Tell Me

"Do you love me? Tell me you love me."

It's a breathy request, desperate and riddled with a dangerous mixture of arousal and heartbreak and needing to hear him, needing to have him over and over again. It sounds pathetic even as the words leave my mouth and are almost lost in between our lips, pressed together in a kiss that is a warm and welcome contrast from the snowy outdoors surrounding us.

We are in the Forbidden Forest, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. It is exactly thirty-two days after my watch stopped, which means it has been 8.52pm for over seven hundred and fifty hours. Snow is everywhere, not so much dusting everything as crushing plants and trees along with the animals that are too small to survive. Most of the other creatures that make the forest so forbidden are dead, picked off by Voldemort and the Death Eaters, to remind everyone that he's still here; he can still get in the grounds. He could kill us all in our sleep.

I always hear Granger and Weasley's little sister and all the other girls that care ask, why? Why the animals, what did they ever do? Harry or whoever it is that receives the question will always reply, "I don't know." The answer is obvious. He's picking them off quite swiftly, blood on white snow, leaving deer and centaurs and even unicorns to be found and to make everyone feel even more trapped. Because he can kill again and he will, and he will block us all into a tight huddle in a small room until we can't breathe. We are trapped.

"Tell me you love me."

I can't help needing to hear it, and when he mumbles against my mouth that he does, that he loves me so much, I feel like I will melt like the snow. I will fall to pieces in his arms and there will be no need to fight anymore. I don't need to exist if he loves me. I need to hear it to keep me alive, but when I hear it I know that I would die happy.

I never see him, not anymore. The moments are so scarce, but so intimate and so perfect that it leaves me with something to hold onto. Normal couples like Finnigan and Thomas get to spend every second together, arms around each other and brushing little kisses to cheeks, telling the other and everyone else that it will be all right. I see Harry once a week if I'm lucky. And I am lucky. I'm so damn lucky.

Slytherin and Gryffindor do not have classes together anymore. They're separated permanently so that the two main fighters will not be put in a position that is too confrontational. There are no meals in the Great Hall together. Gryffindor eats with Hufflepuff; Slytherin shares the hall with Ravenclaw. Everything has been rearranged for me and Potter, and sometimes I get so worried that somebody on the faculty knows about us, and this is what brought about the separation. It is times like this that I find myself panicking so much and breathing so fast that I throw up and lose all control. I need Harry so much in these moments that it just makes it worse and I get so close to breaking down that I have to pinch myself hard to think about something else.

I'm falling apart and everybody knows it. It is a wonder nobody can see through to my core and expose just how in love I am. To see how desperate I keep getting, for more and more, finding new ways to slip away and see him or to talk to him or kiss him. To have him. But he's so hard to reach when everyone is around, giving him battle tips and duelling spells, ways of fighting physically without hurting himself. The teachers all take him aside and give him little snippets of advice for the final big confrontation. Everyone wants to help him, to guide him, to mould him into a perfect little hero.

The one person who could really give him advice is me. I could tell him just what to do to defeat me, to destroy me once and for all. That's what the professors all want, after all, excepting Snape and perhaps a few others who try to remain impartial for the sake of education. If they wanted to kill me, they could just take him away from me. Take him away and put him with someone else, settle him down with a nice young girl who will marry him and kiss him and be as pure as the snow outside the castle. The snow that isn't tainted with blood, anyway.

His training is extensive, he tells me. It takes up almost all of his time when he isn't in classes and that's why he's so hard to get to. Like a celebrity all over again, a protected celebrity with more guarding than Dumbledore himself. He's learning all the hardest protection spells, the most intricate little curses that perhaps even Voldemort would miss if he weren't paying proper attention. But Voldemort is always paying attention, and I hope Harry knows this. There is no such thing as an off day for the Dark Lord, particularly when it comes to Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. The boy who defeated him once, and could do so again. So perhaps intricate curses are not enough, as much as a part of me hopes they are.

The other part of me tries not to care, and concentrates on school and the training that I'm receiving as well, although I am certain mine is far more basic. None of the teachers here will actually tutor me in the ways of Dark curses, and so I am having to rely on letters from my father to explain the ins and outs of what will happen when Voldemort actually comes to the school for the final battle. I don't know when this is; I try not to think about it, because I know it will be soon.

Moments like this in the Forest are so far between that I think I forget what he tastes like all the time. I think that I've forgotten how his voice sounds until we meet up again and I realise that it's exactly the same as I'd thought it was going to be, only- more. It always sounds better than I remembered, and he always tastes that little bit more satisfying. Forbidden fruit.

There is loyalty, and then there is the Malfoy family, and then there is my particular place of importance within the family. The one who will bring about everything this family has been waiting for since it came to be, the one who will end the big war. Ironically it was also my being that started the war, telling him that I loved him and making him bleed and bringing this all about. So maybe I really am the evil one. Maybe they should kill me, after all. Maybe I should just stop fighting for something that will quite possibly never work out.

The only reason it will stop working is if he decides it will, and that plays on my mind every night. Among the sounds of the other Slytherin boys sleeping and dreaming, among the cold air, I never sleep. I don't think I've properly drifted into my own set of dreams for months, and when I do they are always nightmares. Nightmares about Voldemort, about what has come to be known as a day of reckoning, nightmares about him leaving me. About him letting me go.

Harry wouldn't leave me, I think. I hope, I really do hope, and it's the one hope that I hang onto every night when we're together but more so every night when we're apart. We've never spent a whole night in the same bed; it's impossible. There are people watching Harry's actions, what he does and where he goes and he always has to explain why. The professors watch me too, in case I'm going to act soon. In case Voldemort is giving me secret directions that only I can hear, and in case I will strike down the whole school within seconds.

It's a wonder that they still teach me; it's a wonder they can find the courage to stare me in the face. I don't care if they can't. They all know I'm involved; they've been told since the beginning, I suppose. Professor Snape at least must have known for a long time that I was going to play some factor, to be important to Voldemort in some way. They haven't removed me yet from the other students, haven't tried to put me in confinement. Sometimes I think he has something to do with it, which would be typical of Harry, to try and protect me. He always wants to see the best in people.

The only thing I care about anymore is Harry, seeing him and being with him. That was all it ever was though, wasn't it? Ever since that first touch, there has been no turning back.

It wasn't gradual. It happened all at once, and all so fast, and I suppose that's why I fell so fast. There is so much angst and pain riddled into what we have, woven in between all the skin and sweat and words, that it couldn't have possibly moved along like a normal tryst. I used to hate him so much; I concentrated so much energy into hurting him and seeing his features crease into a small frown, and he would look affronted at times. The times that insulted me the most were when he acted as though he didn't care. When he just turned his head and started to walk away from me. No response. No insults. Nothing. It was as though the effort was wasted, effort that could have been put to such better use at another time if he wasn't even going to respond.

Those were the times when I would start to wonder. When he would play on mind. It was like that the first time I kissed him, before the snow, and it was like that for a few of the times after and then- it just stopped. I stopped being angry, and so did he. I just started to love him instead.

Loving Harry Potter is the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and yet in a strange and obvious cliché, it can be the most enjoyable thing at the same time. Challenges are something I've been brought up to relish, to always face head on, and this is no exception. My father, I think, regrets ever bringing me up to feel I have to come face to face with the things that flaw me, as it has quite impressively backfired on him. I don't think he would care if I was just attracted to men - it's Harry Potter.

It's the fact that I chose him.

When we get to the Forest, after the undistrbed moments when we mould together, mouth to mouth and everything else squashed together so that it might be uncomfortable if it were anyone else, we talk. We spend as much time talking as possible, because it's those little things that the other says that can sometimes be reassuring. When we talk, I can forget for a few moments that I'm supposed to kill him or he's supposed to kill me. It's a few moments of simple bliss, almost the same as the times when he is inside me or around me but- different. Talking is a less immediate source of gratification, but it's somehow safer. Somehow talking to him makes him real.

He tells me a lot of things tonight.

I never thought of Harry Potter as real before all this, before I fell for him and it all went to hell. He was just a boy with a scar who was celebrated and who I couldn't see one redeeming quality in. Now I see nothing but qualities, nothing but light and sex and it's almost as though everyone has reversed roles with me because there are so few people that see him as innocent any more.

I always tell him he should never have blown off Granger, because everyone looks at him as though he's a little bit dirty now. They all hold their faith in him, they all want him to save their lives, but they don't seem to respect him. Harry Potter isn't supposed to have casual sex, but he does. Harry Potter isn't supposed to break hearts, but he does. Harry Potter is supposed to be Perfect.

And then there is me, who everybody thinks is evil and it's nothing new to me, no surprise. I've learned not to care when people glare at me as they pass by, but it bothers Harry to receive the same hostility. You can always see the wounded expression on his face when Hermione turns an invitation down, which she frequently does. I never hear this from him, but I see it around. I watch him, so of course I see almost everything he does. I always hear what he says, no matter how far away he is. It's as though I can read his lips, but I would rather be able to read his mind. I would love to know what he's thinking.

There are times when I think perhaps I might know what exactly he wants and what is going through his mind. There are times when I could imagine what he is getting from this, what he needs in me that he can't find anywhere else, but then I catch myself remembering that he does get it from other places. Conversation he gets elsewhere, sex he can get anywhere if he tries hard enough. In all honesty, if he were truthful, he doesn't even have to try.

It is the difficulties, the complications. It is as though he thrives on the idea that everybody would just about die to know who his time was spent with. He is something of a masochist, which surprised me the first time I thought about it but it no longer does. And I no longer care that he is, I just take what I can get of him. Like me, he becomes less stable every day, but while I rather pathetically fall apart for the sake of love, Harry falls apart on terms I try very hard not to think about or work out.

Sometimes I just think he wants it to be harder when he has to hurt me.

He knows I'm the only one who would have him unconditionally, although there are those who would have him just because of who he is. The others all just want him to save them, to help them survive and win and not fall at the hands of Voldemort and his Death Eaters. It is too much for him, as much as he denies it. Harry would never admit that he feels the pressure like somebody pushing their thumb into a peach, watching the juice and flesh fall about around it. Harry is breaking up inside, everything is falling about around him, and I am the only thing that keeps him from giving up. I would think this were a good thing, if only it weren't for the voice in the back of my head telling me I am not what he needs anymore. If I didn't need him so much, I would send him in search of something else, something healthier.

Because I don't judge him, I love him. Because I would never look at him with disapproval, just need and longing and sometimes sadness when I know who he was with the night before that wasn't me. He tells me that he loves me; he wishes he did. But I am not sure anymore. He must have meant it at some point, maybe the first time. Or maybe he just thinks he loves me. I cannot help but think he is far more deluded than anything else.

It is always cold outside, always dark. The students and professors all try to stay in good spirits, try to smile weak smiles of hope whenever Harry enters a room. They all look at him like he is a God, aside from the Slytherins who look at him with a dull resentment because while none of them want to die, none of them really want Harry Potter to save them. I don't look at him at all if I can help it.

One thing Harry always tells me when we meet up is that he wishes things were different for us. That if he could control it all, he would forget all about the stupid war and we would be so happy, and even though people would judge us and try to talk us around, we would ignore them and everything would be perfect. He tells me that if it were like that, he would be able to sleep more.

I know it's not true, of course. He tells me things so that he can tell himself things, so he can reiterate it all in his mind, to try and make himself feel like a good person. Trying to convince himself that he wants me for more than just an object. Trying to convince himself that I'm not just there to make him feel human. It isn't that he doesn't want to love me, it isn't that he's using me, it is just that he fell into this at the wrong time.

I think a part of me always wanted him.

It started right after he broke up with Granger, and everybody was a bit against him. We had detention together, typically, because I called him a whore in passing and he hit me for it. McGonagall saw the incident and put us both in an evening detention. It was a Wednesday night, at half past seven. So went the detention as they always go, silence and bitter glares and occasionally a mouthing of a mild swear in the other's direction. Nothing happened until we left.

I wanted to be alone, and so I went to the Quidditch pitch. I hated that day, the frustration that curled up inside the pit of my stomach, because suddenly He wasn't with his Girlfriend. Suddenly there was a possibility. I had never thought anything would happen; I never thought I wanted it, really. I had considered it, but my mind had twisted the idea that I might actually like Harry Potter. It all turned into a great denial, a chance to defy my father.

Except it wasn't. When he came to the pitch, also on a claim that he had wanted to spend some time thinking on his own, I couldn't see anything else but him. He was on the other side of the long stretch of grass, but all I could do was stare and wonder - what is he thinking? I suppose that's where the habit started. I wished I could know, just for that one time. I wished he were mine.

He tells me now that he was looking at me as well, but I can't be sure if he is being honest or just kidding himself. He tells me that he had definitely been staring at me throughout the course of detention, which is possibly the truth because he was sitting behind me and I had felt eyes burning into my back but passed it off as wishful thinking. Immediately afterwards, I had mentally punished myself for wanting him to be looking at me. I suppose that was the start of all the insanity.

Throughout the course of that night, when we both stayed on the pitch for at least two hours before actually talking, we progressively inched a little bit closer to each other until we were reluctantly sitting side by side. That was the first conversation we really had when I didn't convince myself that I hated him, that everything he said was rubbish and he was just an Object. The irony of it hits me hard; it is not lost on me. He was nothing to me, and now I am almost the same to him, far too late.

We talked about Quidditch mostly. I also told him how much I hated Weasley, and he told me that at least he had a reason to if he wanted; the first person who had turned against him after dumping Granger was his best friend, and he was having trouble forgetting it. So he sat and listened to me rattle on about Weasley and his annoying habits and how much I would curse him into oblivion if I could, and then he kissed me. And then he told me he didn't know why he'd kissed me, but it didn't seem to matter much to either us.

Picture perfect scenery. Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, silver blond and black, huddled on the snowy white Quidditch pitch. Picking at stray grass heads poking out of the snow and trying not to look each other in the eye and admit there could be something real.

I wish I didn't love him anymore.

We're both so trapped, stuck just as well as all the other Hogwarts resident. While we are in a deep hole of something that is far too complicated for two teenage boys, we are also at the hands of Voldemort and the big war.

I wish I didn't have to kill him.

They are all stuck here too; they are all going to suffer like the animals in the Forest and this place will become far more Forbidden soon. Everyone is going to die and nobody seems to want to admit it to themselves. Everybody is waiting for their big hero to swoop in and make it all go away and everything will go back to normal.

I wish he didn't have to kill himself. But he does, a little more everyday.

Harry Potter is the big hero, and it is slowly causing him to crumble away piece by piece. He is not a hero anymore; he isn't happy. He doesn't smile very often, except when we are alone and then it is only because he has convinced himself that this is good for him. A healthy extension of his life. Everything else hurts, so why shouldn't love? That's what it all is really, and it is understandable that he would think this. He didn't get the chance to learn any differently.

Granger tried to push it into him, tried to give him something that she didn't want to give so that he would smile. His smile is so easy to look at, so rewarding when you know it's directed at you. It is no surprise she gave herself up in the hope that it might make something work a little bit better, even if it was a cheap shot. Of course, it didn't work. It just made it all the worse in the end, because Harry Potter discovered sex and that it was a bigger distraction than homework and Exploding Snap and hanging out in the common room.

He tells me that he doesn't really want to fight Voldemort anymore, that nobody would really care anyway. And then he tells me that he knows about the snow. He knows about my watch and he knows about everything. He tells me that he knows how he feels, and how he should feel, and how I feel. It's no surprise that he knows everything that I'm thinking and feeling because I can't hide it around him anymore than I can around anyone else. The others are just too blind to see it, to my advantage, I suppose. Sometimes I think it would be easier if I just tell them all.

Harry tells me a lot of things tonight.

He tells me that he wishes that everything was a bit easier, but that he's sort of letting go of everything now. That bits and pieces are starting to slip away and that I make him feel better sometimes, and then he remembers. I start to feel sick; I didn't know he knew but I think- I think he knows.

I wish I didn't love him anymore.

He tells me that he knows he's going to have to kill me, and I start to shake. I'm possibly paler than I usually am, but at least I can pretend that's because I'm out in the snow and I'm freezing cold. There is a dead shrew next to me that I didn't notice up until now; my eyes are staring at the ground so hard because I can't look at him.

I wish he loved me.

He tells me that if he has to kill me, he probably will. He asks me if I knew that, and I just shake my head uselessly. My mouth is dry and my hands are shaking and he takes one of them and kisses it very lightly and gives a little sigh and he mumbles, "Tell me you love me."

End.