Night and Day

accept who he was and what he had done before he even thought about changing at all. Draco was set to be rejected, thinking that being rejected by Harry would make his choice of path that much easier and direct.

What he hadn't been prepared for was to stay. He hadn't expected Harry to not turn him away, hadn't expected Harry to stare at him with such confusion and intermingled sadness, but yet still place his arms around him and hold him with trust.

More words written by an unseen hand were inked beneath his own, bringing Draco back to the present.

Tell me about it.

< It's impossible. You never waken from nightmares drenched in the sweat of past blood fallen that can never be caught and put back again. You've never been buried in regret for the past, present, or future as I have. You never will be.>

How do you determine if I have or not? I am only human.

You flatter me. But that's a case of the pot calling the kettle black, now isn't it? You and your angel's face fucking the devil?

I wasn't speaking of myself.

Draco was only mildly surprised at this. He wrote no reply, but waited for Tom to continue, hoping that today of all days Tom would not remain in the diary as he sometimes did, for though Tom often showed as little as his writing, there were some things better solved face to face.

You can't straddle both sides of the fence.

A slender arm snaked around Draco, a body and legs pressed in close proximity against his back, and a chin supported itself on his shoulder.

"No. Because both sides of the fence will end up straddling you."

"Nothing wrong with getting the best of both worlds."

Draco voice came out a good deal more breathless than he would have liked.

"It's good you're so shameless. If you had tried to hide Harry from me, I would have killed you both. Now, only one of you will have to die."

Tom's voice did not change a faction when he said this. It was eternally of a tone and pitch that seemed to be borne of the shadows, silk on silk, a whisper that was as resonant as a louder voice would have been.

"If you think he wants me to live, you are wrong.

Draco made his voice as quiet as Tom's, not even sure of his words as his acting until he had already spoken and acted, unusual for him. Words didn't tumble out of Draco's mouth; they came out in carefully prearranged order.

"Hasty, hasty. Let's not jump to conclusions. Perhaps I am wrong in my assumptions, perhaps not. But one of you has to feel something in order for the other to reciprocate and once I find out which one it is, the other will die." Tom undid the buttons on Draco's shirt, pulled it off, and threw it carelessly at the wall.

" Though ," Tom reflected as he moved to work on the clasp of his pants. " Love is not always so one sided. Maybe you were both in love." Pause. The pants joined the shirt in a disorderly little pile. "In that case, the decision will be most difficult."

Draco stayed rigid beneath Tom's kisses, waiting until Tom was facing him to examine Tom with his own eyes. There were few who could hold his gaze for long, but Tom met his gaze unflinchingly, bringing his face closer to Draco's until they were nose to nose.

"What-," he asked as Draco smoothed his face with his hands, "-are you looking for?"

If Draco's voice had had a color, it would have been the same as his eyes, a steel, judging shade of gray . "You play as if you are the chooser of life and death itself. We may give and take away both, but that doesn't mean we own them."

"Don't we? In the end, when I point a wand at someone and kill them, when I slit a throat or a stomach, I determine a person's fate.

Unless you believe it is some supreme being's will that you murder? That you are their personal messenger, perhaps? Second in command?"

"My killings don't need merit," snapped Draco, his whole face narrowing.

"And why not? Wouldn't that end your poor nightmares?"

Tom asked, his every move mocking as he attempted to cradle Draco, who promptly backed away from Tom, feeling sick.

"No. And you want to know why? Because if I attempt to reason away a single horror, I'll become as insane as you are."

"Maybe it's the only way I know how to live. Maybe I have to justify what I've done the only way I know how. At least I'm not as pathetic as you, knowing every face I've killed and still pretending I feel nothing. You couldn't taste death more unless you had it burned into your skin, a tally of every murder."

Draco stood indignation, the fact that he was considerably short and in his underpants not ruining his proud stance at all.

The passion had transferred from their actions to their words, and would transfer back again soon enough.

"How could I not be intimate with death? Don't I hold it in my arms, after all? Haven't I seen it as human?"

"Again with the compliments. Why, one would think you were almost trying to get something from them." Tom laughed. " You amuse me, for all you also infuriate me. Do you know? I don't Think I could ever bear to part with you. I wouldn't exist if it wasn't for you, every emotion you cause in me. I'd be just a memory. Does it feel good to know that you are the cause of all the destruction I bring? That you are responsible For every death I leave in my wake?"

"Bloody wonderful. I mean, hey, if I'm condemned for committing one sin, what does it matter if keep on committing more? I'm already doomed."

"Your way of reasoning can be quite impeccable at times."

"Only at times?"

"Only when it doesn't contradict my own."

"Your insults are always so cleverly disguised as compliments."

Tom smiled. "I am most tired of talking. It's such a waste of time, all these opening and shutting of mouths without really achieving anything, don't you agree?"

"You would rather they be used for a more satisfying purpose?" questioned Draco.

"I don't know about satisfying. More versatile, perhaps."

"I believe I will have to force you to retract that statement."

"Draco?"

"Hmmm?"

"Do shut up."

"And here I thought you were all about words."

"Oh I am, but only to get what I want. My path is as singular as yours. Why bother using words when I can clearly get where I want without them?"

"You should stop thinking so much about wants and more about needs," Draco responded, kissing Tom on the lips, fingers running through his hair as Tom's own hands went to Draco's eyes, closing them softly with a gentle sweep of fingers. His eyes closed, the experience for Draco increased in intimacy yet became an embodiment of distance. No longer was he kissing or being kissed by a specific face, or a specific person. Eyes closed, Draco could put any image to the darkness that encircled him and touched him with hard lips and soft hands. For a minute, a brief instant, in his mind's eye, he was kissing Harry.

**********

When Draco awoke later in the night, heart pounding, muscles tightened, senses alert, ready to run even amid a tangle of blankets, the last thing he thought to feel was a body beside his own.

Tom never stayed the night. Never. Lingering brought imbalance to things said and unsaid, done and undone. Even in sleep, Tom didn't appear entirely human, his tranquility only a guise to cover his dangerousness.

"You don't even have a heart."

"Of course I do," Tom said petulantly, in a tone of voice that would have been funny if he wasn't, well, Tom. Draco had to will himself not to jump at the sound of Tom answering him. He certainly hadn't thought Tom was awake.

"Then give it to me. I want to see it."

"Tsk, tsk. Feelings are more than an object, you know."

Draco felt a laugh rise unbidden. "What? Are you serious? That

you of all people would think so, you've who have killed so many."

Tom grabbed Draco by the neck and pulled Draco back beside himself.

"You think because I kill, I don't feel? That I can't possibly feel the effects of everything I cause? You're wrong. I feel hate and vengeance. Do you want to the see the extent of hate and vengeance I feel when I kill, the extent to which I loath their pathetic lives that aren't even worth saving?"

With each word, Tom's grip around Draco's neck tightened, his face leering. Draco stared impassively back up at him.

"As long as it involves sex."

Tom loosened his grip and threw his head back, laughing long and hard. Then, in a one hundred and eighty turn about, his face was mutinous again. "I wasn't joking. You would do well to remember I make no empty threats." Tom turned away from Draco on his pillow. "Now get some sleep."

"No. I've got one question still to ask. Tom, do you believe in evil?"

"Yes." This was muttered warily, as if Tom expected Draco to be asking for a bouquet of flowers and chocolates next.

"Are you evil?"

" You're much more naïve and stupid than I took you for, not to mention fucked over if you have come this far without knowing that. I don't think you would chose to lose yourself on someone you don't understand."

"Then riddle me this, am I evil?"

"Depends. What is one person's evil is another's good. It's all in perception."

"You didn't answer either of my questions."

"No, I didn't. And what's more, I'm not going to. Now get some sleep. Don't even think of questioning me again, boy. I could kill you with a flick of my wrist, a turn of my head."

You already are, thought Draco to himself. Aloud, he said, "don't call me boy. You're the same age as me."

"Appearances can be deceiving, can't they? I am eons older than you and eons wiser. You try to come out on top and you'll only end up suffocating beneath all the more quickly."

"You'll kill me." It was said without fear.

"Of course I will. But now, don't be such a downer. It would be a shame to ruin the moment, wouldn't it?"

"What moment? I'm naked while you, on the other hand, are apparently back to being fully clothed again."

"You would rather it was the other way around?"

I don't sleep in the nude. Especially not on your sheets. Merlin only knows who's been in them beside yourself."

"No, I wouldn't rather it was the other way around, I would rather it was equal."

"You never like to lose, Draco. You need to learn how. If you can't lose, you'll never win." Then, in exasperation, "there, will you just damn go to sleep now?"

Draco did so in a strange compliance, shutting his eyes and waiting, waiting, waiting until Tom's breathing became regular, his form languid. It had to be done. It had to be done now.

Hands reaching beneath the pillow, he grasped the end of the knife by the handle, pulled it out, raised it above his head, struck...and missed. The knife hit the pillow inches away from Tom's head. Tom didn't even flinch. Tom, unharmed and still every last bit alive and asleep. Draco put the sword back beneath the pillow, patient as ever. Soon, soon he would stop being a coward and go through with it. He'd tried twice already.

Every attempt made him more resistant to the emotions that tugged at him, more ready to end the life he had to end but the period of time between every attempt was fraught with temptation. Draco knew he would kill Tom or lose himself completely in the process of trying, walk over that line that exists between reality and dreams, sanity and madness. For wherever the chain was yanked, he was pulled and whatever of him was not attached in some way or another, it unified itself against the madness.

*********************

When the morning filtered in sly, pale slits of sunlight out of place the atmosphere of Draco's forbidding room, the warmth of it woke Draco (never a very heavy sleeper) up at once.

Climbing lazily out of bed, Draco made to get his disregarded clothes from the corner and stopped stock-still like a pantomime.

Sitting atop his clothes was Tom, huddled in a miniscule ball and rocking back and forth, his face turned inward in the secure haven of his arms.

"Tom..."

Draco put his hand on Tom's shoulder. Tom tensed and crouched over all the more harshly.

"Don't. Go away. Far away. Preferably out of the distance my wand is capable of far away."

"Was that some sort of bizarre come on? Because I must say, it's a little rusty."

"You did this to me! I have nothing left now, nothing at all.. nothing at all..."

"What the HELL happened to you." Draco's strength in words was on emphasis and he made sure to put all the emphasis he possibly could on hell.

"I saw it."

"Saw what? What?"

Tom closed in on himself, eyes shut, shaking. "I forgot what is was to be human.."

"Well, aren't you lucky. Too bad you couldn't teach me. That's one lesson I wouldn't mind learning."

"Don't try to empathize for me by putting yourself in my shoes."

"Hardly. Why would I empathize for you? You feel no sense of wrongdoing, pain, or injustice, so why should I for you? I don't do things unless they have a result. "

"Or consequence."

"Or, in the case of you, consequence. Perhaps I should restate myself. I do nothing without a result in my favor."

"Sharp words from such an obtuse little boy."

Draco smiled. "I have to leave."

"Then go." Tom waved a hand. He looked, Draco reflected, rather like a king of some foreign country dismissing a minor member of court. Hmph. Bastard. Everyone knew Draco pulled off, if not a king, at least a prince in good fashion.

"No, you don't understand. I have to leave and I'm never coming back."

"Oh, I know."

Draco looked at him warily.

Tom smiled. "What, you expected me to be furious? You truly are vain. Why would I mourn you if I don't mourn the murders I cause? In the end, they are worth infinitely more, because they at least are innocent. You're already condemned. Losing you means nothing because in the long run, I still win."

"Don't take the role of the corrupter. I was born tainted." Draco grabbed clothes from his dressers and began hurriedly putting them on, throwing a cloak over his shoulders.

"No one is born anything. You chose to be, and I helped that choice along. Instead of conforming for your father, you conformed for me. I didn't even have to pretend anyting after persuading you. You would have walked wherever I pointed, without even a reason."

"I don't care. You can't make me feel anything and I made you feel everything," Draco retorted and walked out, forcing his mind to be as decisively made up as his actions. It wasn't easy.

Every step forward felt equal to at least three steps backward, but it was thinking about what was at the end of those steps forward that made them worth the effort.

"Ah, damn,"Draco suddenly thought, entering the Great Hall, "it's my room. I should have bloody well have made *him* leave."

******************

"I told you I would never let you go, and I meant it."

Tom's threat was spoken to the air and it was there it held, waiting for its fulfillment. Another time, another place, another world, it didn't matter, there would be a conclusion. Tom always meant what he said but very seldom said what he meant, and this was just another promise come true.

"He will be dead."

Tom said this aloud, and that was all there was to it, like a short statement that vanished and was forgotten with no one to hear it, so Tom wished for Draco's death to be. He knew it wouldn't, that wishes always gave way to fallen dreams, and that in killing Draco, whatever there was left of himself would likely die too. It was better that way. Nothing left to feel, nothing left to be hurt by or to love when you'd already felt all that you could, loved all that was possible, and been hurt all that was possible. To go through life as invincible with no connection to others to be perceived as a weakness, that was what Tom had to strive for.

He did not want to kill Draco out of absolution, for absolution was for those that could redeem themselves and Tom was beyond redemption. The last line connecting him to Draco had to be snipped before someone else snipped it for him, and in a way, Tom felt protective of this. No one else could kill Draco but him, because Draco's life wasn't like the others he had killed. He knew of Draco, and of what his days and nights had been filled with, of his culture and his world, his personality was a portrait all colored in where the others Tom had killed were merely sketches he did not care to elaborate on.

Tom loved Draco not through affection itself, but through his lust, his hate, his curiosity. His love was everything thrown together, every imaginable emotion that was not positive. His love, in a sense, was the absence of love. It was not something you could describe, it was not something tangible, it just existed and after awhile of trying to fight against it, Tom let it alone, smug in the knowledge that even if he could not force it to die, it would die on its own soon enough.

Draco would kill him or he would kill Draco, because that was the only way love could ever end, with sorrow and with pain.

It was only a matter of who got around to it first.