Until Death

Until Death

Part Six

'Tragic visions, slowly stole my life, tore away everything cheating me out of my time. I'm the one who loves you, no matter what's right, and everyday I hold you, I hold you with my inner child. I need serenity.' - "Serenity", Godsmack

Random thoughts have stopped. Oh, if only you knew.... What are you doing? Why are you coming closer? You...understand? You do realize- you do? No. Im-impossible. It can't. Why? Because... because... It's too perfect. Too perfect...no! NO! PLEASE DON'T GO! DON'T LEAVE ME! NOOOO!! No. You can't. You can't. I love you too much. No. Take me instead. DAMN YOU FOR TAKING THE ONE THING I LOVE!! DAMN YOU!! Tears? Why? I- I never cry. Why?

"NAH!" Draco screamed as he woke up from his coma. Harry must have jumped three feet in the air with Draco's outcry. It was dark in the cabin and Harry had his wand lit up. He was eating something, so he was successful in his search.

"Jesus God, Malfoy! You gave me a fright bigger than England," Harry whispered to Draco. "You have to stay quiet though. The Death Eaters came back about an hour ago."

"Great. Oi, I feel like I got beaten by a bludger," Draco said as he put his non-bloody hand on his temples. "What happened?"

"You got knocked out by one of those idiot Death Eater's spells. You were unconscious for a while," Harry said as he continued to eat whatever he found.

"Well, how long was I out for? An hour or two?" Harry raised an eyebrow to Draco. "What?"

"Try a day and a fourth." Draco gawked at Harry. He couldn't have possibly been out for that long. All those thoughts and dreams...they could not have filled up a day and a fourth. All those... haunting dreams.

"Impossible. I mean-" I saw you...dying....

"Malfoy, I am not daffed. I know what I'm talking about." Harry kept on eating. "God, I'm starved," he said as he shoved his face full of food.

"Well what did you find?" Draco said, intrigued and starving himself. He hadn't eaten in three days.

"Nothing, really. Just some honey and this dried meat stuff. It's really hard to chew on but it's better than nothing. Here. Have some." Harry motioned Draco to come over to him. Why now was he being so nice? Offering him food? Draco crawled across the floor, head pounding from the blast, and sat next to Harry. In front of Harry, sat a moldy basket full of the dried meat and jars of honey. One of the jars was already gone and instead filled with what look like melted snow. Harry handed him a stick of the dried beef and continued to eat his own. Draco gnawed on it, trying to bite a piece off of the dried meat.

"You were not joking," Draco remarked as he continued to gnaw on the stick. As he was chomping on the stick, he realized his bloody hand was bandaged up in a now stained red cloth as it rested on the floor. He tried to flex it, to see if it had heeled any. All that came out was a groan of pain. He bit into the meat so hard that a chunk actually came off rather easily.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Harry commented as he drank from a jar of honey.

"Did you bandage my hand?" Draco asked in amazement. God, first he went to sleep, thinking the one he loved hated him, now he woke up to a new person who cared for him.

"Well, yeah. You were bleeding all over the place with that hand. Do you know how hard blood is to get out of this floor?" Draco smiled. Harry looked totally serious with his emerald green eyes reading his soul, scanning Draco's silver eyes.

"Don't look at me like that," Draco said, as he looked to the floor and his smile disappeared. It hurts me to see your eyes look at me with disgust and hatred. Harry did not understand what Draco meant and gave him a raised eyebrow. Draco looked at Harry again, seeing his confusion. He sighed as his bangs got in the way of his eyes. He swept them behind his ears, so Draco could communicate with Harry without any obstructions to his view. As much as those emerald eyes stabbed his soul, he loved to look at them, getting lost in them, escaping in them.

No, don't put those bangs back...AAAHH!! DAMNIT!! I DID IT AGAIN!! WHEN WILL THIS STOP?! "What do you mean?" Harry asked. Damnit, Harry. Don't loose yourself. He's made you miserable. Don't think about it. But when he was in coma...God I just could not tear my eyes from him...HARRY! THIS IS DRACO MALFOY YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!! STAY FOCUSED!!

"I don't mean anything, Potter. I just hate it when people look with condemnation upon someone else."

"Well, look at what you have done to me! You can't blame me!" Great. Right after I wake up from my coma I have to speak the truth to him. Fucking fantastic.

"I know what I've done to you, Potter. And you want to know the truth?" Draco took a bite of his dried meat. Harry did not move being afraid that Draco might back out of something so crucial that needed to be said. "I don't hate you." Draco stopped right there. He was too scared to go any further than that. Harry looked astonished at Draco.

"You-you don't?" he stuttered.

"No. I don't."

"Then why do you always taunt and tease me?"

"That was before, Potter, when I was an arrogant little child. I have not made an insult towards you the whole time we have been here and days before that." Harry did not speak for a few moments as he took into account of the insults Draco had made to him over the past few days yet again, for he lost belief in the first time he counted. But as he looked at Draco, he saw those silver eyes. The silver eyes that Harry had dared not looked at in the past three days. He was much too scared of what would come to him if he did. He got lost in his thinking and moved to another world, far from this one made of imperfection, death, destruction, and hate. Draco's moan of pain leaped him out of the other world he wished to stay in. "My damn hand still hasn't healed," Draco stated as he felt his hand.

"Let me see that. Last time I looked at it, it looked pretty bad." Draco did not know what to say. To have the one he loved holding his hand.... Harry took Draco's hand and held it gingerly. He picked at the bandage he had done days before and slowly unraveled it. Draco looked at Harry's hand movements, one by one, circle his hand. As he unraveled Draco's hand, it revealed a painful looking hand, with his hands half in scabs and the others still fresh. He had many splinters still stuck in his hand. Harry's look did not change. Draco lifted his hand to his face to look at what pain he had inflicted on himself. He tried to flex it again, but it hurt even worse as he saw his half-scabbed hand twitch with pain. Harry demandingly took back Draco's hand and studied it. "Why do you do that to yourself when you know it hurts?" Harry asked his bright green eyes wide with apprehension. Draco looked away and swept the hand that wasn't being held by the one he desired most over his platinum hair which was loosely hanging on his shoulders. He shrugged.

"I don't know," he said when truly he knew. He knew damn well why he did that.

"Well, let's try to get these splinters out. It will make it heal faster," Harry said as he bent over to look at Draco's hand closely. "Mind holding my wand?" Draco obeyed. "Hold it over your hand." Draco did so. Harry adjusted his glasses and took a closer look at Draco's hand. Harry took some of the melted snow in a jar and poured it over Draco's hand. Draco took a deep breath, as it stung quite a bit. "Be still. I know it hurts." That's not all that hurts. Harry started to pick at the bigger splinters, and worked his way down. Some of them hurt like hell to get out because some of the skin had healed around it. Harry continued to soothe Draco while getting the splinters out, saying he would be done shortly. As the last splinter came out, Draco tried to flex again and he failed. "Damnit, Draco, I told you not to do that!" Harry demanded. Draco smiled at Harry.

"Oh, well aren't you just forceful!" Draco replied sarcastically. "Do it again!" Harry sighed.

"Just give me your hand so I can wrap it up," Harry said as he picked up another clean white bandage out of his pocket and started to wrap up Draco's wounded hand. But before he wrapped it up, he checked one last time for splinters.

"Well I think I'm the one who's feeling special right now," Draco said derisively, still smiling. Harry just shook his head and smiled as well. Harry for long moments after he wrapped up Draco's hand looked at it as he held it in his own hands. Then his eyes widened and immediately let go, coughing as he looked away from Draco.

"You should get some sleep," Harry said, as he continued to not look at Draco. "That hand needs to heal, and it might be infected. You don't need to be awake right now."

"What are you talking about? I've been sleeping for an entire day! I don't need anymore sleep! Hell, I could use a full day being awake. I swear, Potter."

"Well, I've been watching over you since you got knocked out, making sure you're still alive. I need you to sight the Death Eaters, because I don't know shit about those people. Maybe you don't need sleep, but I do. Help yourself to some of that meat stuff and honey. If you need water, just go outside, get some snow and eat it. I think you can handle it." Harry said monotonously.

Ever since Draco had awakened from his sleep, Harry had been acting totally contradictory to what he usually did. First, he said he had a death wish reserved for him, now he cared for him. Draco thought to himself about that had just happened, thinking it might have been a dream. What if all this was a dream, a dream trying to fool him into thinking something which is not meant to be? Draco watched Harry go to the far corner of the shack. He huddled there for some sleep. How he wanted to just hold him, keep him safe and warm in this coldness the world decided to shed upon him. Draco sighed. He wished so much that he could tell him what kind of fire was mustering inside of him, what kind of light he saw shining off of Harry as he walked. Every step he took was like gold. Every move he made were diamonds. He wished he could tell him what kind of stars he saw in his eyes every time he looked into them. The hot emerald shade would heat his soul in the most sensational way. It neither razed nor chilled. It did not burn nor ice. It made him fill the emptiness he once felt when he was a child, all those missed years, all that searching, searching for that something he needed in his heart. Neither taunts nor teases filled that chasm of despair and hurt his father had left behind. When he saw Harry smile, he felt like he was being welcomed into the world he would not have dreamt possible.

Draco stayed up all night, watching Harry sleep. He could not keep himself from looking at Harry. Even if he had that scar on his forehead, it only marked what he had to deal with over the past sixteen years of his life. Although Draco had to deal with a lot of other things that Harry didn't... like the memories of his dead mother... his father's angry words... his so-called "friends"... Harry had friends that cared whether he was alive or not. Draco had no one. He had to care about only himself for himself. He knew that no one else would care for him. So, what made Draco care about Harry in the first place if the only one he cared about was himself? God only knows. Love works in mysterious ways to make the less fortunate see life differently than the way they see it now. It was time for Draco's view to change, instead of having shadows blocking his view of the light, love was a way of seeing through that shadow and beating it into the ground. But there were many more shadows in Draco's way than just one. He didn't know how he was going to get passed them. They were so big; he could not take them down alone....

Harry continued to sleep through the day as Draco stayed awake. "God, Harry. You weren't joking when you said you needed sleep," he said to the quiescent Harry as he slept. Draco looked around for something to do, because knowing the Death Eaters, they could be somewhere close and he did not feel like dying that day. He found a half-done blanket, with the knitting needles still attached to it. He had no clue how to knit, but he thought it would be a good thing to have since because it was always cold outside...and inside, too. He unraveled a few of the stitches that had been made so he could learn. He sat on the floor and after sorting out a few of the rows; he got the hang of it and started to work. He ate periodically on that crappy meat stuff and drank the honey which tasted so sweet on his tongue. It was getting into the evening when Draco finished almost the other half of it and when Harry awoke. "Good evening," Draco said, as he saw Harry rise.

"Evening? Have I slept for that long?" Harry questioned.

"Oh yes, and it seems like we have been switching off days to sleep. Not to mention I'm almost done with this blanket," Draco stated triumphantly.

"You made a blanket?" Harry asked, very surprised. Draco smiled with glee at Harry.

"Yes I did. I found the oddest material. It reminds me of the fabric my mother used to use to make me sweaters when I was very little before she died." Draco said as his smiled disappeared and he continued on the last row. "There. Finished. I couldn't do as good as the person before me had started it, but it's better than nothing." Draco said as he held it up to Harry as he sat. Harry looked at it and could tell Draco was inexperienced. There were gigantic gaps in the blanket and some knots that were made to patch up what other holes he had made. Draco looked at it like a five-year-old that had just drawn a picture of a supposed kangaroo when it looked like a gigantic blob. Harry smiled and nodded.

"How long have you been at that thing?" Harry asked.

"Oh, I dunno. Since noon, maybe. I was bored and would go outside but I didn't feel like dying. I must say that this kept me occupied."

"I see that." Harry said as he looked at the poorly put-together black blanket. Harry then looked out the window, seeing the last ray of sunshine leave the forest. "Well it's a good thing you didn't. It's almost dark."

"Potter, it's always dark where we are. We really can't tell unless we look at that little ray of sunshine that filters through the trees turns into moonlight."

"True. Well, how much food do we have left?"

"I assure you more than enough. I guzzled about a jar of honey. That has got to be the sweetest tasting honey I have ever tasted. It's better than eating that dried meat stuff. I don't know how anyone eats that."

"Neither do I." Harry sat next to Draco and started to eat whatever was in there. "Have the Death Eaters come around recently?"

"To my surprise, no. But concerning the way their leader is, he's not going to give up easily. We're safer staying here," Draco advised. Plus, he did not feel like leaving without so much being left unsaid, as he might not have another opportunity to say what needed to be said.

"You're probably right," Harry agreed. As it continued to get darker outside until only a shred of the moonlight decided to show, Harry and Draco were in silence. They did not talk to each other. Draco looked at the blanket he made, trying to fix the holes that were in it, but he was unsuccessful. Nothing he did could mend the holes left by his own doing. The first half was perfect. It was tightly woven together, with no sight of holes anywhere. When Draco looked at his half, he felt slightly embarrassed. He wished his half could be like the other. He thought he had to live up to that example. Harry looked at him trying to fix it with adoring eyes then shook himself out of it. Draco didn't even know Harry was present. He was busy trying to mend the holes that were either becoming undone, wouldn't cooperate, or just didn't worry about it and give up on them. Harry smiled at Draco's concentration. This is one moment that something is present here than just us.