He Said

He Said

by Rae

His gray eyes met my green ones and I knew that I was scaring him. This, my behavior, wasn't how I normally was. I held him, but it was at a distance, and I kept looking around, to the sides of us, behind me. And I was not being brave, which was what everyone had come to expect, that Harry Potter will always be brave.

And I saw him trying to put on his patented Malfoy smirk, but it was faltering, because his worry was shining through, and I so badly wanted to kiss him.

"This isn't how it's supposed to be, Harry," he said, voice soft and uncertain. He looked sounded felt like he was pained and I wanted to gather him into my arms, hold him close and kiss away his uncertainties in my warm arms.

Instead there was this far length between us, there would always be as long as this was our only option. We were face to face, bodies nearly touching, our breaths mingled, but there was an endless forever way to go before we could really be together.

"Run away with me," I suggested. Closing my eyes for a moment, I imagine it and it was perfect. Reaching out, I clasped his small, delicate hands tightly. "We'll go, just go, and no one will know where to. In a few days you and I will wake up, the sound of rain hitting the tin roof above us, a cat asleep at our feet-"

"I like dogs," he interrupted, eyes shining. Was he imagining what it would be like? He's so hard to read, so hard to understand, but somehow I always managed to. Still, in this situation I just wasn't sure of his response.

"All right," I began again. "A dog asleep at your feet, curled up in a fur-kissed circle, the smell of the country, fresh and clean. I'll read you to sleep at night, Muggle fairy tales that you've never heard before, you'll take me out for walks. Or we'll go to a beach, let the sand dance and shift between our toes, feel the sun as it hugs our bodies, pick up seashells that will whisper their secrets in our ears. Every morning I'll make you tea, any flavor you'd like, and prepare a bowl full of fresh washed fruit, and you'll make pancakes that we'll top in as much syrup as we like. Then I'll lead you back to bed and kiss you and kiss you and kiss you, we'll lie under cotton blankets together and laugh about the day, tell bad jokes, you'll make fun of me in as rude and vain a way as possible."

His eyes were closed then too, his breathing soft and hitched.

"Run away," I urged and squeezed his hands gently with my own. "He won't won't find us."

I thought of Ron and Hermione and Hagrid, who I would have to give up. But if I didn't...I could lose him. And I wouldn't allow that. I would not lose Draco. Not after everything it had taken to get him in the first place.

And then his lovely eyes opened and fixed on mine again, as he breathed, "Yes."