Hold Me Tight

Hold Me Tight

What a difference a year makes. It had only been a year since he had graduated from Hogwarts. It had only been a year since he had defeated Lord Voldemort. It had only been a year since he had lost his two best friends to the battle involved. It had only been a year since Harry Potter had given up.

Harry now worked at the Leaky Cauldron, trying to hide from the Wizarding World, yet still being a part of it in as subtle a manner as he could manage. Sure, he could have been an Auror, had he chosen to do so. After all that he'd been through, he was probably the most powerful wizard - except perhaps Dumbledore - that there was now. But no, not after loosing the two people in his life that meant the most to him.

Instead, Harry worked at the dingy inn, going about his daily tasks cleaning rooms, serving the guests, and such other chores as to be expected from working in an inn. But he had no heart put into it, no feelings. He did his jobs strictly out of habit; he spoke to people only out of necessity to wish them a good day, or to ask them about their stay. He meant none of it; he just wanted to keep his job. He felt nothing for anyone. No love, no hate, no real concern for anything or anyone, including himself.

But that all changed one oppressive, sticky summer day in June. Just another day to Harry. He woke up, dressed himself and went down to the front desk, half wishing that the day had never dawned at all. He dismissed these thoughts and quickly went back to his normal numb state of mind. Slowly, wizards trickled from their rooms; some went down to the dining hall for breakfast, others deciding to get a good start on the day were already leaving the inn, and then there were those who needed to leave for good, and so stopped by for a visit with Harry in order to check out. The next person to check out, however, surprised Harry, though by the vacant look on his face, no one would have guessed.

Severus Snape walked up the counter, a smirk spreading across his face.

"So, this is what it's come to, Potter? Working at a shoddy inn, all alone in the world. And here I half expected better of you. Foolish me."

Harry just looked up at the older man, saying nothing and collecting the key from his former Potions Master.

"Good day, sir. I hope you enjoyed your stay," Harry said automatically.

At the lack of a response to his insults, Snape scowled, and with a swish of his traditional black robes, he turned on his heel and stalked out.

Harry, deciding that he should start cleaning some of the rooms, jogged up the stairs. He performed cleaning spells on a few of the unoccupied rooms, then turned to the last, 334: Snape's room.

Curious as to what conditions the Professor would leave his room in, Harry muttered the incantation to open the door. At first, his room seemed quite normal to Harry. Nothing was missing, nothing was out of place. Harry, somewhat disappointed at the normality of it all sighed, and was about to cast an almost unnecessary cleaning spell on the room, when he heard a soft crying from the other side of the room, suspiciously coming from the bed.

Harry did a double take at the bed, wondering how he hadn't noticed the lump that somewhat resembled a person underneath the sheets of the untidy bed.

"Hullo?" Harry asked cautiously. "Are you alright?"

A muffled voice from beneath the covers, "Just go away. Please, leave me alone."

But Harry wouldn't give up that easily. He slinked closer to the bed, saying, "But are you hurt? Do you need to see the nurse? Let me help you."

The white sheets were pushed back, revealing their weeping refugee. "You can't help me now, Potter. It's too late. Can't save everybody, eh?" spat Draco Malfoy.

* * *

Harry breathed in sharply. He didn't manage to hide his surprise this time. Not only could he not believe that Malfoy was even there, in Snape's room no less, but the appearance of Draco shocked him even more.

His first observation was of Draco's lack of clothing. But his second observation frightened him. Not only were the other young mans eyes red from crying, but he had bruises and marks all over his body. Upon closer inspection, he also saw that Draco's hands were chaffed and bleeding, as if they had been tied...His head started spinning as he put everything together. Snape, the bruises, the chaffed wrists. Snape couldn't have. But what else would leave Draco in such a state besides...rape?

"M-Malfoy...I...what?" Harry struggled with communication.

"Go on, Potter, laugh. You always wanted to see me hurt. Now you've got your wish. Just leave me alone." Draco choked on the last sentence, and looked away from Harry. He covered himself again with the generic white sheets of the inn, and refused to stare anywhere but out the window, at the damp day that had advanced into quite a clammy day.

Harry realized that he was staring, but couldn't help it. Draco's last words had stung him. Yes, he had wanted to see Malfoy hurt during his years at Hogwarts. But not like this, never like this. When Draco started to cry again, silently, hoping it would escape the notice of Harry, Harry snapped out of his trance and sat on the bed next to Draco. He wrapped his arms around him, and hearing no protests at this, he pulled Draco towards him, leaning Draco's head against his chest.

To Harry's surprise, Draco clung to him as well. He cried on his chest, his whole body racked with sobs. Harry, not knowing what else to do, only drew Draco closer to him, and murmured assurances that it would be okay. They sat on the bed in each other's arms for what must have been over an hour. It never crossed Harry's mind that he had a job to do; he never once thought of leaving Draco.

Draco eventually stopped crying, but the two did not give up their embrace. Harry began to subconsciously run his hand through Draco's still baby soft hair. For a moment, Harry wondered if Draco had fallen asleep, and he looked down at the others face. Draco was not, however, sleeping. He looked up to Harry and then, without warning, he kissed Harry, long and deep. When they broke apart, the look on Harry's face almost brought Draco to tears again.

Harry had been so shocked, so caught off guard, that his face resembled such a look of surprise, that it could easily be mistaken for horror. Harry realized this too late as he saw Draco's face crumble; he thought he could almost hear his heart break. He pulled away from Harry, and sat at the end of the bed, a vacant expression on his bruised face. No, you can't loose him too, not now. Not after all of this. Say something to him! "Draco...I-I'm," stuttered Harry. But he could see that nothing he said was going to get through to the suffering boy. Harry didn't know if he should kiss him back or not; he had already clearly been taken advantage of, and the last thing Harry wanted to do was to hurt him more. But calculating his other options, which were either he could leave and come back later, or he could just stare at him all day, Harry decided to go ahead with the kiss. Certainly if Draco objected, he would stop immediately.

Harry sat next to Draco once more, and touched Draco's face lightly with his hand. He moved Draco's face so the other man was looking directly into his brilliant green eyes. Then before he let himself think twice about it, he placed his lips on Draco's. Draco, evidently not expecting this, pulled away almost instantly. Harry froze, knowing that he had gone too far, and perhaps made things much worse. But Draco had only pulled back to read Harry's face. Once he was satisfied that Harry was doing this because he wanted to, because he cared for him, he pulled Harry to him once more and resumed the kiss. The two locked lips for what seemed like seconds before they heard a pounding on the door. They looked at each other in horror, and after a couple more loud bangs, the door swung open. A furious looking Severus Snape stood in the doorway.

Draco clung to Harry in absolute terror. Harry froze, realizing that his wand was far out of reach. They were defenseless against the formidable Potions Master. Still, Harry had to do something. He got up to confront the man, protectively standing in front of Draco.

"If you know what's good for you, Potter, you'd sit down," Snape snarled, his lip curling in disdain.

But Harry would not heed his warning. He charged at Snape, hoping to surprise him, but he was too quick. Before Harry knew it, he had fallen to the floor, head banging against the floor, almost knocking him out. He wanted so badly just to close his eyes, to ease the pain. The blood dripping from the side if his head began to form a small puddle. The sight of Snape snapped Harry back into focus, when he saw him advancing on Draco again. They boy just sat there, frozen and whimpering. When he saw Snape's hand reach out to Draco's chest, caressing his left nipple, Harry sprung into action. This apparently took Snape by surprise, as he fell over. Harry rushed to Draco, and put his body protectively in front of Draco's once more, his head spinning a little from his fall.

"Get out of the way, Potter."

"No."

"Get out!"

Harry stayed in his place, though he swayed a little from the lightness of his head. Snape, noticing this, muttered an incantation and aimed directly at Harry and laughed, looking lustfully at Draco as Harry fell to the floor, unconscious.

* * *

When he awoke, he was still in the same spot as he had fallen. He blinked hard and soon things began to come into focus once more.

"Get off him!" Harry shouted, upon seeing Snape on top of Draco, fondling and groping him.

Snape looked up and smirkdquo;About time you woke up, Potter."

"I said, GET OFF HIM!" Harry lunged towards the man and pulled him off of Draco. This was the last straw for Snape. His face turned red with anger as he pulled himself back up.

"You brought this upon yourself, Potter. Avada Kedavra!" Snape yelled.

But instead of pointing it at Harry, he pointed it at Draco. Not knowing what else to do, Harry jumped in front of Draco and caught the spell instead. His lifeless body fell to the floor with a loud thump.

Snape smirked, then slowly turned his eyes back to Draco. He walked over nonchalantly and offered his hand to help Draco up. Draco accepted, and rose from the bed.

"Excellent job, Malfoy. It seems that perhaps you would be better suited as an actor."

Draco smirked in reply. "Didn't I tell you it would be better for him to wake up, instead of killing him then? Harry Potter, always playing the hero. Bloody prat."

The two walked out together, smirking, and neither giving a last backwards glance to the Boy-Who-No-Longer-Lived.