Carving

Red-orange leaves spiraled slowly down, mimicking an inescapable whirlpool. One by one they landed on the ground, finally coming to rest. Harry's boots crunched over them, tearing the small figures apart. They crumpled under his weight easily, giving up instantaneously to his will. The crackling sound repeated continuously, a heartbeat, a rhythm his body gave itself over to.

A strong wind knocked his glasses slightly askew. Harry pulled his traveling cloak tighter around him, intending to do up the front more securely. His gloved hands fumbled for a moment at the buttons, and he wrinkled his nose in distaste at his inability to complete the task. He left it half-open, abandoning the task when it appeared useless to continue. Instead, he raised his hands and wrapped his scarf once more around his neck, so that instead of lagging behind him like a banner it threatened to strangle him.

"What are you doing?" The voice cut through the silence much more efficiently than the leaves had. Harry turned only enough to see Draco walking towards him, hands stuck deep in his pockets, face obscured by his pristine Slytherin scarf and black woolen hat.

Harry's eyebrows furrowed. "What are you doing out of bed?"

Draco came to a stop inches away from Harry, shoulders moving up and down as he breathed in and out deeply. "Looking for you, you daft git, and anyway I asked you first."

Harry moved forward and placed a hand on Draco's waist. The movement pressed the lengths of their bodies together, and both boys savored the feeling of warmth and closeness. Harry's eyes carefully scanned Draco's face, noting the drawn look, the shadows under his eyes, the thin lips held tightly together, the haughty tilt of his chin.

Draco scowled and leaned back only just enough to bring his hands between them. "Look at you," he muttered, beginning to do up the missed buttons on Harry's coat. "Freezing out here by yourself."

"You shouldn't be walking around yet." Harry's protest died on his lips at the frown on Draco's face. He swallowed. "You're still not well."

Draco rolled his eyes. "I'm fine."

"Draco--"

"It wasn't that bad, Harry." Harry snorted and Draco grit his teeth. "No, Harry, listen to me for once. I'm really all right." Harry stared at him. "So the bandage needs to be changed once a day, so what? It's not like I'm going to die if I walk around. And anyway, I'm dying just lying there all the time. I needed to get out and do something."

Harry shook his head. "You could have walked around the infirmary."

Draco made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. He shoved his hands back into his pockets, eyes narrowed and downcast. Harry watched him, wondering what was going through his mind. Draco was a mystery at best. It was likely that he would never understand what went on behind those gray eyes, and the thought frightened Harry.

"I needed to see you."

The words were so quiet they almost didn't exist, a loud breath would have rendered them useless. Yet Harry heard them, and his entire body stiffened. He searched for words, for the right thing to say. Draco felt him stiffen and backed away, distancing himself in the only way he knew how. Harry swallowed and closed his eyes. He couldn't do anything right, could he?

"Let's go back to the castle," Draco said, enunciating each syllable to sharp clarity. Draco began walking away, scarf trailing after him limply. Harry nodded and followed, eyes closed the entire way.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"It's almost Halloween," Draco said, conversationally. He was laying face-down on a bed in the infirmary, arms folded underneath his head, face turned towards the wall. It was the first thing that had been said since Harry's arrival almost an hour ago.

Harry glanced up from Draco's back and then back down again. A pile of used bandages was on his left side, wrinkled and brown, stained and unusable. Another pile of bandages was on his right side, clean, untouched, begging to be used only to be later discarded. The jar of ointment that was supposed to speed up natural healing processes was at his knee, and he picked it up, unscrewing it deftly.

"Mm," he said, unsure of how to respond. The ointment had a thick, sticky, slightly rubbery feel to it, and Harry gently laid it on Draco's back. His fingers ran lightly over the surface in front of him, smooth in places and rough in others. Draco shivered under Harry's touch, suppressing a moan. Harry let his fingers trace the ridges and raised lines that ran from the neck down. He started to rub the ointment into the wounds, which had begun to bleed slightly from the pressure he had been putting on them.

Draco felt his body relax and slipped into a dream-like state, conscious only of Harry's hands. This daily ritual was a necessary part of his healing process, he knew, but most times it felt more like an indulgence of guilty pleasure. He was mesmerized in Harry's hands moving in slow rhythms over the muscles on his back, massaging, gripping, perusing in numbing detail. Harry leaned closer to him, and the smell of cinnamon and pine washed over him. Draco inhaled deeply.

His original comment came back to him then, and Draco blinked a few times to come out of his haze. He opened his mouth to speak, yawned, and snuggled into his pillow. Silence stretched on, comfortable in its familiarity. "We should carve a pumpkin," he finally said, the words floating on the air more solidly than his thoughts had.

Harry's hands stilled briefly. They continued as before, but Draco hadn't missed the pause. "You want to?" The question was filled with something unnamable, and Draco knew he was treading on shaky ground. Of course, recently all it had been with Harry was shaky ground.

"Yeah," he replied.

Harry smiled a little, eyes crinkling. "It's messy."

"Is it?" Draco asked, moving his head until he could see Harry. He let his head rest back on the pillow. "I've never done one before."

"Neither have I," Harry said, continuing the motions on Draco's back.

"How do you know it's messy, then?"

Harry shrugged. "I've heard about it, is all. I suppose you don't have to get messy. You could be very careful and stay clean. It could be optional."

Draco laughed. "If it's optional, why would anyone ever choose to get dirty?"

"Maybe they like it." Harry's hands changed their rhythm, fingers slowing down. "Maybe they want to get messy." He let his fingers trail once more over Draco's back, tips brushing the surface lightly. "Maybe it makes them happy." His hand finally dropped away, coming back to rest by his side.

The empty infirmary was still. The boys had stopped their actions, both lost in their own thoughts. The windows surrounding the room were closed, curtains shut, all light trapped out except for the small flicker coming from the candles next to each bed. Stale air circulated around the room, carrying with it an antiseptic smell that seemed to exist only in rooms where life and death mingled together.

"So let's." Draco's response filled the silence briefly. He felt there was something else to be said, but whatever it was eluded him. Instead the quiet reigned again, and both boys drew inwards.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Old issues of The Daily Prophet were spread out of the floor around them, articles littered by grotesque shapes in various shades of orange and brown. Small knives and spoons were placed on the ground, easily accessible should the need arise. The room was dark, windows closed but shades pulled away in the off chance that some light managed to break through the cloud barrier that had hung like fate in the sky above them all morning. Raindrops fell in a sporadic pattern against the glass window, streaking down and leaving a trail behind. Draco thought of tears. Harry thought of the scars on Draco's back that wouldn't ever fade away, then realized the rain would fade away, then thought of the way pumpkin smelled when sliced open and gutted.

"You said it was optional." Draco lifted his hands up and wrinkled his nose at them.

Harry shrugged. "Maybe it's not."

Draco sighed and reached back into his pumpkin. It was squishy and cold, and his lips curled back in distaste as he extracted yet more of his pumpkin's insides. He dropped it next to the other similar piles, on top of an editorial about how Voldemort's death affected the working witch or wizard. He grimaced and set himself to emptying out his pumpkin as quickly as possible.

Harry took his time, grabbing small portions of his pumpkin piece by piece and depositing them onto his own newspaper. Suddenly he was back at the Dursley's, watching them from his cupboard under the stairs. The small slits of light from the vent on the door had been just enough to see through, and he wished they hadn't been. He saw Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon at the kitchen table, pumpkin between them. Dudley came up and began to carve it, delight etched onto his face. He saw the look his aunt and uncle exchanged, pride, happiness, something like love. He heard Dudley's exclamation as they finally placed the candle inside. Their faces all gathered together to study the final product, blocking Harry's view completely. He stared at the backs of their heads and wished he could see, or that he had never seen anything to begin with.

Draco stared at the pile of pumpkin innards and wrinkled his nose. He turned away from it and looked at his pumpkin. It was finally hollow, yet it looked quite pitiful without a face. He reached over for a knife and pushed it into the thick exterior of the pumpkin. The motion was more difficult than he had anticipated it would be, and he eventually had to grit his teeth together and push with both hands. The knife sliced through the skin of the pumpkin, sinking slowly in until Draco let go, sighing. He began cutting out a triangular hole, one hand holding the pumpkin steady while the other grasped the knife and jerked it in and out roughly.

Harry was staring at his pumpkin, looking at but not really seeing the remaining pulp inside his pumpkin. He had only taken a little out, four or five handfuls at best, and the resultant space looked odd and somehow misplaced. Looking inside his pumpkin, he saw Dudley dressed up as a pirate, plastic sword gleaming in the dim artificial light. His sleeves were too long for his arms, and right before he left to go trick-or-treating with his friends, Aunt Petunia ran into the kitchen and came back out with safety pins. She pinned the sleeves back until they billowed out how they were supposed to. Dudley opened the door and joined his friends outside, holding onto a plastic orange pumpkin and a black flashlight. The door closed, and the sounds of Dudley's footsteps and laughter faded away simultaneously in his mind.

Draco had finished cutting out the two eyes and was tackling the mouth. This was the tricky part, getting the individual teeth to look like teeth and not like blocks of odd shapes. He held the pumpkin steadier, carefully cutting away all the excess material. His grip on the knife was surer; he was becoming more familiar with the entire process. His hand didn't waver. His eyes were focused on the task at hand. He knew he had only one chance to get this right. One mistake would destroy the entire pumpkin, and he would have to start over with another one. The thought made him scowl. He liked the pumpkin he had now; he wasn't going to give it up, and he wasn't going to destroy it either. He would do it right, so perfectly that no one would ever know he had doubted his own ability to finish the task.

Harry had grabbed a spoon and was slowly making his way through the mess inside his pumpkin. Each dip and scoop seemed to take too long. The very motion was foreign and jarring to him. His hand stopped abruptly, and then he was listening to the doorbell ringing. Sometimes it would ring only once, sometimes it would repeat over and over again until someone answered it. Aunt Petunia had gotten up and was walking over to the basket of candy that was waiting conveniently on the small table next to the front door. She would pick up the basket and open the door, handing out candy to anyone who was waiting there--vampires, princesses, rock stars, mummies, faeries, movie stars, even witches and wizards. All of them were rewarded with the candy of their choice, and greedy hands dived into the basket, both extremely hasty and carefully discerning. Then the door would close, the basket would be replaced, and Aunt Petunia would walk away once more.

Draco was holding the knife steadily, carefully cutting small circles out around the triangles. He knew he would have to leave some sections uncut, unless he wanted the eyes to fall out, so he thought about what his final design would look like and worked in the additions where he could. His hand worked quickly, smoothly. It was getting easier as time progressed to learn what parts of the pumpkin were thick and needed more pressure to cut through. Those parts had rougher skin, and it took all his bloody-mindedness not to give up half-way. He kept on pushing, harder and harder, until his hands were red and his arms were sore. Eventually the piece would fall away, but afterwards he was left feeling sore and raw. It was also simpler for him to tell what parts were soft, thin and fragile. He used only the slightest pressure and they would fall away. Sometimes even that was too much pressure, threatening to break the entire pumpkin, ruin it completely, but it had to be done. It had to be done.

Harry looked into his pumpkin, eyes beginning to glaze over. He blinked and there was Aunt Petunia walking away from the door, back to the couch. Uncle Vernon was sitting there, relaxing, watching a marathon of horror movies on some television station. Aunt Petunia sat down next to him, leaned her head against his shoulder, and grabbed a handful of popcorn. She tossed the kernels into her mouth one by one, chewing each thoughtfully before swallowing. Uncle Vernon's arm came up and rested around her shoulders. They spoke quietly, so softly that only the cadence of their voices made it to the cupboard. Nonsensical words, a breath, muttering, a sigh. That was all.

Draco finally stabbed his pumpkin in its forehead. It was the roughest part yet, and his hand shook with the force of his gestures. He cut in and out repeatedly, slowly forming a jagged line. The piece fell out and he picked it up, running his fingers lightly over the edges of it. He shook his head once, so slightly he didn't even realize he had done it, and let the piece fall onto the pile of discarded pumpkin.

He knew his plan was somewhat foolish. In fact, if he had been with anyone else but Harry he would have done something else. But he needed to do this. Harry needed him to do this.

"Harry."

Then there was the sound of his name in a voice he loved, and it made sense, much more sense than the other voices he had been hearing. Harry jerked his head up, eyes following seconds later. Draco was sitting across from him, looking directly at him. There was a pumpkin in front of the blonde, and he realized there was a second pumpkin centimeters away from his own body. That's right. He was supposed to be carving a pumpkin.

"Mm?" Harry responded, eyes only half-focused on Draco.

"I've finished." Draco turned around his pumpkin so that Harry could see it. There were two triangles for eyes and of course that smiling mouth with the uneven blocky teeth. An extra circle had been placed around each eye, and a line went from the edge of each circle away from the center of the pumpkin. An extra line was right in the middle of the forehead, a jagged cut that served no purpose at all.

Harry stared at the pumpkin. The pumpkin stared back. Draco stared at them both, eyes darting back and forth, until his nerves made him ask, "Well... what do you think?" Harry was silent. Draco swallowed and continued, "I mean, it took a while to get everything just right. First I had to get rid of everything nasty that was inside of it, you know, to be able to carve it at all. Then the skin of it was really hard to cut, some parts were thin and some were thick, and it just got so difficult to tell when I was doing it right and when I was messing it all up. But I..." He inhaled deeply, staring at Harry directly. "I think I got it right. What do you think?"

"I... it's me," Harry said. He was still looking at the pumpkin, noting the upturned mouth and the slightly curved glasses.

Draco nodded. "I know."

There was silence then, as Harry stared at the finished pumpkin. Draco watched him warily, desperate for any sign at all. But Harry gave him none, and all Draco could do was sit there and wait.

"Are you going to light it?"

The question took Draco by surprise, and he shook his head. "I figured you could light it," he replied, shrugging. "I mean, it is supposed to be you, after all." Compelled by an unreadable _expression on Harry's face, Draco said, "That is, if you want to."

Harry focused on Draco. His eyes softened as he did so, and then he smiled. It wasn't much of a smile, just one corner moving up a little, but it was more than Draco expected to see, and he smiled because of it. "No," Harry said, shaking his head slightly. "I think you should light it. You're the reason it's here, after all." He cleared his throat and looked away.

Draco felt his smile dim, and a pain deep in his stomach started to fade as well. He nodded, transfigured a candle, and placed it inside the pumpkin. He lifted his hand away and held onto his wand, pointed it steadily and the candle and whispered, "Incendio." The candle burst to life, flame flickering brightly, throwing unusual shadows across the walls and ceiling of the room. Draco picked up the top of the pumpkin and placed it firmly down over the hole, sealing the candle inside. He moved around until he could see the pumpkin from the front, careful not to obscure Harry's view. The light came out from all of the holes, especially bright in the darkness of the room.

"You know," Harry said, causing Draco to look over at him. Draco stood up and walked three steps over to Harry, then sat down next to him. Their knees were over-lapping, and Draco reached over and put his hand near Harry's. "They make pumpkin pie out of that." Harry waved towards the pile of discarded pulp that was next to the lit up pumpkin.

"That's good," Draco replied, eyes locked onto Harry's face. "At least someone can use it for something."

"Yeah," Harry murmured. His eyes were drawn to the pumpkin, lit up from the inside. It was impossible to miss in the otherwise dark room, and he stared at it for a while. Eventually he moved his hand to cover Draco's. Some time after that their fingers entwined together. All the while his eyes never left the fiery light of the pumpkin's features.

"I guess it is good, isn't it?" Harry's voice drifted on the air like breath, soft, quiet, unmistakable. He squeezed Draco's fingers tighter and watched the shadows dance on the walls.

fin.