Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Art of Shadow Boxing	By : Tommy-Lane Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 11212 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any charactors from the books and I am not making any money off of this

Chapter List
- 18
- 19
- 20
Italics = flashback to seventh year
Chapter 19
Shade of Shadows

"You don't need to be worried."

The cup of hot water in my hands nearly singes my fingers as I jerk from the trance I had fallen into, realizing suddenly that I've been staring down the path that Harry and Weasley had disappeared down nearly an hour ago. I can't even make out their footprints anymore, a fresh layer of powder soft snow obscuring their tracks from view, like they had never even been there in the first place.

"I'm not worried." I counter, wrapping my fingers tightly around the mug, trying to draw the warmth of the hot beverage into my fingers.

Granger eyes me skeptically and places the book she’s been studying down in her lap. "Do you always have to be difficult?"

"I'm not being difficult." I grumble, sniffling a little as the cold seeps through the thick layers of my jacket and straight into my bones. Damn Albanian winters, why is it so bloody cold here?
It just figures that the last of the horcruxes would be hidden in a secluded mountain forest in the heart of Albania - Ravenclaws mysterious diadem, a priceless piece of jewelry impregnated with a slice of the Dark Lords soul and lying abandoned somewhere in this monstrous forest.

Of course Helena's ghost couldn't tell us exactly WHERE to find it, only a rough location and something about a tree. Bloody brilliant.

Which is why we've been moving about this mountain side for...dear god seven months. Seven months of aimless searching and still nothing. It's been exhausting and cold and frustrating as hell - not to mention it's starting to get to Harry and not in the same way it's eating at all of us.
It's affecting him deeper, prying at his heart with each new nightmare vision, driving him to levels of near panic as the end of each day comes and we still aren't any closer. The nights have become so horrible for him that he doesn't even try to fall asleep until Weasley and Granger are floating happy in dreamland - at which point he gets up, slinks across the tent, and climbs into bed with me, clinging so tight I find it a miracle I can manage to sleep at all.

Then again sometimes we don't, those are always the nights he's nearly bursting with anxiety - the nights he finds his outlet for all his anger and helplessness in molesting me repeatedly. Not that I mind. I actually quite like it, especially when he's so desperate that he nearly begs me to shag him with only a silencing and disillusion charm keeping our secret. I just don't like the fear that's behind it but I suppose there's worse things that he could be seeking as his release.

He's always gone before I or anyone else wakes though.

"Alright enough of this." Granger huffs haughtily, tossing her frizzy mane which is somehow even MORE uncontrollable in the cold, which I just find highly amusing, one would think it would have the opposite effect. "I KNOW Malfoy."

I feel my heart skip a little at that tiny sentence, no doubt a telling blush on my cheeks if not for the fact that their already cold and tinted from the frigid air. "Know what?" I feign innocents, cocking my head with eyes that reflect puzzlement I do not feel.

"About you and Harry. He's always been pants at hiding his feelings and well...you don't ALWAYS remember to silence your part of the tent."

"Pardon?" I clear my throat, the mug suddenly too hot in my hands, embarrassment rising like heat waves.

Granger purses her lips and squints her large doe eyes at me. "Want me to spell it out? Alright then, I heard and saw you two shagging awhile back, not to mention all the snogging that takes place while you two are on 'lookout' duty." She explains in a deadpan voice like she's practiced it in her head on multiple occasions, the only thing giving away her own embarrassment being the faint flush of red on her otherwise pale face.

There's a rushing in my ears, a sinking feeling in my stomach, a strange sense of sickness as I listen to her - my mind zeroing in on one word. "Saw?!" I croak, my voice uncharacteristically hoarse.

"Yes well." She shifts on the little metal folding chair and glances down briefly before squaring her shoulders and looking back up at me. "Like I said you two were being...loud...and it woke me up. Startled me actually, I thought something horrible was happening to Harry from the way he was..." She trails off and coughs, glancing away again. "But honestly what did you expect? Did you really think you'd never get caught? I mean you were shagging him over the side of your cot like-"

"Stop!" I interject, my face no doubt as red as Weasley's beet face when he's exasperated and angry. "I don't need the details, I WAS there you know."

"Right, sorry." She fidgets again and then huffs loudly. "Regardless, the point is that I know."

I stare at her, my lips fixed in a straight line, waiting for the snarky comments to fill my brain and come leaking out - returning the rightful balance to our little world. But they never come, instead I just feel...nervous. I'm not sure why, surely his friends knowing won't have any effect on our relationship, Harry isn't that shallow but still...

What if they actively oppose us?

"Going to tell me to bugger off then?" I hear myself ask. "Hex me for daring to soil your precious savior?"

"Oh come off it Malfoy." Granger rolls her eyes and I feel my pulse slow just slightly at the reaction. "I think...well he needs you, so...thank you."

I furrow my brow and sit back further in my chair, hardly believing my ears. "Did you just thank me for fucking your best friend?"

She scoffs and blushes something fierce. "No you prat. For being there for him, for giving him something...good in his life."

"Good? Did you just call me good?" I ask suspiciously.

"Just take the compliment you pompous arse." She snaps as she tugs on the length of the crimson and gold scarf wrapped snugly around her neck.

"Okay...so you know. Good." I try to smirk, to show her that I don't care one little iota what she thinks, that I don't need her blessing, but I have a feeling that I fail miserably - especially when she has the audacity to GRIN back at me. "What did you mean that I don't need to worry?" I ask, rounding our conversation back to its starting point, where the ground is safer and less...embarrassing. Seriously Harry is not allowed to work the charms anymore.
Heaven help us if we wake up Weasley some night - I think he might actually kill me if he's forced to witness me buggering his friend.
"You don't like it when Harry's gone for long." She informs me and I frown, not liking the implications of that assessment. Not to mention the fact that she noticed it.

"Well can you blame me? He's a walking disaster!" I snap with narrowed eyes.

"You don't need to get all indigent. I think it's sweet. But he'll be fine, they'll be back soon and you two can go 'gather wood' or something equally as silly and snog to your heart’s content."

"Sod off." I grumble, despising the little smirk playing on her lips.

"Or maybe you'd rather write him a sonnet and recite it to him?"

"Shut up."

"Maybe make a heart shaped card and smother the inside with kisses?"

"I mean it Granger."

"Perhaps gather a bouquet of flowers and declare your undying love?"

"Watch it or I might just conveniently forget the silencing spell tonight." I huff, wishing desperately for the return of the taciturn Granger who rarely looked at or spoke to me.

"Oh yes that will show me, make sweet sweet love to him to prove how indifferent you are." She laughs, a loud shrill sound that I'm sure could start a damn avalanche somewhere.

"No but I'll-"

"Draco, Hermione!" Harry's shout reaches us precisely two seconds before he's running around the bend in the trees with a glowing grin on his red face. "We DID it!" He whoops, bouncing on his feet after he comes stumbling to a halt in front of us, a dirt encrusted, moldy, smelling box under his arm.

"Did what?" I ask, eyeing the foul thing with a mix of excitement and unease.

"Found the horcrux." Weasley chimes in and when did he sneak back? Surely he was wasn't there the same time Harry came running in. Was he?

Harry nods enthusiastically and tosses the box to Granger just as she's opening her mouth to no doubt demand to see it. "It was hidden under this massive tree not far from here."

"How did you find it then?" I ask, watching as she pries the lid off the box, her eyes glowing wide as she stares down into its contents.

"I don't know really, I just started feeling really -"

"Bitchy." Weasley interrupts. "He was suddenly incredibly bitchy and wouldn't stop complaining and then he kept talking about how sick he was feeling and well-"

"I was not being bitchy." Harry grumbles. "It just...affected me."

"Yeah it did, made you bitchy."

"Will you stop staying bitchy? Makes me sound like a damn girl." Harry frowns and Granger snickers discreetly behind the box, her gaze jumping to mine for a brief moment - leaving me blinking back her at her...because it felt like she just tried to share an inside joke with me...about what, who knows?
That her friend likes to take it like he’s a bleeding girl? Because if that’s it then that’s just odd and highly…uncomfortable. There is nothing girly about Harry, he’s completely, overwhelmingly MALE.

"Well whatever it made you feel, this is fantastic Harry!" Granger beams, holding the box out to me.

I take it carefully from her, drawing it closely to my body as the signature feeling of pure evilness and darkness comes seeping towards me. Looking down I see the most beautiful diadem I've ever laid my eyes on, the large blue sapphire in its center gleaming with brilliance even after all these years buried in this forgotten forest. The etching on the surface speaking of wit as being the greatest of all things a glaringly vast opposition to the wretched soul inside it.

Surely it would kill Rowena all over again if she knew what had become of her most famous treasure.

"Can you believe it?" Harry grins, bending over my shoulder as I study the horcrux that's nearly smoking a consuming cloud of darkness around me, his warm breath against my ear a contrasting force that steadies me in the face of such evil.

"Let’s kill it now." I say quietly, prying my eyes from the menacing object in my hands, the last one we need to destroy to bring this war to its conclusion.
We think at least.

"I thought that maybe-"

"Harry." I cut him off, standing quickly, my hands dropping the box in my vacated seat, the mug forgotten and seeping its hot liquid into the snow. I can't explain it, don't fully understand the frantic need to see it killed as quickly as possible, but it's there - a feeling deep in my guts and I know I need to heed it for whatever reason. "We need to...right now." I say quietly but sternly, letting him see into the darkness swirling in my thoughts like a siren warning.

He nods slowly, eyes locked on mine. "Okay."

"Why now though?" Weasley pipes in and I glance at them with a sudden remembrance that they're there.

"I have a feeling. Like..."

"He's coming." Harry finishes for me, bringing to memory the course his dreams have been taking lately, like Voldemort knows we're here. And somehow, someway, he's coming and soon.

Placing the diadem on the ground, we form our circle around it, each of us knowing exactly what to do just like the other times. I send Harry a small smile, brushing my hand lightly against his as Weasley and Granger start their task of overwhelming the piece of jewelry with love and kindness and happiness.

"Ready Potter?" I ask, taking my stance and watching the oval sapphire beginning to glow and shake.

"Always." He grins back, his arms holding his wand aloft and ready.

It's funny the change Harry's manifested inside me, reforming something deep in my heart that I hadn't even noticed until we were destroying Hufflepuff’s cup. It wasn't anything strikingly obvious it was just...harder. It took greater effort to flood myself with darkness and hatefully violent thoughts. It needed a little push that I didn't need to make when killing the soul in the locket. Like there was something chaining me back and making the thoughts come slower and doused in dew - something that wouldn't ignite like I was used to.

This time is ever more difficult.

I have to wipe the smile from my face and pry my eyes from Harry as the diadem starts screaming in a high pitched screech like a thousand women dying in flames. There's a shattering break that throws Weasley and Granger off their feet and back several feet and with a piercing laughter something dark and twisted and full of contagious malevolence bursts forth.

All the usual dark thoughts come to mind, fueling the power of my curses that I cast at the whirling soul seeking its next target. But it's not enough, like there's a tack in my heart, pinning this unaccustomed thing in front of everything else, clouding the hate and making it hard for me to tap into it. With a hissed curse, the soul snapping towards me with a predatory gleam I feel the pull on my mind instantly - like melting acid blanketing my thoughts and memories.

I scream from the pain of it, my mouth hanging open and throat growing soar and silent long before the screaming inside me subsides. With merging fury as the soul seeks it's way inside me, I pull to mind all the hell that Harry's been through, all the times he's almost been killed - all because of a fucking prophesy and a madman. I fling all the anger these thoughts create inside me into my magic, feeling it ping against the invading spirit like fiery darts that sear but at the same time only drive it onward - like it's fueling it's desire for conquest.

With a suffocating push, my vision goes black, the sense of falling rushing past my ears and playing vertigo through my equilibrium. There's a muffled low sung laugh that sounds all too familiar, the sound bringing back the days of living in the Manor with the Dark Lord - a heaviness filling my soul until I can no longer draw in air or hear any sound or feel anything against my suddenly numb skin that itches in the same instant like a contradiction intended to drive me mad.

Then the blackness is sprinkling with dots of silver light, spreading across a vision of a nameless man in tattered clothing and horror stuck eyes dying slowly and painfully over and over again as something crushing and thick fills every little space inside me - curling through my nostrils, prying through my veins, leaking through my pores with a sigh of relief that would send shivers down my spine if that wasn't being taken over as well.

With one last all-consuming pain, everything settles, creeping up the back of my skull and bringing a new set of thoughts and desires into my mind that spew poison and death.

"Draco!"

My hearts thumps loudly as I inwardly scramble madly and silently away as it overtakes me.

"Draco! Damn it wake up!"

I know the voice, like a thick syrup meeting the disease growing inside me.

"Oh my god...please, please...don't...DRACO!"

It collides with the maniacal voice and the man dying over and over again but it's fading, growing lighter and less familiar...

"You can't...you stubborn prat, wake the fuck up! Just...just please!"

Just as I feel myself slip over an undefinable precipice, sinking in an inky void, there's a sudden warmth over my chest - a scent other than rotting flesh in my nose, a touch other than pain running the length of my back.

"...arry?" My throat works, the name scratching through like a rope that descends and wraps around me - tugging me up and into a graying light, the darkness like curling tendrils of smoke reaching up after me.

"Draco! Oh god you're okay, you're okay, okay..." I feel a pressure, fierce and possessive crush me into something solid and hot and real. "You fucking scared me." The solidness holding me shakes as they slowly form into a chest and arms and legs all around me, wild hair tickling my nose and fingers digging into my back.

Harry.

"...m'ine." I grumble, blinking my heavy eyes open and dragging in a desperately needed breath of air. Everything is swimming around me, my body pumped full of lead and aching in every single place, keeping me immobile in his embrace.

"I thought...I thought..." There's tears on his cheeks and lashes, his heart pounding against my own shallow beat. I try to smile at him as another tear slips down his wet face and before I can try to formulate a reply he's pressing his mouth to mine in a desperate kiss that rattles with a soft cry from him.
He holds me to him in a locked grip, the wet ground soaking my lower half as he kisses me almost violently in a sloppy affair that he can't seem to pull back from even to drag in a breath of air or answer the soft questions I can vaguely hear coming from his friends.

Unable to move a muscle, I sink in his arms, returning his kiss as much I can and trying desperately to ignore the thick tar of pure evil waiting inside me - smiling at me like I'm swinging on a thin line, its endless pit waiting to swallow me whole the moment I slip.

****

The cherry wood box is gleaming on the desk.

A shifting blow of breath and a feather light touch across its smooth surface was all it took to restore its hidden beauty. And now it sits...waiting. But I can't seem to touch it again, my foot bouncing with the nerves running through my body, sending my entire leg jostling up and down, up and down...over and over and over again.

Glancing at the clock, I see the hour hand tick its minute move onto the 12 and sigh. Time is running thin, a reality that seems to plague me all my days, from my youth as an obnoxious child to the days where the damn cabinet wouldn't work...to now. It's ticking away the minutes I have left and with every near silent click I hear Bella's crackle a little louder in my heart and see Safiya's twisted smile in my mind.

It's a click of "it's time".

A shift of disturbed air.

A barely audible tap of curling fingers over all I hold dear.

"Draco?"

I turn with a reserved smile at the sound of Harry's sleepy croak, his messy head turned on the pillow with his naked body tangled in the bed sheets like he's been fighting with them the past hour. "Hey." I say softly, watching the blissful smile form on his tired face, his arms and legs stretching with cat like movements.

"Did you sleep?" He asks, squishing the pillow up under his head and letting his gaze trail over my fully clothed form.

"A little." I lie because as much as I tried, sleep had eluded me even after he passed out from sheer physical exhaustion, curled snuggly around me in the early morning hours. I had lain awake, holding him tightly and memorizing every little line in his face, every little bend in his cheek and curve of his forehead, enraptured myself in every little noise he made.

"Mhmm." He hums a little, turning to move onto his back and wincing. "God I think you've killed me."

"Obviously not, suppose that means I should try harder next time." I drawl with my patent smirk, loving the sight he makes on my bed, completely debauched and bearing little markings all over his flesh from our activities.

He grins and reaches out an arm, hooking his finger in a sleepy wave to draw me next to him. "Suppose so."

As much as I want to join him, to forget today in his arms, I know I have a schedule to keep - the tick tick tick of the clock a constant reminder of what lays just beyond my door. But there's also something I want answered, something that has been dancing around the back of my mind and I know once I show him what's inside the box that there won't be another chance.

Rising slowly, I make my way over to him, sitting on the edge of the bed and smiling as he immediately rises up on his hands and cranes his neck - planting a light kiss on my lips with his own that still look slightly bruised from last night. When he pulls back it's with a small frown, his tired eyes squinting through his shoddy vision.
"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." I reply, soothing a lock of his hair off his forehead.

"Right...because I totally believe you." He mutters sarcastically, sitting up fully and scooting closer. "So let's try that again. What's wrong really?"

Casting a critical eye over him, I debate with leaving it alone, with keeping the question just where it is, untouched and never answered. But then I know myself. I know that as the days pass, with whatever they may bring, I'll keep thinking on it - imagining progressively worse outcomes as time winds on. Placing one last chaste kiss on his lips, I summon my courage and press on. "I've been wondering...about Blaise?"

His frown morphs into a drawn, tired curve of his lips, his heavy eyes blinking silently for a beat. "Thought you might ask about that." He pauses and glances away, out the sliver of open curtain obstructing the window. “He was released about…two years after me.” He explains quietly before falling silent once more, his throat working as his fingers twist through his hair.
I recognize the pull on his face, the lines of worry and calm detachment, his words laying on his tongue with a thickness that’s hard for him to swallow or speak around. And oddly I get it. I understand the way he’s staring out the window with a fight for something as simple as resignation at spilling his story.
I understand it because I've felt the same way. I don’t know if I’d be able to go into detail about these last several years away from him. If I could open my mouth and recount all the horrible days of spiraling fear and depression. If I could watch his face as I traced the paths I have fallen in and out of before finding my salvation.
I remember the look on his face that first day he realized the depth of my issues, remember how his eyes were on a constant lookout for my patter seeking behavior. Could I emerge myself back in the past enough to tell him how bad it used it to be? Could I recount the days of grappling for sanity while I felt like I was spilling out of my skin with multiple nervous break downs?
“Harry…you don’t have to.” I hear myself saying, his green eyes shifting to mine with a dazed sort of look.
“No it’s okay.” He answers tightly. “It’s just hard for some reason.”
“He’s not…?” I trail off, fear suddenly gripping me at the thought of why he might be so reluctant to tell me.
“No, he’s alive.” He rushes to reassure me and then with a frustrated huff, springs up onto his knees - reaching over and grabbing his journal off the nightstand. “He didn’t have any friends left…I don’t know if it was because of the trials or because of the damage to his mental stability due to the after effects of the curses he suffered but…he couldn’t stand staying in London.”
I watch as Harry cracks his worn book open, flipping through the delicate pages with a practiced touch. “He left then?” I ask, watching a picture of me and Harry beside a lake appear for a moment before snapping out of existence behind another turn of pages.
He nods as he continues thumbing through his notebook, looking for something unknown that is making my heart thrum in my chest with a strange sort of apprehension. “He found me. I was in Brazil when he just showed up at my hotel room door late one night. He said he wanted to help…” he pauses in his story and in his searching with a fond little smile. “I don’t even know how he knew but he did. Said that if anyone could find that ‘blasted sneaky prat’ that it would be him.”
“I take it that I’m the blasted sneaky prat then?”
He turns his grin on me, licking his lips, and capturing my mouth in a kiss that catches me off guard. “That you are.” He mutters, tossing his journal down and moving to straddle my lap with his hands framing my face. “He never could understand how the hell we had gotten together or why I couldn’t let you go.”
I chuckle and wrap my arms around his waist, his heat like a settling wave around me. “How nice of him.” I scoff, meeting his tongue as his mouth moves over mine once more with a little laugh rumbling through him at the same moment. “You’re getting sidetracked Harry.” I mutter as he shifts his hips, plastering himself against me.
“Mhmm true.” He sighs and sits back a little, though not much, his arms still fastened around my neck. “Where was I?”
“Brazil.”
“Right.” He nods, that far off glaze shielding his bright eyes once more like a film of ancient time. “He was actually quite helpful most the time but he had a penchant for…sub-coming to his illness. He couldn't stand anything touching his bare skin, not even a breeze and...he had these bouts of delusion and violence.”
“Did he hurt you?” I ask with a tightness in my gut, the thought of my former best friend turning his skewed rage on Harry making a dread ring through me.
He shakes his head before leaning down to rest it in on my shoulder. “No, himself mostly, it was an uphill battle I don't think he's ever gotten over. He traveled with me for over a year before… he couldn’t anymore.”
“How do you mean?” I mutter, running my hand down his chilled exposed back, his posture very much like a frightened child’s in a way that’s completely unsettling for me.
“He gave up on you.” He answers quietly. “Then he started getting mad that I wouldn’t as well. Said that I needed to forget about it because you were as good as dead.” His arms tighten around me as he speaks lowly, like the words are reluctant to be spoken and heard. “I told him off, called him mental and deranged and all the other things I could think of that I knew would hit him hard.”
“Doesn’t sound like you.”
“Well…I wasn’t in the best frame of mind either then.” He answers so very softly before pulling back to look right at me. “I regretted it immediately but he was gone…disappeared for a few weeks before showing back up looking like he’d been dragged through the sewer. He apologized, even broke down and cried…I’ve…I’d never seen him like that. He begged me to let him stay, said he had no one else and nowhere else to go. That’s when he showed it to me.”
“Showed you what?” I ask thickly, the weary, cautious look in his eye sitting heavily in me.
“It was a newspaper clipping with a picture of you…you were shielding your face but it was you, clear as day to me. I remember it was the first time my hands stopped shaking all on their own, like I was afraid if I moved a fraction of an inch that the first link I had to you in years would melt away. It was an article about some women getting beaten in an alley…and you saved her.” Still holding fast to me with one arm, he leans over and begins flipping through his book again before he straightens back up with it in his hands. “See?”
I frown as I look down, the yellowed ripped clipping plastered to the page showing just a obscured portion of my face but there it was, frozen in a graphic instant…for all the world to see, the words ‘a nameless hero saves Natalee Shoemen…’typed neatly beneath it. What it doesn’t say is that I was in a blind rage when I did it or that the man who attacked her ended up breathing his last with a swift placed kick to his windpipe. It doesn't mention how I had sat huddled against the side of the brick building running my fingers up and down its surface until they bleed afterwards.
I don’t even know I managed it, the fact that the man was slobbering drunk probably having something to do with it.
I remember that night so clearly now. I remember the heat, the fire in my blood that had run frigid and afraid for too long. That was the night I felt a spark of life enter me again, the night everything changed for me.
“Why did he keep it from you?” I clear my throat, tearing my eyes away from my own mangled face staring back up at me.
“Blaise…he needed me in his own little way and I think he thought that if I found you that I’d…”
“Leave him?”
Harry nods slowly, sadly. “Yeah.”
Watching the moister gather in his eyes, I force the one question I desperately need answered out in a near silent rush. “Were you two together then?”
“That’s just it, isn’t it?” He answers, looking far off into the distance. “I think he wanted us to be but I never…I never saw him like that. I don't know...sometimes I think that maybe I used him. He knew you, you know, like no one else. He had all these stories of you growing up that he'd sometimes share if I could manage to coax them out of him. He used to make these little remarks though…he’d bounce back and forth between wanting to find you just as bad as I did to practically seething in anger about the idiocy of even looking. In the end he couldn’t do it anymore, asked me to give up and stay with him in this little town in Nepal…I couldn't, so when the time came to move on he stayed behind. He’s still there I believe. Before he left though he gave me this.” He flips forward several more pages before stopping and pulling from the sheets a perfectly straight, wrinkle free, sealed envelope with my name scrawled neatly across the white surface with curling black letters. “Said he hoped that I’d find you and that if I ever did, that I was give this to you.”
“What is it?” I ask, staring at the letter and the familiar handwriting but not moving an inch to claim it.
Harry shrugs. “I don’t know, haven’t opened it. I know I should have given it to you sooner but…well things got off to a rocky start didn’t they?” He explains with a shy smile.
"Mhmm, that's putting it lightly." I reply, reaching out and tentatively taking it from his loose grasp. "Thank you...for telling me."
"Do you miss him?" He cocks his head, watching as I lay the letter neatly down beside me without making any sort of attempt at opening it. I don't think I can right now, god knows I don't need yet another distraction or more guilt on my conscious. Thankfully he doesn't ask why I set it aside, letting the curiously live only in his gaze.
"Sometimes. I've tried not to think about anyone from…back then. Do you?"
Pushing his fingers that hold the smallest of tremors through my hair he smiles softly. "At times. He was a good friend when I had none but I worry about him more than anything."
"Don't tell Granger and Weasley that, I think she'd bludgeon you for discounting them." I say with a smile, trying to detach my thoughts from picturing Blaise living an isolated existence in some mountain village, wishing Harry had stayed behind with him. Funny how similar our lives turned out.
"Not discounting." He interjects. "They just...couldn't go through it with me, if that makes since."
I nod, understanding completely and with a glance over to the desk, feel the weight of everything twist into an untangle-able knot inside me - perhaps it would have been best if he had given up, if he was living amongst all those colorful prayer flags, fighting off the biting winters and basking in the heated summers with my best mate by his side.
But he's not, he's here, in my arms again, and there's no use playing with alternate realities.
"We should get up."
"Why?" He pouts. "We don't have anywhere we need to be."

"True but I have something to show you." I inform him as I displace him from my lap and move from the bed, pulling the wardrobe open and snagging a pair of sleep pants to cover his naked body with - tossing them at him with a chuckle as he catches them with a scowl, my body dropping with languid ease back into the desk chair.
But I can tell I've already quipped his interest and with only one more grumble and a pronounced wince as he slides from the bed and slips them and his glasses on, he pads over to me with a hand raking through his mangled locks. "What is it?" He asks, eyeing the box curiously as he sits on the edge of the desk.

With a slow intake of air, I reach out and flip the lid up, letting the breath rush out the next second as the contents are revealed to him - a sudden nervousness making my leg take up its bouncing again. I watch him as he stares down into it, his eyes sparking with interest as he reaches out and trails his finger through the items inside.

"This is all I have of my past." I tell him, my gaze glued to his face as he nibbles on the corner of his lip, a look of deep fascination and question marking his features. It seems fitting, showing this to him now, after he told me a little about his time traveling.

"I wondered...if you kept it." He says quietly and I glance down to see his fingers hovering over my wand.
I almost didn't.
I almost chuckled the lot of them, not wanting any reminders of who I was and in the end it was more like a painful burden than anything as I carried them around the world with me but...

"I didn't want to take anything with me when I left but these things...I found I couldn't part with." I elaborate and he nods, a slow smile pulling at his lips as he chuckles lowly once. "What?"

He shakes his head and looks up at me, pulling something from the box with nimble fingers. "Couldn't part with my tie?" He arches a thick black eyebrow, his old school tie of crimson and gold unwinding in his fingers and falling in a long roll over his legs.

"My tie you mean." I retort, fighting the blush that's threatening to rise. I really should have taken that out before showing him this.

He looks at me from over the rim of his glasses with an exasperated and yet highly amused expression. "Really? Could have sworn yours was green and silver..."

"Well since it spent months tying me down to a table it changed loyalties."

He eyes the worn piece of fabric in his hands and grins salaciously. "Best use it to strap you to the chair then, pay you back for last night."

"Mind out of the gutter Potter." I grumble, annoyed that I let him see it, that he's holding the proof of my inability to let go of him all these years in his hands.

Looping the length around the back of my neck, he tugs on the ends and leans down to meet me for a brief but sweet kiss. "Yeah, yeah...though I am curious as to how you got a hold of it?"

Grazing the obnoxiously loud colored accessory with my knuckles, I shrug lightly. "The hospital had a little bin of my stuff...I think Granger dropped it all off. Never been able to figure out why she included it with everything though."

"She's a mysterious one." He snickers, toying with his old tie, the slide of the fabric on my sensitive skin making the hair at the nape of my neck stand on end.

"And as...lovely...as your old school uniform is, that wasn't really what I had in mind to show you." I glance back down to the box and away from him, loving too much the way his hair looks after a long night of shagging - like it's just screaming what he's been up to for all the world to hear.

"Oh? You going to elaborate then or do I have to guess?" He asks, following my gaze back to the box as he leans towards it, peering once more inside it with a little smile. "Wait, is that...?" He trails off, squinting his eyes and craning his neck closer before jerking back and frowning deeply at me. "Draco...why do you have those?"
I know what he's referring to without even looking and I feel myself shift uneasily in my chair under his scrutiny, shrugging in my inability to articulate an answer. Because I don't really know why I kept them, I don't know why I seem to have this deep need to pick at my scabs to make sure they never heal properly...that's the only explanation as to why those nasty screws are resting amongst my other belongings.
But then again, that's a lie isn't it? I know exactly why I can't let them heal.
"Still not it." I try for a smile and a light tone that only begrudgingly removes the argument from his lips - as he can plainly see there's no use prying into it. "Guess again?"
"Alright." Harry grumbles, letting his gaze linger on the dirty torture instruments for a moment longer before he's shifting through the box again. "Mhmm you wanted to show me...this vial?" He guesses, holding up a sleek glass vial with a swirling gray smoke inside.
"No."
"This...what is this?" He holds up a necklace with a thick amulet dangling on the heavy chain - a gift from Snape when he was fearing for my life.
"Try again."
He drops it back into the box before plucking out a photo with its edges stuck together - hiding its subjects away. "This?"
"Getting colder."
"Gah, just tell me." He says exasperated, glaring into the container like every little thing is mocking him with his inability to guess correctly.
"Never knew you to be a quitter." I tease before letting my hand fall into the box beside his, the ancient pulse of my family’s bloodline reaching back out to me as my fingers brush over and curl around the small cool object - the touch of magic curling out and around me, pumping through my blood with a zing of energy.
Running the slim ring up the length of my thumb, I hold it aloft, trapped between my thumb and middle fingers, gleaming in the soft light, catching Harry's breath as his eyes lock on it - his intense gaze tracing over the engraving of the Malfoy crest upon its surface. "I wanted to show you this."
A/N: Long chapter and I even cut some! Goodness me ;) I love Draco and Hermione, I think they’d just be the best of friends (Once they got over their prejudice that is)
Delia Cerrano: Thank you for reviewing. He did win and therefor his debt SHOULD be paid off but Draco’s starting to doubt that she’ll live up to her agreement, considering her unnatural interest in him and Harry. He doesn’t know this for sure, he just has a bad feeling, especially after getting the summons at the end of his fight – so he’s preparing for the worst case scenario. Sorry if that was unclear.
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The Art of Shadow Boxing