While You Slept

While You Slept

"I don't know what to do anymore."

"You're doing the best you can," my father assured me.

"IT'S NOT ENOUGH!" I yelled, near tears, slamming my fists onto the counter. "It's not enough," I repeated. I was exhausted, drained in every sense of the word, ready to give up. My fiancé couldn't sleep, he cried, he yelled, he was irritable and tortured. He was ready to give up, to die, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

"You said that there's not dreamless sleep potion that can stop his nightmares?" my father asked. I nodded silently. "Then we'll make one," he said simply, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

"Yeah," I scoffed. "And while we're at it, we'll find away to stop Remus' lycanthropy, Sev's new-found disgust of all things potion, and cure the Longbottoms--all of them."

"You make it sound so impossible," my father said wearily.

"Don't you get it?" I demanded. "We've tried everything for Harry! Nothing helps!"

I could feel the tears burning at my eyes and I was halfway tempted to just let them out. I was tired; I couldn't do anything else right now. I was losing my fiancé and there was not a damned thing I could do about it.

"Draco..."

Startled, I turned sharply around, only to see Harry standing in the doorway, looking at me as though he were shocked, hurt, and touched all at the same time.

I hit the counter one last time before walking out of the room through a door at the opposite end from Harry.

I amazed myself by making it all of the way to my room before I broke down in tears. The war was bad, but this...maybe I shouldn't have stopped running.

When his hand touched my shoulder, I couldn't stop myself from pulling him into my arms and holding him as though I'd lose him if I let him go. Hell, to be honest, I didn't want to stop myself.

He, in turn, wrapped his arms around me and whispered words of comfort in my ear.

"I'm not going anywhere, I swear," he said.

"Then sleep," I begged. "For once in your life, fucking sleep!"

"I wish I could," he whispered. "More than anything I wish I could."

I pulled away from him. "THEN DO IT!" I yelled. I couldn't take it anymore. Either he was going to die from lack of sleep, or he was going to go into a coma because of his body being to weak to go on.

He looked pained by my words. "Draco..."

"NO!" I yelled, more tears falling. "I can't do this anymore," I said harshly. "I can't sleep because you aren't sleeping and I'm tired and frustrated," I said, "you either sleep, or I swear to Merlin I will hit you in the head with a fucking cauldron!"

"Do it," he replied. "Do it, Draco. Hit me with a fucking cauldron, nock me unconscious with a fucking spell, do anything you can think of to get me off of my fucking feet for more than five bloody minutes! I'm begging you here."

That was when he let out a sob.

"I'm so fucking tired," he said through the tears. "There's nothing anyone can do for me, and I know it. Anything you can do would be a godsend," he whispered. "Sometimes I wish you would just fucking kill me or leave me so I could kill myself. I don't want to live like this," he said. "I can't go on not sleeping or not eating.

"And you hardly talk to me anymore," he said in a pained whisper. "You don't talk to me, you don't touch me, you hardly fucking look at me anymore!" He was beginning to yell. "Do I fucking repulse you now?" he demanded. I was shocked.

"No--"

"Then why?"

"Because--" I tried to explain, but I didn't have a reason. I loved him, truly, I loved him, but...he's so weak and sickly that I'm afraid I'll hurt him....

"Why?" he whispered.

"Because I'm scared," I confessed in a whisper. "I'm afraid I'm going to hurt you, that something will happen if I do. I'm afraid that if I do anything I'll lose you."

"So you're completely pushing me away?" he asked. "You're pushing me away so you'll lose me in a different way?"

I shook my head. "I don't know what the fuck I'm doing anymore, Harry," I confessed. "I don't even know what day of the fucking week it is...."