The Ache
The Ache
The ache – it was borne into me, lived within the cavity of my chest raping my breath from my lungs and using my stomach as a punching bag. It threw the blows continuously – one after another after another until I found myself doubled over dry heaving. A small hand came to rest on my back and it made my skin crawl. Tiny, imaginary maggots grew as they crawled outward over my flesh, originating from the touch. This thing in me, it twisted everything, turned actions of comfort into torture.
Acid rolled up the back of my throat, stripping away the layers of tissue and rendering my voice useless – it had been burned away. My eyes were white, I was sure of it. There was no colour left. Soulless, drained, empty… a rotting corpse still gallivanting about on two feet. No more, no less than an Infiri. I was a husk, a shadow, a marionette missing its master. I was as good as dead but hadn’t yet been afforded that luxury.
Death is an adventure and he dare travel the road alone? He wants so badly to move forward without me? To leave me behind, safe and docile like a good little housewife would be? He was always thickheaded, but this episode, this gesture, this attempt takes the cake.
He knows his importance. His life is my life. His breath is my breath, his eyes my eyes, his heart… my heart. Without him there is no me and yet he wanders on?
There’s a battle in my body and I don’t know which demon should be feared more – the ones screaming in my head pressing in with their incessant questions, doubts, and commands, or the one in my chest causing harm to my person? The decision, after only a second’s debate, is easy to figure.
While my head is busy ripping its walls down and working toward mass destruction, my body has turned on itself preparing me to join him. Of course. We are bound. Where he goes, so do I. If he is treading on the path to hell then I will join him and travel at his side – we will go forth together.
I draw in a breath and I can hear its rattling echo in my chest. Faintly, as though there is a great distance separating us, the sounds of voice and panic reach my ears. I want to console them, let them know I am only going to him. Allow them the peace of knowing, really, I am okay; I have made peace with the moment and I welcome it with warm embrace… for this means I will soon be wrapped in his arms again and what would I turn away to be granted that?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
A voice. A single, resounding timbre of life cuts through the ties that are bound to my every limb, dragging me toward the fabled white light and the panic of my body is gone faster than it came. For a single, terrifying millisecond I am paralyzed with utter desperation. My chance is gone. They have found a way to tie to me this world and he will go on without me.
Then the small hand is back and this time there are no maggots to accompany it. Her voice speaks a command and I obey. I force my eyes open and I pitch forward, diving headfirst into pools of relief. Around me waves crash the color of spring grass, the reflections playing as the sun does through the prism of emeralds, flashing like the killing curse streaks across battlefields…
I pull back, swimming for the surface to gulp in deep breaths of air, hands framing the face before me. Trembling violently I force myself to have self-control for a moment.
“The Boy Who Lived, my arse! That was too close! Too close, do you hear? No more. I cannot stand toe-to-toe with death one more time on account of you, Harry Potter. Make your choice now. Sentence yourself and sentence me now. Life or death, Harry? Choose.”
His eyes shifted in the way only his eyes ever did, the color becoming deeper as emotions crept in for a lie-down beneath the overlaying tint of green. The flecks and specks of black and gold merged and mesh, creating new patterns that so often entertained me for hours on end… but these were not hours we had. These were minutes and he owed me my answers.
Ten years we had danced this dance. He would go out and fight, I would head to the office or spend the day at home… something would go wrong – a stray curse, a revenge-seeking sack of shite desperate to do my husband in… and wherever Harry and I stood we would begin the race to greet Death.
How many times had I raised my hand to the Reaper’s welcome? My fingertips had once brushed against the dried skin of parchment quality, stretched as it was, over bone and nothing else. Death has no need for muscle – nor does he have need for bone or flesh. His rank breath once solved the riddle for me… those he was greeting were to spend all of eternity slumbering with him. Why not greet them with a combined reflection of where they were coming from and where they were going?
Harry blinked and held my gaze steadily, despite the drain that ravaged our separate bodies.
“Life,” he whispered and I knew his word was as good as gold, if not better. His time working for the Ministry was over. Now just…
“Life,” he echoed and my heart swelled as he continued. “I choose life and that means I choose you, Draco. I chose you a decade ago and I’ll continue to choose you for every day from now until the end of every measure of time. We’ll make all of our journeys, here out, together.”
I nodded; ignoring the tracks of tears that wove down my cheeks, ignoring the matching set upon Harry’s beautiful face and leaned forward to brush my lips over his. Breath mingling, life sources united once more, I whispered in response. “Forever.”