With Teeth

**Getting a little erratic here

And I don’t know who to trust

I guess they got a way of reading my mind

I guess I gotta adjust

I got my arms they flip flop flip flop flip

I got my head on a spring

Well I thought I got you on my side

I haven’t got fucking anything**





--





Harry’s eyes snapped open to stare at the deep burgundy adorning his ceiling. He didn’t remember anything he’d done to the room and its dressings the previous night, but that was all well and good because the person who found him (who was indeed Neville) had fixed everything and set him back in his bed; to preserve his dignity the boy had told himself.



Due to the potion Harry’d consumed his sleep left him feeling incredibly well rested, and it took him a few minutes to realize why he had a deep unsettling pit in the center of his stomach. The burn around his neck alerted him to his memories. Sadly, rather than assume it meant the obvious, that Draco was calling him, his mind turned it into another sick game of the blonde’s. Draco was simply hurting him to hurt him; spiting him for being so weak, and unable to comply with the most basic of rules.



This skewed perception of reality brought back a level of the desperation and panic from earlier in the evening. The pain of the rebuke by the blonde was gnawing at his insides, and he was sure that he couldn’t handle anymore. The idea that he shouldn’t miss too much of his classes was the only thing keeping him from grabbing another Dreamless Sleep, but he had to do something to get the waves of despair and pain, sharp like knives digging at his sides, to go away.



Digging around once more through his trunk, he thought on his lost opportunities with the blonde. That he had turned so quickly against him brought stinging tears to his eyes again. He went from showing his affection (in the sick and twisted way that Harry needed) to deliberately twisting the knife. The knife that Harry so desperately needed, but refused to use. Even with this apparent betrayal, he still felt some semblance of duty to him.



This didn’t change his need to be numb again, though. The numbness didn’t hurt nearly as much as the pain all of this had caused, and it would be a welcome distraction from everything. At least with the numbness he didn’t care; he needed to not care. Everything he found in his trunk was either too much or not enough: Distant reminders of a lighter past, even more distant reminders of things he had lost, sharp objects he’d newly vowed never to use again, and potions that were simply useless.



He drug himself into a standing position, pulling himself into the bathroom where he was able to lock the door against any intruders and leaned heavily on the sink, willing his breath to just stop. He distantly remembered overhearing girls talk about emotional breakdowns and how to deal with them. He filled the sink basin with cold water, hoping it wasn’t just a schoolgirl’s tale. Staring at the water, wondering briefly if he was going mad (for it certainly seemed as such), he took the deepest breath he could manage and plunged his face into the cool relief.



‘Cool’ and ‘relief’ weren’t the best words Harry could describe for the freezing water hitting his face. It was abrupt and violent and it was wonderful. It stung and sunk deep into his bones chilling any intense emotions he was feeling. It took all he could to concentrate on the water. He wanted to gasp for breath at the temperature, but the fact that he couldn’t made him calm just slightly. Before long he felt he finally could breathe on his own.



Pulling his face from the basin, he looked into the mirror. His eyes were half closed, staring dully back from his reflection. Things seemed just clear enough that he no longer felt like screaming. He placed his hands at the side of the porcelain and slid down to the floor, letting go just enough to fall backwards with a muffled thud, and stared blearily up at the ceiling. He could breathe, and he couldn’t think, and it was enough for him.





**





On the other side of the castle, Draco had never made it to his rooms. He had managed to make it to sleep, however. And he still cradled the charm in his hands, rubbing possessive circles on it in his dreams. His mind was so desperate for reconciliation that it conjured images of ‘happily-ever-after’ to appease the boy’s fragile state.



The sun rose over the castle, and he slowly blinked himself awake hours later than he was used to. He cursed as he realized he had next to no time to get himself ready for his classes, but there was no way he was going to cut out of his obligations and simply not go.



He wrapped the charm around his wrist, fashioning it into a sort of make-shift bracelet. He fingered his wand contemplating a cleaning charm before deciding he simply couldn’t do without a real shower, hoping it would at least relax his tension at least temporarily. He cast a water repelling charm on his new piece of jewelry before running (in a manner quite unbecoming his surname) back to his chambers to wash and dress. He had to at least pretend to be ready to face the day.





**





Harry managed his way into his first class of the day without being late, which was a wonderful thing considering it was potions. He slumped to the back of the class and fell into a chair, not caring who sat next to him.



Draco ran in only moments before he would have been considered late, and Snape raised a brow as he flung himself haphazardly into a seat. The blonde was currently the opposite of his normally on time- fully coifed- and not at all breathless-self, and thankfully his teacher chose to overlook rather than question.



Both boys ignored each other’s presence, but not out of spite. Each was simply absorbed with his insides. Draco applied himself to completing the task set forth, a new potion, with all his stamina. Anything to keep his marks up and forget his problems while in class. Harry dully listened to the lecture, mentally preparing for actually doing some schoolwork.



Something in the lecture caught his attention, though, and he looked down in his book on impulse, and saw something that made his brain click.



They were making a modified pain potion. Something gentle that eased the heart as well as the muscles.



Never having been much good at potions he was unused to the sudden flash of brilliance that surged through him. He could modify a potion, and make something to suit his needs. He wouldn’t be breaking any rules (rules that mattered, anyhow) and he would still be able to deal with the pain.



*



Knowing that His Harry was sitting far behind him forced Draco to sneak a glance towards the back, just to see if he could figure out why he was ignoring his call. He saw something that puzzled him. He saw Harry going about his work rather animatedly, poring over his text and adding ingredients. Draco was somehow hoping that something was wrong with him, that he was beyond reproach after their last interaction. It had certainly been long enough since he’d even seen him in the halls, let alone in a classroom. He wasn’t sure what to make of what he saw and it bothered him, distracting him from his work.



Being that this seeming turn of events was consuming his attentions, it was a miracle that there wasn’t an explosion in first-block Potions that day. There was, however, a first. Draco Malfoy failed his potion. It turned a faintly sick shade of green, bubbling a sporadic cough of smoke instead of the expected pale pinkish orange. This of course held the rapt attention of just about everybody in the class, and while Severus Snape leaned over a very red Draco Malfoy, nobody noticed the boy in the back of the class gently stirring the lavender liquid that sat in his cauldron.





**





Thankfully, as it was honestly his first ever fail in the class, Draco managed to escape a detention. He also somehow managed to escape a complete zero on the assignment, furiously promising some sort of extra credit or makeup test or SOMETHING. With everything falling down around his ears the way it was, he didn’t think he could handle academic collapse as well.



It left him free to think on the sight that forced his failure: Harry sitting in the back of the class, actually enjoying a Potions assignment. The idea that Harry could have just gotten over everything so quickly after Draco had broken down so badly, over something that the brunette had done himself… Well it was enough to make Draco want to spit. And regret destroying his charms. If only for the fact that he was convinced he’d made a mistake in letting his emotions get the better of him. He was supposed to be the one in control. He was hardly supposed to even be enjoying his encounters on a personal level, and he let one rise above all the others, and now nobody got anything.



Nobody got anything, and he got nothing.



He didn’t know what he was going to do.





**





Harry was afraid.



He stared at the lavender potion in his clear dram bottle, and weighed his options. On one hand, he hurt. Merlin, he hurt so much, and there was nothing he could do to fix it. Draco hated him, tormented him even. His friends didn’t care about him, let alone understand what he was experiencing. He’d lost all reason to get up in the morning, let alone continue on to fight that stupid fucking mad-man.



He hurt so much, and he’d give anything to have the numbness back. There was a time when he hated the glass box in his chest with a passion. The glass box that just sat there, holding tight his emotions and cutting off his ability to feel anything. He had wanted nothing more than to take a hammer and smash it into a billion tiny pieces and sift through the wreckage to pick up the broken pieces of his heart and feel even the pain if nothing else.



And now he’d give anything to have the box back again because this pain, THIS particular pain, hurt so much. It took away all ability to care about anything but what was right in front of him. Or rather, what was no longer in front of him. He’d had the one thing that had ever even come close to making him happy, and now that one thing was further from his grasp than before he knew it existed.



And it had to stop.



He knew that if he didn’t get rid of it he would go mad.



As if he wasn’t already.



Staring at the cork in the tiny bottle he slowly tightened his fingers around it and pulled it loose, smelling the soft fruity fragrance of his creation. He had no way of knowing if it was right for he’d totally fudged the recipe, combining parts of different potions from his textbook. He didn’t know how it would taste, or what colour it was supposed to be. He didn’t know if it would even work.



He only knew that the worst thing that could happen would be that he’d poison himself and he’d die.



And would that really be so bad?



At least then he wouldn’t hurt so much.



He tried to think about what would happen if he didn’t take it. He got as far as ‘the pain would never stop’, and just that simple thought alone was enough to freeze his breath making him unable to swallow with the panic that so quickly consumed him. He closed his eyes briefly screwing up his courage.



He had a fleeting fear that if he started this and it worked that he’d never be able to go back, but the room had started closing in on him. He raised a quick prayer that this would be just what he needed, and placed the bottle to his lips.



One last mourn for what he lost with his Angel (for he still was, and always would be, his Angel) and he swallowed his experiment. The pleasant sugary taste was the last thing he registered before everything melted away.





--





I’m getting smaller

And smaller and smaller

And I have nothing to say

It’s all been taken away

I just behave and obey

I’m afraid I am starting to fade away