Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Do Not Go Gentle	By : Insatiable_Fox Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 1337 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor make any profit from this work.

Chapter List
- 1-Prologue
- 2-Chapter One: Sixty-Four Days
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From the far end of the street, a figure emerges.
For a few long moments, Harry thinks he’s dreaming. Either that or hallucinating, a cruel trick of the psyche. A mirage, for surely he’s a drowning man forfeited to the sea. A wayward wanderer, thirsting for water. Mind providing him with the illusion he so perilously craves, for even his sanity has taken pity on the delusions of a broken fool.
Once his eyes have been rubbed and skin pinched, he tells himself it’s another. Not his figure. Not the man he’s waiting for, the current purpose in his life. He’s too unlucky for that dream to come true, and Fate has once again proven her superiority, by giving him someone. But it’s not the right one, Fate understands this - delights in his misery and laughs. For whoever the soul traversing the dead lands of the living may be - good or bad, friend or foe - Harry knows they could never mean anything more to him than a mear nod on the road.
Yet the illusion holds. The figure walks closer, platinum hair a halo against the obsidian sky. Their face is cast to the ground, stride heavy and forlorn, betraying none of the grace Harry knows it can hold. Feels, on some primal, base level. He’s almost certain it’s Draco. The rival from school. The shadow on the street. The flicker that haunts his nights.
All Harry wants to do is ask him, how?
How did he move on; how does he function day to day? Because Harry can’t fathom how to do so - is clutching at straws - yet he cannot disperse the lingering notion they’re unintentional parallels. Two sides of the same coin. Surely, if Draco can live with the aftermath of war, Harry should be able to, as well.
One stray, clutching, abandoned and destitute, to another; both lost adrift in an amaranthine storm.
Harry stands. Draco’s drawing nearer, will pass where he’s hidden soon. The thought of letting him go fills Harry with panic. It’s not the body of hours lost waiting for this very thing, those so very insignificant weeks. More the feeling that this is his last opportunity. His one and only chance to grasp the lifering, or sink forever beneath the murky surface. It’s a hard leap to take. So easy, to simply let time pass him by, an observer rather than the participant everyone expects him to be. A watcher of the world, unbiased and without opinion. So when he does eventually find himself back on the platform, awaiting that final train, he’ll be able to move on. For good, this time. Without fear of being needed again - the thing which pulled him back. Before.
He swallows, fingers twisting the piece of threadbare cloth tied around his wrist. A hard leap. Gaze on Draco, he steps forward onto the path of unknown.
“Hey.” Harry’s voice is ragged and low, yet it carries easily on the still air, noise ill and out of place in the silence. Draco flinches, head jerking up, body seizing and seeming to curl upon itself. He stares at Harry. There’s an emptiness in his eyes Harry recognises from his own, a dullness he knows reaches to the core. Draco’s hair is long, past the line of his shoulders, tall frame still slim. He appears well dressed, clothes tailored nicely if not a little lose, although the stark whiteness of his shirt only emphasises the gaunt shadows under his eyes. There’s also a fragility to him. An unseen haze which lingers. He looks as if the slightest wind would break him; or perhaps he’s already broken.
His mouth opens and closes several times before he manages to speak, and when he does it’s barely a whisper. “Potter,” he says, and his shoulders hunch even more. His eyes are flickering to Harry and away again, each time landing on a slightly different spot. It’s as if Draco can’t quite believe he’s real, which is something Harry understands. How long has he waited for confirmation of his own illusion? Draco’s hand moves forward slightly into the space between their two bodies before he hastily clamps it back down at his side. “What are you doing here?” he eventually questions.
“I've been waiting for you.” It never crosses Harry’s mind to say anything bar the truth. “Hoping I'd see you again.”
Draco’s eyebrow raises a fraction, as if Harry’s answer is inconceivable. Beyond the realm of possibility. “You’ve seen me before?”
Harry wants to take a step closer. Curl his fingers around Draco’s wrist. Prove to both of them the other is actually there; stop the possibility of the other man fleeing. Instead, he repeats, “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Why?”
The word hangs in the air. Why indeed? Why has Harry sat here for weeks on end, suffering through the bitter cold on the off chance Draco would once again walk this way? How does he even start to explain to his once-enemy how he felt like he had no other choice? That, for reasons better left unexplored, Draco had somehow turned from the antagonist to the protagonist in Harry’s aftermath story? The key to, well, if not happiness, then contentment. The only person Harry thinks will understand. Him. This. Everything.
Harry’s hands are numb; he shoves them into his coat pockets. “I don’t know,” he finally answers. “Not exactly. I’ll tell you when I've figured it out for sure.”
Draco nods slowly, as if Harry’s answer makes sense. Maybe it does. Or perhaps Draco just thinks he’s gone crazy. “How many times have you waited here for me?”
Harry blinks. “Every night since you were last here.” He thought that’d been clear.
“It’s been sixty-four days.”
“I don’t keep count.”
In the distance an owl hoots, and Harry’s reminded of what he’s lost. The joy the sound used to bring, the comfort. Inside his jacket, his fingers curl into a ball. What he’d give to stroke her feathers one more time. When he turns back, Draco’s regarding him with an expression Harry can’t place. “Potter. Are you okay?”
Harry wants to laugh. Does he look okay? Does he not? Hermione asks the same question every time he sees her, yet it hits him harder now it’s voiced from another. Unsteady, he takes a step forward, Draco’s stare wary as Harry quickly presses an index finger to his shoulder. Real. “Are you?”
Draco snorts. It is an undignified noise, something Harry couldn't imagine the Draco of Hogwarts emitting. But they aren't the children they were at school, are they? Harry's existence is proof of that. Even more so is the fact he’s standing here with Draco under the anamorphic light of a waning moon, and Draco isn't running. Isn't throwing curses.
It’s victory, there's no other word for it. Sweet and tangible; the first since the war. The first he’s believed.
Harry turns away, looking out across the gloom of slumbering London to mask the smile he can feel pulling at his mouth. A foreign feeling, one he knows Draco isn't ready to see yet. He’s acutely aware of Draco beside him, wants to turn to him. Look at him. Hold his gaze and bury his face into Draco’s neck for no other reason than to feel another’s skin against his. Instead, he exhales loudly through his nose, head tilting up when a drop of rain breaks across his forehead.
“It’s going to pour down,” Draco announces, and Harry realises Draco’s evaded his question. He’s right, though. Within seconds the clouds are opening up, dispersing their pressure in thick, fat drops which shatter loudly against the concrete. Harry’s drenched instantly - Draco couldn’t have fared any better. There’s no point in seeking cover, and anyway, he likes this weather. The cold, bone-deep wetness which seems to seep into his very core, igniting senses even as it dulls nerves to a dangerous point. It's in moments like these, Harry never feels more inconsequential. Mother Nature raging crude destruction, his body alive with his own mortality, it's what he's always desired. What he fights to achieve. A flash of lightning momentarily illuminates the pallor of Draco’s face and his brows pull down into a frown. “The taste of death, which dance along light,” he intones lowly before shaking himself. “I’ve got to go.” The storm gathers closer to where they stand, rolling overhead . “Lucius doesn't deal well with this.”
“With what?” Harry can’t seem to draw his gaze from Draco’s profile.
Draco gestures loosely, expression pinched. “This. Lightening. Life.”
He turns to leave and Harry panics, hand darting out to clasp Draco’s bicep. He flinches but Harry doesn’t let go, tugging him gently so he’s forced to look at Harry. “When are you coming back?”
Draco’s lips twitch, the smile he manages to eventually produce so destitute it near ruins Harry. “I can’t answer what I don’t know, Potter” he replies softly. “No one’s promised the end of day.”
Harry swallows. “But I will see you again, right?”
Draco nods slowly. “If I can, I will.” He pulls himself from Harry’s grasp and starts back the way he came. In what feels like seconds he’s lost to the torrent of rain. Before long, Harry is once again alone in the night.
“The taste of death” Harry murmurs aimlessly, pulling his glasses from his face in a vain attempt to dry the lenses. He drops himself heavily to the ground, uncaring of the wetness which instantly saturates his pants. He feels hollow, wrung out. An empty vessel needing to be filled. Alive and physically intact, yet held together only by the frailest wisps of twine. Still. Draco had been here. He’d conversed with Harry, and hadn’t looked at him like he was insane, nor pitied him with knowing eyes whilst gently suggesting ‘perhaps he talk to someone’.
It’d been more than Harry had hoped for.
He stays on the pavement long enough for his legs to grow numb and fingers purple from the cold, unwilling to leave the place offering the only tangible evidence Draco was ever there. Defeat is inevitable, however. As black tinges with the pink of a new day, Harry peels himself from the ground with a sigh of resignation, closing his eyes and apparating to an empty Grimmauld Place.
His feet touch down with a creak from the old floorboards. The kitchen blinds are drawn, dust motes floating lazily in the few weak strips of dawn light managing to penetrate the slats. He goes through the motions of tea making in a trance, mind only pulled from thoughts of Draco when an absent gulp from the mug promptly scalds his mouth. “Merlin fuck,” he splutters as the cup slips from his fingers, hitting the floor. It’s stupid and ridiculous, but he can’t stop the brief conviction Draco would never make such an asinine mistake. Broken man or not.
He glares at the mug, which has - to add insult - managed to stay intact despite its collision with the wooden floor. On impulse, he sends a quick ‘reducto’ in its direction, watching smugly as the spell obliterates the ceramic. The glow of the sun is growing brighter around the edges of the blinds and he can hear the outside world slowing waking up, can feel his body shutting down in return. He’s not quite ready for bed yet, though. Not ready to part with the day that’s brought him closer to... something. Instead, he methodically makes his way through the house, room to room:
The rarely used parlour - Hermione’s pitiful, unwilling stage. The location where she’d stood more than once, desperate appeals falling on deaf ears, Ron fidgeting on the settee whilst Harry stands in stoic silence. Dust sheets cover the aging chesterfields, although who put them there is a mystery. He can’t remember the last time he was in there; the last time people were over. It’s a soothing thought.
Harry’s favourite bathroom. The one with the tub big enough for five. It never fails to remind him of his day spent in the prefect's bath, surrounded by bubbles and an alarmingly lustful Moaning Myrtle. When the chains of this life promise eternity, when time’s hands advance with a sluggish intensity and intent, he likes to pretend he’s back there. At Hogwarts; in the bath. Body burning with desire, and purpose, and focus. With life. Alone, but so fucking free he could cry.
Next, his least favourite bathroom. The one with ‘S + R’ scratched chicken-hand into the porcelain under the sink. Found one day in a fit of cleaning, and pondered for many more, he still doesn't know exactly who they stand for. Who made them. Why they’d hide it. Menace whispers in the confines of this room, a nefarious ooze of wrong, and he knows these walls have been privy to humanity’s darkest sins. He doesn’t enter, simply pauses at the door to sweep his eyes over the dingy space before moving on.
Kreacher’s door. He stops with a fond smile. A linen cupboard-turned house elf abode he doesn't dare invade. Kreacher's the one constant in his life, the only constant he doesn't resent. Guiltily, the mess he left in the kitchen comes to mind, before he decides the decrepit elf will probably relish a change in routine, and leaves it be.
All too soon Harry arrives outside his own door. He lays his forehead lightly to the tarnished nameplate as he does every morning before sleep, letting the dull metal press into his skin for a moment then pushing his way into what was once Sirius’ room. With mechanical movements, he strips the wet clothes from his body and climbs into bed.
The start of the day for most; the end for him. Still, this collection of hours has been better than most. They contained Draco, and Draco meant purpose.
He falls asleep faster that night than he has the last sixty-four.
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Do Not Go Gentle