Beautiful World

Beautiful World

Chapter Two

Draco Malfoy had never met a knight in shining armor and, he always liked to think, if he ever did, he wouldn’t be that impressed. Really, what’s a stupid sod in a metal suit good for, in the grand scheme of things? He thought girls who dreamed of such things were sentimental and dull; surely their imaginations could come up with a more fitting hero. Which was why, when he found himself somehow cast into the role of Harry Potter’s Personal Knight In Shining Armor, he was Not Impressed. In the least.

It wasn’t like he was having that great of a week to begin with. Draco rarely did have a week that was completely Good, without a single hint of Bad in it. Then again, he was a Malfoy, and Malfoys were supposed to think that Bad was Good and Good was Bad, black was white and white was black and Voldemort help the wizard who fancied gray. Draco, despite popular opinion, quite fancied it; he felt it brought out the silver in his eyes.

There weren’t many things that Draco thought he was afraid of, not really. Oh, he could have spoken of what he feared for hours, but it was more quality than quantity. The list was short but the levels of terror were high. He did not fear the dark or heights or creepy crawlies and certainly not snakes. Nor did he fear death or pain or monsters in the shadows. He feared being helpless and he feared being afraid. He feared tattoos of skulls and snakes and feared his father’s wrath should he ever hear of that. He feared growing into the splitting image of his father and he feared dying the same. He feared Voldemort most of all.

He worried about a lot. About growing old and failing his classes and embarrassing himself and never beating Potter at Quidditch. Worry was not the same as fear, however, because worry was somehow softer. You didn’t worry about anything that you thought would possibly come true. Draco would never be old (immortality is an illusion of the young), he’d never fail, and he had to beat Potter eventually. But he feared what he was sure would really happen someday. He’d become his father; he’d die the same as his father was going to; Voldemort would have him.

That was one time when Draco would let himself fear the dark. If Voldemort was in it, then he’d fear it.

He had no problem with the dark, however, if he was pushing Potter into it before him, which was why this current situation was so irritating. He didn’t want to have anything to do with Potter unless it somehow lead to the other boy dying a horrible death, losing at Quidditch, being humiliated in a very public place, or being incarcerated for life at Azkaban. Saving his life again and again was hardly a way to endear himself to either his father or Voldemort, and he certainly didn’t want to endear himself to Potter. So all and all, it was a pretty rotten situation for all involved. Potter got to live, and Draco got to piss off the two people with enough power over him to bring about his death.

Draco wasn’t as worldly as he liked to pretend. He didn’t really know what dark objects his father kept below the drawing room floor, and he didn’t really want to see all the Mudbloods killed. Just put somewhere far away where he didn’t have to go to school with them and have it rubbed in his face nearly every day that some of them were smarter than he was. None of them were better looking, of course. Mudbloods had this sort of mousy look about them. Of course, pureblooded witches and wizards ran the risk of inbreeding and some of them had a mangled, lopsided look to them… But Draco, thankfully, was spared that affliction.

Which was why, when his girlfriend of three months, Lisa Turpin, dumped him, Draco was confused. And very horrified.

The worst part about being dumped, according to Draco, was pretending not to care. He’d never had a girlfriend before, however; Pansy and he had had some sort of fling the year before but nothing more than a date to the Yule Ball had ever come of it. This thing with Lisa… Draco had allowed himself to believe that he was in love. Fifteen was high time for First Love anyway, he had decided, upon further consideration of the matter. Apparently it was also a good time for his first broken heart, and that… that pissed Draco off to no end. Malfoys weren’t dumped! Malfoys were worshipped and adored. Not told that ‘it just wasn’t working out.’

And doing it in the middle of the hottest afternoon in history, dropping the bracelet he’d given her into the grass by the lake and walking away with a mumbled apology?! He should have known better than to date a Ravenclaw! No class, absolutely no class.

Adding insult to that injury, he had nearly tripped over Potter on his way back to castle, and then gotten shot by a random arrow.

It was certainly not shaping up to be a very impressive week. Add to that, the weird stint in the hall earlier when he’d humiliated himself and slipped in that puddle, and Draco was having The Worst Week Ever.

But, he told himself cheerfully, as he left his last class that day, it could hardly get any worse!

Being a Malfoy and as familiar with dark magic as he was, Draco should have known that by having that thought, he was basically hexing himself.

Keeping a watch out for Potter (because horrible things seemed to happen most often when he was around), he was on his way to the library to finish a Charms assignment, when Draco noticed what appeared to be some sort of trap set up above the doorway leading into the library.

A short distance away, he heard snickering, and he turned. Peeves was hovering in the corner, watching; obviously he’d set this trap up and was just waiting for someone to walk into it. There was a large metal bucket balancing precariously on the ledge, and he could faintly smell something loathsome inside it.

Draco was certainly not willingly walking into that.

“Malfoy!”

He turned, surprised. Potter had snuck up on him. Again, Draco glanced at the trap and at Peeves and then at Potter. Was this another attempt at Potter’s life that Draco was meant to accidentally thwart? Well, not today!

“Potter,” he sneered. “Going to the library?”

Potter’s green eyes flicked to Draco’s in some vague sort of surprise that was more grudging acceptance than anything else. It was disappointing; usually Potter’s eyes shone like green fire whenever Draco looked at him, spoke to him, sneered at him, stood near him.

“Sort of,” Potter said, nodding. “The library’s a good place for homework, after all.”

“Indeed.” Draco was thinking fast. Maybe this was all a plot of Potter’s! Maybe he was trying to have Draco killed off and make it look like an accident! After all, that Cedric had died just because he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time with Potter, and maybe Potter figured he’d do Draco in the same way. Not today.

Potter looked confused. “What did you expect? That’s what libraries are for, after all.”

“Well,” he drawled, with a grand gesture towards the door. “Ladies first.”

“Excuse me?”

He sighed. “If you think, after all that’s happened lately, I’m going to walk through that door first and be hit by a flying broomstick or have a stack of books fall on me just to save your sorry arse, Potter, you’re sadly mistaken.”

Potter looked like he was restraining a grin. “Oh. Yes of course.” He walked through the door unscathed.

“Drat,” Draco mumbled, glancing at Peeves before darting through the door.

The bucket fell, splashing foul liquid over Draco’s body. Draco would have been horrified had the heavy bucket not stuck him in the head and knocked him to the ground, unconscious.

Definitely The Worst Week Ever.

He woke up to a massive headache, lying on the cold stone floor, with Potter bending over him, frowning.

“Ah,” he said when he noticed Draco’s eyes open. “Malfoy. You’re not dead then?”

“Apparently not,” Draco moaned, spots dancing in front of his eyes. “I was hit by a bucket.”

“Umm, yes, I saw. Peeves flew off. Do you need to go to the hospital wing?”

He snorted. “No, I’ve just got a headache, Potter. Not everyone runs off to the hospital wing as soon as they’ve got a bit of a headache. I’m fine.” He sat up, glancing around, trying not to wince at the pain in his head.

“And you rather smell,” Potter pointed out delicately.

“Did I look as though I required your opinion on the way I smell?” Draco snapped scathingly, before stalking off towards Slytherin House, his pride battered and shredded but still held tightly around him like a cloak. It was hard, after all, to retain any bits of pride at all, when he’d been doused with a potion designed to make him smell like rotting flower petals.

***

After dinner that night, Draco managed to forget all about the incident outside the library. It wasn’t because he had anything more pleasant to think about. In fact, it was because during dinner, Lisa didn’t even seem to remember he existed. He’d almost hoped she’d come to her senses and beg him to take her back, but she apparently was still quite insane and in denial.

He was moping about it late that night, up in the astronomy tower, pacing the room and ranting out loud, though there was no one to hear him.

It wasn’t that he particularly liked Lisa or would miss her that much. It was just that no Malfoy had ever invested any time or energy into something that hadn’t had any sort of results. He hadn’t gotten anything from those three months of being with Lisa. Not even a proper shagging. And to be a fifteen-year-old virgin and a Malfoy was unheard of.

It was still storming outside and Draco collapsed on the windowsill, watching the rain and lightning swirl furiously outside the window. He still had the bracelet Lisa had dropped into the grass at his feet the day before, and he pulled it out of his pocket, studying it in the low light. It was heavy, warm against his palm. He’d bought it in Hogsmeade for quite a large sum of money, and it was magically inscribed with the words ‘Lisa I love you’ inside. A physical reminder of Draco’s humiliation and he hated it.

He pushed the window open, flinching against the wind and the rain. He was done with love. Anything that hurt like this wasn’t worth it.

It was only puppy love at the most, and hardly hurt at all, really, but Draco wasn’t worldly enough to tell the difference between true heartbreak and embarrassment. In fact, he was hardly worldly at all, and this was the first time he’d ever been hurt at all, and he thought the world was ending. Humiliation was, to him, the worst sort of pain, and it didn’t matter that he didn’t like her all that much. She had hurt him and he hated her. He swore to himself then that he’d never love anyone again.

Throwing the bracelet out the window wasn’t good enough. Snarling, Draco took out his wand and caught the bracelet with a banishing charm meant to send it flying far into the storm.

What occurred next happened so fast that Draco barely registered it until after it was over. He first became aware of someone standing alone on the grounds in the storm, someone cast in shadows. Then, a thick tangle of lightning arched towards the person on the ground, just as Draco sent his copper bracelet spinning through the air. At the last possible second, the lightning deflected away from the person and curved upwards again, slamming into the bracelet, making it glow and snap for a split second before it was gone, incinerated. The lightning had died as well.

Harry Potter, alone on the grounds, his face turned up to the rain, was laughing and waving at him.

“You stupid sod!” Draco shrieked out the window, unheard over the rain. He remembered Potter’s words from the day before. Three times a day and that had been the third. He was done for the day, at least. “That’s it! Tomorrow I’m killing you myself!”

But Potter didn’t hear over the storm.

***

The next morning, Harry woke up with a smile. That in itself marked the day as strange, because usually he woke up and blinked, staring up at the ceiling and thinking vaguely to himself, “Ah. Still here, then?” But this morning, he woke up and for a long moment, couldn’t figure out what was different about the morning. Then he realized that it was the muscles in his face twisting up into a smile.

“Right,” he said out loud, a little unnerved. “Good dreams then, I suppose.” He didn’t remember them, though he did recall claiming, only a few short days ago, that he didn’t dream anymore, and found himself wistfully wishing he could recall this one. It must have been good, if it had made him smile. And he certainly wasn’t smiling because he was awake. Generally Harry preferred to be asleep because at least when he was asleep and not dreaming, he had an excuse not to feel. As opposed to being awake and moving about life like nothing matters and wondering why but not having the energy to change it.

He got out of bed and showered and went to class with Ron and Hermione, tried to pay attention to them and to his professors, and at lunch, didn’t choke on any food or taste any poison or love spells. In fact, he was nearly disappointed and figured that the curse or whatever it had been was over.

It was so hot that day, even hotter than the previous day, that Dumbledore decided to cancel the afternoon classes, because no one was learning anyway. It was just so hot inside that no one could concentrate. Hermione immediately whooped and cried something about all the extra study time, disappearing into the library, and Dean decided it was high time he taught Ron, Seamus, and Neville the rules of football. Harry was invited but declined, the heat making him irritable and crave solitude even more than he naturally did.

So mid afternoon found Harry dressed in Muggle jeans and an old t-shirt, slipping out a side door, and escaping the hot Hogwarts halls in exchange for the sweltering heat outdoors.

He moaned a little as the humid heat hit his body, instantly drawing sweat from his skin and making him wilt a little.

“This is ridiculous,” he grumbled as he made his way over the grounds. “It’s never this hot here.”

He briefly considered going into the forest, where the trees would create enough shade to grant at least some degree of coolness, but it was too hot even to stomach the idea of walking across the grounds towards it. Besides, the forest was off-limits.

He went instead to the Quidditch pitch, watching from the shelter of the stands as Dean laughingly outlined the rules for football. Other students had gathered now as well, and they’d broken into two teams. Everyone was laughing and grinning, and Harry wistfully wished he had any sort of inclination to join them. He didn’t, however, and he sighed, slipping into the changing rooms, hoping it was cooler there at least.

It wasn’t. It was quieter, however, and he wearily slumped onto his back on a bench, closing his eyes. He hated excessive heat. He was thirsty and sweaty and irritated, and was trying desperately to think up something to distract himself with.

He went into the back closet that housed the school brooms and broomstick oils and such, intending to busy himself oiling up the old Clean Sweeps. Madam Hooch would surely thank him for it later.

He was just selecting a broom when the door to the closet swung shut, casting him into a hot, sweaty darkness.

For a long moment, Harry didn’t move. He loathed the darkness. It was false and treacherous and it told a thousand lies that would have been plainly seen in the light. It made him cold, inside and out, and it made him shake with terror. He’d rather die by something he could see than die by something cowardly, that killed in the dark.

“God,” he said, and it echoed in the darkness. Just a single, shaky syllable that held no respite from the emptiness.

He dropped the broom he’d been holding and spun towards the door, the clatter of falling broomsticks making him jump, making him pant with fear, as he crawled over buckets and broomsticks and chests of Quidditch balls.

“It’s just there,” he reassured himself. “The door’s just there.”

His hands closed on the latch desperately and he let out his pent up breath in a shaky hiss, pulling on the handle. It didn’t move; the door was jammed.

It was incredibly hot in the broom closet, the heat made all the more encompassing with the force of Harry’s panic. He’d be locked in here forever, he’d never get out, no one would ever find him, he’d die. Death was all well and good to secretly long for, but only a quick death, not a death in the darkness and sweltering heat on the hottest day of the year. Not death in a broom closet, alone. Not death in the dark.

“Please,” he whimpered, tugging on the door again. Nothing.

Harry panicked.

He screamed and he pounded and kicked at the door, all logic blown from his mind. His wand remained in his pocket, forgotten, though it wouldn’t have been much good. The door wasn’t locked, no alohamora was going to get him out of this. He was trapped.

Eventually, when beating on the door proved useless, Harry started throwing things, screaming himself hoarse, his mind latching on the idea that nothing could sneak up on him and grab him if he kept the shadows terrified in the corners. He spun in mad circles, shrieking and randomly tossing broomsticks into the darkness, effectively trashing the closet. Finally, when the heat had caused rivers of sweat to run down his body and dizziness to make him weak, he slumped to the floor, panting. It was so hot, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Claustrophobia was driving him crazy.

He was back in the closet under the stairs again. He was locked in and Uncle Vernon was going to kill him when he got home and Aunt Petunia told him of how Harry had accidentally destroyed Dudley’s science project. It was hot, nearly summer, and Uncle Vernon was going to keep him locked under the stairs for a week at least for this, with only the paltriest food shoved in through the heat register in the door. The walls were falling in on him and Harry couldn’t breathe…

He crawled to the door and pulled himself to his feet, leaning heavily on it. His throat burned, he didn’t know how long he’d been trapped but it seemed like forever.

“Please, someone…” he whimpered.

“What the devil?”

He jumped at the voice. Someone was in the changing room. It was Draco Malfoy.

Suddenly being trapped in a boiling hot broom closet was preferable to being found there by Draco Malfoy, and Harry shrunk away from the door, eyes going wide.

“How the hell did this fall in front of the door?” Draco was saying, out loud, as he approached the door. There was a small scraping sound and then a thump as the door opened very slowly.

His gray eyes were great at showing surprise, Harry vaguely noticed, staring in horror at Draco.

“Potter?” Draco cried.

Harry cleared his throat. “What?” he said, attempting to make his voice cold with icy disdain. It worked for Draco often enough in situations like this, after all. He swept passed Draco and into the blissfully light change room.

“What on earth—were you… you were…” Draco glanced suspiciously from the trashed closet to Harry’s pale, sweaty face, and back again. His hands flew to his hips and he said in suddenly realization, “You were trapped in the broom closet.”

“I wasn’t!” Harry cried.

“You would have died if I hadn’t let you out. Eventually. Of starvation or heat stroke or something.” He sounded keenly disappointed.

“I wouldn’t have! I had everything under control!”

Draco’s eyes were very narrow now, and he said in a tightly controlled voice, “I’m not going to be around forever, Potter. Next time, I’m going to let you die.”

“I don’t want you to be around!” Harry spat. “I’d rather you just let me die!” He hadn’t planned to say it and he certainly wished he hadn’t. He hadn’t even known he thought that way.

Draco laughed coldly. “Oh, Potter, if you honestly want to die, locking yourself in a broom closet’s hardly the way to go.” He stepped into the closet and picked up a bottle of broomstick oil, which was what he’d come down here for to begin with. “Razors work better.”

Touching his neck almost subconsciously, Harry swallowed hard and didn’t say anything.

“And kindly hurry up with the suicide thing, I look forward to not having to deal with you,” Draco finished.

“You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if you didn’t have me to constantly compare yourself to,” Harry said, rolling his eyes.

Draco stared at him for a long moment, coldly, fury making his eyes almost black. Then, he walked away without a word.

***

The lake was not Harry’s favourite place in the world, but with the forest off-limits, it seemed the smartest place to go for respite from the clinging heat. The air had to be cooler there, it was a rule somewhere, so Harry restlessly made his way towards it. Climbing up onto a rock and panting a little, he whimpered, low in his throat, still shaken from being trapped in the closet.

His shirt was plastered to his back and chest, sticky with sweat, and he peeled it off, tossing it to the ground in disgust. It was technically against the Hogwarts dress code to appear anywhere other than his dorm room and the bathroom not properly clothed, but Harry figured he was far enough from the actual school to be allowed to take his shirt off. Besides, like anyone would care. He bet all the people playing football had long since torn their shirts off.

He shifted uncomfortably at the images that thought evoked and instead watched the sun glinting off the flat surface of the lake. Even the water seemed shrunken and listless in the sweltering heat, and he wondered if the water were as warm and lifeless as it looked.

A short, hot breeze blew through his hair suddenly, bringing with it the sound of laughter from the Quidditch pitch, faded as an old memory and just as painful. A sharp burst of loneliness hit Harry then, even if his isolation was of his own choice. It wasn’t so much that he wanted company, it was just that, when he was by himself, he was very much aware of how truly alone he was. Maybe he was constantly surrounded by friends and professors and such, but he was always somehow apart from them. Whether it was because of his scar or because he just felt different, Harry didn’t know. All he knew was that it was becoming increasingly easy to feel segregated from his friends, and it infuriated him that they didn’t notice.

Being by himself was the only time when Harry felt he was being honest with the people around him, and then it was only because, of course, there weren’t any. He didn’t know if he could particularly handle being the hero everyone assumed him to be. Honestly, he wasn’t all that brave; he was scared out of his mind. What sort of hero was terrified of waking up in the morning? What sort of hero secretly wished never to wake up because at least sleeping was real? At least if he was killed in his sleep, he could die knowing that it really wasn’t his fault. He’d been asleep, how was he supposed to protect himself? Even heroes have to sleep. Even heroes have to die. Most likely sooner and more violently than other people.

And it scared him. A lot of things scared him. Being alone scared him. That’s why Harry liked it; he liked a certain degree of controllable fear. Being alone by choice meant that if he changed his mind, he could have companionship. Being alone against his will was out of his control, and he flaunted having control over it, just a little bit.

He also was sort of selfishly waiting to see who would notice and come after him, to see if he was alright. A call for attention, he supposed. Ron would snort and say “You’re the sodding Boy Who Lived, Harry, what more attention could you need?”

Not that sort of attention. The sort of attention that was more than ‘Oh, Harry’ll be fine. He’s faced You-Know-Who so many times already, he’s got to be practically invincible!’. The sort of attention that was more ‘Oh, Harry, are you alright? Are you still breathing? Are you scared? Don’t be scared, Harry, it’ll be alright’. Or even being shaken roughly while someone shouted ‘You stupid sod, look at all there is to live for. And you’re willing to let it slip away because you’re scared? So much for legendary Gryffindor courage! You should have been a Slytherin, just like me.’

Harry blinked. “What?” he said out loud, glancing around, startled, as if wondering who had put that traitorous thought into his head. No one was there.

He wasn’t blind to patterns. Even if he was, Harry had to be a complete and mindless idiot to miss the way things were resolving themselves into patterns. These last few days, all the accidents, and then Draco Malfoy suddenly appearing each time Harry was in trouble and accidentally saving his life. Of course, not all patterns have a point. He was quite sure crop circles were pointless, as were the designs on sea shells and the way knots on planks of wood sometimes arranged themselves to look like faces. But still, a pattern was useful when it was understood, then it could be manipulated. And Harry understood this one. Somehow, Draco Malfoy had become some sort of protector. Like something had decided it was time for Harry to die and something else beyond his comprehension had decided that Draco Malfoy was the one to ensure that it didn’t happen.

Or something.

All Harry knew was that Draco had developed a habit of showing up at the right moment, right when things nearly got a thousand times worse. And he was incredibly lonely right now. Not for the companionship of those who would let him wallow in his depression. Companionship that would make him forget, would make him feel something.

That was why he decided to get to his feet on the rock right on the shore of the lake, where the water dropped off into blackness. He lifted his arms until they were at right angles to his body, like wings, and took off his glasses, tossing them to the grass. And then, eyes closed and face turned up to the sun, he let himself fall into the water, more tipping over and dropping than diving.

He landed on his stomach and it stung. Harry didn’t care, and let himself sink like a stone, thinking vaguely, as the air in his lungs started pulling him back up again, “I do hope the giant squid’s not around.”

Rising to the surface, he glanced around hopefully, looking for Draco’s familiar figure. He was disappointed, the Slytherin wasn’t there.

“Bollocks,” Harry mumbled. At least he was cooler now. The water, while not cold, was certainly cooler than the air, and he lazily floated on his back, closing his eyes and letting his breath out slowly. It was relaxing and sweet, very quiet, with his ears under the water giving every sound a sort of softened effect.

He drifted for a long while, eyes still closed. The water had gently pushed him to the weedy bank a little ways from the rocks, and he rolled over, the slimy mud against his stomach somehow soothing. He pushed his face into the shallow water and opened his eyes, the green water reminding him of his life; hazy and shadowed and very, very foggy.

He let himself stay that way, on his stomach in the shallow water, his hair drifting around his head like a black halo, arms stretched out to either side.

And Harry forgot to come up for air. It just didn’t seem worth spoiling the serenity of being weightless this way.

He was completely and utterly blown away and startled when he distantly heard a savage curse, shouted in a very familiar voice. His shoulder was grabbed roughly and he was flipped onto his back.

“Potter. Potter! You sodding well better be breathing, or I swear…”

He blinked. “Of course I’m breathing,” he said dumbly. “Have you gone mad, Malfoy?”

Scowling, the legs of his trousers soaked from dashing into the lake after Harry, Draco backed away quickly. “No,” he said shortly. “I just didn’t expect to see someone in the lake and you looked… well, dead. It was…”

Harry wondered what he was going to say to finish that sentence. Scary, disgusting, wonderful, wish you were dead, you stupid, stupid Gryffindor?

“…It was a shock, that’s all.”

Sitting up, Harry shook his head a little to clear away the fog. “I looked dead, did I? Didn’t mean to scare you, Malfoy, I was just —”

“Scare me? I certainly wasn’t scared! Surprised is all. Though why I was surprised at the idea that the Boy-Who-Lived was so unstable that he’d drown himself, I don’t know.”

Harry had stood up and made his way out of the water, aware that he was covered with mud and soaked straight through. His trousers clung in the most uncomfortable way and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. To distract Draco from that, he said, “What surprises me, Malfoy, is this time you willingly saved me.”

Draco’s mouth opened to deliver his snappy retort, and then slowly closed, his eyes reflecting some unreadable response. He didn’t say anything, and Harry frowned.

“What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were polishing your broomstick.”

“What’s it to you where I go?” Draco snapped, turning to continue on his way.

Harry panicked. He suddenly very much didn’t want to be left alone, more startled than he cared to admit that forgetting to come up for air had been so easy for him. “Malfoy!” He cried.

Glancing over his shoulder, Draco scowled. “What?”

“Th-thanks. For all of this.”

For a long moment, he didn’t think Draco would reply. Then, he did. “I certainly didn’t do it for your benefit, Potter.” He walked away then, and Harry watched him go, silently.

He would have thought that the loneliness would have come crashing back when Draco left, but it didn’t. Somehow he felt lighter. Maybe it was the reassurance that the pattern wasn’t quite finished after all.

Then again, maybe it was relief that Draco seemed to be doing such a good job of showing up just when Harry needed him.

Trusting Draco Malfoy, in any sense, should not have been a relief. But oddly, it was.

Harry was smiling a little as he grabbed his shirt and his glasses and made his way back towards Hogwarts.

***

It was dusk, and the setting sun offered only a very slight respite from the intense heat. But Harry was in a better mood than he could remember being in days, and he nervously approached the Quidditch pitch where the game of football was still going strong.

“Can I play?” he asked quietly, unheard over the laughter and shouting.

It was Ron who noticed him. “Harry!” he cried. “Come and play! You can be Keeper for my side, Neville is rubbish!”

“Oi! I’m not!” Neville shouted.

“Goalie,” Dean yelled.

“Umm, sorry, Nev, old boy,” Seamus called apologetically. “But you wanted a chance to kick the ball and not have it kicked at you anyway, didn’t you? This is your chance! You can be a Beater!”

“Right back,” Dean corrected in an exasperated tone. He was grinning from ear to ear, however, and Harry felt himself relax into the easy shallowness of the entire exchange. This was simple, easy. He knew the rules to football of course, and that made this entire thing… somewhat predictable. Safe.

He took his post as goalie and lost himself in the monotony of only having to move when the ball came at him. By far a better Seeker than a goaltender, Harry still managed to stop a few of the shots.

His game grew steadily worse, however, when he noticed someone flying a short distance away. Draco Malfoy. Harry’s first instinct was to glance around for potential threats, having come to associate Draco’s presence with near-death experiences. There was nothing, however, besides the warm breeze and the Quidditch pitch of football players.

A coincidence, then. It was a novelty and Harry found himself watching Draco fly more often than he watched the ball. The other boy was circling rather aimlessly, his newly polished broomstick shining in the bright twilight. Flying out of boredom, probably, or wanting to feel the wind moving against him in an attempt to escape the heat.

“Oi! Harry!”

He looked up at Ron’s shout in time to see the football kicked by Seamus coming right for him. “Shit,” he mumbled, managing to catch it and kick it to Neville, who squealed in delight and quickly lost it to a Hufflepuff on the other team. With an eerie war cry, Ron launched himself at the ball and took it, kicking it down the field, and Harry let his eyes wander back to Draco, still making lazy loops over the lake.

***

Draco had heard of football of course. Once or twice. He wasn’t familiar enough with the game, however, to recognize it, and it was pure curiosity that drew him closer to the strange game taking place on the Quidditch pitch. He didn’t understand; it looked like a bunch of random players running around the field, chasing a single ball. Odd, there being only one ball and all. It seemed terribly simple but beyond him all at the same time.

Biting his lip and flying closer, Draco frowned. It made no sense. Who in their right mind would play a game that simple instead of Quidditch? Then again, Dean was leading the game and he was a Mudblood, wasn’t he? That meant it could be a Muggle game and Muggles were notoriously simpleminded.

He circled lower, trying to see any sort of strategy or pattern in the game below. Longbottom kicked the ball almost randomly and it shot into a net on one end of the field. What happened then so revolted Draco that he almost flew away right then. Lifting his arms, Longbottom shrieked and spun about, flailing his arms and crowing like a rooster.

It was that distraction that nearly cost Draco his life. He was staring in horror at Longbottom when the Keeper or whatever dropkicked the ball and it came at him fast, hitting him in the side of the head and knocking him off his broom.

It happened so suddenly that Draco wasn’t aware of much. A strange and sickening loss of balance, and the distant sound of someone screaming, and then the whole world twisted and turned around him.

Ah, Draco thought vaguely as the ground rushed to meet him. So this is what dying feels like.

But it wasn’t, not really. Dying would have been hitting the ground, and Draco didn’t. He hadn’t even known that Harry was playing, but he was aware of a flash of startled green eyes and then a jolt as he landed, Harry collapsing beneath him.

For a long moment, Draco just lay there, pinning Harry to the ground, completely unaware of anything other than the fact that his entire body hurt from the shock of it and that it was difficult to breathe. Then, slowly, as his breathing steadied, he became conscious of two huge, shining green eyes beneath him. With that, slowly, other bits of awareness trickled in. Harry’s chest pressed to his, Harry’s heartbeat echoing his, Harry’s hand clutching his upper arm, Harry’s legs under Draco’s.

“That was…different,” Harry said quietly, his eyes locked on Draco’s and strangely dark.

“How?” Draco breathed, still disoriented.

“Well, this time, I saved you.”

Draco blinked; it was true. He’d have died if Harry hadn’t broken his fall, and it twisted things in a way he wasn’t sure he liked. It made him feel indebted to Harry.

Fully intending to roll away and stalk off in a snit, Draco was distracted when Harry sucked in a shuddering breath and said in a wondering sort of tone, “It’s so weird. I thought you’d be cold…”

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to encourage this conversation, given that Harry had a strangely hypnotized look on his face (had he hit his head when Draco landed on him? That would explain it) and that Draco was still lying on top of him.

He couldn’t help it. “Cold?”

His eyelids fluttered a little and Harry looked thoughtful. “Cold. Like a snake.”

“And I’m not?” Draco was aware of the other people rushing towards them, to see if Harry was alright. He wasn’t so blind as to think they gave a damn if he had survived the fall.

“You’re not,” Harry confirmed. “You’re…warm.”

Suddenly Draco was aware of Harry beneath him. Not aware of him as in noticing the places that they touched, but aware as in noticing how it felt. The way a soft sort of heat that was gentler than the cruel heat of the sun surrounded Harry, the way his breath brushed against Draco’s chin when he exhaled, the strength in the fingers still gripping his arm. The way one of Harry’s knees was slightly bent so that Draco’s legs were in fact not lying on top of them so much as between them. The way one of Draco’s hands was beside Harry’s head and the other boy’s dark hair was brushing his wrist. The way, if Draco only let his head dip the tiniest bit, their lips would meet.

As if he would. As if Draco would ever willingly do that. As if he liked his entire body being pressed against Harry’s! As if he wanted this!

But he wanted something, and suddenly Draco couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it was.

His eyes, however, must have reflected somewhat of what he was suddenly feeling, because Harry, whose own eyes seemed so deep and bottomless, whispered, “Are you scared?”

Draco Malfoy, afraid? Of Harry Potter? Hardly. He opened his mouth to snap some sort of reply, to crush that fragile glow in Harry’s eyes, to hurt him. Instead, he replied solemnly, “Should I be?”

The moment, whatever the hell it had been, was shattered then, because the football players had arrived. Though it felt like an eternity since his fall, it had been merely seconds, and Draco was pulled roughly off of Harry.

He stared at the other boy for a long moment as he was pulled away, a few solicitous Hufflepuffs checking him for injury. Harry stared back, eyes empty and flat now, and that emptiness terrified Draco, though he couldn’t explain why.

Draco Malfoy, afraid?

Apparently.

Because Harry Potter wanted to die. And Draco suddenly remembered Harry’s words from the change rooms earlier. “You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if you didn’t have me to constantly compare yourself to.”

He wondered, suddenly, just how true that was.

***

He was treated like a fallen hero. It offended Harry, in some vague sense, that while Draco was taken care of by the Hufflepuffs, Harry was consoled, as if the worst part of the entire affair was having been taken down by Draco Malfoy, not any injuries he may have sustained. Rather than checking for broken bones, they squeezed his hands and made comments on how brave he was for not trying to kill Draco for daring to land on him.

If Draco hadn’t landed on him… If Harry hadn’t broken Draco’s fall… Draco could have died. A bit of shock and having the wind knocked out of him was the least of what he was willing to pay to make sure another student didn’t die while he watched helplessly, like Cedric had. Even if that student was Draco Malfoy.

Maybe even especially if it was Draco Malfoy.

Harry frowned even as he let Ron and Seamus help him to his feet and walk him back to Hogwarts, like some sort of prince fallen in battle. Hardly a prince. He wasn’t even injured. He allowed it, however, because Harry had allowed himself to be led around like some sort of fallen hero his entire life. Or at least, since he’d turned eleven.

He dreamed that night, vivid dreams that he would remember upon waking. That in itself marked the night as different, though of course, in all the nights to come, he would wonder about that night, and how it could have seemed so much more colourful than all the other nights before it, untainted with any hint of what was to come.

He should have been nervous. He should have somehow known. He should never have woken up the next morning.

But Harry did. He fell into an exhausted sleep and dreamed of swimming upstream in a river that burned. The river was made up of streams of different colours. Crimson, gold, silver, green, and yellow, that washed over him like silken ribbons and tangled about his ankles, trying to pull him downstream. The sky above had been leached of colours, and Harry knew without knowing how he knew that he had fallen from that dead sky into this river of ribbons, and that if he let himself be swept along with the current, he’d end up back in the sky, suspended in black and white, colourless oblivion. And so he kept swimming, struggling upstream towards a destination he couldn’t see. He could vaguely hear it, however, and it sounded like morning birds singing in some sort of wild, untamed melody.

When he woke up, his sheets had tangled around his ankles and for a long moment, he thought he was still in that colourful river.

The sun hadn’t yet risen, however, and the room was cast in black and white. Not the river of colour after all, but something duller. He felt a sharp stab of desperation, because nothing had any sort of colour and the dream had awakened in him a longing for something that deep and vibrant, something missing from his life. Something that sparked of crimson and silver.

He got out of bed and went for his morning shower. His eyes didn’t look so flat this morning, though they looked somehow darker, like bruises. He smiled at himself, a tired, wistful smile, but a smile all the same. The water was hot and steam misted up the bathroom, swirling when he stepped from the shower, water running off his body. He once again rubbed it off the mirror with his fist and inspected his face, looking for changes.

“Still a little boy,” he murmured, inspecting his reflection. Boyish smile, boyish hair, boyish shoulders. The only part that looked old at all were his eyes. Green and endless and so very old and tired. Like they were worn straight through. It was unnerving, and Harry looked away. If he’d have known that it was the last time he’d get to see his face before everything shattered, the last time he’d ever look like a little boy, he would have looked just a little bit longer. Maybe said goodbye before he turned away.

He didn’t, however; in the mornings to come, he’d always wonder how he could have let go so easily of that innocent reflection.

Of course, he didn’t know then what that day would bring.