With Teeth

**I\'m becoming less defined, as days go by

Fading away, well you might say I\'m losing focus

Kinda drifting into the abstract in terms of how I see myself**





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Needless to say, Harry did not go to classes that day. He simply lay within his bed curtains, dead to the world. Neville did try once in the evening to see if he was doing alright, but got a singed hand in the process. In his desperate need to officially be alone, Harry had unintentionally charmed his linens to protect him from any unwanted advances. This was for the best, for if anyone had seen the sticky tear tracks on his face or the constant sense of ‘I’m going to throw up’ they would have asked questions. And questions were something Harry could not cope with right now.



So instead he lay petrified, not even bothering to get under his blankets; he simply stared off into space, hardly able to conjure a coherent thought. Dealing with his feelings was even too much for him to handle.



Harry had shut down.





**





Draco had shut down, too; in his own special way.





**



Placing a heel to the chest of the form before him, he leaned into the body, crushing the torso with more and more glee. At least, as close to glee as he could get at the moment.



In a pathetic attempt at dealing with his own feelings, Draco had called for some ‘entertainment’. Of course, it was no match for what he REALLY wanted and it just made him even more furious. He both wanted to HURT something, and just touch his Harry.



And just thinking of him as ‘his Harry’ made him even angrier. Growing attached to his subjects was not something he did. And then to go and fall for someone who was too weak to handle his own emotions…



He wanted to spit.



So he did; Right on the face of the younger boy at (or rather below) his feet.



Draco instantly felt guilty; guilty for taking out his own frustrations on someone who had absolutely nothing to do with him. He was no better than a common school-yard bully, beating up everyone smaller than him.



He no longer felt like spitting. He felt sick to his stomach. His heart wasn’t in dishing out pain anymore. The thought that he was losing himself forced a flush of anger through his veins once more, and he kicked hard with his other foot knowing he did not mistake the sickening crunch that signified a rib cracking. A grim smile said he wasn’t all that broken up about it, but a stab of regret hit him square in the chest when he looked down to see his subject actually crying.



Not really knowing how to handle an emotion as foreign as sadness, he fixed his visage into a stony glare and stepped down and away from the boy. A deep ‘relaxing’ breath did nothing to calm him and all he wanted was Harry, even if it was to beat him up as badly as he was doing to this poor kid.



“Fuck!”



Taking out his wand from his back pocket he swished and flicked jerkily, fixing the rib, and stooped down to reach for the terrified kid’s neck. As his fingers locked on the charm that he used to call his unsuspecting school mate, he felt another stab of guilt. Guilt that he wasn’t reaching around his neck to throttle him? Or guilt that he just picked someone at random because calling via charm was more convenient that waiting? His charms were never meant for callous abuse. If they were, they would not be called. And yet he abused his own system to serve his own cheap desires.



Firmly grasping the charm, he yanked it away from the body and it burst into flames. Instantly dying away into ashes, it fell to the floor never to be seen again. Tear stained eyes stared widely at him, unable to move for fear of provoking more wrath.



Draco put his head in his hands, drawing a ragged breath. He instantly regretted everything. Malfoys do not lose control and he had lost everything in front of this boy. The only thing he could do was Obliviate.



And so he did. He Obliviated the boy and Imperiused him back to his dorm. There was no way he was going to let anybody remember seeing him lose control like that.



He didn’t feel any better. In fact, he felt worse. He kicked a chair out of his way, stalking steadily back to his desk. Opening his cabinet door, where he kept all of his charms, he stared hard at them. He picked one up, examining the design. He gave another deep rooted sigh, and he closed his hand around it; the metal burst into a flame. Releasing his hold, the ashes fluttered to the ground.



He closed his eyes, leaning his head in his hands once more with his elbows at his knees. One swallow to pluck up the courage, and he picked up one more. Another burst of flame, another flutter of ashes. Each charm he picked up met its fate quickly. He reached the end of his line of charms and he stared hard at the last one, unable to pick it up. He could make out the lion design, glinting in the poor classroom light.





**





Neville gasped as the charm around his neck burned bright hot for a brief moment. He looked down to find his cloak dusted with ashes. He fingered his throat gently, the heat still niggling at his skin. He knew this had something to do with the still silent Harry. He didn’t know which he felt more: sorrow at losing his one night a month of control, or happiness that maybe, just maybe, his friend could finally be happy. It all depended on whether or not Draco’s actions were motivated by the right choices.





**





Harry felt the charm against his neck glowing warm against his throat. Closing his eyes, he made the first move he’d made in what felt like ages: fingers gliding against the cord around his neck, he sat up. Taking a deep steadying breath he reached behind his head, lightly touching the knot holding the trinket in place. He toyed in his mind with the repercussions of removing the artifact. The metal burned a little brighter and he swallowed hard, trying to force down the last of the unpleasant emotions flitting around his brain.



He knew he couldn’t just stay where he was forever, wallowing in self-pity and wishing every detail of his life was different. He had to throw away the only very physical reminder of the closest he ever got to true happiness, and move on with his life.



This task, however, was of course very impossible given the fact that just touching the knot was unachievable. Not because he couldn’t bring himself to undo it, but because his fingers physically would not touch it. It seemed Draco had placed a charm on the cord that would keep it around Harry’s neck.



He squeezed his eyes painfully closed and he bit his lip hard. He was staving off the irrational breakdown that half of his brain was aware was about to happen. The mild pain of his teeth digging into his skin was not nearly enough of a distraction, and his hands flew to his arms. His nails dug not quite painfully enough into his skin and pulled enough to try and draw blood. Of course this didn’t work; his nails weren’t long enough. He pushed harder before ripping them away and placing his fingers to his temples, cradling his head in his hands. He began to rock back and forth frantically. Soft tears fell silently down his nose onto his knees, and he jumped in a flurry of desperation tearing away the curtains. Thankfully there was no one else in the dormitory at the time, or else Harry would have had a lot to answer for. As it was, whoever came next to the rooms and found the charred remains of all of the bedding was sure to have some questions anyhow.



Those questions would partially be answered because that person (who could only be Neville) would find Harry asleep, passed out in the middle of the floor with an empty brown bottle next to his head. After pacing around the room and throwing random hexes at everything he saw with only one thought on his mind (that being the ever increasing burn around his neck) Harry had dropped to his knees at his trunk searching for anything to soothe the hysteria biting at his insides, the pain he felt with each breath, and his hands landed on a leftover bottle of Dreamless Sleep. The bottle was left over from a time long before, when his nightmares were so bad it was impossible to sleep at all. It seemed those nightmares had transferred to his waking life, and the only way to get away from it all was to force himself into oblivion and away from the ring of fire on his throat.





**





And of course this meant that no one answered Draco’s call.



You would think this would just serve to make him more furious than he was before.



But no; the result was to find one blonde youth, hopelessly lost and hopelessly confused, a heap on the desk at which he sat. His head rested atop his folded arms and one could almost hear his sobs, honest sounds of open defeat. Defeat because he knew why no one was answering. He knew that he couldn’t implicitly display how he truly felt for someone, let alone Harry, and he had played his role so well that he drove him away.



Looking inside hurt and all he wanted (besides Harry back on his knees in the middle of the room) was for it to all just go away. He didn’t have any Dreamless Sleep however, for he surely would have used it, so he did the only thing he could do. He fingered the charm, touching the most he could of His Harry.





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**Now I\'m somewhere I am not supposed to be

And I can see things I know I really shouldn\'t see

And now I know why now, and now I know why

Things aren\'t as pretty, on the inside**