Refraction

"The bridge is crossed, so stand and watch it burn."

--Phantom of the Opera

* * *

(Theodore Nott, 1998)

Seventh year

Last night, the children of the Death Eaters received their Dark Marks. It seems to me unbearably stupid to give them their Marks while we're still at school. Perhaps Potter's doing something right after all, and they're nervous...or maybe it's just that the Dark Lord is insane. There's a possibility.

Draco comes skidding around a corner and crashes into me. He's finally definitively come down on the side of Harry Potter. Bless the gossip circuit at this school--once something has become painfully obvious to everyone with a brain, the gossips pick it up and spread it around as if it's a shock and a scandal.

Slytherin is such that Draco will still be safe in the dungeons. He may be shagging the Gryffindor of Gryffindors, but he was and is a Slytherin, and he still suffers all the things Slytherins must suffer. If anything, his association with the Boy Who Lived has made them both even less popular with the non-Slytherins. I don't think either of them notices or cares, but the Slytherins notice.

Draco clutches my arms in a death grip and searches my face,. "Do you have it?" he asks, with characteristic intensity. Just as if it's any of his business.

I shrug as best I can around his grip. "Would it matter to you if I did?"

His hands tighten even more on my forearms, and I begin to worry about blood circulation to my hands. "Harry will have to kill you, if you do."

I sigh, exasperated, and try unsuccessfully to shake him off. "Look," I point out reasonably, "your Gryffindor lover can't be expected to do all the killing himself. Odds are most people Marked will not be killed by Harry Potter. Besides," I add, "I don't know why it bothers you. Everyone dies, sooner or later."

He gives me one of his death glares. His endless energy is still a mystery to me, after all these years. It makes me tired just watching him. "So that's your justification for murder, is it? 'They would have died eventually anyway'?"

I smile a little, and shift my arms in the vague hope that he'll let go. No luck. "Actually, that argument works both ways," I observe. "You could also ask, since everyone ultimately dies anyway, why anyone would go to the trouble of killing."

He looks faintly puzzled, and his hold is no longer actively painful. "You've always been one for the easiest route, Teddy."

"True," I admit. "And stop calling me Teddy."

"You're not Marked," he says with rising excitement. Simple soul, Draco. Easily pleased.

"Of course I'm not, you idiot."

He grins and finally releases my arms, but only to throw his own about my neck. I'm not convinced it's an improvement. "Oh, Teddy, I should have known you weren't that stupid!"

"Thank you for that, Draco...here, get off me...what would your boy say?...there, just--personal space, Draco, for the love of Salazar..."

He lets go, but doesn't step back nearly as far as I would like.

"What stopped you?" he asks, staring at me intently. "Your father must have wanted you to."

Ah, yes. My father. What a disappointment I am to that poor fellow.

"Well. I didn't want to." He gazes at me for a few moments more before realizing that's all I'm going to give him. No one needs to know about the things I've seen and heard. Most particularly not Draco, who's met my father and could form a fairly detailed mental image.

"Okay," he says quietly, looking, to his credit, only a little disappointed with my reticence. "What is it that you want, Teddy?"

"I want you to stop calling me Teddy." He looks so pitiful that I relent, and give him a proper answer for once. I can't imagine why he wants one. "I suppose I want...to be left alone, more than anything else. To live in a small flat surrounded by muggles I would never meet. Write very bad novels and paint very bad paintings that I would never let anyone else see. Owl the people I like fairly often, but refuse to let anyone visit me."

I realize I have a sappy smile on my face, and hurriedly wipe it off.

"That's it, really. So there you have it," I tell Draco. "All my hopes and dreams. Have fun with them." He looks sad now, though I can't think what he has to be sad about.

"Teddy," he says earnestly, "when you get your dream home, I will sneak up to it in the middle of the night, and I will put up a sign reading 'Teddy' over the front door."

I stare at him blankly, and think that I could have a hundred years with the boy, and he would still remain inexplicable. "Why?"

"Because," he says with that same grave look, "that way you'll know I love you."

Blessedly I'm not called upon to answer. Harry Potter calls Draco's name, interrupting anything I might have said.

Potter comes around the same corner Draco had some minutes before, and flushes, embarrassed. How anyone who spends so much time with Draco can retain the capacity for embarrassment is beyond me. As so much is, concerning these two.

"I didn't mean to interrupt," he mumbles, then nods awkwardly to me. "Nott."

I turn Draco gently around, and push him over to Potter.

"Take good care of him, Harry Potter," I say. "I think his mind is broken."

Potter looks puzzled and amused as he takes Draco's arm. "Oh, it's been broken for years now, Theodore Nott," he informs me, as though it should have been obvious. It probably should have.

"Call him Teddy," Draco puts in helpfully. "He likes that." I scowl at him.

Potter rolls his eyes, and gives me a farewell nod. He starts steering Draco back down the corridor. Just before they disappear, Draco twists around and waggles his fingers over his shoulder at me. I can hear them bickering for some time after that.

Years of watching, and I still don't understand either of them. They're completely unpredictable, but I'm fond of them. I'll be disappointed when they get themselves killed.

* * *

(Pansy, 1998)

Seventh year

I might have known he would notice. This is the problem (all right, one of the many problems) with Slytherins--they're annoyingly observant.

"Pansy," he said, "what is on your arm?"

And I said, mainly because I could think of nothing else to say, "Why, that's the Dark Mark, dearest. I should think you would recognize it."

I'd never actually had Draco disappointed in me before. Never. I'd had no idea how much it would hurt.

Not that he had any right. Of course, it was easy for him--father on the run, mother who hated Death Eaters anyway, boyfriend who was the most powerful protector anyone could possibly imagine--it's always been easy for Draco. He's been going where angels fear to tread from his first day at Hogwarts, and no one's ever really checked him. It just means that he couldn't have imagined what the rest of us were going through.

Millicent was her father's little slave, of course, and had always done as she was told. Vince and Greg hadn't the sense to be defiant. Blaise? He didn't care either way, as long as he got to kill someone. Theo had an amazing ability to silently disappear from unpleasant situations, which, alas, none of the rest of us possessed. And I? I was out of options.

"I hate muggles and mudbloods, too, Pansy," Draco informed me coldly. As if that tone had ever worked on me before. "It doesn't mean I'm ready to bow and scrape to a psychopath to get rid of them."

"Oh, well, bully for you, Malfoy!" I shouted, flinging my books to my desk with a bang. Draco jumped. I suppose I don't normally shout--unladylike, and what. I took a deep, calming sort of breath, pasted a sweet smile on my face, and turned to face him. He jumped again.

"Inconsistency, Draco," I purred. "You claim to hate mudbloods, but your little boyfriend is a mudblood, isn't he? And you would have been his adoring slave from the start, if he'd let you. So maybe you should remember who you really are, and stop lording it over me because the boy you pretend to be is more impressive than I am."

"Harry's not a mudblood," he snapped, predictably.

"Well, how else do you define it, Draco? He's certainly not pure--consider his mother. What would you call him? Pureblood-challenged?"

He didn't say anything. I like to maneuver people around until there's really nothing they can say. It pleases me.

"Anyway," I turned back to my bag, and continued aimlessly fiddling with things inside. "I don't really have anything against mudbloods. Well, not more than I have against anyone else, anyway."

"Pansy, why? Why are you doing this?"

I wanted to scream at him, but I have learnt self-restraint. Yes, yes I have. So I did not scream--I raised my voice. Delicately raised my voice.

"What else can I do, Malfoy? I can't run to your little boyfriend for safety. I can't pull all my money out of Gringotts before defecting, and live comfortably on that. I can't expect to receive silent support from my dear old mum. So what do you think I should do, Draco? Please tell me. Are you proposing to protect me? From my own family, I suppose, and what a joy that would be. Where would I stay after school, hmm? With you and your little lover? That would go over well--we all know how fond I am of Harry Potter, and, oh, vice-versa. I suppose I'd be living off his funds, would I? Dependent upon Harry Potter? I'd rather be tortured to death, thanks. And I probably will be, you know, if I get personally introduced to Our Lord, my loyalty being what it is, Legilimency being what it is. I've thought this through, Draco. I have. And there is no good way. I think I'll live longer this way, but, of course, if I live through, which I rather doubt, I'll just get locked up in Azkaban, because there's no way we'll win, with our superlatively incompetent leadership. I'll be locked up with my pride, and my knowledge that I didn't betray my family, which is more than can be said for you. That's all I'll have. I know that, Draco. I've always known where I stood. Haven't you? Haven't you always known that the rules didn't apply to you? Haven't you?"

I wasn't crying. All right, I was crying. Sobbing, even. Draco pulled me to him and hugged me. Draco Malfoy hugged me. He'd been spending far too much time with Gryffindors. He was whispering something into my hair that might have been I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I wasn't paying too much attention. I only noticed that Draco was shaking, and possibly shaking because he was worried about me. It was a novel concept--distracting. For a little piece of time, I managed to think about almost nothing else, and I suppose I ought to thank Draco for that. I won't, of course. But I ought to.

* * *

(Luna, 1998)

Seventh year

We shouldn't be surprised.

We had gotten complacent exactly when we shouldn't have. The children of Death Eaters got their Dark Marks last week--we knew that--Voldemort had blatantly shown his hand, and we strolled into Hogsmeade as if nothing had changed. Everything had changed. We should have known.

Dean was with us. We walked the same route we always walk--went to the same shops in the same order--you'd think that the Slytherin, at least, would have remembered that someone wanted Harry dead, and wouldn't be much bothered if the rest of us went along with him. But he didn't think of it. None of us did.

When we were coming out of Honeydukes and heard the scream from the Shrieking Shack, we did the desperately predictable thing and ran over to see what was wrong. It seemed highly unlikely that Remus was up there. The moon wasn't full, for a start.

The Gryffindors were off to save someone, the Ravenclaw was curious, and Draco... has been spending too much time with Harry.

We came around the side and saw a Death Eater--a very, very blond Death Eater. How many white-blond Death Eaters can there be? I couldn't help but check on Draco, and of course he looked sick. As we came further around, we saw that the Death Eater had his wand pointed at Ginny Weasley, who was backed up against the wall. Draco looked more sick.

The Death Eater cast a spell we couldn't hear, and Apparated away. Draco had cast Stupefy and Harry had cast the Cruciatus, but he was already gone.

Ginny stared at us, tears streaming down her cheeks, and we stared back at her for a horribly long moment. It was as if we'd all forgotten how to move, how to speak. She didn't look afraid, really. She looked apologetic. It was so strange. Dean finally moved forward, reaching out to her. I had an unworthy moment of jealousy.

Then Ginny exploded.

It looked as if her heart had burst, and then burst out of her chest. Her blood was everywhere--it covered Dean, and Harry and Draco and I were spattered. It looked like someone had set a small bomb in her ribcage--she arched against the wall unnaturally, screaming, and slid sideways to the ground. Dean ran to her as if there was still something he could do. He was yelling her name, over and over, hyperventilating until he finally fainted. It was almost a relief when he did, though the silence afterward was deafening.

I felt numb as I watched Harry touch Ginny's body briefly, pull Dean up without comment and heave him over a shoulder, turn back to me and Draco, and start to walk away.

I was stupid enough, then, to think that mourning my friend was all that I would have to do that day. Inasmuch as I could think at all, past the white noise in my brain.

Harry paused to look up at Draco, both faces set and expressionless, and Draco grabbed my arm. "Let's get out of here," he said calmly.

I pulled against him, not that it did any good. I looked back at Ginny's body, huddled forlorn and alone and very, very small against the Shack. She had never seemed so petite when she was alive. Her personality had filled the space. Not anymore.

"We can't just leave her," I insisted idiotically, pulling against him again as he marched me away. We couldn't help her, after all.

"We have no choice, Lovegood," Draco hissed, jerking my arm viciously. "Or what do you think the Ministry would do if they found us here?"

I paused again, this time in shock, and Draco tugged me along again impatiently. "But...but we didn't do anything wrong...and she was our friend," I protested feebly.

"And what does any of that have to do with anything?" he snarled. "The most powerful man in the Ministry finds Harry an uncooperative liability. Our best contact there is Arthur Weasley--a nobody, and not exactly on Harry's side lately because we got his wife killed, and, oh yes, his daughter too."

"But Dumbledore--"

Harry snickered unpleasantly. "That's right," he said. "Dumbledore. The man with the plan. How could I have forgotten him? He probably set this up himself. I'm becoming a bit too unpredictable for his tastes, aren't I? Probably wants someone else to take out the dirty laundry for him now."

"But the prophecy--"

"Honestly, Lovegood, use sense." Draco frowned down at me. "Who told Harry the prophecy? Think hard now."

I stopped in shock again. Draco wrenched my arm again. I hoped vaguely that he would dislocate that arm, so that maybe I would be able to pass out too.

"That's right." Draco sneered at my expression, and sounded bitterly satisfied. "No one has heard the prophecy. Forgotten that, had you? We have no idea what the prophecy really is."

I had forgotten. I had never thought about it at all. My mind knows not to trust Dumbledore, but my heart is slower to learn. Stupid.

It shouldn't matter, though. We shouldn't have to have a connection in the Ministry because...because we hadn't done anything wrong, and that had to count for something. For everything. Hadn't it?

"The Wizengamot. They let Harry off after the Dementors, didn't they?" I could feel myself grasping at straws.

"Ah, the Wizengamot." Draco and Harry smiled malevolently. Simultaneously. God, they're terrifying.

"They did let him off, that's true," Draco said. "Of course, they let him off for using magic underage--for self-defence purposes. A clearly Light spell. The epitome of a Light spell. No sane witch or wizard could fault them for that. But this? Standing bravely up and letting him slip past a murder charge? I doubt it. Besides which, Harry's best defender was Madam Bones, and she is. . .also dead. And you're asking the rest to risk not only their jobs, but also their lives--mob rule is in fashion this season, you know." We passed into the light woods at this edge of the Forbidden Forest. I supposed no one would see us there.

"Wouldn't they do it anyway--wouldn't they want to be, well, just? I mean, maybe Harry doesn't mean that much to them, but most of them seem like the kind of people who would worry about the Right Thing, you know." For a moment the surrealism of walking away from the dead body of a friend and discussing a group's devotion to their careers struck me, but then it was gone. The mind does try to protect itself from insanity, I suppose.

"Well, there's the crux of the matter," Draco responded. Harry was brooding silently, bent over a little, Dean bouncing on his shoulder like a rag doll. "Aside from the question of whether justice and law have anything to do with one another, where's the evidence that we're innocent? No one saw what happened, but I'm sure plenty of people saw us running up to the Shack. And perhaps walking away, covered in blood." He closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. "I can't believe we're so stupid."

"Veritaserum!" I said, thinking this was the obvious answer. Draco glared at me fiercely.

"Oh, yes. Veritaserum. 'So, tell us, Mr. Potter, have you ever killed anyone?' What's the answer to that, Lovegood?" Harry shuddered, and Dean shook in sympathy. Draco continued, "There's another suspicious thing--if we were innocent, why didn't we stay? Veritaserum could clear us, couldn't it? But no. The only innocent one here is Thomas. Maybe we should have left him...but you and I, we covered up a murder, Lovegood, even if it wasn't this one. And Harry, here--"

"We need to wash off," Harry cut in. "Think Thestrals or something will eat us if we go into the Forest?"

"I think it's a chance we have to take," Draco said, sounding exhausted rather than angry, at last. I suspected the anger had been easier for him. "It's going to look bad enough as is."

It's not real. None of it can be. It's absurd. We're not walking away from Ginny's body to wash off her blood. We're not on the run from the law. We're not running away from Hogwarts exactly according to Voldemort's plan. We're not. We can't be.

"Should we go back up to the castle, or just leave now?" Draco asked, taking Dean from Harry and stripping his bloody clothes off efficiently.

"Things to pack," Harry said, dipping his shirt in the stream and rubbing it with mud. "We won't get far without our brooms, for a start. Should probably look into food as well."

"You have the cloak?" Draco asked, using Harry's now-wet shirt to wipe Dean down, and making it bloody again. Not that the bloodstains had really come out.

"I have it. I can grab your stuff--Lovegood, tell me what you want as well. I'll make a guess at Dean. Or should we leave Dean?"

Draco shook his head. "Looking like this? The chance that he'll be Kissed before he's questioned is too great. No, we've dragged him down with us this time."

"Really? He's a student, not a convict."

"Troubled times, Harry. Is it a chance you want to take?"

Harry shook his head, then turned away and headed toward the castle, vanishing a few steps along.

Draco glanced briefly over at me. "Wash, Lovegood. Harry'll get you new clothes."

And this was my life.

I washed. I didn't know what else to do.

* * *

(Harry, 1998)

Professor Snape,

I'm not going to explain on paper why I'm leaving. You'll see soon enough, I guess. Apologize to my classes for me.

I know it's a terrible thing to ask you in the middle of the year--worse, in the middle of the semester--but I have to ask you to cover my Defence classes. Filius can cover your First year Potions, and maybe even Second year, but I don't want anyone but you taking Defence. I'm sorry.

My lesson plans are underneath this note. I don't expect you to follow them, of course--I just thought it would be easier on you. Use them if you want to.

I know you don't owe me anything, and I know...at least, I don't think you like me very much, but please, I've never asked you for anything before. Please teach them like they're all Slytherins--teach them well. We all need them to learn as much as they possibly can, because it won't be long now. You know that.

I don't blame you anymore. I know who to blame. I thought you should know.

HP.

* * *

(Dean, 1998)

I woke up, and Ginny was still dead.

I woke up, and I was bouncing on Harry's shoulder, my face mashed into a knapsack.

I woke up a fugitive.

I can see the logic of taking me, of course. It's worth their while to have one innocent among them. If the Ministry catches up with them, they have me for the Veritaserum interrogation. I can clear them of everything to do with Ginny--I was there. Maybe if I clear them, they won't all have to testify. Maybe if I clear them, certain...other skeletons ... might be left in the closet.

My mother always said I was too observant for my own good. It's too bad I'll probably die before I get a chance to tell her she was right.

Of course, if the Death Eaters catch us, rather than the Ministry, we're doomed, and I certainly won't be any help.

Harry brought my things. Harry brought my art stuff--all of it, even my exacto knife and twisted papers for blending pastels--he brought everything I wouldn't have expected any non-artist to think to bring.

He did not bring toothpaste or underwear. For anyone.

Harry Potter. Saviour of the Wizarding World.

Draco Malfoy walks with a glower. Perhaps if he focuses enough on berating himself, he'll be able to forget about what he just watched his father do. I wish him luck.

Luna. Luna is still sleepwalking. From the look on her face, the dreamscape is nightmarish.

Harry's shoulder must have been getting sore, because they've made me walk again. I can walk.

I think I may be in shock. Yes, this could be shock; this odd displacement, this lack of physical awareness. My mind has left my poor body behind. Left something behind. My soul, perhaps. My heart, bleeding next to the youngest Weasley's outside a shack in Hogsmeade. Something missing, something wrong.

Harry vanished and reappeared with a great deal of muggle money. If I had known I would soon be fleeing from all of the most powerful wizards in the world, I would have learned to Apparate as well.

We're indoors, and Draco's talking to someone. Harry's watching me and Luna; a border collie watching straying sheep.

We're moving again, up the stairs, and the stairs are narrow and dark, and they smell of damp and sawdust and mold and disuse. Harry and Draco are making plans and plots. Someone leads me to a bed, pushes me down onto it. I sink into sleep to the sounds of panicked voices in low tones, and suppose it's too much to hope that I won't wake up tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I will have to respond. Tomorrow it will become real. Tomorrow will be a new and horrible world.

My dreams, like Luna's, are plagued with nightmares.

* * *

(Severus Snape, 1998)

Harry Potter has written me a note.

A simple, short note.

Does he have any idea what he's done? No, I'm certain he hasn't. The idiot boy never has recognized his effect on others.

Take this wrinkled bit of parchment, Severus Snape. Take forgiveness and understanding, take trust and absolution. For no reason you will ever understand, take everything you have ever wanted. And know, even as you do, that the person who gave you this gift is throwing himself into mortal danger because you were not strong enough to save him.

Take a new and exquisite form of torture.

I'll teach his classes, of course. I'll teach his classes, and nothing Albus Dumbledore can do will stop me. Not this time. He won't prevent me from fulfilling this vow I never had the chance to make. A vow to protect and heal and strengthen. A vow unlike any I have ever made before, but I find the change is. . .intensely welcome.

And even as I fulfill this vow, I'll know that it cannot redeem my failure with Harry Potter. My failure to protect. Another vow I never had the chance to make, yet still managed to break.

I do know why he's fled, and though I don't know how, I'm convinced that Albus arranged it. How many bizarre stratagems can he have left, after all? He'd created his murderer, but he had to force him away from the only home he'd ever known in order to murder the correct man. How vexing that must have been.

I can imagine his debates with himself. Should he destroy the school? Abduct Potter's closest friends and force him to go in search of them? Cause Potter to rely on him absolutely, fake his own death, and as his "dying request" ask Potter to leave the school and pursue Voldemort?

By comparison to some of his more labyrinthine schemes, framing Potter for a murder seems almost elegant. Now his perfect killer is on the run from the Ministry for a murder he didn't commit. Albus must be loving the irony of it. I suppose I can only thank the gods that he didn't choose to involve me in the setup of this fiasco.

I will teach Harry Potter's classes for as long as it will be useful, but I will never allow myself to be used again. I've done enough damage for several lifetimes as Albus Dumbledore's tool, and I can't imagine any punishment that would make my life more painful than it is. Death, of course, would be a relief. I admit. . .I am tired of fighting.

* * *

(Harry, 1998)

We finally got Luna and Dean tucked away in a bedroom. Draco is exhausted. This seedy little bed-and-breakfast couldn't be further from what he's used to...but I don't know if that's helping or hurting. I don't really know what could help.

We've slumped onto the bed Dean and Luna aren't in. I'm just waiting for Draco to say something. He'll have something to say. He always has something to say.

"Our match was next week."

Quidditch. Yes. I think everything else is too big to talk about just now. I put my arm around him and pull him close to me, and we stare at Dean and Luna, asleep on the ratty bed with the wrinkled, yellowish sheets.

"I've been waiting for that match for two years, Harry. I should have had that. He should have let me have that much."

I sigh and rest my head against his shoulder. He should have let you have the Quidditch match. Yes. He should have loved you, he should have had a sense of decency, he should have left all of us alone, he should never have joined Voldemort in the first place. Should have.

"Slytherin was going to win this time, Potter."

I snigger quietly into his shoulder, and I can feel some of the tension flow out of him.

"We were! I've been practicing twice as often as you for ages. You were going to be toast. The stands would have gone wild, the fans would have screamed--"

"Would they have sung 'Malfoy is Our King'?"

"Very funny. I'll have you know that song was a work of genius."

"Mmm. Of course it was. The average five-year-old would never have come up with that."

"Shut up, Potter."

I smile and pull myself up to face him. "You know I'm only kidding, Draco. I think you're lovely and clever and witty and marvelous."

He eyes me suspiciously, and says, "I hate you, Potter." Then he smiles, and it throws everything slightly off. We turn away awkwardly, uncomfortable somehow, and go back to watching Luna and Dean sleep.

"What are we going to do now?" Because he won't come any closer to mentioning his father. He won't talk about Ginny, and he won't remind me that he didn't want to go into Hogsmeade this--God, this--morning. He won't remind me that this is my fault, because he doesn't think it is. It's the way he is.

"We'd better stay with muggles. I'm supposed to be siding with Voldemort, and you're a Death Eater's son--they'll never expect us to be hiding in the muggle world."

He leans toward me again, so that his shoulder is just touching mine. "That takes care of the people who ought to be on our side. What about the real bad guys?"

"Well. They know you, too."

"Yes, but they have no faith in me anymore. Look at all the mad things I've let you talk me into! I'm clearly mental, so there's no telling what I might do. I could be dancing naked in the rain with muggles, for all they know."

"Thank you for that mental image, Draco."

"Anytime."

"We won't use magic. They'll have nothing to trace--and it's not going to be exactly easy to find us. We could be anywhere. Without magic, we're just a bunch of anonymous muggles."

He nods, and pulls me down on the grimy bed with him. I put my head on his chest; listen to his voice rumble through it. "We'll look at maps tomorrow?"

"Hmm," I mumble, sleep suddenly seeming a much better idea. "We can take a muggle bus. I can't wait to see your face when you see one..."

He tightens his arms around me. "How much money do we have?"

"Good exchange rate on Galleons right now. Probably enough for a year, if we're careful. It was all the money I could fit into a bag, after all. Gringotts obviously isn't going to let me go back now. . .but we should have a year."

His arms loosen slightly, and he absently runs a hand up and down my back. "A year. Good," he says.

He doesn't ask me what I think we'll do after a year. He doesn't ask what my ultimate plan is. He doesn't point out that Voldemort will have to be dead before any of us can have any sort of peace. He doesn't mention that all the research I could have done at Hogwarts cannot be done in the middle of muggledom.

He doesn't ask, even though he doesn't know that I've done all the research I need to do. He doesn't know that all I have to do now is talk myself into doing what has to be done. What's necessary.

I'm running away, I know. I can't bring myself to do anything else. Maybe Draco's right. Maybe I should have been in Slytherin. I'm not being very Gryffindor, just now.

* * *

(Draco, 1998)

He slides into the sheets, and curls toward me. He's a little cool from having been out in the night air, but I don't mind. He's back. I can feel myself relax for the first time all evening.

Harry and Thomas--the muggle-raised among us--had gone out to get food and information. I never know what to do about these trips. If I hold him back, he'll run mad and get himself killed. If I don't hold him back, he'll stay sane...and probably get himself killed. He won't let me go with him, no matter how often I argue--or try to sneak out undetected.

I can't win.

He's back now, though. He survived. I get one more day.

He nuzzles my neck, and slips one hand under my shirt. Slowly, tentatively, he caresses my stomach. I don't stop him, and so, after a moment, he slides one leg up mine, edging closer until I can feel that he's getting hard. The outdoor chill has already left his skin.

It's always like this--these careful touches, this painfully slow approach, as if he can't really believe I'm allowing him the liberty. With him, seduction is always a silent question. As far as I can recall, I've never denied him.

With my mute encouragement, he's moved to kissing. This, too, is a ritual; one of my favourites. He kisses his way over my entire body, removing clothing as he comes to it. It's as if the touch of his lips is his only true sense, and he needs to use it every so often to reassure himself that I'm real. His lips pass gently over my fingers, over the inside of my arm, across my collarbone. Whispers.

I remember our first time. I remember him falling apart in front of me. I remember thinking in almost-terror that I would do anything he asked of me--and even then, even then the feel of those lips, the knowledge of his burning desire to own me, was arousing. Now he is almost happy, and the sensation is overwhelming.

I prefer my hands to my lips--to feel him and hold him and guide him. My fingers know every detail of that skin far better than my eyes ever will. I strip off the obstructing clothing piece by piece, and relearn what I already know by heart. The smooth planes of his shoulder blades, the exact point his hair trails off at the back of his neck, every rough spot that is the legacy of a miserable childhood; I touch them, trace them, claim them. If he'll never show me all of his mind, at least he trusts me with every secret of his body.

He whispers a spell I taught him one horrible night a lifetime ago, and slips his fingers into me. This feeling, of being held and filled and invaded and violated and protected and loved--this is also traditional.

He takes his time, as he always does, and I end up gasping and writhing and cursing him for a teasing bastard, as I always do. He slides into me at last, eyes tight-closed and biting his lip.

He refuses to do this unless he can face me. He won't tell me why, so I can only guess. It could be that he's afraid of hurting me, and wants to watch and make sure he's not--but if that's the case, why does he always close his eyes at first? Perhaps he wants to see my face open with pleasure when he's in me, or when I'm in him--though sex is hardly the only time I'm openly happy to be with him. Maybe he needs to remind himself who he's fucking--but that's absurd. Could be he just likes my expression when I come. I don't know.

What I know, beyond any shadow of doubt, is that the moment I start moving with him, his eyes fly open and his lips part in a gasp, and he stares at me like a mortal sinner watching his only hope of heaven. It happens every time. The expression is even more arousing than the friction--which would be quite enough on its own. Sometimes I close my eyes to avoid his look; to make it last longer. Not this time. This time, I want to see it all, even as my breathing turns rough, and my world tries to narrow to the feel of molten fire in my groin. I mean to cherish what I won't be permitted to keep.

It has to end. All good things do. We rock together desperately, and he gasps and shudders and comes, and I follow him. He pulls out when I wish he would stay in, but I forgive him a moment later as he slowly slides up my body, indifferent to the mess, scatters kisses over my face, and then cuddles into me, face buried in the curve of my neck and shoulder.

I don't think anyone would have pegged Harry Potter as a cuddler. But there it is.

Soon I'll have to persuade him to get up and clean off, and in so doing remind him of the world of unpleasantness that exists outside this room. For now, though, I can hold him, warm and breathing unevenly against my neck, ignoring everything not directly related to us. For now, I can stay here with him inside the illusion of security we've created. For now, he's the only thing I want in the world, and he's resting safe in my arms.

For now, it's enough.

* * *

(Harry, 1998)

December thirty-first. The death of another year.

This afternoon, Dean Thomas killed Lucius Malfoy with a kitchen knife covered in strawberry jam. Someone should find it funny.

No one does.

Six months reprieve. We were lucky to get so much.

Luna feels that this is her fault. She's wrong, of course. She was being chased by a Death Eater, so she headed home. That, she feels, is why they found us. She didn't consider that they had already found her, and so were already in this small Muggle town with nothing else in it to attract them. She didn't think.

They had already found us. The axe was raised, but it hadn't fallen. It fell on Luna.

Through a similarly logic-defying thought process, both Luna and Dean seem to feel that, since Draco has burned Lucius's body, the problem is equally ashes upon the wind.

Innocence. I think I miss it.

Death Eaters never work alone, you know. Lucius won't report back. Someone will become suspicious. They'll send a group, this time. We won't be able to do anything to stop it.

We should leave the house. I know we should. Draco knows we should. But we've been running...for so long. We should at least send Dean and Luna away, but we won't. Why? Because we're selfish, maybe, and want the comfort of their presence as we die, or because we feel that they deserve to stay until the end, having stayed so long. Because we know that they can't be as oblivious as they seem, and that they know as well as we do what's coming--and they aren't running, either. Maybe innocence is the wrong word for what they have. Perhaps capacity for self-delusion is their true gift. Either way, I envy them.

So now I'm sitting on the back porch, waiting for my death. It's nearly dark.

Draco sits next to me.

Despite everything, I'm comforted by his presence. His warmth makes me realize how cold the porch is, and I lean into him. He leans back into me, and I start to worry even before he begins whispering.

Questions, hopeless questions, painful questions. Questions of a lost child.

"Was it wrong to burn him, Harry?"

"No, love. He was already dead. I don't think he'd have wanted to rot."

Draco nods earnestly. "He would have hated decomposing. Very unattractive. Also, giving back to the soil. No. He wouldn't have liked it at all." I ignore the way his voice is wavering.

"You vain Malfoys," I say. Draco nods again, looking away.

"He loved me as much as he could love anyone, didn't he?" he asks suddenly.

No, he isn't asking. He's begging.

"Of course he did, Draco. Of course. You were his only son. He might have been angry with you, but how could he help loving you above anything?"

"You're right. It's just logic. He had to love me."

His words sound strong, but he turns his face into my shoulder and wraps his arms around me in a completely uncharacteristic way. I pretend not to feel the tears seeping through my shirt.

Just a boy crying for his father.

They come for us at midnight precisely. For dramatic effect, I'm sure. Draco has fallen asleep on my shoulder. Dean and Luna are standing silently in the doorway. None of us put up any sort of fight. Conserving our strength, I guess. Or passively trying to commit suicide before we're pulled back into the world that spawned us. Something.

The red light of a curse heads toward me. Stunned, I realize. I'm about to be Stunned. Not killed after all.

I'm so tired.