No Nothing

No Nothing

Summary: Some people react badly to love. Others don't know what to do with it.

Genre: Angst

Pairing: D/H

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Fingers entwined over the tender flesh of Potter's neck, Draco could feel his pulse beat erratically, like the rain pounding against his window. Pit Pat. Pit Pat. Trying to get in--trying to get out, he couldn't tell anymore.

He was trapped in this game, this school, this life, just like Potter's blood: beating, beating, beating but forever trapped to flow through the same vine-like veins over and over again.

What would happen if he freed the life essence? Draco longed for, almost even ached, to see Harry's face wracked with anything, even pain-- to have it twisted in ways he could have never dreamed before.

He'd seen pleasure. Oh yes the raven-haired boy was exquisite with his head thrown back, skin tinged pink and with sweat sluicing down in rivulets. How hard he could become with the mere remembrance of how Potter looked in the throes of passion. Draco doubted he'd ever seen anything as sexually pleasing as the boy before him.

But then again that was the problem. It was only sexually pleasing.

He could remember the old days, back when they taunted each other, both always just out of the other's reach. Hell, even the fistfights were desirable in retrospect. Everything he had tried the other boy had met with equal wit and strength; everything was war for Potter-- do or die.

It was a supposed Gryffindor trait, but Draco had never seen anything quite like the Boy-Who-Lived. There was nothing else that could enthrall him like he did, and other people didn't even come close.

Put quite simply they were all easy come, easy go. They seemed like muted grays to him on the darkness that was life itself: they all looked alike, behaved alike and, as far as he was concerned, they all were alike. And then there was Harry Potter, Gryffindor extraordinaire, with shining emerald eyes.

Precious stones, enchanted colors, and rubies: nothing in the universe compared with the life-taking beauty in Harry's eyes. The second Draco saw them; they took his life away and he would have given anything, anything at all, for the sweet taste of conquest over the Golden Boy.

His shoulder would sag in defeat; his eyelids would finally slide shut over submitting and utterly hopeless green eyes. He had dreamed of it, he had lived for it, and eventually it became his life. Just like Voldemort was ensnared, Draco was caught: hook, line, and sinker.

Harry Potter, Harry Potter, it rolled off his tongue more familiar than his own name and more natural than the very air he breathed. It was the thudding of his heart, screaming for him to claim his victim.

Yes, that was how it had been. Harry hadn't been a person that could be taken easily but that was the whole fun of it. How dearly Draco held that moment: Harry Potter's, The Harry Potter's, resolve collapsed.

The once stone walls and unbreakable architecture and even the hate housed within had all came tumbling down. They were reduced to rubble. They were the dirt Draco trod on with his perfectly polished shoes: miniscule pieces clinging to the soles of his feet until he wiped them carelessly off on his doormat.

Everyone knew it, it was so obvious it was almost ridiculous: Harry Potter was in love with Draco Malfoy. The boy who had stood up to Voldemort four times-- count 'em: four-- was now answering to Draco's every beck and call.

Everyone around them could see it was no mere infatuation; it was no glossing over of Draco's shortcomings on Harry's part. Instead it was a pain-filled, tear-jerking loss of self. He held the sword to Harry's face, and the idiot boy only walked forward and willingly impaled himself. Over and over again no less.

It was a credit to his skill, a checkmate maneuvered so geniusly it could've only been done by himself.

Only now the game was over and Harry was staring at him with lifeless gray eyes, stone washed, devoid of any color or emotion: he was fading into the background. Draco wondered where that beauty had gone. Where was the exhilaration now? Not even the triumph was left.

There was no more joy to be milked from ordering Potter to and fro. There was no more challenge, no more resistance and, more importantly, no more fun for Draco.

Here Potter was, his cheeks turning unmistakably purple from the lack of air, yet he was standing as still as stone, as still as death itself. The Malfoy wanted to scream, wanted to throw a fit: something he hadn't done in years. Who was this empty shell? What had he done with his Harry Potter? He was so furious he could kill.

And that's what he was doing, his long slender fingers locked around Potter's neck and a crazed gleam in his eyes. Draco was going to make him beg, he was going to strangle the real boy out of his safe little cocoon until he fought against him tooth and nail like all those years ago.

Only Harry was standing there, being suffocated and staring at Draco blankly as if he didn't notice a thing of it. He could have been dead already! Dead! Like his mind had escaped his body the day that Malfoy had conquered him. Draco had been too busy gloating; too busy reveling in the defeat of the untouchable Potter to notice a thing.

He couldn't be dead! He couldn't be gone! Draco could feel the life beating so strongly just beyond his fingertips. It was trapped, trapped inside the dreadful shell of Harry's body. Draco had to get it out! His fingers tightened and tightened yet no response was forthcoming.

"You stupid bag of bones!" screamed Draco, each syllable getting louder and louder with frenzied panic. "Why don't you fight back?" His eyes darted around peering into Harry but still there was no movement. His blood rushing to his brain and the beat of Harry's empty heart mixed with the beat of the pouring rain and to Draco's horror, his heart started pounding to it, his own pulse, in rhythm, in tune, until he thought his head would explode if it continued for another second.

An inhuman screech sounded above the overwhelming background noise. It was loud and shrill, echoing off the walls and bouncing back to repeat in his mind again and again.

Distantly, as if Draco wasn't actually there, and everything was just a terrible nightmare, he heard a sickening crack. It was the jarring sound of fragile bones breaking into tiny, tiny white shards, it was the crack that signaled the snapping of Harry's spinal cord and the crushing of his esophagus.

Draco could have identified the sound anywhere; he'd heard it that much; but what he had never experienced before was the feeling of his whole body turning to lead, his insides turning to a caustic acid that was eating him away. He had never even known he had a heart much less how it felt to have the said organ explode into tiny and insignificant grains of sand.

Fingers loosening almost immediately, Draco recoiled in shock, horror, and disgust or was it despair? All, maybe none, there were so many emotions he was sure he'd never be able to sort them out. Harry fell to the floor with a hollow thud.

Suddenly all was silent, no rain, no heartbeats, no breathing, no nothing. No nothing at all.

He was almost blind in the encompassing darkness, so black and so void that it couldn't possibly be the night alone. Draco groped blindly grabbing Harry's limp body and shaking it until he was screaming his name over and over again: like a broken mantra.

He was crying, screaming, yelling all at once but for all the good it would do it was nothing. Draco cradled Harry in his arms, shaking so hard it was a wonder that he could hold anything at all. Yet his grip was hard, his knuckles were turning ghostly white...there would be bruises on Harry's face--only no, there was no blood. No heart beating. No more game. No more winning.

There was no more Harry Potter.

He stared and stared until his eyes felt like they were going to pop out and then he stared some more.

Harry was no longer gray. His skin was a pasty white, his robes were an all-consuming black and his eyes were emerald green again, the same color that had attracted Draco in the first place.

And to Draco, his beautiful emerald eyes were so clearly screaming: 'Set me free'.