Haunted

Haunted

Long lost words whisper slowly to me

Still can't find what keeps me here

When all this time I've been so hollow inside

I know you're still there

Watching me wanting me

I can feel you pull me down

Fearing you loving you

I won't let you pull me down

Hunting you I can smell you - alive

Your heart pounding in my head

Watching me wanting me

I can feel you pull me down

Saving me raping me

Watching me

Song and lyrics by Evanescence

Harry Potter sat, huddling in a blanket, on his cheap sofa in a small apartment in Muggle London. His body shook with violent sobs, and his brilliantly green eyes were dark, wide but unseeing. Tears stood in them but did not fall, for fear of opening the floodgates of seventeen years of pain and trauma.

It had been a month since the war. A month since the cold, white snow, virgin and innocent, was flecked with the blood of good and evil. Voldemort was dead. Dumbledore was dead. Ron and Hermione were dead. Everybody from Hogwarts had been killed - all but him.

Each death cut into him like a white-hot knife laced with poison into his soul, but none of them wounded him as badly as the last. The last man Voldemort killed before Harry's eyes. The last murder before Harry's years of rage broke and he lashed out at Voldemort, dropping his wand and beating him to death with his bare hands. The last image to stay ingrained in Harry's mind for as long as he would live.

The death of his love, and his last shreds of sanity.

* ~ * ~ *

Beams of light shot every which way, screams and howls ripping trough the icy night, the pure snow stained red-black. Harry was jostled back and forth by oblivious wizards and witches, good and bad, blocking and sending spells by autopilot while his mind screamed in silent terror.

Then he saw him. Tall, robed in black, slitted nostrils flaring and red eyes glittering. "Potter," he hissed. "How lovely of you to join me. I had hoped you would be here to see this." The hideous face split into a grotesque smile as the Dark Lord's wand hand whipped out at a pale figure nearby.

"No," Harry whispered.

"Crucio!" He screamed, and the body crumpled to the ground, platinum blond hair dipping into the spilled blood. Silver eyes reflected the moon, and ghostly lips opened into a scream as delicate hands and limbs reached out in blind agony, back arching off the ground and contorting into impossible angles.

"DRACO!" Harry cried, rushing over to the boy's mangled body, cradling the tossing head in bloodstained hands. "No, no, no," he murmured, "no, you can't die, you can't leave me, not after all we've been through, you can't!"

A solitary tear escaped from the corner of one eye, and Harry desperately kissed it away. "You'll be fine, I won't... I won't let you..."

"How touching," Voldemort sneered. "Avada-"

"Damn you, you bastard!" Harry jumped to his feet, but it was too late.

"-Kedavra!" The green light shot through the air and caught Draco straight in the chest. All movement ceased, and a white hand fell to the snow.

Harry could remember little else of that night.

* ~ * ~ *

In his darkening apartment, Harry sat, unblinking, unmoving, just silently shaking and reliving the night for the thousandth time.

__________

Midnight. Harry had fallen asleep on the couch. Now he peered around in the darkness, searching for the disturbance that had awakened him.

"Harry," came a whispered voice.

Harry's head shot to the left, toward the kitchen. "Who's there?" He asked cautiously.

"Haaaarryyyyy..."

"Who's there?" He demanded more forcefully, drawing his wand. "Come out or I'll hex you into oblivion!"

Laughter. "Now, is that really what you want to do? It's been so long, Harry. Too long."

His breath caught in his throat. There was no way; how could it be possible?

"Come on, Harry. Just like old times, hmm?"

Harry felt himself be pushed back on the couch. His glasses slid off his face and came to rest on the coffee table, as the button and zip of his trousers came undone.

"Just like old times."

"Who are you?" Harry croaked. "What are you doing? Why can't I see you?"

"Relax, love. All will be made clear to you... in time."

Something cold ran down the side of his face, across his forehead.

"Your scar is gone. Curious. I had wondered..."

The cold feeling continued, across his lips, down his neck, alien and yet so familiar. Finally his lips came into full contact with the presence, and were forced apart by a not-quite-solid thing that slid across his tongue, making him gasp. A second cold thing - Harry had begun to assume the thing was human-like, and thus guessed it to be a hand - crept down his side and came to rest between his midriff and the hem of his trousers. A shudder rippled through Harry's body. Wrong, this was wrong, but it felt so right, so familiar -

"No!" He yelled, forcing the presence away. "Knock it off! I don't know who you are or where you came from, but you have no right to be here and you had better leave me the hell alone!"

"Oh, you know me, Potter. Don't pretend you don't. It has been a while, yes, but not that long. You remember, yes, you do, I can feel it."

Whatever it was, it seemed to be growing stronger, feeding off of Harry's energy. A vague, shimmery outline of a body was visible as it moved to straddle his waist, one knee on either side, and kissed him harder, almost violently. Harry reached out to push it away, but his wrists were caught and held above his head. Another hand reached inside Harry's trousers again and began stroking him. Harry's back arched, an involuntary moan escaping his lips. "No," he gasped. "No, wait, stop - "

The semi-visible body stopped, and seemed to become less transparent and more opaque by the second. A flash of silver shone from where the face was.

Harry's eyes widened as the face resolved itself into the familiar features of his lost love. "Draco?" He whispered.

Still faintly translucent lips curled into a small smile. "Hey, love," he said, then bent forward to kiss Harry again. This time he didn't refuse. Still-cold but more solid hands lifted Harry's shirt off, and began tracing patterns on his chest, his stomach, trailing up and down his sides, crawling up his spine... Harry gasped again and pulled him closer, despite the chill of the not-quite-skin against his.

"Draco..." he murmured. "You're so cold."

Lips pressed against his collarbone, flitted lightly along his neck, then moved on to his shoulders, and finally paused long enough to reply. "Harry, that's what happens when you die."

Die? His mind echoed. Die? Wait a minute.

But apparently ghosts weren't telepathic, or else Draco was ignoring him, because his hand had wriggled itself back into Harry's trousers and Harry's mind was having trouble sticking to a particular train of thought at all.

"Come with me, Harry," Draco whispered in between strokes and kisses. "Come, come for me, and come with me. There is nothing here for you now. Come with me."

Harry cried out as he came, and then Draco was gone, and Harry's eyes glazed over as his heart stopped beating.

Death had not been able to keep the lovers apart, and now nothing ever would.