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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
- 23
- 24
- 25
Chapter 24
Watch Me Burn

Everything’s black again.

I can feel a body hovering over my own, can feel the tickle of long coarse hair brushing across my face, feel the weight of my arms - stretched impossibly wide and bound to the floor, my legs spread eagle and stuck in place. The ground is hard and hot beneath me.

Safiya was the one who had slipped the blindfold back in place after she had three of her men drag me back out of Harry's little circle of captivity. She had smiled and chuckled and told me how much I'm going to enjoy this next bit.
I'm rather sick of sarcasm.

I got in a few sound punches and kicks before they managed to take me down, before the ropes of leather sprung up from nowhere and wound around my wrists, biceps, ankles, thighs, and even my neck - keeping me utterly still and trapped. Then there was a scratching across the floor for a good long time before the room stilled and I can't help but feel as if I've just been drawn into some sort of diagram - perhaps a match to the one on my chest, perhaps a polar opposite. I can't know, but I recognize the steadily increasing nausea.

There's a panting blowing across my cheek, a smell that resembles a wet dog, and I feel my muscles flex against my bindings as I press the back of my head hard into the concrete.

"Nice to see you again Bella." I say, breaking the silence that's been wrapping around us since the scratching dissipated.

There's a low, maddened laugh that is so familiar it makes my stomach clench. "Dear, dear nephew." Bella grips my forearm, her breath hot and heavy against my ear as she leans down to speak. "Nice to see you remember your Aunty."

"It would be a bit hard to forget, I confess." I grit, almost glad for the blindfold for once, unsure how seeing her face is going to affect me. Just feeling her so near and hearing her voice is making a storm rise within me.

"Isn't that so. Some. Things. We. Never. Forget." She spits, punctuating each word harshly. "Now let's take a ittle, bitty, peak." She mutter's lowly, giving me a split second warning before she's pressing into my thoughts, my barriers weak against the sudden onslaught. My walls snap under her surge of magic and I feel myself flooding forward with memories - images, lines of disjointed conversation, and snapshots of my life over the years.

She's flipping through them like a damn scrapbook and I feel too sick to even begin to put up a fight, to reconstruct some walls and try to push her out. She sees it all and it leaves me without air, hyperventilating against the side of her face.
She's been in my head so many times throughout my life, first while trying to help teach me Occlumency - uncovering my boyhood secrets that felt so shameful - then the multitude of times while she held me captive. She feels almost second nature to me now, like my brain knows her presence and offers up the things she wants at will even though I'm desperately trying to tuck them away.

The strap over my neck is cutting into my windpipe as I struggle for air but then she's pulling out with a satisfied chuckle and I sag back into the ground.

"Can't hide from me little Draco." She says. "Such a disgusting mind you have," she pauses, pressing her fingers sharply into my temples like she's trying to crush the thoughts that appall her to dust. "The ring by the way. So sweet. So stupid." I can feel the air shift as she moves away, everything suddenly just a little bit colder.

Her feet click and I can picture her black heeled boots perfectly in my mind, have listened to same click, tap, click, tap till I thought it would drive me into oblivion filled only with pain and torment.

"Give it to me." Bella hisses and I hold my breath, knowing she's addressing Harry, demanding my family heirloom back.

"Not a chance." Harry growls and god I wish I wasn't blinded by this damn strip of black cloth.

"Now, you filthy half-blood!" She roars, spitting her words out with a rage that's so close to breaking completely. Safiya was right, she isn't in control of herself. I can tell that much just by the way she's speaking, not that the words are anything new, I've heard her say them a million times before, but it's the way she's intoning them that pricks at me.

She's wound up over a damn ring. I can nearly hear her shaking, the ground seeming to vibrate along my back from her shriek.

I know she saw me give it to him in my mind, know she heard my reasoning that I spoke and thought but...why does she care so much? It's as if there's something I've missed in it, something that's infuriating her to the point of nearly breaking down the walls around us. But I can' think what. I try to force my mind back to all my father had told me about it, about the pureblood family lines and their protection, and just what naming Harry as my heart means in its entirety.

But I'm coming up blank.

It's just a simple protection ward is all I can remember, a ward that is supposed to protect him with a strong shield against me in particular if I ever try to hurt him. Unless that's it...unless she's furious because she intends to make me...fucking hell.

Harry says something that I miss in answer to another of Bella's gruff demands and then there's a blast of magic - not Harry's or even Alecto's, it's darker, it's Bella's, and I feel my blood curl. It happens again and again, each time filling the air with a crack!, my body jerking with it.

I wait with bated breath but there is no pained shriek or thud against the floor or even a gasp of barely suppressed agony. It's deadly silent for three horrible seconds before Bella is screaming in pure rage that has the room actually shaking this time.
Her magic is unbound, it's wild, and it’s out of her control. This is not going to go well.

The quick click, tap, click, tap nears me and then her fingers are ripping my blindfold away, her face filling my view completely - more unhinged and crazed then even, her eyes and cheeks shallow, her skin stretched and sickly yellow. She looks like she's been living under ground for a year, feeding off scrapings of food and not seeing a shard of light in her endless pits that used to be such lovely shaded irises.

"What did you do?!" She hollers at me as I strain my eyes to look over at Harry.

There's a strange sort of glow around him, his gaze trained on his hands that are held out, palms up, before him. He's smiling. "I didn’t-" I gasp, unable to tear my eyes away from ethereal light surrounding him or the smile on his lips. I can't understand it, Bella just attacked him, she must have, but he's...fine. He's more than fine, he looks positively giddy.

When he looks up and at me I'm unprepared for the dancing in his eyes and it's like he's speaking in my ear, repeating from earlier, "You always thought you were weaker...you saved me...we have a choice...you fight." I feel something shift inside me, something akin to the shattering of the block that Harry broke all those weeks ago, something frightening and exciting all at once.

"You will pay for your insolence! I will dance on your grave while the Dark Lord tortures your lover for all time!" Bella bites out like a rabid wolf and there's a sick part of me that almost needs to believe her but there's another part, a small but growing part, that wants to laugh in her face.

It's my choice.

I don't understand all that's going on, I don't know how I can live through eradicating this darkness, I can't fit together all the pieces that have been hidden for me all this time but I get a choice.

And I choose to fight.

"Look at me!" She commands and I shift my eyes back to her lazily, Harry's smile trailing after me like a light I can cling to. "It won't protect ickle Potter forever. He'll fall just like he was always going to as soon as I bring the Dark Lord back."

I smile and her face twists. "But you're wrong, Harry will always win."

Her wand presses under my chin, biting sharply into my skin as I suck in a breath, trying to keep my panic at bay, trying to hold onto the feeling of power that I had a glimpse of. "Dimwitted brat! We'll see, won't we?" She grins and pulling her wand back, drags it across her hand, slicing the skin. Holding the dripping cut over me, she clenches then opens her fist and I see the red rain before is splatters my face in a grotesque ritual as she chants under her breath in a low droning voice.

I feel the binds on the various points of my body tighten and burn, threatening my circulation and air - a dark rise of shadows growing from the outline around me, glowing and dancing with her words - my chest where Safiya drew her mark feels like it's catching on fire and burning right through to my bones. Like the black charcoal is destined to meet the darkness inside me.

I grit my teeth and try not to howler through it.

This is old magic. Powerful magic. Magic I know nothing of, other than what I've read when I was a teenager.

I don't know how to fight this and I can't believe that just wanting to will be enough.

There's a darkness around my field of vision, slowly creeping forward like something is cropping the picture before me, shrinking it down until it's only a pin of light. Then nothing.

"Say goodbye Potter." Bella chuckles and before I slip past an undefinable line I hear Harry shout my name.
He sounds terrified.

I fall and fall and fall, tumbling blindly through a scorching heat, spiraling towards the pit that's been threatening me for years - the pit that has always stayed just out of reach, never quite open enough to swallow me whole.

It's open now and I can see something swirling inside. It's black on black but it's alive and moving and I hear myself scream.

Is this how Harry felt? When the Dark Lord struck him down and he laid unconscious on the battle field? Did he stumble into the part of his enemy's soul that had lived inside him his whole life? Did he feel like it was going to swallow him and turn him inside out? Did he think he was going to burn alive from the heat and lose his mind from the horrific thoughts and the touch of something so purely evil? He said he survived because he had a choice.

What bloody choice?

There's no telling up from down, no sound, no touch other than heat, no color other than the blackest of night. It's like that day all over again, when the diadem burst open and the bit of soul surged inside me, attacking me, leaching onto me.

I open my mouth and I hear a laugh. It's not my own and I panic.

But Harry wouldn't lie. There has to be a way. There has to be choice.

Harry had been glowing, staring at his hands...no, at my ring. He had been staring at my ring and grinning when Bella tried to strike him down. This is important I know it is. But my mind is turning to mud, it's turning to scorch marks on a wall, marks that can never be removed.

Like the Dark Mark. The mark that was meant to follow me around all the days of my life. The mark I somehow managed to carve away with a knife and a bottle of whiskey.

These thoughts light like stars in the sky, dots barely visible, needing to be connected to make any sense and hold any meaning. But how? How do I draw their shape? What’s the curve? What’s the course and direction?

What had I been thinking when I put the dull knife to my skin? What had driven me to sink the blade into my cursed flesh? I had...I was drunk. Drunk and desperate. I had just beaten a man to death for attacking a poor, innocent woman. I had killed him, he may have deserved it but still...I remember thinking that, that hadn't been my choice to make but I had done so anyway. I had been hailed a hero but all I felt after the spark of adrenaline had died was...filthy.

I felt close to the darkness inside me.

I felt like the piece of dirt Bella tried to crush me into and I had dug into my arm, nicking away the flesh and with it the wicked ink. I had chanted to myself that I wasn't evil and had unwilling pictured Harry's face, imaging the look in his eyes if he had seen me crush the man's windpipe - snuffing his flame of life from this world.

I cried for forgiveness and wept because I didn't believe I deserved it nor would ever receive it.

But I didn't stop there, did I? I embraced the fight. I clothed it in what seemed like the only kind of beauty I would ever be allowed near again and sunk myself in it. I hung myself right above the darkness, satisfying it with blood on my knuckles and the cracking of bones, the ring quieted the roar - it subdued the feeling of being split in two. It allowed me to breathe.

But it was false.

I suddenly feel like I've been living off nothing but stale bread and dirty water. I feel like the air I've been sucking down has been nothing but smoke. I feel...cheated.

I feel angry. And not the foreign, terrifying anger of some other sickening being, but my own. The same anger I used to misplace and direct at Harry in my youth, the same anger that I used to feel towards the Dark Lord and his followers, the same anger that used to make my tongue run wild.

There's a tugging on my throat, a constricting around my middle, and a low curling voice of malice reaching up to me - reminding me of my filth, of my disease, of just who I am. Reminding me that I am a carrier, a tool, and nothing more. It pulls and pulls and the beating in my chest stops with a painful lurch – sparks pressing behind my eyes before it all blinks out. Finger’s reaching from deep inside me wrap around my lungs and there is no more air.
I am nothing.
But there's something else, a tingling in my fingers, running up my arms, a pulse that's not burning but pleasantly warm.

It reminds me of Harry's touch and suddenly the malicious echo is falling away, replaced with Harry's voice, with his whispers in the dead of night. I feel his lips on my ear, his breath on my skin, but most importantly I hear him. I hear him saying all the things I've been tucking away, not willing to believe about myself any longer. Each statement grows inside me, swelling my heart and loosening the constricting binds around me - driving more pricks of light into the night.

I listen. Truly listen.

And I realize with a light head that’s suddenly oddly steady, that it's always been him. That he's always steadied me. I was worried he would spend his life driving us both mad with trying to fix me but I got it wrong. He's not fixing, he's just...loving.

And I can either love him back or let myself be dragged under. Isn't that what Dumbledore was always trying to hint at, that love was stronger than any other magic? I never understood it before, always thought he was a sentimental fool. But it's true, how else would Harry have evaded receiving even a scratch from Bella today, from my crazy Aunt who loves using the most nasty and powerful of curses.

It's so sappy that there's a large part of me, my Slytherin heritage no doubt, that is rebelling against the very notion even as I feel myself lifting - flying up and out of the pit that's fighting to pull me further and keep me there.

It wants to drown me and burn me all at once...just like Safiya had said, this is the moment she has been waiting for. She's been playing me, sliding me into place, maneuvering me until I was here - a place where I can end and something more powerful can rise. Something, or someone, who can restore her.

But I love Harry, god I love him with every fiber of my being and if my love can protect him, why couldn't his save me? If I choose to let it. I'm tired of feeling heavy, I'm tired of feeling mental, I'm tired of being afraid, I'm tired of feeling like the filth of the world, I'm tired of running.

Acceptance is a strange thing.

I rise and feel a thump in my chest.
I cry out and feel air surge into my lungs.

I know I'm talking but it's a weird, floating sensation where I'm disconnected from my own lips and tongue, to the point where I can only feel the air leave my chest as my voice rises. And my voice is most certainty rising, it's ringing in sound but not words in my ears, and I feel the bindings on my arms snap, feel a clearness enter my mind - sharper then I have in ages - feel the darkness shriek away from me, caving in on itself.

It's melting down and down and down and with a shout my eyes snap open, the room coming into perfectly clear focus, Bella's eyes impossibly wide right before me.

"No!" She shrieks, her hand rising just a fraction before I'm grabbing it, bending the delicate joints backwards, her wand falling from her grasp - all the while straining against the rest of my binds, focusing all myself on breaking through them. With a crack of magic the cords snap and I swing up and around, wrapping my left arm around Bella's neck before she even realizes what's going on. Quickly placing my hand against the inside of my opposite elbow I use my right hand to press down sharply on the back of her head while flexing my arm simultaneously.

She chokes and claws at my elbow as numbers build in my head, her body slowly slumping before going boneless altogether in my grasp.

I breathe against her bent head, her wild hair in my face, my arm relaxing on instinct so as not to bring her all the way over to death. She feels frighteningly light and with her back pressed against my front I can feel the bones of her body, sticking to her skin without an inch of fat. It's strange to feel, such a powerful woman, a terrifying force all my life, now she just feels...small.

Letting her slide to the floor, limp and unconscious, I rise from my knees as I reach for her wand, my legs frightfully steady under my weight - her long wand thick against my hand.

"How did you..." Harry whispers from behind me and I glance over at him, his eyes trained on Bella's form.

"Pressure points. She'll wake soon." I explain, brushing my hair from my sticky forehead, the drops of her dried blood flaking on my cheeks.

He nods slowly before turning his gaze on me, his face terribly pale, a thin sheen of sweat on his brow, his dark curls heavy against his skin. "That was horrifying, what...what happened?"

I grin back at him, my spirit feeling light as a feather, like I could float to the ceiling and beyond. I feel like I could fly. "I don't rightly know." I reply honestly.

"But you're alright?" He asks, eyeing me up and down, trying to see all the way inside me no doubt.

Four quick strides later and I'm crossing into his little circle, grabbing him around the waist and pressing my mouth to his as he lets out a yelp of surprise. "Fucking fantastic." I can't stop smiling as I pull back after plundering his mouth, his shaking hands in my hair already.

"Oh." He pants, his lips dancing with a little smile as he tries to catch his breath. "You look..."

"Different?" I supply and he nods. "I'll try and explain later, right now we need to get out of here."

He scrubs his thumbs over my cheeks, trying to remove the specks of red. "Right, one problem. I can't leave this damn circle, I can barely manage to get within an inch of it."

Glancing down at the drawn ring around him, I frown. Blood magic isn't something to trifle with, it's strong, holding disastrous consequences if one tries to tamper with it without knowing the underling spells holding it together. "How'd you get inside it?" I ask him, still studying the circle closely, looking for any flaw in its design. But it's perfect, an exact circle, thick and steady in its painted brush strokes.

He chuckles a little, shaking his head. "Apparated right into it, Safiya had placed the coin I gave you in the center of it and I had been using that as a guide. It had a tracking spell on it."

"Reckless idiot." I grumble.

"Oh, I'm the reckless idiot? I'm not the one who marched here all by myself to try and reason with an insane person." He counters and I purposely ignore him, stepping outside the circle and back in without any sort of resistance. Apparently it will only stop Harry.

"Who drew the diagram around me?" I ask, peaking back to the large, intricate drawing that I had been strapped down in the middle of. It's melted in places now and I can't help but wonder if I had managed to do that when I was fighting with the darkness or bit of soul or whatever it was inside me. Was weakening it how I had managed to escape?

"Bellatrix." Harry answers. "The others left as soon as she was done. They seemed to have some sort of unspoken...agreement."

Running my finger over the charcoal outline, I nod, slowly piecing together a plan. I'll bet anything Bella drew Harry's circle as well, that she was the one to enact the blood magic and funnel her power into it. Safiya couldn't have done it if she's been made as useless as she says and Alecto...well she was always shit at complex magic. She could torture but that was about it.

Straightening my back, I lift Bella's own wand and point it at her, my fingers stiff around the wood and a nervousness tugging at me. With a deep breath to steady my thumping heart, I close my eyes, summon my strength and focus, and whisper, "Legilimens."

It’s like falling through a waterfall.
Her mind is a diseased place and I pick my way quickly through it, looking for one particular thing. She's warded against it, has tampered with it, shrouding it in a thick mist and I have to press forward with all my strength - my palm sweating around her wand, my breath dragging harshly through my lungs. But it's there, the answer I need and I fight through to it.

When I break through it's terribly dizzying for a moment as I try to catch my bearings, working on keeping my focus and singular thought so as not to lose the memory. Deconstructing it is painstaking and pulling out is a relief.

"Damn it. Stand in the center Harry." I instruct as I open my eyes, lowering her wand carefully to my side.

"What is it, did you figure out how to end the enchantment?" He asks, his feet annoying silent against the ground.

I nod, giving myself a moment to stare at the ground before looking up to meet his gaze. "Yes, now please step back."

He hesitates, his mouth opening and shutting as he glances between me and Bella before doing as asked. "What are you going to do?"

"It's blood magic." Crouching down next to Bella I pull from the folds of her skirt a long, intricately carved knife made completely out of ivory. It's blindingly white, beautiful and cool to the touch even though it's been sitting next to her skin for hours. I suppress a shudder as I think about what she had intended its use for.

Seeing her plans in her mind was shocking, twisting my guts with not only what she had planned to do to me but what she had planned for me in turn to do to Harry. I hated her before, now I feel positively murderous.

Put there’s no time to think on anything but breaking him free.

"Draco..." Harry draws in a breath as I turn with the knife in my hand. "Tell me what you're going to do." He demands, biting harshly into his lip and hissing in sharply as I drag the knife along my forearm - from the bend in my wrist to the hollow of my elbow. It stings and pulses with a power from the magic woven into the knife and I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment. "Don't-" He gasps then stops as I shake my head softly.

Standing at the very edge of his circle, I hold my arm out with the cut facing down, squeezing my skin so the blood drips down to patter against the floor as I walk backwards along the circles outline - careful not to step on the oily substance nor let the splatters of my blood hit even the very edge of it. It's painful and slow going, Harry standing thankfully silent and still as I make my way around, growing increasingly lightheaded and having to continually remind myself what I'm doing with each step.

I sigh gratefully as I come full circle, pressing my wounded arm into my middle as I grasp Bella's wand once more, pointing it at the drops of blood encircling the previous outline. Staring at it until the two merge in my sight, I intone the words I saw Bella speak, this time winding them backwards, starting where she ended and finishing where she started.
The world around me falls away with the first syllable.
In it's place is a sound like there's a million little insects buzzing in my ears, rising in pitch around me as I speak, a dull sort of thud sounding in the background, muted voices trying to inch their way through my muffled ears but they spread like ash in the wind. Concentrating only on my task, trying to recall and remember not only the words but the cadence and inflection behind them, driving everything I have into them.

There's a push against my back, a curling jolt of pain up my spine, and my voice hitches as I press on, pushing away the shouts that are trying to dissuade me but I'm almost finished, almost done, just one more and...

There's a light that snaps up as the pain spreads and laces through my cut and then with a dull burning the glow slowly ebbs away, leaving one circle that's pulsing a soft green – encompassing my entire vision like a solar eclipse.
I nearly collapse out of relief or maybe out of pain as my legs start to shake and the buzzing starts to dim and I start to notice that the air around me is filled with voices. Glancing up with a heavy head that seems too much for my neck to support I let out a gasp of air as I find myself shoved roughly against a hard surface. Everything seems a bit surreal, like I've been blinded to all but the circle and the power in the enchantment as I slump back into it with the realization that I'll most assuredly fall over if I don't - my vision and some of my senses abruptly returning to me.

Harry has me pinned to the wall with a hand splayed firmly across my burning chest with his other hand inexplicably holding Bella's wand out in front of himself.

"-Wretched woman, must I do everything?" Safiya's voice wafts lowing into my fuzzy head as I run my gaze along Harry's outstretched arm, over the length of Bella's wand, and straight to where it's pointing at the Madame who's standing in the open doorway to our little room.

Dropping my gaze down and to the right I spot Alecto, bending over Bella and flicking her wand above her prone body, stirring life into her slumped limbs. There's a soft shimmering in the air around us that's dissolving and I realize belatedly that Alecto had fired a curse at us and Harry had managed to throw up a shield before it hit.

All before I even noticed they were in the bloody room, damn it. What else did I miss? Judging from the foggy sense of shouting I can guess that there was some sort of struggle, not to mention the pain that tried and thankfully failed to stop me from freeing Harry. But what exactly, I can't remember, it's all a mist, all a guess. How in the world Harry managed anything while he was still in his damn circle is beyond me but he must have. That's the only explanation.

"Give up now if you know what's best." Harry growls, his hand still keeping me in place with a surprising force, his wand unwavering, his eyes narrowed to match his dangerous tone - his voice throbbing in my head.

Safiya glares at Bella's twitching body for a moment before a muscle spasms madly in her jaw. "I think not. I've waited to damn long for this. You will not take this from me Harry Potter, I don't care who you are!"

"You should." I interject with a hoarse almost nonexistent voice, finding the way her chest is heaving with a barely suppressed rage fascinating. Her composure, always smooth and collected, is breaking, her entire frame tensing as she glances at the ruined diagram and circle on the floor. She's going to snap.

"You won't ever touch him again." Harry spits seconds before there's light exploding from the tip of his wand, but it's not aimed at Safiya - her eyes widening as the vicinity to her right lights and something splinters.

The ground shakes and white spots my vision and when it clears Alecto is firing back at Harry with the side of her face scorching black, a second wand, Harry's no doubt, leaving her grasp in a haphazard arch as it flies towards...Bella. My Aunt, no longer a silent twitching mass, crackles with the madness inside her as she scrambles to her unsteady feet - purple bruises on her throat.

I should have snapped her neck when I had the chance is all I can think as she spews threats and rage, Harry's arm moving at a manic pace as he fights them both off, his entire body angled in front of me. And I can't help, I'm bloody useless, just another body for him protect and think about as he defends and attacks over and over again. All my skills are moot in a fight like this and I feel like keeling over at any moment - my cut flowing red down my arm and onto my pants and the floor, my head woozy and swimming, allowing me only to catch snippets of what's going on.

Right now I just need to not throw up. Not throw up or pass out and do...something.

I stare at the back of his neck, see a line of sweat slide down his skin, and my stomach knots. Two against one. Harry is powerful but so is Bella and she is mad. But he'll win, he has to win, just like he always does. I won't be the death of him, I refuse to believe that anymore. The thing is, he's out of practice. He's been wandering around the muggle word for years, hasn't been in a battle for ages, and he'll tire with no one to back him up, to keep him going.

Fixing my jaw and lifting my hands that feel much too heavy, I ignore all the pain wracking my body, all the exhaustion and confusion still lacing through me, and I concentrate all of myself on protecting him. It's the most I can hope for, I'm no longer practiced enough to be of much use offensively, especially wandlessly. I feel my magic bubble like a boiling cauldron, rising and shimmering to the surface before it comes spilling out with a shout, a light rising up and encapsulating us. I smack back against the wall as my arm falls to my side, the very skin pulsing up and down with a weird tingling in my fingers.

Harry glances up at it for a split second and I see the corner of a grin before he's twirling his wand around, a renewed vigor in each silently cast curse that crackles like a warm blanket around me and sends Alecto and Bella's eyes wide as they step back and dance to and fro.

The room is lit with red and green and blue and in the chaos and show of light that may have been beautiful under any other circumstances, I see a flash of red silk and black tresses as Safiya turns and flees out the open door.

I don't even think, adrenaline suddenly catching fire in my lifeless veins.

I don't think I even say anything before I'm dropping to the floor, crawling under the flying battle going on around me as I slip and scramble after her, propelling myself to my feet and through the door with my hand on the door frame - barely noticing the trail of red I'm leaving behind me or the sloppy hand print that stains the wood. There's no fucking way she's getting away. I will not let her walk away from this, she will pay, she will see my face, hear my voice, and she will plead.

I'll show her burning.

She will wish she never messed with me but more importantly she'll wish she never dragged Harry into this.

"Safiya!" I howler as I barrel down the hallway, the sounds of curses landing and missing fading behind me as I sprint as fast as my legs will take me, slipping around a corner and following the trail of her fleeting image before me as the familiar thump before a fight sounds in my ears to replace the disorienting buzz.

The four guards I run into are on the floor faster than I can acknowledge their presence, broken and unconscious beneath my feet as I fly over them, intent on my one and only goal with a vague stinging along my knuckles. I feel sharper then I have before any fight, focused down to the very thrum in my blood with only one thought.

There's nothing else.

Catching a guard across the jaw with a swift uppercut, I grasp the top of the door frame, swing myself up and drop my knees on his shoulders - barely hearing his surprised cry before I let go and twist as he falls. The crack of his neck breaking is soft and I don't look down into his lifeless eyes as I bounce back up and take up my run.

I'll repent later.

A door slams shut at the end of the stairs that are disappearing under my feet four at a time, my shoulder smashing into the wood that gives an inch or two before cracking and bursting inward.

"That's enough." Safiya intones, out of breath, a metallic click punctuating her words.

I come skidding to a halt, glaring down at her as she leans against the edge of a couch, an old fashioned revolver held in her hand - the gleaming metal much too big looking to fit so snugly in her palm, her finger resting lightly on the trigger. "A muggle weapon?" I rasp, trying to calculate how quickly I can move in comparison to how fast a bullet will travel.

"Crude, I know." She smiles, the gun perfectly steady as it stays pointed right at my heart. "But then again there's something elegant about it don't you think?"

"I think you've spent too many years planning your vengeance." I reply, pressing my profusely bleeding forearm into my side, trying without much success to staunch some of the blood flow.

She cocks her head, glancing down at the blood seeping down my side and through my still gaping shirt with a strange spark. "And why is that?"

"Because in your desperation to be all you were born to be, you neglected to realize something."

"Stop leading and just spit it out darling before I tire of this and just shoot you." She instructs but she doesn't look bored. She looks not only outraged but confused.

I don't really blame her, I'm rather confused about everything that's happened myself. "Harry." I say pointedly, taking one cautious step in as she frowns.

"Beg your pardon?"

"You aren't the first to underestimate him and I doubt you'll be the last. He doesn't look particularly powerful does he? And yet he's managed to completely screw you and your carefully laid plans over."

"You put too much stock in him my dear, seems you always have from what I've heard. It was you who, rather miraculously, broke free from the ritual and it was you who figured out how to free him. Which just proves what I've always known. You're powerful Draco, you could be unstoppable, together we could rule if you'd just give into your darkness." She looks like she truly believes the words she's saying - that we could rise up and overtake her enemies if I just bent to her will and let myself be consumed. She believes it wholeheartedly, desperately, she's clinging to it like a thread about to be snipped with a pair of sheers.

She may smile and claim she's Queen but she hates this. Hates her life among the muggles, hates that the power that is her birthright has been stripped from her. Hatred makes people both dangerous and desolate.

She's right in a way, she needs me, if only to cling to her delusion - and delusions can be a powerful thing indeed.

I smile. "Funny."

She narrows her eyes. "Really? You didn't seem to be laughing earlier when you were swinging from the ceiling, tell me dear, what's tickled your fancy?"

"All this time you've been plotting and planning, eager to free my darker side and yet you completely sabotaged your efforts. You could have had me." I murmur, sliding further into the room and watching as she takes a half step back, eyeing me wearily. "You could have broken me, unleashed the madness, I suppose that means we could have ruled as you say." I explain, knowing deep down the terrifying truth of my statement.

"I'm anticipating a 'but' in all of this." She drawls with annoyance.

"Indeed." I nod, pushing the hair out of my eyes with a sticky hand that keeps the locks back in thick red strands. "If you had just taken me, forced Bella on me again, you could have dragged the bit of soul back up but you didn't. Instead you foolishly brought Harry into all of this."

Safiya growls and the gun wavers in her hand. "Foolish was it?"

"Yes and it's not even about his power, even though he is more so than you could ever imagine." There's ten paces between us, a low table made of rich maple obstructing the path. But that's it, just ten steps, ten steps, and I could end this. Ten steps and I could make her forever wish she never knew me.

"If you say this is about love, I think I'll have to shoot you on the spot darling." Her jaw clenches as her fingers tighten around the metal and she seems suddenly so powerless. Like a little girl throwing a tantrum over not getting her dessert. A little girl with eyes of ice, a heart of black malice, and a deadly weapon - but a little girl none the less.

I wonder how old she was when she was stripped of her magic. I wonder if her family shunned her and renounced her. I wonder if she suddenly found herself homeless and penniless and had to forge her own way through this treacherous world. It would explain her hatred, her anger, her animosity, her need for revenge.

My knee hits the edge of the table and I can't help but smirk even as I feel a little lurching in my stomach from the nausea that all the blood loss is causing. Whatever her circumstances, she chose this latest path, she chose to believe Alecto's tale about a boy who was torn apart in his soul and who could save her. She chose to break me.

"It's about Harry. It's about the fact that you brought the only living soul in this world who has ever made me strong, the only man who had ever made me stand up and fight, back into my life. You did it as another kind of torture didn't you? How you must have loved watching me battle with him all this time. Bella wanted him here so once the Dark Lord was resurrected he could kill him, Alecto wanted revenge for her brother. But not you. No you like theater too much, you like pain. It fuels you. You are misery aren't you?" I can't seem to shut up, the words spilling out faster than I can think them but they need to be said and as I do so - watching her facial muscles twitch and her eyes flame - I feel stronger and stronger.
I feel like I finally know her.

"Dissecting me now? To put it simply I am misery's mistress, her master. I am what life tried to throw away, only to rise stronger." She bites out, sounding more unbalanced than I've ever heard her. I've hit a nerve.

"So you've said."

"And what are you then? His toy to fix? Mr. Potter's little lover who just can't quite remember his own name at times, who has to count and count just to stay sane. Don't look at me like that, I know you Draco, I've been watching you for years. I know you're ruined if you stay like this, if you don't embrace who you could be. I know you can't stop the war inside you, I know you fear the shadows, and crave blood. What would your sainted love think if he knew that? He won't stop trying to fix you, he'll never stop, and you know it. But I can fuel your blood lust, I can strengthen you wherever you are weak. I can be you're missing half." She says, her voice softening and yet still full of vengeance, a barely perceivable portion of her guard dropping and leaving her vulnerable for just a moment.

I seize it.

"Unfortunately for you, I'm not missing my other half. I am who I am Safiya." My voice is stern, her eyes wide, her pulse quickening as I shoot out and grab her, one hand around her neck and the other latching onto her hand holding the gun - directing her arm out and up, out of harm’s way - my feet braced atop the table. She blinks and gasps, my movement so unexpected she nearly topples over, staring up at me with eyes bulging. "You can't convince me otherwise."

"Starting to believe Mr. Potter are you? That you're lovely and good?" She hisses, spitting the words out with malice. "And how long will that last? How long until you can't control it any longer and you snap?" Her throat works under my fingers and I squeeze threateningly, her chest catching. "See it's already happening. What would he say if you tried to take my life?"

I grin and glance purposely over at the gun in our hands. "I think he would push me away and kill you himself. You've tempted him one to many times. You should have done your research more carefully, people who mess with the ones he loves tend to meet their end one way or another."

"Lucky me for it's not likely he'll leave that room alive then." She glares and fights against straining her head back. "And I don't think you have it in you to murder me, otherwise you would have already." She smiles, trying and failing to look enticing. "There's a part of you that wants to give into me, isn't there? You want someone who knows all of you, wants all of you, someone who will let you live as you desire."

I grin back at her, her eyes flashing with a smack of hope before I shove her roughly backwards, twisting the gun out of her grip as I do so. "I already have that and it's thanks to you that he's back, isn't it? So thank you Safiya, thank you finally making me face my demons and embrace what I truly want as you say."

She clutches at the wall behind her, standing tall and erect, looking regal with my blood tripping down her bodice. "And what's that?" She sneers, losing all pretense of wanting me.

Or maybe it's not pretense, maybe in her own twisted way she does.

"My life back." I answer, feeling the weight of the trigger pressing into the pad of my finger, debating with myself over pulling it back or not - a small line holding me back from ending it completely here and now.
Her eyes flash, her jaw tensing and something changes in her gaze. Something like hope dying.

"I'll never stop, I'll find you again and make you pay. I’ll take his life and make you watch it bleed out if he isn't already." She flings out harshly at me, fuming and raging and screeching in a way that reminds me of Bella right before she went completely mad.

My eyes blaze, a fire in my blood that feels natural, that feels like...me. "Wrong thing to say." I hiss and squeeze the slim curve of metal. There’s a deafening bang, a jolt kicking up my arm, a cloud of gray smoke filling the air before me with a curl of burning sulfur. "You should have just let me go." I say softly as the cloud clears and I see her, clutching her chest and sliding down the wall, red gurgling up and out of her lips.
Nearly the color of her lipstick.

And in that moment, watching her hit the ground, I feel it all. I feel every little thing I've been running from, every little thing I've been afraid to face, everything I've desired and hoped and dreamed, every little nightmare and vision. It all floods me as she spits her life, her eyes dulling, her dainty had clutching at the wound leaking to form a puddle all around her.

Amongst it all I feel regret and finality.

Because it's over and just like I always feared it came about with blood on my hands. No different from her.

I don't know how long I stand there, holding the gun limp at my side, staring at her lifeless body with her head lolled to the side against the wall, a streak of red staining the surface behind her. I can't move, imaging our roles reversed like some sort of penance, wondering if she would have killed me liked I killed her, wondering in a fleeting way why she didn't pull the trigger the moment I walked into the room. I didn't think I'd feel regret, didn't think seeing her without any sort of spark would make me sick.

"Draco." Arms wrap around me from behind, pulling me back against a solid, sweaty chest, the smell of dueling clinging to his skin and hair. I feel Harry's chin prop against my shoulder, his embrace hard, unyielding and the gun slips from my hand to bang against the ground.

"I killed her." I murmur, not turning my neck to look at him as I try to puzzle together everything vying for attention in me. "I had to." And it wasn't just because of her threat, though that was a significant part. No, it's more convoluted than that. I did it for Harry, for me, for Caleb and Donnie, and anyone else she's tries to make dance through fire. But there's another part, a stranger unspoken part that I can't fully understand.

I did it because of the look in her eye.

I did it because I recognized it and knew its depth and destruction. It was a look that has been my kin for so long, a look I could not stand to see.

Misery indeed.

A/N: *Peaks out nervously from behind the couch* whoosh that was difficult and stressful to write! It was interesting having to remain in Draco's POV for the whole thing, which of course means that it might not all be super coherent as we're seeing it from his eyes but hopefully it made sense and was satisfying. Almost done now, just one more chapter and an epilogue :)

nightCat: Thank you so much for reviewing! English is my first language I'm just pants at spelling (living off spell check and well, they don't always get the correct word). Thank you so much for pointing out the correction though, I greatly appreciate it and I'm so glad you're enjoying it :)

Anya: Thanks you so much for reviewing! I hope this satisfied :)
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The Art of Shadow Boxing