Portions For Foxes

PORTIONS FOR FOXES

They shall be delivered into the hands of the sword, they shall be the portions of foxes. Psalm 62:11

His hands are smooth with clean and straightly cut fingernails; hands that, seem to have never touched a hard day's work in his life. "What good would a wand be then, or a house elf?" he'd once mused, and still he believes it.

The man they'd told him to kill was an auror with coarse and calloused hands but Draco doesn't remember his face. It was too dark and all thoughts of it being a clean death were forgotten from the start, and he had washed himself afterwards for what seemed like eternity. But a dead man's blood is a hard thing to clean and even now he can see the liquid staining his arms, his palms, his fingers.

Have mercy. Please have mercy on me. But Death Eaters do no such thing and Draco landed the first punch right on the man's mouth to shut him up. A bloody wonderful death scene, the others had said. Another bloody death, was what he read in the papers.

And when he looks in the mirror he sees a murderer with bloody hands that really don't belong on the boy staring back at him with smooth skin and clean and straightly cut fingernails. He's a murderer, a murderer, and he whispers it out loud before he sleeps and thinks there would be an echo if only the snoring of his comrades didn't echo first.

---

It's May and school hasn't even started; the battle, however, has, and for all her seven years as a Gryffindor Hermione certainly doesn't feel like one.

Ron had said, when it all started, he knew they'd be the winners in the end, taking her face in his hands and kissing her. And McGonagall made a speech about the light side rising up in glory and Dumbledore nodded his head in wise agreement. Except Hermione's not sure she believes it all anymore because Dumbledore's one step away from dying and McGonagall died after the second month, and Ron... well, Ron's dead too.

Now all she has is Harry. Harry, who's life and death had and would affect the whole wizarding world. But, he's slipping away like all the rest of them and when it's dark outside, his eyes closed, she hears his broken voice, broken words, frightening dream. And she hugs him and kisses his forehead like the mother he never had because all she has is now Harry. Or at least, whatever's left of him.

---

Draco and Hermione; they're broken wires, both of them, and they doubt if they'll survive the war intact and or sane. Maybe they're both slipping- fading like burnt out stars above them or the walking corpses they see everyday. They don't know. Draco's never questioned; Hermione doesn't think, for once, she wants the answer.

It's after hours when they come together. Dueling perspectives don't matter in the dark. And for all the lightlessness around them, their lips find each other's quickly, as if it's only normal for adversary mouths to converge like theirs. Except they don't fit together, because light never mixes with dark, and their mouths meet awkwardly, imperfectly. And kisses aren't meant to be rough hurried lustful (so very lustful their kisses are), no, never like that.

But when they kiss, they're gone. Both of them. Nothing is. Ever was.

And that's all they're looking for. Release. And if rough hurried lustful kisses is what they get, they'll take it. They'll take it, for all their weary souls are worth. Because it's release. Comforting, saccharine release. And it's all they want, really.