Soft Breath

"To fall in love is easy, even to remain in it is not difficult; our human loneliness is cause enough. But it is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to be."

--Anna Louise Strong

Draco Malfoy couldn't sleep. The steady fall of the rain kept him awake long past midnight, grey eyes staring into the silver canopy of the bed and his arms under his head, as if he was lying out in the gardens of Malfoy Manor and watching the stars.

A gentle touch on his cheek caused him to look over into translucent blue eyes. Transparent fingers flitted across his smooth face before gently resting on Draco's lips. Draco closed his eyes.

He felt a gentle pressure on his lips, and though Draco wanted to kiss the beautiful lips back so badly, he restrained himself. He couldn't. His hand found its way to the air right above the other's cheek, and he sighed in vain. The xanthochroid wanted to touch him so badly, but he couldn't. The motion could never work. His hand cupped the air around the other's cheek, even with his eyes still closed, and had he been able to cup the other's cheek, his hand would have made a perfect fit.

Tears escaped the closed eyes, and Draco turned his head away.

Why can't I stop loving you? he thought. Why does love hurt so much?

Gentle lips descended over his wet face in a vain attempt to kiss the tears away.

How can you still love me back?

"You killed me, Draco, I don't deny it. But I can't stop loving you," the other young man said. "I never could. You were my weakness."

And you mine.

"Take me."

"You know I can't."

"It doesn't matter. Take me."

***

Harry Potter inquired the doctor. "How's he doing?"

"Mr. Potter, I'm afraid he still can't be released. Nothing's changed. He still sees his so-called 'spirit'."

Harry turned his head away sadly. "I thought he might be able to let go," he murmured.

"Would you like to see him?" the doctor asked.

"Yes."

The older man led Harry down twists and turns before stopping in front of a door.

"Are you sure, Mr. Potter?"

"Just open the door, doctor," Harry replied.

They found Draco lying atop the sheets, his boxers by him on the cum-splattered bed. Harry saw a glint of blue, though he dismissed it as a trick of the sunlight, conveniently forgetting that the room had no windows.

"Draco," he whispered longingly.

***

"Draco, they're here," he whispered in the blonde's ear.

"Not the bloody Boy Who Lived," Draco groaned back quietly.

"It's him. He always had a fancy for you, you know."

"It doesn't matter. No one can compare to you."

"I'll be back tonight, Draco," he said before detaching himself from Draco's loose embrace.

"Blaise...don't go. Stay for me," he said back, and both the doctor and Harry heard this.

"He's hopeless, Mr. Potter," the doctor told Harry, who looked down.

"I try so hard, Draco...Why can't you forget about him?"

When the doctor ushered him out of Ward Omega 8 of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, he heard Draco say, "Because I love him. He may have died for me, but his soul is still here."

Everyone thought that Draco went crazy with Blaise Zabini's death. No one knew that the blue-eyed spirit who went to Draco every night was real, more real than the world itself.