Choices

Chapter Thirteen - Worth the Fall

Doesn't mean much-

It doesn't mean anything at all.

The life I've left behind me is a cold room.

I've crossed the last line

From where I can't return,

Where every step I took in faith betrayed me

And led me from my home.

And sweet surrender is all that I have to give.

~Sarah McLachlan, Sweet Surrender

***

"Are you sure he doesn't feel the same way?"

Harry sighed and scrubbed one hand through his hair. "Hermione, I am not getting into this again."

"I'm just saying, how can you know unless you actually ask?" She tucked her legs up beneath her on the sofa, still looking at him with that annoyingly compassionate expression.

"He told me so, okay?" Harry ignored the part where Draco had kissed him a couple of hours ago, he still wasn't sure he was ready to think about that. Nightmares, and exhaustion, and gratitude - no, that was a whole other mess and nothing to do with the way Draco really felt. After all - this was Draco Malfoy. He had to remember that. Had to get back to that place in his head where he had been able to hate Draco, able to ignore him at will. That place where Draco didn't matter to him; it seemed as alien as mer-song, as remote as the moon. 'There's nothing I can give you, Harry.' "He told me he didn't have... feelings for me. Can't you just leave it alone?"

"We just don't like to see you hurting," she told him gently, and there didn't seem to be anything he could say to that. "We want you to be happy."

"What time is it?" Harry asked after a while, when the silence had grown uncomfortable again. He heard Ron shift as he checked his watch.

"Half-six." There was silence again for a moment, as all three of them contemplated the fact that they had missed dinner. "The rest of them will be back up soon," Ron continued, glancing worriedly at Harry.

Harry mustered a tired grin. "I'm fine, okay? I've got homework I should be doing any-" The opening of the portrait hole cut him off, and he bit off what he had been going to say as his eyes flicked up involuntarily. The sight that met his gaze was the last thing he would ever have expected to see: Draco Malfoy, looking completely unlike his usual neat and tidy self, clambering shakily into the Gryffindor common room.

Harry knew he was staring, but at that point, neither his limbs nor his mouth appeared to be functioning. Ron was looking at him strangely, but he had his back to the door, and Hermione was still staring sombrely into the fire without looking up. It took a moment for Harry to realise that that glinting sparkle on Draco's face was tears, and that the pale Slytherin boy was shaking so hard he couldn't stand upright, but once he did he was out of his chair and across the room in a heartbeat.

"Draco?" he breathed uncertainly, reaching out involuntarily to touch those unbelievable tears, and at the sound of his voice Draco raised his head. Harry had to choke back an exclamation of horror; Draco's eyes were red-rimmed and haunted, his face twisted up in pain, and he looked... broken. This wasn't the Draco he knew, the proud, independent Malfoy who had barely been able to bring himself to accept Harry's knowledge of his own fears. That Draco never cried - he shook in the aftermath of nightmare, and he lashed out when hurt, but he didn't cry. Harry suspected that it was one of those things that Malfoys simply didn't do.

This Draco, though, was very much in tears, sobbing convulsively and hugging his arms tightly about himself, and Harry simply didn't know what to do. Behind him, he heard Ron hiss something violent, and Hermione whisper something urgent, but it meant nothing at that moment because Draco looked up at him, through the tears, looked up at him with those terrible pain-filled eyes and flung himself at Harry with a harsh, wrenching sob.

"Oh God, Harry!" It seemed all he could say; Harry simply wrapped both arms around him and held on, utterly out of his depth but unable to do anything else. He had to get Draco calmed down enough to find out what was wrong. It crossed his mind that the rest of Gryffindor House would soon be arriving from dinner, and that there would be some very large fits thrown if they saw Draco here. It crossed his mind that Ron was probably about to explode. None of that mattered, though, compared to the pain he had seen in Draco's face and the way the other boy was clutching at him like a lifeline.

Draco was still shaking with wracking sobs, his face buried in Harry's shoulder and his hands fisted tight in the back of his t-shirt. Harry rubbed one hand across his shoulder soothingly, wondering what on earth he should do about this. The feel of Draco in his arms - he was warm and solid and there, and God, so shaky, and the little stifled sounds he was making tore at Harry's heart. "Come on," he murmured into Draco's hair. "Let's get you out of here before the inquisition arrives."

Draco simply nodded against him without looking up, and for a minute Harry thought he wasn't going to be able to get the other boy steered up the stairs. But then Draco gave a huge sniff and pulled back shakily, looking up at him so trustingly that Harry's heart almost broke all over again. "Come on," he whispered again, beginning to lead Draco across to the stairs.

They were halfway there before he remembered Ron and Hermione, and when he looked back Ron had such an expression on his face that Harry almost broke down right then. God - please let him be able to understand! He gave his best friend a pleading look, wishing suddenly that he really had told them everything earlier; it would have made things a lot easier right now. Hurt and anger and disbelief warred in Ron's expression, and he looked at Draco as though he was going to be sick. Hermione had his arm clutched tightly in her hand; was staring up at him intently, speaking urgently. Draco shuddered again beside him, and Harry knew that there was nothing he could do about his friends now, no way he could ease this for them. For a moment he almost felt resentment against Draco, for bringing this to a head so soon, but the tears soaking into the shoulder of his t-shirt were harsh evidence of just how... desperate... the boy truly was. And he knew from long experience that there was no one else in this castle who could help Draco, no one who he even counted as a friend.

As soon as the door of his room closed behind them Harry turned back to Draco and pulled the Slytherin's shivering form into his arms. Draco didn't protest, didn't even speak; he simply clung to Harry as though their lives depended on it. It felt... strange. Good. Slowly, Harry lifted one hand and carefully stroked his fingers through that fine blond hair. It felt more than good, it felt right.

"Oh God," Draco was murmuring brokenly against his shoulder, "what have I done? God, what have I done?"

"I don't know," Harry murmured, unable to keep from sliding his fingers into the hair at Draco's nape. "But it's all right, Draco, it's all right. I'm here..."

That only seemed to trigger a fresh storm of weeping, and Harry bit off the urgent desire to ask just what the hell was going on here. He was very much afraid that the nightmares and fears had taken their inevitable toll, and Draco had finally snapped under the weight of it all.

"I did it," Draco was whispering between sobs, his voice muffled in Harry's t-shirt. "I really did it - oh God..."

Finally, Harry decided that he wasn't going to get anywhere like this. Keeping a firm hold on Draco's shivering form - he didn't think he could let go now if he tried, and he didn't want to - he moved them both over to sit on the bed, still stroking Draco's hair gently. "Come on, Draco," he murmured softly into the Slytherin boy's ear. "You have to tell me what's wrong..."

At length, Draco pulled away shakily, swiping at his eyes with his hands. "Everything," he croaked in a thick, scratchy voice that sounded completely unlike anything Harry had ever heard from him. His face was screwed up and blotchy, his eyes red and bloodshot, and his hair soggy with tears; he looked an utter mess - and utterly beautiful. Harry swallowed the lump that threatened to choke him, and reached out to take Draco's hand in his. It trembled visibly in his grasp, and he squeezed it in what he hoped was a soothing manner.

"Tell me?"

"Oh, God," Draco muttered again, and there was something so... broken in his voice as he looked up at Harry. "I did it - I asked Dumbledore for sanctuary. For protection." Harry's breath caught in his throat, and he stared into Draco's red-rimmed eyes as the blond boy continued speaking. "That was bad enough, but - God - my father was there. He... I..." He couldn't seem to go on; the sobs were rising to choke him, and Harry reached out, pulling Draco's shuddering form back against him.

"Bloody hell, Draco," he whispered into the top of the boy's head as trembling arms clutched at his shoulders. This was not something he had ever expected; he had been half-resigned to Draco's going back to the Death Eaters in the end. That he had actually been able to bring himself to trust Dumbledore was astonishing, because Harry had been made very aware over the years of Malfoy's opinion of the Headmaster of Hogwarts. And he had faced his father - his father who he loved, despite everything? God, what did that bastard do to him? Harry clenched his teeth furiously and mentally consigned Lucius Malfoy to the deepest pits of Hell. Father or not, Death Eater or not, there was simply no excuse for anything that reduced proud, strong Draco to this state.

***

Draco closed his aching eyes and tried to concentrate on keeping his breathing even and steady. Harry's hand was warm between his shoulderblades, his chest rising and falling slowly beneath Draco's tired head. He didn't know how long they had been lying here like this, but the damned endless tears had finally stopped, the sobs and shaking calmed. He still felt terrible - his face was sore and puffy, his hair and the front of Harry's t-shirt soggy and tear-drenched, and his whole body felt bruised and battered - but none of the pain and shame seemed quite so immediate any more. He felt... calm again, more balanced, so he just lay there and breathed slowly, and listened to Harry's heartbeat soft and soothing beneath his ear.

Time seemed to have stopped for the two of them, sprawled together on the red-draped four-poster. It felt, Draco thought dreamily, as though they were cocooned away from the outside world; there was no sound but the soft crackle of the fire and that reassuring slow beat. It was easy to imagine that this little tower room was all there was to the world, and the two of them its only inhabitants.

Beneath him, Harry sighed and Draco felt a hand lift and fingers stroke through his hair again. It felt... good. More than good, it felt warm, and caring, and comforting. Neither of his parents had ever made such gestures towards him; Lucius and Narcissa had never touched their son at all unless it was necessary - Draco stopped that thought cold, concentrating instead on the rhythm of Harry's heartbeat in his ear, the strangely soothing sensation of that hand on his hair. He breathed in, smelling Quidditch and grass and broomstick polish and summer, smelling Harry, and couldn't seem to keep himself from rubbing his face into the warm fabric of the t-shirt the other boy wore. Harry's fingers stilled for a moment, then resumed that gentle stroking, and Draco sighed softly, his eyes drifting closed again. He was so tired - if he wasn't careful, he would be drifting off to sleep up here in Harry's room, and that would be a very bad idea...

The touch of hesitant fingers on his cheekbone snapped Draco's eyes open, and he gasped in shock as the contact sent tingles of electric sensation through him. Suddenly he was achingly aware of Harry's body beneath his, of the way his chest was pressed against Harry's stomach and Harry's thigh against his hip. Of Harry's hand tracing slow circles over his shoulderblades... It made him shiver, and Draco pushed himself up one-handed to stare down at Harry's face.

He looked... different, somehow. Still the same Harry Potter, but his hair was falling back from his face, and his eyes behind those stupid glasses seemed wider and greener, and he was looking up at Draco with a tiny little smile as though he were... were... as though Draco... mattered.

Draco couldn't seem to stop looking at him, couldn't seem to stop staring into those eyes even though he knew that he must look an utter fright with his face blotchy from crying and his eyes red. Harry was just smiling up at him and looking so... so... Draco gasped for breath, remembering that afternoon in the tower.

"If I kiss you, will you run away again?" His voice came out scratchy and hoarse, and he blushed furiously, unable to stop himself. Harry inhaled on a gasp, eyes going wide and unfocused, and he shook his head almost infinitesimally, staring up at Draco. Draco bit his lip, some part of him still trying to tell him that this was a bad idea - but he was tired of listening to that voice, tired of masks and hiding and pretences. This was Harry, and...

Glasses. Slowly, he reached out his hand and pulled them off, a little startled by how naked Harry's face looked without them. Wide eyes blinked up at him, and without those obscuring lenses Draco could see that the green of Harry's irises was actually a mixture of a whole myriad of different colours and shades; there were flecks of blue and hazel in there, and streaks of a colour like new leaves, and darker hints of forest and emerald. God, Harry was beautiful. Draco leaned down slowly - slow enough that Harry could pull away if he wanted to, and Draco still half-suspected that deep down, he did - and touched his mouth to the other boy's.

It was like fire; he felt the shock of it all the way down to his toes and pressed helplessly closer. And then Harry was kissing him back, his lips parting beneath Draco's, pulling him closer, and their arms were wrapped around each other and they were pressed tightly together and moaning into each others' mouths and Draco just stopped thinking entirely.

They broke apart too soon, far too soon, breathing heavily, and stared at each other. Draco blinked, feeling his cheekbones colour as his mind belatedly pointed out just how closely they were pressed together. Heat pooled in his groin as Harry shifted against him, and he hastily rolled off the other boy onto his side, sure his face must be flaming. Harry looked at him in confusion, then smiled a sudden brilliant smile and slid his fingers around the back of Draco's neck, claiming his lips again with a shiver. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Draco could still hear that shrill little voice of protest, telling him that this was something he would regret - but it wasn't real. Nothing was real but this, there was nothing in all the world but this tiny, warm tower room and the low, shifting light of the fire and Harry's mouth on his.

***

"Malfoy." Ron's voice was flat with fury, and Hermione shivered. It was cold in the study room; she had only just started the magical fire in the grate, but it was empty of people. This was, above all, something that she did not want others to hear. Her boyfriend was standing tense and quivering before the fire, fists clenched and face full of angry disgust. She wondered whether she should go to him, put a hand on his arm, try to talk him out of his rage... but she knew it would take him a while before he was ready to listen, and besides, her own emotions were far too... tangled.

"Fucking Malfoy!" Ron hissed, glaring as though Harry were in front of him.

"I know. God, I know," Hermione whispered. Harry... and Malfoy. Their Harry, their kind, shining, noble Harry, and that twisted Slytherin piece of filth. Even contemplating the idea felt wrong.

"What the bloody hell does he think he's doing?" Ron demanded of the air, and Hermione suppressed a sigh, remembering the words Harry had spoken to them earlier. 'I did something really stupid.'

"You got that one right, Harry," she murmured under her breath. Falling for Draco Malfoy? What on earth had happened between them? What had Harry been doing all those nights when he hadn't been in his room? What had Malfoy been doing to him? Hermione imagined what Harry would say if she asked to test him for Dark influences, and bit her lip. If he truly was in... in love with...

Malfoy had been crying. That was another thing, another piece of the puzzle. She had never seen the bastard like that before, he had looked completely broken. Oh, Harry had always been able to get the vicious little... get Malfoy furious and spitting, but he had never broken down like this before. And... he had come to Harry for comfort? It made her wonder what had happened to him since last summer. It made her wonder what on earth he was plotting.

Ron was flinging his arms around now, his voice rising, ranting about how that little bastard Malfoy was trying to turn Harry to the Dark Side. Hermione considered the possibility with a certain detachment, but had to discard it. Floating in her mind was the memory of an afternoon weeks back, in this very room, when Harry had rejected an offer she had made him... it was another puzzle piece, and Hermione turned it over in her mind, trying to make it fit in.

"How fucking dare he?" Ron muttered, dragging her attention forcibly back to him. "How can he do this to us?" Hermione's eyes widened.

"Ron, it's not about us!" Her voice came out high and wavery, and she clutched at his arm. God, she had to mend this before he worked himself up to actually believing that Harry had purposefully betrayed him! Their relationship could be so... fragile, sometimes; she remembered fourth year, and the three long weeks when they had kept their pain to themselves and refused to speak to each other at all. God, boys were so stubborn...

"He knows!" Ron jerked his arm back, but she refused to let go and he would not let himself hurt her. "He knows what Malfoy is, what that bastard's done to us - to you... and he still..."

"Ron, he loves him! You heard him, before - he really loves him, and he didn't mean to do this, you know he didn't mean to hurt you - us -"

"But it's Malfoy!" Ron protested, and Hermione was amazed at the way that, despite the urgency of the situation, her mind could still find the sight of the firelight glowing halo-like through his hair knee-weakening.

"It doesn't matter, Ron! Harry loves him, it's not about us! Just because we're together, do we feel any differently about Harry?"

"It's not the same thing! Malfoy's a sneaky little bastard - a Death Eater - he's plotting something, I know it!"

"Ron, he was crying! He wasn't faking that, he was really, honestly upset!" Hermione tugged desperately on his arm, trying to get him to listen to her, to make her words sink in. "He was upset, and he came looking for Harry - even if they're not... not together... there's something between them, and we're going to have to accept that!"

Ron glared daggers at her, and Hermione flinched back involuntarily; almost at once he reached out for her, taking her hand in a tight grip. "I don't want to accept it," he muttered, and she could see at that moment just how much pain this was causing him, just how much it hurt him to think that Harry could really love someone like Malfoy despite everything that he'd done.

"It's nothing to do with us," she answered slowly - sorrowfully. It did hurt, and she couldn't help remembering all the sneers and vicious epithets Malfoy had flung her way in the last six years. "You heard Harry - he loves him." The words tasted like ashes on her tongue, and she swallowed thickly. With a sigh, Ron tugged on her hand, drawing her into the protective circle of his arms. "We... don't you see? We can't try to make him choose between us and -" that bastard "- Malfoy. We just have to accept it..." Even if it is hard, she thought bitterly. Even if I can't understand at all what Harry could see in him. Even if it hurts - I have to. For Harry's sake...

***

"God," Harry murmured - again. There seemed to be something about Draco that made him repeat himself, and there didn't seem to be much he could do about it. He supposed that one of these days he would have to work out whether he minded it. The thought made him smile a little. Draco was curled against him, pressed against Harry's side with one arm laid across his chest and his face buried in Harry's shoulder. Harry could feel his breath against the skin of his neck; it felt warm and shivery and altogether rather wonderful. "I can't believe you really came over to our side."

There was a hitch in the slow breathing against his shoulder, and Harry could feel Draco tense all over. After a moment, the other boy pushed away from him with a frown and sat up. "I didn't 'come over to your side' as you so quaintly put it, Potter," he snapped, folding his arms across his chest and looking off to one side.

Harry blinked. "But, you..."

"Look," Draco ground out without looking at him. "Just because you want to fight for some nice-and-pretty Muggle-loving army, doesn't mean everybody has to. And it certainly doesn't mean I do."

Harry frowned. God, just when I start to think he really has changed... This was Malfoy, all right; he barely seemed the same person as the pliant boy who had kissed him so passionately a handful of minutes before. "But if you're not working with Voldemort..."

"Things aren't so black and white as you'd like to think, Potter," Draco snapped, and Harry realised belatedly that he really was angry; there were pinkish patches across his cheekbones and his eyes were narrowed as he stared resolutely at the wall. Oh, shit. Harry squinted up, trying to focus his blurry vision enough to see into those silver-grey eyes, but eventually gave up with a sigh when Draco turned to glare at him.

"I asked for protection. That's all. I am not going to fight on 'your side' and I am not going to suddenly become some kind of noble martyr. Dumbledore is the only one who can stand against... against Voldemort and my father. The only one who can protect me. It's as simple as that."

"Is that how you think of me?" Harry asked carefully. Something painful seemed to be digging into his chest, and he reached out without really thinking about it to touch Draco's arm. Draco started at the touch and frowned at him, but didn't pull away.

"What?"

" 'Some kind of noble martyr.' Is that really how you see me?"

Draco looked away again. "Isn't that what you are, Harry?"

Harry's voice was quiet. "I don't think so." There was silence for a few moments, a tense, unhappy kind of silence. "I just do what I have to," he murmured, dropping his hand back to the bedspread.

Draco glanced back at him, his face fuzzy and blurred in Harry's vision. "Don't we all?"

"Draco?" For some reason Harry couldn't really identify, the name felt uncomfortable on his tongue.

"Hmm?"

"What did he say to you?" Even without his glasses, Harry could see that Draco stiffened at that. "Your father. What did he say?"

There was silence for a very long time, punctuated by the crackle of the fire and the hiss of falling snow on the window. Harry was beginning to think that Draco wasn't going to answer at all when he finally all but whispered, "Terrible things." He glanced back at Harry, and his eyes were wide and staring. Helpless to control the impulse, Harry reached for him again, drawing the pale Slytherin boy own into a protective embrace. Draco came willingly, burying his face back into Harry's shoulder. "He said - I'm not his son any more. Said I was weak, useless, that he's well rid of me..."

Harry was rather surprised by the tiny little growl that escaped his throat. "Damn him - you're not. You're not any of that."

"I don't know who I am any more," Draco whispered into his t-shirt in a tiny little voice that Harry wasn't sure he had been supposed to hear.

"You're Draco," Harry told him at last. "You're still you - who you are has nothing to do with who your father was." Draco laughed bitterly and shook his head slowly. "You're still you," Harry insisted, trying desperately to shore up something that he couldn't quite see or understand, but which nevertheless seemed to be shattering under its own pressure. "You're Draco, you're a Slytherin and a Seeker and an amazing flyer and the person I love..."

Draco froze completely beneath his hands, and Harry just had time for the panicked realisation that he had actually said that out loud before the other boy raised his head and stared directly into his face.

"Even if I'm not on your side?" Draco demanded cynically. Harry blinked; his face was close, closer than they had been since that timeless blur of hands and kisses earlier, and he had to repress the desperate urge to reach upwards and capture Draco's lips with his own. He could remember the way Draco tasted, the feel of his fingers in his hair, all the new, exciting sensations of their bodies pressed so close together... Not now. Not now, damn it...

"You're not on theirs," he managed to force his voice to say, and Draco frowned down at him. This close, his eyes were flat grey and strangely confused - as though he were waiting for pain. Is he expecting me to reject him? Harry wasn't sure he believed it, wasn't quite sure he believed any of this.

"I can't be." Draco looked down at him measuringly, then flushed and turned his face to the side. "I can't be on either side. I can't fight against my father -"

"And you can't be on the same side as Voldemort," Harry finished when he paused, and Draco winced, then sighed, seeming utterly entranced by the stones of the wall.

"AndIcan'tfightagaisntyou." It came out in a rush, between gritted teeth, and Harry blinked in utter shock. He had, somehow, never considered that aspect of it - he knew he could not oppose Draco in a fight, but that Draco should feel the same way about him... It felt strange. Strange and good, and he lifted both hands to turn Draco back towards him, cradling that pale, familiar face between his palms and smiling up at him with a mixture of total relief and startling happiness.

"Say it," he grinned up at Draco, who scowled furiously back at him, face flushed and hot beneath his hands.

"In your fucking dreams." But Draco kissed him again anyway, so it was all right.