Rating:
R
House:
Schnoogle
Ships:
Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Characters:
Draco Malfoy Harry Potter
Genres:
Slash Angst
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire Quidditch Through the Ages Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Stats:
Published: 03/18/2003
Updated: 08/21/2003
Words: 70,367
Chapters: 11
Hits: 277,324

Beautiful World

Cinnamon

Story Summary:
Draco is afraid of living and Harry is afraid of dying, but sometimes the choice isn't offered. Draco's got to learn what it is to really live, while showing Harry how beautiful the world really is when you're not too scared to see it.

Chapter 01

Posted:
03/18/2003
Hits:
71,989
Author's Note:
I wasn't going to do another H/D, but this one sort of tackled me while I was working on other things. It was meant to be a one shot, but turned into something longer. It's not like I have a choice in these things. Anyway, dedicated to my betas, with much love and worshipping.

Beautiful World
Chapter One
By Cinnamon

While he was sleeping, Harry Potter decided to die. It wasn't a conscious decision so much as the little boy who lived deep inside his inner most self, who had curled up there with a rather bedraggled blankie and an old teddy bear long ago, closing his tired green eyes and letting go. He'd been living there, deep inside Harry's soul, since the first day his uncle had closed the door of the cupboard on Little Harry's bright little boy face, casting his brilliant green eyes in shadow. Not an imaginary friend, or even an imaginary part of himself, but all those secret dreams and wishes of childhood that Harry hadn't ever admitted out loud (Christmases and candy floss and puppies and ponies and bikes with training wheels). They had to go somewhere, after all, and they had; deep inside where they burned with the faith and hope of a child with an unbreakable spirit.

And then, sometime during Harry's fifth year, the bubble broke, his heart broke, his spirit faltered, and he decided to die.

He woke up that morning and didn't even notice anything had changed, at first. His eyes opened and the ceiling looked the same in the hazy, predawn light. Rolling over, he fought with the covers that had tangled around his legs until his bare feet hit the cold stone floor and he shivered at the contact. He was the first one up, he always was, and Harry mechanically went about gathering up his things and making his way down the stairs to the Gryffindor Boys Bathroom, his glasses still clutched in his hands. After all, there was no point in putting them on until there was something that needed to be seen, and he knew the way to the bathroom in the dark. He dropped his towel and clothing on the floor, turned on the shower, took off his pajamas, and stepped under the hot stream of water.

It felt good, as it always did. It eased away any aches and knots that had developed in his muscles, it slicked down his wild hair, it disguised any tears that might have been forced from his sleepy eyes.

Minutes later, he stepped from the shower and into the steamy bathroom, pushing his dripping hair back out of his eyes and wrapping the towel around his waist tightly. He didn't bother to towel off, he rarely did. He liked feeling the water running down his body, the way the little streams moved over his skin and his muscles, dripped from his hair and off the end of his nose.

His glasses were by the sink and he put them on, wiping the steam from them with his fingertips, glancing up and squinting through the mist at the mirror, which was covered in a thick fog. He wiped it with his fist, and then… Then Harry knew that something inside him had changed.

He stared for a long, long while at the alien face that stared blankly back at him. It was still his nose, his mouth, his scar. Still his teeth and his ears and his skin. But at the same time, it was like someone else had crawled inside of them all, was working his jaw muscles, his tongue. They all seemed to move without his input. But even that was not what held Harry transfixed.

It was his eyes. They were different. Still huge, still framed by his glasses, still green with lighter flecks near the irises. But they were…flat. Empty.

Something inside Harry had died. Some light that had been bright, had glittered, and had started to fade sometime around the end of his fourth year. And now it was gone.

Harry wasn't Harry any longer, Harry was Harry's Body with someone else in control while Harry sat back and watched with a somewhat vague sort of bemusement.

There was a knock on the door and Harry jumped a little and turned. "Seamus?" he called, knowing that it would be him. Seamus always got up twenty minutes after Harry, it was a ‘we've all got to share the shower and may as well get used to it' ritual. Much less chaotic and cruel then the girls, who still worked under the ‘first come first served' principle.

"Harry?" Seamus replied in a mocking sort of tone, knocking again. Dean would be down in twenty minutes and Seamus hated it when Harry was slow.

He gathered his things and opened the door, waiting for Seamus to comment on his eyes, how they had changed. Seamus grinned in a sleepy sort of way, and dashed past, shoving Harry into the hall in a friendly sort of fashion, and slamming the door behind him.

"No, I don't think so," Harry whispered, replying to Seamus' question. No, he wasn't Harry at all.

"Hello, Harry, you're running a little late today," Hermione greeted from the common room where she sat finishing her charms assignment. She'd showered earlier and now her hair was drying, and Harry watched the firelight turn odd wisps of it a fiery sort of auburn colour. "Harry? …Harry."

He blinked, startled, and looked up at her. "What?"

"Are you alright? You were just…staring at me."

Not at her. At the colours in her hair. Infinitely more interesting. "I was running a little late," Harry echoed, to prove that he had been paying attention. "I'm never late, except for class."

"Exactly," she said, frowning in confusion. "Are you alright?"

"Same as always," he lied faintly. "And wrapped in a towel." With that, he excused himself and went up the stairs to his dorm.

The day passed somewhat in a blur. That wasn't anything strange, really, because all the days had begun to blend together for Harry. Wake up, eat breakfast, go to class, eat lunch, go to class, go to Quidditch practice, eat dinner, do homework, sleep, rinse, repeat as necessary.

The only thing remarkable about this day at all was that Harry nearly died three times. The first was in Transfiguration class, where they were attempting to change their mice into parrots and Harry had somehow managed to get it wrong. Professor McGonagall had barely managed to rescue him from being eaten by the resulting creature Harry had created. Later, in Care of Magical Creatures, he'd somehow fallen off the fence they'd been instructed to sit on while watching as Hagrid attempted to calm a small herd of Huffalumps, which had then begun stampeding, nearly trampling him. The third near-death experience occurred during Quidditch practice, when Harry had somehow managed to… fly directly into a Bludger. A Bludger that hadn't been moving.

His stomach still bore that bruise the next morning, as Harry lay awake in his bed, having woken up even earlier than usual and not quite seeing the point to getting out of bed.

He did, of course, because it would not do to be late for the second day in a row. He showered, though this time his eyes avoided the steamy mirror, and just as Seamus came down the stairs, Harry left the bathroom, dressed and groomed. Hermione glanced at her watch as he strode into the common room and then smiled at him. Her hair was drying again and Harry tilted his head a bit and smiled back, watching prisms of light dance in her hair.

"Finished all yesterday's homework?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied, after a short pause. There was always a pause between their questions and his answers these days.

"Good. I suspect Ron didn't finish his Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, honestly, he kept giving me shifty sort of stares last night as he scribbled the last few lines of his scroll."

"He'll do fine. Always does," Harry answered absently, sitting at the table near the wall that bore a chess set. The game had already been set up, the pieces sleeping on their squares. They woke up with a start when he sat down, the white side smiling sleepily up at him, the black side scowling at having had their sleep disturbed. Harry began a game against himself.

He forgot the charm to repel minor fire demons in Defense Against the Dark Arts (and was nearly roasted alive), almost fell down the ladder leading to Divination, and choked during lunch.

"Jeez, Harry," Ron said, after the choking incident had been averted by an anti-choking charm Hermione had learned in Beginners Medimagic. "You'd almost think you had a death wish or something."

"Or something," Harry agreed quietly, though he really hadn't heard Ron's statement. The whole Hall had turned to look when he'd started to choke, and he couldn't even muster the energy to look embarrassed. It would have been a fitting way to go, after all. The-Boy-Who-Lived Choked On A Carrot and Died.

The next morning, Harry woke early and made his way to the bathroom, same as every other day, except it was a little bit colder in the tower than usual. He closed and locked the door, put his things down, and looked in the mirror, though he avoided meeting his own gaze. Instead, he ran his hand down his forehead and over his nose, down to his lips, tracing them with his nail. He'd never been kissed and didn't particularly care. It seemed a rather messy, pointless pastime. He moved his hand down, over his chin, and then up to his cheek. It was a little rough, he'd have to shave. He didn't have to shave every day yet, not like Seamus did, but he had to shave more than Ron and Neville, and that was good enough. It wasn't like he was in a race to grow up anyway.

He showered, and the water was colder than usual. The hot water wasn't working right, so it was a quick shower, and he shivered as he wrapped the towel around his waist and rubbed the steam off the mirror. He put on his glasses. A quick flash of green and he forced himself to break eye contact with his reflection. It unnerved him.

He'd shaved enough by now that he wasn't nervous and awkward about it. Smooth strokes, taking away the soap and the hair, soothing strokes. The rhythmic stroking lulled him into a strange sort of relaxation and Harry let his eyes close.

The rhythm changed without warning, there was a shift in the air, a shift in his muscles, a shift of hand, something. The razor bit into the skin in the side of his neck, deeply.

Hissing at the sudden sting, Harry dropped the razor and turned on the cold water, washing soap out of the cut. Then, he stared at his reflection. Water has a strange way of making blood look fake. They don't seem to mix right away, there's a sort of resistance to blood, as if it's too thick, as if it's oil. Instead, the blood acts like a crimson ribbon. Twisting and turning, sending out little veins, like the blood itself is bleeding, running through veins, propelled by a beating heart, even as it leaked out and ran down his wet skin.

He shook himself and grabbed a face cloth, pressing it to the wound. He could feel his pulse beating right under the towel, right near the wound, under his skin. He'd almost slashed his own throat.

"Yikes," was all he could think of to whisper, as he pulled out his wand and said a simple healing spell. The wound closed and he cleaned up the blood before he finished shaving.

As he walked up the stairs, Seamus opened the bathroom door and called, "Harry? Harry, are you alright? There's blood all over the sink…"

Harry didn't reply.

***

Hermione was on one side, Ron on the other, and they were arguing over Harry's head about something Harry didn't bother to listen to. They'd been doing that all year, arguing over his head. Ron had always been taller than Harry, and Hermione had grown a lot over the summer. Now she was tall, though her hair was still bushy and she was still very skinny. Harry had hardly grown at all. Still small, slight, pale, with wild dark hair, and enough facial hair to merit shaving once a week. But he didn't care. He didn't care about much, really.

Including Potions, which was where they were walking to the second time Harry nearly died that day. They were walking down a flight of stairs when it started to change, swinging to the left. Hermione and Ron, used to this behavior by now, stopped and continued their argument standing still, waiting patiently for the stairs to come to a stop.

Harry didn't notice, and nearly walked right off the end.

"Harry!" Hermione shrieked, and his stride faltered as he glanced over his shoulder.

"What?"

"Watch it! The stairs are moving."

"Oh." He glanced around, vaguely surprised. Then he glanced down and saw that one more step would have sent him over the edge. Oh.

"Didn't you notice, Harry?" Ron asked, frowning, as the staircase stopped changing and they continued on their way.

"You nearly died, Harry!" Hermione cried.

"At least dying would be real," Harry mumbled, too quietly for her to hear.

"Are you alright, Harry?" Hermione worried, touching his arm hesitantly.

"One more today and I'll be fine," he mumbled.

"One more what?" asked Ron.

Harry didn't reply. One more brush with death, of course. Because Harry had by now noticed that they were coming three a day. And this was the third day. Maybe the third time on the third day would have some sort of significance, and maybe he'd actually die.

Strangely, Harry smiled for the first time that day at the prospect.

Three times the charm, after all.

"This," Snape said, moments later, as he slammed a large jar full of olive green pickling fluid on his desk, "is a flesh eating slug. Dead, of course." There was a chorus of ‘eews' from the class, even a few Slytherins looking ill at the sight of the slug, which was roughly the size of one of Harry's trainers, a bloated sort of black colour with a sheen of yellowy green. Its underside was pressed against the side of the jar and they could see its mouth, a perfectly round hole rimmed with three rows of needle-like teeth meant to rip flesh from bones. "Quite nasty creatures, and quite common. Flesh eating slug repellent is quite useful for keeping them away, but it's useless in getting rid of them once they're already present. Today, you will learn to brew flesh eating slug pesticide."

He always said it that way. Today you will learn. Not today I will teach you, or today you will attempt to brew. It was always you will learn. Or I will punish you.

He explained the potion's properties (instant death to any slug it touches) and described the properties of each of the ingredients, ending his lecture with, "You are brewing the condensed form, if this potion were to actually be used, it would be mixed one part to four water. It is quite toxic, so kindly refrain from drinking it. Anyone who loses their Pesker Pod will also lose one hundred house points. Get to work."

Hermione fetched all of their ingredients while Ron and Harry set up their cauldrons. They were to brew the potion alone as Snape had stopped assigning pair work at the beginning of fifth year.

A few minutes later, as Harry set the first few ingredients to boil, Hermione and Ron were arguing again. Harry wasn't listening. Well, he wasn't aware that he was listening. However, that little part of him that wanted to die must have been.

"A hundred points?" Ron scoffed. "For losing a Pester Pod?" He waved the pod in question about as he spoke.

"It's Pesker Pod," Hermione corrected, rescuing Ron's. "And it's a fair punishment. These are very rare, and very valuable. Besides, all the venom in the potion comes from the pod. One pod, if used in a more advanced and deadly potion, can kill an entire army, if we lose our pod, someone else could find it and use it for something worse than killing slugs."

"Wow, Hermione, you actually condone the murder of innocent slugs?" Ron smirked.

She grew sulky. "Do shut up, Ron." Harry stirred his potion carefully, laying out his ingredients in the order that he'd need to add them so that he wouldn't have to look at the instructions anymore. He folded them up carefully and watched the liquid in the cauldron. Every time it changed colours, he added the next ingredient, until he'd added them all. The potion had turned from black to a strange, off-white sort of colour.

"Remember," Snape said from his desk as he watched. "The end result should be opaque and give off a faint scent vaguely reminiscent of black licorice."

Harry poured about a cup of his potion into a glass tube and held it up to his nose, sniffing cautiously. It certainly smelled, though he worried that the scent was more like petrol than licorice. Frowning, he lifted the tube to the light and squinted up at it, checking if light could filter through. Opaque meant that all light would be prevented from passing through the cloudy liquid.

Tilting his head a bit and holding the tube up to the light, Harry felt eyes on him. Someone was looking at him.

No one had really looked at Harry in days. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and he shivered, his eyes siding away from the swirling liquid and flickering lower, towards the eyes that watched him.

Draco Malfoy. Holding two Pesker Pods and smirking that smug smirk he'd always had, his eyebrows raised in challenge, his lips twisted, his gray eyes… glowing.

Harry's eyes didn't glow that way anymore.

Harry opened his lips, licked them, opened them further, as if to speak.

He would never get the chance to know what on earth he planned to say, for at that moment, Neville's cauldron blew up, sending the other boy smashing into Harry's chair, jolting him badly, and causing him to pour the tube of flesh eating slug poison onto his upturned face, and into his open mouth.

It burned, and he began to choke, coughing as he dropped the tube and it shattered.

Hermione was the first to scream. "You've poisoned him! He's poisoned! Harry's dying!"

The shrieks after that grew loud and rabid, wild, and Harry's heart rate quickened as he started panting with excitement — no, panic. Certainly panic. Who would be excited at the prospect of their own death by slug poison?

But his breathing sped up and it went to his head, making him dizzy, and Harry slumped to the floor, gasping and choking, his eyes wide, a small smile on his lips.

The Gryffindors were crowded around in panic, and Snape was shouting. He was holding what must have been the antidote in one hand, but the hysterical Gryffindors wouldn't let him through.

"I'm dying," Harry said out loud, rather bemusedly. "I'm dying."

"You're not." Cold voice, colder hands, touching Harry's hand. He blinked and forced himself to focus. Draco Malfoy was bending over him.

Already dead and gone to hell then, because for one frightful instance, Harry though that Draco was going to kiss him.

Draco looked very pissed off, really. Annoyed. And coldly amused all at once. "Damn it, Potter, save poisoning yourself until I haven't sabotaged your potion." And then Draco was gone and Harry realized that he hadn't been holding his hand after all. Draco had been putting something in it.

With the air of one about to die and resigned to whatever gift Draco had given him to celebrate his passing, Harry opened his hand.

It was his Pesker Pod. Draco had stolen it in an attempt to take one hundred points from Gryffindor, and in doing so, had saved Harry's life.

The irony of it made Harry laugh.

***

The next day dawned brilliantly sunny, the kind that was almost like a guilty pleasure. So perfect that it can't possibly exist without the threat of a wicked springtime thunderstorm sometime in the near future, when the heat cracks. Harry woke up sticky with sweat, his pajamas tangled around him, stuck to him.

He deliberately turned the shower as cold as it would go, driving the sweat from his skin. Then, clean and shivering, he combed his hair and dressed, not glancing in the mirror at all. He knew his eyes would still be flat and dull, his face almost waxy, like the muscles that commanded his smiles and his frowns had just given up, stopped responding to his commands. Or maybe he'd just stopped trying to command them.

Ron was up, Hermione had promised to help him finish up his Defense Against The Dark Arts assignment. Glancing at Harry as Hermione read over his latest offering for a concluding paragraph, Ron said, "You tossed and turned all night, Harry. Bad dreams?"

Harry frowned. "I don't think I dream anymore."

"You've always dreamed. And they usually come true. What changed?" Hermione asked.

"I did," Harry replied. He didn't elaborate when she questioned him and she gave up far too easily. Homework was a distraction of course. With Hermione, it was always a priority.

They went to breakfast together and Harry made a vague attempt to involve himself in the conversations around him, but he didn't much care for them, or anything really. That is, until a group of Slytherins caused a disturbance by arriving late, Draco leading them. Even then, his interest was brief, his eyes flicking up towards the door and then away a second later. But if anyone had cared enough to look and cared enough to actually see, they may have seen that for half a second at least, Harry's eyes…well, they glowed. Just a little bit.

Harry's first class that day was Divination, and as he and Ron made their way there, Harry was lost. Not physically lost, not even lost in thought, just lost inside himself, in the strange numb darkness that had fallen over him sometime in his sleep a few nights before. If he had the strength, he would have wondered about this darkness. If he had the courage, even. But he didn't. One thing few people ever understood about Harry was that he never chose to be a hero, he was chosen for the role. Courage held by those with no other choice than to be brave is not a characteristic they can claim as their own but one they borrow when the situation demands it.

Almost inaudible above Ron's chatter, Harry became distantly aware of a set of running footsteps coming quickly down a corridor that would intersect perpendicularly with the one he was walking down. He wasn't deeply concerned and did nothing to alter his trajectory, so Draco, who was the one speeding down the hall, could not even give the excuse that it was not him, but the sound of his approach, that saved Harry's life that morning. It was not the sound that turned Harry from his path, because Harry didn't care enough about it to react, other than to raise his eyes and narrow them slightly.

Draco barreled around the corner just as something to the right creaked painfully—the sound of metal fatigue finally overcoming its molecular bonds. The nails that held the suit of armor against the wall where Harry was standing, gave way with a terrible screech.

The armor was huge, and at least six times as heavy as Harry himself, and would doubtlessly have hurt him very much, if not crushed him. He felt nothing more than a brush of cold air as it fell, however, easily over shadowed by the sudden shock to his system when Draco Malfoy slammed into him and knock him down, out of the path of falling armor.

Inertia sent Draco tumbling to the ground after Harry and flipping over him, rolling a few feet away. For a few long minutes, Harry didn't understand what had happened, and then Ron's excited shouting registered.

"God, Harry! That armor nearly fell on you! If Malfoy hadn't run into you —" Sudden suspicion crowded Ron's voice. "Just what were you doing, running through these halls, Malfoy?" he asked, inspecting the armor, trying to find out why it had fallen.

No reason, really, besides old nails and old metal that had for some reason chosen that moment to let go.

But Malfoy, who, Harry decided, after sitting up and looking at him, looked rather winded and startled himself, offered no snappy defense. Instead, he merely scowled and snarled, "I was late for class, Weasley."

Ron decided to let go of his suspicions that the whole thing had been a set up. After all, how likely was it, really, that Malfoy had caused the armor to fall and then felt guilty and saved Harry's life? Had Harry been hurt, then Ron would have had reason to pound Draco into a bloody pulp. As it was, he merely cried, "Cripes, Harry! He saved your life!"

Before Harry managed to get to his feet, Draco had walked away, limping a little, and swearing savagely at once again having accidentally saved Harry Potter from certain death.

It was not to end there, however. Harry had chalked the armor incident up to another one of the strange coincidental near death experiences by lunchtime and had done his best to forget it. There had been no others as of yet, sparing a strange incident in Care of Magical Creatures in which Millicent Bulstrode had handed him what appeared to be a badly-rhymed love sonnet. He had read it and screwed his face up in a rather puzzled sort of expression, put it in his pocket and had forgotten it.

Ron was eagerly filling Hermione in on the armor incident while Harry picked at his food. Not feeling particularly hungry, he made his excuses and rose to leave the table.

"Oh, Harry!" Hermione cried, almost coyly. "You can't leave that." She was pointing to a cupcake gaudily frosted in Gryffindor colors with ‘Harry' shakily written in green sprinkles. "It's a gift."

He picked it up doubtfully. "Uhh, thanks."

"Don't thank me, it's not from me," she said quickly. "It's from… a girl we both know." Ron choked a little and Hermione glared. "Not Ginny. Someone else."

"Oh," Harry said, distractedly, trying to pretend he cared. "Thanks. Really. Umm."

He turned to go, nodding at them, still holding the ugly cupcake. Just as he was slipping through the doors, however, Draco and some other Slytherin fifth years were coming in, and Draco smirked cruelly.

"Pretty cupcake, Potter," he sneered.

Harry glanced from the cupcake to Draco's pale face and back again. "Prettier than you," he lied.

Cocking his head, Draco pretended to look hurt. "Really? Even with the squiggly letters and clashing colours? Wow, Potter, if being a sodding hero brings perks like that, where do I sign up?"

"If being a sodding hero were that easy, Malfoy, I doubt you'd still be a stupid, sneering bully. After all, everyone knows you just do it because you're jealous."

"Of you and your cupcake? Hardly." But Draco looked as if his pride had been ruffled, just a little at least.

Shrugging, Harry frowned. "I don't much care. Have it if you like."

He held it out and Draco reacted without thought, taking it. Their fingertips brushed and their eyes met and Harry's sparkled, for just a second, with some indefinable sort of life that had been missing moments before.

"Draco! Draco, no! Don't take it, it's a Love Cake!"

They both turned at the same time to see Millicent Bulstrode standing near the Slytherin table, looking panicked. At the same time, both Draco and Harry's eyes slammed together again, furious silver and flat green as understanding hit them both.

A Love Cake baked by the most ineffective witch of Slytherin could hardly have come out the way it was intended, and even so, death was in some ways preferable to falling in love with her. Again, by accident, Draco had saved Harry's life.

He cursed, savagely, threw the cupcake at Goyle, and stalked out of the room.

After Hermione finished begging forgiveness and explaining that Millicent had only said it was a cupcake and had neglected to mention the whole love spell thing, Harry left the Hall as well, oddly resigned to this new game fate seemed to be playing with him.

He kept waiting to nearly die only to be rescued by Draco. All day, in every class, Harry kept watch for the next accident awaiting him. It was something to pass the time, after all, though he supposed paying attention in class would have been better, given that it was almost exam time and all.

By the end of classes, he'd nearly stopped caring. After all, in his advanced state of apathy towards everything and anything, Draco Malfoy hardly rated more than a few hours worth of consideration.

Late that afternoon, as Harry walked about the grounds enjoying the hot day, he watched the Weapons Club practice on the Quidditch Pitch. The club had been formed to train any student in fifth year or higher in the art of weapons and physical fighting, more because that year's new Defense Against The Dark Arts professor was a professionally trained Master of Weapons than anything. Ron had joined, as had most of the boys in Harry's year and a few of the girls, but Harry hadn't been interested. He'd grown up in a Muggle world of movies full of weapons like crossbows, daggers, and bows. He was here to learn magic, not how to shoot a bow. But still, he liked to watch sometimes, and now, as he did so, he was even more pleased with his idea not to join the club. The day was hot enough without having to move overly much, and shooting bows and arrows looked like far too much moving.

He was lying on his back in the grass, his eyes closed, the heat crawling over his skin like warm fingertips, when the crunching of grass under someone's feet disturbed him and he opened his eyes. A second later, he'd sat up, eyes widening.

"Malfoy."

A few feet away, Draco paused, surprised. That was quickly covered up with a sneer and Draco drawled, "Lying here waiting to ambush innocent students, Potter?"

"If there's one thing I know about you, Malfoy, it's that you've never been innocent."

"Then you don't know very much, do you?" Draco turned to go.

"Wait."

He paused and glanced over his shoulder, the glare of sun off his hair hurting Harry's eyes as Harry tried frantically to remember why he'd made him wait at all. "Well, Potter? If you've got something to say, say it already. It's bloody hot out here, I want to go in."

Harry couldn't think of a thing to say. He didn't have to, honestly, because at that moment, one of the fifth year Hufflepuffs on the pitch slipped as they released an arrow, the bow turning sharply upwards, arrow arcing high. Neither saw it as it sped towards them, until a second before it embedded itself in Draco's arm. Had it been a fraction lower or Draco's arm not been there, it would have hit Harry right between the eyes.

What happened next was too fast even for Harry to register, and the next thing he knew, Draco was on his back, blood pouring from the wound, an arrow still jutting from his upper arm. The whole weapons club was running towards them but they seemed to be coming in slow motion, and Harry was kneeling beside Draco, his shadow blocking out the sun.

For the first time since Harry and Draco had been in the forest together as first years, terror had made Draco's eyes nearly more black than silver. "How… how bad is it?" he whispered, staring up at Harry.

Harry stared at the arrow. "Not so bad."

"Am I dying?"

"I don't think so."

"Good. Because if I died for you, Potter, I'd haunt you forever."

Harry smiled faintly. "I'm sure you would. Do you want me to pull it out?"

"The arrow?"

"Yes."

"Depends. How many more times is my life gonna be risked for yours today? Because at the rate this is going, this might be the least painful way to die."

Harry's smile grew stronger, even as he bit his lip to restrain it. "You're done for the day, I think. Only three, Malfoy."

Closing his eyes, Draco nodded. "Do it then, before I start to cry. It hurts like a bitch. And don't let that fucking Weapons Club see me like this, Potter, or I'll kill you myself."

The Weapons Club still had a ways to go, and Harry nodded. "They're still far away," he said reassuringly, wrapping his hands around the arrow. "Are you ready? I'm going to count to three."

"I'm ready," Draco lied.

"One…" Harry jerked the arrow out and Draco yelped, his eyes flying wide as he started to sit up, his good arm reaching up to wrap around Harry's throat. "Hold still," Harry scolded. "I'll close the wound and clean up the blood, we can tell them the arrow missed."

The idea of saving face before the Weapon's Club was apparently more appealing than killing Harry because Draco fell obediently back into the grass, letting Harry fix his arm and clean it up. When it was done, he got to his feet.

"If you ever touch me again, I'll kill you."

Harry watched Draco walk away, and then turned to face the club. "It missed," he said, handing the arrow to the distraught Hufflepuff archer. "He's fine."

It was Ron who noticed the blood on the arrow and on Harry's hand, but he didn't comment.

***

The heat cracked into a massive storm late that night, the first breaking of thunder waking Harry from what had been a restless, dreamless sleep. At first, he wasn't sure what had awakened him, and he stared at his ceiling in confusion. A flash of lightning lit the room and he was up and out of bed in a heartbeat. Harry loved storms.

Grabbing his glasses, he raced to the window and threw himself onto the sill, slamming his glasses on, his mouth falling open a little bit in awe. The sky was rolling with thick clouds of various shades of purple, with veins of lightning snaking through, like forked fingers. Rain fell in gray sheets, pounding the window and flattening the grass. Wind was howling and tearing at the trees, breaking branches and tossing them easily through the air.

It was wicked and wild and Harry loved every second of it.

Dawn was anticlimactic and didn't ease the storm at all. The clouds were so thick that the sun barely even made a difference, except that it signaled that Harry had to start getting ready for class. It was Friday and the weekend looming before him was a relief for his weary body and exhausted mind.

He showered quickly and hurried into the common room to sit at the window and watch the storm until it was time to go to breakfast.

Ron and Hermione went ahead and Harry followed behind, more slowly because he kept pausing at every window to watch the storm. Used to his fascination with storms, they didn't bother to wait, and soon enough, Harry was walking alone, mouth hanging open the tiniest bit, heart beating faster than it had in weeks.

"Oh bloody ever lasting hell."

He glanced away from the window and over his shoulder. Draco had been walking in the opposite direction and he had paused when he'd seen Harry, his face going a little pale. "Malfoy," Harry greeted, his voice thick and shaking, though distracted. He'd barely even registered Draco's presence, as enraptured with the storm as he was.

Draco was glancing about warily, as if looking for potential threats, unable to decide if turning and going the way he'd come was the best option, or hurrying on his way. There was a broken window in the hall about midway between them and rain was leaking through, but it looked safe enough. He took a deep breath and started walking forward carefully. Deciding he'd stood at that window long enough, Harry did the same, almost smiling when he heard Draco audibly hold his breath when they passed in the hallway.

And then, right when they were shoulder to shoulder in front of the broken window, Harry slipped in the puddle that had formed there, crashing into Draco and knocking him to the floor where his robes were quickly soaked through with water.

"Why is this happening to me?" Draco howled, furious.

Harry could only stare at him, his face lit up with amusement. Had anyone noticed, they would have realized it was the first time his face had been lit up with anything in months. "Alright, Malfoy?"

"Get away from me! You're cursed! Don't touch me!"

Harry was laughing so hard that he almost couldn't catch his breath as he hurried away down the hall. If this was a curse, he almost rather liked it.