We All Need a Little Poison Sometimes

Nothing was better, though of course it couldn't have been any worse. He had a tiny amount of hope to cling to and it was all he had. This form of hope would once have shocked him far beyond anything, even the knowledge that he would be where he was now. Draco Malfoy was saving him.

Of course, Draco wasn't trying to. Hell, Harry doubted if the boy realized what he truly was doing. But since that cold October night that seemed so long ago while only being a month past, when Harry was at his lowest ever, Draco came.

But it was, just like the blond boy, entirely too double-sided. What he did now made his skin prickle and made him wish for the liquor he had given up. He wasn't just a nobody anymore. He wasn't just there anymore. He was Harry Potter again.

"Potter, hurry up!" Harry ignored Draco's yelling and continued looking at himself in the cracked mirror hanging over the sink. He looked much younger, like he had back before... before he let go.

One of his hands reached out and lay on the smoothness of the glass, wishing he could just become something like that. Still the same, if a little twisted, once cracked and battered.

"Get your ass out here, Potter! I'm warning you!" Harry sighed as Draco started pounding on the door, making its hinges creak. The mirror flashed at him as moved to the door and flung it open, now facing an extremely angry Malfoy. "What the hell have you been doing in here for an hour?"

"Thinking."

"Thinking? That's a laugh. You don't think. You just act, like all Gryffindors. Now get your jacket on, we're late." Draco just shook his head and left Harry standing in the doorframe, wondering if he should do what he was told or if he should rebel again, like always. "Stop being an prat. You know he hates it when we're late."

Oh, he hated it. Yet they were always late. Draco would cringe every time they walked in the room tardy, but Harry didn't care. Harry wouldn't care about Draco. He refused to.

"I don't want to go today." Draco made no motion that he had heard him, and Harry repeated it louder. Still no reply. Harry never wanted to go. "Damnit, I'm staying here."

"Why? So you can sneak behind my back again and raid the nearest liquor store? I'm not an idiot, Potter. You have to come." Harry snorted and grabbed his coat from the rack hanging in the corner. It was being supported on one side by a stack of books since it was missing a leg. Most of the furniture was in that state.

They had picked everything up second hand after they had moved into the tiny apartment they shared. Draco said he was living there because he liked being close to work, while Harry knew it was because he was as broke as Harry was. The Malfoy estate had lost everything with Voldemort's downfall. Harry had lost something too, though his was more of a mental loss, an emotional loss.

"Why do we do this? This isn't helping at all." Harry's hand trailed along the wall as he walked, feeling the peeling paint but not noticing it. His mind was elsewhere. On Draco, who spun around and sighed.

"I know you aren't benefiting. But it's helping me." Harry nodded and gingerly patted Draco's shoulder. They both stopped and looked at each other for a moment, then Harry opened the door and waited for Malfoy. "Thank you."

"Anytime." Harry's mouth slipped into a smile as he put his hand in his pocket, feeling the soft smoothness of the vodka bottle he had bought yesterday while getting groceries. A secret.

They walked in silence for a moment, Harry clutching the bottle tightly in his fist, loving the way it felt in his hand. It had been much too long since he had last had any. Though Draco tried to get him to give it up, it didn't work. He was addicted now. He longed for its sweet embrace. "Harry, when I...." Draco paused.

"Yes?"

"When I found you that night. You were drunk, weren't you?"

Harry nodded and let go of the bottle. It fell limply back to the bottom of the pocket in his cheap jacket and lay there, as if tempting him. "And you were looking for me. We've gone through this."

"No, we haven't. Damnit, you aren't getting better, Potter!" Draco's words were sharp and Harry flinched. Of course he was getting better. It'd been so long since he'd....

"I've given you everything, Malfoy! I wasn't like you anymore! I never will be again, no matter how much you, or anyone else, tries to change me!"

"Why did you do it?" Draco no longer sounded mad. He was almost pleading. His eyes were bright and alive, a silver streaked with lights. Harry bit his lip. "Why would you have done such a thing to us?"

"I did it because I had to."

"You did it for yourself."

"Never. I never did. Do you think that I wanted this?" Harry threw his arms in the air, his face flushed. Draco's eyes never flicked from Harry's. "Do you think I enjoyed my time as an alcoholic? Enjoyed living every night with a different girl? That's not what I want at all."

"I never said you wanted it. All I said was that you did this to yourself. You deserved it, you bastard. You abandoned everyone, including me."

"How could I have abandoned you if you were on the other side? You lost, Malfoy. I lost. Everyone lost! And therapy isn't going to help either one of us. So let's just stop."

"If I let go, Potter, for even a minute, you'll just leave and get drunk in a gutter again." Harry drew out the bottle and threw it to the ground, the glass shattering. The sweet liquid seeped into the carpet under them. Draco didn't move. "Why?"

"You've let go already! Everyone let go the first time, and you can't just win me back!"

Draco didn't appear to have an answer. All he could do was stare at the shards of the bottle, his lips quivering. "You said you were dry, Potter."

"I have been. That's the first I've bought in weeks." Harry bent down to pick up some of the pieces, as did Draco. When Harry's fingers brushed against the sopping carpet he cringed. That could have been his. In him. It hurt to have thrown it, but it must have hurt Draco to have seen it. "I know you've been helping me...."

"Damn right I've been helping you! If it weren't for me, you'd still be on the streets. Dead!" Harry licked his lips and looked hard at Draco.

"What if I wanted death? What if you only brought me hell? What if I don't want to live after what happened? What I learned about myself." Silence enveloped them.

"What? You've never told me about what you know. Potter, I don't care anymore! Go back and live in your gutter! Screw what the Ministry wanted with you, I don't care." And with that, Draco got back up and walked down the hall and out the door, leaving Harry kneeling there.

"The Ministry?" In all the time Harry had been living with Draco, he had never known why the boy had searched him out in the first place. It was just a trust in Draco that had never been there before. "Wait, Malfoy!"

But it was too late. He was gone, the door slammed shut behind him. Harry sighed, hung his head and finished cleaning up the shards. Hopefully, he would be back.

*

It stung his skin. As he pressed the shard against him harder now, blood trickled down his arm in a stream, pooling on the table. Harry bit his lip, drawing blood there too, and continued his work.

The alcohol that remained on the glass pieces was seeping into him as he cut himself, drawing a faint smile on his pale lips. All his color had flushed. The only color to him now was the red of his blood and the brown tinge to the broken bottle.

He didn't know why he was doing this to himself. If Draco had been there, he would have been talked out of it, would have been walked through this. But the blond boy wasn't back yet, nor would he ever be. Harry knew somewhere in his mind that Draco was gone. Harry had had his chance. Gone.

The table was slick with his blood, his arm numb now. Everything was spinning, but he couldn't help but smile. It felt so good to be getting this out of him. The blood ran down, and he smiled.

"Potter, what the hell are you doing?" The sound of keys being thrown on the counter and Draco's footsteps on the floor made Harry look up. Draco's face was worried, but almost as if he had expected it. "What the hell?"

"Why did you help me? I should have died!" Harry threw the piece of glass he had been clutching so hard, making it shatter against the wall. Draco stood there watching Harry's arm, the red still flowing swiftly.

"I.... we were worried about you. The Ministry was worried. You had been gone so long." Harry snorted and grabbed another shard from the pile next to him, digging it into his skin again. "Stop that, Potter."

"Why would they care about me after what I did to you all? I condemned you all."

"And you helped so much! Damnit, you can't be cutting your arm off, it won't help anything. Just stop now."

"Since when are you the reasonable one here, Malfoy?"

"When you stopped being reasonable. Listen to me. I hate you. But I don't want you dead." Harry stopped scraping the glass over his cuts and looked up into Draco's eyes. The silver was flashing, scaring him.

"You live with me, you ass. You don't hate me. You share a bed with me!"

"You kick in your sleep. And I only live here because you would do shit like this to yourself if I wasn't here all the time." Draco closed the three-step gap between them and took the glass from Harry's hand. It felt like a weight had been placed on Harry now with his hand empty and his eyes focused on Draco. "The only reason I sleep in the same room, let alone the same bed, as you is because we can't afford another bed. You know that."

"If what had happened to me had happened to you, you would be trying the same things too." Harry grabbed his arm and pressed, drawing more blood out of the existing cuts, his hand shaking. His whole body was shaking. All this was catching up with him. Draco sighed, and shook his head.

"Why? What the hell happened to you?" Draco grabbed Harry's arm tightly. As much as he fought, Harry couldn't get away. Finally he settled back into his seat and sucked his lip again.

"Do you know what happened the night my parents died?"

"Everyone does, Ha-"

"No, you don't. You fucking don't. No one does. He gave my mother to him, Malfoy. My father gave my mother to him! A plea for his life, he called it. God damnit!" Harry rubbed his nose and Draco loosened his grip. "No one knows but me."

"Who told you that? Did Voldemort do it, right before you killed him? Harry, he was messing with your mind!" The silence in the room was heavy. The only sound was that of Harry's blood dripping to the tiled floor.

"No, he wasn't. I should have known, Malfoy. I should have known my father did that." Draco sat in the chair next to Harry and shook his head.

"He was lying. Egging you on. Harry, he didn't do that. He wouldn't have." Harry's eyes burned into Draco's.

"You can't talk about my father like you knew him! You didn't! No one did!" Harry had jumped from his seat, his arm hanging limply at his side, the red flowing down it still. Harry was visibly shaking now. His lip quivered until tears appeared in the corners of his eyes. "No one knew anything about him. How dare you? How dare they?"

"Sit down, Potter! You need help still, and this isn't it. Killing yourself won't let you see the truth, nor will believing Voldemort's words." Draco's words echoed in Harry's head but he didn't believe them. He didn't believe anything anymore, except what Voldemort had told him.

"Did you come to get your bags and leave, then? Are you going to sell the apartment?" Draco got up from his chair and walked over to the counter. He got a mug out of the cupboard and poured himself some coffee from the machine. Harry thought it must be stone cold by now, since it had been made last night. Draco didn't seem to care.

"What are you talking about, selling the apartment? We're staying here, Potter. The two of us. You can't get rid of me by getting drunk." Draco laughed over the rim of his mug. "Though you could get rid of me by killing yourself." He set the coffee back on the counter and wiped at his mouth with his sleeve. "Go on then, do it if you want. I don't think you can."

One of the shards still lay by Harry's hand and he grabbed it, closing his hand tightly around it, making his palm bleed, but he couldn't do any more. Draco's words had somehow made him unable to do what he had so long had wanted to. He threw the glass back on the table. Draco nodded approvingly.

"We'll do fine, Potter. We'll do fine."

*