Philophobia

Chapter Two

"I didn't really get the chance to thank you for what you did," Harry began awkwardly. The two hadn't spoken since coming outside, and Draco looked at the green-eyed boy sideways.

"You did. In the locker room."

Harry bit his lip. "Well, not properly, I didn't. I was kind of out of it, and you were--"

"Listen, I appreciate the gesture, but if this is all you came to talk to me about, I'm afraid you're wasting your afternoon." Draco's silver-blonde hair lifted off his forehead in a gust of frigid wind. The Slytherin cursed, and tugged his cloak tighter about his body.

"Oh." Harry looked down at the path they were walking along with a small frown for the dead leaves strewn across it. He still found it hard to believe he'd come back to school at all this year. Everything that had happened to him so far seemed but a gloomy dream that he had yet to wake from. This part, however...

He chanced a glance at Draco and discovered the other boy peering at him sideways again from under the light bangs that had settled back onto his forehead with the fleeing wind. Their eyes met for a moment, and then Draco looked away and Harry tripped over a fallen tree branch. Draco caught him by the arm as though he'd known it was going to happen and held him upright until he got over the shock.

"T-thanks again," Harry said falteringly. "That's twice I owe you."

"You don't owe me anything," Draco said shortly. He released Harry's arm, and walked on. "I probably owe you, in fact."

"For what?" inquired Harry, jumping to stay with him. He was dying to know more about his mysterious companion. He thought he'd known what Draco was like, but apparently, he'd been mistaken. After that day in October when Draco had found Harry standing over Blaise Zabini's dead body, something had changed in both of them. Draco had stopped being... well... Draco. And Harry had lost a part of himself in Blaise's death that was impossible to replace. They were no longer Malfoy and Potter: rivals, but Draco and Harry: trying to find themselves without each other. It was a strange thought.

"For not killing me, I suppose," Draco replied nonchalantly. His heavy dragonhide boots crunched through the leaves littering the ground. Harry marveled at the normalcy in his tone, and the utter lack of tension between them. It appeared that they could hold a normal conversation, after all.

He wondered darkly if this was his reward for killing Blaise.

"You?" Harry echoed, laughter beneath his voice. Draco cut his eyes at him in a disapproving frown, and Harry quickly stopped.

"Sorry," he said, and looked down again. "I guess I'm not myself still."

"No," Draco murmured. "You're too much like yourself. Don't you ever change, Harry?"

"I guess not," Harry replied distantly, suddenly depressed. It wasn't true of course. He had changed far more than he let anyone see. There was something inside of him now, a snarling animal shrieking to be released, and he was terrified at the thought of it surfacing.

"What did you want to talk about then?" his companion said at last, stopping beneath a particularly big old oak, its bark craggy and stained by the rain. Harry stopped beside him, and the two both looked down at their shoes instead of at each other.

"Ron didn't want me to do this," Harry admitted, toeing the dirt.

"Then why are you here?"

He was silent for a moment.

"I don't know. I feel like I owe you something."

"You don't. She made me do it, I told you."

"Oh. I forgot."

Draco folded his hands together and gave pensive thought to the real reason he was out here. Harry's eyes, looking at him back there in the dungeons, had burned. It was clear that the Gryffindor was struggling with some part of himself, and Draco suspected that Harry thought he would know how to help him deal with it. Considering how much he'd changed and all.

"Listen, what exactly happened that night?" Draco asked bluntly. "I don't really understand any of it. All I know is that Ginny told me I could help, and somehow I did."

Harry looked up at Draco - a blank gaze seeing past him - then focused and shook his head.

"It's complicated," he sighed.

Draco promptly did something most uncharacteristic of the old him, and sat down on the ground.

"I've got time," he said, and gestured at Harry.

Harry gaped, then took the hint and sat down as well, carefully tucking his cloak beneath his legs.

"Well," he began slowly. "I knew Voldemort was up to something again because my scar was..."

His voice faded away and he looked at Draco uncertainly, wondering how to change the story so the Slytherin would connect to it better. Somehow, he knew that no matter how much Draco had changed, he could probably care less if Harry's head literally split open because of Voldemort and his scar. He started again.

"I had a dream about Blaise in the forest. Well, not a dream. A vision. Sort of like a Diviner's vision, only it happened while I was asleep. They come sometimes because of this." He touched the scar on his forehead, and Draco nodded silently, looking a little amused. "We were in danger," Harry went on. "Everyone was. And nobody else in the school knew about it. Someone was coming to kill us all. I saw Blaise--standing in the forest--and his sending up of the Dark Mark was the signal that brought on our destruction.

"When I woke up that morning... I knew I had to do something. I went down to the forest and waited."

"You waited?" Draco was incredulous with his eyebrows raised. "You waited for him all day?"

Harry nodded in bewilderment. "Yeah," he said, "why?"

"Merlin, you're such a Gryffindor," Draco sighed. He looked over at Harry and suddenly the other boy's innocently confused look made him grin.

Harry couldn't help echoing his smile. "So I don't see the big picture very well." He shrugged. "The point is I was there when he came, and I stopped him before he could do anything. Nothing really happened. We had a tussle, I broke his wand, he tried to attack me anyway, and I--"

"Killed him." Draco watched Harry's eyes fade from their usual brightness and become foggy with memory.

"I killed him," he murmured. "Yes. I did."

"And then I came along..." Draco nudged Harry along.

"Right." Harry seemed to wake up again. "You came and caught me red-handed. I was sort of in a trance, wondering what to do next, but not really caring much what happened. And then you showed me just what I had done. What I was capable of. I suppose it jogged me back to reality. I was... overwhelmed by my actions."

"Heh. Which made you drop into a dead faint in my arms?" Draco grinned again, somewhat sadistically. Harry rolled his eyes.

"Yeah. So I passed out. It's not a big deal, Draco."

"You didn't get all flustered." Draco raked his gaze across Harry's face. "Are we really over everything then?"

"I gave you my hand, didn't I?" Harry pointed out. "Look, Draco, I don't want to fight any more. It's not worth the effort especially since I stopped caring about it a long time ago."

For some reason, Draco's grey eyes narrowed. The Slytherin glanced away into the trees, and a vivid red blush spread across his cheekbones. Harry tried to stifle his bafflement, and was unsuccessful.

"What's the matter? What did I say?" he asked anxiously, aware that he'd just offended his companion. The missing tension sprang taut between them. Draco shook his head, and his lips pursed into a thin frown. "Whatever it was, I didn't mean--"

"Yes, you did!" Draco started to his feet, and Harry was astonished to see the other boy's hands clenched in fists at his sides. His blonde hair whipped wildly about his face as the wind gusted up again, and Draco spat, "I don't care what I meant to you, Potter. Everyone knows I meant nothing to you. Mean nothing to you. You shook my hand for your public image, and I went along with it, thinking, oh, maybe Ginny was right about the whole world-seeing-me-in-a-new-light explanation. But now I see that I was wrong. Again. I could give a fuck less about Blaise and what you did, but I thought I'd at least get the chance to start over out of it. To be someone else. And it turns out, everyone has already forgotten about me. They've forgotten who I used to be, and no matter who I try to become, they won't see me. I've already been dismissed. Fuck you very much; I think I'll go back to being someone they see." He spun around on his heel and began to stalk away, back towards the school.

What? Harry thought. He got up too and began to follow the other boy. "Draco, I don't know what you're talking about. Everyone thinks it's great that you--"

Draco whirled around, voice cracking as he yelled, "Great that I pulled you back from a potential disaster? Or that I brought you back to reality? What the hell good does that do me, Potter? No one treats me differently. They ignore me!"

Harry pulled up short in front of him. "But... they don't really feel that way, I'm sure," he mumbled, staring at Draco's boots. Draco snarled, and pushed a hand against Harry's shoulder, making him stumble backwards a few steps.

"Wake up, Harry. Not everyone has the whole world in their pocket like you do."

Harry felt like Draco had slapped him. What was the matter with him? He was acting as if Harry had killed his pet owl or something... "Don't push me," he said, looking up at Draco through hooded eyes. Draco raised his eyebrows.

"Oh? Still have some fight left in you, then?" He placed both of his hands on Harry's shoulders and deliberately shoved him down the path. "I hate you," he growled. "I don't know why I ever helped you."

Something exploded inside Harry's chest. For one brief and shining moment, he had contemplated just leaving Draco to it and walking away, but the other boy had pushed him too far with those last words; literally. And here he had been thinking he could make a friend out of Draco.

"I said, DON'T PUSH ME!"

He charged forward and slammed into Draco, knocking the Slytherin off his feet and into the dirt. Immediately Draco responded, meeting him punch for punch, and kick for kick. The two of them wrestled through the dirt and the leaves, their cloaks tearing away from their shoulders. Draco caught flashes of Harry's scowling face and hated him all the more. He rolled over and pummeled the other boy in the stomach, ducking his head as Harry aimed a glancing blow at his eye. Made deaf by his absolute fury, he missed the sound of Harry's ribs cracking, and Harry's subsequent yelp of pain. The Gryffindor went limp beneath him, pulling his hands up in front of his face and yelling for Draco to stop.

Draco couldn't stop. This was release. All those horrible thoughts; all those days and nights waiting for someone to notice, waiting for anyone to notice. If he couldn't have the normal life he wanted, then, by Merlin, he would have the life of the person who'd made it impossible.

"Draco... Draco, stop..." Harry was whimpering, sobbing as he tried to get away, and failing as he was crippled with pain from the blows Draco was raining down on him. Forget whatever killer instinct he'd thought he possessed. All he wanted was to get away. "I'm sorry, Draco! Stop... I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

But Draco wasn't listening. He beat at Harry blindly until the other boy reached out with a fist, scoring a hit that made the Slytherin's lower lip bleed. Shocked by the punch, Draco froze. His eyes widened as they fixed on Harry's pale face and his tearing green eyes.

Something inside of him broke then, and he collapsed on top of Harry, burying his face in the crook of the other boy's neck and shuddering. Harry struggled not to black out from the pain. His hands rose to grasp Draco by the shoulders, trying to hold onto something of reality as his vision of the world faded in and out in rapid succession. He felt nauseous, and realized the Slytherin was hanging onto his shoulders, body quaking as he struggled not to cry into Harry's sweater. He felt an urge to comfort the other boy and wondered rather wildly which one of them was actually the murderer.

For his part, Draco was clinging to Harry out of the pure and unadulterated fear that he was going insane. His mind whirled, and vicious thoughts came and then went again just as quickly. He felt... lost. In time. In space. It was as if no one could see him for who he was, himself least of all. And no one ever had. He didn't know who he was, and it terrified him. So he clung to the only person who'd tried to reach him, even if it had been out of Harry's guilty conscience. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

"I'm sorry...," he whispered at last, raising his head. Harry shut his eyes tightly as pain shot through his torso. Draco was still shaking violently, his body gripped by the mental tremors running through his mind. "I'm sorry, Harry," he said again, and looked up to find Harry's face contorted in agony, the Gryffindor's fingers digging painfully into Draco's collarbone. "Merlin," Draco breathed, and had the presence of mind to roll over onto the ground.

Harry, however, refused to let go of Draco, so intent was he on not passing out. He turned on his side as Draco moved, moving with him, and winced as the pain in his side lanced upward, searing through his chest. He screwed his eyes shut tighter, and willed himself to feel Draco's trembling body through his fingers. If he could still feel that, than he was still awake. Still alive.

Draco couldn't breathe. He looked at Harry through hazy eyes, seeing the anguish he had wrought in the space of a few maddened seconds, and he couldn't breathe. He couldn't control his convulsing muscles. He couldn't get the wand out of his pocket to practice what little medical skills he had in order to mend his companion. He couldn't form his thoughts into coherent ones that would tell him what to do or say. All he could do was lie there, shaking, and staring at Harry anxiously. What weak sunlight had beamed down upon them earlier had faded behind a cover of dark clouds, roiling just above the trees where Draco could see them gathering.

Long moments passed. Draco eventually registered that Harry was breathing in short little gasps, laboring for the air entering his restricted lungs, but he didn't know what he could do about it. The other boy had begun to shiver too, and it made him whimper with the accompanying pain it brought him to move. Draco closed his eyes, unable to watch him anymore.

"Draco..." Harry murmured, and Draco's eyes shot open. "Am I dead? You stopped shaking."

Draco lifted one quaking hand in front of his face. "No," he whispered. "Harry, you're shaking."

"What?" Harry released Draco's shoulders. His lifted his eyelids and stared at his hands, lying limp on the ground. Draco's teeth chattered involuntarily as he saw Harry make an effort to draw his arms in against his chest, whether for warmth or for security, it was unclear. A low moan escaped his lips.

"Stop," Draco said quietly. "Don't move." Harry obeyed, and his eyelashes swept across his cheek as he turned to stare at Draco. The Slytherin's grey eyes flashed as he closed his fingers into fists and pushed himself up into a sitting position. It shouldn't have hurt, but it did. He shifted Harry's body next to him until the other boy was lying flat again, his arms tight against his sides. Draco cast about for something to warm him up, and spotted his cloak, half-buried in the leaves. Dragging it over, he threw it across Harry, careful to be gentle about it. With a sigh, he sank down next to the Gryffindor boy, curling in on himself and pressing his fingers to his temples. His brain felt like a revolving door, so swiftly were his thoughts coming and going. He could feel his bleeding lip throbbing in time with his heartbeat.

"Am I dead?" came the question again, hushed and somber in the shaded afternoon. And this time, it was no longer Harry's voice that spoke it.

-----

Draco opened his eyes. And stared at the early morning sunshine dancing over the ceiling of the infirmary. Somehow, he wasn't entirely surprised to find himself in a pair of pale blue pajamas, lying beneath the white cotton blankets of a hospital bed. A glum sigh left his mouth before he could stop it. His dreams had been filled with the girlish figure of an angel wreathed in flames, and Harry, green eyes burning, tilting his head and staring at Draco with a sardonic smile. He felt it might have been better had he never awoken at all.

He became aware of the fact that Madam Pomfrey was hovering over him, holding a tray of what looked like breakfast. His stomach flipped over at the smell of bacon and eggs. He wasn't so hot to eat at the moment.

"Do you feel all right, dear?" the older woman twittered at him. She lowered the tray onto the table next to his bed, and her hands were small and white as she tucked them into the pockets of her starched apron. He blinked at her.

"I'm not hungry," he said, turning his face away to look out the window. His voice was low and flat, without emotion. Madam Pomfrey cast a worried look at the steaming breakfast plate. She knew for a fact that Draco Malfoy hadn't had a bite to eat since lunchtime yesterday. She also knew for a fact that Draco Malfoy was a teenage boy. It seemed Albus had indeed been correct when he warned her that the hurts she'd treated the Slytherin for last night were the least of the blonde's problems. A small frown crossing her face, she gave Draco up as a lost cause and went over to Harry's bed on the opposite side of the room.

"And you, Mr. Potter? How are you feeling this morning?"

Harry, who had just woken up as well, stared at Madam Pomfrey, his eyes wide and trembling. "Ow," he managed faintly.

She smiled. "Yes, well, I'm not surprised you feel that way. I had to heal quite a few bones in you last night! But I couldn't do much for the bruises, I'm afraid."

Bruises? As in plural? I feel like one gigantic bruise! Harry wailed in his head. Stupid Malfoy. Why'd he have to--

"Draco!" Harry breathed, and bolted upright. "Augh..." he moaned faintly as a wave of fresh pain washed over him. He sank slowly back into his pillows. "Shouldn't have done that..."

Madam Pomfrey shook her head. "Silly boy," she clucked. "Mr. Malfoy is fine. He's right over there; you can speak with him if you wish. I'll be back with your breakfast in a minute."

"Uh, no. Really. I'm okay," Harry said quickly before she could leave. The nurse's eyebrows shot upwards.

"No?"

"No," Harry replied firmly. "I'm fine. Thanks."

She gave him an odd look, and then, shaking her head again, left the room.

Harry looked up at the ceiling, watching the light play across it. It seemed like it had been ages since he'd seen the daylight. The sunshine of summer had long fled, and autumn had always been too cold for him to enjoy the natural light. But this... This was decent sunshine; the kind of bright yellow sunshine that bathed the school grounds when exams were over and it was almost time to go home.

"Hey."

Harry jerked away from his rambling thoughts and found Draco standing over him. The Slytherin looked most unlike himself dressed in pale blue pajamas such as he was. Harry noticed with a pang that one of his eyes was rimmed in dark purple and red and that his lower lip was swollen; a reminder of the blow that had probably saved Harry from certain death.

"Hey?" he echoed.

Draco's lips twisted into a painfully amused smile as he watched Harry struggle to sit up. "It's all right," he said, lowering himself onto Harry's bed and pushing the Gryffindor back gently. "You can stay where you are."

Harry let himself fall back again, and stared at Draco uncertainly. "Are you okay?" he said at last, not sure what else he could say.

"Yes." Draco nodded. His face went completely serious. "I'm okay now."

Harry's gaze darted toward the closed door at the end of the ward. He frowned, ignored Draco's half-hearted protests, and sat upright. Panting a little at the effort it took, he closed his eyes for a minute to clear the pain away.

Draco watched carefully, waiting for a sign that the other boy was on the verge of passing out or throwing up or something. If he didn't feel wholly himself, he couldn't imagine how Harry felt.

"I'm sorry," he murmured when Harry had reopened his eyes to look at him. "For yesterday, I mean. I'm sorry."

"Don't be." And just like that, Harry had dismissed it, broken ribs and all. "I was probably asking for it."

Draco was silent. Harry bit his lip, embarrassed. Silly though, he already knew that Draco wasn't the same, and neither was he. Why then should he feel so peculiar about Draco's lack of response?

"I mean, I know everyone hasn't exactly been the best at expressing how much they appreciate what you did for me..." Harry trailed off, feeling rather stupid. "Er, that is..."

"I understand," Draco said quietly. He reached over and took Harry's glasses off the nightstand. Handing them to the bewildered Gryffindor, he went on. "But it's okay. Yesterday..." He waved a hand in the air. "I was being an idiot." His grey eyes narrowed as he turned his face toward the sunshine. "I don't really feel like that anymore. I suppose I was just trying to vent some of the anger I've repressed all these years."

"Repressed?" Harry snorted, slipping his glasses on. "And all our previous fights, what were they? Practice?"

Draco smiled.

"Hmm." Harry smiled, too. "This is weird."

"Yeah," Draco replied softly. He looked over at Harry again, cocking his head so that his hair fell into his eyes. "It is."