Three Words

Three Words

It's weird sometimes when you love somebody. It makes you do and say things you would've never expected, even though at the beginning you don't even know whether you love that person or not. Love has to grow, they say.

Maybe it grows like a plant. First there's a seed, planted unintentionally. Then it starts growing, from the first blossoms in spring to its full beauty in summer. Summer is all but gone now. The first leaves start falling and despite the warmth of the still bright sun the nights get colder, the wind chillier. It's late afternoon, but the sun won't leave yet. Its warm rays shine golden over the grass damp with drops of rain earlier that day. Bright gold and deep green. I know it's autumn, but it still feels like summer.

Like seasons change, so does love, they say, and I guess they're right. It has to go through all sorts of different stages. First there's a crush, then you're falling for that special somebody and then, in the end, if everything turns out right, it's love.

For me, that love grew over almost a year. Or at least that's when I finally knew I loved Draco Malfoy.

Somehow we skipped those first stages, though. We didn't go out, we didn't take things slow. And I certainly never wanted to fall in love with him. I just loved him one day. Of course, it didn't happen out of the blue. You don't wake up one morning and find out you love the person you've despised for so many years, no. And of course there were events leading to the realisation that both terrified me and felt better than anything I've known before.

When I think back to how it all started, things get blurry. I don't know exactly how I went from loathing to wanting him. We've always been rivals in everything we did: quidditch, hexing, potions, verbal fights. And somehow that rivalry went to another level - a strange kind of attraction: glances, smirks, teasing comments to embarrass the other. And it worked, for both of us, and soon words and looks weren't enough.

I still think that when he first kissed me he only wanted to annoy the hell out of me. To see how I would surrender to attraction that simply shouldn't have been there. To humiliate me because I'd never be able to look him in the eye anymore without remembering what he had done - what I had let him do. If that had been his plan, it didn't work out, because from that moment on there had always been another kiss, another touch, another opportunity to find out how helpless the other was and fail because we both were just as weak.

Physical attraction, nothing but hormones playing a nasty trick on me. That's what I wanted to believe had turned me into this shivering, whimpering mess every time I felt his lips on mine and his hands on my body; that had me seeing him every night in my dreams, waking up terrified and aroused at the same time, embarrassed for letting him get to me that much. I had to fight it, I told myself, but there had been a part of me that simply didn't want to fight it. It just felt too good, too right, even though I knew it was wrong.

This thing between us that I couldn't understand went on for weeks, months even, without me ever thinking it could be more than just physical.

Then it changed. And that night is the first thing I remember so clearly that there is no denying of what it had meant.

"Please stay."

Heavy breathing. Then a sigh. "Why would I stay, Potter? I'm sweaty, I'm filthy, and we have classes tomorrow."

"We could just... lie here for a while. I don't want to get up. I want..." ...to hold you.

"Well, you can do whatever you want. I'm going, though."

"No! Please, Mal... Draco, just stay here for a bit."

A sneer. "God, Potter, you sound pathetic." Something soft in his cool, grey eyes. "Fine, alright, I'm staying. But not the whole night."

There had been times when we slept more often in the Room of Requirement than in our own beds. Of course never up to morning, we were always afraid of getting caught. But ever since that night we'd stayed there for a couple of hours, holding each other, kissing, talking, or simply falling asleep in each other's arms.

He wouldn't talk sweet to me, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have even wanted that because it wouldn't have been Malfoy. He never stopped calling me names or picking on me in class, but the jokes and comments got less insulting, more teasing, often causing me to smirk instead of glaring at him furiously.

Our friends, however, didn't notice. Either we played them quite well, keeping up our usual rivalry, or they simply wanted to remain oblivious to what was going on before their noses. Either way, I didn't care. What I cared about, though, were our nights together or any brief encounter in an empty corridor or classroom. When I realised it wasn't just the sex I was looking forward to, not the heat, the shivers inside, the rough kisses and touches, it scared me beyond anything, and at the same time it felt so right. I couldn't wait for the days to end to finally wrap my arms around him, to feel him, smell him, hear him, just be close to him. Somehow I thought he felt the same. And that's when I knew.

"It's late already. Maybe we should..."

A yawn. "Mmhmm. Maybe we should."

"Then why aren't you moving?"

"Why aren't you moving, Potter? What? Why are you laughing?"

"I don't know. A month ago you wouldn't have wasted a second to jump out of bed and get dressed."

"I'm exhausted. Which is your fault, so you've got no bloody right to laugh about me. Besides, if you want to leave I won't keep you."

"That's not what I meant."

"Yeah? Well why don't you speak your mind then? And get rid of that goofy grin of yours, will you? It's annoying."

"Make me."

"No."

Another yawn, then a soft sigh, eyes closed.

I almost smile at the memory. It's such a beautiful day for beautiful memories. It's still so warm, and when I close my eyes I feel nothing but the soft caress of the sun's rays on my face. Almost pleasant enough to completely forget where I am and why. I could get lost in a thousand memories. That's not what I came here for, but I can't prevent the memories from stirring within me. And maybe I don't want to.

"What now?"

"I just... I wondered why... why we're doing this."

"Because we're horny teenagers with serious issues, sick enough to fuck our worst enemy?"

"You're not my worst enemy, you know that."

"Oh, now I'm flattered. Pity I've got to say you're still mine, though."

"Which makes the sickest one of us who?"

Eyes rolling. "Shut up."

"But seriously. Why are we doing this?"

"I already told you, Potter. How daft are you? We get all worked up and horny. We fuck. No big deal."

"Oh yeah? Then why are we cuddling afterwards?"

An embarrassed snort. "Oh please! Don't say 'cuddling'! That's so... ugh!"

"Then what exactly are we doing right now?"

"How about 'not moving because you buggered me senseless and are too lazy to move your damn arse'?"

"No, I don't think that's it."

A raised eyebrow. "Well, what is it then?"

"It's because I... I..."

I love you.

"I like being here... with you."

"You're lucky I can't move a muscle because normally I'd have to hex you for saying that."

No matter how much he pretended to be annoyed, I knew his words didn't reflect what he felt. I saw the soft smile twitching at the corners of his mouth before I leaned in to kiss him. I heard the low moans full of longing when I did. I saw the glow in his grey eyes when he looked at me. And I felt the beating of his heart like my own when we made love.

No, it wasn't just 'fucking,' as he always liked to put it. At the beginning, yes, but not later. Not anymore. You don't hold on to somebody like that when you just 'fuck'. You don't get aroused and proud when you see their pleasure. You don't whisper their name into their ear over and over again when you come. You don't kiss tenderly afterwards. You don't prolong leaving because you're holding them in your arms. You don't yearn for their touch when they're not around. And you certainly don't forget everything that's going on around you when you're with them, especially not things that important that they should make everything impossible.

When the war came I wished for nothing more in the world than to just ignore it and forget everything. I had been blind and stupid and delusional, simply denying the fact that one day we both would have to make a decision. Or rather, he would have to. And I had been stupid enough not to think of what it might be.

"You knew this would happen. How could you not? Not even you could be so bloody daft."

"No! No, I didn't know. How can you... after all that's happened between us..."

"What happened between us, Potter, what? We fucked. It was fun as long as it lasted, but we just fucked, that's it."

"No, that's not it."

"Then what is it?"

"It's more than that, you know that! I..."

I love you.

A sarcastic sneer. "You what? You thought I'd join you and your sidekicks and fight for the right side and we'd live happily ever after? That's not who I am, and you know that. And you can't turn me into something I'm not. How can you be so fucking delusional?"

"Do you really hate me that much?"

Softly. "I don't hate you."

"But how can you want to join him? He wants me dead."

"My parents are with him, Potter. My mother! It's you versus them. How hard is that to understand, for fuck's sake? Who am I supposed to choose? You over them?"

"No, Draco, please! Please don't do this. Dumbledore could... we could help you."

"But I don't want your help! There's nothing you can do."

"Yes we could. We could help your mother. You told me yourself that your mother wants out. She..."

Frustration. Anger. "But my father won't let her! And there's no way in hell I'll leave her alone. You can't always play the altruistic hero. It doesn't always work that way."

A sigh. "I'll go."

"What if we'll face each other in battle? What..."

"Then you'll kill me."

"No, I couldn't! I could never kill you. I..."

I love you.

"Then you're even more bloody stupid than I thought."

I still wonder why he hadn't said he'd kill me. It's as if I hadn't been able to realise it back then, and a part of me didn't. He knew then he would never be able to fight me. He might have thought he could kill everybody else, but not me. And somehow I think... I think he knew they'd lose this battle. There was nothing to win, and I'm sure he didn't even want to. He didn't want Voldemort to kill me and fulfil his plans.

But he also couldn't stay.

"Tell me one good reason, Potter. Tell me one reason to stay, to betray my parents and everything I was taught to believe in. Tell me how the bloody hell I'm supposed to let you kill my father - because we both know he'll only go down fighting. Tell me how I'm supposed to tell my mother that I don't give a fuck about her anymore because I shagged the Boy who fucking lived. Tell me why the fuck I should stay with you and let all that happen. ONE reason, Harry!"

I love you.

"Goodbye, Harry."

It was the last thing he ever said to me. I watched him leave, not able to say the three words that might have made him stay.

I don't know how many times I've replayed our final conversation in my mind, over and over again. And every time at the end I told him what I should have told him then. His sharp and angry grey eyes would become soft. He'd look at me and then I'd feel his arms around me, his lips on mine and hear my own words repeated, whispered into my ear.

And he'd stay.

The strangest and most ironic thing is that by leaving me, I think, he saved me. If he had stayed I would have kept him out of danger, I would have protected him with everything I had, and Voldemort wouldn't have been able to use him as fatal weapon that ended up being his own downfall.

But Voldemort hadn't known what he was doing. He hadn't known that Draco woke a power in me that I hadn't even known existed, that there had been nothing to stop me anymore because I hadn't cared if I'd survive or not, that he had spoken out his own death sentence.

Voldemort hadn't known that I loved Draco, but I know that it's what saved me in the end.

I close my eyes, softly caressing letters carved into the pale granite, cool and smooth below my fingertips, and for a precious moment it's almost as if I'm touching him. I can almost feel his skin beneath my fingers, taste his lips, hear his voice...

The wind blows softly through the branches above me, causing a few golden leaves to fall down onto the tombstone, and the moment is gone. And for the first time since that day in summer I realise he is gone, too. That I'll never touch his skin anymore, never taste his lips or hear his voice. That I'll never be able to say the three words that might have saved him. And for the first time I cry.

I cry and I sob. I feel bitter tears running down my face, salty and warm, chilled by the cool autumn's breeze. I cry for what we could have had and never got, and it feels both shattering and freeing. My lungs scream for air but I can't breathe. My fingers hurt but I can't stop grasping the grass on the grave. My knees shake but I can't get up. Everything hurts, inside and outside and I just can't make it stop. I just can't. I can't. I can't turn back the time. I can't tell him. I can't.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

I feel the warmth of the October sun gone, but I don't mind the coolness of the wind. I don't feel it, nor the burning in my eyes long after I have stopped crying. I just feel that this is goodbye for good. It hadn't been when he said it, it hadn't been when he died. But now it is goodbye and it feels like there's an aching hole where my heart used to be. And all that's left of him is this empty feeling inside of me.

My fingers trace the letters in the pale stone gently, a memory of touching his face. And memories of words I have felt in my heart so many times but never said, they finally stumble over my lips.

"I love you."

I just hope he somehow knows.