Animus

Animus (Part 8)

His voice comes to me; loud, clear and angry. “What the hell are you doing?”

I grasp the bottle and bring it close to my body as I swing around to face him. “Get away from me, Draco,” I growl.

“What is that in your hand, Harry?” he asks, though his tone makes it clear he knows perfectly well what it is.

“Just . . . just go back to whatever you were doing. This doesn’t concern you.”

He takes a step closer to me. I take one back. Parody of a waltz. “I think it does,” he says. “I hear a noise that sounds like someone’s killing a bloody dog in here and then I run in to find that you’re trying to drink again. I think that concerns me, don’t you?”

I shake my head, negating what he just said. It’s not his business. Not this. “Just go away.”

He looks at my face, then down at the bottle, then back up to my face. And it clicks for him then. I can see the knowledge growing in his eyes. Hell, I can almost see a light bulb above his head blinking on. “You remembered,” he says in a flat monotone.

There’s no need to confirm what he already knows. “I’m taking it upstairs. I just need a few drinks. I’m not going to do what I did the other night. I swear. I won’t even come near you.”

He takes a deep breath and nods slightly as if to say that all is fine. Then he begins to walk toward me with his arms held out, palms up. His demeanor is not threatening in the least and I find that I don’t have any urge to continue the waltz. He stops when he is right in front of me and puts his hand on the bottle that I still hold.

His face is so serene. He looks wise, accepting, at peace. Before I know it, he’s pulling the bottle away from me and I’m letting it go. “Do you see this?” he asks as he holds it in front of my face.

I nod dumbly, entranced by this sage version of Draco Malfoy.

“FUCK THIS!” he yells and turns around, throwing the bottle violently across the room. It hits the wall and shatters. With an incoherent cry, I push him aside and run to it, just in time to see the scotch starting to soak into the carpet.

“What the fuck did you do that for?” I shout as I turn to face him.

He points to the mess on the floor. “Because that is the last thing you need!”

I take a step forward, my fists clenching tight at my sides. “What are you talking about? It was just a few drinks. I told you I wasn’t going to hurt you!”

“Are you that daft? Do you really not see?”

“See that you broke my fucking bottle for no reason?!” 

“Bloody hell, what a moron,” he says in a soft voice, as if he were talking to himself. Then louder, yet no longer shouting, he says, “I’m going to say this slowly, so that you understand, Harry.” He pauses. “You. Are. An. Alcoholic.”

A what? My voice, when I finally find it again, is both outraged and shocked. “I am not an alcoholic!”

“Really? Well if you’re not, then you’re two steps away from it, and that’s really not much of a difference. Harry.”

Of all the things to say to me right now . . . an alcoholic! If this were another time, I might find this amusing.

But it’s now.

And it’s not.

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You don’t know me!”

“The fuck I don’t!” he yells.

 

I’m about to continue to argue, but what would be the point? He thinks I’m an alcoholic, fuck him. Let him think it. “Just stay out of my life,” I say as I stalk past him and toward the bar. As I pass, I give him a little push for good measure.

Recovering instantly, he says, “See, I can’t really do that. You invited me into your life, remember?”

Now he’s right behind me, moving with me. I don’t need to turn around to know this. I can feel his presence like a lingering shadow. “Go away,” I spit out, fully intent on reaching my goal.

“You pick up another bottle and I’ll take it and smash it.”

That stops me. I turn to him, incredulous. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Fine, I’ll get another one,” I say, then inwardly cringe. I sound like I’m five years old and getting in a fight at the sandbox. What happened to the righteous anger I was feeling just two minutes ago?

“I’ll smash them all, Harry.”

Oh wait, the anger’s back. It tends to come back when I’m being threatened. “You do that, Malfoy, and I swear to God, I’ll . . . ”

Before I get a chance to finish the sentence, he says, “You’ll what? Beat me half to death? Again?”

And just like that all the anger is gone. Vanished. You see, there was something about the way he said those words . . . Something about the way he stood stock still, even though I was starting to advance on him. Something about the way his voice was calm, composed, even though his eyes were raging.

 

Beat me half to death. Again . . .

And God help me, maybe that’s exactly what I would have done. Hurt him again, all over some lousy bottles of scotch.

That thought, combined with three nights of not sleeping, sucks the energy out of my body. I suddenly feel so bone-weary that I can’t even hold myself up. Gracelessly, I sink to the ground, landing with my legs folded underneath me.

And there it is again, that feeling of wanting to cry, of wanting to let go. The pressure in my head, the stinging just behind my eyes . . . they’re all there, little teasing hints of a release that I can never seem to achieve.

Once again, I can feel his presence, and it pulls me away from my self-defeat. He hovers somewhere above me, out of my sight.

“You haven’t slept much have you?” I hear him ask.

I give a dull half-nod, not bothering to look up.

I hear him sigh from somewhere up above me. “Just go to bed, Harry. Just go to bed, and . . . leave this shit down here.”

I take a second to think about this. Truth is, bed sounds nice. Sleeping sounds nice. Not as nice as the liquor, but apparently that’s not going to happen. Not without a fight, anyway.

“All right,” I manage to say through an ever-deepening veil of pure exhaustion.

But I soon find that agreeing and doing are two different things. It takes me a good two or three tries before my legs want to work for me and I’m able to stand. I half-expect Draco to help me at some point, but he never does. He just stands there, arms folded, expression a blank slate, yet eyes still fierce.

Once vertical, I begin to move through the room slowly, clutching onto things as I go so as not to fall back down. I probably look a bit like I’m drunk again.

I manage to make it all the way up the stairs and to my bedroom before collapsing on the bed. I don’t bother with clothes; far too tired for that. Just so damn tired, I begin to wonder why I ever wanted anything but sleep anyway.

I close my eyes, and as I drift off, I imagine I can hear the sounds of breaking bottles from downstairs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wake up to opaque darkness. For a brief, disoriented moment, I have a flashback to the war, thinking that I’m waking up on some dark battlefield. I suppress a gasp and go to reach for my wand when reality suddenly replaces nightmare.

I’m in my house and on the bed that I paid far too much for.

I’m safe.

I sit up as my breathing returns to normal, then glance out the window to see that the sky is a perfect blanket of ebony. God, I must have slept for . . . I glance at my watch . . . yes, about 12 hours straight.

Good lord, I don’t think I’ve ever slept that long at a stretch. I should feel incredibly refreshed, but I don’t; I feel odd, groggy and my head aches.

I go to the bathroom and then down the stairs as if on autopilot. Standing in the dark kitchen, I reach into the refrigerator and pull out some cold cuts. I eat just enough to quell the hunger in my stomach.

Then I head back upstairs.

To Draco’s room.

Did I ever really think that I was going anywhere else?

I sit down on a chair across from the bed. The half-moon in the sky bathes him in cold silver. He looks so at peace; no creases or lines of pain and worry in his face. He looks young, innocent . . . like a different man from a different time. I reach out to him and place one hand on his arm, then I squeeze slightly. He wakes almost instantly, with reflexes akin to those of a war veteran. Reflexes like mine. I pull away and sit back in the chair. He sits up in bed, looks at me quizzically and says, “Harry?” with a voice made husky from sleep.

I turn away from him, knowing that I will never say what I’m about to say if I look at him. But he deserves to know. If anyone does, it’s him. So I talk to the carpet instead. And although I’m looking at the carpet, I’m not really seeing it. I’m seeing memories; visions of things that were. My voice, when I finally speak, is so dead and cold, it is foreign even to me.

“When I fought Voldemort for the last time . . . I didn’t defeat him with magic. I strangled him to death. With my bare hands . . . ”

“I’d heard that,” I hear him say quietly. “I wasn’t sure if I believed it.”

“When I had my hands around his throat and I was squeezing, it felt so . . . good. And all I wanted in that moment, was to squeeze the life out of his body.”

He is silent for a moment as if pondering what I’m saying. Then softly he says, “And?”

I lift my eyes to see that he is sitting up in bed, covers bunched around his waist. His alabaster skin almost shines in the moon’s glow. It is, I think, a sight almost too poetically beautiful for this moment.

I know that my voice is going to betray me before I even speak. I know it will no longer sound dead. “Don’t you see?” I ask plaintively. “I enjoyed killing him. I’m a monster.” The last words, are spoken only in an anguished whisper.

“Everybody kills in war, Harry. Surely that wasn’t the first life you’d taken.”

“No, it wasn’t. But it was the first one that I enjoyed taking. I liked killing him. Don’t you see what that means? Don’t you see what that makes me? ” Before he has a chance to reply, I softly say, “And then, that night, with you. I remembered. I remembered how I enjoyed hurting you.”

Draco shifts on the bed, looks as if he has no idea what to say. But that doesn’t matter. I know what to say. It’s what I’ve been thinking for two years. What was just proven to me in full glorious technicolor today. “Everyone thinks I’m a hero. And all I am is a monster.”

“Harry,” he says softly.

“Don’t!” I yell, although I don’t even fucking know what I’m even yelling about. “Don’t.”

He tone hardens a bit. “All right, let me see if I understand. You think you’re a monster because you enjoyed killing the man that murdered your parents and in turn tried to murder you and subsequently made your life hell?”

I nod slowly. That about covered it, yeah.

He sighs heavily and I can imagine him rolling his eyes. “Stupid Gryffindor. I swear the bloody lot of you truly enjoy being miserable.”

I raise my head slightly at this, peering at him through my fingertips.

“Harry, feeling that way doesn’t make you a monster. It makes you human.”

“No . . . ”

“Yes,” he says. “Why do you insist on setting standards for yourself that no one could ever hope to attain?”

Do I do that? But no, everyone else sets the standards for me. I just try to live up to them. Or I used to. “What about . . . what about what I did to you?” I ask hesitantly.

“Don’t expect me to try to explain that, Harry.”

“No, you’re right, you shouldn’t have to,” I say quickly.

I expect the conversation to end there, but then he inhales deeply and exhales heavily, a sign that he’s getting ready to say something difficult. I, in turn, hold my breath, preparing myself for whatever’s going to come out of his mouth. I drop my hands down between my legs so that I can see him better.

“That night,” he says, “when you came up to me, it was like my worst nightmare come true. I mean here you were, my,” he makes quote marks in the air with his fingers, “archenemy, and you were at the top of your game. Big war hero, everyone loving you even more than they did before. And here I was, about as low as one can possibly go. Accepting your offer, was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. And at first, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to handle it.”

“I heard you that first night,” I say, interrupting. “Throwing up. And the second night. You were talking to yourself. Trying to get yourself through it.”

He nods, and if he’s at all surprised that I overheard those things, he doesn’t show it. “Yeah. It wasn’t easy at first. But the longer I stayed here, the more I realized something. And things started getting easier. Not easy, mind you. Easier.”

“What was that?”

He laughs. “That you are one of the most fucked up people I have ever come across. Ever.” He shakes his head. “But you’re not a monster. You’re just very, pathetically, human.”

I sit still and let his words sink into my brain. Not a monster, but human. I’d never thought of it like that. Don’t even know if I really believe it, but the thought is . . . nice.

“Bloody hell, you really have changed,” I say, bewilderment and surprise coloring each of my words.

“Told you I had.”

“You could have . . . ”

You could have told me I was a monster. You could have twisted my knife even further in. The knife that I embedded myself so long ago. But you didn’t.

“I’m just telling you how I see things, Harry. That’s all.”

As if it’s that simple. And maybe for him it is, but somehow I don’t think so. How can it be, with the two of us?

“Draco . . . ” I begin to say.

“Hmm?”

 “I’m lonely.”

His voice is bitter with cynicism and something like disappointment. “Want to shag, Harry?”

“No. I just want to . . . ” I tilt my head toward the empty side of the bed. “Can I?”

He shrugs. “It’s your bed.”

Yes, it is. And yet, I still can’t believe I’m doing this. But he just looks so solid and real and I am so lonely. Have been for such a long time.

And he was so kind. He didn’t even touch the knife.

I remove my trousers and shirt, then slide in next to him under the covers.

He faces me and wraps himself around me, his body already slipping down. “No,” I say as I stop him with my hands. “Just turn over.”

He looks at me as if puzzled, then moves back up and does as I say. I place one arm across his waist, my chest pressing against his back.

“Harry?” he asks hesitantly. “Don’t you want to . . . ”

“Just this,” I assure him. “This is all I want.”

“All right.” He says it like he doesn’t believe it. Like he knows that at any moment I’ll start molesting him. He’s nervous, I can tell by his quick breaths, the slight trembling in his frame. But how to tell him that I just don’t want to be alone? That I’m just so thankful that he didn’t twist the knife?

My lips barely brush against the nape of his neck. “You are so beautiful,” I breathe out. “Why do you have to be so beautiful?”

His voice wavers, close to breaking. “I’m not. Trust me, I’m not.”

“Yes. You are. Beautiful.”

He says nothing.

And neither do I.

It takes a while for him to relax enough to fall asleep, and for me it takes even longer. For too many minutes to count, we both lay awake in the dark, silent, each one of us lost in our own thoughts.

I’m no mind reader, so obviously I have no idea what ran through his head. But I know what ran through mine.

One thought . . . piercing in its clarity.

Somebody else knows. And I don’t feel so alone anymore.