Casualties of War

They always meet at night, using the cover of darkness to hide what exactly it is they're doing; bodies arching, hands grasping, mouths clinging. But they hide mostly from who they are doing it with. We could never do this during the day, Draco says often, running his tongue over any part of Harry's body that he can reach: his face, his neck, lower. They would never understand.

Yes, Harry always agrees, arching up to meet Draco's wandering hands and mouth and allowing his own to explore the boy above him, letting his fingers and tongue and teeth touch every part of that pale skin. Pale as moonlight, and just as hard to catch. He pretends for the moment that he has caught the boy who the skin belongs to, marked him, claimed his soul just as Harry's own soul as been claimed by him. But he is not sure it is ever to be so.

He knows that Draco says these things simply to make Harry feel as thought he has something to lose. He doesn't. In truth, Harry has nothing that would be lost. He is the Boy Who Lived, after all, and until he succeeds in killing Voldemort once and for all, the wizarding world must accept his decisions, whether or not it agrees. The only real worry would be that his two best friends would desert him if they found out, but he knows that will never happen. Ron and Hermione might be angry for awhile, but as theirs is a truly wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime friendship and the two could never cut him out of it. They would come around, and the friendship would mend. No, it is only Draco who would lose anything, as the other boy well knows and thinks he is hiding from Harry. Draco, who is looking out for himself first and foremost, and always has. Harry understands. Not only would Draco lose the respect and adoration of his Housemates--for the Prince of Slytherin cannot be gay, it is simply preposterous--there would be repercussions at home. On his fifteenth birthday Lucius pulled his son aside and told him in a firm voice that he hardly cared who or what Draco was shagging, as long as he married a well-bred pureblood witch and carried on the Malfoy line. Any public exploits would be dealt with accordingly. Draco suspects that his nightly escapades with Harry Potter would mean that he would be disowned at the very least, and the thought of living without money scares him almost as much as death. Draco would be surprised to learn just how much Harry really knows about him, for he has never told Harry anything personal. But Harry has become a rather skilled Leglimens, and Draco doesn't need to tell him these things for Harry to know them.

It is because of this that Harry is under no illusion that Draco loves him enough to go against his father, or to think that he will wake up one morning and decide to join the Light in the war against Voldemort. Rather, he will marry some pureblood princess as expected produce an heir as expected, and on the eve of his graduation from Hogwarts will receive the Dark Mark, as expected, binding himself fully and forever to the very one Harry will have to kill. When the time comes, he will fight for his master. He will face his former lover on the battlefield and he will not falter.

Harry does not hate Draco for this, nor does he feel betrayed. It is his destiny, what he was born for, just as surely as Harry was born to defeat him and his master. For just as Draco will find himself a new life, so will Harry. He does not believe he will ever marry; his time with Draco has succeeded in destroying that dream, at least. There will, however, be other lovers, many of them as Harry tries to get Draco out of his system, tries to drive the taste and feel and smell of him from his mind as he would a nightmare. He is unsure whether he will succeed in that particular endeavor. Only time will tell. But when he meets Draco again on the field of battle, he will not hesitate to kill him.

This Harry knows, just as he knows the last of his soul will die with the other man, that the last breath that passes through the blonde's lips will mark the end of the old Harry, the Harry he is now, and the start of a new Harry, a Harry he never wanted to become. In this way Draco shall have his revenge, for the Harry who cared about the world will have died as surely as Draco himself, leaving nothing but a shell behind. Yes, they shall both do their duty, with the price being that they lose the thing that makes them who they are. Such are the casualties of war.

This Harry knows...but right now, with Draco's mouth covering his...with Draco's hands all over his body...with Draco inside him and over him and all around him...crying and pleading and promising and needing and hurting and loving and!--he just cant bring himself to care.