Different Kinds of Light

Draco loved watching Harry in the light.

It had all started the day he had come upon Harry, laying flat on his back on a bed of soft fresh grass, staring up at the blue blue sky with an expression of peaceful happiness and delight on his face, deep green eyes sparkling behind the glasses that Draco would detest on anybody else, but found endearingly charming on Harry.

Draco had looked up to see what Harry was so fascinated by, but had seen nothing except the blazing bright ball of the sun that pierced his eyes and made him squint irritably.

So he had crouched down and looked at Harry quizzically.

"What are you looking at?" he had asked.

"The sky...and the sun," Harry had answered. His voice was soft and slightly husky, and Draco had felt little goosebumps race up and down his spine at the tone that Harry was so innocently using. But he had refrained from reaction in any way, other than to say "Why?"

"The sky is so... beautiful," Harry had gone on. "I remember..when I was younger, I spent so much of my time indoors - in the cupboard and then in my room where Dudley didn't like to come in. But then the sunny days would come, and Aunt Petunia would ask me to go out and do something... And I would stand out there, in the sun, feeling it beat down on me. The sky would seem so wild and open, full of so many possibilities and so much freedom, so much light. I had never felt so happy and...content as I did when I stood out there like that..and I'd never felt like that anywhere else."

"So you really like the sun, then," Draco had asked quietly, when he had felt able to reply to the depth of emotion in Harry's voice.

"No," Harry had replied. "Its not just the sun...its the light. The way it moves, the way it feels - its more than just the sun."

Ever since that day, Draco had a new appreciation for the light. The way it meant so much to everyone, even if they didn't realize it. He learned to love alot of things about it, but most of all, the way Harry looked when he was in the light.

Harry didn't have to be outside to be captivated by the light. He could be just standing beside a window, with the light golden rays of the morning sun dancing across the smooth skin of his arms, no longer white but tanned from many hours of breathless happy games of Quidditch. And just as the light captivated Harry, he himself would captivate Draco. He would come upon Harry standing by the window in that pose - with one arm or hand lifted up to shield his eyes from the sun, a small smile curving his lips, the lifted arm showing off the long, lean lines of Harry's slender form, the sun gleaming off the fine dark hairs that graced Harry's arms.

And when Draco came upon Harry like this, the breath would catch in his throat and he would stand there quietly, just watching as his lover gazed, enthralled, at the world of light all around him. No matter how many times he happened upon this particular scene, he would still look on quietly, amazed that someone who had spent so much of their life surrounded by so much darkness of all different kinds, could still have such afinity and love for the light. As far as Draco was concerned, Harry never looked so beautiful, so heartbreakingly wonderful as he did with the rays of the sun playing across his face.

Draco had learned something from these little moments, frozen like black and white snapshots in the memories of his mind. Light - bright, natural, clean and pure light, was something to Harry - something that he turned to, delighted in, something that he revelled in and needed in addition to Draco and Hermione and Ron, and all the other things in his life - something that actually came close to removing some of the deep shadows within Harry's life, something that made him feel as though he was simply a normal human being.

Always, when Draco watched Harry like this, Harry would inevitably turn, alerted by some inner sense that told him when Draco was nearby. He would smile, his whole face and body lighting up with an inner glow that Draco found impossible to resist, and when Harry would hold out his hand, Draco would go willingly towards him.

Together they would stand at the window, arms wrapped around each other. Draco would feel the smooth heat of the Harry's skin beneath his fingertips, and sense the steady, strong beat of Harry's pulse beneath that skin. Every breath that Harry took, that made his lean chest rise and fall in gentle rhythm, Draco would be aware of. Harry's lightly crisp locks of hair would gently tickle his forehead as he leaned his head on Harry's shoulder, and he would simply soak in the scent and presence and warm feel of Harry all around him.

All this had taught Draco one more thing. There are different kinds of light, just as there are different kinds of darkness. And that thought, and those moments that seemed to be caught out of time only strengthened Draco's belief in one thing. One thing that he felt down to the depths of his soul, one thing that he never lost sight of, never lost faith in, the one thing that was the definition of his life. And that one thing was that if Harry needed light in his life, it was slight in comparison to how much Draco needed Harry in his.