough there were four cups and a self-refilling flask of pumpkin juice in the basket as well, and the four ate and drank their fill. Hermione and Draco taking small, dainty bites, while Harry took big bites and took his time chewing, and Ron just took huge, hulking bites, chewed twice and swallowed, before gulping at his cup of pumpkin juice. It was almost surreal that after everything that had occurred that the four of them could have a civil meal, barring insults, as Draco simply had to comment on Ron’s lack of eating etiquette, to which Hermione wholeheartedly agreed and was then stunned into silence at having agreed with Draco.

After finishing off the sandwiches they lounged about on the blanket, Harry and Draco lying on their backs, every now and then one moved their arm or hand or fingers so as to brush across the other. Hermione and Ron talked in whispers, every now and then sneaking glances at Harry and Draco who seemed to have more communication between the two of them with only bare moments of skin-to-skin contact.

Hermione closed her eyes. All of her theories and suspicions of what was between Harry and their former enemy was nothing compared to the reality, and it seemed strangely natural that things had evolved in such a way. It made sense that all of Harry’s attempted relationships with girls had failed, it was because he’d been trying to deny something to his unconscious self, and finally there wasn’t much left to deny anymore. It was no longer wrong to fall in love with the enemy when the enemy became an ally.

Suddenly Draco sat up, and looked down at Harry. He then jumped to his feet and raced to the lake. It didn’t take Harry long to follow suit. Hermione sighed, and then she watched as Ron pulled off his shirt, shoes, and trousers. She blushed as she watched him strip to his boxers. Hermione shook her head, and decided that it was too hot to be the only one sitting on shore. She went behind a tree and stripped down to her bra and panties, and using her wand quickly transfigured her under things into a two-piece swimsuit that was a light lavender in color. Satisfied that it was sufficient, and feeling more than a little self conscious, she stepped out from behind the tree and her whole body flushed as she heard the whistle. She looked up and noticed that Draco was giving her catcalls while both Harry and Ron were staring at her in open-mouthed shock.

“What?” she snapped, and felt her cheeks grow even warmer with her embarrassment.

Harry shook himself and then splashed Ron out of his stupor and it was Ron that had to open his big mouth. “Hermione! You’re a…GIRL!”

She rolled her eyes and looked skyward as she made her way to the lapping shore of the lake. The water was cool as she walked in. Once she was waist deep she went under and didn’t surface until she was in the middle of the lake, right next to Draco. He was smirking at her, and she was beginning to get huffy.

“Well,” she groused. “Haven’t you anything to add to that startling bit of genius that is Ron Weasley?”

The blond just shook his head and chuckled. “And ruin the moment? I rather think not. If it’s any consolation to your pride though, I was already fully aware that you were a girl. I think that happened during fifth year when you really began to fill out.”

Her mouth fell open in indignation as she stared at him, her eyes wide in shock at the audacity of his comment.

“You know you are beginning to look like a fish. Perhaps closing your mouth is a good idea before I begin to splash you,” he warned playfully.

She growled and then splashed at him with all her might before snarling, “BOYS!”

Harry and Ron, finally over the fact that Hermione was indeed a girl with all of the girly parts swam over to see what was going on. At that point Hermione and Draco were in the middle of a splashing war, with her grousing about boys.

Harry swam up behind her, catching her unawares and saying, “Well, boys will be boys. Besides Ron and I have known you for a long time. We knew you, we didn’t know the girly side of you. You know, you’re just Hermione to us.”

Draco shook his head, knowing what Harry didn’t know. Harry had made a big mistake with that little explanation to Hermione.

She turned away from her splashing war and turned an icy glare on Harry. “Excuse me! Just Hermione! Never noticed the girly parts? So I have to present myself practically naked to be considered a girl! You are such a thick bloody prat Harry Potter, you and Ron both!”

She began to swim toward the shore, and Harry looked from her to Draco and shrugged, which disturbed the water around him.

“Was it something I said?” he asked.

Draco looked at the sweet naivety that was the boy who’d fascinated him since he was eleven and had seen him in a robe shop. The blond shook his head and put an arm around the dark haired boy’s shoulder as Ron took off after the girl.

“You are pretty thick when it comes to girls, Harry. It’s not a wonder why you’re so readily available,” the blond said with a grin.

Harry squinted at the blond boy. “You mean I’m still available?”

The blond smiled and then shook his head. “No. You’ve been claimed, and just think, you won’t have to worry about things like hormones and girl parts ever again.”

Both of them looked up at the shore when they heard the resounding thwap of a hand across a cheek. Draco couldn’t help wincing as he noticed Ron rubbing his cheek as Hermione grabbed one of the towels from the blanket, stopped by a tree and picked up her clothes, and then headed back toward the Burrow.

“I do not envy him the time he will have in getting her to speak with him again,” Draco said and unconsciously rubbed his own cheek.

Harry sighed and began to swim away from Draco, and toward the shore. Draco looked after the boy and soon followed, confused as to why Harry was headed toward the shore. Ron had already struggled into his jeans and had gathered his other clothes and gone after Hermione. Harry walked over to the blanket grabbed up the towel, sat down and began to dry off. Draco gracefully dropped to a sitting position beside him.

Harry got his glasses out of the bundle of his clothes and put them on. He then turned to face Draco, questions swimming in his green eyes. He took a deep breath and looked at the blond.

“What is this Draco?” he asked.

The blond looked at the boy before him, seeing the confusion he felt mirrored in those green eyes. “What do you want it to be, Potter? Do you want to forget the kisses and the attraction and try to play friends? Are you so scared of what the world will think? You’re not a bloody messiah. You’re just a boy. I’ve been fighting this for years, wanting you. I’m tired of fighting. I want to surrender to you. I want you to find comfort, and peace, and maybe even happiness, but I want you to find that with me. You know where I come from, but you also know that I’m not like that. I’m not a monster. Are you scared to be with me, or are you scared to be with a boy? Because if you want to know what I think, it’s this. Bugger the world, they don’t matter when it’s just us. Right now you are the only thing that is real to me. You heard your friends. They can accept this if it’s what you want. Am I becoming expendable so soon?”

“What? You think this is easy for me?” Harry snapped. “You said it yourself! I can’t even go into a bookshop without making the front page. Have you any idea the mess we would have to deal with when we go public? And there is still telling the rest of the Weasleys.”

“Molly already knows you prat! Remember, we told her after Ron found us my first night here. So what? Are we just kiss and don’t tell? Let the world know that I made the right choice, Harry. Let them know I chose you. That’s what my whole summer was about. I wanted to see you just one more time. Of course I tried to deny it, but when you are in a bloody cell for as long as I was, starving and in pain, your thoughts are all you’re left with. You haunted me Potter. You haunted me, and from you there is no escape. I was just surprised that when I fell into The Three Broomsticks that I asked for Dumbledore, because all I could think of was finding you, especially after Lucius made the mistake of bragging about his little plan. He found a way to break the wards around your aunt and uncle’s home. I thought I was too late. By then you had already been moved. He must have mentioned it in front of Severus as well.”

Harry looked at the blond and closed his eyes. “Stop it. I know what this is leading up to, and it can’t go that far. I don’t want you to say it. Love is sacrifice, and I don’t want that from you.”

“Sacrifice?!” Draco laughed. “Bloody hell! You really are thick. Love isn’t sacrifice, it’s a gift. Your mum gave you life. She gave it to you twice. Once bringing you into the world and twice when she died for you to live. It’s true that she gave her life for yours, but I don’t think she saw it as a sacrifice. She saw it as hope. Bloody hell I’m starting to sound like a Gryffindor. It’s why my mother took her own life. She knew that Lucius would use Veritaserum on her to find me. So she took her life to keep me safe. It was love you git. Love, not obligation. It was a gift, not something to be done out of necessity. And you never take a gift for granted, my mum taught me that, and yours taught you that, even if you don’t remember the lesson.”

“No. I should be in the ground with them. I’m not a hero, I’m a mistake. I wasn’t supposed to make it out of that house alive that night. I was supposed to die. I was supposed to go with them. I wasn’t meant for that small cupboard under the stairs, or the years of chores and being called a freak all of my life. I was meant to enter the ground after one year of life with a neat little stone overgrown with weeds by now,” he whispered.

Draco stared at the boy in disbelief, grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “You’re wrong. You are not a mistake. You’re here because I needed you. If it hadn’t been for you I wouldn’t have seen the light, and I would have followed Lucius blindly, never questioning the things he tried to teach me. We have something in common, Potter…Harry, our mothers died because they loved us very much, we can’t allow that to be in vain. The guilt is not yours to carry.”

“But what about Cedric and Sirius, that old man, and all the others that have died at his hand since my blood was used to bring him back? That is my guilt. I did that to them,” Harry’s voice shook as he tried to turn away from Draco.

Draco looked at Harry, understanding dawning on him. “You haven’t let yourself cry for them. You’ve never grieved for them, have you? You didn’t even cry for Sirius, and he meant a lot to you, didn’t he?”

“He was family. My father chose him to take care of me if anything happened… But I happened, and he’s gone. If I’d listened… Maybe if I had done something differently. He shouldn’t have been there. I shouldn’t have been there that night. Or with Cedric. It should have been me alone. If I hadn’t wanted to be all noble and share the prize with him, he wouldn’t have been there, and he wouldn’t have died. It ended with two words, a swish and a flick. Why does it seem so easy? Why is death so common and easy around me?” Harry asked, and the tears overcame him. He snatched his glasses off and looked toward the ground.

Draco placed his hands on either side of Harry’s face and forced him to look up, noticing the tears trailing from his overflowing eyes. Draco’s eyes were slowly filling pools as emotions flooded him at the sight of so much loss and pain in the dark haired boy’s eyes. “It’s okay, Harry. I don’t know how to grieve either,” he whispered. “But we can learn it together. Remember? We said together, and I’m not going anywhere. Together, was that only a couple of hours ago? It’s seems like lifetimes. But it is together, right? I can’t keep questioning it. If we are going to do this I need to know now, no more questions on us…”

“I’ll always have questions though. What would my parents have thought, or Sirius? What about your mother?” Harry sniffled.

Draco smiled at the weepy mess of a boy in front of him. “They would want us to be happy. They would want us to live, and the only way I can live is with you. I can feel it in my bones.”

Suddenly something clicked in Harry’s mind. “In my bones. I remember. That night, right after I got settled in Ron’s room, my first night at the Burrow. I think I was asleep and then it felt like I was traveling through the floo network. I remember landing somewhere, the Three Broomsticks. I was asking for Dumbledore when it grew dark again. I thought it was a nightmare, but…” Harry trailed.

“It was me, the night I escaped,” Draco finished for him in a whisper.

“How is that possible?” Harry asked.

“Sometimes it begins as rivalry, two souls meant to join together. They absolutely loathe each other and then one day they are drawn together until they snog like mad,” Draco said with a laugh and then shook his head. “My mum always told me about it, but I never thought… She must have known. It’s just like your parents Harry. They were soul bound, by fate, or irony, or some such. It’s where two souls are destined to be lovers, no matter what. We were born for each other, literally. We’re fate’s bloody joke. Nice to know that deities have a sense of humor.”

“What the bloody hell? No… It’s not possible…” Harry spoke weakly.

“Alright. Stay in your denial, but when we return to the Burrow ask Hermione. She has probably come across it in one of her books. What does she call it? Light reading. I think the muggle term for what we are is soul mates,” Draco said, and laughed.

“Me and you, bound by souls and lost to fall in lurve. How do like that irony for you? Makes fickle fools of us all doesn’t it? So will you be the cynic or shall I? I think I have a head start, if I do say so myself, but you have that touch of a bitter edge already, and so young. Watch that or you’ll begin to wrinkle early,” the blond said and continued to snort with chuckles.

“Have you finally gone mad?” Harry snapped in annoyance, and he put his glasses back on and began gathering the blanket, his clothes and Draco’s and stuffing them in the basket, with the plates, cups, and flask of pumpkin juice as well. “Or have you always been this daft?”

Draco looked at the dark haired boy, and noticed how his skin glowed almost golden with his sunny complexion. “Just noticing the beauty of irony. Beauty, now there is something that should be appreciated. And you, my former enemy, are something that I can appreciate. You’re beautiful in a wild way, with your messy hair, and your bright green eyes. Like the God Herne. Wild and beautiful.”

“Are you all right?” Harry asked in concern, as he closed the lid on the wicker basket.

The blond nodded, and then snaked his arm around Harry’s waist, the pale flesh of his arm brushing against the flesh of Harry’s lower back as the two began walking. The blond shook his head as they walked and then said, “Yes, you are Herne, wild and free, and I am calm, usually well composed, and controlled, with fair skin, mum always told me my skin was as pale and as pure as the richest pearl, and with my silver blond hair, I would be Poseidon, of the seas, rivers and other great bodies of water.”

“If you compare us to nymphs I will pack you off to St. Mungo’s all tied in a pretty bow,” Harry said as he rolled his eyes.

“Could it be green? I am a Slytherin, and I would want the bow to match the color of your eyes,” Draco said sweetly.

Harry stopped midstep as did Draco, they looked at each other, and Harry was stunned by the look in the grey eyes gazing back at him. He shook his head and wondered how a Gryffindor was supposed to deal with a love struck Slytherin…

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